Although one can find traces of certain forms of mysticism in the New Testament documents themselves, the Christian Contemplative Tradition is typically seen as having more substantial origins in the deserts of 3rd Century Egypt. As Christianity became the official religion of Rome, martyrdom, often thought to be the “most perfect way of following Christ,” became a relic of the past. As an alternative to literally dying for the faith, hermits like St. Anthony the Great (usually seen as the “first Christian monk”) entered the desert to live lives of radical simplicity and seek God in nearly complete solitude. Desert spirituality was characterized less by official meditative practice and more by a way of life – asceticism, internal (sometimes referred to as hesychast) and external silence, solitude, unceasing prayer, battling temptation, and seeking absolute obedience to one’s conscience before God. Many of the Apophthegmata Patrum (“Sayings of the Desert Fathers”) seem harsh in retrospect, even to those of later developed Christian monasticism, but these original Christian monks were performing the first experiments in monastic and solitary life within their tradition. Many of their excesses, especially in regards to severe asceticism, would be moderated as the tradition developed.
The Apophthegmata Patrum have been passed down in multiple forms in both the Christian West and the Christian East. I will be sharing some quotations from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Alphabetical version). I don’t find everything in these sayings to be edifying, and they were people of their time just as we are people of our time, but I certainly resonate with the impulse of these original Christian monks towards the value of solitude.
"The Koran and the Talmud, the Bible and the Avesta, the Darshanas and the Analects praise silence. Religions are at one in teaching that, without quiet, the roots of piety will at best be shallow. The idea that God speaks not with the wind or the earthquake or the fire but with a still, small voice is a commonplace; it is general religious wisdom. In all places and at all times those longing to touch another world have instinctively known what to do – enter a desert, climb a mountain, join a hermitage."
– Dale Allison, The Luminous Dusk