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Saint Jerome, who lived as a hermit near Bethlehem, depicted in his study being visited by two angels (Cavarozzi, early 17th century) A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. [1] [2] [3] Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions.
There were villages or colonies of hermits - the eremitical type; and monasteries in which a community life was led - the cenobitic type. The Greek word μοναχός (monachós), which is now typically used to refer to a monk, was first used to mean 'monk' in a papyrus discovered around the 1970s. It contains a legal petition from June 324 AD ...
The piety of such hermits often attracted both laity and other would-be ascetics, forming the first cenobitic communities called "sketes", such as Nitria and Kellia. Within a short time, more and more people arrived to adopt the teachings and lifestyle of these hermits, and there began by necessity a mutual exchange of labour and shared goods ...
Each hermit, a monk who is or who will be a priest, has his own living space, called a cell, usually consisting of a small dwelling. Traditionally there is a one-room lower floor for the storage of wood for a stove and a workshop as all monks engage in some manual labour.
The Monastery of Saint Mary of Parral of the Hieronymite hermit monks Paul the Hermit is the first Christian historically known to have been living as a monk. In the 3rd century, Anthony of Egypt (252–356) lived as a hermit in the desert and gradually gained followers who lived as hermits nearby but not in actual community with him.
These first monks were hermits, solitaries who battled temptation alone in the wilderness. As time went on, monks began to congregate into closer communities. Saint Pachomius (ca. 292 - 348) is regarded as the founder of cenobitic monasticism , wherein all live the common life together in a single place under the direction of a single Abbot .
When members of the church began finding ways to work with the Roman state, the Desert Fathers saw that as a compromise between "the things of God and the things of Caesar." The monastic communities were essentially an alternate Christian society. [6] The hermits doubted that religion and politics could ever produce a truly Christian society.
Enclosed religious orders of men include monks following the Rule of Saint Benedict, namely the Benedictine, the Cistercian, and the Trappist orders, but also monks of the Carthusians, Hieronymites, along with the male and female members of the Monastic Family of Bethlehem, of the Assumption of the Virgin and of Saint Bruno, while enclosed ...