Grazers (Christianity)

The grazers or boskoi (in Ancient Greek: βοσκοί, romanized: boskoí) are a category of hermits and anchorites, men and women, in Christianity, that developed in the first millennium of the Christian era, mainly in the Christian East, in Syria, Palestine, Pontus, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. However, the majority of them were situated in Palestine and Syria.

They derived their name from their practices, which consisted of nourishing themselves only with raw plants, often on all fours, and living in a wild manner, "among the beasts." They were dressed in clothes made exclusively from leaves and vegetation, or simply completely naked. Furthermore, they did not cultivate plants and did not use fire. They were linked to another type of hermits called the "dendrites", which seemed to have the same way of living but in trees.

The grazers may perhaps be among the inspirations for the wild man archetype, a legendary figure in medieval Europe.