or EREMIT, Eremita, a devout person retired into solitude, to be more at leisure for prayer and contemplation, and to disencumber himself of the affairs of this world. The word is formed from the Greek ἐρημός, desert or wilderness; and hence, according to the etymology, it should rather be written Eremit. Paul surnamed the Hermit is usually reckoned the first hermit; though St Jerome, at the beginning of the life of that saint, says it is not known who was the first. Some go back to the time of John the Baptist, others to that of Elias; some make St Anthony the founder of the eremitical life, and others think that he only rekindled and heightened the fervour thereof, holding that the disciples of that saint owned St Paul of Thebes as the first who practised it. The persecutions of Decius and Valerian are supposed to have been the occasion of driving men to the wilderness.

There are also various orders and congregations of religious persons distinguished by the title of hermits; as hermits of St Augustin, of St John Baptist, of St Jerome, of St Paul, and so forth.