Issue 64 St. Antony & the Desert Fathers

What's inside

Antony and the Desert Fathers: Did You Know?

Spiritual Wisdom of the Desert Fathers.

the Editors

Antony and the Desert Fathers: From the Editors — Models or Kooks?

The questions that hover in the background of this issue are as pressing as ever.

Mark Galli

The Best There Ever Was

Modern Christian hermits still look to him for inspiration, as did the entire Middle Ages, but today we hardly know him. What did the illiterate recluse, known as Antony of the Desert, do to earn such adulation?

Mark Galli

The Life Changing “Life of Antony”

Athanasius’s biography was not only a bestseller in its day, but a book that made people stop and thinkand act.

David Wright

Exorcizing the Desert

The stories of desert fathers’ skirmishes with demons pointed to a larger struggle—and victory.

Diana Severance

Alone in the Desert?

Why thousands of early Christians took up the monastic way.

James E. Goehring

Diet For a Large Soul

What monks meant by fasting, and what they ate when they didn’t.

Benedicta Ward

Christian History Timeline: Antony and the Desert Fathers

Chronology of events related to Anthony and the desert fathers.

the Editors

Ascetic Agitators

The early monks not only prayed in the desert but sometimes rioted in the cities.

Kenneth Calvert

Wordly Monk

Jerome was a disciplined ascetic who was on top of current affairs.

Kelvin Crow and Mark Galli

Holy Land

Sabas just wanted to pray where Christ had lived and died but ended up establishing the most famous monastery in the Judean Desert.

John Binns

Antony and the Desert Fathers: The Gallery — Getting Their Act Together

Monasticism was more or less a solitary affair until these four came along and taught monks how to live in community.

Columba Stewart; John Cassian; Frederica Mathews-Green; Macrina Basil; Marci Rae Johnson

Spiritual Pragmatists

For the desert fathers, theology was not the study of God but the study of how to become like God.

Dennis D. Martin

Interview — Discovering the Desert Paradox

What many found when they sought God in a seemingly God-forsaken landscape.

Belden Lane

Antony and the Desert Fathers: Recommended Resources

Resources for more information on the desert fathers.

Mark Galli
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