Anchoress

A female anchoret. Anch'oret, Anach'oret, or An'chorite, n. [Gr. an a chore tes. A person who retires from the world through religious motives. (Eccl. Hist.) Under Christianity, anchorets sprung up about the middle of the third century in Egypt and Syria, where many believers came to hide themselves in caves and solitary wilds from the fury of the persecution which arose under the Emperor Decius. Paul, commonly called the hermit, has the credit of having been the first regular anchoret. A distinction, however, came afterward to be drawn between anchorets and hermits; the former name being given only to those who rigidly confined themselves to their caves or cells, and the latter to those who, although they had broken off all commerce with the world, still wandered about at large in the wilds to which they had retired. Both descriptions of recluse were entirely distinguished from the Cœnobites, or those living in communities. Many of the anchorets were laymen; and there were also female as well as male anchorets. From nearly the commencement of the seventh century, the Church a umed a jurisdiction over anchorets; and persons were not allowed to enter upon the mode of life in question, except by permi ion of their ecclesiastical superiors, and after an appointed ceremony had been performed, at which the bishop presided. Churches and religious houses in the middle ages would sometimes keep an anchoret shut up in a cell, which was usually attached to the choir of the church. It was eventually found nece ary to lay down certain regulations with a view of discouraging the adoption of this solitary life. The most singular species of anchorets recorded in the history of the Church, is that which arose in Syria in the fifth century, and of which Simeon Stylites was the founder. This zealot and his followers, instead of resorting, according to the customary fashion, to caves, elevated themselves into the air, on lofty pillars of stone, on the tops of which they pa ed their lives. They have hence received the names of pillar saints, holy birds, and aërial martyrs.