Anthony & the Desert

In the deserts of Egypt in the third and fourth centuries, men and women fled the noise of the world to seek God in stillness. St Anthony the Great, whose life Athanasius recorded, became the father of Christian monasticism.

A younger seeker would come and say, “Abba, give me a word” — trusting that a single saying, taken to heart and put into practice, could be enough to save a life. These sayings were gathered as the Apophthegmata Patrum.

Their counsel is spare and bracing: “Go, sit in your cell,” said Abba Moses, “and your cell will teach you everything.” Stay; be still; let one word do its slow work.