The Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint

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A&C Black, Jan 1, 1995 - Religion - 260 pages
This book revolutionizes our understanding of the life and thought of the great anchorite father of the Egyptian desert. It is a signal contribution to our knowledge of Egyptian Christianity in the third and fourth centuries.—Birger Pearson, Institute for Antiquity and Christianity Samuel Rubenson, by means of a fresh analysis of the letters of St. Antony, exposes the distortion of the picture of early Christian monks as unlettered and primitive. Rubenson describes the desert monasteries as centers of theological reflection in Egypt, showing how they combined the speculative philosophy of the Greeks and the biblical tradition. Included in this volume is a new translation of the letters themselves, which are shown to be authentic and an important source for the study of the desert fathers and the early monastic tradition. The later image of Antony is demonstrated to be influenced by church politics of the latter part of the fourth century. Samuel Rubenson is Associate Professor at Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
 

Contents

Foreword by Birger A Pearson 7 69
9
THE VERSIONS
15
THE HISTORICAL SETTING
35
The Text
48
THE GNOSIS
59
The Image of St Antony
89
THE LIFE OF ANTONY
126
THE SAYINGS OF THE DESERT FATHERS
145
REFERENCES TO ANTONY IN OTHER SOURCES
163
Conclusion
185
Apothegmata Mentioning Antony
193
Bibliography
233
Indices
253
Copyright

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About the author (1995)

Samuel Rubenson is Associate Professor at Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

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