"The ascetics of Scete and the Thebaid in the Egyptian Desert have been more often admired than known or understood. Translations by such scholars as Helen Wadd
`Give me a word, Father', visitors to early desert monks asked. The responses of these pioneer ascetics were remembered and in the fourth century written down i
The Wisdom of the Desert was one of Thomas Merton's favorites among his own books—surely because he had hoped to spend his last years as a hermit. The persona
Sister Benedicta notes in her Introduction that ‘the virtues and obligations inherent in the gospel for all are presented in the literature of the desert in s
The Desert Fathers were the first Christian monks, living in solitude in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. In contrast to the formalised and official