Meet the Faculty

David Brakke

• Professor, Department of Religious Studies
• Department Chair, Department of Religious Studies
• Adjunct Professor, Department of History
• Adjunct Professor, Department of Classical Studies
  

Education

• Ph.D. at Yale University, 1992

Contact Information

Background

• Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship
• National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship for University Teachers
• American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship
• Indiana University Outstanding Junior Faculty Award (1996)

I study the history and literature of ancient Christianity from the New Testament period through the fifth century.  My research focuses on individual and communal self-definition, the ways in which people construct and reshape identity through ascetic behaviors, ritual, and the production and interpretation of scripture.

My first book, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism, describes how an ascetic program of self-formation functioned also as a political program for the formation of a dominant "catholic" church in fourth-century Egypt.  I have co-edited books that explore biblical interpretation and communal life in the early church, religion and the self in the ancient Mediterranean world, and the ways in which early Christians related to their pagan and Jewish neighbors.  My most recent book, Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity (Harvard University Press, 2006), studies how early monastic identity was formed through conflict with demons.  I currently have two major projects: I am writing a short monograph on the identity of the Gnostic sect and the diversity of early Christianity, and I am part of an international team of scholars who are editing the works of Shenoute of Atripe.

I serve as editor of the Journal of Early Christian Studies, which is sponsored by the North American Patristics Society and published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

In addition to a course on images of Jesus in western culture for undergraduates, I teach introductory and advanced courses in early church history, asceticism, and Gnosticism for undergraduates and graduate students.

Research Interests

• Ancient Christianity
• Late Antiquity
• Coptic and Syriac Studies

Courses Recently Taught

• Jesus in Popular Culture
• Christianity 50-450
• Early Christian Monasticism
• Readings in Syriac

Publication Highlights

Books

Evagrius of Pontus. Talking Back: A Monastic Handbook for Combating Demons. Translation and introduction by David Brakke. Cistercian Studies 229. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2009.

Beyond "Reception": Mutual Influences between Antique Religion, Judaism, and Early Christianity. Co-editor with Anders-Christian Jacobsen and J. Ulrich. Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity 1. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2006.

Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Religion and the Self in Antiquity. Co-Editor with Michael L. Satlow and Steven Weitzman. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

Reading in Christian Communities: Essays on Interpretation in the Early Church. Co-editor with Charles A. Bobertz. Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity. Notre Dame, Ind.: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 2002.

Pseudo-Athanasius On Virginity. 2 vols. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 592-93 (Scriptores Syri 232-33). Louvain: Peeters, 2002.

Athanasius and Asceticism. Baltimore/London: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1998. Originally published as Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995.

Recent Articles

“The Body as/at the Boundary of Gnosis.”  Journal of Early Christian Studies 17 (2009): 195-214.

“The East (2): Egypt and Palestine.”  In Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, 344-63.  Ed. Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

“Care for the Poor, Fear of Poverty, and Love of Money: Evagrius Ponticus on the Monk’s Economic Vulnerability.”  In Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity, 76-87.  Ed. Susan Holman. Holy Cross Studies in Patristic Theology and History.  Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2008.

“From Temple to Cell, From Gods to Demons: Pagan Temples in the Monastic Topography of Fourth-Century Egypt.”  In From Temple to Church: Destruction and Renewal of Local Cultic Topography in Late Antiquity, 91-112.  Ed. Johannes Hahn, Stephen Emmel, and Ulrich Gotter.  Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 163.  Leiden: Brill, 2008.

“Shenoute, Weber, and the Monastic Prophet: Ancient and Modern Articulations of Ascetic Authority.”  In Foundations of Power and Conflicts of Authority in Late-Antique Monasticism: Proceedings of the International Seminar, Turin, December 2-4, 2004, 47-73.  Ed. Alberto Camplani and Giovanni Filoramo.  Orientalia Christiana Analecta 157.  Leuven: Peeters, 2007.

“Research and Publications in Egyptian Monasticism 2000-2004.”  In Huitième congrès international d’études coptes (Paris 2004): I. Bilans et perspectives 2000-2004, 111-26.  Ed. Anne Boud’hors and Denyse Vaillancourt.  Cahiers de la Bibliothèque copte 15.  Paris: De Boccard, 2006.

“Self-Differentiation among Christian Groups: The Gnostics and their Opponents.”  In Origins to Constantine, vol. 1 of The Cambridge History of Christianity, 245-60.  Ed. Margaret M. Mitchell and Frances M. Young.  Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006.