Contending With Sexual Temptation: Theological Divergence Between the Desert Mothers and Fathers

Introduction

Much of the lasting spiritual fruit of early Christian monasticism was born in the desert: ascetic spiritual elders—ammas and abbas—have proven a resilient source of wisdom through their recorded sayings, stories, and terse behavioral recommendations. These sayings of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, while partially hagiographical in nature, represent the lived experience of monks, hermits, and ascetics of both genders who sought to forge and prove whole-hearted devotion to Christ through solitude, fasting, and celibacy. Celibacy, or “virginity,” was the virtue of particular import in the wake of Christianity’s legalization, for “many Christians during Constantine’s era worried that as Christians were welcomed into positions of power, the church would be corrupted by that power and the gospel would be watered down . . . [thus] people began to think of celibacy as part of the ‘new martyrdom.’” ² Not surprisingly, then, much of the ascetic literature of the fourth and fifth centuries “became a repository of vivid anecdotes concerning sexual seduction and heroic sexual avoidance.” ³ At their core, these stories and sayings represent the desire to overcome or transcend sexuality, as there was a sense that, “for the perfect ascetic, the question of male and female no longer exists, because he or she has risen above the limits determined by the body; asceticism means annihilation of sexual distinction.” ⁴

In many ways, the recorded sayings of the Desert Mothers and Fathers suggest the realization of just such a gender convergence: there is remarkable overlap between the genders in their practices, assumptions, and theological conclusions, to the point that their sayings are generally recounted as a unified whole. However, I will argue that an important divergence emerges on the plane of sexual temptation: while the Fathers project their temptation onto female bodies, the Desert Mothers internalize and bear responsibility for their experiences of temptation.

Following brief note on scope, I will first review the writings of the Desert Fathers to illustrate how they projected their experience of sexual temptation onto women’s bodies by avoiding contact with women, narrating their lapsed celibacy without assuming personal responsibility, and visualizing demonic temptation in female form. I will then highlight the divergence by surveying the Mothers’ writings, which reflect an internal responsibility for temptation, illustrating that the Desert Father’s “wisdom” singularly reflected and perpetuated misogynistic theology, to the detriment of ascetics of both genders. I will then conclude with a brief reflection on the implications of this gendered divergence for modern use of desert literature in spiritual formation.

Scope and Considerations

As this paper seeks to grapple primarily with the recorded sayings of the Desert Mothers and Fathers on sexual temptation specifically, it cannot address at length the many other sayings that would nuance the Fathers’ stark gender separation presented herein. For example, the Fathers’ sayings frequently recount men welcoming the presence of women for the sake of healing, and The Life of Antony recalls that “when he saw his sister . . . he embraced her joyfully.” ⁵ Likewise, while attention to the wide variety of ascetic practice is also beyond the scope of this paper, it offers a valuable counternarrative to the recorded sayings. As Susanna Elm observes:

At least three different ways of communal life led by men and women elicited condemnation and attacks on the part of the Fathers . . . a ‘spiritual marriage’ between a continent member of the clergy and an ascetic woman . . . a similar cohabitation of male and female ascetics . . . [and] communities of ascetic men and women. ⁶

There were, it seems, many other ways to be a desert ascetic than those represented by the sayings. Relatedly, because the extant writings were mediated first by the Fathers and then perpetuated by a (largely) patriarchal Church, it is possible that strands of the Mothers’ sayings on sexual temptation were repressed or destroyed; this paper, however, seeks to illuminate ideologies that can be verified by primary source material. Finally, this paper follows the gender self-identifications and presumptions of the Fathers and Mothers as represented in their writings; the binary quality of the observed divergence, therefore, doesn’t necessarily reflect (or reflect on) the complexity and dynamism of gender differentiation in its expression, performance, meaning, or eschatological horizon.

