Asceticism, Silence, Flight: Experiences of the Abandonment of the World in the Fathers of the Church, VIII Conference of Patristic Studies, Orden de San Agustín - Biblioteca Agustiniana de Buenos Aires and Zoom, November 2–3, 2023
The sharp opposition brandished in the Gospel of John about the antagonism between Jesus and the world provoked intense reflections about the place of believers in the current political and economic order. The call to the mission and the conversion of the people demanded that the Fathers of the Church ask themselves about the most appropriate ways of living, witnessing and transmitting the Good News without being contaminated by the rhythm and customs of Greco-Roman society. Although marriage and family life enjoyed high esteem among the churches, fleeing into the desert, sexual renunciation, fasting, and an austere life emerged as expressions of profound piety, but also of discontent and prophylaxis towards a society that was sometimes hostile and, after the triumph of Constantine (as Peter Brown says), not Christian enough.
The VIII Conference on Patristic Studies intends to recover, analyze and debate the various expressions of renouncing the world proposed by the writers of Patristics based on the understanding of the particular social, economic and theological situations that occurred in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.