Identity, Community, and 'Worldly' Society in the Apophthegmata Patrum

The tension inherent in the way that committed Christians relate to the world has been a perennial theme in the history of religious life. This tension is already present in early ascetical texts such as the Apophthegmata Patrum, the record of sayings attributed to the Desert Fathers and Mothers of Late Antique Egypt. In my thesis, I consider how the ‘world’ (κόσμος) and people who belong to the world (κοσμικοί) are treated in the Systematic Collection of the Apophthegmata Patrum, arguing that the subjects who speak in the text negotiated a path between intentional separation from the world and ongoing engagement with the society that had formed them. Despite ascetics’ rejection of worldly influences and preoccupations, the text of the Apophthegmata demonstrates that the boundary between ascetic communities and secular society was permeable enough to require ongoing negotiation and to allow ascetics to interact with and influence the larger culture.Master of Theology (ThM