Elite Architecture and the Late Antique Ascetic Christian Communities of Cimitile and Sohag

Paulinus of Nola and Shenoute of Atripe were prolific writers and architectural patrons of ascetic communities in the fourth and fifth centuries CE. Despite their rejection of luxury and elite culture, both were responsible for the construction of lavish church complexes at the hearts of those communities, in which architecture and decoration drew on the visual language of the late Roman elite. The churches shared specific architectural features—a triple-apsed (triconch) sanctuary, a rectangular hall terminating in a single apse, and a colonnaded space connecting them—that were also popular in houses and villas at that time. The architectural and spatial language of these churches would have evoked associations with the luxury and status of late Roman society even as these communities rejected those very things. This article considers the implications of the use of elite architecture and the visual language of convivial domestic spaces in these churches created for ascetic communities.