Paideia as Humility and Becoming God-like in Dorotheos of Gaza

INTRODUCTION

This article investigates how the influential Palestinian monk Dorotheos of Gaza (fl. mid-sixth century) conceptualized monastic paideia as a way of life directed towards becoming like God, by drawing attention to his distinctive account of humility.¹ Humility was clearly central to monastic self-understanding.² It harmonizes with early christological thinking, ideologies of asceticism, and has obvious biblical warrant.³ Yet humility was constructed in multiple ways in early Christianity as different thinkers developed myriad ideas, practices, and narratives around the virtue. Even within the bounded set of ascetic literature examined in this article, with its geographic emphasis on Palestinian monasticism, humility is multiform. This calls for renewed attention to the fine detail of understandings of humility in particular early Christian situations.⁴ In tracing accounts of humility that were significant for Palestinian monasticism, this article thus aims to illumine a central, diverse, and complex monastic virtue.⁵

I proceed firstly by exploring how best to characterize Gazan monastic education in relation to classical education and traditions of Palestinian monasticism. I then seek to explain Dorotheos's distinctive account of humility as monastic paideia in the context of earlier monastic writing and the larger contours of his thought. Dorotheos draws on elements of classical rhetoric, philosophy, and medicine to make humility central to his program of monastic education. Humility structures Dorotheos's anthropology and soteriology as the means and the goal of monastic unification with God. It is the therapeutic practice that prepares the soul for contemplation of God and participation in God's life, which is the perfection of humility. As a way of knowing and learning, humility is central because it fits within a theodicy explaining why human knowledge is permanently elusive. Dorotheos's theological anthropology is built on an account of the divine plan from creation and fall to the salvation and perfection of all creatures, which systematizes his thought and explains how different elements of monastic paideia fit together in a life focused on the cultivation of humility in the process of becoming God-like. Exploring Dorotheos's conceptualization of monastic paideia in relation to contemporary rhetorical, medical, and philosophical education and traditions of thought about anthropology, salvation, and monastic virtues and spiritual practices therefore casts new light on his contributions to Palestinian monasticism...