Desert Fathers

Uncommon card · No. 109631

The Desert Fathers were early Christian hermits and ascetics, who lived primarily in the Wadi El Natrun, then known as Skete, in Roman Egypt, beginning around the third century. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers is a collection of sayings and other texts attributed to desert monks and nuns from this era. The first Desert Father was Paul of Thebes. The most well-known was Anthony the Great, who moved to the desert in 270–271 and became known as both the father and founder of desert monasticism. By the time Anthony had died in 356, thousands of monks and nuns had been drawn to live in the desert following Anthony's example, leading his biographer, Athanasius of Alexandria, to write that "the desert had become a city." The Desert Fathers significantly influenced the development of Christianity. The desert monastic communities that grew out of the informal gathering of hermit monks became the model for Christian monasticism, first influencing the Coptic communities these monks were a part of...

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