Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and The Lives of the Eastern SaintsJohn of Ephesus traveled throughout the sixth-century Byzantine world in his role as monk, missionary, writer and church leader. In his major work,The Lives of the Eastern Saints, he recorded 58 portraits of monks and nuns he had known, using the literary conventions of hagiography in a strikingly personal way. War, bubonic plague, famine, collective hysteria, and religious persecution were a part of daily life and the background against which asceticism developed an acute meaning for a beleaguered populace. Taking the work of John of Ephesus as her guide, Harvey explores the relationship between asceticism and society in the sixth-century Byzantine East. Concerned above all with the responsibility of the ascetic to lay society, John's writing narrates his experiences in the villages of the Syrian Orient, the deserts of Egypt, and the imperial city of Constantinople. Harvey's work contributes to a new understanding of the social world of the late antique Byzantine East, skillfully examining the character of ascetic practices, the traumatic separation of "Monophysite" churches, the fluctuating roles of women in Syriac Christianity, and the general contribution of hagiography to the study of history. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1990. |
Contents
John of Ephesus and | 28 |
The Measure of Madness | 57 |
IV | 76 |
VI | 108 |
VII | 134 |
Abbreviations | 147 |
Bibliography | 154 |
Index | 160 |
Other editions - View all
Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and the Lives of the ... Susan Ashbrook Harvey No preview available - 1990 |
Common terms and phrases
Abraham accounts Amida Amidan ascetics Amidan monasteries Anchorite Aphrahat ascetic ascetic practice asceticism bishops blessed body Book of Select Brock Byzance Byzantine ceticism Chalcedon Chalcedonian chap Christ Christian Chronicle Chronique Constantinople context Cyril desert divine E. W. Brooks Eastern Saints Edessa Egypt Empire Ephrem Euphemia Evagrius example exile faith Frend Greek Habib hagiographical Historia Lausiaca Historia religiosa History of Asceticism holy woman Ibid idem imperial Incerti auctoris chronicon Jacob John Moschus John of Ephesus John of Nikiu John of Tella John tells John's Lives Justin Justinian late antiquity Maro Mary Mesopotamia Michael the Syrian monks Monophysite Monophysite Movement nophysite Odes of Solomon Palladius patriarch persecutions Persian plague present Procopius pseudo-Dionysius pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor religious Roman Sergius Severus of Antioch Simeon sixth century society spiritual story Stylite Syrian asceticism Syrian Orient temporal world Theodora Theodoret theological tion tradition trans translation Vita Euthymii Vita Sabae vocation Vööbus women writings Z'ura