Veit Rosenberger: Divine Diets: Food and Drink of the Early Monks

Today, Veit Rosenberger is presenting his paper on 'Divine Diets: Food and Drink of the Early Monks'

 

Here follows his abstract:

Late Antiquity offered a significant variety of monastic lifestyles. On the one hand, there were the ideal monks like Antony (as described by Athanasius) or the ascetics following the rules set up by Benedict and/or his forerunners. On the other hand, a large number of monks lived on their own, without rule or abbot, like the Sarabaites mentioned in the Regula Benedicti. Whereas it was, as we know from Augustinus, no problem to give up sexuality, eating and drinking formed a lifelong challenge, because the body simply needed food and drink on a regular basis. Therefore, notices about the diet and fasting practices reflect a number of conflicts of the early monks: inter alia the limits of personal choice, competition with other ascetics, personal closeness to God, and the concept of heresy.