Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T09:08:12.807Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

34 - The literature of the monastic movement

from A - LITERARY GUIDE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Frances Young
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Lewis Ayres
Affiliation:
Emory University, Atlanta
Andrew Louth
Affiliation:
University of Durham
Augustine Casiday
Affiliation:
University of Durham
Get access

Summary

The very notion of the ‘literature of the monastic movement’ runs the risk of accepting uncritically the propaganda that this literature constituted. The traditional story of the rise of monasticism as a fourth-century phenomenon, associated par excellence with the Egyptian desert, is a Catholic legend, which, unlike many others, was reinforced, rather than questioned, by Protestant scholarship, happy to regard monasticism as a late, and therefore spurious, development. The ‘monastic movement’ should perhaps be seen rather as a reform movement of an already existing, and flourishing, ascetic tradition: a reform inspired by changes, both within the Church itself, and in the Church’s relation to society, brought about by the gradual Christianization of the Roman Empire that began in the fourth century with the conversion of Constantine. The results of this reform movement led to the outlawing (by bishops in councils) of various hitherto acceptable forms of the ascetic life – notably those that involved ascetics of both sexes living together – and the promotion of the ideal of desert or rural monasticism (though urban monasticism continued), as depicted in the ‘monastic literature’: the net effect was to subordinate ascetic claims to authority to that of the bishop (with only limited success, especially in the East). Although all the forms of reformed monasticism – the eremitical life of solitude, life in community (‘coenobitic’) and the modified eremitical life of the laura or the ‘skete’ – can be found in Egypt, the reform of monasticism in other parts of the Empire (Syria, for instance, or Asia Minor) is probably an independent response to the changes of the fourth century, rather than evidence of Egyptian influence.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

