Brother Leão de São Tomás: the Benedictina Lusitana and the 17th century vision on the origins of Monasticism in Biblical Antiquity

Abstract

In the mid-17th century is published in Coimbra, Portugal, the Benedictine chronicle of Brother Leão de São Tomás. The author starts the first volume of the work with a brief introduction about the origins of the monastic movement, trying to prove they can be found on the action of the prophets of the Old Testament. He introduces thus the horizons of Antiquity and the Middle East in his wirk, although analyzed under the biblical prism of a clergyman of the 1600’s.