The Literature of Early Eastern Monasticism

Abstract

Abstract The chapter examines a variety of late antique monastic sources written in Greek, Syriac, and Coptic—hagiographies, canons, letters, and pedagogical treatises. It interrogates ways of reading these sources in order to reconstruct the historical development of monastic settlements in Palestine, Cappadocia, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. It argues that the monastic texts do not clearly reflect the world that produced them, and it identifies a number of obstacles for historians that are embedded in the texts upon which we must rely. The discussion emphasizes the function of the perceptions, metaphors, symbols, images, and memories contained in the sources, thereby revealing late antique cultural and rhetorical trends and reflecting many aspects of Eastern monastic culture.

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