He was born of heathen parents at Tabatha near Gaza about 290; he was sent to Alexandria for his education and there became a convert to Christianity; about 306 he visited St Anthony and became his disciple, embracing the eremitical life.
He declared that the cenobitical life is superior to the eremitical; that fasting and austerities should not interfere with prayer or work; that work should form an integral part of the monastic life, not merely as an occupation, but for its own sake and in order to do good to others; and therefore that monasteries should be near towns.
However, the eastern hankering after the eremitical life long survived, and it was only by dint of legislation, both ecclesiastical (council of Chalcedon) and civil (Justinian Code), that the Basilian cenobitic form of monasticism came to prevail throughout the Greek-speaking lands, though the eremitical forms have always maintained themselves.
Here it will suffice to say that he followed the Pachomian rather than the Antonian model, setting himself definitely against the practice of the eremitical life and of excessive asceticism, and inculcating the necessity and superiority of labour.
The monastic ideals prevalent were those of the Antonian monachism, with its hankering after the eremitical life and the practice of extreme bodily austerities.