Desert Fathers on Temptation: Avoiding Women’s Bodies

The Desert Fathers’ sayings evidence an expressly avoidant posture toward women that was ironically representative of their larger cultural context: as women were culturally associated with lust, carnality, and “lower reason,” ⁷ the “desert world, in its complete isolation, [was] created in part for the exact purpose of escaping from women and all they represented.” ⁸ As Pahpnutius memorably said, “I do not allow the face of a woman to dwell in the desert, because of the battle with the enemy.” ⁹ This sentiment is peppered throughout the sayings, including advice to “form no friendship with a woman, nor with a child nor with a heretic,” ¹⁰ to “not sleep in a place where there is a woman,” ¹¹ and to “observe these things until death and you shall be saved . . . not to eat with a woman.” ¹²

In addition to such concisely offered advice, the longer sayings express similar sentiments:

Abba Abraham, the disciple of Abba Sisoēs, said to the latter, “You have aged, father; let us go a little nearer to where there is habitation.” Said Abba Sisoēs to him, “Let us go where there is no woman.” His disciple said to him, “And where is there a place where there is no woman, other than the desert?” so the elder said, “Then take me to the desert.” ¹³

Somebody named Pachōn, who had lived to be about seventy years old, was living at Scete. Now it so happened that I, tormented by the demon of porneia ¹⁴ and besieged by desire for a woman, was vexed by logismoi ¹⁵ and night visions. . . . [a] holy one said to me, “Do not let this matter dismay you; you are not suffering it on account of your negligence. The place, the scarcity of provisions, and there being no contact with females here witness in your favor.” ¹⁶

The elder asked the brother, “Surely you are not in the habit of talking to women?” and the brother said, “No. Old and new pictures are my logismoi; it is memories and women’s statues that trouble me.” The elder said to him, “Have no fear of the dead but flee from the living—meaning consenting to and committing the sin—and persevere more in prayer.” ¹⁷

As this total avoidance of women was, however, virtually impossible to maintain, the sayings also include advice on how to manage the inevitable sexual temptation incurred upon interaction with a woman, or even her footprints. ¹⁸ For example:

The brother said [to an elder]: “If the necessity of coming into contact with a woman happens to somebody, how should he withstand it?” The elder said: “This necessity is from the devil, for the devil has many a pretext for necessity. If you are obliged to come into contact with a woman, do not let her say much. And if you speak [to her], sum it up in a few words and quickly dismiss her, for if you stay long with her, be sure that her odour will contaminate your logismos.” ¹⁹

Even a repentant woman seeking proximity to a man for the sake of access to Christ was seen as an incarnate temptation: in The Life of St. Pelagia the Harlot, Bishop Nonnos responds to just such a woman by saying, “But this I surely say to thee, seek not to tempt my weakness, for I am a man that is a sinner, serving God . . . thou shalt not see me alone.” ²⁰

The fear of susceptibility to the influence of women extended even to one’s own family, for “a touch, a glance, even a chaste kiss from a relative, could reverberate through the person as instantly . . . as the touch of a snake caused the whole body to shiver,” ²¹ as illustrated by this anecdote:

A brother was travelling with his own mother who happened to be elderly. When they came to a river the old woman was unable to get across. Taking his stole, her son wound it around his own hands so he would not come into contact with his mother’s body. Lifting her in that way, he carried her over to the other side. “Why did you wrap your hands, my son?” his mother said to him. “A woman’s body is fire,” he said, “and from this comes the recollection of others. That is why I acted like that.” ²²

Peter Brown has compellingly argued that ascetic avoidance of women was part of a larger strategy in which “fear of women acted as a centrifugal separator . . . [that] kept ‘world’ and ‘desert’ safe from each other.” ²³ Such ideology is evidenced in the numerous sayings that recount a brother ‘falling’ into sin when leaving the monastery or entering a public place—however, the female body itself is still identified as the locus of the temptation. As examples:

There was an elder at Scete who fell seriously ill and was being looked after by the brothers. Seeing that they were struggling, the elder began to say: “I am going to Egypt in order not to impose on the brothers” . . . When people heard of it, they offered [the sick elder] many things and one consecrated virgin came to look after the elder. A little later, when he had recovered, he fell [into sin] with her; she conceived in her womb. ²⁴

As though he had been convinced by a good suggestion, this hitherto admired anchorite, famous and renowned in the eyes of all (even though he had no experience of the great wiliness of the entrapper) came down from his monastery. Much later he encountered a woman and, tripped up by his lack of caution, he came to a remote place with the enemy in tow and fell [into sin] beside the river. ²⁵

