The Hindu fakir, the Christian saint of the desert, and the Mohammedan dervish are different expressions of a belief which at some time or other has prevailed among a very large proportion of the human race. It has been one of the fundamental ideas of the oriental religions that evil inheres in matter, while mind or spirit is essentially divine and pure. According to this view, the flesh and the spirit wage perpetual warfare on each other; the body is not a useful servant, but an enemy, and to be resisted therefore at every point and struck down whenever its head is raised. The ideal life is one of solitude, contemplation, and strict abstinence from sensual indulgence in any form. Asceticism has thus been an important factor in the ancient religions of China, Tibet, Siam, India, and Persia, and very early in the Christian Era, or before its dawn, this principle had found its way into Syria and Egypt, and through the Alexandrian schools of philosophy into southern Europe. Brought into contact with Christianity, it helped to prepare the way for the movement now under consideration, and in like manner gave its impress to Mohammedanism at a later period. But in the case of the early Christians, living for the most part in cities and brought into close and daily contact with all the abominations of the decadent pagan society of the Empire, a violent reaction from the prevailing luxury and sensual self-indulgence was inevitable. Men of deep religious feeling desired to escape contamination from such worldliness, and it is not strange if in protest against its excesses they sometimes carried their stern self-restraint so far as to deny themselves the common comforts of life and decline to gratify those cravings of the body which are innocent and natural. The healthy appetites and impulses of the normal man are not to be eradicated without a struggle, however, and the constant discomfort which resulted from unsatisfied desires they viewed as insubordination. This in turn led to belief in the innate depravity of human nature. To subdue the rebellious flesh they resorted to renewed and more severe privations, or punished it with self-inflicted tortures. Mortification of the body acquired the dignity of a religious exercise, while the idea of pleasure came to be closely associated with that of vice.