The desert fathers and mothers withdrew to the deserts from the late third century, beginning with Antony the Great, to seek God in solitude, prayer and labour. Their sayings, collected in the Apophthegmata Patrum, and the writings of Evagrius and Cassian, founded Christian monasticism and its spirituality.
Desert fathers
The hermits and monks of the Egyptian, Palestinian and Syrian deserts in the fourth and fifth centuries.
Also: desert mothers, desert monasticism