ANACHORESIS

The Legacy of Withdrawal in the Desert Fathers

Introduction
Religious life in Christianity is facing a big existential crisis in the cross-cultural changing paradigms of
the 21st century. Church attendance and religious affiliation have plummeted drastically in recent decades.
Some argue that religiosity is not declining, but its relation with the institutional Church is what is
crumbling. Should we then open up to modernity and speak to the people increasingly more in todays
language? Should we any more strive for an institutional type of religious life and social services by the
Churches?
The Churchs worst sin is spiritual worldliness, says the Argentinean Cardinal Jorge Mario
Bergoglio who became Pope Francis (13 March 2013). In his talks and sermons, he frequently exhorts that
the locus of religious life must always be the outskirts: Bishops, priests and religious leave the
comfort of their homes, convents and residences and minister to the poor.1 He cautions, We need to
avoid the spiritual sickness of a Church that is wrapped up in its own world: when a Church becomes like
this, it grows sick.2 If so, can we agree with any mandate that insists upon having a change with regard to
the locus of religious life from the convent residences to the outskirts and streets? At the same time, can we
disregard the possibility of increasing the deviance of the society when the tarnished images of some
pastors and vulnerable priests and religious exert an influence in the attitudes of the people and the
religious to anything pronouncedly religious? Are not these problems of self-centeredness influenced by
problems that lie beyond our own personal crisis?
Pope Franciss vociferation and outcry for the change of ambience of life and mission of the
religious and pastors has a double background, namely, the real reason for his change of name in
accordance with his spiritual mission and his religious existence as a Jesuit. The Latin American born Jorge
Mario Bergoglio has chosen to call himself Francis, precisely because Francis is not only a name but also
a project of the Church. Up to the twelfth century, the rationale of religious life remained always being in
the cell, because cell represented the monastic life. It was with Francis of Assisi that a drastic change
against the religious ideology of being entombed in the cell encroached into the Church; that is, carry the
cell wherever you go. For we, wheresoever we be, or whithersoever we may walk, have always the cell
with us. 3

P. Downes, Panel: Popes Message Validates Catholic Charities Mission, in Hawaii Catholic Herald, News Paper of the
Diocese of Honolulo, 02, 28, 2014.
2
A. Speciale and K. Eckstrom, Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio elected as Pope Francis, in The Christian Century, Mar 13,
2013.
3
Leo of Assisi, The Mirror of Perfection, Burns & Oates Ltd, London, 1920, 110, (MP 65). Cf. D. J. Leclercq, Camaldolese
Extraordinary:The Life, Doctrine, and Rule of Blessed Paul Giustniani, The Camaldolese Hermits of Monte Corono, Ohio,
1986, 49.

Secondly, as a Jesuit, being rooted in the Ignatian spirit, Jorge Mario Bergoglio elicits the Ignatian vision of
going to the frontiers and being simul in contemplatione activus (i.e., being at once active and
contemplative).4 Ignatius challenged the notion that profound mystical experience could be found only in
the silence of a monastic cell or in a hut in the desert.
It is against this backdrop that we revisit Christian religious life at its historical source the crux of
desert monasticism namely, the concept and practice of anachoresis. In this study, I shall argue in favour
of the essence of anachoresis (withdrawal) the shibboleth (slogan) of desert Christians that is still valid
as far as religious and Christian life is concerned. In so arguing, I shall take perhaps what is considered
only a minority view. Nevertheless, I will of course list evidences at various points as to why I do so.
Indeed, Christian forms of religious life as viewed by the desert elders share several features that differ a
great deal on the level of social organization and institutional governance of today, but their orientation
remains the same, which it is that this study undertakes to examine and defend.
Our investigation is done on two desert resources such as the insiders view, which is a collection of
the sayings called apophthegmata patrum5 and from the ab extra survey. The later consists of both
biographies and travelers (religious tourists) reports and the treatises on monastic life. Biographies
are divided into two groups: biographies of individual hermits6 and collections of short biographies.7 The
reports of travelers and the treatises on monastic life include mainly the teachings of Evagrius of
Ponticus, the Conferences of Cassian and the writings of Dorotheus of Gaza.8 Besides these two primary
sources, we also listen, for a judicious assessment, to the current developments in desert scholarship.9
4

B. McGill, Mysticism, in Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, ed., P. Sheldrake, SCM Press, London, 2005, 19.
It is a collection of early monastic teachings from fourth- and fifth-century Egypt, and in particular from Nitria and Scetis.
known in Greek as Gerontikon or Paterikon, in Latin as Verba Seniorum, and in English usually as The Sayings of the Desert
Fathers. Cf. G. S. Wakefield, ed., The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, Claretian Publications, Quezon City,
1983, 19. The main translation is referred from B. Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection,
Cistercian Publications, London, 1975. B. Ward, The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers: Apophthegmata Patrum from the
Anonymous Series, SLG Press, Oxford, 1975.
6
We have biographies of Antony written by Athanasius, Latin Version by Evagrius, Life of Paul, written by St. Jerome, and
biography of Pachomius. See also, O. Chadwick, John Cassian, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1968, 5-9.
7
There are two biographical collections: The Lausiac History of Palladius, and the Historia Monachorum. Cf. Palladius, Lausiac
History, C. Butler, ed., Texts and Studies 6, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1904; The Historia Monachorum in
Aegypto, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, 1980.
8
Cf. E. Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, 1981, xxix.
9
P. Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity, University of California Press, New York,1982; The Body and Society: Men,
Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, Columbia University Press, New York, 1988; The Making of Late
Antiquity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1978;and The Notion of Virginity in the Early Church, in Christian Spirituality:
Origins to the Twelfth Century, Harvard University Press, London, 1986; D. Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture
and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism, Oxford University Press, New York, 1933; C. Stewart, Cassian the
Monk, Oxford University Press, New York, 1998; C. J. Peifer, Monastic Spirituality, Sheed and Ward, New York, 1966; T.
Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings of the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Centaury, Sheldon Press, London, 1973; T.
Spidlik, Prayer: The Spirituality of the Christian East. Vol. 2, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, 2005; The Spirituality of the
Christian East: A Systematic Handbook, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, 1986; I. Hausherr, Spiritual Direction in the Early
Christian East, trans., A. P. Gythiel, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, 1990; J. O. Hannay, Spirit and Origin of Christian
Monasticism, Methuen & Co, London,1903; J. E. Goehring, Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Egyptian Monasticism,
Trinity Press International, Harrisburg, 1999; S. Elm, Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity, Oxford
University Press, New York, 1994. M. Dunn, The Emergence of Monasticism: From Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages,
Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2003; J. Driscoll, Steps to Spiritual Perfection: Studies on Spiritual Progress in Evagrius
Ponticus, The Newman Press, New York, 2005; E. A. Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early
5

This study is divided into three parts: Part I deals with the concept of anachoresis. Part II explores the
objective of anachoresis, namely, the Scopos (proximate goal) and Telos (ultimate goal). Part III concludes
with an appraisal.
Part I. The Concept of Desert Anachoresis
The concept of anachoresis is one of the most significant spiritual themes in the history of Eastern and
Western Christianity, particularly within the tradition of monasticism. The realization of anachoresis,
withdrawal of individuals or group of people from the world in order to live rigorous ascetical and spiritual
purity, did not emerge overnight. Furthermore, anachoresis, as a radical departure, even did not exist
previously in the Christian world. In view of a synoptic apprehension, at the outset, of what is desert
anachoresis, we explain the etymology and also the origin of the Christian concept and practice of
anachoresis specifically the rationale and taxonomy of anachoresis, the practice of anachoresis outside
the milieu of Egypt, and finally the characteristics of desert anachoresis.
1.1. Etymology and Development of Anachoresis
The term anachoresis is derived from the Greek word anachre, (: + ) to go
backward, to depart, to go away, to withdraw, to retire, to retreat.10 Anachoresis literally means
flight11 or withdrawal (e.g. from battle, public life, world).12 Anachoresis was the official legal term for
illegal absence from civic duties and for tax evasion. It is not clear that those evading their responsibilities
actually fled.13 Hence, anachoresis in its original sense means giving up ones rights and duties, which
human persons possess as a member of society, and taking up a special position toward the world.14
Functionally, anachoresis began to designate departure of individuals or groups of individuals from public
life to an environment more suited to the practice of asceticism, asksis.15 Gradually it became a technical
expression to indicate the forms of monastic life of the time.16 Thus, monastic life is a withdrawal
(anachoresis) from the world.17 Anachoresis as equivalent to monasticism, began as a reference to the

Christianity, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1999; J. Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the
Desert Fathers and Mothers, World Wisdom Books, Bloomington, 2003; D. J. Chitty, The Desert a City: An Introduction to the
Study of Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism under the Christian Empire, Basil Blackwell, Oxford,1966; H. Chadwick, The
Ascetic Ideal in the Early Church. Monks, Hermits and the Ascetic Tradition. W. J. Sheils, ed., Blackwell, Oxford, 1985;
These are a few of the larger works in English.
10
Cf. H. G. Liddell, R. Scott and H. Stuart Jones, A Greek- English Lexicon, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1940. See also, W. J.
Perschbacher, ed., The New Analytical Greek Lexicon, 26; Mat.2, 12, Mat.9, 24; Acts 23, 19; 26, 31.
11
J. E. Goehring, Ascetics, Society, and the Desert, 1999, 77.
12
E. Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer, 1981, 30.
13
Cf. Rubenson, The Letters of St. Antony: Making Monasticism and the Making of a Saint, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1995,
93. M. Dunn, The Emergence of Monasticism, 2003, 2.
14
Cf. E. Gambari, The Global Mystery of Religious Life, trans., M. M. Bellasis, St. Paul Editions, Boston, 1973, 163.
15
Cf. V. L. Wimbush and R. Valantasis, eds., Asceticism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998, 14.
16
E. Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer, 1981, 30.
17
G. M. Colombas, The Ancient Concept of the Monastic Life, Monastic Studies, Number 2, Our lady of the Holy Cross Abbey,
Virgina, 1964, 73.

material fact of withdrawal, but gradually became more spiritual than material, involving a certain
separation from secular interests in order to belong to God alone.18
1.1.1. Anachoresis in the Bible
Living in this world as foreigners, strangers and pilgrims is a familiar theme in both the Old and New
Testaments. In the Exodus story, Israelites were always the prime example of a displaced people (Ex 2:22).
The chosen people as strangers in this world are well represented in the psalms: We are aliens and
strangers in your sight, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow (1Chron 29: 15).
Hear my prayer, O Lord, and listen to my cry for help; be not deaf to my weeping. For I dwell with you as
an alien, a stranger, as all my fathers were (Ps 39: 12, Ps 119: 19, Ps 102: 26-28). Here, for the Psalmist
the world is opposed and hostile to goodness and genuineness, in contrast to Gods eternity.
On the other hand, the NT has many connections with the desert and the Exodus story, for example
in the arresting words of Peter describing his Christian readers as aliens and strangers in the world. Peter
reminds his readers that they are Gods elect, strangers in the world ... who have been chosen (I Peter
1:1, 2). Peter avers, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which
war against your soul (I Peter 2:11). Paul also interprets various features of the Exodus story as allegories
or types of the life of the community of the New Covenant (1Cor 10:1-4). The Letter to the Hebrews uses
the theme of wilderness in a similar way.19 The author of the letter takes the wilderness theme more
ostensibly than Paul, insisting separation from the world explicitly in order to incorporate a better home in
the future. Abraham and his descendents were aliens and strangers because they were longing for a better
country, a heavenly one (Heb 11: 13 & 16). However, the NT does not insist on Christians having a flight
from this world, but conversion of heart (metanoian), assesses Louis Bouyer.20 They are warned to use
things as though they were not dealing with them.
1.1.2. Anachoresis in the Apostolic Church
The concept of anachoresis is virtually apparent even in the apostolic age (A.D. 170).21 Here we have a
strong apathy towards the ways of the world; and it manifests itself in various ways. Generally, the idea of
anachoresis during this epoch was a poverty-based option for Christian living, categorized as koinonia.22 A
striking description of the common life shared by the early believers in Jerusalem is found in Acts: All
18

G. M. Colombas, 73.
Cf. U. W. Mauser, Christ in the Wilderness: The Wilderness Theme in the Second Gospel and Its Basis in the Biblical
Tradition, Studies in Biblical Theology, SCM, London, 1963, 72-74.
20
L. Bouyer, The Spirituality of the New Testament and the Fathers, Desclee Company, New York, 1963, 38; See also D. Rees,
Consider Your Call: A Theology of Monastic Life Today, SPCK, London, 1978, 31; G. Haeffiner, World in Encyclopedia of
Theology, K. Rahner, ed., St. Pauls, New Delhi, 2004, 1834.
21
For a more illustrated explanation of this notion, cf. K. Berger and J. Danielou, Apostolic Church, in Encyclopedia of
Theology,. K. Rahner, ed., St. Pauls, New Delhi, 2004, 27-33. See also, W. A. Jurgen, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol.1, T
PI, Bangalore, 1992, 40.
22
Cf. L. Hertling, Communion, Church and Papacy in Early Christianity, J. Wicks, trans., Loyola University Press, Chicago,
1972; Robinson, Communion, Fellowship, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 752-753.
19

who believed were together and had all things in common. They would sell their possessions and goods
and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need (Act 2: 44-45). The expressions of great renunciation of
the world was comprised of poverty, virginity, fasting and a community-based living.23 According to
Weizacker:
The members of the earliest community continued to live fully and vigorously in the worlds which
foreshadowed and enjoined the highest renunciation, the renunciation of family happiness, as well as,
generally, of every blessing of life. No price was too high to pay for following Jesus home, property,
means, fortune, hope, good name, and, in the end, life itself.24

