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The inception of this desert movement is often attributed to St. Anthony the Great (also known as Anthony the Hermit), who is celebrated as a key progenitor of Christian monasticism. Around 270 AD, he embarked on a solitary journey into the Egyptian wilderness, driven by a deep desire to forge a closer relationship with God through prayer, fasting, and renunciation of worldly pleasures. His life, characterized by simplicity and a relentless pursuit of spiritual purity, became a beacon that drew others to emulate his path. Men and women alike were inspired to adopt a similar lifestyle, seeking solace and spiritual depth in the solitude of the desert.
St. Anthony’s influence was far-reaching, not just in attracting followers but in setting a template for a new kind of Christian life that emphasized personal holiness, ascetic discipline, and contemplative prayer. His story, chronicled by St. Athanasius, circulated widely, capturing Christians’ imagination far beyond the deserts of Egypt. It sparked a movement that saw many leave their homes and communities to live as hermits or in small, like-minded groups dedicated to a life of spiritual rigor and introspection.
This burgeoning movement quickly grew beyond the confines of the Egyptian desert. It spread to other regions such as Palestine, Syria, and Europe, laying the foundation for developing organized monastic communities. These early desert ascetics were not just fleeing the world but actively seeking a new way of being in it – prioritizing the spiritual over the material, the eternal over the temporal.
Their lifestyle choice represented a radical departure from the norms of their time, offering a powerful counter-narrative to the prevailing cultural and religious practices. In choosing the desert – a place often associated with danger, temptation, and spiritual warfare – they demonstrated a deep commitment to confronting and overcoming their inner demons and temptations that hinder a closer walk with God. This choice of the desert as a place of spiritual struggle and growth became a defining characteristic of their movement and a symbol of the Christian journey towards holiness and transformation.
By the beginning of the 4th century AD, the numbers of those opting for a life in the desert had swelled into their thousands. In 313 AD, the persecution of Christians ended with the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Christianity effectively became the state religion and there was a huge effort to build churches to accommodate all those who now called themselves Christians. Up to this time, martyrdom for the faith was considered a heroic and saintly way to achieve salvation. When that option was no longer available, the idea of renouncing the pleasures of the world and fleeing into the desert to live a life of prayer, fasting and solitude became the new model for achieving spiritual perfection.
In the middle of his ministry, in the middle of his hurried schedule, Jesus would go away and pray. In the middle multiple days in a particular community, city, Jesus walk or sail away in to solitude, and pray. It is that model that the desert mothers and fathers followed, the Jesus who went out into the wilderness.
It’s such an extreme way of living–to leave everything behind and living in the wilderness.
The world is loud, There are so many things happening, our schedules are full, our phones go off, we’re always on the move. It is hard to find quiet.
The desert mothers and fathers found the 4th century too loud, too busy, too much, too easy to stay in the city. Imagine if they saw this century… So they went to the desert, to the wilderness to find God. I’m sure they believed as I do, that God is everywhere, God meets us on the corners of city streets, and in concert halls, and in kids soccer games. But that we find God’s voice hard to hear in those noisy places.
But leaving for the desert wilderness wasn’t about fleeing the cities, running way from the crowds. It was about running to God. No, they wouldn’t turn anyway away who showed up, but they seemed to think it would become clear if your reason for arriving was running way from your life or running toward God.
You were allowed to flee temptation and run to God. In an attempt to not judge others for their choices, when asked about a brother who had returned to the city, one Father celebrated the brother who left’s liberation from temptation to be in the world again.
Now I had a speech communication professor when I was in college who proposed the argument that if anyone was locked in a room by themselves for any amount of time we would go mad because people don’t like to be trapped with their own thoughts and nothing to do to distract them. I’m sure there was some argument in there about you know do better, but that is essentially what the desert father Alba Moses asked or requested or required of his community. He said
Abba Moses: Go to your cell and sit; your cell will teach you everything.
Your cell could be a cave. It may or may not have a bed or light. One doesn’t Father in his cave wrestled with honestly hallucinations but it’s hallucinations were vicious animals and demons like kept attacking him. And I do wonder if that’s what it would feel like if as adults were isolated with nothing but our memories and the things we have done and left undone playing out in our minds and nothing but the grace of God to forgive us. It probably does take a few prayers of Lord have mercy before we could let go of some of the worst things we’ve done. The people we’ve hurt are neglected to love.
But the cell wasn’t just to be outside of ourselves, but a place we can turn within ourselves a thousand years later, Teresa of Avila would call it the internal Castle, those places where we meet God within ourselves.
Some might call our sell personal quiet time with God, but I have often found that quiet time is more about reading and talking than it is sitting and listening. I think committing to your cell and letting it teach you is a call to les s to solitude to embrace the mystic side. That is Christianity that is religious traditions in general. The part that assumes God is still speaking to us and still has something to say to us, Even us.
And like anything, it is a practice vee not just are a culture of noise but a culture of doing and you may not believe you have to do anything to earn God’s love. But maybe you think you need to do something to hear or you need to keep moving because the quiet brings back all of that other stuff by.
For Jesus, this time of prayer is carved out time and simplicity and listening and presence with God wasn’t just for the sake of isolation but to prepare him for the work, the ministry all that was to come next.
Throughout the gospels Jesus is pouring his life out. He is in community with people. He is teaching preaching healing, having intimate one-on-one one on 12 conversations with disciples and no doubt being on like that is exhausting.
You cannot pour out from a cup indefinitely. At some point cup becomes empty and has nothing left to give. You need to be poured into to the love of God and community to be refreshed to know that simple is enough that you are enough to be given strength to our missions and courage to be people of resistance and Justice and hope for troubled times
Because these days can be hard.
Alphense the world hasn’t changed that much that we often are doing the same things or find ourselves in similar situations. And I argued that the proliferation the normalization of Christianity in the 4th century was totally different than today. But maybe not. The world is changing and religion in some ways with it as well.
There are forms of Christianity in the world that require nothing of us, perhaps like some of the early Abbas and amma’s of the desert who thought it was too easy that we should have to work at it harder? Have something yet to say to us. Perhaps the early Abbas and amas of the desert have something to say about the empire claiming Christ in a way we should pay attention to.
Because these have been might be difficult day in trouble times for our families, our community, our state, our country, our world or humanity for Creation. For all that moves and grows in this world. From the death of loved ones and illnesses, shootings and hateful words and arrests. Fear over safety healthcare. Unsure of how to survive or what will come next. We cannot live there all the time that quiet place. We must find that quiet place with God.
Perhaps there is still an opportunity for us to go to ourselves. Maybe we make a quiet place in ourselves or a space in our homes. Place outside and we contemplate and we ask for Mercy and we. Listen to the movement of God and we breathe and courage and strength and hope