Alexander, Founder of the Acoemetae

Alexander, founder of the Acoemetae (q.v.), was born of an ancient family, in Asia Minor, in the time of the Emperor Constantius. He first filled an office at court, but afterward gave all that he had to the poor, and retired into Syria. He afterward founded a monastery on the banks of the Euphrates, and introduced a new rule of chanting the praises of God without ceasing, day and night, throughout the year. To secure this, he divided his monks into six classes, one of which followed another perpetually. When he had thus exercised his monks for twenty years in this first monastery of his order, he left them, and passed through Palmyra, Antioch, and Constantinople, in all which places he suffered for the faith. At last he died, about 440, at another monastery of his institution, called Gomon, at the mouth of the Pontus Euxinus. Bollandus give a life of him, which purports to be written by one of his disciples. — Baillet, Jan. 15; Landon, Eccles. Dict. 1, 240.