AmandMoons, D. M. Ch., ‘Une curieuse homéelie grecque inéedite sur la virginitée adresséee aux pèeres de famille’, RBen 63 (1953).Google Scholar
Ayres, L. and Jones, G., eds, Christian Origins. Theology, Rhetoric and Community (London: Routledge, 1998).
Ayres, L. Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004).
Bagnall, R. S. Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
Barnes, M. R. and Williams, D. H., eds, Arianism after Arius. Essays on the Development of the Fourth-Century Trinitarian Controversies (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993).
Barnes, T. D. New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).
Bossuet, W. Apophthegmata. Studien zur Geschichte des ältesten Mönchtums (Tübingen: Mohr, 1923).
Bowersock, G. W. Julian the Apostate (London: Duckworth, 1978).
Bowersock, G. W. Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
Brennecke, H. C. Studien zur Geschichte der Homöer. Der Osten bis zum Ende der homöischen Reichskirche (Tübingen: Mohr, 1988).
Brown, P.The Patrons of Pelagius: The Roman Aristocracy between East and West’, Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 21 (1970) (reprinted in ,Religion and Society).Google Scholar
Brown, P. Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine (London: Faber, 1972).
Brown, P. Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (London: Faber, 1982).
Brown, P. Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity. Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992).
Brown, P. Authority and the Sacred (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
Brown, P. The Rise of Western Christendom. Triumph and Diversity, AD 200–1000, The Making of Europe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).Google Scholar
Bunge, G. Evagrios Pontikos: Briefe aus der Wüste, Sophia 24 (Trier: Paulinus-Verlag, 1986).Google Scholar
Burrus, Virginia The Making of a Heretic: Gender Authority and the Priscillianist Controversy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
Burrus, Virginia Begotten, Not Made: Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).
Burton-Christie, D. The Word in the Desert (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
Butler, C. The Lausiac History of Palladius, Texts and Studies 6.1–2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898, 1904).
Cameron, Averil and Garnsey, P., eds, The Cambridge Ancient History, XIII: The Late Empire, A.D. 337–425 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Casiday, A. M.Apatheia and Sexuality in the Thought of Augustine and Cassian’, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 45 (2001).Google Scholar
Caspar, E. Geschichte des Papsttums, II (Tübingen: Mohr, 1933).
Chadwick, O. John Cassian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950I; 1964 2).
Chitty, D. J. The Desert a City (Oxford: Blackwell, 1966).
Cochrane, C. N. Christianity and Classical Culture (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957).
Conybeare, C. Paulinus Noster. Self and Symbols in the Letters of Paulinus of Nola, Oxford Early Christian Texts (2000).
Daley, B. E.Nature and the “Mode of Union”: Late Patristic Models for the Personal Unity of Christ’, in O’Collins, Gerald et al., eds, The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002).Google Scholar
Daniélou, J.Eunome l’arien et l’exégèse néo-platonicienne du «Cratyle»’, Revue des etudes grecques 69 (1956).Google Scholar
Draguet, R.L’ “Histoire Lausiaque”, une oeuvre écrite dans l’esprit d’Évagre’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 41 (1946); 42 (1945)Google Scholar
Drinkwater, J. and Elton, H., eds, Fifth-Century Gaul: a Crisis of Identity? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Driscoll, J. The ‘Ad monachos’ of Evagrius Ponticus: Its Structure and a Select Commentary, Studia Anselmiana (Rome: S. Anselmo, 1991).Google Scholar
Edwards, M. ed. and trans., Neoplatonic Saints. The Lives of Plotinus and Proclus by their Students, Translated Texts for Historians 35 (2000).
Elm, SusannaVirgins of God’. The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Evelyn White, H. G. The monasteries of the Wâdi ’n Natrûn…, 3 vols (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1926–33).
Fitschen, K. Messalianismus und Antimessalianismus. Ein Beispiel ostkirchliche Ketzergeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998).
Fraggiana di Sarzana, C.Apophthegmata Patrum’, Studia Patristica 29 (1997).Google Scholar
Frend, W. H. C. The Donatist Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952).
Geffcken, J. Der Ausgang des griechisch-römischen Heidentums (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1929).
Gould, G. The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Greshake, G. Gnade als konkrete Freiheit. Eine Untersuchung zur Gnadenlehre des Pelagius (Mainz: Matthias-Grunwald-Verlag, 1972).
Gribomont, J.Le dossier des origines du messalianisme’, in Fontaine, J. and Kannengiesser, Ch., eds, Epectasis. Mélanges patristiques offerts au Cardinal Jean Daniélou, (Paris: Beauchesne, 1972).Google Scholar
Grillmeier, A. SJ and Bacht, H. SJ, eds, Das Konzil von Chalkedon, 3 vols (Würzburg: EchterVerlag, 1951–4).
Gryson, R. ed., Scolies ariennes sur le Concile d’Aquilée, Sources chrétiennes 267 (1980).
Guillaumont, A. Aux origines du monachisme chrétien: pour une phénomenologie du monachisme (Bégrolles-en-Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1979).
Gullaunont, A. Études sur la spiritualité de l’Orient chrétien (Bégrolles-en-Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1996).
Guy, J.-C.Les Apophthegmata Patrum’, in Théologie de la vie monastique (Paris: Aubier, 1961).Google Scholar
Guy, J.-C. Recherches sur la tradition grecque des Apophthegmata Patrum, Subsidia Hagiographica 36 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 19842).Google Scholar
Hanson, R. P. C. The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God. The Arian Controversy 318–381 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988).
Haykin, M. A. G. The Spirit of God. The Exegesis of 1 & 2 Corinthians in the Pneumatomachian Controversy of the Fourth Century (Leiden: Brill, 1994).
Herzog, R. Die Bibelepik der lateinischen Spätantike. Formgeschichte einer erbaulichen Gattung, Bd. 1 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1975).
Heussi, K. Der Ursprung des Mönchtums (Tübingen: Mohr, 1936).
Humphries, M. Communities of the Blessed. Social Environment and Change in Northern Italy, AD 200–400, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999).
Hunter, D.Resistance to the Virginal Ideal in Late Fourth-Century Rome: The Case of Jovinian’, Theological Studies 48 (1987).Google Scholar
Jones, A. H. M. The Later Roman Empire, 284–602, 3 vols + maps (Oxford: Blackwell, 1964).
Klein, R. Constantius II. und die christliche Kirche (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977).
