Desert Fathers and Mothers

AthanasiusAthanasiusBishop of Alexandria, about 296 to 373. He was not a desert monk, and he wrote about Antony from outside.Person tells us that AntonyAntonyAn Egyptian monk, about 251 to 356. Nearly all that is known of him comes from the Life that Athanasius wrote.Person was about eighteen or twenty when his parents died. That left him with a little sister and the care of the house.

Less than six months later, he was going into church as he always did. He was thinking of how the apostles had left everything to follow the Saviour. The Gospel was being read. He heard the Lord say to the rich man: "If you want to be perfect, go and sell what you have and give to the poor. Then come and follow me, and you will have treasure in heaven."

Antony went out of the church at once, as though the passage had been read on his account. He gave the villagers his family's land, three hundred Egyptian field measures of good ground. He sold everything else he could move and gave the money to the poor, keeping back a little for his sister.

Later he went into church again and heard the Lord say, "Do not be anxious about tomorrow." He could stay no longer. He went out and gave the rest to the poor as well. He placed his sister with known and faithful virgins to be brought up. From then on he gave himself to a life of discipline outside his house, training himself with patience.

In the next village lived an old man who had been a hermit from his youth. After Antony had seen him, he copied his devotion.

AthanasiusAthanasiusBishop of Alexandria, about 296 to 373. He was not a desert monk, and he wrote about Antony from outside.Person writes that AntonyAntonyAn Egyptian monk, about 251 to 356. Nearly all that is known of him comes from the Life that Athanasius wrote.Person went to the tombs, which lay some distance from the village. He asked an acquaintance to bring him bread at long intervals. Then he entered a tomb, and the man shut the door on him.

One night, he says, the enemy came with a crowd of demons and beat him until he lay speechless. Next day the acquaintance found him lying as though dead and carried him to the village church. Kinsfolk and villagers sat around him as around a corpse.

About midnight Antony came to himself. Everyone else was asleep, so he motioned to the acquaintance and asked to be carried back to the tombs.

Alone again, he lay unable to stand. That night the demons seemed to break through the walls in the likeness of lions, bears, leopards, serpents and wolves. Antony mocked them: "If you had any real power, it would have been enough for just one of you to come. But the Lord has made you weak. So you try to frighten me with your numbers."

Then the roof seemed to open, and a ray of light came down. The demons vanished and the pain stopped. Antony asked, "Where were you? Why did you not appear at the start, to end my pain?" A voice answered: "Antony, I was here, but I waited to see your fight. You have endured and have not given way. So I will always help you, and I will make your name known everywhere."

AntonyAntonyAn Egyptian monk, about 251 to 356. Nearly all that is known of him comes from the Life that Athanasius wrote.Person left the world in stages. First he lived near his own village, as all did who wished to train in those days. He had seen an old hermit in the next village and copied his devotion.

Later he found a fort on the far side of the river. It had stood empty so long that it was full of creeping things. Antony crossed over and lived there, and the creatures, AthanasiusAthanasiusBishop of Alexandria, about 296 to 373. He was not a desert monk, and he wrote about Antony from outside.Person wrote, fled at once as if someone were chasing them. He built up the entrance completely and stored six months of loaves. He found water inside. He stayed alone, never going out and never looking at anyone who came, and loaves were let down to him from above twice a year.

Friends who came were not let in. They often spent days and nights outside, and they heard what sounded like crowds clamouring within.

Nearly twenty years later he came out, and in time, Athanasius says, he was beset by many people and could not be still. Then a voice came to him from above and told him that, if he truly wanted quiet, he should go into the inner desert. He journeyed three days and three nights with Saracens, desert nomads, who were going that way. He came to a very lofty mountain, with a clear spring at its foot, a plain, and a few uncared-for palm trees. He recognised the place as his own home and stayed.

PalladiusPalladiusA monk in Egypt about 388 to 399 who later became a bishop. He wrote the Lausiac History about 419 to 420.Person tells of a man named PachomiusPachomiusA monk who lived from about 292 to 346. He started a community of monks at Tabennesi. This is most often dated to about 320.Person, who lived at Tabennisi in the Thebaid. He says Pachomius was counted worthy of prophecies and of angelic visions. Palladius says an angel appeared to him as he sat in his cave. The angel told him he had ordered his own life well, so it was pointless to stay in the cave any longer. He was to go out, gather all the young monks, and live with them.

The angel gave him a brass tablet with a rule written on it. Each man was to eat and drink according to his strength, and his work was to match that strength. Pachomius objected that the prayers it set were few. The angel answered that he had given the rule so that even the little ones would keep it. The perfect, he said, need no rule, because alone in their cells they have given their whole lives to the contemplation of God.

In his own day, Palladius says, the monasteries that kept this rule held some seven thousand men. The first and great monastery was the one where Pachomius himself had lived, and he gives it thirteen hundred members.

The Ethiopic rule of PachomiusPachomiusA monk who lived from about 292 to 346. He started a community of monks at Tabennesi. This is most often dated to about 320.Person begins by saying where it came from. Its first words are: "In the name of the holy Trinity. This is the rule which the angel of the Lord gave to Abba Pachomius as a command."

