Dreams, Virtue and Divine Knowledge in Early Christian Egypt

Author: Bronwen Neil, Doru Costache and Kevin Wagner

Hardcover

Explores the significance of dreams in early Christian Egypt, using sources from Philo and Origen to Athanasius and early monks.

Uses a range of sources, from Philo, Clement and Origen to Athanasius, Evagrius and early monks, to explore the development in first- to sixth-century Egypt of new ideas about the relationship between dreams, the divine and virtue. These had profound effects on spiritual life in the medieval West and Byzantium.

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Summary

Explores the significance of dreams in early Christian Egypt, using sources from Philo and Origen to Athanasius and early monks.

Description

What did dreams mean to Egyptian Christians of the first to the sixth centuries? Alexandrian philosophers, starting with Philo, Clement and Origen, developed a new approach to dreams that was to have profound effects on the spirituality of the medieval West and Byzantium. Their approach, founded on the principles of Platonism, was based on the convictions that God could send prophetic dreams and that these could be interpreted by people of sufficient virtue. In the fourth century, the Alexandrian approach was expanded by Athanasius and Evagrius to include a more holistic psychological understanding of what dreams meant for spiritual progress. The ideas that God could be known in dreams and that dreams were linked to virtue flourished in the context of Egyptian desert monasticism. This volume traces that development and its influence on early Egyptian experiences of the divine in dreams.

Critic Reviews

“'This volume is based on meticulous research in the primary Christian, Jewish, and classical traditions and on deep engagement with the secondary sources ... Recommended.' M. M. Hawkins, Choice”

'This volume is based on meticulous research in the primary Christian, Jewish, and classical traditions and on deep engagement with the secondary sources … Recommended.' M. M. Hawkins, Choice

About the Author

Bronwen Neil is Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University, Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University and Research Fellow of the University of South Africa. She is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor (2015), Collecting Early Christian Letters (Cambridge, 2015) and A Companion to Gregory the Great (2013). Doru Costache is Senior Lecturer in Patristic Studies at St Cyril's Coptic Orthodox Theological College in Sydney and Honorary Associate of Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney. He is co-author of Știință și Teologie: Preliminarii pentru Dialog (2001) and co-editor of Well-Being, Personal Wholeness and the Social Fabric (2017). Kevin Wagnew is Lecturer in Theology at the University of Notre Dame, Australia. He has been the principal convenor of the Theology at the Beginning of the Third Millennium series of conferences and is the lead editor of the accompanying book series.