Kopecek, T. A. A History of Neo-Arianism, Patristic Monographs Series 8 (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1979).Google Scholar
Kriegbaum, B. Kirche der Traditoren oder kirche der Martyrer?: die vorgeschichte des Donatismus (Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1986).
Leyser, C. Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Lienhard, J. T.The “Arian” Controversy: Some Categories Reconsidered’, Theological Studies 48 (1987).Google Scholar
Lienhard, J. T. Contra Marcellum: Marcellus of Ancyra and Fourth-Century Theology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1999).
Lienhard, J. T.Ousia and Hypostasis: The Cappadocian Settlement and the Theology of “One Hypostasis”’, in Davis, S., Kendall, D. SJ and O’Collins, G. SJ, eds, The Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Logan, A. H. B.Marcellus of Ancyra and the Councils of 325: Antioch, Ancyra, and Nicaea’, Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 43 (1992).Google Scholar
Logan, A. H. B.Marcellus of Ancyra, Defender of the Faith against Heretics — and Pagans’, Studia Patristica 37 (2001).Google Scholar
Mühlenberg, E. Apollinarius von Laodicea (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1969).
MacMullen, R. Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997).
Markus, R. A.Christianity and Dissent in Roman Africa: changing perspectives in recent work’, Studies in Church History 9 (1972).Google Scholar
Markus, R. A. Christianity in the Roman world (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974).
Markus, R. A. From Augustine to Gregory the Great (London: Variorum Reprints, 1983).
Markus, R. A. The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
Markus, R. A.Donatus, Donatism’, in Fitzgerald, A., ed., Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999).Google Scholar
Marrou, H.-I. Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique (Paris: E de Boccard, 1938; with Retractatio, 1946).Google Scholar
Marsili, S. Giovanni Cassiano ed Evagrio Pontico, Studia Anselmiana 5 (Rome: Editrice Anselmiana, 1936).Google Scholar
Merdinger, J. E. Rome and the African Church in the Time of Augustine (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997).
Miquel, P. Lexique du desert, Spiritualité Orientale 44 (Bégrolles-en-Mauge: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1986).
Momigliano, A. ed., The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).
Nuvolone, F. G. and Solignac, A., ‘Pelage et Pelagianisme’, Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, histoire et doctrine XII. 2 (1987).Google Scholar
O’Keefe, J.Impassible Suffering? Divine Passion and Fifth-Century Christology’, Theological Studies 58 (1997).Google Scholar
Rébillard, E. and Sotinel, C., eds, L’Évêque dans la cité du IVe au Ve siècle, (Rome: École française de Rome, 1998).
Rees, B. R. Pelagius: a Reluctant Heretic (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1988).
Rees, B. R. The Letters of Pelagius and His Followers (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1991).
Ritter, A. M. Das Konzil von Konstantinopel und sein Symbol. Studien zur Geschichte und Theologie des 2. Ökumenischen Konzils (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1965).
Rousseau, P. Ascetics, Authority and the Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).
Rubenson, S. The Letters of St Anthony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995; revised version of thesis originally published by Lund University Press in 1990).
Salzman, Michele Renee, On Roman Time. The Codex-Calender of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 17 (Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford: University of California Press, 1990).
Sellers, R. V. Two Ancient Christologies (London and New York: SPCK, 1940).
Sellers, R. V. The Council of Chalcedon (London: SPCK, 1953).
Sheridan, M.Il mondo spirituale e intellectuale del primo monachesimo egiziano’, in Camplani, A., ed., L’Egitto cristiano: Aspetti e problemi in età tardo-antica (Rome: Augustinianum, 1997).Google Scholar
Sieben, H. J. SJ, Das Konzilsidee der alten Kirche, Konziliengeschichte, Reihe B: Untersuchungen1 (Paderborn and Zurich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1979).
Simonetti, M. Studi sull’ Arianesimo, Verba Seniorum n.s. 5 (Rome: Editrice Studium, 1965).Google Scholar
Simonetti, M. La Crisi ariana nel IV secolo, Studia Ephemeridis «Augustinianum» 11 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum «Augustinianum», 1975).
Stewart OSB, C. ‘Working the Earth of the Heart’: The Messalian Controversy in History, Texts and Language to AD 431 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).
Stewart, C. Cassian the Monk (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
Tetz, M.Ein enzyklisches Schreiben der Synode von Alexandrien (362)’, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 79 (1988).Google Scholar
Trombley, F. R. Hellenic Religion and Christianization c.370–529, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1993, 1995).
Vaggione, R. P. Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000).
Vinzent, M. Asterius von Kappadokien: Die Theologische Fragmente. Einleitung, Kritischer Text, Ubersetzung und Kommentar (Leiden: Brill, 1993).
Vogüé, A. De Saint Pachôme à Jean Cassien: etudes littéraires et doctrinales sur le monachisme égyptien à ses débuts, Studia Anselmiana 120 (Rome: S. Anselmo, 1996).Google Scholar
Wallis Budge’s, E. A. The Paradise of the Holy Fathers, popular edn, 2 vols (London: Chatto and Windus, 1907).
Wickham, L. R.The Syntagmation of Aetius the Anomean’, Journal of Theological Studies n.s.19 (1968).Google Scholar
Wickham, L. R.Pelagianism in the East’, in Williams, Rowan, ed., The Making of Orthodoxy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Williams, R. Arius. Heresy and Tradition (London: Darton Longman and Todd, 1987; 2nd edn, revised with appendix, London: SCM, 2001).
Young, F. M.The God of the Greeks and the Nature of Religious Language’, in Schoedel, W. R. and Wilken, R., eds, Early Christian Literature and the Greek Intellectual Tradition: Festschrift for R. M. Grant, Théologie Historique 53 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1980).Google Scholar
Young, F. M. From Nicaea to Chalcedon (London: SCM, 1983).
Young, F. M.The Rhetorical Schools and Their Influence on Patristic Exegesis’, in Williams, R., ed., The Making of Orthodoxy. Essays in honour of Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Young, F. M.Exegetical Method and Scriptural Proof: the Bible in Doctrinal Debate’, Studia Patristica 24 (1989).Google Scholar
Young, F. M.Paideia and the Myth of Static Dogma’, in Coakley, S. and Pailin, D., eds, The Making and Remaking of Christian Doctrine: Essays in Honour of Maurice Wiles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Young, F. M.The Fourth-century Reaction against Allegory’, Studia Patristica 30 (1997).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×