In the apostolic age, we find two motives behind the idea of anachoresis. The first is the expectation of the
immediate second coming of the Lord (new aeon the era of the Messiah). It is against this
eschatological background that St. Paul urges the Corinthians of the need to have an indifferent life:
Brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be
as though they had none, those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the
present form of this world is passing away (1Cor 7: 29-31).
Secondly, in the apostolic age, we see a strong belief in the existence and influence of demons (the
powers of evil) and the conviction was that only Christ could conquer them.25 Money and worldly positions
(Cf. Mt. 6: 24), desires of flesh (Cf.1 Jn 2: 16), errors and heresies,26 persecutions,27 were all attributed to
the works of demons. Hence, the exhortation was, Love not the world (1Jn 2:15). We cannot say
absolutely that the early Christians anachoresis was exclusively the result of their belief in the reality and
power of demons. However, Waaijman strongly supports this view saying that when the monks marched
into the desert with Antony, Satan was afraid that now even his last place of refuge would be taken from
him.28
1.1.3. Anachoresis in the Post-Apostolic Church
The development of anachoresis is more clear and demanding among the second- and third-century
Christians. They regarded themselves as strangers in this world. In the early centuries of the Church the
entire Christian community lived somewhat separate from the world. The very fact of becoming a Christian
cut a man off to an appreciable extent from wealth, social position and the mainstream of public life. 29
Says Claude J. Peifer. The theme of separation and rejection of the world was common among erudite
Christian writers.

23

J. O. Hannay, Spirit and Origin of Christian Monasticism, 31.

W. Carl Von, The Apostolic Age of the Christian Church, J. Millar, trans., Williams and Norgate, London, 1912, 347- 348.
25
For the concept of demons see D. Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2000;
Epistle of Barnabas, XVI, cited in J. O. Hannay, Spirit and Origin of Christian Monasticism, 38.
26
Cf. J. O. Hannay, Spirit and Origin of Christian Monasticism, 35.
27
Cf. Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia Ecclesiastica, 2 Vols., Greek Texts with English translation by K. Lake and J. E. L. Oulton,
Loeb Classical Library, VI, 27, Harvard University Press, London, 1926.
28
K. Waaijman, Spirituality: Forms, Foundations, Methods, J. Vriend, trans., Peeters, Dudley, 2002, 266. See also Chryssavgis,
John Climacus: From the Egyptian Desert to the Sinaite Mountain, Ashgate Publishing Company, Chicago, 2004, 179.
29
C. J. Peifer, Monastic Spirituality,1966, 36.
24

a. St. Clement of Rome (ca. A.D. 80140)

Clement, the first of the Apostolic Fathers,30 in his salutation letter to the Corinthians, avers that the
Churches in Rome and in Corinth were an ecclesia paroikeo (Church sojourns): The Church of God
which sojourns in Rome, to the Church of God sojourning in Corinth. 31 In this connection, it is worth
mentioning that the word parish has the following connotations since it derives from the Greek root word
(paroikia): sojourning in a foreign land and itself from (paroikos) dwelling beside,
stranger, sojourner,32 which is a compound of (para) beside, by near33 and (oykos) home,
house, temple.34 Furthermore, to emphasize the need of anachoresis, he gives a number of examples such
as Abraham as stranger in his land, the life of Christians in Acts 7 and the ideas in the Letter to the
Hebrews.35
b. Irenaeus (ca. A.D. 140 ca. A.D. 202)
In speaking of Christian oikonomia (economy: plan behind things or events),36 Irenaeus argues that
patriarchs and prophets lived as foreigners in the world (peregrinari): Abraham, Isaac and Jacob prefigure
what is to come, and the economies of God accustom his people to live as strangers in the world and to
follow the guidance of his word. Scripture prescribes a life, which is alien to the world and obedient to God
(4.21.3).37 As for Irenaeus, whoever is united with Christ, if they look back, can make out Abraham as the
father of all Gods pilgrim people.38
c. Diognetus (ca. A.D. 125 200)
The anonymous letter to Diogenetus of second-century analyses the Church as a distinct and autonomous
society. Thus, we read:
Yet while living in Greek and barbarian cities they show forth the wonderful and confessedly
strange character of the constitution of their own citizenship. They dwell in their own fatherlands, but
as if sojourners (paroikoi) in them; they share all things as citizens, and suffer all things as strangers.
Every foreign country is their fatherland, and every fatherland is a foreign country.39

30

Paul mentions Clement by name in Philipians 4:3. Origen tells us that Clement was a disciple of the Apostles (De Principus,
Book II, Chapter 3). Tertullian informs us that the Apostle Peter appointed Clement (Against Heresies, Chapter 23). Irenaeus
also mentions Clementss association with Apostles. Cf. Against Heresies, Chapter 3.
31
The Apostolic Fathers I, LCL 24, B. D. Ehrman, ed., and trans., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2003,
34. Cf. W. A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 1, TPI, Bangalore, 1984, 7. Cf. C. C. Richardson, Early Christian
Fathers, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1970, 43. To know more about terms ecclesia and paroikia See Bible Works
APM, 1 Clement.
32
J. Strong, Greek Dictionary of The New Testament, Books for the Ages, Ages Software, Albany, Version 1.0 1997, 364. Cf.
H. G. Liddell and R. Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon, Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1996, 1342.
33
J. Strong, Greek Dictionary of the New Testament, 1997, 354.
34
Ibid., 331.
35
Clement of Rome 10.
36
For Irenaeus theory of economy, see. E. Osborn, Irenaeus of Lyons, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2003, 78.
37
E. Osborn, Irenaeus of Lyons, 2003, 80; Cf. J. Keble, Five Books of St. Irenaeus, James Parker & Co, London, 1872, 319.
38
E. Osborn, Irenaeus of Lyons, 2003, 140.
39
The Letter to Diognetus, 5.5, K. Lake, ed., and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, Vol. 2, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library,
Cambridge, MA, 1976, 358-359.

The author of this letter goes on to describe how the Christians in the world are like soul in the body
inhabiting in the world but not of it.
d. Origen (ca. A.D.185 254)
Origen has a massive role in introducing the theme of anachoresis in the monastic sense. Origen gives a
profound allegorical interpretation of the whole of the Exodus story, applying it to the spiritual life. 40 Egypt
is identified with the evil world. The king of Egypt is the prince of this world, namely, the devil, who
allows none to lift their eyes heavenward.41 However, God sent His Word to deliver us, as He had sent His
word through Moses.42 The withdrawal from Egypt involves casting aside barbarian customs, laying aside
the old man and putting on the new.43 Hence, it is necessary indeed to go to the desert, where the changes
and chances of the world do not penetrate, a place of calm and silence where we can experience God. 44 He
believed that inner detachment from the things of this world is indispensable to the service of God: I say,
we must flee it (the world) not in place, but in thought.45 Anyone progressing in the ascent to God seeks a
separation that is ever more intense. Such a man is found in no worldly deed, in no fleshly thing, in vain
conversation.46 However, Origen explicitly states that he is speaking in spiritual terms he is not
advocating a physical separation.47
1.1.4. The Origin of Desert Anachoresis
Scholars posit different assumptions regarding the influences and the birth of Christian desert anachoresis.
Some believe Christian anachoresis as an after-effect of non-Christian influences; namely, from the
wandering Buddhist monks, Egyptian sects (such as katachoi and the temple of Serapis), Greek
philosophical schools (like the Stoics, the Neo-Pythagoreans, and the Neo-Platonists), ancient Jewish
ascetical movements, (including the Therapeutae and the Essenes), and widespread ascetical religious
movements (such as the Manichees, and the Gnostics). As for Lewis Naphtali, anachoresis was a reaction
of economic crisis followed by high taxation from the farmers in the third- and fourth-century Egypt.48
However, the papyri documents do not agree with this assessment. In contrast, the papyri comment
that the destination of anachoresis was neither the desert nor the religious life but another village, where
they were followed by demands either from imperial officials or from their fellow villages for their return
says Marilyn Dunn in her book, The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early
40

Hom in Ex, 7.5; 15.3; 27. 4-5; 28. 2, 4, Cf. Origen, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, R. E. Heine, trans., Fathers of the Church
71, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1982; W. A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 1, 203215.
41
Origen, Hom in Ex, 1.5; 2.1 & 3.
42
Origen, Hom in Num, 27.2.
43
Origen, Hom in Ex, 1.5.
44
Ibid., 16.4.
45
Origen, Hom 3 in Ex.
46
Origen, Hom 27 on Num 12.
47
Hom in Ex, 3.3; Hom in Lev, 11.1; Hom in Lev, 12.4. Cf. Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah, J. Clark Smith, trans., Fathers of the
Church 97, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1998.
48
Cf. L. Naphtali, Life in Egypt under Roman Rule, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1983, 108.

Middle Ages.49 The third probable reason was the response to persecution in mid-third century. Church
historian Eusebius acquiesces only with a group of men; however, he certainly does not find in them the
origin of the monastic life.50 Douglas Burton-Christie strongly argues, Whatever the spiritual motives of
the first anchorites may have been, they should not be distinguished too sharply from the social and
economic conditions just described . The withdrawal into the desert cannot be reduced to these factors. 51
According to James Goehring, the attempt to link the origin of Christian monasticism outside Christianity
is equal to going after a big bang theory of monastic origins.52 As for Peifer, postulations of nonChristian origin of anachoresis is only functional and merely historical curiosities. 53 We do not have
strong and valid evidences to conclude that any one of the above said propositions were responsible for the
origin and development of Monastic anachoresis.
1.1.4.1. Anachoresis as Gospel Radicalism
Monastic literature testifies that the movement anachoresis for the desert can be seen above all as fruition
or response to a call from God mediated through Scripture. Douglas Burton-Christie strongly holds the
view that; Christian anachoresis is fundamentally a Christian movement, rooted in the Scriptures.54 The
entire desert literature emphasizes the influence of Scripture in the life of the monks anachoresis.55 For
Eusebius, the ascetic life cannot be an accidental discovery. He viewed it as the elite form of Christian
existence. It is the highest demonstration of the Gospels. Hence, it is more accommodative to say that
anachoresis was a pursuit of the Bible; it is a radical way of following Christ, and accepting the Gospel as
mandatory for spiritual perfection. Hence, the evangelical perfection is projected to all believers without
any distinction; it is an invitation to take up ones cross every day (Lk 9:23), to renounce oneself (Mt
16:24), to hate ones father and mother (Lk14:24), to sell all that one has (Lk14:33). If you wish to be
perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven;
then come, follow me (Mt 19: 2-22; Mk 10: 21-22; Lk 18: 22-23.). To live a perfect life means to cut off
ones hand or pluck out the eye, which is a source of scandal (Mt 5:29-30), and live as a eunuch (Mt
19:12). Jesus emphatically declares: none of you can be my disciple if you do not give up all your
possessions (Lk 14:33). Jesus makes clear his call to renunciation further: How hard it is for those who
have riches to make their way into the kingdom of God! Yes, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye
of a needle than for someone rich to enter the kingdom of God (Lk 18: 24-25, Mt 19:23-24). Thus,
anachoresis is said to be a kind of evangelical maximalism. But, is physical separation a must, to carry out
the teachings of the Lord?
49

M. Dunn, The Emergence of Monasticism, 2.

J. E. Goehring, Ascetics, Society, and the Desert, 17.
51
D. Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert, 42.
52
J. E. Goehring, The Origins of Monasticism, H. W. Attridge and G. Hata, eds., Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1992,
235.
53
C. J. Peifer, Monastic Spirituality, 32.
54
To know more about the foreign influences see D. Burton-Christie, 297.
55
Athanasius, Life of Antony 2. Cf. J. O. Hannay, The Spirit and Origin of Christian Monasticism, 104.
50

