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Patrology — Topic 11

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Patrology — Topic 11

11.0. Biblical roots of Christian monasticism

Monasticism is by no means an exclusively Christian idea: its existence can be traced back to its biblical roots. In the late biblical period there was an extraordinary flowering of Jewish ascetical groups in Palestine. St. John the Baptist seems to have belonged to one of these groups. The monastic character of his whole appearance, physical and spiritual, is beyond question. He lived in the wilderness in fasting and celibacy. Interestingly, with the advent of Christianity, monasticism as such was not immediately accepted into the Christian Church: as a mass movement it appeared only in the fourth century, with the beginning of the Constantinian period. This can be explained by the fact that the early Christian communities were already isolated from society, existing outside it. But as soon as Christianity became the official religion of the empire, as soon as the Church recuperated from persecutions, settled down, became rich, and built luxurious cathedrals, the monastic movement immediately asserted itself and took on a mass character. It emerged as a prophetic movement, as a call to vigilance, as a reminder that the kingdom of God was at hand, but not yet fully arrived.

The main feature of the monastic movement was its fundamentally biblical character. It manifested itself above all in the fact that the monks went away to live in the wilderness. The desert is a place where there is no water. In the Middle East, where monasticism originated, the presence or absence of water was a matter of life and death. Therefore the desert was understood as a place where there is no God, where death and the devil reign (cf. the temptations of Christ in the desert).

11.1 Antony the Great

According to the account of the Lives of St. Antony the Great, written by St. Athanasius of Alexandria, he withdrew from the world and settled in the cemetery among the tombs - that is in a place where Satan reigned (the cemeteries in those days were built outside the city walls, and hence again in the desert). St. Anthony the Great, for example, could neither read nor write. But very soon intellectuals appeared among the monks, and then problems began to be formulated - spiritual and intellectual.

Information about Antony (c. 251 - c. 356) is contained chiefly in the hagiography written by St. Athanasius the Great presumably in 357, in the Greek versions of Apophtegmata Patrum , in the Lausaicus and the History of Monks , in the work of Blessed Jerome “On illustrious men”, in the Church historians Socrates and Sozomen.

Antony was born in the village of Coma into a family of wealthy pious Christian Egyptians. From his childhood Antony attended the Church services and listened attentively to everything that would be read and sung. According to St. Athanasius, Antony refused to learn as a child and lived in his parents’ house, not wishing to associate with any of his peers. At the age of 18 or 20, he lost his parents and was forced to care for his younger sister. One day, when in church, he heard Christ’s words about spiritual perfection addressed to a rich young man: “If you want to be perfect, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me” (Mt 19, 21) - and he did as he was told: he gave the villagers his inherited land, sold his possessions and gave the money to the poor, leaving a small portion for his sister. Having heard in the Church the commandment of the Savior not to worry about tomorrow (Mt 6, 34), Antony gave away also the rest of his possessions, sent his sister to the upbringing of a shepherdess and began to lead a monastic life near his village. At the same time, he paid visits the “zealots” and learned the ascetic life from them, noting the special merits of each of them in some kind of virtue and spiritual work - angerlessness, prayer, vigil, knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and others.

Then Antony retires to a tomb, apparently not far from his native village.

Around 285, Antony settles in an abandoned fortress on the opposite bank of the Nile and lives there as a hermit for 20 years. St. Athanasius tells that many wished to imitate his asceticism, and some of his acquaintances came to him and “by force broke down and opened the door” to his dwelling. Antony was forced to break his seclusion. Gradually, a colony of hermits forms around Antony on Mount Pispir (c. 305), he visits the brethren living at Arsinoe. St. Antony twice visited Alexandria: during the persecution under the emperor Maximian (ca. 308), when he himself was ready to accept martyrdom, he visited and strengthened the imprisoned Christians, and during the Arian persecution in 337/38, when St. Athanasius seeks to stress the ascetic’s increased social significance. It was probably then that Antony visited Nitria and, together with St. Ammon of Nitria, founded a monastic settlement in Kellia.

