@article{1478736,
      recid = {1478736},
      author = {Sterk, Andrea, },
      title = {Renouncing the World yet Leading the Church : The  Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity /},
      pages = {1 online resource (368 p.)},
      abstract = {Although an ascetic ideal of leadership had both classical  and biblical roots, it found particularly fertile soil in  the monastic fervor of the fourth through sixth centuries.  Church officials were increasingly recruited from monastic  communities, and the monk-bishop became the dominant model  of ecclesiastical leadership in the Eastern Roman Empire  and Byzantium. In an interesting paradox, Andrea Sterk  explains that "from the world-rejecting monasteries and  desert hermitages of the east came many of the most  powerful leaders in the church and civil society as a  whole." Sterk explores the social, political, intellectual,  and theological grounding for this development. Focusing on  four foundational figures--Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of  Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and John Chrysostom--she  traces the emergence of a new ideal of ecclesiastical  leadership: the merging of ascetic and episcopal authority  embodied in the monk-bishop. She also studies church  histories, legislation, and popular ascetic and  hagiographical literature to show how the ideal spread and  why it eventually triumphed. The image of a monastic bishop  became the convention in the Christian east. Renouncing the  World Yet Leading the Church brings new understanding of  asceticism, leadership, and the church in late antiquity.  Table of Contents: Introduction I. Basil of Caesarea and  the Emergence of an Ideal 1. Monks and Bishops in the  Christian East from 325 to 375 2. Asceticism and Leadership  in the Thought of Basil of Caesarea 3. Reframing and  Reforming the Episcopate: Basil's Direct Influence II The  Development of an Ideal 4. Gregory of Nyssa: On Basil,  Moses, and Episcopal Office 5. Gregory of Nazianzus:  Ascetic Life and Episcopal Office in Tension 6. John  Chrysostom: The Model Monk-Bishop in Spite of Himself III  The Triumph of an Ideal 7. From Nuisances to Episcopal  Ideals: Civil and Ecclesiastical Legislation 8. Normalizing  the Model: The Fifth-Century Church Histories 9. The  Broadening Appeal: Monastic and Hagiographical Literature  Epilogue: The Legacy of the Monk-Bishop in the Byzantine  World Abbreviations Notes Frequently Cited Works Index},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1478736},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674044012},
}