ABSTRACT
Everywhere at the places where bare and barren desert was interspersed with a spring, patch of land, a small or big oasis, at that time there lived the hermits, some in total solitude, others in small fraternities, they lived in poverty and in love for the neighbour, devoted to a certain melancholic ars moriendi, a certain art of dying, of withdrawal from the world and one’s own self and transition to Him, to the Saviour, to the radiant and eternal kingdom. Visited by angels and demons, they composed hymns, drove away the demons, healed, blessed, as if having made up their mind to compensate for earthly delight, rudeness and carnality of many bygone and many future epochs with the powerful upsurge of enthusiasm and with the ecstatic action of renunciation of the world.