1.1.4.2. Reaction against Secularism of the Church

The central reason for anachoresis as a movement, generally, is said to be a reaction against the danger of
secularization after the Church had been given freedom and Christianity had been adopted as the state
religion. In the late antiquity secularism mostly started after the cessation of the persecutions. During the
persecutions, Christians believed and lived in faithfulness to the Gospels. Once Christianity became the
official State religion, the ethos of spiritual segregation in the Church was disrupted; the Church had
already adopted considerable structure and had developed many doctrinal definitions. 56 To be Christian
was no longer a challenge. John Chryssavgis makes an appraisal of the sate of life of the Christians at the
time of Constantine. He puts it very overtly: Numbers of those who baptized rose dramatically; standards
dropped drastically The Church began to compromise between the things of God and the things of
Caesar.57 People were attracted to Christianity out of ease. St. Jerome reports what an eminent pagan
senator called Praetextatus, who was the prefect of Rome, said to Pope Damasus, Make me bishop of
Rome, and I will be a Christian tomorrow.58 Life-witnessing values were replaced by doctrines. Basil
exposes the shrouded fallacy of the teachings of the fathers of the time: Men are rather contrivers of
cunning systems than theologians . The shepherds are driven out; in their place grievous wolves are
brought in which harry the flock.59 The Roman Empire became the Christian Empire. The Poor Church
became a rich Church. The Persecuted Church became persecuting Church. The bishops thronged around
the emperors court and suggested the emperors policy.
1.2. Taxonomy of Anachoresis
In general, anachoresis is classified into two, namely, eremitical (anchoritic) and coenobitic monasticism.60
Hermits and coenobites are not two mutually opposed groups; on the contrary, they represent the two
spiritual poles of the monastic vocation, which are both irreducible and inseparable. However, there is a
distinct degree of separation between the coenobitic and solitary life. Hence, we consider doing a brief
evaluation of these two groups as they are revealed in the documents.
1.2.1. Anchoritic Monasticism
The anchoritic or the eremitic monasticism was begun with Antony the Great (251- 356), who was a Copt61
and a layperson. Antony is projected as the classic example of the monastic vocation and eremitical life. 62
56

D. Fisher, Liminality: The Vocation of the Church II, The Desert Image in Early Medieval Monasticism, in CS, Vol. XXV,
1990, 190.
57
J. Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, World Wisdom, Inc., Indiana,
2003, 16-17.
58
Cf. H. B. Workman, The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal: From the Earliest Times Down to the Coming of the Friars, Beacon
Press, Boston, 1913, 9.
59
Basil, Ep. 90. Cf. H. B. Workman, The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal, 9.
60
St. Jerome and Cassian distinguish three divisions: the anchorite, the cenobite, and a third division (for Jerome) called
remnuoth-remoboth, or (for Cassian) sarabaitae. St. Augustine speaks only of anchorites and cenobites. However, he admires
the ascetics who reside in the cities as a group. See J. E. Goehring, Ascetics, Society, and the Desert, 56.
61
The words Copt and Egyptian are identical in meaning. Both derive from the Greek word aigyptos, which the Hellenes

The Anchorites are also known as hermits or desert fathers. They renounced the world in favor of the
solitude and silence of the desert. Most of the desert fathers were men also known as abbas.63 The women
were referred to as mothers or ammas.64 Perhaps an inclusive term for desert fathers and mothers could be
elders.65 What is most evident and distinctive about these fathers and mothers is that they shunned a
society that placed its values in the goods of this world. They lived in separate huts without any common
rule, each one a law unto oneself, meeting at the Church on Sundays for Mass, to receive the Holy
Eucharist and a spiritual instruction. Each one had their own ways of ascetical practices.
1.2.1.1. The Development of the Anchoritic Monasticism
The eremitical mode of life pioneered by Antony found many successors. Athanasius claims that Antony
inspired many more by his example and he turned the desert into a city for monks, who registered
themselves for citizenship of the heavens. 66 Monks chose to live in clusters of cells, and were to some
extent under the influence of an elder. Among the most famous of these camps were the following.
a. Nitria
Nitria67 was the headquarters of semi-eremitical life in Lower Egypt during the middle of the fourth
century. The Nitrian monasticism was founded by Amoun (ca.295 C.E).68 In 330, he retired to Nitria and
became the first monk there. Gradually a good number of disciples joined him. Palladius, the desert
historian accounts for the strength of the monks towards the end of the fourth century as no fewer than five
thousand monks on the mount of Nitria alone. Palladius has given an interesting and detailed account of the
Nitriain monasticism. The monks lived under no rule, but each was left to follow his own inclinations, and
the life was entirely voluntary. In their cells the monks lived and worked and prayed, either alone, or
sometimes two or even more together.69 Since Nitria was close to Alexandria (60 km south), the Desert of
Nitria was most open to the intellectual Greek influence.70

used for both Egypt and the Nile.

62
Cf. Athanasius, The Life of Antony; J. Quasten, Patrology, Vol.III, Christian Classics, Thomas More Publishing, New York,
1959, 147-149. See also, L. Bouyer, The Spirituality of the New Testament and the Fathers, 308-321.
63
Abba is the Coptic word for father or elder; the Greek word was geron, Cf. J. Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert, 4;
Douglas Burton-Christine, 77.
64
Early Church histories rarely speak much about women dwelling in the desert. However, the historian Palladius, in his The
Lausiac History, estimated that the women outnumbered the men two to one. Cf. L. Swan, The Forgotten Desert Mothers:
Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women, Paulist Press, New York, 2001, 3. See also S. Galilea, The Dawn of
Spirituality, Claretian Publications, Quezion Citty, 1990, 8.
65
Among the desert elders there were men, women, and those who were eunuchs. Out of the one hundred and twenty-seven
elders mentioned in the alphabetical collections, the three are Amma Sarah, Amma Syncletica, and Amma Theodora. See J.
Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert, 89.
66
Athanasius, The Life of Antony 14.
67
The site of Nitria has been identified as modern EI-Barnugi; about 15 kilometers south-west of Hermopolis Parva, modern
Damanhur. Cf. Cassian, Conferences, 6.1.3.
68
About Amoun Cf. Palladius, Lausiac History, 41-42.
69
To know more about the Nitrian mode of life, see Palladius, The Lausiac History, 41.
70
L. Leioir, The Message of the Desert Fathers: Then and Now, in ABR 40: 3 (1989), 223.

10

b. Scete (Sketis)
It was Macarius (ca 300 C.E) the Egyptian, a disciple of Antony, who started monasticism in Scete (ca 330
C.E).71 Macarius set off from Nitria with two companions, settled in Scete and began to practice great selfdenial. Sketis became a monastic community in 356, being more hermits colony, with monks living in
individual cells spread in a sea area. Some of the renowned Scetic monks are Moses the Egyptian, 72
Daniel,73 Isidore the Priest74, Paphnutius75 and Serapion. The inhabitants of this desert are probably the
most faithful witnesses of primitive monasticism.76
c. Cellia (Kellia)
The settlement at Nitria grew into a large village, which forced them to seek greater solitude. Therefore,
some of the monks departed into the interior desert called Cellia,77 (also called laura/lavra) nine miles
distant from Nitria. Thus, the Historia Monachorum describes the place and the monks mode of living:
This place Cellia and who desire to live a remote life, stripped of all trappings, withdraw
themselves. For the desert is vast, and the cells are separated from one another by so wide a space, that
none is in sight of his neighbour, nor can any voice be heard.78 Kellia was more of a community of groups
of monks gathered around an abba. Among the famous of them were Macarius the Alexandrian, Evagrius
Ponticus and Palladius.79
1.2.2. Coenobitism
Coenobitic monasticism holds the life in common. It was started by Pachomius (290- 346), a pagan convert
and a contemporary of Antony, at Thebaid in Upper Egypt. 80 In the life of Pachomius, it is reported that he
had been initiated into solitary life under the guidance of an anchorite named Palamon. 81 Pachomius does
not disdain the anchoritic life. But rather he realized its difficulties and dangers, and prefers community
life, at least for ordinary monks. In fact, one of the essential marks of Pachomian coenobite was complete
subordination to a superior. Obedience became a fundamental characteristic in Pachomian monasticism.
Thus in coenobitic anachoresis the essential flight stressed is from ones own will or pride.82 Pachomius
had no intention to throw away the solitary life, but regarded coenobitical life as preparation for solitary

71

The Desert of Scetis is about another 64 km further south of Nitria. Cf. Cassian, Conferences, 6.1.3.
Cf. Palladius, The Lausiac History, 67-70.
73
Cf. B. Ward, 1984, 51.
74
Ibid., 97.
75
Ibid., 202.
76
L. Leioir, The Message of the Desert Fathers: Then and Now, 223.
77
The word Cella is derived from the Greek word kalia, hut, dwelling. Cf. E. A. Sophocles, Greek Lexicon of the Roman
and Byzantine Periods, Cambridge, Mass, 1887, 657b, and P. G. W. Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary, Oxford, 1982, 295.
78
Cf. The Historia Monachorum in Aegypto, 148-149.
79
P. F. Anson, The Call of the Desert: The Solitary Life in the Christian Church, S.P.C.K, London, 1964, 22.
80
Cf. D. J. Chitty, The Desert a City, 20-29.
81
Palaemon was the head of a group of ascetics. See James E. Goehring, Ascetics, Society, and the Desert, 81.
82
G. M. Colombas, The Ancient Concept of the Monastic Life, 101-102.
72

11

life. It was not a transitional phase of monasticism, but a viable form of life conducive for all.83 Therefore,
Pachomian monastic anachoresis is a part of the desert movement.84 The biblical prototype to which the
coenobites appealed was the primitive Jerusalem community. Thus, it reads: The multitudes of the
believers were of one heart and one soul, and had all things in common (Act 4:32). The early
Christians continued steadfastly in the teaching of the apostles and in the communion of the breaking of
the bread and in the prayers (Act 2:42). Cassian contents that this text might be the actual inspiration for
the coenobitic anachoresis.85
1.2.3. Desert Anachoresis Outside Egypt
The monastic development did not confine to Egypt alone. It spread to other parts of the world such as
Syria, Asia Minor and Palestine.
a. Syria
In Syria, the monastic style was exceptional in nature. Syria witnessed the appearance of strange classes of
solitaries. They were great individualists.86 Some solitaries chained themselves to rocks either in a cave or
in the open air. Some even remained motionless either on the ground or on a pillar. Of these, the most
celebrated was Simeon the Elder (389-459). He remained more than thirty years on his column thirty feet
high near Antioch.87 He was literally in the world yet not of it. Simeon ascends his pillar not to flee the
earthly life, but to serve as a dramatic statement of the Gospel. Simeon became a stylite, then, not in
penitence, not to deny his body nor to discipline it, but because through it he could fulfill Gods purpose.
By public witness of his actions the prophecy of behaviour he could efficaciously proclaim Gods
word.88The Syrian spirituality embarked on a monastic career not to punish or subdue the flesh but to
offer the body as a symbol of the faith.
b. Asia Minor
A more learned and liturgical monasticism developed at Cappadocia in Asia Minor. The key figure was St.
Basil the Great (330- 379). Basilian anachoresis is not based on the Egyptian monasticism. Although he
had been in Egypt, he was not attracted to the solitary life and perhaps had no contact even with
Pachomius. Unlike Pachomius, Basil bluntly opposed the solitary life. Basil went more on scripture to draw
out the pure evangelical teaching for the perfection of the Christian: The Bible is to be the foundation
upon which all monastic legislation is to rest. Scripture itself is to be the only Rule, and the life of the

83

G. M. Colombas, The Ancient Concept of the Monastic Life, 41.

G. M. Colombas, The Ancient Concept of the Monastic Life, 41.
85
J. Cassian, Conferences, 18. 5.8.
86
They deliberately imposed on themselves what is hardest for human beings to bear: they went about naked and in chains, they
lived unsettled lives, eating whatever they found in the woods.
87
D. Knowles, Christian Monasticism, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1969, 20-21.
88
Harvey, The Sense of a Stylite: Persepectives on Symeon the Elder, VC 42, (1988), 382-83.
84

12

monk is to be truly evangelical.89 Basil totally rejected the anachoresis as separation from the people. He
was of the opinion that solitary life is contrary to mans nature and to the ideal of the Gospel. He asserted
that the hermit has no opportunity to practise love for neighbour, the supreme law of Christianity.
According to Basil, in eremitical life there is no one to correct one, and there is no scope for the exercise of
humility and obedience.90 He condemned hermits life as lazy, useless, and sterile. 91 Basil at the same
time professed that no one can be sure of having broken the chains binding him/her to the life of the world
except by withdrawing definitively into solitude.92 However, Basil emphasized the need to have
seclusion not from humans, but from the distractions of the world.93
c. Palestine
The fourth area where monasticism flourished was in Palestine, especially around the desert of Gaza and
Judea.94 According to Jerome Hilarion, allegedly a follower of Antony, was the founder of Palestine
monasticism.95 However, the Life of Chariton credits its hero as the originator.96 Barsanuphius, John,
Dorotheus, Euthymius, and Sabas are some of the main exponents of Palestinian monasticism. Within a
few decades, numerous monasteries had sprung up in Bethlehem and Jerusalem near the holy sites
associated with Jesus life. The monastic establishments of Jerome and Paula in Bethlehem, and of Rufinus,
Melania the Elder, and Melania the younger in Jerusalem, ensured their fame. 97 Thus, the movement
monastic anachoresis flourished in widely separated areas of the Greco-Roman world. However, it was
Egypt that proved to be the real paradise for monks, and it was from there that earliest monastic literature
came.
1.3. Characteristics of Desert Anachoresis
The anachoresis, which the desert fathers meant, was a flight from a world that was opposed to Christ. It is
a fact that they gave more emphasis on their own personal salvation; however, that does not mean the
salvation of others was not abrogated. Here we are dealing with all about a culture and their mode of
operation for a mission. The decoding and implementing of their conceptualization of an ideology for us,
the modern men, seem to be always something bizarre and unacceptable; however, to get the right mindset
of them, we explore in this section more accurately the salient features of desert anachoresis.

