The monastic tradition has often been described as beginning in Egypt in the early fourth century. Antony was accorded the symbolic role of the ‘founder of monasticism’ for Athanasios’ account of his life was one of the most widely read books of the early Byzantine period. The story begins with his conversion and withdrawal from a fairly comfortable life in Alexandria to embrace the rigours of seclusion in the semi-desert adjacent to the Nile. At first he lived on the outskirts of a village, but soon Antony sought a deeper solitude and progressively withdrew into a more desolate wilderness. As he advanced in peace and wisdom, becoming a thaumaturgical ‘friend of God’, he attracted disciples, and thus was able to ‘grow on’ a community. The Vita, in this regard, sketches out the parameters of what were already known to be several different types of monastic lifestyle already in existence by the mid-fourth century. If Antony is exemplary, therefore, he is not historically speaking an absolute ‘founder’. Solitaries existed in the Syrian Church at least a century before him, and even in Antony’s Vita we are told that he gave his sister over to the care of female ascetics who already inhabited the Alexandrian Church.
The Syrian Church at a very early period demanded of those who went forward for baptism (a thing not usually sought in the pre-fifth-century Church until one’s maturity) a radical commitment to celibate living (Abouzayd 1993). This meant that in Syria, the inner circle of baptized Christians were all de facto celibate ascetics. They were known as the Ihidaya (solitaries), or the Ben’ay Qyama (children of the covenant). These communities of men and women ascetics customarily lived either at home or in groups near the church and soon came to have an important function setting the tone of the public assemblies. These ascetic communities are the direct descendants of the associations of widows and virgins mentioned in the New Testament (Voobus i960). An example of this lifestyle and how it came to serve as a powerful inner circle of Christian government can be found in Aphrahat the ‘Persian Sage’, a fourth-century ascetic bishop, whose Demonstrations already show much that would later emerge as classic monastic concerns. From earliest times, therefore, the apocalyptic (world-renouncing) aspect of the monastic lifestyle claimed to be a direct and legitimate successor of the eschatological community of Jesus as described in the Gospel. Typically in Syrian and early Egyptian sources, the ascetical lifestyle was described as ‘not of this world’, and associated with the ‘angelic life’, a modality of anticipating the age to come. The Syrian Church developed its monastic history with a pattern of holy men living in retirement on the outskirts of villages, who thus served as important mediators in many social disputes. Theodoret’s History of the Monks of Syria gives a classic account, and introduced a style of sensational ascesis (such as pillar habitation) that would soon make its way to Byzantium itself. The combination of the monastic vocation, with the office of the ‘holy man’ as mediator, healer, and exorcist, thus became significant from an early age in Christianity (Fowden 1982).
Nevertheless, in fourth-century Egypt the expansion of monasticism was extraordinary, and constitutive. Antony was soon outstripped by Copts such as Pachomios (Rousseau 1999) or Shenoudi (Timbie 1986), who organized societies of many thousands of Christian zealots living the communal life in highly organized settlements along the Nile. With Pachomios the concept was introduced of the monasteries as a kind of loose federation, centred around common activities of prayer and manual labour; with monks and mms (always in separated communities) sometimes living together for protection. With Shenoudi came the introduction of formal written professions of obedience, or vows, that served to keep the monastic sacrally engaged to the ascetic life. The arid lands adjacent to the Nile, and the wilderness areas of Palestine and Syria, were soon famed as ‘cities in the desert’, and while Byzantine power held sway (and indeed after) these areas were populated with important monasteries (Chitty 1966). Only the greatest now remain: sites such as Mar Saba near Bethlehem, and St Catherine’s at Sinai, or St George Choziba in the Wadi Qelt. Ruins of smaller Byzantine monasteries stUl litter the landscape of Palestine. In their heyday, before the rise of Islamic power, no fewer than 140 Byzantine monasteries flourished within the relatively small area of Palestine (Binns
1994)- In the Middle Byzantine period the concept of holy mountains (wild wooded areas) became a popular substitute for the desert, and of the famous foundations such as Mt Latros, Mt Olympos, or Mt Athos, the latter still stands as an example of how a colony of hermits could be established, and flourish, under imperial patronage (Morris 1996).
World History
