From East to West

People who engage in the search for the Absolute are faced with the same obstacles and try to surmount them in similar ways. It is not surprising, therefore, to see that problems, which seem to us typically modern and Christian (or even Roman Catholic) such as obedience, celibacy, the leadership of communities, rules about speech and silence, withdrawal from and openness to the outside world, existed thousands of years ago in Egyptian, Hebrew, Hindu and Buddhist contexts. This volume presents the history of monasticism in Asia and the Middle East, with as much as possible of its spirituality, in counterpoint to the historical framework of the founders of Christian monasticism.