Desert Mothers

Desert 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.^[1] They typically lived in the monastic communities that began forming during that time, though sometimes they lived as hermits. Monastic communities acted collectively with limited outside relations with lay people. Some ascetics chose to venture into isolated locations to restrict relations with others, deepen spiritual connection, and other ascetic purposes. Other women from that era who influenced the early ascetic or monastic tradition while living outside the desert are also described as Desert Mothers.^[2]

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"^[3]—the occasional stories about the Desert Mothers come from the early Desert Fathers and their biographers. 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.^[4] Many desert women had leadership roles within the Christian community. The Apophthegmata Patrum, or Sayings of the Desert Fathers, includes forty-seven sayings that are actually attributed to the Desert Mothers. There are several chapters dedicated to the Desert Mothers in the Lausiac History by Palladius, who mentions 2,975 women living in the desert.^[3] Other sources include the various stories told over the years about the lives of saints of that era, traditionally called vitae ("life").^[5] The lives of twelve female desert saints are described in Book I of Vitae Patrum (Lives of the Fathers).^[6]