Notably, there are also several sayings in which a woman has (through her mere bodily existence) incited palpable temptation in a brother where she assumes implicit responsibility by “cool[ing] his passion.” ²⁶ One such woman responds with reason, saying, “it is easy to go along with your request, but then I become the cause of much affliction for you,” ²⁷ while another boldly replies, “I am having my menses; nobody can approach me or even bear to smell me because of the stench.” ²⁸ Disturbingly, however, not every woman is given such a chance:

And all of a sudden, looking behind me, I saw a nun. She was a very goodlooking and beautiful woman, and she said to me, “Hello, Apa!” And I said to her, “Peace to you, Amma. Where are you going?” She answered, “I am a virgin from the monastery of the Tabennesiotes, and I am going to my family according to the flesh.” And with these words the thought of fornication began to upset and disturb me. I was no longer able to stay the burning. I locked her in my embrace and, so it seemed, I tossed her down and stripped her naked; whereupon she gave me a slap, and I saw the whole place looking like fire. Then I arose, having ejaculated, but she had disappeared. ²⁹

Even as Apa Zanos recounts his own violent behavior, the focus of the narrative is the amma’s beauty and the thoughts of fornication it provoked. As the aforementioned sayings attest, the Fathers often navigated their sexual desire by implicitly or explicitly charging female bodies with responsibility, a strategy summarized in the sentiments of Evagrius:

“The sight of a woman,” he warned, “is a poisoned arrow.” Women may act reverently in their first encounters with a monk, but repeated meetings will lead them to “approach you without shame” and “smile.” Before long “they beautify themselves and show themselves to you clearly,” their many charms nothing but “intricate nets that drag you to destruction.” ³⁰

Desert Fathers on Temptation: Demonizing Women’s Bodies

In addition to projecting their sexual temptation onto actual women’s bodies, the Desert Fathers also envisioned demonic activity in female form. Wheeler provides helpful context for desert experiences of the demonic, writing that “logismoi, or tempting thoughts and emotions experienced by the desert daughters and sons, were often attributed to demonic forces against which the desert Christians might prove their worth—thus, they were in some way necessary for the constitution of self.” ³¹ While struggles with the demonic—and therefore with the self ³² —cross gender lines, the Fathers’ sayings in particular recount evil in the female form. As a concise example, one story recalls that “a brother was terribly tempted by the demon of porneia . . . four demons, transformed into the appearance of most beautiful women, stayed for twenty days, wrestling with him to draw him into shameful intercourse.” ³³ Other notable examples include:

But after a few days’ delay, the demon came at me again, more forcibly than before, so that I was almost at the point of blaspheming. He transformed himself into a burnt-faced maiden whom I had once seen in my youth, gleaning at harvest time. It seemed as though she sat on my knees and so aroused me that I thought I had lain with her. In my rage I gave her a smack, and with that she became invisible. ³⁴

There he was in hêsychia ³⁵ for twenty days and he saw the [alien] force coming upon him. It appeared before him as a very foul-smelling Ethiopian woman, so that he could not bear her stench. He would chase her away and she said to him: “I appear to be sweet in the hearts of men but, thanks to your obedience and your labour, God did not permit me to lead you astray and he revealed my evil smell to you.” ³⁶

In the Fathers’ sayings, such temptation does not even rely on actual familiarity with women, for “they used to say of one elder that he came down to Scete bringing his son, [a child] not yet weaned who did not know what a woman was. So when he became a man, the demons showed him the forms of women.” ³⁷

This visualization of the demonic in female form is recounted most famously in The Life of Antony, where Athanasius writes that “the devil would turn himself into the attractive form of a beautiful woman, omitting no detail that might provoke lascivious thoughts,” ³⁸ and that “when [the demons] do not succeed with dirty thoughts, they use fears to terrify, transforming themselves into women one moment, wild animals the next moment, and then serpents, and finally turning into a troop of soldiers and an infinite number of shapes.” ³⁹