89

E. F. Morison, St. Basil and His Rule: A Study in Early Monasticism, Oxford University Press, London, 1912, 20.
Cf. C. J. Peifer, Monastic Spirituality, 43.
91
G. M. Colombas, The Ancient Concept of the Monastic Life, 103.
92
Ibid., 74.
93
E. F. Morison, St. Basil and His Rule: A Study in Early Monasticism, 32.
94
B. Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, 1984, xviii-xix.
95
Cf. D. Chitty, The Desert a City, 13-14.
96
Vita Charitonis 2. Chariton fled the persecution of Aurelian (270-275 C.E.). The Vita comes from perhaps the fifth or sixth
century, and is incorporated into Symeon Metaphrastes Vita Sanctorum, Mensis September (PG 115, 899-918).
97
Cf. Palladius. Historia Lausiaca 41, 46, 54, 61.
90

13

1.3.1. Anachoresis: A Flight from the World

According to Louis Bouyer, the most salient characteristic of anachoresis is separation from the world.98
Athanasius the biographer of Antony discloses four consecutive degrees of anachoresis in the monastic life
of Antony (from Greek monachos (), derived from monos (), alone). At the outset, we have
Antonys withdrawal to a place just outside his native village,99 where he practised a balanced form of
dissociation from human persons. Then the adept Antony, to embrace more intensive solitude, took up his
dwelling for a brief period in a tomb in the nearby desert. 100 Here, Athanasius discloses the spiritual
symbolism of anachoresis as being dead to the world; since tumbos (tomb) is a repository for the remains
of the dead and place of burial. Athanasius wants to convey that the axis of anachoresis is the tomb a
structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber that represents renunciation of worldly pursuits, to
devote oneself fully to spiritual work. Athanasius illustration of Antonys battle against demons (agents of
evil) in the tomb presents a new way of being in the world.101
In the third phase, Antony withdrew into the desert, settling upon the outer mountain in the
solitude of Pispir on the east bank of the Nile for twenty years. 102 Antonys decision to become a solitary in
the desert was regarded by his peers as something novel. After 20 years, due to the request of the brethren
he came forward as from a holy shrine, initiated into deep mysteries and as one filled with God. 103
Antony achieved mastery over himself, over the world, and especially over demons within and without. He
became a new Adam, a renewed human, through Christs power, regained all that Adam lost.104 Antony
shared his experiential wisdom with his brethren. One of the most striking sayings attributed to him reveals
this truth: Our life and death is with our neighbor.105 Finally after an unspecified time he made a way into
the remotest recesses of the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea and ended his days on the inner
mountain far away from any human habitation.106 Thus, he became known as the Inner Mountain to
distinguish it from the Outer Mountain at Pispir. In fact, Athanasius target here is to comment that
development in virtue is correlatively with the degree of separation from the world. Moreover, in the
anachoresis of Antony, we find a withdrawal followed by a return.
To withdraw from regular visitors, Macarius of Scete, disciple of Antony made a tunnel from his
cell to a cave half a mile distant. Palladius records: And if ever a crowd of people troubled him he would
leave his cell secretly and go away to the cave and no one could find him.107 It seems Macarius despises
98

Louis Bouyer, The Spirituality of the New Testament and the Fathers, 305.
Athanasius, The Life of Antony 3.
100
Ibid.
101
As far as religious formation is concerned the period of novitiate (training and preparation) has a paramount significance.
Here tomb stands as a replica of novitiate Sabbath time to deepen ones relationship with God. Cf. Canon 652.
102
Athanasius, The Life of Antony 12.
103
Ibid., 14.
104
Ibid., 42.
105
Abba Antony 9.
106
Athanasius, The Life of Antony 49-50.
107
Palladius, The Lausiac History, 57.
99

14

the brethren, but the fact would be an anachoresis from the anthropomorphic presentations of deities and
an apathy towards those who are going after such devotions. Macarius daringly tells them to go after God,
not men. God is the solution for everything, not His creatures.
1.3.2. Anachoresis: Flight from Social Life
The core of anachoresis is recapitulated in a remarkable saying: In all ways a monk should flee women
and bishops.108 The third flight was the relationship with beardless youth. The frequently described
antipathy to women, bishops and the beardless were not simply a curious eccentricity of these monks; it
was a rejection of those things, which would bind them into the structures of society, within the family or
the Church.109
a. Flight from Women
Women represents family life (marrying, having children, pursuing an occupation, confronting social
standards, and the responsibility of a citizen).110 Flight from women was a guideline for all the monks in
the desert. Abba Theodore of Pherme warns: Do not sleep in a place where there is a woman, 111 and Do
not allow a woman to come into your cell.112 Abba Daniel says: Never put your hand in the dish with a
woman, and never eat with her; thus you will escape a little the demon of fornication.113 Although these
statements seem very insensitive and uncivilized, the caution here is not against women but the
uncontrolled cravings and desires of the monk.114 Therefore, the comment of L. Regnault that, to brand
desert fathers as women-haters or misogynists is an unjust appraisal, it is very much appropriate here.115
Abba John the Eunuch says: This is a place for asceticism, not for worldly business.116 It was
their belief that the demons attack the monks through women. Therefore, women were considered
temptation personified. A certain elder said: My children, salt comes from water, and when it comes into
contact with water it dissolves and disappears. The monk likewise comes from women; and when he
approaches a woman, he dissolves and ends by being a monk no more.117 There were monks who practised
flight from women very rigorously.118 When a high-ranking Roman lady comes to visit abba Arsenius and
asks him to remember her in his prayers, Arsenius responds roughly: I pray to God that he will wipe out

108

J. Cassian, The Institutes11, 18, B. Ramsey, trans., 1999, 170.

P. Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity, 130.
110
K. Waaijman, Spirituality: Forms, Foundations, Methods, 16.
111
Abba Theodore Pherme 17.
112
Abba Sopatrus 1.
113
Abba Daniel 2.
114
[Italics mine.] Abba Matoes confesses: It is not through that I live in solitude, but through weakness; those who live in the
midst of men are the strong ones. Cf. Abba Matoes 145.
115
L. Regnault, The Day-To-Day Life of the Desert Fathers in Fourth-Century Egypt, St. Bedes Publications, Petersham, MA,
1999, 30- 32.
116
Abba John the Eunuch 6.
117
Tomas Spidilik, The Spirituality of the Christian East: A Systematic Handbook, 222.
118
Abba Carion 2; Abba Arsenius 28.
109

15

the memory of you from my heart.119 In fact, here, Arsenius stipulates that prayer is a heart to heart
conversation with God (For Teresa of Avila, estar con Dios being with God), than spending the time
remembering about human beings120 Abba John the Dwarf affirms that the desert is the place of spiritual
warfare, and men and women equally confront their attacks. On the other hand, in the learned monasticism
propagated by Basil, he advocated the need of monasteries to have an opportunity for conversation with
women, for personal edification of the monks.121
b. Flight from Bishops
Bishops represented the public order in the third-century Church. Make me bishop of Rome, and I will
be a Christian tomorrow, this statement of the pagan educes his sparse understating of a bishop and
Christianity, that is, that this religion treats and pays attention only to the elite class. Two dangers were
interwoven here. Firstly, Make me bishop echoes that if one becomes a bishop, one can have money,
power, pleasure, comfort, career, profit and possession. As for the desert elders, a bishop, therefore, was
an idolization of the fourth-century secularism and social entanglement by the powerful. Secondly, I will
become a Christian indicates that religion and politics were equal to politics. 122 Hence, flight from bishops
echoes the basic disposition and motivation of the elders to go uncompromisingly in search of God.123
Elsewhere Cassian admits with shame that he could not elude the hands of his bishop. 124 Abba
Arsenius was considered an embodiment of the ideal flight from social entanglement. It was said that once
Archbishop Theophilus came with a magistrate to the desert to see Abba Arsenius. He wished to hear a
word from Abba Arsenius. The old man Arsenius said to him: Will you put into practice what I say to
you? Archbishop Theophilus assured him to practise whatever it would be. But the old man responded
wisely If you hear Arsenius is anywhere, do not go there.125 Arsenius withdrew further into the desert
instead of meeting the bishop. Arsenius, unlike Cassian, eluded the bishop to make it clear that the monk
has no function in the public sphere of life. Nevertheless, there are instances where some had maintained
good acquaintance with bishops.126
c. Flight from the Beardless
Another danger which the ascetic perceived was homosexual love, hence the severity towards the
beardless. The common trend was Avoid all intimacy with young companions of your own age. Flee

119

Abba Arsenius 28.

Cf. F. Heiler, Prayer, S.Mc Comb, trans., London, 1958, 227; The Way of Perfection, 29, v.
121
Basil, Long Rules 33 PG 31: 997.
122
Cf. T. Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, 4.
123
Cf. M. Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, A.M. Henderson and T. Parsons, trans., Oxford University
Press, New York, 1947, 358- 59.
124
Cassian, The Monastic Institute, XI, 18, 1999, 120.
125
Abba Arsenius 7.
126
Abba Isidore one day went to visit Archbishop Theophilus of Alexandria, see below, 23.
120

16

from them as from fire.127 Abba Isaac, the priest of the Cells said to the brethren: Do not bring young
boys here. Four Churches in Scetis are deserted because of boys.128 For Abba Carion, A monk, who lives
with a boy, falls, if he is not stable; but even if he is stable and does not fall, he still does not make
progress.129 This restriction in ones contact with children echoes some serious malpractices and
pervasions that might have taken place in the desert.130
Though the stress is more on flight from the public (bishop), women (family) and the beardless
(passionate relationship) this does not mean that they had abandoned the community as such; they really
did not break the communion taught by the Apostolic Christianity. For the modern reader, Arsenius and
company seem to be lunatics, because of their flight from their own fellow humans, and in doing so; they
were doing nothing to help them physically and socially. Nevertheless, in the eyes of many of their
contemporaries, they were in fact doing something extremely positive in the solitude of the desert: a life set
apart for prayer alone, setting a radical and violent effort for the kingdom, thus leading the people to God
alone.
Part II. Objectives of the Anachoresis
The majority of the Egyptian monks were simple and unlettered, and apophthegmata partum attest their
edifying sayings of wisdom. Nevertheless, that was not the case with those visitors to the desert who had
Greek philosophical training, especially the influence of the exegetical school of Alexandria. 131 The
prominent among them were Abba Evagrius and his disciple Abba Cassian. They codified the spiritual
doctrines of the desert mysticism relatively in a more sophisticated way. Cassian sums up the objective of
anachoresis in terms of scopos and telos.
2 .1. Telos of Anachoresis
The final goal (telos) is presented as a gratuitous gift, not a goal that is achieved by human effort. The
Lord placed the highest good not in carrying out some work, however praiseworthy and abundantly fruitful
it may be, but in the truly simple and unified contemplation of him132 says Cassian. It has been described
in many terms such as the kingdom of God, pure prayer or prayer of fire, union with God 133 and

127

Basil, Longer Rule 5 PG 31: 637B.

