Christian monasticism was a late antique invention, and the last great social experiment to emerge from the ancient Mediterranean world. Its aim, like that of the Greek polis and various philosophical schools or religious communities before it, was to devise the ideal politeia - the regimen and circumstances - that would produce an ideal human being. What made the monastic movement different was its determination to define that ideal against the norms of‘‘the world,’’ so as to train practitioners to live ‘‘as true citizens of heaven, while dwelling on earth’’ (History of the Monks of Egypt, Prol. 5, tr. Russell 1981; see Philem. 3: 20). To modern observers, the asceticism and other-worldly concerns attributed to late antique monks have often seemed repellent, signaling a wrong turn in Christian history or a strange pathology within the Late Roman Empire itself. As E. R. Dodds once put it, ‘‘Where did all this madness come from?’’ (1965: 34). Yet, the very attempt to gain a transcendent existence gave monks a distinct place of honor in late antique society: ‘‘[They] eat from another table, are clothed differently, prefer different dialogue, and a different mentality. Because of this, they surpass all other men’’ (Ps.-Macarius, Homily 5.11, Maloney 1992).
In this chapter, I shall portray monasticism as a late antique profession that gained definition in part through concerted efforts to set monks apart, both physically and mentally, from ‘‘all other men’’ of the late Roman world. When speaking of ‘‘monasticism’’ or ‘‘the monastic movement,’’ I am referring to a widespread phenomenon that initially had no common identity, founders, leaders, appearance, organization, or direction. Not until the late fourth and early fifth centuries did monastic history begin to be written or, rather, invented. Those responsible were all reformers, interested in promoting their own definitions of proper monasticism over alternative ‘‘types.’’ Perhaps most influential in this regard was John Cassian (c. AD 360-435). Asked to provide instruction for a monastic community outside Marseille in the early fifth century, Cassian responded with a compendious survey of Egyptian monastic practices (the Institutes and Conferences), including a discussion of
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Different monastic lifestyles and their origins. ‘‘In Egypt,’’ he explained, ‘‘there are three types of monks. Two are very good, but the third is lukewarm and must be utterly avoided.’’ The types that he favored were called coenobites and anchorites. Coenobites lived together in a community under the rule of an elder. According to Cassian, their type of monasticism went back to the apostolic community in Jerusalem, some of whose members sought out secluded places, ‘‘abandoning their towns and the company of those who believed that negligence. . . was lawful for themselves and the church of God.’’ Anchorites, on the other hand, lived alone, deeper in the desert, to which they withdrew after training in a coenobium; their type of monasticism was more recent, having originated with the Egyptian hermits Antony and Paul, whose desire for desert contemplation made them imitators, Cassian says, of John the Baptist. Then there was the third type of monk, whom he calls sarabaites. Emulating the renegades Ananias and Sapphira, who had refused to entrust all their property to the apostolic community in Acts 5: 1-11, these counterfeits took the name of monks without truly imitating them: refusing to submit to an elder’s will, they lived as they pleased in their own homes, alone or in small groups of two or three; everything they did was for public acclaim. According to Cassian, this monastic lifestyle had come later than the other two, and was characteristic of those ‘‘compelled to this profession out of necessity.’’ Though rare in Egypt, Cassian complains that this type of monasticism in his day prevailed nearly everywhere else (Conferences 18. 4. 2-8. 1, tr. Ramsey 1997).
This provides as good an introduction as any to the tendentious nature of early monastic history, as well as to its future trajectory. In Cassian’s account we find all monastic possibilities reduced to three schematic types, each given its own scriptural genealogy, with coenobitic monasticism presented as the prototype; here physical isolation and obedience to an elder are put forth as defining features of true monasticism, with Egypt identified as home to monasticism in its purest forms. Such simplification immediately raises suspicion. Indeed, it is clear that Cassian, although an experienced monk, was influenced in writing his description of these monastic types by earlier literature, such as the introduction to monasti-cism that Jerome (c. ad 340-421) wrote for his protege, the wealthy Roman virgin, Eustochium, in ad 384. It also contrasts Egyptian coenobites and anchorites against a third type of urban monk, here called remnuoth, whom Jerome describes as ‘‘a very inferior and despised type, though in our province [probably Italy], the chief, if not the only type’’: ‘‘Everything with them is an affectation: loose sleeves, big boots, clumsy dress, constant sighing, visiting virgins, disparaging the clergy, and when a feast day comes, they stuff themselves till they vomit’’ (Ep. 22. 34, tr. Wright 1954).
