As we’ve seen throughout this series so far, many of the Desert Fathers rose to an odd kind of fame during their lifetimes. Committed as they were to lives of humility, they nonetheless gained big reputations and were sought out by everyday citizens and follow monks alike. There’s clearly a conflict here, and it’s one people across the generations have handled differently. Some responded by accepting their fate and acting as confessors and guides to pilgrims; others responded by heading further out into the wilderness to preserve their solitude; still others stayed where they were but grumbled about it. But no matter what they did, there was a problem: How does one live the monastic life of humility and simplicity well when one is becoming famous for it? It’s actually one of the major conflicts in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, where the Elder Zosima’s monastic brethren openly wonder whether the reality matches his reputation.
The Saying from the Desert Fathers I want to look at today addresses this issue directly, but helpfully generalizes it so that it’s relevant for all of us and not just monastics:
[Abba Silvanus] also said: ‘Woe to that man whose reputation is greater than his work.’ (Abba Silvanus 10)
The first thing that came to mind when I saw this was today’s media and social media culture, and how today it’s so easy for people — let’s face it, especially young and attractive people — to become famous before they really do anything worth being famous for. Fame has somehow become commodified so that people can be famous for being famous, and fame is sought for fame’s sake. Into this situation, Abba Silvanus’s words seem very pointed, but also very relevant. The word translated here as ‘woe’ carries the opposite idea as blessing. Empty fame is not a blessing, but in fact a curse, a blight, a path to unhappiness and a lack of fulfillment.
But this is of course not just relevant for the famous and internet-famous. It’s true for all of us. We all have reputations: in the workplace or in the community or in a friend group or in our faith communities. The question isn’t just whether that reputation is good, but also whether it’s warranted.
It’s not a bad thing to have a good reputation — far from it — but as people who are committed to being disciples of Jesus, we should be more concerned that our reputation is justified, and that if we are known, we are known for the right reasons.
Matthew Root 