HERMITS
280
HERMITS
mite" were edited by Picard for the Academy of
Sciences, 2 vols., Paris, 1905 and 190S.
BoREL. Charles Ilermite in Annuaire des MathematicienS (Paris, 1902); Capelli, In commemoraziime diCarlo llermitein. Accad. disci. fU, e mat., Atfi, VII (Naples, 1901); Darboux, Notice historique sur Charlct Hermite in Memoires de I' Acad, des Sci., XLIX (Paris, 1906); Jordan, Charles Hermite, Notice sur ses travaux scientifiqucs (Paris, 1901); Kneller, Das Christen- turn und die Vertreler der neueren Naturwissen.'ichaft in Stimmen axis Maria Laach, supplement, no. 84-5 (Freiburg im Br.. 1903): Mansion, Charles Hermite, esquisse biographique et hibli- ographique (Paris, 1901); Ovinio, Carlo Hermite, commemora- zione, R. accad. di sci., Atti, XXXVI (Turin, 1901); Picard, L'oevvre scientijique de Charles Hermite in Acta mathematiea, XXV: VoiT, Charles Hermite, obituary in Kgl. Akad. d. Wissen- schaft, Sitzungsb., math-phys. Classe (Munich, 1902).
Paul H. Linehan.
Hermits (or Eremites, "inhabitants of a desert", ipij/io! or fpitiiot) , also called anchorites, were men who fJed the society of their fellow-men to dwell alone in retirement. Not all of them, however, sought so complete a solitude as to avoid absolutely any inter- course with their fellow-men. Some took a com- panion with them, generally a disciple; others re- mained close to inhabited places, from which they procured their food. This kind of religious life pre- ceded the community life of the cenobites. Elias is considered the precursor of the hermits in the Old Testament. St. John the Baptist lived like them in the desert. Christ, too, led this kind of life when He retired into the mountains. But the eremitic life proper really begins only in the time of the perse- cutions. The first known example is that of St. Paul, whose biography was written by St. Jerome. He be- gan about the year 2.50. There were others in Egypt; St. Athanasius, who speaks of them in his life of St. Anthony, does not mention their names. Nor were they the only ones. These first solitaries, few in number, selected this mode of living on their own initiative. It was St. Anthony who brought this kind of life into vogue at the beginning of the fourth century. After the persecutions the number of her- mits increa.sed greatly in Egypt, then in Palestine, then in the Sinaitic peninsula, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Asia Minor. Cenobitic communities sprang up among them, but did not become so important as to extinguish the eremitic life. They continued to flourish in the Egyptian deserts, not to speak of other localities. Discussions arose in Egypt as to the re- spective merits of the cenobitic and the eremitic style of life. Which was the better? Cassian, who voices the common opinion, believed that the cenobitic hfe offered more advantages and less inconveniences than the eremitic life. The Syrian hermits, in addition to their solitude, were accustomed to subject themselves to great bodily austerities. Some passed years on the top of a pillar (stylites); others condemned them- selves to remain standing, in open air (stationaries); others shut themselves up in a cell so that they could not come out (recluses).
Not all these hermits were models of piety. His- tory points out many abuses among them; but, con- sidering everything, they remain one of the noblest examples of heroic asceticism the world has ever seen. Very many of them were saints. Doctors of the Church, like St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, belonged to their num- ber; and we might also mention Sts. Epiphanius, Ephraem, Hilarion, Nilus, Isidore of Pelusium. We have no rule giving an accoimt of their mode of life, though we may form an idea of it from their biog- raphies, which are to be found in Palladius, "His- toria Lausiaca", P. L., XXXIV, 901-1262; Rufinus, "Historia Monachorum", P. L., XXI, 387-461; Cas- sian, "CoUationes Patrum; De Institutis ccenobi- tarum", P. L.. IV; Theodoret, " Historia religiosa", P. G., LXXXII. 1279-1497; and also in the "Verba Seniorum", P. L., LXXIV, 3S1-S43, and the " Apoph- thegmata Patrum", P. G., LXV, 71^42.
The eremitic life spread to the West in the fourth
century, and flourished especially in the next two
centuries, that is to say, till experience had shown by
its results the advantages of the cenobitic organiza-
tion. St. Gregory the Great, in his " Dialogues", gives
an account of the best-known solitaries of central Italy
(P. L., LXXVII, 149-430). St. Gregory of Tours
does the same for a part of France (Vita; Patrum,
P. L., LXXI, 1009-97). Oftentimes those who helped
mo.st to spread the cenobitic ideal were originally
solitaries tliemsclves, for instance, St. Severinus of
Korica and St. Benedict of Kursia. Monasteries
frequently, though by no means always, sprang from
the cell of a hermit, who drew a band of disciples
around him. From the beginning of the seventh
century we meet with instances of monks who at
intervals led an eremitic life. As an example we may
cite St. Columbanus, St. Riquier, and St. Germer.
Some monasteries had isolated cells close by, where
tho.se religious who were judged capable of living in
solitude might retire. Such was especially the case
at the monastery of Cassiodorus, at Viviers in Cala-
bria, and the Abbey of Fontenelles, in the Diocese of
Rouen. Those who felt the want of solitude were
advised to reside near an oratory or a monasticchurch.
The councils and the monastic rules did not encourage
tho.se who were desirous of leading an eremitic life.
The widespread relaxation of monastic discipline drove St. Odo, the great apostle of reform in the sixth century, into the solitude of the forest. The religious fervour of the succeeding age produced many hermits. But to guard against the serious dangers of this kind of life, monastic institutes were founded that com- bined the advantages of solitude with the guidance of a superior and the protection of a rule. Thus, for example, we had the Carthusians and the Camaldo- lese at ^'allombrosa and Monte A'ergine. Neverthe- less there still continued to be a large number of iso- lated hermits, and an attempt was made to form them into congregations having a fixed rule and a responsi- ble superior. Italy especially was the home of these congregations at the beginning of the thirteenth cen- tury. Some drew up an entirely new rule for them- selves; others adapted the Rule of St. Benedict to meet their wants; while others again preferred to base their rule on that of St. Augustine. Pope Alexander IV united the last into one order, under the name of the Hermits of St. Augustine (1256). Three congre- gations of hermits were called after St. Paul, one formed in 12.50 in Hungarj', another in Portugal, founded by Mendo Gomez de Simbria, who died in 1481, and tlie third in France, established by Guil- laume Callier (1620); these last hermits were known also by the name of the Brothers of Death. Eugene IV formed into a congregation, to be called after St. Amlirose, the hermits who dwelt in a forest near Milan (1441). We may mention also the Brothers of the Apostles (14,84), the Colorites (1530), the Hermits of Monte Senario (15(3), and tho.ee of Monte Luco, who were in Italy; those of Mont-^'oiron, whose constitu- tions were drawn up by St. Francis de Sales; those of St-Sever, in Normandy, founded by Guillaume, who had previously been a Camaldolese: those of St. John the Baptist, in Navarre, approved by Gregory XIII; the hermits of the same name, founded in France by Michel de Sainte-Sabine (1630); those of Mont-Vaierien, near Paris (seventeenth century); those of Bavaria, estaV>lished in the Diocese of Ratis- bon (1769). The Venerable Joseph Cottolengo founded a congregation of hermits in Lombardy in the middle of the nineteenth centun,'. Some Bene- dictine monasteries had hermitages depending on them. Thus we have the case of St. William of the Desert (1330) and the hermits of Our Lady of Mont- serrat, in Spain. The latter were well known from the sixteenth century, from their connexion with Garcia de Cisneris. They disappeared in the eigh-
