Just as even the Buddha relied on the teaching and transmission of an older ascetic, so Anthony of the Desert relied on the teaching and training of the righteous men — one old man in particular — from whom he learned about the righteous men of old. It may be that this was a line of teachers related to James the Righteous, of Jerusalem. There is some evidence for this, apart from the extract from Cassian that traces the tradition of the Desert Fathers back to the Jerusalem church in an "unbroken" line.
— Tom Chetwynd, Zen and the Kingdom of Heaven