Bread in the Desert: The Politics and Practicalities of Food in Early Egyptian Monasticism

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.

Money in the Apophthegmata Patrum

The objective of this paper is to discuss accounts related to money in Apophthegmata Patrum, a collection of sayings attributed to famous Egyptian monks. The collection as we know it was produced in the 6th century. By describing the organisation of monastic centres in Egypt in the 4th and 5th century Apophthegmata also offer us some information about the period’s economic aspects. However, by and large, the data is very general. It pertains to: prices, wages, tax issues as well as money that was given to monks by pilgrims. Limited as it is, the data confirms that money was present in the everyday lives of Egyptian monks in late antiquity. Naturally, the major consideration behind whether a monk possessed money was whether he had contact with the outside world. This included selling self-made handcraft at markets, particularly woven mats and ropes, clay pots and sometimes also more specialised items (such as copied codices of the Bible). In Apophthegmata Patrum, similarly to what is the case with other Early Byzantium hagiographic texts, we find little information about moral evaluation of money or about the “appropriate” way to manage it.