The Asketikon of St Basil the Great

by Anna M. Silvas

Overview

The Asketikon of St Basil the Great comprises a new English translation and studies which re-examine the emergence of monasticism in Asia Minor. The Regula Basilii, translated by Rufinus from Basil's Small Asketikon, is closely compared with the Greek text of the longer edition, as a means to tracing the development of ideas. Silvas concludes that the antecedents of the monastic community of the Great Asketikon are best sought not in some kind of sub-orthodox modus vivendi of male and female ascetics living together and increasingly curbed by an emerging neo-Nicene orthodoxy less favourable to women ('homoiousian asceticism'), but in the local domestic ascetic movement in Anatolia as typified in the developments at Annisa under the leadership of Makrina.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199273515
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/01/2005
Series:	Oxford Early Christian Studies
Pages:	540
Product dimensions:	9.21(w) x 6.14(h) x 1.19(d)

About the Author

Anna M. Silvas is Australian Research Council Fellow, Department of Classics, History, and Religion, University of New England, Australia.

Table of Contents

1. An introduction to the textual issues2. The ascetic community in the two versions of Basil's Asketikon3. The geography behind the history4. Revisiting the emergence of monasticism in fourth-century Anatolia5. Rufinus, witness of the Small Asketikon6. Basil and the Great AsketikonConclusionThe Asketikon of St Basil the GreatThe Longer ResponsesThe Shorter Responses