In 313, Antony and his two disciples moved to a mountainous area in the Eastern Desert, most likely to the foot of Mount Kuzum, 30 km from the Red Sea, where there is now a monastery named after Antony. St. Athanasius calls this place the “inner mountain” (τὸ ἔνδον ὄρος), considering Pispir as an “outer” mountain, which Anthony frequently visited, instructing the monks who asceticized there. In chapter 81 of the hagiography St. Athanasius mentions the correspondence between the ascetic and the emperor Constantine and his sons Constantius and Constantius. Together with Macarius and Amatas, Antony lived in the “inner mountain” for another 40 years and bequeathed to his disciples to bury him in secret.

The great spiritual authority, which Antony had among successive generations of monks, is witnessed by later hagiographic sources, for example, in the “Historia Lausaica” it is said that when the Alexandrian youth Eulogius turned to the ascetics living next door to him with questions, they told him: “The Great one is still alive, go to him”, calling Antony “the Great one”. In the Life of Shenoute (Ch. 68-69), the Egyptian monk Shenoute is asked, “Are there monks in this generation like Blessed Antony?” - and he answers that even if all the monks of this time came to one place, they would not make up one Antony. St. Athanasius wrote that “to Spain, to Gaul, to Rome, and to Africa the rumor of a man who hid and lived in the mountain” (Ch. 93). Blessed Augustine, in his Confessions , gives the example of how two Roman officials in Trier read a book describing the life of Antony, and it changed their lives (Confess. VIII 14-15). The life of Antony played a certain role in the conversion to the Christian faith of St. Augustine himself (Confess. VIII 29).

Several writings have survived under the name of Antony. A corpus of epistles has survived. Of these, only the first seven epistles can claim to be by Antony.

11.2 Pachomius and his disciples

Pachomius the Great (Greek Παχώμιος, from Coptic pahôm – «falcon») [c. 292, South Egypt (Thebaid) - c. 346], was a Christian ascetic and the founder of the community monastic type. Numerous versions of his life have reached us in Coptic and Greek. The original text (obviously in Greek) was compiled not earlier than the last quarter of the fourth century.

Pachomius descended from an Egyptian (Coptic) pagan family and had the first education (he was able to read and probably write, but did not know Greek). He was called up to the army (c. 313) and for the first time he met with Christians; he was touched by their mercy and decided to accept Christianity. He was released from the army shortly afterwards and was baptized and became a disciple of the monk (hermit) Palamon. Subsequently, following his vision he went to Tavennisi and founded a monastery there. He had a lot of disciples (the first one was his elder brother John). The disputes concerning the structure of monastic life caused Pachomius to make a code of rules of the community (Greek κοινόβιον coenobium), which became the first written monastic Charter (the ancient sources tell us about an Angel giving the Rule to Pachomius).

The first version of the Charter was written in Coptic, the most complete version of the Charter has reached us in the Latin translation from the Greek by St. Jerome. His sister Maria created a women’s monastery in the vicinity of Tavennisi.

Soon, because of the large number of disciples he founded a new monastery in the neighboring abandoned village of Pabau. Expansion of economic activity of monasteries led to the necessity to develop new lands and establish new monasteries not without the resistance of local bishops. By the end of Pachomius’ life there were already night male monasteries in Egypt.

Setting up a community, Pachomius believed that salvation can be comprehended by each member of the community through humility, obedience, constant prayers and reading the Holy Scriptures. Each monastery lived by the Charter established for the entire community: common prayer meetings, meals and work. Monasteries were divided into houses, groups of monastics united according to the type of occupation. Each monastery was headed by a superior and the community was subordinated to him. Above all the monasteries there was a single head who lived in Pabau and twice a year he gathered all the monks there for a general meeting; the chief economos was in charge of the monasteries’ business.

Pachomius was also the author of Letters to monks which only survive in fragments.

The works of the successors of Pachomius the Great - Orsisius and Theodore continue Pachomian tradition.

11.3 Macarius of Egypt

St. Macarius lived in the fourth century, but he was not the author of the writings attributed to him. He was an illiterate ascetic, of whom we know only from the accounts which have come down through his disciples. At the end of the fourth century a great number of writings attributed to Macarius appeared. In this case we are obviously dealing with a pseudepigrapha, i.e. attributing authorship to a person who was not really the author. The real author, perhaps one of Macarius’ disciples, did not wish to be known and signed his compositions with the name of a man he revered.

