Inquiry About the Monks in Egypt

Rufinus of Aquileia

ISBN 10: 0813232643 / ISBN 13: 9780813232645

Published by The Catholic University of America Press, US, 2019

About this Item

From September 394 to early January 395, seven monks from Rufinus of Aquileia's monastery on the Mount of Olives made a pilgrimage to Egypt to visit locally renowned monks and monastic communities. Shortly af­ter their return to Jerusalem, one of the party, whose identity remains a mystery, wrote an engaging account of this trip. Although he cast it in the form of a first-person travelogue, it reads more like a book of mira­cles that depicts the great fourth-century Egyptian monks as prophets and apostles similar to those in the Bible. This work was composed in Greek, yet it is best known today as Historia monachorum in Aegypto (In­quiry about the Monks in Egypt), the title of the Latin translation of this work made by Rufinus, the pilgrim-monks' abbot. The Historia monachorum is one of the most fascinating, fantastical, and enigmatic pieces of literature to survive from the patristic period. In both its Greek original and Rufinus's Latin translation it was one of the most popular and widely disseminated works of monastic hagi­ography during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Modern scholars value it not only for its intrinsic literary merits but also for its status, alongside Athanasius's Life of Antony, the Pachomian dossier, and other texts of this ilk, as one of the most important primary sources for mo­nasticism in fourth-century Egypt.Rufinus's Historia monachorum is presented here in English transla­tion in its entirety. The introduction and annotations situate the work in its literary, historical, religious, and theological contexts.

Seller Inventory # LU-9780813232645

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Inquiry About the Monks in Egypt
• Publisher: The Catholic University of America Press, US
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813232643
• ISBN 13: 9780813232645
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 475 grams

About this title

Synopsis

From September 394 to early January 395, seven monks from Rufinus of Aquileia’s monastery on the Mount of Olives made a pilgrimage to Egypt to visit locally renowned monks and monastic communities. Shortly af­ter their return to Jerusalem, one of the party, whose identity remains a mystery, wrote an engaging account of this trip. Although he cast it in the form of a first-person travelogue, it reads more like a book of mira­cles that depicts the great fourth-century Egyptian monks as prophets and apostles similar to those in the Bible. This work was composed in Greek, yet it is best known today as Historia monachorum in Aegypto (In­quiry about the Monks in Egypt), the title of the Latin translation of this work made by Rufinus, the pilgrim-monks’ abbot.

The Historia monachorum is one of the most fascinating, fantastical, and enigmatic pieces of literature to survive from the patristic period. In both its Greek original and Rufinus’s Latin translation it was one of the most popular and widely disseminated works of monastic hagi­ography during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Modern scholars value it not only for its intrinsic literary merits but also for its status, alongside Athanasius’s Life of Antony, the Pachomian dossier, and other texts of this ilk, as one of the most important primary sources for mo­nasticism in fourth-century Egypt.

Rufinus’s Historia monachorum is presented here in English transla­tion in its entirety. The introduction and annotations situate the work in its literary, historical, religious, and theological contexts.

About the Author

Andrew Cain is Professor of Classics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has authored five books, including The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exe­gesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2009) and The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto: Monastic Hagiography in the Late Fourth Century (Oxford, 2016). He also has co-edited two volumes, is the translator of Fathers of the Church 121 (St. Jerome, Commentary on Galatians), and serves as Editor of the Journal of Late Antiquity.