Podcast Summary:

New Books Network – Interview with Dr. Daniel Ahn on "Fear of God: Practicing Emotion in Late Antique Monasticism" (U California Press, 2025)
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Daniel Ahn (Yonsei University, Seoul)
Date: January 24, 2026

Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Dr. Miranda Melcher interviews Dr. Daniel Ahn about his scholarly work, Fear of God: Practicing Emotion in Late Antique Monasticism. Dr. Ahn discusses how late antique monastic communities across the Eastern Mediterranean conceptualized, practiced, and socialized the emotion of "fear of God." The conversation explores how emotions were not simply private feelings but also shaped by language, social relationships, and physical environments. The episode provides an in-depth look at how "fear" was defined, instilled, and lived within monastic life, drawing from linguistic, theological, and archaeological evidence.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background & Motivation for the Book

• Personal and Academic Roots:
  • Dr. Ahn's longstanding interest in the cultural foundations of emotion and how these differ from common views of emotions as merely biological universals.
  • Book originates from his doctoral thesis on ascetic emotions.
• Central Question:
  • Why was "fear of God" so central to late antique monastic emotional life, and how did communities both interpret and practice it?
  • The focus shifted from a broader study of ascetic emotion to an in-depth concentration on "fear of God" due to its dominance in monastic literature and practice.
  • (03:14 – 06:08)

    "Fear of God is really at the center. It’s kind of the bedrock for other monastic emotional practices." – Dr. Daniel Ahn (05:40)

2. Scope: Where and When

• Geographical Focus:
  • Eastern Mediterranean: modern-day Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Iran.
• Chronological Focus:
  • Late Antiquity (4th–7th centuries CE), during the rise and spread of monasticism.
  • (04:26 – 05:26)

3. Methodology: How to Study Ancient Emotions

• Conceptual Approach:
  • Emotions treated as practices—both actions and experiences shaped by cultural norms and environments.
• Research Axes:
  • Naming Emotions:
    • Philological approach to emotional vocabulary in Greek, Coptic, and Syriac.
    • The complexity of translating and understanding "fear" across languages.
    • (07:35–08:33)
  • Socializing Emotions:
    • How emotions are relational/socially regulated, focusing on fear of God and reciprocal emotions attributed to God (mercy, compassion, grace).
    • Human-divine and human-human paradigms (parent/child, doctor/patient, judge/criminal).
    • (08:36–10:07)
  • Materializing Emotions:
    • The role of monastic spaces, art, and inscriptions in shaping emotional practices and reinforcing concepts like judgment and intercession.
    • (10:10–10:59)

4. How Did Monastics Know Which Emotions to Feel?

• Normative Emotional Training:
  • The Psalms ("psalmody") formed the core of monastic emotional training—daily recitation, singing, and memorization inscribed the priority of "fear of God."
  • Monastic leaders, writers, and preachers reinforced this focus, drawing directly from Scripture.
  • (12:13–15:28)

    "Because every day they are reciting the Psalms and they’re speaking this normative discourse that says 'I should fear God' …prayer and psalmody just bleed into one another." – Dr. Daniel Ahn (14:26–15:01)

5. What Did "Fear of God" Actually Mean?

• Linguistic Variations:
  • In Greek, "phobos" denotes "distress at future harm" (closely tied to judgment and punishment, legally and theologically); other languages such as Coptic/Syriac offered broader senses, sometimes less tied to punishment.
  • The semantic background affected interpretation and application—Greek writers often associated the fear of God with the fear of Roman judges/magistrates, drawing strong analogies between divine and earthly justice.
  • (16:07–19:52)

    "That’s the issue that confronts Greek monastic leaders…because it really just means distress of future harm. And so this is what I find influences these writers in particular, to really focus in on fear of God as fear of eschatological punishment and to bring in this idea of God as judge, and to connect the fear of God as judge with the fear of Roman magistrates." – Dr. Daniel Ahn (17:42–18:25)

6. "Penitential Economy" & Horizontal Emotional Bonds

• Penitential Economy:
  • Fear of divine judgment strengthened the emotional and practical bonds between monastics.
  • Monks sometimes performed penance on behalf of each other, not just themselves—confession and penance intertwined personal and communal spiritual lives.
  • Written prayers, inscriptions, and requests for intercession proliferated, sustaining a web of horizontal (peer-to-peer) spiritual and emotional relationships within the frame of fear of God.
  • (19:52–22:23)

    "We find these stories of monastics actually performing penance on behalf of one another…a horizontal relationship of love between these monks which is being fostered by the overarching concept of fear of God." – Dr. Daniel Ahn (21:14–22:00)

