Steps Along the Way of Perfection: The Liber Graduum and Early Syrian Monasticism

Steps Along the Way of Perfection: The Liber Graduum and Early Syrian MonasticismSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/D5UM33GU/tei

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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.Robert ArdenRatcliffSteps Along the Way of Perfection: The Liber Graduum and Early Syrian Monasticismhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/D5UM33GUhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/D5UM33GUhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/D5UM33GU1988During the late-fourth or early-fifth centuries C.E., an anonymous author from the Syriac-speaking areas of the Roman or Persian empires composed a text on the monastic life which subsequent tradition has named the Liber Graduum. This study will demonstrate that the author considered the relational virtues, i.e. active demonstrations of love and concern for other human beings, the primary tasks of the monastic way. The significance of this fact lies in the consequences it carries for one's understanding of early Christian monasticism both in late-antique Syria and the Mediterranean world. I will begin by suggesting that the preeminence of the relational virtues in this text calls into question two common ways of categorizing the Liber Graduum. First, if love and ministry to others constitute the principal means in the Liber Graduum of achieving perfection in the monastic way, then one can no longer claim that this text arose from the Messalian movement, a group of early monastics for whom prayer was supposedly the primary monastic task. Second, the importance of the relational virtues prevents one from applying to this text the common perception of Syrian monasticism as concerned primarily with self-mortification and solitude. In both cases, while common understandings of Messalianism and early Syrian monasticism cannot serve as adequate tools for analyzing the Liber Graduum, this text can itself suggest revisions of those understandings. By examining the text's division of Christian life into the non-monastic way of kinutha and the monastic way of gamirutha, I will further indicate the importance of the relational virtues in the Liber Graduum. The author contended that while gamirutha, the higher form of Christian service, did require the renunciation of property and family which one usually associates with monasticism, its essential characteristics were love and service of others. The dissertation will conclude by pointing out the manner in which the Liber Graduum's particular understanding of the relational virtues, especially its assertion that monasticism involves an incorporation into the true humanity of Christ, can deepen one's understanding of the monastic theology of the early church. Ratcliff, Robert Arden. “Steps Along the Way of Perfection: The Liber Graduum and Early Syrian Monasticism.” Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 1988. Robert Arden Ratcliff, Steps Along the Way of Perfection: The Liber Graduum and Early Syrian Monasticism” (Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 1988).AdamGenesisIV CELiber GraduumMessalianismOld Testamentasceticismexegesismonasticismspirituality