This analytical volume examines the various aspects of "De emendanda vita monachica", combining this with the question of whether this text by Eusthatios of Thessalonica with its polemical fireworks and learned allusions was really intended for the monks of the diocese, who are portrayed as being uneducated, or was actually aimed at an unnamed readership. This question forms a leitmotif through the various chapters of the study in which the author locates the work historically within Eustathios' biography and the context of contemporary monastic life, analyzes its place in literary history together with the linguistic devices deployed to establish the different stylistic levels and to influence the psychology of the readers and paints in the theological and hermeneutic background. A detailed commentary is appended.

This volume compliments the edition published in the series "Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae". Both volumes are available as a set .