This episode focuses on the Desert Fathers, early Christian hermits and ascetics whose practices formed the prototype for modern Christian moasticism. My guest is Stephen Davis, Professor of Religious Studies and Professor of History at Yale University. He has spent much of his career working in Egypt and studying the modern Egyptian monastic communities that trace their lineage back to the desert fathers. We start by talking about what the early Christian world was like before moving into the world of the Desert Fathers themselves.