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John Cassian and Sulpicius Severus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

James Harper
James Harper
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History, Roosevelt University
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Extract

It was Marc Bloch, I believe, who once posed the question whether there may not have been schools of asceticism, whether different groups of men at different times might have viewed the holy life in different ways and even have formed rival schools. The popular idea of what makes a saint has varied from time to time. The earliest Christians, suffering under the persecutions of the Roman Empire, reserved their admiration and their cult for those who suffered martyrdom. Albert Marignan has traced the transformation of this ideal after the end of the persecutions. When Christians no longer suffered death for their beliefs, they hoped to gain a similar crown by a living death, by the sacrifice of all earthly joys and the mortification of the flesh. The monastic ascetic ideal was born. But the monk, at least in the West, did not retain a lasting and exclusive hold on the affections of the Christian populace. He was ousted from his place by the hero bishop, the protector of the city, who combined ascetic practices with social leadership. Yet was the change a simple evolution in time, or were there really rival schools of sainthood through which the transformation took place?

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , December 1965 , pp. 371 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1965

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References

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