Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides an enormous range of subjects and issues that emerge from a number of different academic disciplines. It summarises research into the vital questions relating to early monasticism and asceticism, outlining the multiple forms of religious life that developed in the early centuries and prioritising the anthropological approach to the study of asceticism that has been pursued in late ancient studies. The book explores the surviving evidence regarding the forms of religious life that preceded the coming of the multiform Christianities of the third century and after. It offers assistance to those confused by the complexities of Church politics in Late Antiquity, tracing how the diverse forms of Christianity developed over time into a number of mutually competing hierarchically organised ‘churches’. The book examines window into the complex variety of the modern Aramaic dialects via a comparative phonological and morphological description.