Andrew Crislip is Associate Professor and William E. and Miriam S. Blake Chair in the History of Christianity at Virginia Commonwealth University.

• IntroductionChapter 1. Illness, Sanctity, and Asceticism in Antiquity: Approaches and ContextsChapter 2. Asceticism, Health, and Christian Salvation History: Perspectives from the Earliest Monastic SourcesChapter 3. Paradise, Health, and the Hagiographical ImaginationChapter 4. Choosing Illness: Illness as Ascetic PracticeChapter 5. Pestilence and Sainthood: The Great Coptic Life of Our Father PachomiusChapter 6. Illness and Spiritual Direction in Late Ancient Gaza: The Correspondence of Barsanuphius and John with the Sick Monk AndrewConclusionList of AbbreviationsNotesWorks CitedIndexAcknowledgments

"Thorns in the Flesh moves well beyond the generalizations of a long tradition of scholarship on early Christian attitudes to disease and medicine-disease as test, judgment, or sign to others; medicine as divinely provided remedy or diabolical temptation-to a specific and highly productive study of the ambiguous position of the sick monk. The book rests on close and extensive knowledge of the primary sources for early monasticism in Greek and Coptic and thorough, justifiably critical deployment of the secondary literature." (Peregrine Horden, Royal Holloway University of London)

Andrew Crislip is Associate Professor and William E. and Miriam S. Blake Chair in the History of Christianity at Virginia Commonwealth University.

• IntroductionChapter 1. Illness, Sanctity, and Asceticism in Antiquity: Approaches and ContextsChapter 2. Asceticism, Health, and Christian Salvation History: Perspectives from the Earliest Monastic SourcesChapter 3. Paradise, Health, and the Hagiographical ImaginationChapter 4. Choosing Illness: Illness as Ascetic PracticeChapter 5. Pestilence and Sainthood: The Great Coptic Life of Our Father PachomiusChapter 6. Illness and Spiritual Direction in Late Ancient Gaza: The Correspondence of Barsanuphius and John with the Sick Monk AndrewConclusionList of AbbreviationsNotesWorks CitedIndexAcknowledgments

"Thorns in the Flesh moves well beyond the generalizations of a long tradition of scholarship on early Christian attitudes to disease and medicine-disease as test, judgment, or sign to others; medicine as divinely provided remedy or diabolical temptation-to a specific and highly productive study of the ambiguous position of the sick monk. The book rests on close and extensive knowledge of the primary sources for early monasticism in Greek and Coptic and thorough, justifiably critical deployment of the secondary literature." (Peregrine Horden, Royal Holloway University of London)

Andrew Crislip is Associate Professor and William E. and Miriam S. Blake Chair in the History of Christianity at Virginia Commonwealth University.

• IntroductionChapter 1. Illness, Sanctity, and Asceticism in Antiquity: Approaches and ContextsChapter 2. Asceticism, Health, and Christian Salvation History: Perspectives from the Earliest Monastic SourcesChapter 3. Paradise, Health, and the Hagiographical ImaginationChapter 4. Choosing Illness: Illness as Ascetic PracticeChapter 5. Pestilence and Sainthood: The Great Coptic Life of Our Father PachomiusChapter 6. Illness and Spiritual Direction in Late Ancient Gaza: The Correspondence of Barsanuphius and John with the Sick Monk AndrewConclusionList of AbbreviationsNotesWorks CitedIndexAcknowledgments

"Thorns in the Flesh moves well beyond the generalizations of a long tradition of scholarship on early Christian attitudes to disease and medicine-disease as test, judgment, or sign to others; medicine as divinely provided remedy or diabolical temptation-to a specific and highly productive study of the ambiguous position of the sick monk. The book rests on close and extensive knowledge of the primary sources for early monasticism in Greek and Coptic and thorough, justifiably critical deployment of the secondary literature." (Peregrine Horden, Royal Holloway University of London)