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Jennifer L. Hevelone-Harper, Disciples of the Desert: Monks, Laity, and Spiritual Authority in Sixth-Century Gaza. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. Pp. xii + 211. $39.95.
Reviewed by Dennis D. Martin, Loyola University Chicago
Building upon the fact that the correspondence of two leading hermits of the monastery and hermitage at Tawatha near Gaza was recently published in a critical edition in Sources Chrétiennes (1997-2002), Jennifer L. Hevelone-Harper has undertaken a careful study of the correspondence of Barsanuphius (the "Great Old Man") and his colleague, John (the "Other Old Man"), focusing on the thoroughgoing integration of ascetic holy men and women with late antique Byzantine Christian society, both lay and ecclesial. "Society" here includes interaction between spiritual masters and their disciples both inside and outside the monastery, in most cases by written correspondence rather than direct contact, even within the monastery. "Frequent challenges to authority, a strong commitment to cooperative leadership, and ready interchange between lay and monastic Christians characterized the daily affairs of the Christian community in Gaza. The network of authority at Tawatha is a local expression of the system that undergirded spiritual authority in Christianity throughout eastern Mediterranean" (5).
Following an initial chapter introducing the ecclesial, theological, and spiritual setting presented by early-sixth century Gaza and its environs (based more than subsequent chapters on previous work by other scholars), Hevelone-Harper then describes (chapter two) from the correspondence how spiritual direction functioned within the monastery, which was composed of a coenobium under the administration of an abbot, surrounded by cells...