The Life of a Hermit

From the Latin eremita, meaning “desert dweller,’ a hermit is a person who lives to some degree in seclusion from society.  Often loosely applied to anyone living a solitary life-style, and used interchangeably with misanthrope and anchorite (someone who has chosen seclusion for purely religious reasons), hermits and anchorites were historically distinguished on the basis of physical location–hermits removing themselves to the wilderness while anchorites selecting a cell attached to a church or near a populated area.  In Christianity, the term hermit was originally applied to a Christian who lives the eremitic life out of religious conviction, namely the Desert Theology of the Old Testament (the forty years wandering in the desert that was meant to bring about a change of heart).  Read more . . .