The product of this wide-spread ascetic agitation was the creation of a new type, namely, anchoretism, or hermit life, about the middle of the third century. This was the second phase of monastic evolution. It appeared first in Egypt about the fourth century, where the physical conditions were most suitable, in the home of the Therapeutæ and Serapis monks, the stronghold of heresy and paganism, the birthplace of Neo-Platonism amid a people famous for fanaticism. The Decian persecution in 250 was, apparently, the immediate occasion for its birth. Anthony of Alexandria, and Ammon were the earliest representatives of this new form of asceticism. Paul of Thebes, however, is now generally believed to be a pious romance from the pen of Jerome, but he may still be viewed as typical. Anthony (251-356), the "patriarch of the monks," was the real founder of anchoretism. He early sold his estate for the poor, gave his sister to a body of virgins, and cut himself off from the world by retiring to a desert in order to devote his life to spiritual things. He lived as a strict hermit till a great age, gained a world-wide fame, had many visitors seeking spiritual guidance, and won many converts to monasticism. Soon the wildest tales were told about his divine powers. Before he died Egypt was full of hermits, and some were found in Palestine. Athanasius wrote his biography, which was read over all Christendom and scattered seeds of anchoretism everywhere--a book which influenced the thought of the age. Ammon had a settlement of possibly 5000 hermits at Mount Nitria in Lower Egypt and was almost as renowned as Anthony, his great contemporary.[206:1] The example of these illustrious characters drew thousands of both the curious and the sincere to Egypt.[206:2] Whole congregations, led by their bishops, withdrew to the desert for salvation.[206:3] Priests fled from the obligations of their office.[206:4] By the fourth century that land was full of hermits. Their life was of a negative character, founded on abstinence and bodily abuse--a holy rivalry of self-torture and suicidal austerities. These practices may be divided into four classes: dietetic, sexual, social, and spiritual. (1) From a dietetic standpoint the hermits either fasted, or ate the simplest foods, or consumed the smallest quantities. Thus the renowned Isidore of Alexandria never ate meat, and often at the table would burst into tears for shame at the thought that he who was destined to eat angel's food in Paradise should have to eat the material food of animals. Macarius ate but once a week. His son lived three years on five ounces of bread a day and seven years on raw vegetables. Alos boasted that up to his eighteenth year he never ate bread. Symeon ate but once daily and in fast time not at all. Heliodorus often fasted seven days at a time. In Mesopotamia a group of hermits lived on grass.[207:1] (2) Sexually the hermits believed either in absolute virginity or in abstinence.