Abba Isaac the priest of the Cells 5.
129
Abba Carion 3.
130
In this regard, I would like to digress a bit to remark about some psychologists in India and abroad who go around
informing various groups of people, especially the religious, that homosexuality (and perhaps lesbianism) in religious houses,
formation centers, etc. took their origin in the meditation cells of the desert fathers (and mothers)! Let me take the freedom here
to note how foolish these psychologists can be, if all the spiritual motivation of the desert fathers and the visionary care they
took to ward off such cases were all to be foolish! Too much psychologizing of spirituality without looking into the inner nature
of human beings everywhere in the world can only result in such scholarly information.
131
The great exponents of this school directly and indirectly made use the subject material from the Pre-Socratic and Platonism
for the interpretation of Bible. Cf. P. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, Scribners Sons, New York, 1914.
132
Cf. J. Cassian, Conferences 1. 8.
133
Ibid., 1. 13.
128

17

eternal life.134 The whole endeavour of anachoresis tends to have continual and unbroken perseverance
in prayer.135 Then God shall be all our love, all we desire and seek and follow, all we think, all our life and
speech and breath. this is the end of all true goodness, that the mind may every day be lifted beyond the
material sphere to the realm of the spirit, until the whole life and every little stirring of the heart become
one continuous prayer136 comments Cassian. The telos is not merely a reality of the world to come, but
something that can be achieved in this life. We can have a foretaste of the perfect contemplation of heaven
even now.
2.2 Scopos of Desert Anachoresis
Desert anachoresis can be called withdrawal towards the womb of the heart (be born again. Jn 3:1-36.).
The elders reasoned its immediate goal (scopos) as the purity of heart (puritas cordis), and believed it as a
necessity for the vision of God.137 The scopos is used variously by Evagrius and Cassian. The former
employed the expression apatheia (dispassion)138, whereas Cassian preferred puritas cordis.139 According to
Guillaumont, Cassian did this deliberately to avoid unnecessary suspicion due to adherence to Greek
philosophy, particularly to the ideas of Origen.140 Moreover, Cassian simplified the spirituality of the Desert
monks and wrote a practical manual for future generations. Cassian, in his first Conference, commences in
great clarity and simplicity, his definition of puritas cordis and its place in monastic life. According to
Jeremy Driscoll, Purity of heart and apatheia are the different ways of expressing the same reality.141
Athanasius describes his hero Antony, who attained apatheia, when he came out of the tomb after
twenty years: The state of his soul was one of purity, for it was not constricted by grief, nor relaxed by
pleasure, nor affected by either laughter or dejection. Moreover, when he saw the crowd, he was not
annoyed any more than he was elated at being embraced by so many people. He maintained utter
equilibrium, like one guided by reason and steadfast in that which accords with nature.142 The final goal
telos becomes an actuality only in a pure heart a heart free from sinful affection and disproportional
anxieties (mermina)

134

J. Cassian, Conferences 1. 8, Colm Luibheid, 42.

J. Cassian, Conferences 9. 2.
136
J. Cassian, Conference 10. 7.
137
Cf. D. Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer, Paulist Press, New York, 1984, 202.
138
Evagrius, Praktikos 36.
139
To know more about apatheia Cf. De vita Beata 4. Cf. Nicholas Groves, Mundicia Cordis in One Yet Two Monastic
Tradition East and West, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, 1976, 309; T. Spidilik, The Spirituality of the Christian East, 279;
L. Bouyer, The Spirituality of the New Testament and the Fathers, 273-275.
140
Cf. N. Groves, Mundicia Cordis, 314. Cassian avoids this expression apatheia because at his time it was dangerous. The
Pelagians were using it in the sense of impeccability.
141
Cf. J. Driscoll, Steps to Spiritual Perfection, 91; K. Hunt, Doubt and Breakthrough in the Desert Fathers, in Purity of Heart
and Contemplation: A Monastic Dialogue between Christian and Asian Traditions, B. Barnhart and J. Wong, eds., Continuum,
New York, 2001, 169.
142
Athanasius, The Life of Antony 14, 1980, 42. Cf. T. Spidilik, The Spirituality of the Christian East, 271.
135

18

2.2.1. External Tools

The active life (scopos) primarily takes place through a set of exercises called tools of anachoresis. These
tools encompass both external and internal dimensions. However, all the steps are steps toward the
practical objective of purity. Anachoresis as a discipline aimed at enhancing ones relationship with men,
cosmos and God. In ones ascent to puritas cordis, the desert stood as the meeting place. Furthermore, the
desert played the role of machinery for the construction and moulding of the heart. Their drawn-out
struggle for purity did not shut them into a self-made congenial atmosphere, but assisted them to hold on to
some of the imperative tools towards the goal of anachoresis. They include: Silence and Solitude,
Accompaniment, Enclosure of the Cell, Manual Labour, and Enkrateia.
a. Silence and Solitude
For the desert elders, physical silence was preface as well as solution for all the mental calamities one is
supposed to face in his lifetime. It has been said of Abba Agathon: for three years he lived with a stone in
his mouth, until he had learnt to keep silence.143 Here cut-and-dried stand and perseverance of Agathon
until he achieved the goal is more important than thinking about what might be the type and size of the
stone, which he had kept in his mouth. The entire flight for the desert could be seen in the priority given to
practice in solitude. Abba Macarius the Great said to the brothers at Scetis: Flee, my brothers. One of the
old men asked him: Where else could we flee beyond this desert? Placing his finger on his lips, Macarius
said, Flee that. And he went into his cell, shut the door, and sat down.144 Here, the demand of anachoresis
is to shut the doors of the mind, and remain in repose of the soul.
Thus we are told, the thrust of physical anachoresis was to attain dead calm blessed solitude
(aptheia /puritas cordis); and this is expounded in the desert vocation of Arsenius. When Abba Arsenius
prayed to God while he was in the palace, he heard a voice telling him, Arsenius, flee from men. Though
Arsenius withdrew to a solitary place, he heard the voice in his prayer again, saying to him, Arsenius,
flee, be silent.145 This anecdote reveals to us the fact that purity of heart is the result, that is the absence
of all sorts of worldly cares and disproportionate preoccupations (mermina). This is substantiated by the
words of Abba Alonius: If I had not destroyed myself completely, I should not have been able to rebuild
and shape myself again.146 Merton defines solitude as pure detachment: You will never find interior
solitude unless you make some conscious effort to deliver yourself from the desires and cares and the
attachments of an existence in time and in the world.147 Hence, the real aim of anachoresis is not to have
the exterior but interior solitude.148
143

Abba Agathon15.
Abba Macarius 16.
145
Abba Arsenius 2.
146
Abba Alonius 2.
147
T. Merton, Seeds of Contemplation, Dell, New York, 1949, 60.
148
Cf. Amma Syncletica 19.
144

19

b. Accompaniment
Within Christianity, accompaniment or spiritual direction has its origin and account in the desert fathers
and mothers. Accompaniment was highly regarded as a tool for slaughtering the self-will and selfcenteredness of the accompanied. The spiritual guide was identified as a pneumatikos pater or abba old
man or elder or pneumatikos mater or amma. An amma or abba was someone who was seasoned in the
ascetic life. They were competent warriors with firsthand experience in the desert and learned the secrets of
the desert. It is dangerous for anyone to teach who has not first been trained in the practical life 149, says
Amma Syncletica.
The mode of accompaniment in the desert was simple; either to go through the school of spiritual direction
or to live with a solitary. If it is with spiritual direction, it starts with the novice or is accompanied by
asking the Abba for a word of salvation. The queries from the disciple can be: Say a word for me, or
Tell me how I can be saved, or Tell me what I must do, Abba, speak a word (rhma) to me, Eipe
moi rhma .150 The questioner does not look for a teaching, but an active word charged with mysterious
power. A word touches the heart and opens a way for a new life. Here, the rhma is used in a deep sense
in the right context, and at the right moment. Even a very short word has value for eternity. The Fathers
say, Nothing is in vain, but everything they utter is for the salvation of the soul.151 The word takes effect
only to the extent to which it has been sought by the disciple with the proper attitude. If the petitioners
intention is self-interest, the father remains silent.152 The word of the father, rhma, needs to be meditated
on, that is, to be repeated over and over again within the heart, before it comes to fruition.153 Elders give
specific advice to the accompanied considering the specific situation prior to assessing the overall
temperament of the person concerned. Once a brother, who shared lodging with other brothers asked Abba
Bessarion: What should I do? The old man replied, Keep silence and do not compare yourself with
others.154 Here, Abba Bessarion presumes the problem of communal living as gossip, backbiting, jealousy
and competition.
Association with an Abba who knew how to live appropriately was very essential for the disciple.155
Here, between the accompanist and the accompanied there were neither hegemony nor condescending
approach. If at all one wants to exercise any form of authority over another, one may do so, in fear of God
and humility. An old man once said: But if someone wished to command a brother, not according to the
fear of God but to subject him to his own authoritarian power, God, who sees the secrets of the heart, will
not move the brother to listen and to fulfill it that which proceeds from authoritarianism is full of
149

Amma Syncletica 12.

Ammonas 1, PG 65: 120 A. Abba Macarius 23.
151
Barsanaphius, Letter 652.
152
Cf. Theodore of Pherme 3, 74. Abba Felix 1.
153
Abba - Guides to Wholeness and Holiness East and West, J. R. Sommerfeldt, ed., Cistercian Studies Series 38, Cistercian
publications, Michigan, 1982, 38. See also D. Burton-Christine, The Word in the Desert, 77.
154
Abba Bessarion 10.
155
Cf. Abba Poemen 65, 73.
150

20

agitation and trouble, for it proceeds from evil.156 If by chance the Abba misuses his authority and later
recognizes it, he would not hesitate to acknowledge his failure: There was an elder who had a well-tried
novice living with him, and once, when he was annoyed, he drove the novice out of the cell. But the novice
sat down outside and waited for the elder. The elder, opening the door, found him there, and did penance
before him saying: You are my Father, because your patience and humility have overcome the weakness of
my soul. Come back in; you can be the elder and the Father, I will be the youth and the novice: for by your
good work you have surpassed my old age.157 Hence, the authority was interpreted primarily to uplift the
needy, not to supersede them. An Abba was a model, not a legislator.158
In case a disagreement had happened between an elder and disciple, how was it to be tackled? Thus,
we read, when a brother was bypassed by his Abba, the troubled brother approached Abba Poemen and said
to him: I am losing my soul through living near my Abba. Should I go on living with him? This question
strikes at the very core of spiritual direction in the desert. Abba Poeman acknowledged the difficulty of the
brother who finds it difficult to cope with his Abba. So he said to him: Stay if you want. The brother left
him and stayed on there. But a few days later he came back and said: I am losing my soul. This time
Poemen did not go for further suggestion and kept silent. Nevertheless, the troubled novice a third time
approached Abba Poemen and said: I really cannot stay there any longer. I am leaving. Then Abba
Poemen said to him: Now you have truly been healed. Go, and do not stay with him any longer.159
Hence, it may be concluded that accompaniment was considered as a process in which both the master and
the disciple are involved in accordance with the divine intervention.
c. Enclosure in the Cell
For the formation and transformation of the accompanied, the cell and accompaniment were equally
important. Abba Dorotheus of Gaza quotes the teaching, which he received from the elders: To stay in the
cell is half the journey, to go and see the elders is the other half.160 The cell was the locus of the ascetics
where they did their daily activities. Athanasius speaks of Antonys Anachoresis as withdrawing to the Cell,
and there being martyred daily by his conscience and doing battle in the contest of faith. 161 The cell was the
symbolic centre of the monastic life.162 Loitering outside the cell was considered as a suicidal activity. Just

156

The Wisdom of Desert Fathers, (The Anonymous Series), B. Ward, trans., Fairacre Press, Oxford, 1975, 50.
T. Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, 59.
158
Abba Poemen 174; Abba Sisoes 45.
159
Abba Poemen 189.
160
Dorotheus, Instructions 180, E. P. Wheeler, trans., Cistercian Publication, Kalamazoo, 1977, 488. Cf. J. R. Sommerfeldt,
Guides to Wholeness and Holiness East and West. 42.
161
Cf. Athanasius, The Life of Antony 47.
162
To know more implications about cell see The Works of William of St. Thierry, Vol. 2, Cistercian Fathers Series 6 Cistercian
Publications, Spencer, MA, 1970, 31, 35 Cf. The Hermitage Within, Spirituality of the Desert, A. Neame, trans., Cistercian
Publications, Michigan, 1999, 140- 141.
157

21

as fish die if they stay too long out of water, so the monks who loiter outside their cells or pass their time
with men of the world lose the intensity of inner peace163, says Abba Antony.
Remaining or Sitting in the cell was the all-embracing exercise. The word sedere means not just
to sit, but also to remain, to stay in one place.164 As for Abba Rufus, it is to remain sitting (Kathestenai) in
the cell with fear and knowledge of God. 165 It was important to note here that the elders insisted on the
physical presence in the cell as of utmost importance Sede in cella tua. Instability was considered as a
disease.
The cell can function as a hell or as a well the source of eternal life. If one does not live worthily in the
cell, the cell of its own accord vomits him/her out. Therefore, who can be worthy to dwell in a cell? Abba
John the Dwarf says that the most essential quality required for the stay in the cell is purity. He says that he
never enters his cell without purifying himself of evil. When John went to Church at Scetis, he heard some
brethren arguing, so he returned to his cell. He went round it three times and went in. Some brethren who
saw him do this, wondered and asked for an explanation. He said to them, My ears are full of that
argument, so I circled round to purify them, and thus I entered my cell with my mind at rest.166 Other two
qualities essential for a successful and holy life in a cell are simplicity and prudence.167
The cell has the status and function of an eternal teacher. When a brother asked Abba Moses a word
for salvation, the brother was asked to learn from the cell: Go and sit in your cell, the cell will teach you
everything. 168 The cell answers all his questions about God, the mystery of others, death, life, the world
and the cosmos. Everything leads one into the integrity and reality of the present. Indeed, the cloister of the
cell takes the monk to one-pointedness and in turn to the purity of heart which consists in living the present
moment passionately and joyfully.169 Cell as the teacher of everything has an obvious implication that
there is no use in the monks leaving his cell and running about asking advice or spiritual accompaniment,
but the implication is that one cannot be helped by others if s/he is not first determined to help himself or
herself. It is in the solitude of the cell one discovers real and unreal self.170
d. Manual Labour
Life in the cell was the heart of anachoresis; however, suffocation, monotony and loneliness were the
result. Abba Poemen quotes the words of Ammonas who said, A man may remain for a hundred years in
his cell without learning how to live in the cell.171 Here, to tackle the demon of loneliness (akedos, middy
demon), they found the solution in the form of manual labour. Work as an external ascetical tool has many
163

Abba Antony 10.

