If the desert elders are not selfish, if they are simply men and women who are learning the hard lesson of sharing, are they perhaps opponents of the flesh? Do they hate the body? It is not difficult to find harsh statements about the passions and against the body in the Sayings. Yet, we should be careful to ask what these statements actually imply. Are the elders speaking of subduing the body or the passions? Are they referring to the destruction of the passions or to their transformation?
It appears that the desert treats the body harshly; but in fact, the emphasis is on shedding the excess layers, on getting rid of the dead layers, which they define as “flesh.” Detachment is a way of renouncing excess baggage and of traveling light. And the truth is that we can always manage with less than we have; indeed, we can often manage with a lot less than we would dare to imagine. Even while claiming that the entire world belongs to God, the desert elders strive no longer to depend on material possessions. Their struggle is not to become centered on the world; it is to establish another order and focus, where the entire world is centered on God. When Antony of Egypt emerged from complete withdrawal into his beloved “inner mountain,” we read that:
His friends were amazed to see that his body had maintained its former condition, being neither too puffed up from lack of exercise nor too emaciated from fasting and warfare against the demons. He was just as they had known him prior to his retreat into the desert. . .. He was altogether balanced, just as one guided by reason and abiding in a natural state.
Although Athanasius’ biography of Antony may be a somewhat idealized account, it is nevertheless reliable and historical. Notice, then, the words used by Athanasius to describe Antony: “former condition,” ‘just as they had known him,” “altogether balanced,” “guided by reason,” and “natural state.” This is not what we have come to accept as the attitude, for instance, of Plotinus (c.204-270) who was ashamed of his body, or of the Gnostics who hated the body. In fact, as we have seen, Antony went on to live for over one hundred years. Athanasius even offers us further details:
His eyes were undimmed and quite sound; and he saw clearly. He had lost none of his teeth; they had simply become worn down to the gums due to the old man’s great age. He remained strong in both feet and hands.
Clearly, Antony’s austere asceticism did not impair his health. In fact, quite the contrary: it seems to have enhanced it. The ascetic’s treatment of the body appears negative to us because we have overloaded the body with far too much. The change, therefore, as we move from our lifestyle to Antony’s, seems so overwhelming and enormous that it creates a sense of vertigo within us. Our bodies go through “withdrawal symptoms” when confronted with the radical withdrawal of Antony into the desert. Our culture teaches us that the more we have, the better we are; Antony’s taught him that the less he had, the more he was! We are carrying so much baggage, so many preoccupations and concerns, such great loads that walking freely with God looks frightening, unfamiliar and painful. And our natural response is to resist change; it simply seems crazy to us.
Abba Antony said: “A time is coming when people will go insane. And when they see someone who is not insane, they will attack that person saying: ‘You are crazy; you are not like us.'”
~Adapted from John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers
