The Desert Fathers (there were also Desert Mothers) were hermits, ascetics, and monks who lived mainly in the Scetes desert of Egypt beginning around the third century AD. The most well known was Anthony the Great, who moved to the desert in 270–271 and became known as both the father and founder of desert monasticism. By the time Anthony died in 356, thousands of monks and nuns had been drawn to living in the desert following Anthony's example — his biographer, Athanasius of Alexandria, wrote that "the desert had become a city."[1] The Desert Fathers had a major influence on the development of Christianity.
The desert monastic communities that grew out of the informal gathering of hermit monks became the model for Christian monasticism. The eastern monastic tradition at Mt. Athos and the western Rule of St. Benedict both were strongly influenced by the traditions that began in the desert. All of the monastic revivals of the Middle Ages looked to the desert for inspiration and guidance. Much of Eastern Christian spirituality, including the Hesychast movement, had its roots in the practices of the Desert Fathers. Even religious renewals such as the German evangelicals and Pietists in Pennsylvania, the Devotio Moderna movement, and the Methodist Revival in England are seen by modern scholars as being influenced by the Desert Fathers.[2] The Apophthegmata Patrum is a collection of the wisdom of some of the early desert monks and nuns, still in print as Sayings of the Desert Fathers.
Anthony and the Desert FathersThe ultimate question this topic—early desert monasticism—raises is, What should we make of it all? Was this movement ultimately a force for good or for ill? Did men like Antony promote the gospel or hinder it? Are these desert fathers (and a few mothers) godly models to emulate or misguided enthusiasts to pity?
These questions are not rhetorical; the events may be far away, but the issues early monks addressed are very much alive. How are we to obey Jesus' command to sell our possessions and follow him (Mark 10:21)? What does Paul mean when he says Christians are to pray unceasingly (1 Thess. 5:17)?
The desert monks took such passages literally. Jesus assumes that Christians will fast (Matt. 6): so did desert fathers. Paul says he disciplined his body, "training it to do what it should do" (1 Cor. 9:27): so did the desert fathers by submitting their bodies to rigorous asceticism.
If they, in fact, understood and obeyed the New Testament on these points, the desert fathers are models we should emulate in some way. If they misunderstood and misapplied these teachings, then we have to do more than scoff at them: we have to explain how such biblical injunctions are to be obeyed faithfully in our own day.
Even more crucial: the desert fathers claim their ascetic methods purified their hearts and led them to a fuller, richer experience of God. Is this true? Or were they deluded? If it's true, we need to appropriate some of their spirituality. If not, we have to ask why so many men and women spent their entire lives following the rigors of the ascetic way. People are not stupid; they don't do this sort of thing unless they are getting something out of it. If we decide it wasn't God, what could it have been?
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