Beyond merely visualizing the demonic in female form, the Desert Fathers also ascribe demonic influence to actual women, further conflating sexual temptation with women’s bodies. In one story, “by the machination of Satan” a “disreputable women” sought to “bring down” an anchorite by preying on his compassionate hospitality, wherein “the devil began to fire arrows [of desire] for her into him.” ⁴⁰ In another story, a female relative seeking to visit an elder is described as “being led by the devil,” and the “embattled” elder fell into sin with her. ⁴¹ A particularly troubling story recalls that

there was a brother who was fighting the good fight at Scete and the enemy put him in mind of a certain most beautiful woman and was seriously afflicting him. Then, providentially, another brother came down from Egypt to Scete and, as they were speaking together, he said that the wife of so-and-so had died. It was the very woman on whose account the combatant was embattled. On hearing this, he took up his levitôn and, going up [to Egypt] by night, opened her tomb. He mopped up her bodily fluids with his levitôn ⁴² and kept it in his cell when he came back. He would set that stench before him and do battle with his logismos. ⁴³

This story makes particularly clear the way in which women’s bodies—living, imagined, demonic, or dead—were used by the Fathers to externalize and combat their sexual temptation. To borrow David Brakke’s apt assessment, “the female body provided a flexible tool for visualizing an interior battle . . . women remained firmly tethered in the monastic imagination to the body, the world, sexuality—in short, to the visible materiality that monks sought to transcend.” ⁴⁴

Desert Mothers: Taking Responsibility for Temptation

While discussion of the Desert Father’s projection of sexual temptation onto female bodies is well-attested in the secondary literature, consideration of the Desert Mothers’ sexual temptation is notably unaddressed. This is likely due, in part, to the relatively small corpus of recorded wisdom from the Mothers, particularly on sexual temptation. The two sayings that most overtly address the topic are attributed to Sarah:

They said of Amma Sarah that for thirteen years she continued to be fiercely embattled by the demon of porneia and never prayed to be relieved of the battle but would only say, “Oh my God, give me strength!”

They also said of her that the same spirit of porneia attacked her more vehemently, suggesting the vanities of the world to her. But she, without diminishing her fear of God or her asceticism, went up to her room one day to pray. The spirit of porneia appeared to her in bodily form and said to her, “Sarah, you have conquered me,” but she said to him, “It is not I who have conquered you but Christ, my Lord-and-master.” ⁴⁵

Even though Sarah expresses her experience of sexual temptation using the ascetic language of a demonic battle, she notably embraces the combat, employing prayer—rather than avoidance, violence, or abjection—as her singular weapon. It is also worth noting that she describes the “spirit of porneia” without bodily form until it appears to admit defeat, and even then its gender seems inconsequential (it is only passively identified via masculine pronouns).

The only saying that presents a woman potentially projecting her temptation onto a male body is Syncletica’s urging that women “represent the body of the beloved [erōmenos] as a wound that smells oppressive, and is inclined to putrefy, briefly put, as resembling a corpse, or to imagine oneself as a corpse.” ⁴⁶ The duality of the strategy—that either the self or the beloved can be pictured as a corpse—suggests that ultimately she was relying on disgust and death, rather than a specifically male body, to bear the weight of sexual temptation. She also notably uses the word “beloved,” suggesting that female ascetics experienced sexual temptation in the context of particular relationships with men, rather than as an inherent byproduct of men’s bodily existence. That female experience of sexual temptation is largely circumscribed in concrete, contingent experience is further attested in two of the Father’s writings:

I built a monastery . . . But our enemy the devil, jealous then as ever of the future reward coming to me for endeavouring to offer the fruit of my labour to God, saw a woman living in virginity who had ordered material from me. After I had made and delivered that he put it into her mind to order other things from me again. Then we became used to each other and chatted more freely; finally there came holding of hands, laughter and delighting in the company of each other and we travailed and brought forth iniquity. ⁴⁷

Now a certain monk, but a monk in profession only, was in the habit of journeying often to visit the old man, under colour of edification. But gazing on that blessed creature through the window, he was pricked with the goads of lust: he began to long to speak with her, for wanton love had kindled his heart like a fire. For a great while he lay in ambush about her, so that a whole year went by before he had enervated her imagination by the softness of his words. But at the last she opened the window of her cell and came out to him: and forthwith he debauched and defiled her with evil and lust. ⁴⁸

In both of these stories, the woman is not tempted by the mere presence of a man, but rather by exposure to his repeated, sexually-motivated engagement.

