2 - Ascetic transformations I: monks and the laity in eastern Christendom

Summary

In Christian culture, Lactantius' rudimentary analysis of the vice preceded a number of other important discussions of avarice composed before the end of the fourth century, culminating in the fully articulated and systematic characterization of the sin in the work of Evagrius Ponticus. Most of the earliest of these discussions are to be localized in the eastern Mediterranean. The third and fourth centuries clearly witnessed the perception among some of the Orient's most important church thinkers of a greater need for precision when dealing with the vice, and this need only grew in proportion with the hastening deterioration of the Roman Empire. As the economic situation worsened in the third century, the discrepancy between the prerogatives of the rich and the suffering of the poor was seen to grow ever crasser throughout the empire. Corruption, too, was felt to be particularly rampant at this time. Much of this perception of social disharmony is reflected in the more detailed examinations of avarice typical of Christian commentators everywhere in the Roman imperium during its last centuries, but it is voiced initially with the greatest clarity in the East, especially in Cappadocia where one finds evidence of intense intellectual activity aimed at coming to terms with the sin.