Skip to main content

The Sayings of the Holy Desert Fathers

A beautiful collection of sayings, dialogues and stories from early Christian ascetics and mystics of the first few centuries of Christianity--men (and women too) who left "the world" to go out into the desert wilderness in imitation of the life of Jesus Christ.

Not only did these "sayings" have significant influence on Eastern Christianity, on Coptic Christianity and on the Hesychastic movement within the Eastern Church, there is also a tremendous resonance in this work with many ideas and aspects of Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism (see the reading list below with links to book reviews here on this site). It's quite striking. The more I read about religion the more I see commonalities everywhere, all the time.

This is a book to be read a few pages a day, slowly and meditatively. It puts you in a calming place, in a place of a healthy, humble daily routine. The stories and anecdotes deal with universal questions: how to live a good life, how to behave, how to deal with the temptations of the world, how to live a life of quiet virtue and asceticism, how to avoid the traps of attachment, and so on. Some are funny, some are sad, some offer examples of great humility and beauty.

One final aspect of this book that a reader can't help but note is the deep respect that young monks show to their elder monks. And the elder monks usually respond by saying how little respect they deserve compared to the virtues of their elder monks. We stand on the shoulders of giants, whether we're aware of it or not. 

There are a lot of versions of this book, many are available free in the public domain. The Amazon Kindle version I read is available for a nominal price.

I read this book (very) gradually over nearly two years. It became a mentally restful, near-daily habit, and I wouldn't be surprised if I pick it up again in a few more years once "the world" starts to tempt me again. 

Pair with: 

More Posts

The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche (trans. Francis Golffing)

Of the three essays of The Genealogy of Morals  I recommend the first two. Skim the third. Collectively, they are extremely useful reading for citizens of the West to see clearly the oligarchic power dynamics under which we live. Show me a modern Western nation-state where there isn't an increasing concentration of power among the elites--and a reduction in freedom for everyone else. You can't find one. Today we live in an increasingly neo-feudal system, where elites control more and more of the wealth, the actions, even the  thoughts  of the masses. Perhaps we should see the rare flowerings of genuine democratic freedom (6th century BC Athens, Republic-era Rome, and possibly pre-1913 USA ) for what they really are: extreme outliers, quickly replaced with tyranny. The first essay inverts the entire debate about morality, as Nietzsche nukes centuries of philosophical ethics by simply saying the powerful simply do what they do , and thus those things are good by defi...
Read more

The Fourth Turning is Here by Neil Howe

If you've read the original  The Fourth Turning , much of this book will be review. However, this book explains the Forth Turning framework more cogently and tightly than the original, so if you  haven't  read the original book, I recommend just reading this and skipping the original. You'll walk away with the same central ideas plus the author's additional new (and slightly-adjusted) conclusions. The most profound takeaway from the overall Fourth Turning paradigm is that it teaches you to remember your place in the grand scheme of things. Sadly, modernity teaches the exact opposite: it persuades us to think we humans are bigger than history, that we can ignore it, be oblivious to it, and yet not repeat it. Worst of all, modernity teaches us to believe we've somehow managed to defeat history with our SOYANCE!!! and tEcHNologY--ironically none of which we can understand, replicate or repair. These "modren" beliefs, as arrogant and wrong as they are, conflic...
Read more

Anatomy of the State by Murray Rothbard

Tight, concise discussion of what the State really is and what it really does, not what we would like it to be. Thanks to the recent pandemic response, most of us lost once and for all our delusive belief that governments are a force for good, a force for fairness and justice. In this short book, Murray Rothbard shows how the State--no matter how "limited" a government you might set up in the beginning--always, always abrogates its citizens' rights and freedoms. It's just a matter of time. We also come to understand why the State loves war. It loves it. It gives the State far more power. It provides an easy justification to abrogate still more freedoms. And of course those in the State apparatus who profit politically or economically from war never seem to send their own sons to fight it. An all-too-typical example: note how Benjamin Netanyahu's military-age son lives safely and luxuriously in Miami, his security paid for by Israeli taxpayers . The fourth chap...
Read more