ABSTRACT
In 1994 James McKinnon published an article, 'Desert Monasticism and the Later Fourth-Century Psalmodic Movement', in which he charted the monastic background of the flowering of enthusiasm for psalm singing that coursed through Eastern Christianity as the fourth century came to its close. The existence of 'psalmodic movement', which he portrayed with vividness, is less remarkable than the idea that the way of life implied by the name 'desert monasticism' might have contributed to a popular musical and devotional exercise. The flight to the desert and separation from the 'world' was a remarkable phenomenon that it did not pass unnoticed by contemporary chroniclers. The single term 'desert monasticism' thus obscures the varieties of ways in which the ascetic vocation was realized in fourth-century Egypt. Hostile monastic attitudes toward any kind of sensual pleasure would not have made an exception for music, including the singing of psalms.
