Lieu de tentation, espace du salut: Le désert comme hétérotopie dans la Vie d'Antoine d'Athanase d'Alexandrie

Abstract

This article aims to place the Athanasian desert on the list of Foucauldian heterotopiae. In Life of Antony, Athanasius of Alexandria creates a Christian desert in stark opposition with the political space of the Roman Empire dominated by heretical emperors. The desert is an agora of spiritual fight with demons, a meeting place with God as well as an ideological landscape shaped by Athanasius' struggle with secular power. The desert's claims to utopia as a “new Paradise” are built on the homogenizing bases of Nicaean orthodoxy.