7. Monastic Spaces and Emotional Practice

• Physical Contexts and Emotional Shaping:
  • Dr. Ahn investigates whether and how material and architectural contexts (paintings, inscriptions, footprints) affirmed or challenged emotional norms from written sources.
  • Example: The Red Monastery apse with Christ Enthroned paired with liturgical references to judgment; paving stones with footprints and inscriptions at the monastery of Apa Jeremiah show evidence of repeated prostration and prayers for specific monks, embedding shared emotion into space.
  • Reading inscriptions aloud physically and emotionally linked monks across generations to each other and to Christ.
  • (23:51–30:26)

    "Simply the fact of coming into the space, reading the inscription, puts the speaker…into relationship with George, in a relationship that’s based on intercession and love, but is also putting the speaker into relationship with Christ in a way that hints at the overarching paradigm of divine judgment." – Dr. Daniel Ahn (29:23–29:44)

8. Was Monastic Life All About Fear?

• Not Only Fear:
  • Though certain writers emphasize fear of God (sometimes “doomful”), monastic sources acknowledge a spectrum of permissible emotions.
  • Constant negative fear was seen as unsustainable, even for saints like Pachomius; reverence, awe, love, and joy intermingled with fear in monastic emotional life.
  • (31:05–33:26)

    "Here is Pachomius…the sort of exemplar of fear of God, and yet he cannot endure it. So I think the answer is maybe, theoretically, yes, they’re supposed to feel it all the time, but practically, no, it’s just not possible." – Dr. Daniel Ahn (32:28–32:49)

9. Surprising Findings & Next Steps

• Surprising Linguistic Insights:

  • Big difference in Psalms’ depiction of God’s emotion: Greek emphasizes pity ("elaos"), Syriac alternates between compassion and grace ("tibutha"—the same as New Testament "charis").
  • Uncharted Research Potential: Dr. Ahn notes the novelty of these findings and the lack of prior scholarship, indicating an area for future work.
  • (34:32–35:33)

    "That’s something that really fascinated me and I am actually not aware of any research on that. So it’s something that I want to look into further." – Dr. Daniel Ahn (35:23–35:33)

• Next Project:

  • Moving from emotion to material religion: forthcoming research on the "social lives of crosses" in medieval Asian Christian communities, focusing on the role of physical crosses in collective devotion and practice.
  • (35:45–36:48)

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "Fear of God is really at the center. It’s kind of the bedrock for other monastic emotional practices." – Dr. Daniel Ahn (05:40)
• "Because every day they are reciting the Psalms and they’re speaking this normative discourse that says 'I should fear God'." – Dr. Daniel Ahn (14:26)
• "That issue…influences these writers [in Greek] in particular, to really focus in on fear of God as fear of eschatological punishment…and to connect the fear of God as judge with the fear of Roman magistrates." – Dr. Daniel Ahn (18:10)
• "We find these stories of monastics actually performing penance on behalf of one another…a horizontal relationship of love." – Dr. Daniel Ahn (21:18)
• "Reading the inscription puts the speaker in…relationship with George, in a relationship that’s based on intercession and love…but is also putting the speaker into relationship with Christ…" – Dr. Daniel Ahn (29:23)
• "Here is Pachomius…the exemplar of fear of God, and yet he cannot endure it…so maybe, theoretically, yes, they’re supposed to feel it all the time, but practically, no, it’s just not possible." – Dr. Daniel Ahn (32:28)
• "That’s something that really fascinated me and I am actually not aware of any research on that. So it’s something that I want to look into further." – Dr. Daniel Ahn (35:23)

Timestamps for Major Segments

• Background & Motivation: 03:09–06:08
• Methodology & Research Axes: 06:39–10:59
• Emotional Norms & The Psalms: 11:51–15:28
• Linguistic Meanings of Fear: 16:07–19:52
• Penitential Community & Intercession: 19:52–23:24
• Material Spaces & Emotional Practice: 23:51–30:26
• Fear vs. Other Emotions: 31:05–33:26
• Surprises & Future Work: 33:56–36:48

Tone and Engagement

The conversation is open and intellectually curious, marked by Dr. Ahn's nuanced and modest presentation of his findings. Dr. Melcher’s questions invite clarity and draw out practical as well as theoretical implications, creating a tone of accessible yet rigorous academic exchange.

Conclusion

Dr. Daniel Ahn’s research foregrounds the importance of emotion, especially fear, in shaping communal and spiritual life in late antique monasticism. By tracing linguistic, social, and spatial dimensions, he reveals how "fear of God" was more than doctrine: it was a lived, relational, and practiced emotion that structured personal piety and communal bonds, mediated by language, literary tradition, and physical environment.

Further Reading:
Fear of God: Practicing Emotion in Late Antique Monasticism (University of California Press, 2025) by Dr. Daniel Ahn