However, it was Cassian’s own taxonomies that provided the introductory material in the sixth century for the so-called Benedictine Rule, which in turn would become the definitive monastic text in medieval Europe. This illustrates an important historical point: Christian monasticism gained its traditional categories and shape largely because of the circulation of such normative literature, which highly educated Greco-Roman monks produced for their late antique admirers. In early monastic history, as with early church history, it is often difficult to see beyond the authorized version that survives. Nevertheless, modern scholarship has helped reveal some of the original complexity of the early monastic movement in its late antique setting.
This has happened, first of all, through a critical examination of old sources and the discovery of new ones. Starting in the late nineteenth century, scholars began to apply the same analysis to early monastic texts that had already been applied to Old and New Testament literature. As a result, not only have old texts been restored to their original state, but surprising new relationships have been detected between some of them: for example, the discovery that certain heretical (‘‘Messalian’’) teachings preserved in anti-heretical tracts actually derived from material that later tradition deemed orthodox (the Pseudo-Macarian homilies), or that a treatise associated with such teachings (the Pseudo-Macarian Great Letter) provided inspiration for, rather than derived from, a book by Gregory of Nyssa, one of orthodox monasticism’s earliest recognized ‘‘Fathers’’ (Staats 1968; Fitschen 1998). Similar work on Syriac, Coptic, Georgian, Armenian, Ethiopic, and Arabic texts has familiarized us with lesser-known monastic traditions and their relation to Greco-Roman norms (e. g., Stewart 1991). Meanwhile, archaeology has yielded new information. Besides recovering hitherto unknown treatises, excavators in Egypt and Palestine have found archives that reveal much about early monastic terminology and interactions (e. g., Choat 2002), while fieldwork at monastic sites in Egypt (Evelyn-White 1932; Sauneron and Jacquet 1972; Guillaumont et al. 1991), Palestine (Hirschfeld 1992), Syria (Tchalenko 1953-8) and Italy (Hodges 1997) has laid bare their material culture and scale, as well as the proximity of most of them to the inhabited world.
But equally important are the new questions and approaches that modern scholars have brought to these sources. Adopting theoretical models from such disciplines as anthropology, sociology, literary criticism, and gender studies, historians have reconceptualized old material - for example, by interpreting monasticism in terms of the ‘‘rise of the Christian holy man’’ (Brown 1971a), or monastic history as the institutionalization of charisma (Elm 1994). Not only have these studies demonstrated the relevance of early monasticism to broader trends in Late Antiquity and beyond (including the articulation and control of power), but they have also made us recognize a broader range of organizational models and concerns (including those of women and gender: Clark 1986; Elm 1994; Krawiec 2002) within the early monastic movement itself. Common to most has been an effort to avoid using the oppositional categories imposed by normative tradition, such as monasticism/asceti-cism, desert/city, male/female, superior/inferior, or orthodox/heretical, but to make those categories and their creation a matter of historical investigation instead.
Such research has problematized the question of monastic origins in particular. Although we will never fully know why late antique Christians decided to embrace monasticism, we may assume that one of the earliest in Egypt to do so, Antony the Great (ad 251-356), spoke for many in writing that all who adopted monasticism had been inspired by a‘‘Spirit of Repentance’’ (metanoia; see, e. g.,Mark1: 15;Matt. 3: 11) to ‘‘sanctify’’ themselves. That meant renouncing old habits and devoting themselves utterly to God’s ways, necessitating various forms of self-alienation (xeniteia), such as God had first proposed to Abraham: ‘‘Go from your own country and your kindred and your father’s house, to the land that I show you’’ (Gen. 12: 7; Antony,
Letter 1, tr. Rubenson 1995). The notions of metanoia and xeniteia underlie much of monastic thought and help explain many of the seemingly strange practices found in early monastic culture (Guillaumont 1968; Bitton-Ashkelony 1999; McNary-Zack 2000: 24-5). As Basil of Caesarea (c. ad 330-79) explained later in the fourth century, the ‘‘art of being well-pleasing to God’’ (i. e., monasticism) required initiates to ‘‘exile themselves, as it were, to another world in their habit of mind’’ - in other words, to recast their minds completely, renouncing all former preoccupations to become, like Jesus’ disciples, ‘‘not of this world’’ (John 15: 19; Longer Rules 5, tr. Clarke 1925).
