Ascetic Life
The accounts describe a structured rhythm of solitude and common worship: each hermit pursued his own ascetic labors separately through the week, and the four gathered together for shared prayer, by tradition on Saturday and Sunday. They are said to have sustained themselves on the fruit of the trees at their oasis and on water from a spring.
Sources differ on how long they lived this life. The shorter account preserved by the Orthodox Church in America has them say they had dwelt in the place six years when Paphnutius arrived, while a fuller synaxarion tradition records a far longer span of desert struggle. The anchor record fixes only the fourth-century, Egyptian setting and their standing as hermits.