Description
Book SynopsisServing as a dynamic figure in the monastic school, Dorotheos of Gaza transformed the traditional understanding of healing in the spiritual life. Gazan monastic teachers, Isaiah of Scetis, Barsanuphius, John, and Dorotheos, utilized this discourse of healing to instruct and guide their followers in the monastic life.
As a predominant part of human existence, sickness and suffering were sought to be understood and interpreted. For some teachers, healing was purely a metaphor for spiritual renewal brought about through illness and pain. For others, physical distress was instructive for renewed endurance and trust. Driven by a new distinction, Dorotheos pursued the concept of healing as an extension beyond the metaphor and into the physical reality experienced in the body. Encouraging his followers to pursue this idea, he further developed the importance of healing in his tradition by emphasizing the significance of physical and spiritual well-being. The life of healing he envisioned
Trade Review«Undoubtedly,
Dorotheos of Gaza and the Discourse of Healing in Gazan Monasticism, well-informed and well written, is for the moment the best monograph on this topic, but it surely will not be the last. In his volume, K.A. Schenkewitz provides an incipient reflection on the discourse of healing in Gazan monasticism, so that it will be definitely an impulse for further investigations.»
(Daniel Lemeni, Revista Studii Teologice 4/2017)
Table of ContentsContents: Monasticism in Gaza – The Discourse of Healing and Gazan Monasticism – Healing in the Drama of Salvation – Virtue in the Monastic Life – the Ascetic Body.