That said, it is no longer safe to say, as most textbooks do, that Christian monas-ticism began in Egypt, or with Antony the Great. Rather, its roots must be sought in the ascetic, philosophical, and penitential tendencies that bolstered nearly all forms of early Christianity (Brown 1988b: 205-9; O’Neill 1989). Already in the second century, Christian apologists from Palestine to North Africa had begun to extol those men and women whose sexual and material renunciations distinguished them from the rest in their communities. Although such behavior was standard in philosophical circles of the day, for Christians it was considered especially justified by scriptural passages in which Paul seemed to privilege celibacy above marriage (1 Cor. 7: 8-9), or where Jesus indicated that greater attainments would come from greater degrees of self-denial (e. g., ‘‘if you wish to be perfect, sell all your property’’ (Matt. 19: 21); see Matt. 4: 20; 19: 27; Acts 4: 34-5). Such utterances inspired, early on, a Christianity of ‘‘two ways’’:
Two ways of life were thus given by the Lord to His Church. The one is above nature, and beyond common human living; it admits no marriage, childbearing, property, or the possession of wealth. ... The more human way prompts men to join in pure nuptials and produce children. . . it allows them to have minds for farming, trade, and other more worldly interests. (Eusebius of Caesarea, Proof of the Gospel 1. 8, tr. Ferrar 1920)
While salvation was ultimately the goal for all, those who set their minds ‘‘beyond... human living’’ sought assurance in a more immediate self-transformation. For Christian Platonists, like the Alexandrian priest and philosopher Origen (ad 185-254), that meant reducing distractions and looking inward, so as to liberate one’s soul from the demonic passions that had infected human beings since the Fall (Brown 1988b: 160-77). Others found in the gospel descriptions of Jesus and his disciples a more obvious path to follow. Sometimes their imitation of Jesus led to an itinerant, ‘‘apostolic’’ lifestyle (Kretschmar 1964), but more often this was done by quietly focusing on prayer, abstinence, and scriptural recitations at church and home. Nowhere is such imitatio Christi more evident than in Syriac-speaking communities of the Near East, where Jesus was known as the great ‘‘Single One,’’ or iltidaya (the Syriac term used to translate ‘‘only-begotten’’ in John 1: 14; 3: 16; and elsewhere). Here, in every church, male and female lay persons who wished to imitate Jesus did so by consecrating themselves to a life of ilgidayutha, or ‘‘singleness’’ of body and mind. Collectively known as the ‘‘Sons and Daughters of the Covenant,’’ such solitaries (ihidaye) lived at home or with relatives, and were expected to set an example, ‘‘as a living icon of Paradise restored’’ for others in the communities that supported them (Gribomont 1965; Griffith 1995).
It has been proposed that the word monachos, ‘‘single one’’ or ‘‘solitary,’’ was actually first coined in order to translate the Syriac term iloidaya, together with its Hebrew cognate yahid, into Greek (Morard 1973,1975,1980). Be that as it may, the earliest attested use of the word to designate a Christian ascetic is found in a papyrus petition from the Egyptian village of Karanis. Dated to June 6, ad 324, it cites an individual named ‘‘Isaac the monk’’ as one who helped a church deacon intervene in a dispute over a cow. This document is particularly interesting because it presents this first known monk as a familiar village figure. Indeed, it is apparent from allusions in other early fourth-century literature and papyri that the period after Constantine’s conversion saw an increased prominence of Christian ascetics in cities and villages throughout the Roman Empire. Generally described as ‘‘renouncers’’ (apotaktikoi, a term suggesting renunciation of family property: see Luke 14: 33; Goehring 1999: 60-8), these lived alone or in groups either at home, in urban apartments, or on the fringe of villages and army camps. They represent not so much a new Christian movement, as a lifestyle of Christian singleness now left free to ‘‘go public’’ after the threat of persecution had passed. That is not to say that some did not seek further isolation in this early period. But the picture that emerges, especially from Egypt, is that of a Christian monasticism that originally was closely tied to urban or village society, and virtually identical with the ‘‘type’’ that Jerome and Cassian would later disparage as remnuoth or sarabaite counterfeits. Indeed, Isaac of Karanis may have been one such monk (Judge 1977; Goehring 1999: 20-6, 53-72; Choat 2002).
