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Caroline T. Schroeder. "Women in Anchoritic and Semi-Anchoritic Monasticism in Egypt: Rethinking the Landscape." in Church History, vol. 83, no. 1 (2014), p. 1-17.

As the author pointedly notes, "Outside of hagiography, the evidence for female anchorites in early Christian Egypt remains scarce." This fact has polarized scholarly opinion, ranging from some who maintain that there were no women hermits or anchorites and that literary references are projections of men's concepts of how women hermits might be, to -- on the other hand -- others who accept the genuineness of tradition and the inevitability of women hermits who are simply unheralded.

Schroeder's interdisciplinary approach identifies not only documentary sources but reveals the fuller social and historical context of the complexities of female asceticism in Christian antiquity. Her observations are constructive and realistic.



Other assessments of the "landscape of desert asceticism" variously viewed assert that women not named were hagiograpahical, or that women described as hermits were probably "house virgins." Schroeder makes a key point. She identifies Shenoute's Canons, which summarize regulations of his monastery's hermits, probably monks advancing in status and now dwelling just outside monastic grounds, in the "desert." Shenoute emphasizes that regulations apply specifically to both men and women hermits under his authority, thus confirming the existence of women hermits. Besides his stature as ecclesiastical authority and writer, Shenoute himself had spent years in a cave as a hermt, such that there can be no ambiguity about his awareness of what a hermit is. Another connotation to this example suggests the degree of autonomy of hermits about whom Schroeder will write versus those under a centralizing authority of a monastery such as Shenoute's.

Material evidence from Thebes (Egypt) clearly points to the existence of female anchorites. As Schroeder demonstrates, women anchorites lived in different parts of Egypt, sometimes proximate to monasteries or villages, but not under specific authority. The author notes, "Shenoute's Canons, combined with the documentary evidence, require us to expand our understanding of the possibilities of women's 'desert' asceticism and solitary asceticism." Among possible scenarios are "hermits affiliated with coenbitic communities, women living alone or in groups, and house ascetics in smaller villages instead of large cities."

Schroeder's section on "the economics and autonomy of women monastics" presents documentary evidence of committed renunciate women in urban areas. In one example, two women rent a portion of their house for income. In another, two women, apparently sisters, and in another case a woman called Amma Theodora, are named as purchasers of bulk foods in receipts, but not as affiliated with specific communities. Another woman ascetic specifically described as a monk is named in a lawsuit to recover familial funds. Another woman, described as a "virgin," disputes transfer of books by estate heirs.

Correspondence is also revelatory documentation. A woman named Maria writes to a male anchorite, noting that she is his charge but referring to her house and to no other residents, suggesting only a symbolic authority -- as well as property ownership on her part. Other women write to male monks soliciting their spiritual blessing but also reminding them of their responsibilities in other spiritual matters, thus suggesting from their tone an eremetic status they do not (or in some instance do) deprecate while not acknowledging a submissive status.

The urban monastic women appear to have owned their homes and lived in areas of Thebes, versus the wealthier women known by name in standard literary sources, who resided in Alexandria -- and are better known, therefore, to Athanasius and his successors. The former do not fit the conventional definitions of anchoritic or coenobitic monasticism, nor that of the desert mother or amma. The house asceticism of urban monasticism is a more appropriate descriptor. These women's income, wealth, and education vary as much as their anchoritic expression. The author concludes: "Bringing together hagiography, documentary sources, and monastic roles illuminates otherwise obscure female ascetic experiences." It also forecasts the varied models of later centuries, and even the potentials for ascetically-minded women today.



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