Anchoret

(angk'o-ret,) or ANCHORITE. [Gr. anachoreo, I withdraw.) (Eccl. Hist.) A hermit, or one who voluntarily lives apart from the world. Retirement from all society has, by vast numbers, been considered as facilitating the attainment of a virtuous life. In Egypt and Syria, where Christianity became strongly tinged with the peculiar notions of the East, the anchor ets were most numerous; and from those who lived in cells in the vicinity of a church, sprang the convents of a later period, which were filled with inmates anxious to escape from the tumult and bloodshed that marked the beginning of the Middle Ages. [s. 30]