An interesting snapshot ofmonasticism as it looked in the eastern Mediterranean in the AD 370 s is provided by Epiphanius of Salamis, a bishop on the island of Cyprus:
Some of the church’s monks live in the cities, but some reside in monasteries and retire far from the world. Some, if you please, see fit to wear their hair long as a custom of their own devising... Many sleep on the ground, and others do not even wear shoes. Others wear sackcloth under their clothing. . . It is inappropriate to appear in public wearing collars, as some prefer to... Most are exercised in psalms and constant prayers, and in readings, and recitations by heart, of the holy scriptures. (Epiphanius of Salamis, On the Faith 23. 2-8, tr. Williams 1994)
It was out of this diverse and experimental background that monasticism evolved into a distinct profession or order ( taxis), gradually becoming recognizable as such in the late fourth and early fifth centuries through the propagation of certain common assumptions, expectations, and goals. This happened unevenly from region to region, mostly by word of mouth, as disciples sought out experienced teachers or made up their own rules to follow, adapting Old and New Testament precedents. But no doubt the single most important step toward the standardization of monastic practice was its identification, early on, with physical isolation, and with the Egyptian desert in particular; and no doubt the main reason for that was the rapid dissemination of a single text, namely the Life of Antony. Written c. ad 357-62 by Athanasius, the embattled Nicene bishop of Alexandria, this describes how Antony the Great, portrayed as the illiterate son of a prosperous peasant family in Middle Egypt, renounced his inheritance after hearing the gospel passage read in church, ‘‘If you wish to be perfect, sell all your property, give to the poor, and come, follow me’’ (Matt. 19: 21). Antony first moved to the outskirts of town, where he apprenticed under some ‘‘serious’’ old men - local ‘‘renouncers,’’ like those discussed above. Eventually, however, he decided to pursue greater degrees of withdrawal (anachor-esis), going farther and farther into the desert, until he finally reached a mountain near the Red Sea: ‘‘He was like someone who recognizes his own home: from that point on he considered the place his own.’’ Before Antony, according to Athanasius, ‘‘no monk at all knew the remote desert’’; but after him, ‘‘the desert was made a city by monks’’ (Life of Antony 3. 2, 14. 7, 50. 2, Vivian et al. 2003).
With the Life of Antony., Athanasius crafted the classic account of how the desert was won for Christian monasticism, making Antony its icon and Egypt its imaginative home (Brakke 1995; Stewart 2000). His biography also provided the first widely disseminated ‘‘rule’’: in Cappadocia in ad 380, Gregory of Nazianzus declared it ‘‘legislation for monastic life in narrative form’’ (Or. 21. 5), while John Chrysostom in the late 380 s, urged his congregations in Antioch to read it, since it would show even them exactly ‘‘what sort oflife Christ’s laws demand’’ (Homily on Matthew 8. 5). Indeed, Augustine says that hearing about Antony’s renunciations in Italy in the summer of 386 had precipitated his own conversion (Confessions8. 8. 19). Given this testimony, it is easy to forget that the Life of Antony might never have had such impact, had the death of the Arian emperor Valens on the battlefield in ad 378 not led to the accession of the pro-Nicene emperor, Theodosius I (ad 379-95), and, thus, to the promotion of Nicene Christianity, its literature and heroes. Exactly why monks began to populate deserted areas in large numbers remains an open question, admitting many answers (Heussi 1936: 53-69). It may have begun with Emperor Valens’ anti-Nicene persecutions (Lenski 2004: 114-17); on the other hand, the fact that anchoretic solitaries in Syria were first called ‘‘mourners’’ (avile) and often wore chains suggests, at least for them, a penitential impetus (Henze 1999: 185-215). Yet it was Athanasius’ image of Antony’s withdrawal that informed subsequent monastic history, partly because it provided a simple framework for understanding a phenomenon that had already become visible around the empire (Goehring 1999: 73-88), partly because it plotted a trajectory, beyond the concourse of ordinary human beings, that met the concerns of many fourth - and early fifth-century readers.
Students of monastic history will note that the most influential monastic authors in this period were all either affiliated with episcopal leaders (e. g., Jerome with Pope Damasus, John Cassian with John Chrysostom) or were bishops themselves (Athanasius of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, Augustine of Hippo, etc.). In addition, all were reared in late Roman paideia, the elite educational system that had traditionally regarded contemplative retirement as the summum bonum humanum. While this does not mean that they all held the same opinions (Augustine, for example, developed his own rather ambivalent ideas about the purpose of monasticism and ascetic practices: Lawless 1987; Markus 1990: 63-83), it did mean that all were inclined to define monasticism in terms of philosophical withdrawal - the improvement of one’s soul through pursuit of tranquillity (hesychia) - and that the promotion of monasticism as such was closely related to episcopal concerns and patronage. We first see this in Basil’s effort, as bishop of Caesarea (ad 370-9), to promote monasticism as a non-urban movement, inspired not only by the philosophic pleasures he had once enjoyed at his country retreat in Pontus (Rousseau 1994: 66-92), but also by the difficulties he later faced from urban monks opposed to his policies and appointees (Elm 1994: 211). Contentions with urban monks also plagued John Chrysostom as bishop of Constantinople (ad 398404); he responded by lavishing those who stayed in their monasteries with food and praise, while chastising those who appeared in the city for ‘‘insulting philosophy’’ (Sozomen, Church History 8. 3. 4, Hartranft 1989). Friction between church leaders and urban monks continued to escalate during the Christological controversies of the early fifth century, culminating with the fourth canon of the Council of Chalcedon (ad 451). This landmark canon distinguished monks who ‘‘sincerely and truly’’ adopted monasticism from those who moved ‘‘indiscriminately about the cities,’’ forbidding any to leave their monastery without a bishop’s permission: ‘‘Let them embrace tranquillity and attend to fasting and prayer alone, persevering in those places to which they have withdrawn.’’ Thus, the bishops at Chalcedon made physical withdrawal the sine qua non of monastic practice throughout the empire, expressly so as to prevent monks from disturbing church or civic affairs.
Clearly one issue at stake in such encounters was the formal status of the monastic profession and the relation of monks to the church hierarchy, a relationship exacerbated by the readiness of some monastic leaders to speak out against local clerics and seek support from outside patrons. For these reasons alone, it is understandable why church authorities and their allies might prefer to define ‘‘true’’ monasticism in terms of physical withdrawal (Dagron 1970). Yet also at issue was a genuine debate over what it meant to be a monk. It is apparent that many considered their professional goal to be one of actively ministering to others ( diakonia) as much as that of attaining tranquillity. For example, Pachomius, the reputed ‘‘founder’’ of coenobitic monasti-cism in Egypt, is said to have first become known through the services he provided to sick people in his village (Bohairic, Life of Pachomius 9; see McNary-Zack 2000: 32-3), while monastic leaders in Constantinople gained considerable prestige by providing guidance to the rich and welfare to the poor (Caner 2002: 190-241). An interesting critique of such activities is found in a short treatise ascribed to the monk Nilus of Ancyra (fl. c. ad 430), a contemporary of John Cassian and admirer of John Chrysostom. Nilus observes that ‘‘inexperienced people’’ typically admired monks who lived in cities among humans more than those who sought tranquillity on mountains or in caves. While Nilus concedes that showing compassion toward others was indeed dear to God, he contends that it was ultimately not conducive toward achieving one’s own salvation. That required ridding the soul of contrary passions through vigilant introspection and prayer, something that was possible to achieve only in isolation. Cities were full of obvious distractions: besides women, there were the enticements of wealth and power. But the greatest peril arose simply from the fact that, in cities, one tended to practice virtue in plain sight of others. Consciously or not, those who remained ‘‘in the world’’ would pay attention to their spectators’ concerns, and end up forgetting how to please God while trying to please people. Far safer, Nilus concludes, to retreat to the wilderness, where God alone would be watching (Nilus of Ancyra, On the Superiority of Solitaries, 1, 12, 15, 19, 26-7).
This ‘‘debate’’ is further illustrated in an early anecdote about three friends who became monks. Eventually the two who had opted to remain in their city - one tending the sick, the other settling disputes - became filled with a sense of failure. So, they went to visit the third, who had ‘‘sought quiet in solitude.’’ He made them watch as he stirred a glass filled with water and dirt. Once the dirt had settled and they could see their image in it again, he remarked: ‘‘So it is with one who lives among men: He does not see his own sins because of the turmoil. But once at rest, especially in the desert, then he sees his sins’’ (Sayings of the Fathers 2. 16, Chadwick 1958). As this anecdote indicates, all agreed that care of the soul and detecting its sins were the primary goals of the monastic profession, and that such goals could be most easily achieved in quiet. But Nilus expresses an additional concern, one so basic to the psychology and formation of monasticism ‘‘proper’’ that it requires special attention here: the problem of vainglory, presented by Nilus in terms of ‘‘pleasing human beings’’ versus ‘‘pleasing God.’’ Already the apostle Paul had warned ‘‘slaves of Christ’’ against directing their efforts toward ‘‘pleasing human beings’’ (anthropar-eskia) instead of their Master (Eph. 6: 6). Much danger followed from it. On one level, Nilus and others simply worried lest monks might seem no different from the rest of humanity, ‘‘with nothing left to distinguish them but their monastic garb,’’ thereby jeopardizing the dignity of their profession ( Ascetic Discourse 7; see Caner 2000). But anthropareskia summed up a more subtle danger, one noted by several writers of the period: not so much the deliberate pursuit of flattery, but rather an unconscious tendency of monks who lived among lay people to become ‘‘enslaved to human customs,’’ and to measure themselves by standards human rather than divine. At risk was the monastic cast of mind: gradually, while trying to cope with ordinary human society, ‘‘it grows accustomed to complete neglect and forgetfulness of [God’s] judgments, than which it could suffer no greater or more deadly evil’’ (Basil of Caesarea, Longer Rules 5-6, Clarke 1925).
Hence the conceptual importance of the desert in early monastic discourse, especially the Egyptian desert. Here was a place so alien that it seemed to hold great promise for permanent transformation: some of its earliest settlers become so acclimated to it that later monks were said to have found them living like Adam, naked among beasts, utterly ignorant of the outside ‘‘world’’ (e. g., History of the Monks of Egypt 10. 2). Pilgrims who came to the desert looking for such marvels did not leave disappointed. As Melania the Elder remarked of one Egyptian hermit in the late fourth century, ‘‘I found nothing of men in him at all’’ (Palladius, Lausiac History, Coptic version 10. 5, tr. Vivian 2004; Frank 2000). Yet, real change was hard won even there. Monks who tried to stay long at outposts like Kellia (‘‘The Cells’’) and Shihet (or Scetis, meaning ‘‘weigh the heart’’) soon learned why Egyptians traditionally considered the desert an abode of demons (Guillaumont 1975). It was at Kellia that the great monastic theorist, Evagrius of Pontus (ad 346-99), wrote his studies on the soul and its afflictions so as to help fellow monks withstand their temptations to return to ‘‘the world.’’ Perhaps to the surprise of modern readers, greed and lust rank rather low on Evagrius’ lists of deadly sins. The most serious demons of the desert were still those of vainglory and pride: at any moment, these could blind even the greatest ascetics, making them compete against other monks and, thus, lose sight of God’s commandments, not unlike those who grew negligent by living ‘‘among men’’ (Thoughts 23, Sinkewicz 2003). Their failure became the stuff of desert drama. Palladius’ Lausiac History, a description of monastic personalities of the Roman east, includes cautionary tales of desert loners whose ascetic extremism eventually broke them and drove them back to Egypt, where they roamed the taverns mad with pride, estranged not only from monks but from God.
As such literature illustrates, one challenge that monastic thinkers identified early on was how to maintain a healthy ‘‘fear of God’’ - that is, a religious mentality that kept one ever mindful of God’s judgments, and therefore ever diligent in prayer and contrite in dealings with others. ‘‘The aim of the enemy,’’ John Climacus would later write, ‘‘is to divert you from your mourning and... fear of God’’ (Ladder of Paradise 6, Luibheid and Russell 1982). The need to foster the spirit of repentance by always keeping judgment day before one’s eyes helps account for some of the more controversial ascetic practices of the day, such as growing long hair, wearing collars and chains, or standing on pillars. One monk, for example, was noted for keeping a stone in his mouth and a coil on his wrist, calling them the ‘‘ ‘irons’ of his service.’’ Just looking at the coil made him ‘‘suddenly turn... and cry to God to deliver [him] from error’’ (John of Ephesus, Lives of the Eastern Saints 19, Brooks 1923-5). The fact that such artifices were often associated with solitaries living in or near villages suggests that they helped maintain an appropriate mindset among monks who lived far from a desert (Brown 1971a: 82-3). Indeed, some penitential practices may have been calculated precisely to attract scorn and reinforce a sense of compunction, analogous to fourth-century customs of placing the most egregious sinners in front of church gates to weep for their sins as ‘‘mourners’’ in public view: Augustine, for example, notes that some monks justified growing their hair provocatively long as a ‘‘degradation’’ assumed for their sins ( On the Work of Monks 31. 39; Jerome, Ep. 22. 28; Basil of Caesarea, Ep. 199. 29). Precisely because they attracted so much attention, however, such practices were roundly criticized as ‘‘man-pleasing’’ and restricted to the confines of a monastery (History of the Monks of Egypt 8. 53; Rabbula of Edessa, Rules for Monks 5; John of Ephesus, Lives of the Eastern Saints 11, Brooks 1923-5). Egyptian desert tradition provided a different solution: ‘‘Put yourself under a man who fears God, and when you live with him, you will learn to fear God also’’
( Sayings of the Fathers 11. 23).