Rather than emulating the Fathers’ wholesale avoidance of the opposite gender, the Mothers’ sayings call for spiritual discernment. For example, Amma Syncletica said:

We must arm ourselves in every way against the demons. For they attack us from outside, and they also stir us up from within; and the soul is then like a ship when great waves break over it, and at the same time it sinks because the hold is too full. We are just like that: we lose as much by the exterior faults we commit as by the thoughts inside us. So we must watch for the attacks from people that come from outside us, and also repel the interior onslaughts of our thoughts. ⁴⁹

This exhortation to dual-fronted watchfulness takes responsibility for temptation, whether it arises internally or circumstantially. Syncletica also said, “It is written, ‘be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.’ Being like serpents means not ignoring attacks and wiles of the devil. Like is quickly known to like. The simplicity of the dove denotes purity of action.” ⁵⁰ For Syncletica, it is not the presence of male bodies but rather the lack of shrewd discernment—“look[ing] at things in an unsuitable way”—that is the source of “bad judgement, immoderate behavior and lack of self-control.” ⁵¹

Rather than advocating for avoidance of an externalized locus of temptation, the Mothers’ sayings expose flight as an inadequate strategy. For example,

Amma Theodora also said: “There was an ascetic who, because of the great number of personal temptations said, ‘I will go away from here.’ While putting sandals on, saw another ascetic who was also putting on sandals. This other ascetic said, ‘Is it on my account that you are going away? Because I go wherever you are going.’” ⁵²

In other words, Theodora recognized that temptation, as an internal experience, cannot be wholly avoided or outrun.

This internalized responsibility for sexual temptation meant that, for the Desert Mothers, proximity to male bodies was not implicitly threatening to their asceticism. ⁵³ Thus the writings of the Mothers do not reinforce the Fathers’ anxious reliance on stark differentiation between the desert and the world. For example:

[Amma Theodora] said, “If you are having a meal and there’s plenty to eat, you go ahead and eat with pleasure. In the same way, if you hear what those in the world are saying, keep your heart oriented toward God. By doing this, you will hear them, but not with pleasure and you won’t be harmed at all.” ⁵⁴

Amma Syncletica said, “There are many who live in the mountains and behave as if they were in the town, and they are wasting their time. It is possible to be a solitary in one’s mind while living in a crowd, and it is possible for one who is a solitary to live in the crowd of his own thoughts.” ⁵⁵

Again, in both of these sayings, there is a sense of internalized responsibility that absolves others from implicitly absorbing their experience of temptation. The work of the ascetic facing sexual temptation, as conceived by the Mothers, is internal: thus Syncletica suggests that “rather than focusing on our troubles, let us train the soul with spiritual disciplines,” ⁵⁶ for, in the words of Theodora, “everything that goes against us can, if we wish, be profitable to us.” ⁵⁷

The only desert writings that overtly prescribe female avoidance of men are concerned more with propriety and reputation than enflaming female sexual temptation—and they are, perhaps not surprisingly, authored by men. As examples, one saying recalls a sick woman who refused to see her brother for “it was unacceptable to see a male person,” ⁵⁸ and Caesarius’ Rule for Holy Virgins says, “for the sake of protecting your reputation, let no man enter the private part of the monastery and oratories . . . so that the holy women may have their privacy.” ⁵⁹

In taking responsibility for their temptation, rather than externalizing it, the Desert Mothers were ironically more ascetically masculine than their male counterparts (to employ a dominant trope from some strands of early Christian monasticism). In such contexts, to be manly “was to live beyond the passions: to know them, to be aware of them, yet not let them rule;” ⁶⁰ hence, on these terms, Amma Sarah rightly “said to the brothers, ‘It is I who am a man, you who are women.’” ⁶¹

Conclusion: Past and Present Implications

While the desert tradition often presents as a singular melodic strand of ascetic wisdom, closer inspection belies a gendered divergence: as evidenced above, male ascetics projected their sexual temptation onto female bodies as “evidence of a combat that could not be seen” ⁶² rather than assuming internal responsibility. The most immediate and drastic consequences of this avoidance and demonization were primarily absorbed by female ascetics, who were not only forced to validate their presence in the desert, ⁶³ but also ran the risk of being subject to male violence. ⁶⁴ More generally, as the Fathers’ sayings implied female bodies required circumscription and control, they reinforced and perpetuated the cultural power differential between genders. Not inconsequentially, however, the Fathers were also negatively impacted: as Rachel Wheeler importantly identifies, their projections allowed men “their own privacy and relinquishment of the difficult work of becoming in communion with the gendered other with whom they might have had a meaningful spiritual life, and the difficult work of co-creating a spiritual life with and for the other.” ⁶⁵

