Ascetics

(as-set'iks.) [From Gr. ask eo, I exercise.] (Eccl. Hist.) Persons who, in the early ages of Christianity, devoted themselves to a solitary and contemplative life, following the system of the E enes and Therapeutæ among the Jews, and practising great austerities, with a view to mortify the flesh and withdraw the mind from worldly objects. They haunted the deserts of Egypt and Syria, and appear to have suggested the first idea of Christian monachism. [s. 51]