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During the fourth and fifth centuries, thousands of Christian men and women withdrew to the deserts of Egypt and Palestine. In these remote locations, they led lives of rigorous discipline and solitude. Their techniques of prayer, spiritual direction, discipleship and stories have provided inspiration for many Christians to this day.
The Wisdom of the Desert, first published in 1904, was written in an attempt to appreciate the religious spirit of these first Christian monks. It is a collection of stories and sayings compiled from the literature of the desert life, organized and interwoven into an overview on the thoughts, lives and doctrines of the early desert Christians.
Rev. James Owen Hannay (1865-1950) was born in Belfast, Ireland. Among his non-fiction works, he published The Spirit of Christian Monasticism (1903), The Wisdom of the Desert (1904), The Connaught to Chicago (1914), A Padre in France (1918), A Wayfarer in Hungary (1925), and biographies Isaiah (1937) and Jeremiah (1939). Under the pen name George A. Birmingham, he also wrote many critically acclaimed and popular books.
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