Then the text tells a story. In a place called Tabennesis, in the province of Thebes, there was a man named Pachomius, one of those who lived a clean life. Knowledge was given to him, and also the sight of angels. As he sat in his cave, the angel of the Lord appeared to him. The angel said that Pachomius had become perfect in his own life, and that living on in the cave was now needless. He should go out, gather the less perfect young men, and live with them. As the angel gave him a rule, so he should teach them.

Then the angel handed him a tablet of iron, with the rule written on it. At the end of the rule's commands, Pachomius answered the angel: "These prayers are few." The angel said he had commanded it so that the weak also might keep the rule without grieving themselves. The perfect do not desire a rule for themselves. These things, he said, he had ordained for those who have no advisers.

Our sayings tell of Abba ArseniusArseniusA monk of the Syriac sayings. Two of them tell of a voice that showed him how to live. The first places him in a palace.Person when he was in the palace. He prayed to God, "Lord, show me how to live." A voice came to him and said, "Arsenius, flee from men, and you will live."

A second saying tells of the time when he was living the ascetic life in the monastery. He prayed the same prayer, and again he heard a voice. It said, "Arsenius, flee. Keep silence. Live a life of silent contemplation. These are the basic causes that keep a person from sinning."

Our sayings tell of a brother at SceteSceteThis is the same place as Scetis, a valley in northern Egypt. It is now called Wadi el Natrun.Place · pleiades.stoa.org, the camp of the monks, who committed an offence. A congregation met on the matter. They sent for Abba MosesAbba MosesAn elder at Scete in the Syriac sayings. Abba means father, a title of respect for an elder.Person, but he refused to come. Then they sent the priest of the church to him, saying, "Come. All the people are waiting for you." Moses got up and came.

He took a basket with a hole in it, filled it with sand, and carried it on his shoulders. Those who went out to meet him asked, "What does this mean, father?" He said the sand was "my sins, running down behind me. I cannot see them." And today, he said, he had come to judge faults that were not his own.

When they heard this, they set the brother free and said nothing more to him.

Amma SarahAmma SarahOne of a few women remembered by name in the desert tradition. The Syriac collection keeps six sayings under her name.Person is one of a few women our teaching tradition remembers by name. The Syriac collection keeps six sayings under her name. In our speech, steadfast courage was called manly, and weakness womanly. Amma Sarah used to say to her brothers, "It is I who am a man, and you who are women."

AthanasiusAthanasiusBishop of Alexandria, about 296 to 373. He was not a desert monk, and he wrote about Antony from outside.Person writes that AntonyAntonyAn Egyptian monk, about 251 to 356. Nearly all that is known of him comes from the Life that Athanasius wrote.Person visited the monks of the outer mountain and told them it was his last visit. He said he would be surprised if they met again in this life, and that he was near a hundred and five years old.

The monks begged him to stay and die among them. He would not, and above all for one reason. The Egyptians wrapped the bodies of good men in linen and kept them on couches in their houses. Antony had often urged the bishops to command the people against this, and he had taught that it was neither lawful nor holy.

He went back to the inner mountain, where he was used to living, and a few months later he fell sick. Two men had stayed with him there for fifteen years, serving him because of his age. He called them and told them to let no one take his body into Egypt. "Bury my body and hide it underground yourselves," he said. "Keep my words, so that no one may know the place but you alone."

He told them to divide his garments. One sheepskin and the garment he lay on were for the bishop Athanasius. The other sheepskin was for the bishop Serapion, and the two men were to keep the hair garment. Then he said farewell, and died.

They buried him as he had commanded. Athanasius writes that to this day no one knows where he lies, except those two.

Cassian tells of an old monk named SarapionSarapionAn old monk at Scete who had kept a strict life for a long time.Person, who lived at SceteSceteThis is the same place as Scetis, a valley in northern Egypt. It is now called Wadi el Natrun.Place · pleiades.stoa.org. Sarapion had kept a strict life there for a long time.

Then letters came from TheophilusTheophilusHe was bishop of Alexandria. His Easter letter of 399 began a quarrel. In 400, monks who followed Origen had to leave Egypt.Person, the bishop of AlexandriaAlexandriaAn old port city in Egypt's Nile Delta. Alexander the Great founded it in 332 or 331 BCE. In Arabic it is called Iskandariya.Place · pleiades.stoa.org, refuting the belief that God has a human form. Almost all the monks of Egypt took them with great bitterness. At Scete, Cassian says, only Paphnutius, the presbyter of his own congregation, would allow the letter to be read.

Sarapion was one of those who held that belief. Paphnutius urged him many times, but the bishop's teaching seemed new to him, never handed down by his predecessors. Then a learned deacon named Photinus arrived from Cappadocia. Paphnutius asked him a question before all the brothers. How did the churches of the East read the words in Genesis, "Let us make man after our image and likeness"? Photinus answered that they took the words spiritually, not by the bare letters, and that God's glory could not be held in a human shape. At last the old man was shaken and agreed.

Cassian says they were all delighted. But as they rose to pray together, Sarapion felt the picture of God he used to set before himself in prayer leave his heart. He burst into bitter tears, threw himself on the ground, and cried out with deep groans: "Alas! I am a wretched man! They have taken my God away from me. Now I have no one to hold on to. I do not know whom to worship, or whom to address."