Monastic Bodies: Discipline and Salvation in Shenoute of Atripe. By Caroline T. Schroeder
Scott G. Bruce
Much of what we know about late antique monasticism in the eastern Mediterranean comes from texts produced by charismatic ascetics and their followers: sermons, letters, rules conduct, sacred biographies written Coptic, Greek, Syriac. Recently, scholars ancient world have turned to these sources reconstruct contextualize religious social worlds “great old men” desert communities they fostered. Jennifer Hevelone-Harper's Disciples Desert: Monks, Laity, Spiritual Authority Sixth-Century Gaza (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) Cornelia B. Horn's Asceticism Christological Controversy Fifth-Century Palestine: The Career Peter Iberian (Oxford: Oxford 2006) are good examples this trend research. elegant book taps a rich vein spiritual practical correspondence—over 800 extant letters—that reflects cares concerns abbots hermits village Tawatha (near Gaza) for each other laity among whom lived. learned study uses lens hagiography examine how followers portrayed role prominent ascetic controversies that shook Jerusalem fifth century. Richly contextualized respective historical frameworks, works share sensitivity function asceticism as locus authority communities, both secular.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion