Work and Nature in Syrian Monasticism, from Theodoret of Cyrrhus’ Religious History

Abstract

In this work, we propose to analyze how nature, embodied in the social spaces of production, conditions and structures the forms of representation of Syrian asceticism towards the 5th century AD. In that sense, this paper analyzes stories of saints compiled by Bishop Theodoret of Cyrrhus, who builds an ascetic ideal and example to imitate. However, within that ideal, we can access the subjects he leaves aside: free and unfree peasants. This must be understood from the complex relationship that monasticism and Christianity had with the notion of work as well as with the matter in its generality. Thus, we maintain as a hypothesis that, although rejected by Syrian asceticism, manual work is part of the bishop’s ideological structure when writing the lives of saints. In other words, work and nature are an inseparable binomial from the Christian practice of renouncing all material things.