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Amoun, a contemporary of Antony, lived in an ascetic marriage in the Delta for 18 years before he withdrew alone (about 330) to Nitria, at the edge of the western desert beside the village of Pernoudj. By 338 so many ascetics had joined Amoun in Nitria that he withdrew six miles further into the desert to a place that became known as the Cells (Kellia). Here the monks lived in a colony of isolated cells (called "semi-anchoritic" monasticism), each located out of earshot of its nearest neighbor.

Initially cells must have been small, though archaeological excavations reveal that in later times some came to include a courtyard, a vestibule, an oratory, two bedrooms (one for the ascetic and one for his disciple), an office, a kitchen, and a latrine.

In this setting, less advanced monks practiced the ascetic life under the tutelage of a more experienced master. Thus when a novice asked Abba Paisios what he should do to fear God, he was told, "Go, and join a man who fears God, and live near him; he will teach you, too, to fear God."

In spite of the severe demands, communal asceticism proved increasingly attractive through the fourth century. Palladius reported that eventually 600 monks lived at the Cells and that they had their own church and priest. Even further into the desert beyond the Cells lay Scetis, which had been founded at about the same time by Macarius the Egyptian. Distant enough to satisfy the desire for solitude, yet close enough to meet transportation and economic needs, it became famous and attracted many ascetics.

Palladius, who visited Egypt toward the end of the fourth century, reported 2,000 monks living in the monasteries around Alexandria and 5,000 in Nitria. (The population of Alexandria has been estimated at about 180,000 in the fourth century.) In Athanasius's famous words, "The desert was made a city by monks who left their own people and enrolled for citizenship in heaven."

The sayings and stories of these desert ascetics are filled with accounts of amazing trials and extraordinary feats. One hears of monks who walked on hot coals or scorpions or asps with their bare feet, of others whose unshaven hair alone served as their clothes, and still others who grazed with the antelope for food. Some monks wore chains and let their hair grow long, much to the dismay of others. Women shaved their heads and passed as male ascetics, their ruse discovered only in their death.

Onnophrius withdrew so far into the desert that Paphnutius had to walk over eight days and receive miraculous aid to reach him. Abba Bessarion avoided sleep for 14 days and nights by standing upright in the midst of thorn bushes, and Eulogius often fasted an entire week, eating only bread and salt. Pachomius bound ashes against his loins so that they ate away at him, and another monk's body became so irritated through his ascetic practices that he was infested with vermin. A solitary, or hermit, in lower Egypt avoided the temptation of a woman by shutting himself in his cell and dousing the flame of lust by thrusting his fingers one by one into the flame of his lamp.

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