D.Jean Leclercq, Camaldolese Extraordinary, 491.
165
Abba Rufus 1.
166
Abba John the Dwarf 25.
167
Cf. The Works of William of St. Thierry, 1970, 143.
168
Abba Moses 6.
169
W. Teasdale, Monastic Space and Inner Transformation, 176.
170
T. Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action, 281-282.
171
Abba Poemen 96.
164

22

functions in the life of monks.172 It prevented idleness, and it became a remedy against concupiscence of
the flesh. They kept themselves always physically engaged. Athanasius speaks of Anthony: He worked
with his hands, for he had heard he who is idle let him not eat.173 The specific term is labor manuum
and not any other kind of work, which might also dispel idleness. Doing labour with ones own hands
(labora) designates the specific character of manual labour.174
Elders called work an extension to prayer. On one occasion, a brother visited Abba Silvanus at
Scetis. When he saw the brothers working hard, he said to the old man, Do not labour for the food which
perishes( Jn 6:27). Mary has chosen the good portion (Lk 10: 42). Therefore, Abba Silvanus entrusted
the contemplative monk a codex for reading in his cell, while the others went to work. When it was time
for meal, he accompanied them. Interrupting the monk, Abba Silvanus said: Because you are a spiritual
man you do not need that kind of food. We being carnal want to eat, and that is why we work. But you have
chosen the good portion and read the whole day long and you do not want to eat carnal food. 175 The
contrast is not between active and contemplative but it explains who is and who is not a contemplative.
This saying gives importance for prayer as well as work in the desert.
Elders considered work as a creative-redemptive act.176 The Lord God took the man and settled
him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it (Gen 2:15). They also considered labour as a
source of practice of charity. It was the custom among all the Egyptian monks to hire themselves out at
harvest time as harvesters. They would give the greater part of their earning to the poor. 177
e. Enkrateia: Self-Mastery
In Greek philosophy, enkrateia has a rich history.178 The word enkrateia is derived from the root krat-,
power, control. St. Paul uses the verb enkrateuesthai to indicate power over oneself in the sense of
determination, endurance or restraint and mastery of ones appetites and passions. 179 As for the desert
monks, enkrateia was a free expression of their faith in God. Enkrateia comprised mainly three disciplines:
abstinence, fasting, and self-restraint.
a. Custody of Eyes
In their adherence to enkrateia elders gave much stress to custody of eyes so as to attain purity. Abba
Isidore one day went to visit Archbishop Theophilus of Alexandria and on his return to Scetis the brethren
172

The manual labour of the monks in the desert was mainly braiding of mats, baskets, and cords and some field works outside
the cell.
173
Athanasius, The Life of Antony and The letters to Marcellinus, 19.
174
D. Rembert, Towards A Benedictine Theology of Manual Labour, 26.
175
Cf.Abba Silvanus 5; Abba John the Dwarf 26.
176
C. Devadat, The Acosmic: Revisiting Christian Spirituality at Its Source, Asirvanam Publications, Bangalore, 2005,135.
177
Abba John the Dwarf 47; Abba John the Dwarf 47; Abba Pior 1; Abba Agathon 27.
178
For Socrates enkrateia was one of the chief virtues. Moreover, Plato, Aristotle, and Stoic philosophers have eulogized the man
who could control, suppress or moderate his impulses and desires. Cf. T. Spidlik, 183.
179
For Paul, enkrateia ultimately is not an autonomous human achievement: Enkrateia is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:23. Act 2425, 2 Pet 1-6), a supernatural byproduct of responding by faith to grace (Eph. 2:8-9), and walking by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16), as we
are led by the Spirit (Gal. 5:19.). Paul calls it a race and a fight (1Cor 9:24-27).

23

asked him about the city. He told them that he did not see the face of anyone there, except Archbishop of
Alexandria. Hearing this, with much curiosity, they asked him whether there was any epidemic. He replied:
Not at all, but the thought of looking at anyone did not get the better of me. At these words they were
filled with admiration, and strengthened in their intention of guarding the eyes from all distraction.180 We
learn that Abba Isidores act and attitude is very personal, he neither scattered his look unintentionally nor
closed his eyes towards the stark realities of life, but he was under the formation unto himself by mastering
and seasoning his eyes. We have several sayings concerning the practice of the custody of eyes. 181
b. Bridling the Tongue
Desert monks understood the harm caused by slander. It led them to develop a spirituality in which purity
of speech was highly valued. They toiled vigorously for the integrity of heart and mouth. Therefore, a
monk is advised to have Right faith in the heart, truth on the tongue, and temperance in the body.182 Abba
Poeman appealed to his disciples to ponder over the mutual influence of the heart and mouth. Teach your
mouth to say that which you have in your heart183, and teach your heart to guard that which your tongue
teaches.184 They believed that the power of the words proceeds only from a chaste heart. Thus by guarding
their words in their hearts, monks established a relationship between their heart and mouth. Abba John the
Dwarf gives Job as a model of integrity between the heart and mouth. Though the devil constantly touched
Jobs flesh, he did not sin by any word that came out of his mouth because he had within his heart that
which is of God, and he drew on that source unceasingly. 185 Hence, the control of speech is looked upon
as a very commendable ascetic practice.
c. Conquering the Belly
As it is suggested above, the monks not only controlled their eyes and tongue, but also gave importance to
the control of the belly. If a king wanted to take possession of his enemys city, he would begin by cutting
off the water and the food and so his enemies, dying of hunger, would submit to him. It is the same with the
passions of the flesh: if a man goes about fasting and hungry the enemies of his soul grow weak186, says
Abba John the Dwarf. However, fasting is never intended to do violence to the body but rather to restore it
to health and equilibrium. Amma Syncletica considered that extreme type of fasting comes from the Devil,
There is an asceticism which is determined by the enemy and his disciples practice it. So how are we to
distinguish between the divine and royal asceticism and the demonic tyranny? Clearly through its quality of
balance.187 Severe fasting was considered as equal to gluttony. Antony lived in extreme austerity, eating
180

Abba Isidore the Priest 8.

Amma Sarah 3; Abba Helladius 1.
182
Abba Gregory 1; PG 65:145.
183
Poeman 63; PG 65: 337; Poeman 164; PG 65: 361.
184
Abba Poeman 188. See also Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert, 144.
185
Abba John the Dwarf 45.
186
Abba John the Dwarf 3.cf. Abba Longinus 5.
187
Amma Syncletica 15.
181

24

only bread and salt and drinking only water. 188 After examining Antonys system of fasting Athanasius
says: Those who saw him were amazed to see that his body had maintained its former condition, neither
fat from lack of exercise, nor emaciated from fasting and combat with demons, but was just as they had
known him prior to his withdrawal.189 According to contemporary nutrition research called dietary
restriction, if fasting is done properly, many positive potential states may result.190
Brown the most prominent historian of late antiquity acknowledges the potential outcome of the long-term
ascetico-meditational regime: The ascetics of late antiquity tended to view the human body as an
autarkic system. In ideal conditions it was thought capable of running on its own heat, it would need
only enough nourishment to keep that heat alive. In its natural state a state with which the ascetics
tended to identify the bodies of Adam and Eve the body had acted like a finely tuned engine, capable of
idling indefinitely.191 Brown describes that it was widely believed in Egypt as elsewhere that the first
sin of Adam and Eve had not been a sexual act, but rather one of voracious greed. It was their lust for
physical food that had led them to disobey Gods command not to eat the fruit of the Tree of knowledge.
In doing so, they lost the perfect equilibrium with which they had been created. 192 As for the ascetics,
fasting was not a mere matter of diet, but a powerful aid in cleansing the body and mind. It was moral as
well as physical. The primary aim of fasting was to make them conscious of their dependence upon God.
193

2.2.2. Internal Tools

Even though Physical anachoresis and external aids heightened monks desire for God-realization, great
was the agitation as well as the temptation within. Prolonged solitude resulted in committing grave sins in
the heart and mind (Abba Antony 11) and disturbed them violently. Therefore, monks, guided by the Spirit
took up some unique tools to tame the mental riots the uproar of the passions. As we have said in the
previous section, if the desert was the meeting place, the mind became the fighting place the locus
where the due treatment is administered. The tools they used against these mental riots were mainly:
Ameremina, Penthos, Nepsis, Exagoreusis, and Crupte-Melete.
a. Ameremina: Freedom from Care
The Greek word ameremina means freedom from care, freedom from anxious concern (sollicitudo).
This does not mean either despising anything or letting oneself neglect the things of God or bypassing
188

Athanasius, The Life of Antony 7, 36.

Athanasius, The Life of Antony 42.
190
Such as the disappearance of pain, discomfort, and disappearance of hunger, tranquility, euphoria, increased activity and
energy, decreases in illness and retardation of aging etc. Cf. W. C. Bushell Psychophysiological and Comparative Analysis of
Ascetico-Meditational Discipline: Toward a New Theory of Asceticism in V. L. Wimbush and R. Valantasis, eds., Asceticism,
555-559.
191
P. Brown, The Body and Society, 1988, 223.
192
Ibid., 220.
193
Abba Isidore the priest 4.
189

25

ones own duties in favour of prayer. Ameremina, as an ascetical discipline, demands the filial confidence
that Jesus recommends in the Gospel: not being anxious about anything (Mt 6:25), not worrying about
tomorrow, seeking first Gods kingdom (Mt 6:34), seeking first Gods kingdom (Mt 6:33), believing in
the limitless goodness of God (Mk 9:23), and on what the Psalms call casting ones care upon the Lord
(Ps 54:23). In a more positive sense, this freedom expressed the freedom to love others, freedom to live in
the innocence of a new paradise, freedom to enjoy the presence of God.194 Several sayings describe the
attitude, which one has to master, in order to live always in the presence of God. Abba Poemen gives three
injunctions for the work of the soul: To throw yourself before God, not to measure your progress, to leave
behind all self-will.195 Poemen suggests that the single most important act for surviving in the desert is the
act of trust to place oneself completely in the hands of God, not the quantity of ascetical practice.
We have copious sayings to present the realization of freedom in the lives of the desert fathers. 196
Once Abba Agathon was building a cell with his disciples; when it was about to finish, sensing something
unedifying, he said to his disciples, Arise, let us leave this place. But his disciples were a bit
disappointed at this and asked Agathon why they had spent all that time building the cell only to abandon
it. They remarked that the people would be scandalized at this, saying, Look, these unstable ones are
moving again. Seeing their nervousness, Agathon said to them, If some are scandalized by our moving,
others, on the contrary, will be much edified and will say, How blessed are they, who go away for Gods
sake, and despise everything. Those of you wishing to come, come. As for me, I am going.197 This adage
reveals the importance of anachoresis. Forsake that which is rapacious and go ahead with that which is
life-giving. The crux of description is to retire for Gods sake.
We have an apt saying with regard to ameremina from Abba Macarius, as he was going to the cell.
He encountered a man who was engaged in looting his goods. Without any hesitation, he came up to the
thief as if he were a stranger and helped him to load the animal. He saw him off in complete tranquility
(hesychia), saying, We have brought nothing into this world, and we cannot take anything out of the world
(1 Tim.6:7). The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21). 198
This also shows how much the bible influenced the movement anachoresis. The disposition of Macarius
testifies that nothing happens in our life without the knowledge of God.
b. Nepsis: Watchfulness
The teaching regarding nepsis, which is deeply Scriptural,199 is also the foundation of anachoresis, and the
essential inner condition mental exercises allegedly practiced in the cell. The Life of Antony tells us
194

Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert, 223; Abba Poemen 126.
Abba Poemen 36.
196
Abba Gelasius 1&5; Abba Euprepius 3; Abba Ammonas 6; Abba Theodore of Pherme 18; Abba Bessarian 1; Abba Moses 13
and Abba Silvanus 9.
197
Abba Agathon 6.
198
Abba Macarius 18.
199
St. Paul. St. Paul recommends the need to be mindful in all situations of our life (2 Tim 4:5; 1 Cor. 15:34 (eknephein); 2 Tim
195

26

that he opposed the attacks of the demons with watchfulness (gregoris) and sobriety (nepsis).200 Abba
Poeman suggests nepsis as the one necessary and all-embracing virtue: We do not need anything except a
vigilant spirit.201 The word nepsis comes from nepho, which means to be sleepless, to guard, to inspect,
examine, watch over, and keep under surveillance. The verb nephein and the noun nepsis define the state of
sobriety and watchfulness, as opposed to methuein the state of drunkenness.202 Nepsis (Watchfulness) is
interpreted as a method of spirituality that refers to paying close attention to ones thoughts with the aim of
resisting temptations; vain and egoistic thoughts, and trying to maintain a constant state of remembrance of
God: Show the way to awaken and develop attention and consciousness, to attain that state of
watchfulness which is the hallmark of sanctity.203 Dom Pierre Miquel defines nepsis:
The strict and specific meaning of nepsis is the attitude of a wider-awake soul, present to itself and to
God, watchful, circumspect and attentive so as not to let itself be caught napping by the devilish
enemy who is seeking entry to heart or soul by means of logismoi, that is thoughts, whether bad or
simply out of place, which he cleverly puts forward and which the soul is prompt to fend off as soon as
they try to approach. This defensive attitude is also called attention, prosoche, guarding the soul,
guarding the heart (phylake).204

