Another monastic movement began about the middle of the
third century, when many Christians in Egypt withdrew into the desert to live
as hermits. St. Anthony, who has been called the first Christian hermit, passed
twenty years in a deserted fort on the east bank of the Nile. During all this
time he never saw a human face. Some of the hermits, believing that pain and
suffering had a spiritual value, went to extremes of self- mortification. They
dwelt in wells, tombs, and on the summits of pillars, deprived themselves of
necessary food and sleep, wore no clothing, and neglected to bathe or to care
for the body in any way. Other hermits, who did not practice such austerities,
spent all day or all night in prayer. The examples of these recluses found many
imitators in Syria and other eastern lands. [19]
[19] See Tennyson's poem, St. Simeon Stylites.
RULE OF ST. BASIL
A life shut off from all contact with one's fellows is
difficult and beyond the strength of ordinary men. The mere human need for
social intercourse gradually brought the hermits together, at first in small
groups and then in larger communities, or monasteries. The next step was to
give the scattered monasteries a common organization and government. Those in
the East gradually adopted the regulations which St. Basil, a leading churchman
of the fourth century, drew up for the guidance of the monks under his
direction. St. Basil's Rule, as it is called, has remained to the present time
the basis of monasticism in the Greek Church.
