Most Popular Books by John Lewis

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

When the Roman Empire made peace with the Christian faith — and the age of martyrdom gave way to the age of Constantine — something extraordinary happened at the edges of the civilized world. Men and women walked into the desert and did not come back. Not because they had lost hope. Not because they had abandoned the Church. But because they had heard, with a clarity that the comfortable Christianity of the imperial court could no longer provide, the ancient and uncompromising call of Jesus Christ to leave everything, follow Him into the wilderness, and there — in the silence, the solitude, the heat, and the poverty of the Egyptian and Syrian desert — discover the living God in a depth and an intimacy that no amount of worldly success, ecclesiastical respectability, or imperial favor could ever provide. They were the Desert Fathers — and their story is one of the most extraordinary, most spiritually electrifying, and most enduringly relevant chapters in the entire history of the Early Church Fathers tradition. From St. Anthony the Great — the father of all monks, whose life written by St. Athanasius of Alexandria became the most widely read Christian biography in the ancient world — to St. Pachomius, the founder of cenobitic monasticism; from the luminous wisdom of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers — the Apophthegmata Patrum — to the profound ascetic theology of Evagrius Ponticus and St. John Cassian; from the heroic solitude of St. Paul of Thebes to the towering spiritual authority of St. Moses the Black, St. Poemen, St. Macarius the Great, and the entire magnificent company of the Egyptian desert saints — the Desert Fathers represent the most radical, the most spiritually demanding, and the most profoundly transformative expression of the Early Church''s hunger for God that the Patristic tradition has ever produced. This luminous and historically rich study places the Desert Fathers within the dramatic world of the Early Church Fathers — exploring their extraordinary lives, their radical ascetic vision, their profound spiritual wisdom, their enduring theological legacy, and their irreplaceable significance for Patristic theology, Eastern Orthodox spirituality, Catholic monastic tradition, Church history, and the living tradition of Christian contemplative and ascetic spirituality in every age and every culture. What you will discover: The extraordinary historical origins of the Desert Fathers movement — its apostolic roots, its emergence in the post-Constantinian Early Church, and its rapid spread across Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and the wider Christian world The most luminous and most historically significant Desert Fathers — St. Anthony the Great, St. Pachomius, St. Macarius the Great, St. Moses the Black, St. Poemen, Evagrius Ponticus, St. John Cassian, and more — and their enduring significance for Patristic theology and Christian spirituality The Sayings of the Desert Fathers — the Apophthegmata Patrum — their extraordinary spiritual wisdom, their literary beauty, and their enduring power to challenge, transform, and set ablaze every Christian heart that encounters them The ascetic theology of the Desert Fathers — their vision of prayer, fasting, silence, humility, compunction, spiritual warfare, and the soul''s ascent to God as the supreme calling and the supreme adventure of the Christian life The profound influence of the Desert Fathers on the entire subsequent tradition of Eastern Orthodox spirituality, Catholic monastic tradition, Hesychasm, Patristic theology, and Christian contemplative spirituality from the Early Church to the present day The enduring and urgent relevance of the Desert Fathers'' wisdom for every Christian in the modern world — their radical simplicity, their uncompromising honesty about the human soul, and their breathtaking intimacy with the living God speaking with undiminished power and urgency to every seeker of God in every age A structured study ideal for Church history scholars, Patristic theology enthusiasts, Eastern Orthodox spirituality devotees, Catholic monastic tradition readers, seminary theology students, spiritual directors, contemplatives, and clergy The Desert Fathers did not flee the world because they despised it — they fled the world because they loved God more than it. And in that total and unconditional love for God — expressed in the most radical poverty, the most demanding solitude, and the most luminous simplicity the Christian tradition has ever known — they discovered a depth of joy, a freedom of spirit, and an intimacy with the living God that the most sophisticated theology, the most elaborate liturgy, and the most comfortable Christianity in the world could never fully replicate or replace. This study opens their extraordinary world — their wisdom, their struggles, their laughter, their tears, their breathtaking holiness, and their irreplaceable legacy — to every Christian reader who desires to encounter the Early Church Fathers tradition at its most raw, its most demanding, its most human, and its most magnificently alive. Perfect for: Orthodox and Catholic Christians, Eastern Orthodox spirituality devotees, Catholic monastic tradition readers, Church history enthusiasts, Patristic theology scholars, seminary theology students, spiritual directors, contemplatives, clergy, Hesychasm enthusiasts, and all who seek the most historically rich, most spiritually luminous, and most profoundly transformative study of the Desert Fathers and their enduring legacy in the Early Church Fathers tradition.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

_________________ ''BRITAIN''S FINEST LIVING NATURE WRITER'' - THE TIMES WINNER OF THE THWAITES WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2015 What really goes on in the long grass? Meadowland gives an unique and intimate account of an English meadow’s life from January to December, together with its biography. In exquisite prose, John Lewis-Stempel records the passage of the seasons from cowslips in spring to the hay-cutting of summer and grazing in autumn, and includes the biographies of the animals that inhabit the grass and the soil beneath: the badger clan, the fox family, the rabbit warren,the skylark brood and the curlew pair, among others. Their births, lives, and deaths are stories that thread through the book from first page to last.