Remembering Poemen Remembering: The Desert Fathers and the Spirituality of Memory

Abstract

In 407, a tribe of barbarian raiders known as Mazices came sweeping off the Libyan desert and devastated one of the first great centers of Christian monasticism, the settlement of Scetis. Scetis was located in a remote desert valley west of the Nile and had been founded around 330 by one of the pioneers of the monastic movement, Macarius the Egyptian (d. 390). Before the attack, it had enjoyed an international reputation for its ascetic rigor and incisive wisdom. Word of the devastation spread rapidly, even to the Latin West. Augustine knew of it and counted it among the great disasters of the time.2 And when the sack of Rome took place a couple of years later, in 410, one of Scetis's survivors, Abba Arsenius, would link the two events: “The world has lost Rome and the monks have lost Scetis.” Scetis's destruction marked a turning point in the history of early Christian monasticism. The site would be resettled a few years later, and in fact would suffer other barbarian raids, notably in 434, 444, and 570. But after this first one, many of its leading monks dispersed and never returned.