Book description
Written between the mid-fourth and late sixth centuries to commemorate
and glorify the achievements of early Christian saints, these six
biographies depict men who devoted themselves to solitude, poverty and
prayer. Athanasius records Antony's extreme seclusion in the Egyptian
desert, despite temptation by the devil and visits from his followers.
Jerome also shows those who fled persecution or withdrew from society to
pursue lives of chastity and asceticism in his accounts of Paul of
Thebes, Hilarion and Malchus. In his Life of Martin, Sulpicius Severus
describes the achievements of a man who combined the roles of monk,
bishop and missionary, while Gregory the Great tells of Benedict, whose
Rule became the template for monastic life. Full of vivid incidents and
astonishing miracles, these Lives have provided inspiration as models
for centuries of Christian worship.
CAROLINNE WHITE works at St Hugh's College, Oxford, dividing her time
between research projects and tutoring in patristic and medieval
Latin. She has worked on many projects in her field, and published
several works, and now lives in north Oxfordshire.
Carolinne White divides her time between research projects and
tutoring in patristic and medieval Latin at Oxford University. She has
worked on the supplement to the Liddell and Scott Greek Lexicon and
the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources and has
published a translation of the correspondence between St Jerome and St
Augustine of Hippo (1990) alongside other work.
