Resumen de Brother-Making in Late Antiquity and Byzantium: Monks, Laymen, and Christian Ritual by Claudia Rapp (review)
Adelphopoiesis played a crucial role in Byzantine society as an important social networking strategy; it is, both in its ritual and as a social practice, rooted in the late antique and early medieval forms of monastic life in small groups and in committed relationships between two monks bound in spiritual brotherhood. Based on an analysis of Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Apophthegmata Patrum), monastic Historiae and hagiographical texts, but also archaeological and epigraphic evidence, Rapp challenges the paradigm that late antique monastic life was determined by the two prevalent models of eremitic and of rule-based coenobitic life. Besides providing a new reading of the wealth of Apophthegmata, Rapp provides access to a number of exquisite hagiographic works lesser known outside Byzantine studies, such as the Life of Symeon the Fool and the History of the Great Deeds of Bishop Paul of Qentos and Priest John of Edessa.
