The Desert Mothers were known as ammas ('spiritual mothers'), comparable to the Desert Fathers ( abbas), due to the respect they earned as spiritual teachers and directors. Notable examples Melania the Younger, from the Menologion of Basil II Syncletica of Alexandria from the Menologion of Basil II Varied types of female asceticism existed as women could enter into domestic, monastic, or anchoretic lifestyles. Female ascetics were socially known and referred to as 'virgins' due to the intentionality of a chaste body and mind. Values of asceticism encouraged the relinquishing of items of 'worldly' value including, but not limited to, money, property, hygiene, thirst, hunger, and rest.

Ascetics practiced abstinence and honored virginity, as sexual behavior and lust were 'worldly desires.' Ascetics also practiced fasting and the deprivation of water and sleep to ensure focus on discipline and chasteness. Christian Asceticism Ĭhristian asceticism involved the self-discipline and deprivation of bodily 'worldly' desires. The lives of twelve female desert saints are described in Book I of Vitae Patrum ( Lives of the Fathers). Other sources include the various stories told over the years about the lives of saints of that era, traditionally called vitae ('life'). There are several chapters dedicated to the Desert Mothers in the Lausiac History by Palladius, who mentions 2,975 women living in the desert. The Apophthegmata Patrum, or Sayings of the Desert Fathers, includes forty-seven sayings that are actually attributed to the Desert Mothers. Many desert women had leadership roles within the Christian community. Due to the absence of male leadership mentioned in documental texts, it is suggested that desert women acted separately, with autonomy from their male counterparts. The Desert Fathers are much more well known because most of the early lives of the saints 'were written by men for a male monastic audience' -the occasional stories about the Desert Mothers come from the early Desert Fathers and their biographers. Other women from that era who influenced the early ascetic or monastic tradition while living outside the desert are also described as Desert Mothers. Some ascetics chose to venture into isolated locations to restrict relations with others, deepen spiritual connection, and other ascetic purposes. Monastic communities acted collectively with limited outside relations with lay people.

They typically lived in the monastic communities that began forming during that time, though sometimes they lived as hermits. Early Christian ascetics, 3rd–5th centuries AD Desert Mothers Saint Paula and her daughter Eustochium with their spiritual advisor Saint Jerome-painting by Francisco de Zurbaránĭesert Mothers is a neologism, coined in feminist theology as an analogy to Desert Fathers, for the ammas or female Christian ascetics living in the desert of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria in the 4th and 5th centuries AD.

Amma syncletica medieval