Have you heard of the desert fathers, who lived in the 3rd
and 4th century AD in and around Palestine, and Egypt? Who are they?
What is their significance to early Christianity? I happened to read about them
recently, thanks to Covid -19 lock-down. I was quite amazed at what I learnt
about them and I thought of sharing it with you, my readers!
Very early, around 3rd century, monks, who had
surrendered their lives to God and wished to stay away from the world so that
they can concentrate on God totally, retired to lonely uninhabited places,
later on to deserts, for meditation and prayer. This gradually led to
monasticism in the 4th century. Bible does not call people to
monastic life. But we always had ascetics like John the Baptist in the NT and
Elijah and Elisha in the OT. It was a longing to live for God alone, to prepare
oneself through practice of asceticism, flight from the world and through
fasting and prayer they aspired to get close to God.
One of the very first desert fathers was Saint Antony, born
in 271 in Egypt to very rich Christian parents. His life story is written by
Athanasius of Alexandria, Egypt.[1]
When his parents died when Antony was 20 years old, he gave all the family
property of some 300 acres to the villagers,[2]
put her younger sister in a convent and went outside the village to practice discipline
in solitude. He practiced severe penance; constant in prayer, read and studied
Bible, ate just once a day, that too bread, salt and water; lay on bare ground
or a rush mat. He started to live in tombs, went in one of the tombs and shut
himself inside, kept praying. Satan and demons tried every trick to dissuade
him from prayers, but he firmly held on to his faith. Then he went to the
desert nearby, found a ruined fort and made it his home for the next 20 years.
He would store for six months bread given by travelers and people, but refused
to meet people, but people thronged him. He would weave baskets to give people
in return for the food grains, etc, which they gave him.
Later he started a monastery for young disciples who wanted
to follow his footsteps. He was full of Holy Spirit, pure in his soul, and God
used him to heal sicknesses, cleanse leprosy, cast out evil spirits, and many
miracles were performed. He consoled the sorrowful and exhorted everyone to love
Christ more than the world. He advised them to practice prudence, justice,
temperance, courage, understanding, love, kindness to the poor, faith in
Christ, freedom from wrath and hospitality. His famous exhortation to young
monks was, ‘to live as though dying daily.’ He lived up to 105 years and died
in 285 AD. His devotion to Christ was legendary.
St. Jerome, (342-420 AD), a Latin priest, theologian and
historian, who had translated the Bible into Latin, which is called the
Vulgate, who himself had lived for sometime as a hermit in Syrian desert, has
written about three other Desert Fathers.
Paul of Thebes, is said to have lived even earlier to St.
Antony of Egypt. He was also born rich, in Egypt, but had great love for
Christ. Due to persecution during the time of Decius and Velarian, Roman
Emperors in 249-260 AD, he fled to rocky mountains and entering a cave fell
into prayer and lived there till he was 113 years old! Raven used to feed him
with bread.
St. Hilarion was another hermit born near Gaza, a city of
Palestine. His parents were idolaters, who sent him to Alexandria to study but
he became a Christ-lover. He visited St. Antony and stayed with him for two
months. On return to his place, as his parents had died, he gave off his
properties to his relatives and poor and became a monk at the age of 14. He
went to a nearby place and lived in a hut of reed, lived on dried figs and lay
on ground to sleep. He memorized Scripture, prayed, sang, recited these verses and
grew close to God. He also performed many miracles as empowered by the Holy
Spirit. Many monasteries sprung up all over Palestine. He used to go and visit
these cells of the other hermits once a year, guide them, cheer them up and
return to his place.
At 63 years of age, Hilarion was the head of a grand
monastery with lots of resident brothers. People used to bring their sick to
him to be healed and he healed them. But he wanted solitude and so left the
place. Where ever he tried to go in search of solitude, his fame preceded him
and people started to come to visit him. In the end he went to an interior
place in Cyprus and stayed there. At the age of 80 years he died having served
the Lord for nearly 70 years.
Malchus was another monk born in Nisibis, Syria. When his
parents wanted him to marry and lead a normal life, he fled his place as he
wanted to become a monk. He joined some monks in the desert of Chalcis and
lived there, fasting and earning his livelihood by labor of his hands. After
many years when he decided to return home to see his mother, he was taken
captive by Saracen traders and along with another woman, sold as slaves and
made to work as laborer. The woman, already married, took him as her brother, and
so he was able to keep up his chastity. He prayed continually and sang psalms
in spite of all these hardships. After a few years he escaped, along with that
woman and they came to Mesopotamia, entered a monastery and lived a monastic
life, with that woman taking care of the virgins. This life story is an example
of chastity. St. Jerome writes that in the midst of swords and wild beasts of
the desert, ‘virtue is never a captive, but free and alive.’
These desert fathers showed the way to monastic life, with
complete devotion and surrender of their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ. St.
Augustine of Hippo, a contemporary of St. Jerome, entered a monastery when he
was converted to Christianity in 386 AD. He was influenced by the life of St.
Antony, the desert father, and later became the Bishop of Hippo, and a
Christian scholar of repute, also one of the Latin Church Fathers.
These desert fathers and Church Fathers belonged to the
undivided church of Christ. Unfortunately after the Reformation, these saints
were neglected and relegated as saints of the Catholic Church, thus depriving
us of a great theological heritage. We need to claim them as our own and learn
good things relating to spirituality from them. They offered their lives as a
sacrifice to the Lord and spent their time in poverty and ascetic practices and
were used mightily by God to preserve purity and the essence of Christian life.
They are great models, whom we may not be able to emulate fully, but at least
can adopt their simplicity, spend more time with the study of Bible and prayer,
and not run after the world and what the world has to offer.
As the times are nearing to the return of our Lord, these
spiritual disciplines become all the more necessary. I am hoping this account will
stimulate you to become a serious student of Christ and his teachings just as it
did to me.
[1]
Athanasius, the Great, (296-373 AD) was a great theologian, Church Father who
defended Trinitarianism against heresy and was the Bishop f Alexandria.
[2]
Matthew 19:21