Under the name of Saint Macarius had survived a collection of 50 treatises, the so-called Homilies, which were spiritual teachings of various kinds, and a collection of minor treatises. These works were extremely popular both in the East and in the West. In the seventeenth century some of the Homilies were translated into English by the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, who, dissatisfied with the state of affairs in the Anglican Church, sought a spiritual tradition more suited to him and “stumbled upon” the writings of St. Macarius. In recent years the writings of Macarius have been dealt with by the Protestant scholar Herman Dörries. In his study he argues that these writings were deliberately attributed to St. Macarius by Simeon of Mesopotamia. Of this latter we know that he was the head of the Messalian heresy. The Messalians were a monastic sect adhering to the dualistic ideas popular at the time. The extreme expression of these ideas was Manichaeism, which came from Persia and asserted that in our world evil coexisted equally with good, and that both possessed the same power and should therefore be worshipped equally. The more moderate Messalians believed that both God and Satan reign in the human heart and that salvation lies in the casting out of Satan, achieved through constant prayer. The Messalianic anachoretes denied the need for the Church as an institution and considered the sacraments superfluous: communion was to them merely a reminder, and baptism an outward symbol of inner rebirth. They were the “charismatics” of their day, one of the many offshoots of a restless, rebellious monasticism. Among the vast literature that emerged in this milieu, it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between the Orthodox and the Messalianic movements.

But in the writings of Macarius there are no formally defined Messalian heresy (a list of which is available from the Presbyter Timothy of Constantinople and St. John Damascene). Macarius was undoubtedly an Orthodox writer, who came, however, from the same monastic milieu as the Messalians, and who sought (like the Cappadocian Fathers) to preserve points of contact with them.

Macarius is firmly convinced of the personal character of Christian faith. One can know God only on the level of personal experience:

« By the grace of God everything is arranged so that each person participates in spiritual growth according to his choice, according to his free will, labor and effort, in proportion to faith and zeal… Eternal life is thus inherited by grace, but also by all justice, since advancement is achieved not only by divine grace and power, but also by human cooperation (synergy) and effort; equally, the perfect fulfilment of God’s will and the full measure of all freedom and purity will be achieved not only by human power, effort and strength, but also by the cooperation and help of the Holy Spirit » (“The Great Letter”).

The constant emphasis on the centrality of Christ takes Macarius’ teaching beyond the narrow confines of Messalianic dualism. For him, human salvation takes place through Christ in baptism and is sacramentally present in the Eucharist. The unity of Christians, the “shining brothers” of Christ, is realized in the Church.

Unlike Evagrius, who in his Greek intellectualism placed man outside visible history, outside the material world, Macarius understands the monastic life in the context of the Incarnation, that is, in the most realistic way. In baptism he sees the resurrection of the soul, which creates the conditions for the resurrection of the body. Communion with God for him is a living experience, an experience, not intellectual, but sensual. The center of this experience, its “place” is not the intellect (as for Evagrius and Greek philosophy), but the heart. In the heart is placed all that is good in man, including the intellect. The heart is the lord, the king of the whole person. In the heart is placed the certainty of our Christian faith, the pledge of divine communion.

Of course, “heart” is not to be understood in a sentimental sense, but in a biblical sense. According to ancient Hebrew beliefs, the human soul was housed in the blood. The heart was thus regarded as the organ that animates the soul, the center of man as a unity of soul and body.

Beginning with Macarius, the tradition of “mental prayer” turns into the tradition of “heart prayer,” “keeping of the heart”. Later these two traditions merged: mind and heart came to be understood as one. In this form we find the doctrine of prayer, for example, in Diadochus of Photica and other later monastic fathers.

11.4 Evagrius Ponticus

In Egypt, the first educated monk was Evagrius of Pontus (or Ponticus). Evagrius was a contemporary and friend of the Cappadocian Fathers: he was ordained a deacon by none other than Saint Gregory Nazianzene himself. Like the Cappadocians, Evagrius was fond of the texts and translations of Origen, but when they left the seclusion of their youth and returned to the world and became bishops and active workers in the Church, Evagrius remained a deacon and later withdrew into the Egyptian desert, where he lived among monks in a place called Scete.

