ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses several problems that confront the scholar who tries to better understand the concept of individuality in early Christian monasticism. Aspects of these problems are addressed in an inevitably incomplete, yet hopefully constructive way: the individuality of the monk; the methods by which monastic individuality is forged according to the sources; the ways in which Christian monastic identity-formation might relate to non-monastic conceptions, both in terms of the reception and interpretation of monastic ideals in the wider Christian church, and the commensurability or lack thereof between the self of the Christian monk, and that of the pagan philosopher. Yet, as Burton-Christie puts it, when dealing with late antique monasticism, what faces the scholar is 'a culture steeped in Scripture' where 'the monks sought to reshape their imagination around the world of Scripture and to allow it to penetrate to the core of their beings and their communities'.
