ABSTRACT
Epicureans fled to their gardens, Stoics sequestered themselves in the inner citadel of their own minds, Skeptics sought refuge in the practised suspension of belief, but a group of early Christian stoics fled with equal haste to desert caves carved out of remote Egyptian mountains. Saint Anthony the Hermit is generally recognized as the founder and inspiration for the movement of monastic piety and other-worldly asceticism that sent thousands of men and women into scattered regions of the inhospitable deserts of Egypt during the 4th and 5th centuries AD. Anthony is depicted as a sophos, an anchorite, a saint, a humanitarian, a peace-maker, and an athlete in heroic labours of self-renunciation. Anthony represents a decisive turning away from merely speculative or theoretical knowledge. When Greek philosophers come to test his wisdom, he chides them for their reliance on syllogisms, asserting that faith is more important than discursive reason.
