Historical Theology: The Spirituality of the Desert

(Click here for other installments of this series)

 

 

Lecture audio: The Spirituality of the Desert

(click here to listen or right-click to download)

 

 

Question: How should we respond to some of the idealistic commands in the New Testament, such as those which tell us to sell what we have and give to the poor (Luke 12:33) or to “pray continually” (1 Thess. 5:17)? 

 
- Beginning in the 3rd century AD (and perhaps even earlier), a number of Christians decided to try to carry these commands out to their fullest degree possible. They sold all their possessions and gave the proceeds to the poor, often keeping only a single tunic and a reed mat for themselves. They went out to live in the desert wildernesses of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, practicing subsistence farming or, more often, living off the meager food that passersby would leave for them. They devoted their entire lives to the practice of prayer, even rationing their sleeping-time so they could have more time to pray. Along the way they discovered that, even in solitude, they had to wrestle against all the same sins and temptations they faced before. They developed a rich spiritual tradition about how to deal with these inner temptations and to train one’s soul on the path to virtue. These Christians were known as the desert fathers (Abbas) and desert mothers (Ammas).
 

- Continual Prayer

- To achieve continual prayer, these early desert monks used many different varieties of prayer. Some of it would be the sort of prayers we are familiar with—spoken or silent prayers which intend to relate a verbal request to God. But they also used more meditative types of prayer: frequent repetitions of the Lord’s Prayer or liturgical prayers, or the repetition of a single request, like the famous “Jesus Prayer”: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” (Such prayers helped them maintain “continual prayer” even while they had to be engaged in other necessary activities.) Many times they would use silent, wordless prayers of contemplation—simply focusing one’s heart and mind on the person of God himself and resting in his presence. But their favorite means of prayer, above any other, was the repetition of the Biblical psalms. Some of these monks would pray through the entire cycle of 150 psalms each day.
 

- Self-Renunciation
- The idea behind this view of the Christian life is that the main hurdle Christians must overcome is themselves. Because we are so caught up in our own inner lives—our sense of self-importance, known to the Christian tradition as the sin of “pride”—we must take great lengths to train ourselves to understand that the Christian life isn’t really about our own pleasures, desires, and dreams. It’s about giving those things up and allowing ourselves to be shaped by God’s character instead.
 

- Fasting and Bodily Discipline

- In order to meet the goal of self-renunciation, the desert monks practiced a rigorous mode of fasting. While a few of them regularly practiced total fasts, the more common practice was a moderate (but still difficult) one—they ate plain food, like bread and vegetables, but only enough to take the edge off their hunger, not enough to sate the appetite. To take it even farther, some would restrict not only food but sleep—rising to say prayers at midnight, and again at about 3 AM. A few extreme radicals in this sort of spirituality even restricted their freedom of movement by spending years at a time living on top of stone pillars in the desert.
 

- Spiritual Warfare
- The desert monks regularly made a point of struggling against the demonic forces arrayed against them. They felt that their goal was not simply to overcome temptations for the sake of their own souls; they felt that they were waging war on Satan. Every victory they achieved in their own lives was a victory the enemy, and a further advance of the Kingdom of God. They also believed that their constancy in prayer helped loosen the enemy’s hold on Christians everywhere: in a sense, they believed that their solitary prayers were the practice of missions.
 

- Growth in Virtue
- The Christian life is not just about overcoming the sin nature (that is, not just about solving present problems); it’s also about growing in virtue (attaining new heights of character that weren’t even possible before). The disciplines of prayer and fasting used by the desert monks proved to be fruitful means for gaining new heights of patience, humility, and contentment in any circumstances. The witness of Christian tradition is that these virtues are treasures so rich and deep that they are worth all the work it takes to win them.

Applications:
- Try out some new forms of prayer, and employ them regularly.
- Try fasting occasionally—if giving up food is not an option to you, try fasting from other things that dominate your time and attention—TV, social media, etc.
- Take some time to reflect on your own spiritual weak spots—temptations you struggle with, or virtue you haven’t yet mastered—and put together a “rule of life” to help you address those concerns.