Fr. Georges Florovsky: On the Significance of the Desert

A short excerpt on the symbology of the “desert” and its usefulness as a tool to sharpen our ascetic senses. Taken from “The Ascetic Ideal and the New Testament: Reflections on the Critique of the Theology of the Reformation.”

When our Lord was about to begin his ministry, he went into the desert. Our Lord had options but he selected—or rather, “was lead by the Spirit,” into the desert. It is obviously not a meaningless action, not a selection of type of place without significance. And there—in the desert—our Lord engages in spiritual combat, for he “fasted forty days and forty nights.” The Gospel of St. Mark adds that our Lord “was with the wild beasts.” Our Lord, the God-Man, was truly God and truly man.

Exclusive of our Lord’s redemptive work, unique to our Lord alone, he calls us to follow him. “Following” our Lord is not exclusionary; it is not selecting certain psychologically pleasing aspects of our Lord’s life and teachings to follow. Rather it is all-embracing. We are to follow our Lord in every way possible. “To go into the desert” is “to follow” our Lord. It is interesting that our Lord returns to the desert after the death of St. John the Baptist. There is an obvious reason for this. “And hearing [of John the Baptist’s death] Jesus departed from there in a ship to a desert place privately” When St. Antony goes to the desert, he is “following” the example of our Lord—indeed, he is “following” our Lord. This in no way diminishes the unique, salvific work of our Lord, this in no way makes of our Lord God, the God-Man, a mere example. But in addition to his redemptive work, which could be accomplished only by our Lord, our Lord taught and set examples. And by “following” our Lord into the desert, St. Antony was entering a terrain already targeted and stamped by our Lord as a specific place for spiritual warfare.

There is both specificity and “type” in the “desert.” In those geographical regions where there a no deserts, there are places which are similar to or approach that type of place symbolized by the “desert.” It is that type of place which allows the human heart solace, isolation. It is the type of place which puts the human heart in a state of aloneness, a state in which to meditate, to pray, to fast, to reflect upon one’s inner existence and one’s relationship to ultimate reality—God. And more. It is a place where spiritual reality is intensified, a place where spiritual life can intensify and simultaneously where the opposing forces to spiritual life can become more dominant. It is the terrain of a battlefield but a spiritual one. And it is our Lord, not St. Antony, who as set precedent.

Our Lord says that “as for what is sown among thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceit of riches choke(s) the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” The desert, or a place similar, precisely cuts off the cares or anxieties of the world and the deception, the deceit of earthly riches. It cuts one off precisely from “this worldliness” and precisely as such it contains within itself a powerful spiritual reason for existing within the spiritual paths of the Church. Not as the only path, not as the path for everyone, but as one, fully authentic path of Christian life.