An Introduction To The Desert Fathers

Download or read book An Introduction to the Desert Fathers written by John Wortley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-06 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible guide to the lives and teaching of the earliest Christian monks, largely using their own words.

Download or read book The Sayings of the Desert Fathers written by and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 1975-02-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: `Give me a word, Father', visitors to early desert monks asked. The responses of these pioneer ascetics were remembered and in the fourth century written down in Coptic, Syriac, Greek, and later Latin. Their Sayings were collected, in this case in the alphabetical order of the monks and nuns who uttered them, and read by generations of Christians as life-giving words that would help readers along the path to salvation.

Download or read book The Desert Fathers written by Helen Waddell and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 1957 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The words of the 4th-century monastics who founded the Desert Rule

Download or read book Desert Christians written by William Harmless and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-06-17 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the fourth century, the deserts of Egypt became the nerve center of a radical new movement, what we now call monasticism. Groups of Christians-from illiterate peasants to learned intellectuals-moved out to the wastelands beyond the Nile Valley and, in the famous words of Saint Athanasius, made the desert a city. In so doing, they captured the imagination of the ancient world. They forged techniques of prayer and asceticism, of discipleship and spiritual direction, that have remained central to Christianity ever since. Seeking to map the soul's long journey to God and plot out the subtle vagaries of the human heart, they created and inspired texts that became classics of Western spirituality. These Desert Christians were also brilliant storytellers, some of Christianity's finest. This book introduces the literature of early monasticism. It examines all the best-known works, including Athanasius' Life of Antony, the Lives of Pachomius, and the so-called Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Later chapters focus on two pioneers of monastic theology: Evagrius Ponticus, the first great theoretician of Christian mysticism; and John Cassian, who brought Egyptian monasticism to the Latin West. Along the way, readers are introduced to path-breaking discoveries-to new texts and recent archeological finds-that have revolutionized contemporary scholarship on monastic origins. Included are fascinating snippets from papyri and from little-known Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopic texts. Interspersed in each chapter are illustrations, maps, and diagrams that help readers sort through the key texts and the richly-textured world of early monasticism. Geared to a wide audience and written in clear, jargon-free prose, Desert Christians offers the most comprehensive and accessible introduction to early monasticism.

Download or read book The Desert Fathers written by and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2003-03-27 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Desert Fathers were the first Christian monks, living in solitude in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. In contrast to the formalised and official theology of the "founding fathers" of the church, the Desert Fathers were ordinary Christians who chose to renounce the world and live lives of celibacy, fasting, vigil, prayer and poverty in direct and simple response to the gospel. Their sayings were first recorded in the 4th century and consist of spiritual advice, anecdotes and parables. The Desert Fathers' teachings and lives have inspired poetry, opera and art, as well as providing spiritual nourishment and a template for monastic life.

Download or read book The Desert Fathers written by Peter H. Gorg and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2011-08-12 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late third century, more and more people withdrew to the radical seclusion of the desert so as to live entirely for God under the direction of a spiritual father. Among these "Desert Fathers" one figure is especially preeminent: Saint Anthony the Hermit. This book takes the reader back to the hour when monasticism was born and describes the life of those revolutionary Christians who sought God in the Egyptian desert. The focus of the book is the life and work of Saint Anthony, whose experiences of the spiritual life have a timeless beauty and validity, even for those not called to live as a monk. The second half of the book presents other Desert Fathers, such as Paul of Thebes, Pachomius, and Simeon Stylites, as well as the great founders of the monastic communities in Western Europe who were inspired by them: John Cassian, Columban, and Benedict, for example. "The monk's self-denial begins radically in precisely those departments of life which have perennially seemed to be the most important: ownership, self-determination and sexuality. At the same time those who admonish so uncomfortably become the salt that lends Christianity its original flavor. . . . Just as the saints are God's specific answer to the needs of a given time, so too are the religious orders that have been founded over the course of the centuries." - Peter Görg

Download or read book More Sayings of the Desert Fathers written by and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-28 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of the Tales and Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Apophthegms) have survived in Greek and most of them are now available in English, almost 2500 in number. A further six hundred items in six languages have been available in French for some time, but often in second- and even third-hand translations. These have now been newly translated directly from the original languages by scholars skilled in those languages and are presented, alongside an Introduction and brief notes, to the English reader who wishes to know more of those men and some women who rejected 'the world' and went to live in the desert regions of Egypt and elsewhere in the fourth to seventh centuries.