Abstract
This article examines the attitudes to labour that were crystallized among the monks of two different regions of the Christian world in the late third and fourth centuries. The monks of Syria opted against work. Along with the Manichaean Elect, they expected to be supported by the alms of the faithful. Work for them was inconsistent with the ‘angel-like’ life of the ascetic. This view was hotly contested by the monks of Egypt, who regarded labour as part of the duty of the monk and as the monk’s link to a common, non-angelic humanity. Having sketched out the social and ideological background of both options, the article considers the implications, in Western Christianity, of the victory of the commitment to labour associated with the monks of Egypt.
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