The Desert Near Diolcos

When we had come, while still beginners, from the monasteries of Palestine to a city of Egypt called Diolcos, we saw a large number of monks bound by the discipline of the coenobium and trained in that excellent system of monasteries, which is also the earliest. We were eager, with all wisdom of heart, to see another system as well, which is better still: that of the anchorites, for everyone’s praise of it spurred us on. For these men first live for a very long time in coenobia. There they carefully learn all the rules of patience and discernment, gain the virtues of humility and renunciation, and perfectly overcome all their faults. Then, to engage in the most fearful conflicts with demons, they make their way into the deepest recesses of the desert. [a]

We found that men of this kind were living near the river Nile, in a place surrounded on one side by that river and on the other by the expanse of the sea. It forms an island where no one can live but monks seeking such retreats, since the saltiness of the soil and the dryness of the sand make it unfit for any farming. To these men, I say, we eagerly hurried, and we were astonished beyond measure at the labors they endure in the contemplation of the virtues, and at their love of solitude. They are hampered by such a shortage even of water that they portion it out with a care and exactness that no miser would spend on keeping and hoarding the most precious kind of wine. For they carry it three miles or even farther from the bed of the river we mentioned, for all their needs. And the distance, great as it is, with sandy mountains in between, is made twice as hard by the very great difficulty of the task.