The Desert Fathers were early Christian monks whose extreme ascetic lifestyle in the sands of Egypt inspired most of the Christian monastic traditions that came after.

Renunciation, simplicity, and living solely by the word of scripture were their directives.

In part 1 Matthew tells us about their origins and core tenets and we discuss :)

In part 2 (next week) we'll dig into the history of Christian monasticism post-Desert Fathers up to the present (or however far we get)