ABSTRACT
Edifying stories are a minor, though very prolific genre, which developed as part of the rich literary heritage that accompanied the expansion of monasticism in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine and Syria after the end of persecutions and the Peace of the Church. The oldest surviving collection of edifying stories originated from the same milieu as the Apophthegmata Patrum. In 394–395 CE, a group of monks visited Egypt to meet the Desert Fathers. On their return to Jerusalem, one of these monks wrote a report on their journey, the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto, destined for the use of other monks in his community on the Mount of Olives, so that they might have ‘a model to follow’. With John Moschos there is a shift in emphasis. His work, the Spiritual Meadow (Pratum Spirituale), can be considered the classic collection of edifying stories.
