'Talking about Silence' is a personal pilgrimage around an enjoyable paradox: that you can understand silence better if you talk about it. In his new series of essays, Diarmaid MacCulloch explores the many varieties of spiritual silence in human life and beyond, and what he's learned of its meanings in his six-decade career as an historian of religion.

Today Diarmaid takes us inside the spiritual homes of Christian silence, the monasteries. But he says, although they seem a natural part of its two millennia of history, monasteries are actually an early import into Christianity from Syria, which made sense for Christianity. The monastic life of contemplation and silence went on to triumph for a thousand years throughout the Church. The triumph was so complete, that monks developed a language of silence, using all ten fingers of the hand to convey meaning in everyday life. And yet, says Diarmaid, as in all triumphs, there was a reckoning.

Producer Melissa FitzGerald
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