The Desert Fathers are some of the most important saints to think about in our current time. They were monks and nuns (there were also desert mothers) who lived in the Egyptian desert from the 4th century to the mid 5th century. The lifestyle of the desert fathers was extremely austere. Some ate only bread with salt and drank water. Many lived communally but spent much of their time in individual cells. Others lived as hermits, entirely alone. Many made money for food by weaving baskets from palm leaves. Probably the most famous of the desert fathers is St. Antony, who was one of the earliest to go out into the desert. Antony lived as a hermit and many followed his example and went out into the desert as well.
Why are the desert fathers particularly important now? The reason is that the purpose of all of their austerities was to build up inner strength, spiritual strength. They denied themselves food, not to weaken the body, but to strengthen the soul.
Many of these monks and nuns were Egyptian peasants. The life of an Egyptian peasant in the fourth or fifth century is already almost unimaginably austere compared to the life of a modern Westerner and yet, in those days thousands of people chose to go to the desert and live lives of even greater austerity. This gives the lie to the idea that the spiritual is something extra, something for the materially comfortable. Furthermore, in those times there were gladiator fights, public torture and executions. The example of the desert fathers whose incredible purity of life coexisted along with such gruesome spectacles shows that real spirituality is not something weak; a merely aesthetic repugnance that flees from "real life"; it is something tough and strong.
Furthermore, these monks spent much time alone in prayer and contemplation and sought to strengthen the mind and soul. The desert fathers also sought to discern true visions from self-delusion or even demonic deceptions. In this time age of countless distractions when we must develop our own powers of discernment, the desert fathers provide a good example. A few of these monks even were attacked by the powers of darkness. Antony was one. He withdrew from normal life to do battle with threats of which few are aware. In these times when everything normal and natural is under siege it is apparent that we too are under attack by the enemies of God and humankind. These are good saints to meditate upon and to ask for help. The Penguin classics books Early Christian Lives and The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks have more information.
A possible synchronicity is that January 15 is the feast of St. Paul of Thebes, who was traditionally the very first of the monks to go into the desert and live as a hermit. Saint Jerome wrote about Paul of Thebes. He tells the story that Antony had a vision that there was a monk deeper in the wilderness who was better than he. Antony went on a journey through the desert, met Paul and conversed with him and then came back later to the place Paul lived after Paul of Thebes had died. When Paul of Thebes met Antony, he said something interesting. I first read it in the Book of Saints and Heroes, where it is rendered: "Tell me, I beseech you, something of the children of men, for much must have happened since I took up m abode here, well-nigh over a hundred years ago. Are the walls of the ancient cities still growing bigger because of the houses which are being built within them? Do kings yet reign over the earth, and are they still in bondage to the devil?"
When I first read that, especially the last sentence, I interpreted it as meaning that Paul thought the world may have ended while he was out in the desert and he was one of the few people left. Then I read a translation of the original which said: "tell me, I beg you, how the human race is getting on. Are new building rising up in the old cities? What government rules the world? Are there still some people alive who are in the grip of the demons' error?" which does not sound like Paul thought the world was over, but it is still a striking sentence. Imagine a man who has been alone for many decades. Paul of Thebes is one of the few completely unworldly people I can think of.
Could this be a synchronicity and what does it mean? Does it mean we will go into the "desert" on the fifteenth or that we will be cut off from information about the world. In the way Jerome tells the story, Antony also met a centaur and a satyr, so will we see strange and unusual things in the coming weeks? I am not sure about the synchronicity, but it fits with the rest of this post, so maybe it is worth posting.
One thing I find impressive about this tradition, which also emerged in Russia and the 'Celtic' fringes of the British Isles - was the confidence that the spiritual work of a solitary hermit would have general beneficial effects, even without any perceptible communication being involved. That is a truth hard to live by; but they did.
ReplyDeleteThese were also often 'wonder-working' saints - whose daily survival was itself a kind of miracle.
England's premier native saint is probably Cuthbert, and he was of exactly this type; at one point living alone on an island in the North Sea.
As you say, all this has lessons for us, here, today.