Abstract
The goal of this article is to analyze laughter and humor in the Egyptian monastic and ascetic movement in the 4th and 5th centuries with a special focus on solitary and non-humorous laughter. The article argues that laughter and humor were part of a strict emotional regime. It shows that several of the monastic stories include a laughter which is not humorous and where no one else laughed apart from the main character. This laughter was a means to show spiritual excellence and superiority. The other side of the emotional regime was that monastics were scolded for laughing and joking. There is a division between illegitimate laughter caused by humor and frequently connected to eroticism and a legitimate laughter of spiritual insight and authority. The article argues that non-humorous laughter should get more attention in contemporary research.
About the author
Ingvild Sælid Gilhus, Dr. Philos., Professor of the Study of Religion (University of Bergen, Norway) works in the areas of religion in late antiquity and New Age religion. Her publications include Laughing Gods, Weeping Virgins (Routledge 1997), Animals, Gods and Humans: changing attitudes to animals in Greek, Roman and early Christian ideas (Routledge 2006), New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion (edited with Steven J. Sutcliffe, Acumen 2013), New Age in Norway (edited with Siv Ellen Kraft and James R. Lewis, Equinox 2017), Evolution, Cognition, and the History of Religion: A New Synthesis (edited with Anders K. Petersen, Luther H. Martin, Jeppe S. Jensen and Jesper Sørensen, Brill 2019), The Archangel Michael in Africa: History, Cult, and Persona (edited with Alexandros Tsakos and Marta Camilla Wright, Bloomsbury 2019) and Clothes and Monasticism in Ancient Christian Egypt: A New Perspective on Religious Garments (Routledge 2021).
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