Pherme was the location of a community of ascetic monks in the
Nile Delta
The Nile Delta (, or simply , ) is the River delta, delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's larger deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the eas ...
in
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
which grew after the 4th century CE as a satellite community of the better known community of
Kellia
Kellia ("the Cells"), referred to as "the innermost desert", was a 4th-century Egyptian Christian Christian monasticism, monastic community spread out over many square kilometers in the Nitrian Desert about south of Alexandria. It was one of t ...
('the cells').
The site of the monastic remains at Pherme, located southeast of central Kellia, escaped some of the water damage suffered by the lower Kellia site because of its higher elevation. Today the site contains some 115 monastic hermitages, only ten of which were excavated by Swiss archaeologists during digs from 1987 to 1989.
Pherme is mentioned in the ''
Apophthegmata Patrum ''Apophthegmata'', the plural of ''apophthegm'' (also spelled ''apothegm''), a pithy maxim, is the abbreviated title of several collections of aphorisms, adages, maxims, or proverbs, specifically:
* Apophthegmata of Delphi
* '' Apophthegmata Laco ...
'' (''Sayings of the Desert Fathers'') as the dwelling of several
Desert Fathers
The Desert Fathers were early Christian hermits and ascetics, who lived primarily in the Wadi El Natrun, then known as ''Skete'', in Roman Egypt, beginning around the Christianity in the ante-Nicene period, third century. The ''Sayings of the Dese ...
Lucius
Lucius is a masculine given name derived from Lucius (Latin ; ), abbreviated L., one of the small group of common Latin forenames () found in the culture of ancient Rome. Lucius probably derives from Latin word ( gen. ), meaning "light" (<.