In the desert, Evagrius began his literary activity. He pioneered a contemplative-intellectual view of monastic life. The majority of monks in those days disapproved of education and considered even the writing of hymns to be too worldly and used only the “word of God”, i.e., Psalms, prayer. He was a Greek, a philosopher of great learning and an partisan of Plato and his school. Recent research has also shown that he was a consistent Origenist. Evagrius needed to explain his new vocation - wilderness, ascesis, chastity - in the categories of Greek thought. Naturally, the Platonic doctrine, in which the body is regarded as the prison of the soul, was the best suited for this purpose. Abba Evagrius in this sense faithfully follows Origen:

« Only He who united them can separate the body from the soul. But to separate the soul from the body is in the power of him who seeks virtue ».

In other words, through spiritual effort one can be freed from the body, and therein lies the shortest path to perfection.

Spiritual effort is understood as prayer. In Evagrius’ teaching on prayer, we find an unusually subtle analysis of the human passions and movements of the soul.

At the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553), Evagrius was formally condemned as a heretic along with Origen, whose errors he shared. He was mainly condemned for his Christological views. According to Evagrius, Christ was one of the “reasonable creatures,” but unlike all others he did not fall by sin. Therefore, in the Resurrection our original equality with Christ will be restored. By imperial decree, the writings of Evagrius were burned. However, his doctrine of contemplation and prayer was so popular among the monks that some of his writings still survived, sometimes under other names, and later had a great influence on the spiritual life of the Christian East.

The writings of Evagrius.

1. “Praktikos.” A book which is a practical introduction to the monastic life. It is the best known work of Evagrius on the ascetic life, described as a constant battle with the various passions inspired by demons.

2. ” Gnostikos.” A sequel to The Praktikos , describing the higher path of the “Gnostic” monk, striving for the knowledge (gnosis) of God.

3. “On Prayer.” A treatise preserved under the name of St. Nilus of Sinai on the relationship between prayer and contemplation.

4. “The Gnostic Chapters. A collection of 600 short statements, “chapters,” divided into six “hundreds,” in which dogmatic and ascetic questions are discussed. This book, reflecting the heretical Christology of Evagrius, has survived only in a Syriac translation.

Even a superficial acquaintance with the writings of Evagrius reveals his extraordinary literary gift. In addition, he had a profound knowledge of human psychology and was very subtle in his descriptions of the sinful states of man. Take, for example, his description of the demon of spiritual boredom, otherwise called the half-day demon (Psalm 91, 6). Evagrius describes him as the most dangerous of all:

« He intensifies his attack on the monk about the fourth hour (10 a.m.) and continues to besiege the soul until the eighth hour. First, he gives the impression that the sun barely, if at all, moves across the firmament and that there are fifty hours in the day. Then he makes the monk constantly look out the window, walk out of his cells and stare at the sun to see how long it is before nine o’clock (meal time), and look around to see if any of the brethren will appear. Further, he instills in the monk’s heart hatred for the monastery, for life itself, for manual labor… » (“Praktikos,” 12)

Central to Evagrius’ philosophy is his teaching on prayer. The main activity in the monastic life should be prayer. To follow Christ, according to Evagrius, means ideal, uninterrupted prayer as bequeathed by the Apostle Paul (1 Thessalonians 5, 17).

This refers not only to hermits, but also to common-law monks, who just then began to appear. It should be noted that the appearance of the monastic communities is connected with the name of St. Pachomius, a disciple of Evagrius. The monastic communities introduced the practice of uninterrupted worship, the singing of psalms, and also assimilated the newly emerging idea of uninterrupted prayer.

In addition to developing the idea itself, Evagrius owns the term “mental prayer,” which he understood as “the continuous communion of the mind with God” (“On Prayer,” 3). “A monk,” wrote Evagrius, “is a man who is detached from everything and in harmony with everything” (“On Prayer,” 124). This means that the monk is removed from the world in order to then find harmony with the whole universe through God. The very word “monk” comes from the Greek μόνος (monos), « one ».

Thus, in the teaching of Evagrius, along with heretical elements, we find the extremely important idea of constant prayer of mind, which was later transformed into the doctrine of “Jesus Prayer” and deeply imprinted in the Orthodox spiritual tradition. A purification of Evagrius’ teaching took place, as it were, and in this the wisdom of the Church expressed itself, processing everything and assimilating only what was correct and useful.

11.5 Mark the Monk

The biographical information about Mark is scanty and based on mentions by later authors. The Egyptian origin of Mark is indicated by the title of his writings in the oldest Syriac manuscript Brit. Lib. Add. 12175 , dated 533-534, where Mark is referred to as “the Egyptian.” Since Mark’s writings contain anti-Nestorian polemics, it is customary to date his death after 430.

