The early Christian Church faced a crisis during the 4th century as many of its follower eagerly shunned all wordly comforts and embraced asceticism as a means to achieve divine grace. How could the Church accept and admire these ascetics and at the same time sustain congregations of families whose well-being, propagation and generosity assured the future of the Church? Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, is given credit in this work for successfully establishing a set of practices and influencing a number of communities - the extraordinary monasteries of Christian Egypt - that reconciled this world and the next.