Flee to the Desert
Why did the Egyptian Desert Fathers abandon the cities of Rome in the fourth century?
In the mid-fourth century the Roman world witnessed one of the strangest phenomena of its 1,100 year history. Men and women — Christians, who were to all outward appearances sane, sensible, and sober — began to abandon their towns and villages, families and friends, vocations and careers to make their way to the harsh deserts of Egypt. Some settled in newly-established colonies along the Nile river; others chose to live alone, away from the river, in isolated stone cells concealed in the arid wasteland along the eastern rim of the Sahara. Here, living beneath the scorching sun, these men and women devoted themselves to a single-minded search for God.
The Creation of Saint Anthony
Word of the new movement spread. Amazement grew. A bishop of Alexandria named Athanasius wrote a book in 356, The Life of Saint Anthony, about the “founder” of the movement. This burst of publicity led many to regard Anthony as the “Father of Monasticism;” in fact, he was the most famous example of these early monks, not the first.
According to Athanasius, Anthony had been raised in an upper-middle class Egyptian family. His father was a minor land owner. Unfortunately, his parents died when Anthony…
