02 — The Monk of Scetis

The making of a monk out of a brigand. This section follows Moses through the ascetic warfare of his first years at Scetis — the fierce and sometimes excessive struggle against the lust and violence of his former life, the counsel of Isidore the Priest and the guiding presence of Macarius the Great — and the slow seasoning by which the penitent robber became himself a father to whom others came for a word.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Desert Father; martyr)

Conversion was the turn; the monastic life was the labor. The Apophthegmata and Palladius agree that Moses threw the whole ferocity of his nature into the ascetic struggle, and that his first warfare was hard — the passions of the old life did not surrender at once, and his early zeal was so extreme that his elders had to temper it. This section sets out that struggle and the eldership that shaped it, and then traces how the man under direction became a director himself, a father of monks.

Files in This Section

File Description
The Struggle with the Passions The ascetic warfare against the lust and violence of his former life; the excess of his early zeal; the counsel of Isidore the Priest and the role of Macarius the Great in tempering and guiding him.
The Making of a Father How the penitent under direction became a father of the desert — the seasoning of experience into wisdom, the gathering of disciples, and the Apophthegmata as the record of his eldership.

See Also

References

  • Ward, Benedicta, trans. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection. Rev. ed. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1984. (Abba Moses; Abba Isidore.)
  • Palladius. The Lausiac History. Trans. Robert T. Meyer. ACW 34. New York: Newman Press, 1964. (Chapter 19.)
  • Chitty, Derwas J. The Desert a City. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966.
  • Harmless, William. Desert Christians. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.