Monastic cell

Just as fish die if they stay too long out of water, so the monks who loiter outside their cells or pass their time with men of the world lose the intensity of inner peace. So like a fish going towards the sea, we must hurry to reach our cell, for fear that if we delay outside, we will lose our interior watchfulness. ~ Abba Anthony

A cell is a small room used by a hermit, monk, anchorite or nun to live and as a devotional space.

Quotes

A brother visited Abba Moses at Scete, asking him for a saying. The elder said to him, "Go and stay in a cell; your cell will teach you everything."

• Just as fish die if they stay too long out of water, so the monks who loiter outside their cells or pass their time with men of the world lose the intensity of inner peace. So like a fish going towards the sea, we must hurry to reach our cell, for fear that if we delay outside, we will lose our interior watchfulness.
  • Abba Anthony, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, as translated by Benedicta Ward, SLG (Cistercian Publications: 1975), Saying 10, Page 3

• A brother visited Abba Moses at Scete, asking him for a saying. The elder said to him, "Go and stay in a cell; your cell will teach you everything."
  • No. 19, in Chapter 2. Hēsychia. In: The Book of the Elders (Sayings of the Desert Fathers): The Systematic Collection, translated by John Wortley. Cistercian Publications, 2012.

See also

• Asceticism
• Hesychasm
• Monasticism
• Seclusion
• Solitude
• Sayings of the Desert Fathers