Ashes of the Desert Fathers
Ashes of the Desert Fathers
Wisdom from the earliest Christian monks for Ash Wednesday
And an old man was also asked, “Why am I afraid when I go about in the desert?' The old man said to him, Because you are still alive.”1
Modeling Jesus’ time in the desert, Ash Wednesday marks the start of the Christian 40-day pilgrimage to Easter known as Lent.
Rather than getting into discussions of ascetic practices of what we’re renouncing or what we’re embracing, which are still great things to do, I wanted to share a bit about some of the earliest roots of these practices in the Christian tradition through a few sayings of the Desert Fathers (whose sayings also included a handful of women).
Beginning in the third century in Egypt, the Desert Fathers were kind of the original spiritual punk rockers once Christianity got too pop. They felt the Christianity of the city had gotten too watered-down, wanting to get not only out of Dodge but out of the lifestyle they had been conditioned into. Starting some of the earliest Christian monasteries out in the desert, they embraced extreme disciplines and experimentation of living and dying to Christ.
Some of their sayings and stories were collected over the years and eventually documented and passed around monasteries for generations. You can find them in full compilations like Palladius of Galatia made in the 4th century, or read them more selectively with much greater context from Thomas Merton’s book about them. According to my former professor, priest Regina Walton, the stories of the Desert Fathers are like “tabasco sauce spirituality,” black box theater, waiting for Godot-esque. They’re stripped-down vignettes with thin plots and few props, a distilled, high-concentration of Christian apophatic mysticism.
The sayings of the Desert Fathers are the closest thing Christianity has to Zen koans, little case studies and lessons designed to impart sometimes contradictory wisdom. They are also, at times, funny to the point where I once had a post drafted a while back comparing them to Johnny Knoxville’s crew—“Hello, I’m St. Anthony, and welcome to Thebes.” Like Knoxville and gang, sometimes this led to punishing the body to such extremes that one wonders if you are witnessing wisdom or insanity. But perhaps also like Knoxville and the Zen masters, these spiritual pioneers were more fundamentally seeking simplicity to see the world more clearly, and while doing so brings pain, it ultimately brings more joy. They were not anti-cultural to be misanthropic (if sometimes close), but to become more free. As Merton would say of them, “You have to have the characteristic of a clean break with a conventional, accepted social context in order to swim for one’s life into an apparently irrational void.”2
This is one reason to do Lenten practices: to make a change in the spiritual, you have to commit to a sacrifice in the concrete, practical, and experiential. But why do this to such extremes? Just to work on themselves and their enlightenment? While we naturally think of our Lenten practices as about ourselves, the stakes were greater for the Desert Fathers. As Merton would say:
The Coptic hermits who left the world as though escaping from a wreck, did not merely intend to save themselves. They knew that they were helpless to do any good for others as long as they floundered about in the wreckage. But once they got a foothold on solid ground, things were different. Then they had not only the power but even the obligation to pull the whole world to safety after them.3
And this is the reason that Christ goes into the desert: not for his sake, but for ours. So, too, should be the compass of our Lenten journey, and indeed our faith walk. Not for its own sake or ours, but to serve God by serving each other.
So while they spent much longer than 40 days in the desert, here are just a few selections from hundreds of sayings collected by Palladius of Galatia, little nuggets passed around these monastic communities by word of mouth for years and years before being written down. I’ve selected some just for Ash Wednesday. I invite you to read them slowly, sitting for a few moments after each one, and see what comes to you.
A certain old man returned an answer against evil thoughts, and said to the brothers, “Now I beseech you, O my brothers, that we cease from the ascetic life and its labours, and that we also desist from the anxieties of evil thoughts. For what are we? A sound which comes from the fine dust, or a sound which comes from the dust of the ground. Joseph of Ramah, having asked to [be allowed to] take away the body of Jesus, removed it and swathed it with swathings of fine linen, and then laid it in a new grave. Now the pure heart is the new grave of the new man.”
Saying 453
Abba Poemen used to say that Abba Isidore used to twist into ropes a great bundle of palm leaves each night, and [on one occasion] the brothers entreated him, saying, “Rest yourself a little, for you have worked too much.” And he said unto them, “If we were to burn Isidore and to scatter his ashes to the winds, he would win happiness, for the Son of God came to the Passion because of us.”
Saying 251
An elder said: A man who keeps death before his eyes will at all times overcome his cowardice.
Saying 138
A brother asked an old man, saying, “Show me a word whereby I may live.” The old man said to him, “Work with your hands with all your power, and give alms.”
Saying 363
Amma Sarah said, “If I prayed God that all men should approve of my conduct, I should find myself a penitent at the door of each one, but I shall rather pray that my heart may be pure towards all.”
Saying 75
Abraham his disciple thereupon said to him, “Father, if there happens to be a congregation on the Sabbath, or on Sunday, and a brother drinks three cups of wine, is that too much?” The old man said to him, “If Satan did not exist three cups would not be too much to drink, but since he does exist three cups are too much.”
Saying 85
[Syncletica] said, “Just as one cannot build a ship unless one has some nails, so it is impossible to be saved without humility.”
She also said, “There is grief that is useful, and there is grief that is destructive.”
Sayings 26 and 27
Abba Sisoes said to a brother, “How are you getting on?” and he replied, “I am wasting my time, father.” The old man said, “If I happen to waste a day, I am grateful for it.”
Saying 54
One of the elders was asked what was humility, and he said: If you forgive a brother who has injured you before he himself asks pardon.
Saying LXXXIV4
Another elder said: “If you see a young monk by his own will climbing up into heaven, take him by the foot and throw him to the ground, because what he is doing is not good for him.”5
Saying 631
He said to them, “Pour out some of the water into a basin, and look down to the bottom through it,” and they did so. And he said to them, “What do you see ?” and they said, “We see nothing.” And after the water in the basin had ceased to move, he said to them a second time, “Look into the water,” and they looked, and he said to them, “What do you see?” And they said to him, “We see our own faces distinctly”; and he said to them, “Thus is it with the man who dwells with men, for by reason of the disturbance caused by this affair of the world he cannot see his sins; but if he live in the peace and quietness of the desert he is able to see God clearly.”
Saying 3
[And Abba Anthony said,] “Not all works are alike. For Scripture says that Abraham was hospitable and God was with him. Elias loved solitary prayer, and God was with him. And David was humble, and God was with him. Therefore, whatever you see your soul to desire according to God, do that thing, and you shall keep your heart safe.”
Saying 216
Abba Joseph said to Abba Lot, “You are unable to become a monk, but you may become wholly like a flame which burns and blazes fiercely.”
Saying 462
And make yourself as the dust in [your] humility towards every man, knowing [at the same time] that there is hope [for you]…The night which is darkness to other folk will be to you bright as the day, and instead of filling yourself with wine as other men do, fill you yourself with the love of God; and in the night season, when silver and gold are stolen, do you steal the kingdom [of heaven] like a thief.
Saying 602
That will do for now. Blessings on your Lent season.
For those who want to journey with the Desert Fathers this Lent, I’ll be reading through Thomas McKenzie’s “Lent with the Desert Fathers.” Leave a comment below or shoot me a line if you want to join.
Palladius of Galatia, The Sayings of the Holy Desert Fathers, p204, Kindle edition
Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, p9.
Ibid, p23.
Referenced by Merton as LXXXIV, though I cannot find the equivalent in Palladius’ work
Translation by Merton
Translation by Merton