“On the spiritual law” (De lege spirituali), a collection of maxims. The doctrine of the “spiritual law” (cf. Rom. 7. 14), which unites all Mark’s original texts, is most fully expounded in this work. The spiritual law as Mark understands it is the observance of the Christian commandments, among which he mentions unceasing prayer. True knowledge of things is possible by active purification of the heart (De lege spir. 88); the memory of God is the criterion of true knowledge (De lege spir. 148). Mark considers prayer and the reading of Scripture to be elements of a spiritual ascese(De lege spir. 5).

« On those who think to be justified by works » __(De his qui putant se ex operibus justificari), a collection of maxims in which Mark speaks of the necessity of rising above the sensual to attain true knowledge, that is, the knowledge of God (De oper. just. 146). Touching on the question of original sin and its effect on the Christian, Mark points out that the sign of the universality of original sin is death. After receiving the sacrament of Baptism, the power of sin continues to work, which the believer weakens by repentance (De oper. just. 112). When a person keeps the commandments, the grace of God, which he received in Baptism, works in him. The grace of God helps the Christian in his spiritual endeavor, nourishing him like “the rain of the earth” (De oper. just. 109).

“On Repentance” (De paenitentia), a treatise of polemical character, Mark singles out the Novatians among his opponents (De paenit. VII 18). Mark postulates the possibility and necessity of repentance after baptism because baptism itself is a prerequisite of repentance (De paenit. 7. 33). Repentance is necessary for all, including the saints, because, “descended from Adam, all were born under the sin of transgression” (De paenit. 10. 19-22). Repentance must become a permanent state of the Christian and manifest itself in three actions of the mind: purification of thoughts, unceasing prayer and patience with sorrows (De paenit. 7. 1-4).

“On Baptism (De baptismo), a dogmatic treatise composed in the genre of interrogatives. Mark does not name his adversaries; according to Babai the Great, Mark polemicizes with the Messalians. It has been established that one of the writings that Mark refutes in the treatise is the Messalianic work, « A Tract Useful to Every Christian ». According to Messalian teaching, Baptism and the Eucharist are of secondary importance in the life of the Christian. The main place is occupied by spiritual action, which is the center of the Christian life and the condition for the validity of the Church’s sacraments. In contrast to the utilitarian understanding of the Sacraments, Mark insists that the center of the Christian life is union with Christ, revealed through baptism and realized in the Eucharist (De bapt. 5. 96-98). Through the sacrament of Baptism one is freed from original sin, contrary to the view that “ancient sin is taken away through deeds” (De bapt. 1. 7-8). Mark speaks of the paradox of Baptism, which is “perfect but does not make perfect” if one does not keep the commandments (De bapt. 2. 7-8). In Mark’s understanding the power of sin after baptism is so great in man because of the love of sin, not because sin remains within him. Mark emphasizes that keeping the commandments and spiritual feats have a secondary role as a way to preserve the grace of baptism and achieve the perfection the road to which is opened in baptism.

“Advice of the Mind to its Soul” (“Consultatio intellectus cum sua ipsius anima ”) a brief work by Mark on the subject of the efficacy of the sacrament of Baptism and the anti-Messalian polemic. It has been suggested that Mark’s work is an early “sketch” of his treatise On Baptism , since the latter gave a more confident treatment of some of the themes weakly argued in Advice of the Mind to Its Soul. Mark rebukes his opponents for the futility of their mystical quest for the future heavenly Jerusalem, which as the Church is already given to everyone at baptism. Mark speaks of Adam and Eve in paradise as the “image” of the contemporary Christian, who settles in paradise after the “new birth,” i.e., baptism (Consult. 3. 25-26), but may lose paradise through a new offense; observance of the “spiritual law” (Consult. 3. 45-46), i.e., the commandments, is meant to keep the Christian in the “paradise of the Church” (Consult. 3. 25).

