The Making of Monastic Demonology: Three Ascetic Teachers on Withdrawal and Resistance

Abstract

Although in recent years fourth- and fifth-century Egyptian monasticism has received much scholarly attention of increasing methodological and theoretical sophistication, conflict with demons, a primary metaphor for the ascetic life in the literature of the period, has been left relatively unexplored. One reason for this lack of attention is a shift in the intellectual paradigms through which scholars approach ascetic literature: as they have moved from psychological and theological models to social and performative ones in interpreting ascetic theory and practice, seemingly subjective or theological themes such as demonological theory have given way to more cultural topics, such as constructions of the body and formations of ascetic institutions and practices, with their accompanying politics. But the neglect of demons is a function also of the weighty influence exercised by two fourth-century demonologists, Athanasius of Alexandria and Evagrius of Pontus, and of the powerful modern explications of monastic demonology based on these important sources. Together theLife of Antonyand the works of Evagrius construct, it seems,themonastic demonology, upon which later sources only elaborate.