The Wisdom of the Desert (New Directions) [Paperback]

Thomas Merton (Author)

Book Description

Series: New Directions | Publication Date: January 17, 1970

The Wisdom of the Desert was one of Thomas Merton's favorites among his own books—surely because he had hoped to spend his last years as a hermit.

The personal tones of the translations, the blend of reverence and humor so characteristic of him, show how deeply Merton identified with the legendary authors of these sayings and parables, the fourth-century Christian Fathers who sought solitude and contemplation in the deserts of the Near East.

The hermits of Screte who turned their backs on a corrupt society remarkably like our own had much in common with the Zen masters of China and Japan, and Father Merton made his selection from them with an eye to the kind of impact produced by the Zen mondo.

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About the Author

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) entered the Cistercian Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, following his conversion to Catholicism and was ordained Father M. Louis in 1949. During the 1960s, he was increasingly drawn into a dialogue between Eastern and Western religions and domestic issues of war and racism. In 1968, the Dalai Lama praised Merton for having a more profound knowledge of Buddhism than any other Christian he had known. Thomas Merton is the author of the beloved classic The Seven Storey Mountain.

Product Details

• Paperback: 81 pages
• Publisher: New Directions (January 17, 1970)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811201023
• ISBN-13: 978-0811201025
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Ministry & Church Leadership > Church Institutions & Organizations

More About the Author

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) is arguably the most influential American Catholic author of the twentieth century. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, has millions of copies and has been translated into over fifteen languages. He wrote over sixty other books and hundreds of poems and articles on topics ranging from monastic spirituality to civil rights, nonviolence, and the nuclear arms race.

After a rambunctious youth and adolescence, Merton converted to Roman Catholicism and entered the Abbey of Gethsemani, a community of monks belonging to the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists), the most ascetic Roman Catholic monastic order.

The twenty-seven years he spent in Gethsemani brought about profound changes in his self-understanding. This ongoing conversion impelled him into the political arena, where he became, according to Daniel Berrigan, the conscience of the peace movement of the 1960's. Referring to race and peace as the two most urgent issues of our time, Merton was a strong supporter of the nonviolent civil rights movement, which he called "certainly the greatest example of Christian faith in action in the social history of the United States." For his social activism Merton endured severe criticism, from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, who assailed his political writings as unbecoming of a monk.

During his last years, he became deeply interested in Asian religions, particularly Zen Buddhism, and in promoting East-West dialogue. After several meetings with Merton during the American monk's trip to the Far East in 1968, the Dali Lama praised him as having a more profound understanding of Buddhism than any other Christian he had known. It was during this trip to a conference on East-West monastic dialogue that Merton died, in Bangkok on December 10, 1968, the victim of an accidental electrocution. The date marked the twenty-seventh anniversary of his entrance to Gethsemani.

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51 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for What it sets out to do, September 6, 2000

By 

Jim McKenna - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wisdom of the Desert (New Directions) (Paperback)

As another reviewer notes, Merton's selections are not as comprehensive as Helen Waddell's, and his introduction does not provide nearly as detailed an account of the historical and literary context of the desert fathers' sayings. This is not Merton's purpose. He is trying to give us a sense of the spiritual essence of the fathers, and he does it brilliantly. Although he is not as elegant a writer as Waddell, nor as learned, he has a much deeper intuitive understanding of the fathers' search for God and their love for each other. His selections emphasize the importance of this love and downplay the fanatical asceticism that many people associate with the fathers. Throughout his introduction, he emphasizes that love is far more important in the Christian life than either mysticism or asceticism. Thus, although a sympathetic reader may not learn terribly much about the history of the desert fathers from Merton, she will begin to understand "the wisdom of the desert".

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wisdom well warmed, October 1, 2005

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wisdom of the Desert (New Directions) (Paperback)

Thomas Merton was perhaps the best known monastic of the last century. That he was a Trappist perhaps puts him in the best contemporary context from which to understand the Desert Fathers - the kind of hermit/distance existence that they had does not really exist in the world today (true, there are a few who carry on the tradition in the deserts of Egypt and a few other places, but often even they advise against this becoming a trend in Christian practice again). The Trappists are among those for whom silence and solitude are intentional practices, much like the Desert Fathers.

Merton, a talented writer on matters spiritual, states in the Author's note that his intention was not to produce a new 'edition' by academic standards, or to do any piece of new research. Rather, Merton set out to produce an accessible collection of wisdom sayings that had been contained in the collection 'Verba Seniorum', a Latin text of stories and proverbs handed down from the Desert Fathers and those who knew and wrote about them.

In the fourth century, while Christianity was still struggling as a minority (sometimes a violently oppressed minority) in the Empire, there were those who saw that the greater threat to the new faith was not the imperial officials and their forces, but rather the attractions and lure of the cities. It was very easy to put forth the claim that the world was not a Christian one, and that one would have to renounce the world to live an authentically Christian life - the Desert Fathers tended to do this renunciation in rather dramatic fashion (and, to varying extent, this is what monastics continue to do to this day). This renunciation was true even with official tolerance and imperial imprimatur, for Christianity was still the decided minority.

Merton states that it is a mistake to think that the Desert Fathers were isolationist individuals, however - 'the very fact that they uttered these "words" of advice to one another is proof that they were eminently social.' They sought an equality amongst themselves under God, and were welcoming toward those who sought them for instruction and wisdom.

In this collection, the 'Verba Seniorum' are perhaps the most true to the actual words of the Desert Fathers that we can get. Most writing about them came from people who added literary flourishes and often hagiographic legendary material into the mix; these are much more simple. They are 'the plain, unpretentious reports that went from mouth to mouth in the Coptic tradition before being committed to writing in Syriac, Greek and Latin.'

Over and over again, the Desert Fathers stress love above all. Their love reaches out for tolerance toward others, even as they sometimes seem to be intolerant toward themselves. Perhaps their generosity toward others came from a recognition of the faults of their own and the hope that God will deal more generously with them as they strive to deal generously with others.

'One of the brethren had sinned, and the priest told him to leave the community. So then Abbot Bessarion got up and walked out with him, saying: I too am a sinner!'

This is a wonderful, heartfelt, wise collection. It is not organised according to any overarching theme or systematic theological paradigm, but rather like a collecton of 'quotable quotes', often seemingly random. I often take the book and open it at random, to see what insights I can gain from it that day.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some choices from the 'Verba Seniorum', October 22, 2006

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M. A. Ramos (Florida USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wisdom of the Desert (New Directions) (Paperback)

Thomas Merton was a Trappist Monk and wrote this book that contains his favorite quotes from 'Verba Seniorum'. He chooses these for himself and his fellow monks in order to make some of the sayings of the Desert Fathers more accessible. He begins this book with a very well written introduction.

Merton wrote this book not as a history of the early Desert Fathers. What he provides are a selection of extracts from their writings that had proved useful for him in his contemplative life. The book is definitely worth reading. A book you will keep by your night stand.

If you are looking for a book that gives you a history of the Desert Fathers and a wide range of their writings, then this is the wrong book for you.