“Disputation with a Lawyer” (“Disputatio cum quodam causidico ”), written in the genre of dialogue. It consists of 2 parts: in the 1st, the elder answers the questions of the lawyer or advocate (Disp. caus. 1-14. 11); in the 2nd, the elder speaks with the monks who listened to the preceding conversation (Disp. caus. 14. 12-21). The Advocate rebukes Christians for being inactive and for withdrawing from public institutions, in particular for avoiding the courts (Disp. caus. 2-3). Mark does not deny the validity of the factual part of these charges, but he speaks of an ideological reason for Christians’ avoidance of courts and inaction in restoring social justice: Christians are guided by gospel law in settling disputes, and the gospel commands forgiveness of wrongdoers (Disp. caus. 3). The jurist also expresses his perplexity about the difference between philosophical knowledge and Christian ascetic gnoseology. The Elder responds by pointing out the principal element of Christian gnoseology, which is that it is built on prayer as an appeal to the Source of true knowledge, God (Disp. caus. 7). In Part 2 of the work, Mark focuses on the problem of theodicy raised and left unfinished in Part 1. Mark stresses that God is not the cause of suffering, it is man himself if he commits iniquity. The suffering of Christ, who “took up suffering for our sake … through His Immaculate Body” (Disp. caus. 20. 20, 23-24) is excluded from this rule in order to teach man to endure suffering.

“On Melchisedech” (De Melchisedech), a polemical treatise directed against the Melchisedechites, adherents of the semi-Gnostic heresy, who saw in the Old Testament Melchisedech one of the incarnations of the Word of God and belittled Christ.

“Against the Nestorians” (“On the Incarnation”, De incarnatione), a dogmatic treatise in which Mark sets forth Christological teaching within the framework of the anti-Nestorian polemic. The theological terminology of the work is characterized by a certain archaicism. It contains elements of a Asia Minor Christology, such as the use of the term σάρξ (flesh) to denote the human nature of Christ. The treatise uses elements of the doctrinal formula of the Council of Chalcedon: “…without confusion, without change, without division, without separation ” (ἀσυγχύτως, unmixedly - Adv. Nest. 51. 5; ἀτρέπτως, invariably - Adv. Nest. 48. 17). Avoiding the term πρόσωπον (person), M. P. makes extensive use of the term ὑπόστασις (hypostasis), especially in the combination κατ᾿ ὑπόστασιν (by hypostasis). Mark freely resorts to the term φύσις (nature) to describe the divine and human natures of Christ; he speaks of the hypostatic (κατ᾿ ὑπόστασιν) union of the two natures in Christ (ἐξ ἀμφοῖν, « from two » - Adv. Nest. 15. 10; 17. 11; 25. 13; 52. 6). The hypostatic separation in Christ, according to Mark, calls into question the efficacy of the atonement.

Mark influenced later ascetic writers. Dorotheos of Gaza (d. end of the 6th century) refers twice to “Abba Mark” and cites his works “On Spiritual Law” and “To them who think to be justified by works”. The same works of Mark are abundantly quoted in the works of Anastasius of Sinai, John Damascene, Theodore the Studite, and Hesychius of Sinai.

11.6 Shenute of Atripe

Shenute of Atripe, Senuthius or Sinuthius (c. 332-348 - 436-466), was the archimandrite of the White Monastery near Atripe in Upper Egypt, and is one of the most revered saint monks of the Egyptian Church.

He was born in the village of Shenalolet to a peasant family. As a child he was given by his father to be an apprentice to a shepherd and graze sheep. Then his maternal uncle Pjol, abbot of the White Monastery, took him to the monastery. Here he proved himself to be a stern ascetic and active monk, and became an outstanding orator and writer as well as a strong-willed Christian leader. In 383, after his uncle’s death, he succeeded him as abbot.

Shenoute greatly rebuilt and enlarged the monastery entrusted to him, going into all the details of monastic life. Other monasteries subordinate to Shenoute sprang up around the White Monastery, including a women’s monastery. By the end of the earthly life of the revered abba and archimandrite, there were 2200 monks and 1800 nuns under his command. These monasteries adopted a charter based on the Rule of Pachomius, but stricter (corporal punishment was often used, even leading once to death).

The illustrious abbot became a prominent figure in the life of Upper Egypt in the late fourth-first half of the fifth century. In addition to managing the monastery and other subordinate monastic communities, he advocated for the poor and opposed the abuses of officials and landlords. The walls of his monastery sheltered the surrounding inhabitants during the raids of nomads; the monastery fed and watered them for many days, the sick were treated by the monastic physicians, and prisoners were ransomed at the monastery’s expense. His influence was so great that in times of popular unrest in Alexandria the commite and the prefect came to him for explanations.

