was destined to eat angel's food in Paradise should have to eat the material food of animals. Macarius ate but once a week. His son lived three years on five ounces of bread a day and seven years on raw vegetables. Alos boasted that up to his eighteenth year he never ate bread. Symeon ate but once daily and in fast time not at all. Heliodorus often fasted seven days at a time. In Mesopotamia a group of hermits lived on grass.[207:1]
(2) Sexually the hermits believed either in absolute virginity or in abstinence.
(3) The social and domestic vagaries of anchoretism assumed many forms. The hermits fled from the society of the world; deserted friends and family; courted the company of wild beasts[207:2]; lived in caves, dried-up wells, swamps, rude huts, tombs, and on the summits of solitary columns, or wandered about without fixed homes.[207:3] A monk named Akepsismas lived sixty years in the same cell without seeing or speaking to any person and was finally shot for a wolf. Some hermits wore no clothing,[207:4] and thus exposed the body to the broiling sun and to biting insects. Macarius, to atone for killing a gnat, lay naked six months in a swamp and was so badly stung that he was mistaken for a leper.[207:5] Others wore hair shirts, carried heavy weights suspended from the body, slept in thorn bushes, against a pillar, in cramped quarters, or deprived themselves altogether of sleep. Many never washed their faces nor cared for their hair, beards, teeth, and nails. With them filthiness seemed to be next to godliness.
Anthony and Hilarion scorned either to cut or to comb their hair except at Easter, or to wash their hands and faces. St. Abraham never washed his face for fifty years—yet his biographer proudly says, "His face reflected the purity of his soul." Theodosius like a second Moses, had a stream of water burst from a rock that his thirsty monks might drink. One wicked fellow, overcome by a pitiable weakness for cleanliness, took a bath, when, lo! the stream dried up. Thereupon the frightened and repentant monks promised never to insult heaven by using water for that purpose again, and after a year of waiting a second miracle gave them a fresh supply.
(4) A sincere desire for spiritual improvement expressed itself in various practices. Prayer was perhaps the most common means to that end, and it was believed that number and duration counted the most. Paul the Simple repeated three hundred prayers a day and counted them with pebbles. A certain famous virgin added four hundred to that number daily. Some spent all day and others all night in prayer. Meditation and contemplation were generally employed. Preaching and singing were common forms of religious activity. Studying and writing engaged those of a more scholarly bent of mind.
Out of this unorganised anchoretism there grew, by the latter part of the third century, a crude form of group monasticism. This was the third stage in the progress of monastic life. Such renowned hermits as St. Anthony in Upper Egypt, Ammon at Mount Nitria, Joannes in Thebaid, Macarius in the Scetische Desert, and Hilarion in the Gaza Desert each had a coterie of imitators imbued with a common purpose and with a profound respect for their leader; but no
uniform rules governed them at first. As time passed, however, the necessity of regulating the various relations of so many became apparent.[209:1] The organisations of the Essenes and Therapeutæ may have served as models. At Mount Nitria the monks by common arrangement lived in separate cells, but had a dining room and a chapel for all.[209:2] Pachomius (282-346), a converted heathen soldier, of little education, a pupil of Palæmon for twelve years, created the first monastic rule and organised at Tabenna on the Nile the first monastic congregation (322), while his sister formed the first convent at Tabenisi. This first walled monastery had many cells built to accommodate three monks in each. Membership was guarded by three years' probation on severe discipline. The monks met in silence for one daily meal and wore white hoods so as not to see each other. They prayed thirty-six times daily, worked with their hands indoors and out, and wore over their linen underclothes white goat skins day and night. They were ruled by "priors" chosen on merit from the twenty-four classes of monks.[209:3] At the head of the whole system stood an abbot.[209:4] When Pachomius died (346) he had established nine cloisters with 3000 monks. He called them all together twice a year, and paid them annual visits. By 400 the monks numbered 50,000.[209:5] The great Athanasius visited Tabenna to inspect the system and to study the operation of this epoch-making rule.
From Tabenna organised monasticism spread over Egypt and then to nearly every province in the Roman Empire by the end of the fourth century.[210:1] In the Holy Land laboured Hilarion,[210:2] Epiphanius,[210:3] Hesycas,[210:4] the Bethlehem brothers,[210:5] Ammonius,[210:6] Silvanus, and Zacharias. Jerome, the celebrated Church Father, with Paula, a rich Roman widow, left Rome for the East. After studying monasticism in Egypt they located at Bethlehem (386). There Jerome studied the Scriptures and ruled a large crowd of monks, while Paula became the head of a convent for girls. Melania built a convent on the Mount of Olives and ruled fifty virgins (375). Goddana and Elias laboured on the lower Jordan.
In Asia Minor laboured, conspicuous among many, Eustathius who first prescribed a monastic dress, Basil the Great (c. 379) who originated the monastic vow,[210:7] the famous Nilus (c. 430), and the hated hermit Marcus (c. 431). Syria was renowned for at least a dozen hermits, the most celebrated being Simeon Stylites (c. 459),[210:8] the pillar saint. From Egypt and Asia the institution spread to Greece and became quite general by the fourth century. The most famous cloister was that of Studium (460) at Constantinople. The islands of the Adriatic and Tuscan Sea were soon covered with monasteries swarming with monks.[210:9]
The fourth and most important step is found in the development of the institution in western Europe.