RT Article
T1 Bread in the Desert: The Politics and Practicalities of Food in Early Egyptian Monasticism
JF Church history
VO 90
IS 2
SP 286
OP 303
A1 Hansen, Benjamin
LA English
PB Cambridge Univ. Press
YR 2021
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1775653714
AB The Apophthegmata Patrum (Sayings of the Desert Fathers) offer a compelling literary perspective on the daily lives of early Egyptian monastics. The routine necessities of food and drink played a distinct part in the physical and spiritual survival of these novel monastic communities. When, what, and how much a monk ate could cause celebration or scandal. Every meal was likewise a test. This study has two purposes. First, it situates the Sayings's many references to bread, salt, oil, and fruit within the dietary possibilities of late antique Egypt. Second, and more broadly, this study highlights the place of eating (or not eating) as it relates to particular monastic notions of spiritual wellbeing. Meals were always an arena for acts of heroic asceticism, but they also served as highly charged communal confrontations, a dizzying back and forth of hospitality received or rejected, of honor and shame played out in alimentary paradoxes. In this, the Sayings bear witness to the spiritual politics of eating within Egyptian monastic culture and provide insight into the formation of late antique religious identities, betraying fundamental tensions inherent in other forms of Christian literature.
K1 Apophthegmata
K1 Desert Fathers
K1 Egyptian Monasticism
K1 Food and Eating in Early Christianity
DO 10.1017/S0009640721001499