The way to master thoughts is to observe them at the outset, say the elders, and to respond to them
deliberately.205 According to Origen, it is impossible to be entirely free from thoughts: souls who have
turned to God need to experience the conflicts of thoughts.206 What one can do is not to converse with them
as Eve did with the serpent. The best remedy to protect the heart, that is, not to let the serpent enter into the
paradise of the heart, is to crush the serpents head at the outset.207 It is a method of fixing and halting of
thought at the entrance of the heart to probe the divine and hidden mysteries. 208 The predatory and
murderous thoughts are marked down as they approach during the watching. 209 A second type of
watchfulness consists in freeing the heart from all thoughts, keeping it profoundly silent and still. Here the
observer acts like a doorkeeper and bars entry to all evil thoughts.210 Thus, one is requested to act like a
doorkeeper at his heart and inspect all the visitors with a query, Are you on our side or with the
enemy?211 A further model for watching is Spider. As the spider kills the small flies, the viewer

2:2 (ananephein). Peter in his first letter appeals for nepsis, Keep alert, be vigilant. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil
prowls around, looking for someone to devour (1Pet.5: 8).see also Pet 1:13; Isa 59:17.
200
Athanasius, The Life of Antony, R. Gregg, trans., 38.
201
Abba Poemen 135.
202
Cf. G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon, 912. Giles Conacher, NepsisWatchfulness in Hallel, Vol. 26, Walsh
Printers, Mount Melleray Abbey, 2001, 31. . Mt 24, 49; Act 2, 15.
203
G. E. H. Palmer - P. Sherrard - K. Ware, trans., The Philokalia: The Complete Text Compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy
Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth, Vol. I, Faber & Faber, London 1979, 13.
204
Cf. G. Conacher, Nepsis-Watchfulness, 31.
205
M. M. Funk, Tools Matter for Practicing Spiritual Life, 7.
206
T. Spidlik, The Spirituality of the Christian East, 242.
207
Ibid.
208
The Philokalia, Vol.1, 162.
209
The Philokalia, Vol.1, 163.
210
Ibid.
211
Cf. I. Hausherr, Spiritual Direction, 225; J. Chryssavgis, John Climacus, 83.

27

continually slays all the harmful thoughts creep into the mind.212 Thus, watchfulness helps one to return
into oneself, to the depth of ones heart. God manifests Himself to the heart. I am not my thoughts,
feelings, or passions. I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts.213
An important phase in nepsis is diakrisis (Latin, discretion) or discernment. It is by means of
diakrisis one learns to recognize the tactics of thoughts. Athanasius presents Antony as the model of
diakrisis.214 True discernment is required because the devil sometimes disguises himself as an angel of
light.215 In his first Conference, Cassian compares the activity of the mind to a mill. Thoughts are like
grains, and consciousness is the mill store. It is our role as the miller to sort out amongst the grains those
which are bad and those which can be admitted to the mill store to give the good flour and good bread of
our salvation.216
c. Exagoreusis: Manifestation of Logismoi
Exagoreusis can be called an extension to nepsis where the main concern is liberation from the compulsive
logismoi (singular: logismos) that always afflict the body, mind and soul. This aspect of nepsis is very
much also akin to accompaniment. The phrase exagoreusis comes from the verb exagoreuo, speak out,
publish,divulge. As for the elders, it is manifestation of thoughts to an experienced Abba. 217
Exagoreusis becomes active only when one obtains the skillfulness to have the familiarity and the sharp
knowledge about the train of thoughts (logismoi) which harass the psyche. Often logismos is understood as
the byproduct of intellectual activity, a thought.218 Logismoi are generally known as thoughts, which create
obstacles to the knowledge of God.219 The word thought is used here in a pejorative sense, because not all
thoughts are evil and constitute obstacles to the knowledge of God, but only those which attack the mind.
A thought can be unstuck, i.e. it will just go away. It can also go in a circular way and gain in thickness,
and then it is called logismos. Abba Evagrius succinctly defines:
A demonic Logismos is an image (eikon) belonging to the sensitive life of man which has been
composed in the understanding (kata dianoian) with which the mind (nous), when moving in an
impassioned way says something or does something secretly against the law in accordance with the
image (eikon) which has effected an entrance because the mind has been overpowered by it.220

212

The Philokalia, Vol.1, 166.

M. M. Funk, Tools Matter for Practicing Spiritual Life, 54.
214
Cf. Athanasius, Life of Antony 22, 35, 88; J. Cassian, Conferences. 2:1 & 4.
215
Cf. 2 Cor. 11, 14. Palladius accounts in chapter 47 a list of monks who were victims of demonic interference. Some of them
are named as: Valens, Heron, Ptolomy, Stephen, and Eucarpios. What is common in all these monks is their overriding pride in
spite of their severe asceticism.
216
J. Cassian, Conferences 1:18.
217
Cf. I. Hausherr, Spiritual Direction in the Early Christian East, 236-240.
218
T. Spidilik, The Spirituality of the Christian East, 238. Cf. J. Y. Leloup, Being Still: Reflections on an Ancient Mystical
Tradition, trans., M.S. Laird, Paulist Pres, New York, 2003, 30.
219
Origen speaks of pure thoughts (logismos katharos) and impure thoughts (logismos akatharos). There are other qualifications
for good thoughts such as spiritual (pneumatikos), devout (eusebes), appropriate for contemplation (gnostikos), holy (hagios)
and so on. Cf. T. Spidilik, The Spirituality of the Christian East, 238.
220
The Historia Monachorum in Aegypto, 127.
213

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This text reveals an important aspect of logismoi. It is not a mere thought, but rather a mental image, which
arises in a person, endowed with vulnerability. As a result, it stirs the mind, and creates a passionate
movement and finally incites the person to a secret decision against Gods law.221 The principal logismoi
are the following: Logismos of gastrimargia (gluttony),222 logismos of philarguria (avarice),223 logismos of
porneia (sexual obsession),224 logismos of orge (anger),225 logismos of akedia (listlessness),226 logismos of
kenodoxia (vainglory),227 and logismos of hyperphania (pride).228 It is what comes out of a person that
defiles.
Exagoreusis It is primarily a verbal technique grounded in intensive contemplation. Theoretically
speaking, it is different from confession of sins.229 The rationale behind this manifestation of all the
movements of the heart to ones Abba is a kind of crushing ones own ego. Abba Poemen says: The
enemy rejoices over nothing so much as over those who do not manifest their thoughts (logismoi).230 The
more one hides ones thoughts, the more they multiply and the stronger they become. Cassian speaks the
advantage of the act of exagoreusis: constantly scrutinized and the prints of whatever enters them must
be investigated in the most careful way, lest perchance some spiritual beast, a lion or a dragon, pass
through and secretly leave its dangerous traces. Only then, we will be able to root out from ourselves the
rest of harmful animals and the hiding places of venomous serpents. 231 The person who discloses his
thoughts is soon healed (Mk.7:20-23). The innovative feature of exagoreusis was the imperative to tell
the truth as the one and only way to be at peace with oneself.
d. Penthos: Compunction of Heart
Despite all the assiduous efforts mentioned above, life in the anachoresis was in fact a kind of
estrangement from God. The unquenched thirst for Gods presence takes one to weep for ones own sins
(compunction). Compunction is an act of God in us, an act by which God awakens us, a shock, a blow, a
sting, a sort of burn. God goads us as if with a spear; He presses us with insistence (cum-pungere), as if
221

T. Spidilik, The Spirituality of the Christian East, 239.

It is an inordinate love of the pleasure of the table belly madness. Cf. S. Tugwell, Ways of Imperfection: An Exploration of
Christian Spirituality, Longman & Todd, London, 1984, 25.
223
The Logismos of avarice takes one to senseless attachments to material goods, things, ideas, customs, and attitudes. This
thought extends to futile planning for an unreal future.
224
The logismos of fornication fills the mind with desire for a variety of bodies. Cf. Evagrius, Praktikos 8; J. Y. Leloup, Being
Still, 33.
225
The logismos of anger disfigures a person and causes him to be a demon. Cf. Evagrius of Ponticus, The Greek Ascetic Corpus,
R. E. Sinkewicz, trans., Oxford University Press, New York, 2003, 186; M. M. Funk, Tools Matter, 34; Evagrius, Praktikos 11.
226
The logismos of akedia, also called the noonday demon. Cf. Evagrius, Praktikos 12; 26. Akedia is a particular form of death
instinct that introduces into all our actions disgust and lassitude. It leads to despair and at times to suicide a soul death; J. Y.
Leloup, Being Still, 36; M. M. Funk, Tools Matter for Practicing the Spiritual Life, 41.
227
The loigsmos of vainglory is simply daydreaming about ones own magnificence. Cf. Evagrius, Praktikos 13.
228
Evagrius identifies eight principal thoughts at the root of our behaviour, which are symptoms of a spiritual sickness.
According to Evagrius the fifth one is Lupe (melancholy) In Cassian lupe is mentioned.
229
There are differences between Exagoreusis and confession of sins. One of the main differences is for Exagoreusis a priest is
not necessary.
230
Abba Poemen 101.
231
J. Cassian, The Conferences, 1. 22.
222

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to pierce us. The love of the world lulls us; but, as if by a thunderclap, the attention of the soul is recalled to
God.232 It reflects ones surrender to God and to a new pattern of learning and living. One grieves for
ones estrangement from God and, as a consequence, ones eyes become a source of tears (Penthos). It is
considered as the consequence of divine grace. There are two forms of tears or compunction: the lower
stream (irriguum inferius) is the stream of repentance and the higher flood (irriguum superius) is that of
desire.
The word penthos derives from the verb pathein, which means to suffer.233 It is ones total limitation
and insufficiency, placed before God in repentance, not just individual wrongdoings, or mere sinfulness. 234
Abba Poemen apprehended that both Scripture and tradition pointed to the importance of tears: Weeping
(kalaien) is the way that Scripture and our fathers have handed on to us, when they say, Weep! Truly there
is no other way than this.235 When the brethren from the mountain invited Abba Macarius the Great and
asked him for instruction, the old man obliged them by telling them: Let us weep, brothers, and let tears
gush out of our eyes, before we go to that place where our tears shall burn our bodies.236 A brother asked
Abba Poemen, What should I do? The old man said to him, When Abraham entered the promised land he
bought a sepulcher for himself and by means of this tomb, he inherited the land. The brother said to him,
What is the tomb? The old man said, The place of tears and compunction.237 When the particular
disciple asked Poemen an explanation for land and tomb, Poemen selected a biblical story, which divulges
the objectives of anachoresis.238 Here, the disciple is engrossed to mine the implied meaning of the tomb.
Poemen answers simply, A place of tears and compunction. Chapter 23 of Genesis gives the feeling of
sorrow and weeping as of the death of Sarah. Here, to speak of the grief of Abraham, the word penthesai
(penqh/sai)239 is used to indicate mourning (v-2), a word so important in the spirituality of anachoresis.
According to Jeremy Driscoll, These are not an end in themselves.240 Poemen highlights, by means of
this tomb, he inherited the land. Citing the biblical texts, in brief, two goals such as scopos of tears and
telos of Promised Land of contemplation are explained.241
The purpose of the act of penthos is to cleanse our gravely ill mind. Evagrius reminds us of those
who forget of the rationale of the penthos: Many people, who weep for their sins, while forgetting the
purpose of their weeping, have gone out of their minds and turned astray.242 Evagrius further questions the
232

D. J. Leclercq. The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, C. Misrahi, trans., Fordham
University Press, New York, 1996, 30.
233
The word pathos (passion) also derives from the same root pathein.
234
J. Chryssavgis, John Climacus, 144.
235
Abba Poemen 119. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Mt. 5:4).
236
Abba Macarius the Great 34.
237
Abba Poemen 50, PG 65: 333.
238
See Abba Poemen 119: For weeping is the way that the Scripture and our Fathers have handed down to us (PG 65: 353).
239
Cf. Mt.5, 4; 9,15; Mk 16, 10; Lk 6, 25; 1 Cor 5, 2; Js 4, 9; Rv 18, 11; 15, 19, 2 Cor 12, 21.
240
J. Driscoll, Steps to Spiritual Perfection, 132.
241
Cf. Poemen 106; PG 65:348.
242
PG 79:1169. Cf. in Jeremy Driscol, 55.

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credibility of penthos: Tears can be for show or for good reason and this of course, he says, is
madness.243 Ammonas sums up the doctrine of penthos: Undisturbed, penthos drives away all
wickedness.244 According to John Chrysostom, a single tear extinguishes a brazier of faults and washes
away the venom of sin.245
e. Krupte Melete: The Exercise of Prayer
As we have said earlier, the mind (nous) as a factory would go on generating thoughts as long as the mind
is alive and active in the person. Ascetics experienced now and then heavy ruckus inside the nous due to
the multiplication of logismoi, despite ceaseless effort to halting them at the entrance to the heart (nepsis).
They felt that ameremina, nepsis, and even penthos tend to be less effective. According to Abba Evagrius,
most of the exercises that allow one to struggle against the mental riots caused by logismoi cannot be done
all the time.246Therefore, to ignite nepsis (watchfulness) the elders inculcated a positive tool called krupte
melete. This parlance is comprised of two phrases: concealed, hidden, and , revolve in
the mind, imagine and meditate. Hence, it is called the hidden exercise of prayer.247 Krupte melete
includes various exercises such as repeating and reciting verses from Scripture and invoking the name of
the Lord

248

(Jesus prayer finds its roots here). The recitation of the Scripture was done verbally249 and

silently through the recitation of a short utterance, or a single phrase from Scripture (rethon). Short phrases
are repeated so that they penetrate the soul and bring about spontaneous prayer. However, some added even
lengthy (and no doubt sometimes less lengthy) extracts from the Scriptures to the Psalms at the synaxis.250
Part III. Critical Appraisal: Legacy of Anachoresis for the Present Day
For the contemporary ears, anachoresis (withdrawal from the world) is perhaps a bizarre concept that
seems to be anthropophobic and even a misleading terminology. Fourth century desert anachoresis has its
antagonists and admirers. Detractors without and within the Church have charged that early monks
misunderstood and departed from the spirit of Jesus and the biblical message of salvation. 251 Not all
detractors have understood the mind of the desert elders, however. In this section, we collect a few
remarkable assessments over the shibboleth concept of anachoresis by some of the renowned
243

Evagrius, Praktikos 32.

Instruction 4:14. Cf. T. Spidilik, The Spirituality of the Christian East, 196.
245
Cf. T. Spidilik, The Spirituality of the Christian East, 196.
246
Evagrius, Praktikos 49.
247
In general, the Fathers hid their melete out of humility. Melete is the common term used for meditation in the apophthegmata
patrum. Cf. Abba Isaiah, Asceticon 3.4; 16. 74); Evagrius, Praktikos 15; 69. The term melete is also used in the corpus for
designating continuous concentration on final judgment and death. Cf. Abba Ammonas 1, PG 120; Evagrius, Praktikos 52.
248
J. Cassian, Conferences 10.10, Colm Luibheid, trans., 133. See also Antoine Guillaumont, The Jesus Prayer among the
Monks of Egypt, in Eastern Churches Review, Vol. VI, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1974, 68-69,
249
Cf. Historia Lausiaca 7: 5, 41; Abba Antony 2.
250
Synaxis means a gathering together, is the most common word used in the sayings to describe both the public and private
occasions when Scripture was recited. Abba Achilles 5. Abba Epiphanius 9 Abba Sisoes 35.
251
Cf. H. Chadwick, 1985, 6; E. Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 7 Vols., J.B. Bury Methuen,
ed., London, 1900, 4, 57- 75. H. Leitzmann, A History of the Early Church, Vol. 4: The Era of the Church Fathers, B.L. Woolf,
trans., Lutterworth, London, 1951, 153.
244

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contemporary theologians and erudite thinkers to underscore the significance of anachoresis as far as
religious and Christian life is concerned.
3.1. Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI, in his encyclical Spe Salvi Facti Sumus15, says: It was commonly thought that
monasteries were places of flight from the world (contemptus mundi) and of withdrawal from responsibility
for the world, in search of private salvation. Furthermore, by bringing the view of Bernard of Clairvaux,
he clarifies, for Bernard, monks perform a task for the whole Church and hence also for the world.252
Benedict also gives St. Augustine as example. He asks what happened to Augustine after his conversion to
the Christian faith. He replies that Augustine chose the better part (Lk 10:42), desired to be a hermit.
However, things turned out differently. Augustine dedicated himself completely to the ordinary people and
to his city renouncing his spiritual nobility. He preached and acted in a simple way for simple people.253
Hence, according to Pope Benedict, anachoresis is to seek the truth, and truth can be discovered through a
process of withdrawal from the superficialities of the self and the world, but it cannot be discovered by a
rejection of the concrete reality of the self and the world.
3.2. Thomas Merton
By shunning the world, according to Merton, the desert elders never meant the world as cosmo-centric, but
a relationship to the world (anthropocentrically). It was not to reject the people, the society, the creatures
of God or the works of man, but to reject the perverted standards which make men misuse and spoil a good
creation, ruining their own lives in the bargain, says Thomas Merton.254 In his book Contemplation in a
World of Action, Merton assesses that anachoresis paradoxically gave them a key place in the world of
their time, and their asceticism, their mystical life, were understood to be an essential contribution to a
religious culture in which everyone participated.255 Merton regarded that true solitude is always deeply
aware of the worlds needs. He is of the view that anachoresis without a subsequent return is an imperfect
spirituality. Yet an attempt to build a new society without having first undergone an anachoresis is no
better. Social ethics depend on a prior withdrawal into contemplative prayer. 256 Withdrawal, experience,
and return are but different movements within an ongoing process. A mysticism, which does not turn
outward but remains enclosed within itself is an escape from reality, and for Merton this was antithetical to
Christian spirituality.257 He considered withdrawal without return as both illusory and immoral; illusory in
that no one is ever able to extract himself totally from society, immoral in that it would be a rejection of the
world which Christ loved and came to redeem, a refusal to share with Christ in that redemption.
252

Pope Benedict VI, Spe Salvi Facti Sumus 10.

Spe Salvi Facti Sumus 28.
254
T. Merton, The Life and Holiness, Herder and Herder, New York, 1963, 100.
255
T. Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action, Doubleday, Garden City, 1971, 134.
256
T. Merton, On Peace, McCall, New York, 1971, 259f.
257
T. Merton, Poetry and Contemplation: A Reappraisal in A Thomas Merton Reader, Harcourt, New York, 1962, 437.
253

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3.3. Arnold Joseph Toynbee

Toynbee in his book A Study of History describes the need of anachoresis and a subsequent return. In his
words: It is a movement which involves a disengagement and temporary withdrawal of the creative
personality from his social milieu, and his subsequent return to the same milieu transfigured in a new
capacity and with new powers. The disengagement and withdrawal make it possible for the personality to
realize individual potentialities had not been released for a moment from his social toils and
trammels.258 Toynbee sees anachoresis as a part of all social change, and not simply as a movement that
occurs for the sake of the individual and his self-actualization. He continues: Withdrawal is an
opportunity, and perhaps a necessary condition, for the anchorites transfiguration; but the same token, this
transfiguration can have no purpose, and perhaps even have no meaning, except as a prelude to the return
of the transfigured personality into the social milieu out of which he has originally come The return is
the essence of the whole movement, as well as its final cause.259 Hence, in his assessment, first he
describes the movement of anachoresis in terms of its manifestation within the human psyche or spirit;
later it is described insofar as it relates to the interactions between individuals.
3.4. Claude J. Peifer
In his study on desert mysticism, Peifer avers, They [anchorites]260 did not withdraw out of an egotistical
desire to find tranquility in the abandonment of concern for their fellow men. It was not the world of their
brethren in Christ that they fled from but the world subject to the dominion of Satan a society of those
who live exclusively for themselves.261 Peifer explains further: In isolating himself from the human
society, the monk obviously does not and cannot rupture the bond of solidarity which indissolubly unites
his destiny to that of all his human brothers. Rather his physical separation unites him even more closely to
his brethren in another sense.262 Hence, the real value of withdrawal is positive a continual absorption in
God. By renouncing the world, they conquered the world with its multiplicity.
3.5. Derwas J. Chitty
D. J. Chitty assesses the radical movement of desert anachoresis thus, Making a city of the wilderness
was no mere flight, nor a rejection of matter as evil (why did they show such aesthetic sense in placing
their retreats, and such love for all Gods animal creation?). It was rooted in a stark realism of faith in God
and acceptance of the battle which is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,

258

A. J. Toynbee, A Study of History, Vol. 111, Oxford University Press, London, 1933, 248.
A. J. Toynbee, A Study of History, Vol. 111, 1933, 248.
260
Square brackets mine.
261
Cf. C. J. Peifer, Monastic Spirituality, 196.
262
C. J. Peifer, Monastic Spirituality, 194.
259

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against the world-rulers.263 D. J. Chitty also agrees with Merton and Claude J. Peifer, saying that
anachoresis is a separation not from human beings but from the perverted way of life.
3.6. Jean Leclercq
According to Jean Leclercq, from monks attempt to renew the world began from and it relied on the center
of their own internal religious life, The principal role of monasticism is to remind everyone that the first
condition to be fulfilled in transforming society is the transformation of ourselves by leading the life in
Christ as fully as possible, and to do this for the glory of God264, says Jean Leclercq. To transform the
world, the monk criticizes the world from within.
3.7. Raimundo Panikkar
Raimundo Panikkar expounds anachoresis of the monks in terms of the contemporary changing paradigm:
the world has shifted from meaning bishops and women, to quote facetiously from the first Christian
monks, i.e., from dangers of the social life of the community, civil and religious, to the political and
socioeconomic structures, along with the ideologies of all sorts that nowadays represent a danger to combat
and an enemy to conquer. To fight the world and its demons today may mean to combat the system and its
technocrats.265 For Panikkar anachoresis ought to be a flight not from human persons but from religious
consumerist and secularist way of life.
3.8. Douglas Burton-Christie
Speaking of the detached life of the desert monks (and mothers) Burton Christie comments, Renunciation
was a means of pursing the freedom from care so cherished in the desert and detachment was the sign of
that freedom. Moreover, detachment and freedom from care were not ends in themselves; detachment from
things and from concern for oneself bore fruit in compassion toward others.266 The detachment gives to
the religious, especially to the monk, moral authority. If one is freed from the clutches of things, objects,
persons, ideologies, structures, systems, false authority etc., s/he will have the moral right to question the
unjust systems that pervade the society.
3.9. Metropolitan Antony of Sourozh
Metropolitan Antony of Sourozh emphatically asserts that the anachoresis of desert monks was not
escapism in order to find a haven of security as understood by the modern man. On the other hand, they set
out to wage war with the powers of the devil (polemein). By the grace of God, in the power of the Spirit,
they were engaging in combat.267

263

D. J. Chitty, The Desert a City, 1966, XVI.

D.J. Leclercq, Aspects of Monasticism, 343.
265
R. Panikkar, Blessed Simplicity: The Monk as Universal Archetype, The Seabury Press, New York, 1982, 43
266
D. Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert, 214.
267
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, The Essence of Prayer, Longman and Todd Ltd., London, 1986, 275.
264

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3.10. Rembert G. Weakland

For Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland, desert anachoresis was not a selfish and individualistic withdrawal
from the trials and troubles of the world in which they lived; but a withdrawal intended to bring about a
positive change in the society.268
Conclusion
We are now able to draw conclusions. The anachoresis advocated by the desert elders was an outcome of
personal choice, unlike refugees, deportees, exiles and the abandoned who become the victims of an
involuntary anachoresis by reason of war or famine. The desert fathers (and mothers) began their
speculation by withdrawing and ended by becoming spiritual guides and masters of others. Here, for a
convincing conclusion, we shall ask: Was it not because first they withdrew into seclusion that they became
renowned spiritual guides and masters? However, can we conclude that they withdrew into seclusion in
order to become spiritual guides and masters to next generation and to their times? Did not there exist only
one intention behind their anachoresis, that is, just to be alone with the Alone? But at the end, did not their
voluntary anachoresis make them be light for future generations?
Can we assert that the theology of anachoresis is equally accommodating to the needs of every
generation? If we regurgitate the term anachoresis, we will find methodically that anachoresis will control
and supervise our conduct and as a result, we will be able to remodel the world. In that case, do we not find
that anachoresis has a moral, social, political and above all a spiritual potency and influence? The
anachoresis taught by the desert fathers (and mothers) was a technique, a skill, an exercise and above all an
art of living (techne tou biou). Even today, where religious life is facing a big existential crisis in the crosscultural changing paradigms of the 21st century, anachoresis can be an all-embracing exercise as
envisioned by the Gospels. Because, at the centre of the activity of anachoresis there is a self who, through
behavioural changes, seeks to become a different person, a new self, in view of establishing a new
relationship, and thus to become a different person in a new society that forms a new culture. This
construction of the self in reference to oneself, to others, to society and to the world, how can we qualify as
selfish, escapist (fuga mundi), antisocial, unbiblical? The anachoresis that we have treated in this study is a
multifaceted reality, which demands a set of external and internal exercises, the basis of an end goal
whatever it may be.
Manthra OCD
eremo40@gmail.com

268

Br. Patric Hart, ed., Survival of Prophecy? The Letters of Thomas Merton and Jean Leclerg, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New
York, 2002, XVI.

35