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OUT of this number of the perfect, and, if I may use the expression,
this most fruitful root of saints, were produced afterwards the flowers and
fruits of the anchorites as well. And of this order we have heard that the
originators were those whom we mentioned just now; viz., Saint Paul and
Antony, men who frequented the recesses of the desert, not as some from
faintheartedness, and the evil of impatience, but from a desire for loftier
heights of perfection and divine contemplation, although the former of them
is said to have found his way to the desert by reason of necessity, while
during the time of persecution he was avoiding the plots of his neighbours.
So then there sprang from that system of which we have spoken another sort
of perfection, whose followers are rightly termed anchorites; i.e.,
withdrawers, because, being by no means satisfied with that victory whereby
they had trodden under foot the hidden snares of the devil, while still
living among men, they were eager to fight with the devils in open
conflict, and a straightforward battle, and so feared not to penetrate the
vast recesses of the desert, imitating, to wit, John the Baptist, who
passed all his life in the desert, and Elijah and Elisha and those of whom
the Apostle speaks as follows: "They wandered about in sheepskins and
goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted, of whom the world was not
worthy, wandering in deserts, in mountains and in dens and in caves of the
earth." Of whom too the Lord speaks figuratively to Job: "But who hath sent
out the wild ass free, and who hath loosed his bands? To whom I have given
the wilderness for an house, and a barren land for his dwelling. He
scorneth the multitude of the city and heareth not the cry of the driver;
he looketh round about the mountains of his pasture, and seeketh for every
green thing." In the Psalms also: "Let now the redeemed of the Lord say,
those whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy;" and after a
little: "They wandered in a wilderness in a place without water: they found
not the way of a city of habitation. They were hungry and thirsty: their
soul fainted in them. And they cried unto the Lord in their trouble and He
delivered them out of their distress;" whom Jeremiah too describes as
follows: "Blessed is the man that hath borne the yoke from his youth. He
shall sit solitary and hold his peace because he hath taken it up upon
himself," and there sing in heart and deed these words of the Psalmist:
"I am become like a pelican in the wilderness. I watched and am become like
a sparrow alone upon the house-top."
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