Desert Father: In the Desert with Saint Anthony

by James Cowan

Book Overview

The spiritual exploits of Saint Anthony the Great--the prototype of the Christian "Desert Father"--have been immortalized in stories and art since the fourth century. Here is the stunning account of a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590301455
• ISBN13: 9781590301456
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Shambhala Publications
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Book!

This is a great book looking at the life and spirituality of St. Anthony the Great and how his journey can speak to our own lives. This book is highly recommended!

Jouney into mysticism

Desert Father is a journey into mysticism and Eastern Christian thought in the early church. Cowan takes this journey both physically, by living in a monastery at Mount Colzim, where St. Anthony lived as an anchorite in the fourth century, and spiritually, by delving into the literature and thoughts of the earliest Christian mystics. Through his account of his journeys, Cowan leads the reader into a deeper understanding of this very unique form of mysticism. The journey is very rewarding both for the reader and the author. It opens doors for deeper exploration of the meaning of emptying oneself to better accept the presence and power of God. Although this route for seeking faith is not for everyone (myself included), it is still a fascinating journey to travel. Cowan is not easy to read. Especially earlier in the book, I felt that he was trying to impress me with his knowledge, rattling off lists of philosophers and theologians. These lists left me rather cold, feeling like I was being reminded of my ignorance. This lessened as I continued reading, but it left me rather cold. However, I am glad that I continued on, because the Cowan's teachings are very instructive and eye-opening. But it did detract from my overall enjoyment of a very powerful book.

Transforming

'Desert Father' by James Cowan is a both a book about transformation, and can itself cause a transformation. Cowan recounts in engaging prose the story of his journey in search of the spirit of Anthony, the patriarch of monks, and the first anchorite and hermit in the desert in Christian history. Anthony gave up the splendours of life in Egypt (which was, at his time, one of the most splendid places on earth to live), forsaking the Nile for the desert, and forsaking the customs and comforts of society for the solitary, mud-brick and cave existence of an ascetic. Cowan traveled to the still-extant Monastery of St. Anthony, near Mount Colzim (for those looking on maps, it might also be spelled Kolzim or Al-Qalzam), where Anthony's later years were spent. There Cowan found several things, including a library of the early church fathers, and other monastics and anchorites who carry on the tradition of Anthony. The primary figure here is that of Lazarus, a Melbourne native who 'gave up the world' to become a new person in a cave dwelling near to Anthony's original enclosure. Cowan, also searching for his spiritual home, and also coming from Australia (an 'empty land', as Lazarus would describe it), found a natural affinity with Lazarus (a name with obvious resurrection implications). Cowan recounts his journeys both of the mind and of the heart, and some of the body as well. He travels around the region to see where other ascetics lived, and journeys through literature to gain insights from figures such as Isaac of Nineveh, Abdisho Hazzaya, John Cassian, and others, including the 'Life of Anthony', penned by the great doctor of the church, Athanasius. Many of these figures concentrate less on church dogma and doctrine, and more on practice and understanding of life - Abdisho describes seven steps or conditions to spirituality, for instance, seeing the emulation and imitation of Christ as more important than philosophical ideas about the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection (and in this way anticipates such later mystical figures as Thomas a'Kempis, the author of 'The Cloud of Unknowing', and other such mystic leaders). Cowan writes of the change in the world, stating that the long line of thinkers from Pythagoras through Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Zeno, down to Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, had finally become frayed. No one had yet been able to answer satisfactorily the question of Being. Instead it had been left to an unlettered carpenter from Nazareth to propound a new metaphysic and a new reason for living. Gone was the all-consuming drive for the 'good life'. Cowan states that Christ had changed all that; and the men of the Egyptian desert were the first to devise a Christ-like modus vivendi that broke with the classical model. No matter what might be said about the early Christian theologians as intellectual and spiritual pioneers - men such as Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, Athanasius,