One day the shepherd Apollo saw a pregnant woman in the fields. A dark thought struck him: he wanted to see how the foetus was lying in her womb. He therefore killed the woman and ripped her open. Afterwards he repented and took refuge among the monks of Scetis in Egypt, where he became a hermit (133). By contrast, Hilarion came to be a hermit in a wholly honourable manner, as related by Hieronymus in his Life of Hilarion. He felt drawn by St. Anthony, gave away his inheritance, and embarked upon a life of solitude in the Gaza region. Apollo, Hilarion, and all other monks and hermits whose sayings and biographies have been I handed down by the early Church had in common that they abandoned the society they lived in and developed an alternative lifestyle. They were not, however, the first in antiquity to go against established norms and values.