In this light we may better appreciate why John Cassian, who had apprenticed for fifteen years in Egypt (c. ad 385-400), emphasized obedience to an elder as a touchstone of true monastic practice. Perhaps the greatest legacy of the Egyptian desert experience was the recognition that no monk could go it alone: all needed to practice asceticism in consultation with experienced elders (Gould 1993: 26-106). This is reflected in the question-and-answer form of its wisdom literature, the ‘‘Sayings of the Fathers,’’ as well as by many of its anecdotes:
A brother who renounced the world and took the monk’s habit immediately shut himself in a hermitage, saying: ‘‘I am a solitary.’’ When the neighbouring elders heard of it, they
Came and threw him out of his cell, and made him go round the cells of the brothers and do penance before them, saying, ‘‘Forgive me. I am no solitary, but have only just become a monk.’’ (Sayings of the Fathers 10. 111)
Here we glimpse one method by which early monastic leaders sought to establish a politeia in the desert founded upon obedience and humility. In monastic thought, humility was considered the only ascetic attainment that the Devil could not subvert, and so a monk’s ultimate defense against pride and vainglory. However, like fear of God (with which it was closely connected), it was considered an alien cast of mind that had to be learned (Burton-Christie 1993: 236-60). Hence the importance of obedience and service (diakonia) to an elder. By ministering to him, imitating him, confiding in him, and submitting to all of his demands (especially that of staying in one’s cell), a novice would eventually attain a ‘‘real humility, which is not humble in word and outward appearance, but is deeply planted in the heart’’ (Dorotheus of Gaza, On Renunciation, Wheeler 1977; see Cassian, Conferences 18. 11). At the same time, the elder would put his own humility on trial by assuming his disciple’s faults as his own, and by submitting to others for advice on particular problems. Developed in the heat of the fourth-century desert, this master-disciple relationship helped put a check on some of the more contentious aspects of anchoretic life, providing an intimate system of spiritual guidance that would eventually become incorporated into more complex communal institutions (Bitton-Ashkelony 1999).
Basil of Caesarea reached similar conclusions about the need for an elder in the formation of a monk - ‘‘for wherewith shall a man show humility, if he has no one in comparison with whom to show himself humble?’’ As far as we know, Basil was the first to explicitly prefer communal (i. e., coenobitic) monasticism to complete isolation. In his view, living in a sequestered community of ‘‘like-minded brothers’’ not only gave monks the opportunity to practice God’s ‘‘commandments of love’’ while remaining withdrawn, but also imposed safeguards to prevent any from lapsing into worldly ‘‘habits of mind.’’ The result was an incipient monastic hierarchy aimed at promoting an ever higher degree of humility. Indeed, many features of the communal politeia he prescribed, from its seating arrangements to its methods of correction, were justified in terms of the ‘‘proof of humility’’ they would afford (Longer Rules 7-8, 21, 35). Basil’s sensitivity to the problem of vainglory may have arisen from his awareness that the monks he advised in fourth-century Cappadocia ‘‘seemed at times, to themselves and to others... a radical and arcane elite’’ (Rousseau 1994: 205-7). But the main point for him (as for others) was that attaining ‘‘humility in the perfection of love’’ was considered the key to imitating Jesus and transcending ‘‘human’’ ways (Angstenberger 1997). Hence, all aspirants were to be tested by being assigned the lowliest chores, with those from ‘‘higher ranks of society’’ being given tasks especially ‘‘distasteful to worldlings’’ (Basil, Longer Rules 10).
Thus, we see a consensus emerging in normative monastic discourse of the fourth and early fifth centuries. Achieving a transcendent existence required not only withdrawal, fasting, and other physical disciplines, but also social training within a community that was deliberately structured to induce an abiding ‘‘contrition ofheart, and humility of mind’’ (Basil, Longer Rules 8). Indeed, by the sixth century most monasteries seem to have instituted a system of apprenticeship that began with menial labor and progressed through several levels of more refined ministrations (as bakers, infirmarians, innkeepers, stewards, and so on) in a kind of inverse cursus honorum that culminated either in contemplative retirement, or monastic leadership (Zeisel 1975: 270-1).
This helps explain three further trends that become noticeable in the fifth and sixth centuries. First, coenobitic institutions do in fact become the norm: when anchorites are mentioned, they usually appear either as eccentrics, or as dependants attached to the local coenobium in which they had trained (Rousseau 2001). Second, such institutions became more directly bound to their regional church hierarchy; this happened in part because monasteries were viewed as dependable training grounds in obedience and doctrine, thereby suitably schooling candidates for church office (Escolan 1999; Sterk 2004). Finally, though all such institutions recognized an abbot’s authority as absolute, some nevertheless developed cooperative forms of leadership ‘‘in which the charisma of the anchorites upheld the abbot’s rule, each father reinforcing the authority of others’’ (Hevelone-Harper 2005: 47). The result was a balanced and deferential leadership structure that helped diffuse tensions within the community. That this leadership structure appears most fully in monasteries at Gaza (also the most fully documented monastic center of the sixth century) suggests that it was a legacy of earlier experiments at Kellia and Scetis, many of whose leaders had migrated to Palestine and Gaza in the early fifth century. It exemplifies, in any case, a collegial ideal that was otherwise rare in late Roman institutions, and perhaps explicable here only by a recognition that monastic authority needed to be grounded in demonstrative acts of humility and deference toward others (Hevelone-Harper 2005: 36,47).
Noting the emphasis of early monastic texts on physical isolation, Karl Heussi argued long ago that monasticism differed from all other forms of Christian asceticism by requiring the creation of a Sonderwelt, an alternative environment that would help inhabitants attain a new relationship with their God (Heussi 1936: 53-4). As we have seen, that emphasis should not be taken for granted: it was partly the result of an early debate over exactly where and how monks might best perform the task of ‘‘pleasing God.’’ Indeed, it is now apparent that many (if not most) lived closer to the world they had renounced than the Life of Antony and other normative texts of the period would imply, with their Sonderwelt often being demarcated by nothing more than a low wall or rock outcropping in a field (Wipszycka 1994; Goehring 1999: 39-52). In the final analysis, what set monks apart from lay society may not have been their physical withdrawal and austerities, so much as their commitment to acquiring and demonstrating an ‘‘other-worldly’’ humility. To appreciate that ideal, we must remember that it arose in a highly stratified society in which gradations of rank were constantly displayed, in which access to power was tightly controlled, where slaves cleared the streets for their masters’ approach, and each person was imagined to look up at the emperor and think, ‘‘I would really like someone to give me something of that glory, majesty, and splendour’’ (Ps.-Macarius Homily 5.5, Maloney 1992). Their perceived indifference to such late Roman pomp not only made monks seem different from their contemporaries, but also made them more accessible, and professionally credible, to people in hope of their services. As one person explained in a letter to an Egyptian monk of the early fourth century, he knew that God would listen to him and his prayers because of his ‘‘glorious and revered politeia':. for ‘‘you have renounced the boasting of the world, and the arrogance of the vainglorious” (Paphnutius archive, Bell 1924: 112).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Modern introductions to late antique monasticism tend to be regional, with most focusing on the Roman east. Here the classic studies are Chitty 1966 and Vcicjbus 1958-88, which should be supplemented by Harvey 1990, Binns 1994, Patrich 1995, and Harmless 2004. For the relation of eastern monasticism to socio-economic structures of the East Roman Empire in general, see Patlagean 1977. The standard study of late antique monasticism in the west is Prinz 1965; see also Rousseau 1978, Markus 1990, and Leyser 2000a. For an overview of developments in both east and west, see Stewart 2000 and Rousseau 2001.
World History