While it would be unfairly reductionist to draw a straight line from the Desert Fathers to the infamous “Billy Graham rule” or victim-blaming in modern violence against women, there is a notable similarity in assumptions. The writings of the Desert Fathers have, undoubtedly, participated in shaping a theological tradition that projects male sexual temptation onto female bodies, and unexamined use of their sayings only further perpetuates malformative images and ideas that, inevitably, come to bear on interpersonal relationships. Exposure of this gendered divergence in the tradition, however, is not meant to entirely invalidate use of the Fathers’ sayings, for they contain much faithful and enduring wisdom worth preserving. Rather, it is meant to provoke reflection on how modern practices might correct for this theological inheritance in pursuit of a more responsible form of desert spirituality.

Most basically, any corrective involves explicitly and persistently naming problematic gender dynamics in the desert sayings themselves, in their originating contexts, and in readers’ own modern contexts. To do so would not only generate an appropriately critical hermeneutic but would also heighten readers’ awareness that “women’s sexuality, historically, has been appropriated as a tool of men’s power, a sign in the masculinist system of communication, a commodity in the system of exchange.” ⁶⁶ And, in recognizing how the Fathers’ cultural context predisposed them to instrumentalize female bodies in their spiritual practices, readers would be positioned to identify analogously problematic predispositions in their own practices, particularly those involving the imagination.

A more responsible desert spirituality would also renegotiate the “hierarchy of spirit over flesh that is typical of ascetic discourse.” ⁶⁷ This kind of dualist imaginary funds both male and female disdain for women’s bodies in the sayings, for

the construction of the feminine as passion means that women, the embodiment of the cultural representation of the feminine, are erased by that repression of passion. Therefore, for a woman to participate in the institution which calls for the negation of the feminine is, on one level, for her to participate in a profound self-abnegation, self-denial, even self-destruction ⁶⁸

Furthermore, spiritualities that nurture contempt for embodied experience are particularly ill-equipped to appropriately discipline sexual desire, as evidenced by the Fathers’ impulse to repress or abject their sexuality. While the aforementioned preoccupation with celibacy/virginity certainly accounts for a measure of that distortion, Amma Sarah’s responses to sexual temptation more accurately portray “the contemplative [as] one who is forced to acknowledge the ‘messy entanglement’ of sexual desire and the desire for God.” ⁶⁹ Interestingly, cultivation of desire was an inherent part of the desert experience ⁷⁰ —in some sense, it seems that the Fathers’ intuited the givenness of their sexual desire, even if they simultaneously rejected it. A corrective reading would highlight the existence of this tension in the sayings, conclusively advocating for prayerful transformation of sexual desire. For as Sarah Coakley observes,

sex is really about God – the potent reminder woven into our earthly existence of the divine ‘unity,’ ‘alliance,’ and ‘commingling’ that we seek. This in turn has profound ascetical implications, of course; for no one can move simply from earthly, physical love (tainted as it so often by sin and misdirection of desire) to divine love – unless it is via a Christological transformation. ⁷¹

And, finally, a more responsible desert spirituality would encourage spiritually-enriching relationships that freely cross gender lines. While discernment might certainly call for boundaries in specific relationships or contexts, codified gender separation not only perpetuates the Fathers’ displacement of sexual responsibility onto female bodies, but it functionally dislocates and disempowers women (particularly in spiritual spaces). The monastic language of kinship is instructive to this end, inviting readers to affirm one another’s embodied existence as intimately connected to their own.

It seems then, that the desert tradition possesses the resources to correct itself, largely due to the very gender divergence this paper has sought to illuminate. The Desert Mothers offer an alternate vision of desert spirituality, in which sexual temptation is not displaced onto the bodies of others but rather prayerfully entrusted to Christ. Perhaps those experiencing sexual temptation should thus pray, alongside Amma Sarah, “to have a pure heart with everyone.” ⁷²