United States or Tajikistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Nearly a hundred thousand of all classes, it is said, were at one time to be found in Egypt.... Although the enthusiasm might be at a lower ebb in one country than in another, it actually affected the church universal, so far as the extant materials of ecclesiastical history enables us to trace its rise and progress.... The more rigid and heroic of the Christian anchorets dispensed with all clothing except a rug, or a few palm leaves round the loins.
His subjects are generally austere, representing anchorets, prophets, apostles, &c., and frequently of the most revolting character, such as sanguinary executions, martyrdoms, horrid punishments, and lingering torments, which he represented with a startling fidelity that intimidates and shocks the beholder.
Probability is a standard formed by experience, and it is not surprising that the anchorets of libraries should object to the improbability of The Corsair, and yet acknowledge the poetical power displayed in the composition; for it is a work which could only have been written by one who had himself seen or heard on the spot of transactions similar to those he has described.
The tutor, himself a prudent man, knowing how bright and mature was the boy's wit and that he would not betray him, to his peril, discovered to him the whole matter the persecution of the Christians and especially of the anchorets decreed by the king, and how they were driven forth and banished from the country round about; also the prophecies of the astrologers at his birth.
Sisinnius and his monkish follower were in the ship, but held no speech with their captives. After a day or two of sailing, they landed at nightfall, but in what place she had never learnt. Still conducted by the anchorets, they were taken to pass the night in a large house, where they had good entertainment, but saw only the female slaves who waited upon them.
"Alas, my dear good friend," continued the old man, "I assure you that all I have read of those christian anchorets and self-tormentors, who out of overheated zeal transformed their life into a never-ending martyrdom, for the sake of stifling every impulse and thought save the highest of all, is less, far less, than what I have practist on myself since I became conscious of the cheerlessness of my existence.
In the classification of religious ascetics, the anchorets were those who were most excessive in their austerities, not only choosing solitude but subjecting themselves to the greatest privations. The term was first applied to those practicing self-denial for athletic purposes. In its ecclesiastical sense, it denotes those who seek holiness through self-mortification. Canon Regular.
He, recollecting their former communications, said, "I have told thee already how thy father hath dealt with the wise men and anchorets who spend their lives in such philosophies. Some hath he slain, and others he hath wrathfully persecuted, and I wot not whether any of this sort be in this country side." Thereat the prince was overwhelmed with woe, and grievously wounded in spirit.
Buddhism was an after-thought, only reached after six years of bootless asceticism. There is no evidence that when Siddartha left his palace he had any thought of benefiting anybody but himself. He entered upon the life of the recluse with the same motives and aims that have influenced thousands of other monks and anchorets of all lands and ages some of them princes like himself.
The slow, solemn enunciation of each word by a choir of hoary anchorets rolled in majestic cadence through the precipices of the mountains, and died away in the distant ravines in echoes of heavenly harmony. An aged father was appointed to entertain the strangers.
Word Of The Day