His Life is replete with descriptions of miracles, for which Shenute was also famous outside Egypt. In his struggle against paganism he was known for burning pagan temples and disputing with pagan philosophers. As a champion of the purity of the faith, he was chosen to accompany St Cyril of Alexandria to the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus, where he fought against the heresy of Nestorius.

Shenute left a rich literary legacy as a classic of Coptic literature. He wrote sermons and Treatises, epistles and rules of monastic life. Many of his surviving works are polemical denunciations of paganism and heresies, while others deal with morality and the order of monastic life. There are descriptions of allegorical visions as well as documented descriptions of nomadic invasions.

He knew Greek but wrote in Coptic. His superb command of the word had and still has a powerful effect on his audience. He is a master of metaphors, comparisons, allegories, setting vivid examples, conjuring up beautiful and frightening images, menacing vices and poetically praising virtues in the minds of his listeners. His works are also exemplary from a grammatical point of view: they combine the rigour and orderliness of their syntactic construction with the richness of their syntactic devices. For later generations of Coptic writers he has remained an unrivaled model.

Shenute’s “Life ,” written by his disciple and immediate successor as abbot of the White Monastery, Besa, survives in Bohairic Coptic, Arabic, and Ethiopian versions, with differences between them. According to tradition, after Shenute’s passing, the inhabitants of Tkou, Shmina, and Psoy gathered at the White Monastery to console his disciple and heir, Besa, and asked him to recount Shenoute’s life. The result was the compilation of a “Life” of Shenute, emphasizing the miracles associated with him.

One account of Shenuta - an episode of his blessing of the emperor Theodosius the Great and his miraculous help to the king through the monk’s cassock and staff - has penetrated into the tradition of the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches, where the ascetic is called Senuthius (Sinuthius) the Standard- bearer. Once before a battle the emperor Theodosius the Great sent for the famous ascetic in order to obtain his blessing and prayers. Shenute told him that he could not come to Constantinople, but he sent the king his monk’s robe and staff. Going into battle, the emperor put this robe under his armor, took his staff in his hand, and, thanks to Shenute’s prayer, won a brilliant victory.

11.7 Apophthegms

Apophthegmata Patrum Aegyptiorum – «The sayings of the Egyptian Fathers» is a fourth- and sixth-century hagiographic composition that is a collection of stories and edifying teachings of Egyptian monks, mostly ascetics of the Scete (the Apophthegmata also includes sayings of the Sinai and Palestine). The genre of apophthegms goes back to the Near Eastern tradition of sermons and books of wisdom, and is also a continuation of the ancient tradition of short moralizing stories or “apt words” (cf.: Apophthegmata Laconica and Apophthegmata regum et imperatorum of Plutarch).

The material of the Apophthegmata is quite varied: it includes brief sayings of famous ascetics, answers of the abba to the disciple’s questions, a detailed story with a brief edifying teaching at the end, etc. The apophthegms are distinguished by their simplicity and unsophisticated style, clarity of thought and depth of spiritual experience. Questions of a dogmatic nature (e.g. doctrine of the Holy Trinity, Christological questions, etc.) are rarely addressed in them, the main emphasis being placed on moral-ascetic problems.

At first, oral collections were formed from scattered accounts, which were then recorded in writing; after that there were large written collections reflecting the two main types of collections (alphabetical-anonymous and systematic), and at the last stage there were already deviations from these “classical” types.

The geographical distribution of the Apophthegm’s translations was presumably as follows: first came the Latin and Syriac versions (most likely translations from Greek), then the Armenian and Georgian, followed by Arabic, Ethiopian and Slavonic translations.

There are two main types of apophthegm:

  1. alphabetical-anonymous, where the material is divided into two parts: the first is arranged according to the names of famous ascetics in alphabetical order (it is often called ̓Αλφαβητικόν), the second is anonymous;

  2. systematic, where the sayings are grouped according to theme (“On Humility”, “On distinction”, “On patience”, etc.).

  • 11.0. Biblical roots of Christian monasticism

    • 11.1 Antony the Great
    • 11.2 Pachomius and his disciples
    • 11.3 Macarius of Egypt
    • 11.4 Evagrius Ponticus
    • 11.5 Mark the Monk
    • 11.6 Shenute of Atripe
    • 11.7 Apophthegms

Beginnings of the monastic literature

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