Paper short abstract:

The paper is about techniques of eating and diet in Pachomian monasteries in Late Antiquity. It explores how diet and eating were framed at total devotion and became tools for personal transformation.

Paper long abstract:

The paper is about techniques of eating and diet in Pachomian monasteries in Egypt in Late Antiquity. The monastic sources sometimes link monasticism to the age of the martyrs and make equations with martyrdom in relation to types of food-consumption, which stresses that food and diet were important. The paper explores how diet and eating were framed as total devotion and became tools for personal transformation. Focus is on the descriptions of techniques of diet and eating in monastic rules and narratives, and, since eating is an emotional and socialized experience, especially on the ways narratives and emotions were intertwined with these techniques. How do monastic texts frame food-consumption as total and idealized devotion? Eating was an activity that was scaled, what are the scales of dietary devotion concerning intensity and perfection? How did monastics fail and excel, and which parameters, were they measured against? Types of food, times of food, quantity of food, and space of food are drawn into the discussion. What was the emotional repertoire, which was involved, how were emotions such as humility, happiness, fear, pride, disgust, and sadness connected to eating?