02 — The Monk of Scetis
How the Roman courtier became a desert monk: his arrival in Scetis and his entry under John the Colobos and the elders, the testing of the fastidious aristocrat by the rough discipline of the desert, and his discovery there of the great love of his life — hesychia, the stillness for which he is remembered above every other father. These files follow Arsenius from the threshold of the monastic life into the silence that became his vocation and his teaching, anchored in the saying that crowns his memory: “I have often repented of having spoken, but never of having kept silent.”
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Desert Father; father of stillness)
To flee the court was one thing; to be remade as a monk was another, and the Apophthegmata preserve the friction of that remaking with rare candor. The man who had taught emperors had now to be taught by unlettered desert elders, and to submit his refined sensibility to the desert’s deliberate humiliations. Out of that submission grew the silence that became his glory. This section treats his entry and testing, and then the love of stillness that is the center of his whole portrait — the hesychia that he guarded above speech, company, and reputation alike.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Courtier Becomes a Monk | Arsenius’ arrival in Scetis and his reception under John the Colobos and the elders; the deliberate testing and humbling of the aristocrat; the obedience by which the courtier was made a monk. |
| Silence and Stillness | The love of hesychia that defined him; “I have often repented of having spoken, but never of having kept silent”; the silence at the common table; the withdrawal even from holy company for the sake of stillness. |
See Also
- Flee from Men — the call that brought him to Scetis
- The Apophthegmata of Arsenius — the sayings that record his desert life
- Spiritual Direction — the elder–disciple relationship that formed him
- St. Macarius the Great — the founder of the Scetis he entered
References
- Ward, Benedicta, trans. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection. Rev. ed. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1984.
- Chitty, Derwas J. The Desert a City. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966.
- Harmless, William. Desert Christians. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.