Foundations of Power and Conflicts of Authority in Late-antique Monasticism

Book excerpt: The volume offers the acts of a meeting held at the University of Turin on the foundations of power and the conflicts of authority as documented by the monastic sources of East and West in Late Antiquity, with special reference to Max Weber's analysis of these notions. The issue is here examined from a variety of perspectives: the different meanings of power and authority in ancient monastic sources; the criteria by which authority is established within the monastic organizations; the kind of power and authority exercised towards outsiders; the relationship between monks and other authorities, especially the Church; the monks and their economic activity; the strategies for the solution of conflicts. The wide range of historical and cultural problems raised by these questions is what the present volume tries to illuminate through individual studies of a number of specific phenomena, events, and figures (from Shenute to John Cassian, from Abraham of Kashkar to Maxim the Confessor), paying particular attention to monasticism in Egypt, Palestine, Africa, and Persia.