If you’ve ever dipped into the literature of the Desert Fathers, you’ll have come across scenes in which monks wrestle with demons in the middle of the night. Of course, these seem very strange to the modern mind. David Brakke’s goal in this book is not to explain these encounters, but rather to examine the way in which the struggle between monk and demon contributed to the cultural definition of both. This sounds like a narrow program, but Brakke uses this theme as a vehicle to introduce all sorts of interesting material on the Desert Fathers, so much so that the book might almost serve as a partial introduction to early Christian monasticism in Egypt.

In Athanasius’ Life of Antony, Antony is depicted as a heroic warrior on the front lines in the battle between Christianity and paganism, successor to the martyrs of the first century. Evagrius’ knowledgeable strategies for dealing with inner demons (the Eight Thoughts) make the monk into a storehouse of incisive wisdom. Pachomius, one of the early organizers of community monasticism, saw demons at work whenever the life of the community was disrupted, and hence the accomplished monk becomes a mediator in social conflict. And some monks developed clairvoyant or healing powers as a result of having defeated demons.

With this astonishing range of capabilities, it’s not surprising that people — John Cassian is a well-known exemplar — went out into the desert to seek wisdom from the monks. The combination of the monk’s powers created a kind of shaman-like figure, the wise man the villagers could turn to when faced with otherwise insoluble problems. Yet the monk is wholly Christian, and given that the demons were often equated with the old pagan gods, he is not the inheritor of an ancient tradition but rather the pioneer of a new one.

David Brakke. Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity. Harvard University Press, 2006. Hardcover. 322 pages. ISBN 9780674018754. $59.50.

From my blog at http://true-small-caps.blogspot.com

Hi, Christine, I'm not sure how much practical use the book might be. It's really a historical study.