Sarabaites were a class of Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 monk

Monk

A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...

s widely spread before the time of St. Benedict.

History

They either continued like the early ascetics, to live in their own homes, or dwelt together in or near cities. They acknowledged no monastic superior, obeyed no definite rule, and disposed individually of the product of their manual labour.

St. Jerome speaks of them under the name of Remoboth, and John Cassian tells of their wide diffusion in Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 and other lands. Both writers express a very unfavourable opinion concerning their conduct, and a reference to them in the Rule of St. Benedict is of similar import.

At a later date the name Sarabaites, the original meaning of which cannot be determined, designated in a general way degenerate monks. The Rule of St. Benedict considered their nonadherence to church canon only to be exceeded by the Gyrovagues

Gyrovagues

Gyrovagues were wandering or itinerant monks without fixed residence or leadership, who relied on charity and the hospitality of others....

.