ANCHORITE. - From the Greek ἀναχωρέω, "to withdraw, to go away," it is an ascetic who lives in isolation, in solitary places. In the historical development of monasticism, anchorites constituted an intermediate form between private asceticism and social, that is, cenobitic, monastic life. The characteristics of the anchoritic life are: a) isolation, sometimes absolute, but often relative, that is, permitting in one and the same locality the presence of several anchorites, divided among as many cells, with the possibility of gathering on Sunday to hear Mass and also to take food together; b) prayer; c) manual labor for one's own sustenance; d) austerity, often extremely harsh; e) the absence of a religious superior and of a true and proper rule, replaced by maxims and by deeply venerated oral traditions.
This form of ascetic life originated in Egypt, in the second half of the 3rd century, and its rapid development is connected with the persecutions of Decius and Valerian. According to St. Jerome, the first to inaugurate this kind of life would have been St. Paul of Thebes (234-347), around 250: "Huius vitae [anachoreticae] auctor Paulus, illustrator Antonius" (Epist. XXII ad Eustochium, 36, ed. I. Hilberg, CSEL, 54, p. 200); and it was certainly St. Anthony (251-356) who gave development and fame to anchoritism. The principal centers of anchoritic life in Egypt were: the Thebaid, with St. Anthony and his numerous followers; the valley of Nitria, with the disciples of Ammonius, who withdrew there around 325; and the solitude of Scetis, with the followers of Macarius the Great (300-91).
From Egypt the anchoritic movement passed into Palestine with Hilarion of Gaza (292-371), whose life was described by St. Jerome (Vita b. Hilarionis: PL 23, 29 ff.). The Sinai desert was particularly noted for St. Nilus (d. around 430). In Syria two varieties of the anchoritic life appeared: the recluses (v.) and the stylites (v.).
In the whole West as well, this kind of life, from about the middle of the 4th century onward, flourished greatly. The deeds of the Eastern anchorites, known through the writings of St. Jerome and of Rufinus, had great repercussions. Often the cell of a famous hermit became the center around which a coenobium was later formed. Many monks indeed, beginning with St. Benedict himself, began their religious life with anchoritic isolation. Subsequently, however, it was the monasteries themselves that provided candidates for the eremitic life. St. Benedict writes in the Rule, ch. I: "Secundum genus [monachorum] est anachoritarum, id est heremitarum... qui... monasterii probatione diuturna... singularem pugnam heremi... Deo auxiliante pugnare sufficiunt."
With the 11th century the institution of anchorites entered a new phase, with the foundation of numerous congregations or Orders of an eremitic character. Famous were those based on the Rule of St. Benedict: that of Fonteavellana, that of Camaldoli and that of Vallombrosa. Other eremitic congregations were united by Alexander IV in 1256 into a single Order which took the name of Hermits of St. Augustine (v.).
Bibliography2 works
Ferdinando Antonelli