morib. Eccles. i. 31). It was a kind of emigration of towns to the desert, of civilization to simplicity, of noise to silence, of corruption to inno- cence. The current once begun, floods of men, of women, and of children threw themselves into it, and flowed thither during a century with irresistible force." 190 THIED PEKIOD. A.D. 311-590. The elder Macarins ' introduced the hermit life in the frightful desert of Scetis ; Amnn or Ammon/ on the Nitrian mountain. The latter was married, but persuaded his bride, immediately after the nuptials, to live with him in the strictest abstinence. Before the end of the fourth century there were in Nitria alone, according to Sozomen, five thousand monks, who lived mostly in separate cells or laurse, and never spoke with one another except on Saturday and Sunday, when they assembled for common worship. From Egypt the solitary life spread to the neighboring countries. HiLARioN, whose life Jerome has written graphically and at large,* established it in the wilderness of Gaza, in Palestine and Syria. This saint attained among the anchorets of the fourth century an eminence second only to Anthony. He was the son of pagan parents, and grew up " as a rose among thorns.*' He went to school in Alexandria, diligently attended church, and avoided the circus, the gladiatorial shows, and the theatre. He afterward lived two months with St. Anthony, and became his most celebrated disciple. After the death of his parents, he distributed his inheritance among his brothers and the poor, and reserved nothing, fearing the example of Ananias and Sapphira, and remembering the word of Christ : " Whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." * He then retired into the wilderness of Gaza, which was inhabited only by robbers and assassins ; battled, like An- thony, with obscene dreams and other temptations of the devil ; and so reduced his body — the "ass," which ought to have not barley, but chaff — with fastings and night watchings, that, while yet a youth of twenty years, he looked almost like a ' There were several (five or seven) anchorets of this name, who are often con- founded. The most celebrated are Macarius the elder, or the Great (f 390), to whom the Homilies probably belong ; and Macarius the younger, of Alexandria (I 404), the teacher of Palladius, who spent a long time with him, and set him as high as the other. Comji. Tillemont's extended account, torn. viii. p. 574-650, and the notes, p. 811 sqq. '' On Ammon, or, in Egyptian, Amug and Amun, comp. Tillemont, viii. p. 153- 166, and the notes, p. 6'72-6'74. M)peraj^tom. ii. p. 13-40. /^ \* Lu. xiv. 33.^ </tu<^ ^ ^7iCt:UK^. § 37. ST, SYMEON AND THE PILLAR SAINTS. 191 skeleton. He never ate before sunset. Prayers, psalm singing, Bible recitations, and basket weaving were bis employment. His cell was only five feet higb, lower tban