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The Medieval Church · c. 1180
On the Improvement of Monastic Life
Eustathius of Thessalonica · c. 1115–c. 1195
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What it is
An attack on monks who sell their monastery's books, keep private property, and despise learning as a distraction from holiness.
Why it lasted
A rare piece of sustained internal criticism of Byzantine monasticism, and evidence of manuscripts being sold off for cash.
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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