The fragmentary lives and scattered sayings of the Desert Fathers are the kernel of ascetic tradition in the West The Blessed Antony was the first and perhaps the best loved He was buried in 356 and for more than a hundred years men flocked to the desert for religion as later they turned to Paris for philosophy and to Bologna for law To the 4th century the Kingdom of God was still 'the pearl of great price hidden in a field, for which a man must sell all that he has'