In this short article, we want to trace back the semantic history of the word «spirituality» in order to better understand the meaning of the concept as it is used nowadays. Then, we intend to introduce the specific case of the early Christian monasticism, where the questions underlying this term’s use look similar to those in our time, even considering all the differences between the two contexts. The aim of these pages is, on the one hand, to remind the reader how the notion of spirituality is culturally connoted and related to a specific history which has defined its evolution up to its most recent uses, and, on the other hand, to think about the recurrence — real or not? — of certain questions all along the history of concepts and, by extension, the history of religions. What is at stake here is the possibility of a comparativism able to establish recurrent conceptual categories: this would be the first step in the foundation of viable universals in the social sciences.