Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 15, 2025
Together with the others, it succeeded to a period of eremitism of solitary anchorites whose dwellings honeycombed the warm slopes that confront the Ionian.... The lives of some of these Greco-Calabrian hermits are valuable documents. In the Vitae Sanctorum Siculorum of O. Caietanus the student will find a Latin translation of the biography of one of them, Saint Elia Junior. He died in 903.
All the anchorites who had been summoned to the tower were Egyptians and Syrians, and among the former particularly there were many who, being already inured to abstinence and penance in the service of the old gods in their own country, now as Christians had selected as the scene of their pious exercises the very spot where the Lord must have revealed Himself to his elect.
And does it look like such indubitable victory, when the man, the woman's husband, divided from her, toothsome to the sex, acknowledges within himself and lets the world know his utter dislike of other women's charms, to the degree that herbal anchorites positively could not be colder, could not be chaster: and he no forest bird, but having the garden of the variety of fairest flowers at nod and blush about him!
A man may be sincerely religious and do little for others, as is seen in anchorites, and in many one-sided people, of Christian as well as of Mahometan parentage, who are not anchorites. A man may be immensely intellectual and not value truth.
He had certainly seen some old anchorites, who led a contemplative and penitential life up on the sacred mountain, but it had never occurred to him that a strong youth could be long to the brotherhood of hermits. So he said to him kindly: "Hermas is that your name? We all use our hands here and labor is no disgrace; what is your handicraft?"
Such are the drastic conclusions of Mr. Bose; conclusions shared to a certain extent by other Indian idealists like Rabindranath Tagore. But surely such projects, however idealistic, are the vainest fantasies. Whole peoples cannot arbitrarily cut themselves off from the rest of the world, like isolated individuals forswearing society and setting up as anchorites in the jungle.
Some of these caves are so high up in the rocks that one wonders how the poor old gentlemen could ever get up to them, whilst others are below the surface, and the anchorites who burrowed in them, like rabbits, frequently afforded rare sport to parties of roving Saracens; indeed, hermit-hunting scenes seem to have been a fashionable amusement previous to the twelfth century.
An unhealthy, degenerating asceticism, drawn from pagan sources, began with the monks and anchorites of Egypt and culminated in the spectacle of Simeon's pillar. The mysteries of Eleusis, of Attis, Mithras, Magna Mater and Isis developed into Christian sacraments the symbol became the thing itself.
Many of the anchorites had long looked upon the Alexandrian as their best stay; for many years he had enjoyed the respect of all and on a thousand occasions had given proof of his strength and presence of mind, but at this proposal they looked at each other in surprise, doubt and disapproval. Stephanus saw what was passing in their minds. "It is true he has erred gravely," he said.
But may there be moral contamination from what is performed on the stage? Well, there may be. But so there is from books. So there may be at lawn tennis clubs. So there may be at dances. So there may be in connection with everything in civilized life and society. But do we therefore bury ourselves? The anchorites secluded themselves in hermitages.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking