An Introduction to the Desert Fathers

✍ Scribed by John Wortley

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 214
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Christian monasticism emerged in the Egyptian deserts in the fourth century AD. This introduction explores its origins and subsequent development and what it aimed to achieve, including the obstacles that it encountered; for the most part making use of the monks' own words as they are preserved (in Greek) primarily in the so-called Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Mainly focussing on monastic settlements in the Nitrian Desert (especially at Scêtê), it asks how the monks prayed, ate, drank and slept, as well as how they discharged their obligations both to earn their own living by handiwork and to exercise hospitality. It also discusses the monks' degree of literacy, as well as women in the desert and Pachomius and his monasteries in Upper Egypt. Written in straightforward language, the book is accessible to all students and scholars, and anyone with a general interest in this important and fascinating phenomenon.
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
An accessible introduction exploring how the earliest Christian monks lived and taught in the Egyptian deserts in the fourth to the seventh centuries AD, using their own tales and sayings. Shows the gradual transformation of their essentially solitary existence into communal co-existence which defined the monasteries of the Middle Ages.

About the Author
John Wortley is Professor Emeritus of Medieval History at the University of Manitoba, Canada. His publications include The Anonymous Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Cambridge, 2013) and More Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Cambridge, forthcoming).

✦ Table of Contents

Preface page xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Glossary xv
Notes on the Text xix
List of Abbreviations xxi
Maps xxiii
1 Desert Fathers 1
Pachomius and Palaemon 1
Motivation 3
How Can I Be Saved? 5
Th e Means and the End 8
Other Meanings of ‘Saved’ 9
‘Flee from Men’ 11
Staying the Course: Humility 12
2 Beginnings 16
Alone- ness 16
Antony the Great 18
Th e ‘Mountain’ of Nitria 19
Kellia 20
Scêtê 22
Th e ‘Four Churches’ of Scêtê 24
3 Becoming a Monk 28
Finding a Mentor 28
Th e Monastic Habit 30
Obedience 33
Th e Importance of the Cell 34
Th e Nature of the Cell 37
Building the Cell 38
4 Impediments to Progress 42
Logismos, - oi 42
Porneia 43
Accidie 45
5 Th e Object of the Exercise 48
Silence 48
Loose Talk 50
Hesychia 51
Repose 53
6 Prayer 56
Continuous Prayer 56
Th e Little and the Great Synaxis 57
Scripture and Apothegms 58
Continuous and Occasional Prayer 59
‘Casting’ One’s Prayer 60
Psalms 61
Meditation 62
Saying and Singing 63
7 Discretion 66
When Discretion Is Appropriate 66
Th e Aristotelian Mean 67
Proportion and Measure 69
Cassian on Discretion 71
Th e Royal Road [ hê hodos basilikê ] 72
Acquiring Discretion 73
8 Work 78
Th e Importance of Work 78
Work and Trade 79
Other Kinds of Work 80
Paper- Making 83
Harvesting 84
9 Eating and Drinking 87
Regular and Occasional Fasting 87
Bread 90
Salt 92
Wine 93
10 Hospitality and Neighbourliness 98
Th e Monk’s Dilemma 98
Visiting 104
Community 105
Neighbours 108
Judge Not 110
Slandering 111
11 Women in the Desert 116
Women Visiting 116
Less- Respectable Visitors 118
Monks Visiting Women 121
Demons as Women 123
Women Disguised as Monks 124
Women Ascetics 125
Children and Youths in the Desert 127
Women’s Monasteries 130
12 Literacy 137
Reading and Meditating 137
Literate and Illiterate Fathers 138
Th eft and Possession of Books 139
Disposing of Books 141
Other Literature 143
Reading Time 144
Location of Books 145
13 Heresy 147
Th e Christological Controversies 147
Th e First Origenist Controversy 149
Heresy of Individuals 152
Melchizedek 153
Eucharistic Questions 154
14 Th e Pachomian Experiment 156
Pachomius Again 156
Palladius’ Testimony 157
Pachomian Rules 161
Upper and Lower Egypt 164
Notes on the Sources 167
Bibliography 185
Index 189