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Eremites, ("inhabitants of a desert", from the Greek eremos), also called anchorites, were men [and women] who fled society to dwell alone. This kind of religious life preceded the community life of the cenobites. Elias is considered the precursor of the hermits in the Old Testament. St. John the Baptist lived like them in the desert. Christ, too, led this kind of life when he retired into the mountains to pray. The first solitaries selected the lifestyle on their own initiative. It was St. Anthony who brought this kind of life into vogue at the beginning of the fourth century. 
After the persecutions the number of hermits increased greatly in Egypt, then in Palestine, then in the Sinaitic peninsula, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Asia Minor. The eremitic life spread to the West in the fourth century, and flourished especially in the next two centuries. Sometimes those who helped most to spread the cenobitic ideal were originally solitaries themselves such as St. Benedict of Nursia. Monasteries frequently, sprang from the cell of a hermit who drew a band of disciples around him. The widespread relaxation of monastic discipline drove St. Odo, the great apostle of reform in the sixth century, into the solitude of the forest. The religious fervour of the succeeding age produced many hermits. 
"Men and women hermits, belonging to ancient Orders or new Institutes, or being directly dependent on the Bishop, bear witness to the passing nature of the present age by their inward and outward separation from the world. By fasting and penance, they show that man does not live by bread alone but by the word of God (cf. Mt 4:4). Such a life 'in the desert' is an invitation to their contemporaries and to the ecclesial community itself never to lose sight of the supreme vocation, which is to be always with the Lord."
- Pope John Paul 
"That which one could call the spirituality of the desert .... is a profound movement of the Spirit which will never cease as long as there are voices to listen to the voice of the Spirit. It is not fear nor the desire to repent nor simply prudence which populates the solitude of the monasteries. It is the love of God. That there be, in the middle of the big modern cities, in the richer countries, just like on the plains of the Ganges or the forests of Africa, souls capable to be content, all their lives, with adoration and praise, who consecrate themselves freely as the guarantors of humanity before the Creator, protectors and advocates of their brothers and sisters before the Father of the Heavens, what a victory for the Almighty, what glory for the Saviour! Monasticism is nothing else, in its essence." - Pope Pius XII 
"From the first centuries, the Holy Spirit has stirred up, side by side with the heroic confession of the martyrs, the wonderful strength of disciples and virgins, of hermits and anchorites. Religious life already existed in germ, and progressively it felt the growing need of developing and of taking on different forms of community or solitary life, in order to respond to the pressing invitation of Christ: "There is no one who has left house, wife, brothers, parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not be given repayment many times over in this present time, and, in the world to come, eternal life.[4] Who would venture to hold that such a calling today no longer has the same value and vigor? That the Church could do without these exceptional witnesses of the transcendence of the love of Christ? Or that the world without damage to itself could allow these lights to go out? They are lights which announce the kingdom of God with a liberty which knows no obstacles and is daily lived by thousands of sons and daughters of the Church." - Pope Paul VI “The spirit of an eremitic vocation, far from belonging to a time now past, seems to us very important for the world as for the life of the Church. The social life of today is often marked by exuberance, excitement, insatiable pursuit of comfort and pleasure, together with a growing weakness of the will. It will not acquire its balance except with an increase of self-control, poverty, peace, simplicity of life, and silence. Eremitic life gives an example and taste of them.” -Pope Paul VI Julian Hermitage Home |