On the Devil - Conferences With a Desert Father

The present book is an interview with Abba Serenus, a Desert Father, about the Devil, the nature this enemy and how he can attack our spirits and influence our thoughts. The Apothegmata, or The Sayings of the Desert Father and Mothers, were foundational in the development of monastic spirituality in the Church. The Desert Fathers and Mothers were the first hermits, monks, and nuns, who retired to lives of solitude and silence in the deserts of Egypt in the third century; their wisdom was collected in books. Cassian was a young monk in Egypt when he received permission to visit and learn the science of sanctity from these most eminent teachers. From these interviews Cassian wrote his Institutes and Conferences. Cassian and his writings contributed greatly to the spread of monasticism in the West. Although never formally canonized, St. Gregory the Great regarded him as a saint, and it is related that Pope Urban V (1362-1370), had the words Saint Cassian engraved on the silver casket that contained his head. At Marseilles his feast is celebrated, with an octave, July 23.