Now I shall come to the great Gerasimus. Our great father Gerasimus, became a coloniser and patron of the desert of the Jordan, having founded there a very large laura with 70 anchorites, with a coenobium built in its middle. He decreed that the beginners should stay in the coenobium and learn the monastic discipline, while those who were perfect in God’s eyes, excellent in the ascetic labours and superior to most in their ascent to God, such men he settled in the cells, giving them the following rules. For five days of the week each must live in seclusion in his own cell, eating nothing but bread and dates, and (drinking) water. On Saturday and Sunday they come to the church and take part in the divine mysteries, then eat a cooked meal in the coenobium, accompanied by a little wine. (Gerasimus) did not permit to anybody to light a lamp in his cell, to make himself a hot drink or to eat cooked food; but all were poor and humble. Each of (the anchorites) would bring his weekly work to the coenobium on Saturday, and on Sunday evening he would receive his weekly allowance - loaves of bread, dates, water and palm-leaves - and go back to his cell. And they were so unconcerned with all things human - in a word, dead to the worldly life and alive only for God - that nobody had in his cell any material thing, except the merest necessities: a tunic, a mantle and a cowl. Each had one rush-mat for his bedding and one earthen jar, that served both for drinking and for soaking the palm-leaves.
(transl. Leah Di Segni)