Aspetti del discepolato nell’anacoretismo successivo ad Antonio: i “padri del deserto” di IV e V secolo

This paper examines the student-teacher relationship in the interactions of early Egyptian anachoretic monasticism and in their relationship with Saint Anthony, the most famous of the desert pioneers, as they were his spiritual children. The prosopographic profiles of the individual monks form the framework of this essay, which is divided into two parts to distinguish the different degrees of intimacy they had with the «father of fathers in the desert». The research, based on monastic literary sources, examines the terminology, the evolution of the individual aspects of the discepolato, the emergence of new aspects Saint Anthony’s model, and finally explores the environment, the complex nature of the person in question, as well as the global homogeneity of monastic spirituality