The origins of desert monasticism lie in the late third and early fourth centuries. This was the last period of the great persecution of Christians. Especially in Egypt, the persecution was very bloody and cruel.
The situation calmed down when Constantine the Great, Emperor of the Western Empire, who was sympathetic to the Christians, came to power and together with Licinius, Emperor of the Eastern Empire, issued an edict of tolerance, granting religious freedom to all the inhabitants of the Empire. The Great Persecution was practically a thing of the past (it would only return once more, when Julian the Apostate came to power). Instead, other problems arose from within Christianity itself.
The first half of the fourth century was the time of the first serious doctrinal disputes. These were caused by Arius, a priest from Alexandria. Arius' teaching included a false view of the Trinity and a rejection of the deity of Jesus Christ. As Alexandria was a port city and Arius himself a popular figure, his theses spread very quickly across the Mediterranean and beyond, causing much unrest among Christians. One measure of this unrest became the fights and battles between the followers of Arius and the followers of the bishops who professed belief in the one and eternal Trinity and that Jesus Christ was both God and man.
The unrest surrounding Arianism became so significant that the Emperor Constantine led the convening of the First World Council, which was held in Nicaea in 325. This council brought together some 250 bishops or their representatives. As a result of their deliberations, the teachings of Arius were condemned and declared heretical. There is also an event associated with the Council which is linked to the well-known and popular bishop, Nicholas of Myra. He was a strong opponent of the theses put forward by Arius, and it is said that when Arius was speaking before the Emperor and the assembled bishops, Nicholas stood up and struck him in the face because he could not bear to deny the divine nature of Jesus Christ. As this happened in the presence of the Emperor, Nicholas was imprisoned for a time, but was soon released.
The Council's decisions did not end the controversy, and factionalism continued for a long time. They had an impact on the lives of the monks of the Egyptian desert, who, while remaining adherents of the doctrine promulgated at the Council, were not infrequently expelled from their cells and forced to leave Egypt.
It is interesting to note that the unrest did not in any way diminish the popularity of monastic life. Moreover, in the second half of the fourth century, pilgrims from Western Europe, from Rome, Spain or Gaul, arrived in the desert. This is related to the beginnings of monasticism in the West. It was not uncommon for imperial visitors to learn the rudiments of monastic life from desert monks, who would later return to their homelands and transplant the experience they had gained in Egypt to Europe, thoughtfully and appropriately adapted.
Life in the desert was fraught with danger. Attacks on the monks were not uncommon. All thanks to the wild peoples of the desert. The invasions of the Bedouin tribes on Sketis - the informal capital of Eastern monasticism - contributed to the decline of desert monastic life, which was never revived to the same extent as at the height of its popularity.
The end of the era of the desert monks is closely linked to the Christological disputes of the fifth century. Admittedly, the disputes themselves did not make much of an impression on the monks and, with a few notorious exceptions, they did not get involved in the affairs of the Council of Ephesus (431) and the disputes between Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius. However, it happened that Dioscurus, an unscrupulous man and supporter of the thesis that Christ had only one divine-human nature, became Patriarch of Alexandria. (The Church teaches that both natures, divine and human, are fully present in Christ). Through influence and intrigue of various kinds, he involved the monks in ongoing theological disputes. He even led the monks to break up the Council of Ephesus in 449. Several Council Fathers were killed as a result of this tragic event.
After the Council of Chalcedon (451) proclaimed the doctrine of two natures united in the one person of Christ, the monks "dug in their positions" and became a bastion of monophysitism (the view that Christ has only one nature). This initially led to a division between the two camps, which were relatively gentle with each other, but over time the Monophysites gained the upper hand and by the end of the fifth century there was monastic life in the Egyptian desert, but it was no longer linked to Christianity, which was united around the person of the Bishop of Rome.
And it was a text with a lot of historical and theological content. But those were the times, and if we are to continue to search for our treasures in the wilderness, we need to be aware of this, at least in general terms. Why? Because those to be discussed are children of that time, just as we are children of the 20th and 21st centuries. And just as we are influenced by access to television, the Internet and the older experiences of communist times, so the events I have described today influenced those who sought an encounter with God in monastic life.
