Le désert chrétien, avatar des utopies antiques ?

• Main Author: Bernard Meunier
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Presses universitaires de Caen 2010-12-01
• Series: Kentron
• Subjects: desert; monasticism; ancient Christianity; paradise; utopia; apophthegm
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/kentron/1369

In the Christian literature of the first centuries, attention is paid to monastic literature, especially to that of the apophthegms, which presents another world, the desert, on the borders of dream, myth and spirituality, and suggests comparisons with utopian literature. This article examines the relationship between the ancient Christian desert, such as it is told in these narratives, and the literary genre of utopia, in order to see if the literature of the desert derives from it, or merges with it entirely, or renews it, or distorts it. Did ancient monasticism create a new world as utopians dreamed it up? How can we interpret the themes as that of paradise regained, the wild man, or the kingdom of just men at the end of time? Utopia can be questioned by this literature of the desert, and question it back, and thus enlighten it from a point of view which is a little different from classical approaches.