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"Monasticism and religious orders History Early church, ca. 30-600."
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The wandering mind : what medieval monks tell us about distraction
\"A revelatory account of how Christian monks identified distraction as a fundamental challenge, and how their efforts to defeat it can inform ours, more than a millennium later\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian Talmud
This book examines literary analogies in Christian and Jewish sources, culminating in an in-depth analysis of striking parallels and connections between Christian monastic texts (the Apophthegmata Patrum or 'The Sayings of the Desert Fathers') and Babylonian Talmudic traditions. The importance of the monastic movement in the Persian Empire, during the time of the composition and redaction of the Babylonian Talmud, fostered a literary connection between the two religious populations. The shared literary elements in the literatures of these two elite religious communities sheds new light on the surprisingly inclusive nature of the Talmudic corpora and on the non-polemical nature of elite Jewish-Christian literary relations in late antique Persia.
eBook
Jonas of Bobbio and the legacy of Columbanus : sanctity and community in the seventh century
\"Jonas of Bobbio's life mirrored many of the transformations of the seventh century, while his three saints' Lives provide a window into the early medieval Age of Saints and the monastic and political worlds of Merovingian Gaul and Lombard Italy\"-- Provided by publisher.
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Monastic Bodies
Shenoute of Atripe led the White Monastery, a community of several thousand male and female Coptic monks in Upper Egypt, between approximately 395 and 465 C.E. Shenoute's letters, sermons, and treatises-one of the most detailed bodies of writing to survive from any early monastery-provide an unparalleled resource for the study of early Christian monasticism and asceticism. InMonastic Bodies, Caroline Schroeder offers an in-depth examination of the asceticism practiced at the White Monastery using diverse sources, including monastic rules, theological treatises, sermons, and material culture. Schroeder details Shenoute's arduous disciplinary code and philosophical structure, including the belief that individual sin corrupted not only the individual body but the entire \"corporate body\" of the community. Thus the purity of the community ultimately depended upon the integrity of each individual monk. Shenoute's ascetic discourse focused on purity of the body, but he categorized as impure not only activities such as sex but any disobedience and other more general transgressions. Shenoute emphasized the important practices of discipline, or askesis, in achieving this purity. Contextualizing Shenoute within the wider debates about asceticism, sexuality, and heresy that characterized late antiquity, Schroeder compares his views on bodily discipline, monastic punishments, the resurrection of the body, the incarnation of Christ, and monastic authority with those of figures such as Cyril of Alexandria, Paulinus of Nola, and Pachomius.
eBook
The Word in the desert : scripture and the quest for holiness in early Christian monasticism
The retreat to the desert and growth of monasticism in fourth-century Egypt has long been recognized as one of the most significant moments in early Christianity. In the withdrawal to the stark solitude of the desert, a vibrant and original spirituality was born which was to wield great influence on both contemporaries and succeeding generations. Douglas Burton-Christie sheds fresh light on this early Christian ascetic movement by focusing on the way the desert saints interpret and appropriate the Scriptures. Drawing extensively on stories and sayings from the vast body of monastic literature, he shows that the Scriptures were a primary source of inspiration for the founders of early monasticism, and the shaping force in the development of a new `school’ of holiness in the desert. Burton-Christie goes on to discuss how this biblical spirituality developed, what substantive issues defined its growth, what hermeneutical approaches were used in shaping it, and how it came to its mature expression. He contends that, through the use of contemporary hermeneutical categories, the ‘desert hermeneutic’ can become not only intelligible to the modern interpreter, but engaging and challenging as well.
eBook
Desert Ascetics of Egypt
Egypt is revered as the home of the famous Desert Ascetics, who first embraced a monastic life and established homosocial communities on the borders of their urban centres in the Nile Valley. Regarded as angels and warriors, the wisdom of the Desert Ascetics formed part of the oral and literary tradition of wonder-working saints whose commitment to asceticism was legendary and inspirational. This book grounds the mythologized stories of Desert Ascetics in the materiality of the desert, demonstrating the closeness of the desert, the connections between non-monastic and monastic communities, and the exciting insights into lived monasticism through the archaeology of monasticism in Egypt.
eBook
Evagrius of Pontus
Evagrius of Pontus (c.345–99) was one of the most prominent figures among the monks of the desert settlements of Nitria, Sketis, and Kellia in Lower Egypt. Through the course of his ascetic writings he formulated a systematic presentation of the teaching of the semi-eremitic monks of these settlements. The works of Evagrius had a profound influence on Eastern Orthodox monastic teaching and passed to the West through the writings of John Cassian (c.365–435). This book provides an English translation of Evagrius' Greek ascetic writings, based on modern critical editions, where available, and, where they are not, on collations of the principal manuscripts. Two appendices provide variant readings for the Greek texts and the complete text of the long recension of Eulogios. The translations are accompanied by a commentary to guide the reader through the intricacies of Evagrian thought by offering explanatory comments and references to other Evagrian texts and relevant scholarly literature. Finally, detailed indexes are provided to allow the reader to identify and study the numerous themes of Evagrian teaching.
eBook