In the pagan world of antiquity, the movement most frequently compared with Christian monasticism is that of Pythagoras and the later neo-Pythagoreans.14 Pythagoras himself was a sixth-century (B.C.) philosopher and religious reformer who left no writings and of whom little is known with certainty.15 It is difficult to distinguish the original Pythagorean teaching from the later, more elaborate pictures given by Philostratus and Iamblichus.16 According to Iamblichus, admission into the Pythagorean community involved an extensive examination, a kind of postulancy and novitiate lasting several years. Those fully initiated wore a distinctive dress and followed a regular schedule. Goods were held in common. The goal of this ascetic life was to free the soul from the bonds of the body.17 Despite certain similarities and the presence of some of the terminology found in early Christian monasticism (askēsis, anachōrēsis, koinobion), there is no evidence of any direct influence of neo-Pythagoreanism upon early Christian monasticism. Indirect influences are possible. Works such as the Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus were widely circulated, and it is not impossible that Athanasius in his Life of Antony was deliberately attempting to portray a Christian ascetic motivated by a spirit quite different from that of the neo-Pythagoreans or other philosophical ascetics.18
The term “monastic” has also often been used by Western writers to describe the ascetic style of life found among the Hindus and Buddhists, and it is generally agreed that this style of life antedates the origins of Christian monasticism by several centuries at least. There is evidence of considerable contact between India and Alexandria, the most cosmopolitan city of the Hellenistic world.19 Hindu merchants formed a permanent colony at Alexandria, which is mentioned by ancient historians, and excavations there have turned up Buddhist emblems. The Buddha is mentioned by Clement of Alexandria, and the Brahmans are mentioned by various Greek writers, including Hippolytus of Rome.20 It has been suggested that some of the gnostic teachers, such as Basilides and Valentinian, were influenced by Buddhist doctrine.21 Bardesanes († A.D. 222) told of meeting an Indian ambassador in Edessa, from whom he learned about the Buddhist monasteries. This passage is quoted at length by Porphyry in a work with which Athanasius was probably familiar.22
In the early fifth century, Palladius composed a letter about the Brahmans in which he tells how, during his travels in Upper Egypt (and possibly Ethiopia), he met a lawyer from Thebes, who told him of spending six years of captivity in India, where he had learned of the Brahmans and their ascetic practices.23 This letter formed part of a treatise known as On the Races of India and the Brahmans, which circulated widely in the East and also in the West in Latin translation.24 It served to provide a pagan precedent for the new institution of monasticism and as such was apparently of interest to Christian monks. However, despite these numerous references to, and descriptions (often highly inaccurate) of, Eastern religious practices, there is no direct evidence that the latter inspired the origins of the Christian monastic movement.
It has also been argued that the Manichaean religion was an important influence in the development of Christian monasticism, especially in Syria and Mesopotamia.25 Mani had an explicitly syncretistic intention in founding his sect, and he may have borrowed extensively from Buddhist practices and ideals 26 Vööbus has argued that the “monastic” character of Manichaeism is derived from Buddhism and that this in turn heavily influenced the formation of Christian monasticism. The question of the extent of Manichaean influence in the development of Christian monasticism remains a disputed point.27 It is particularly questionable whether the “elect” of the Manichaean system can properly be described as monks at all.28
Another figure often mentioned in connection with the origins of Christian monasticism (although he is not properly classified as a non-Christian) is Hierakas, a Copt born about A.D. 275 in Leontopolis. Early in the fourth century, he assembled a circle to which only virgins, the continent and widowed persons could belong. His group included both men and women. He thought, among other things, that marriage was allowed in the Old Testament but that the new revelation of the Logos consisted in the prohibition of sex and marriage. Without complete abstinence one could not reach the kingdom of heaven. Hierakas’ teaching has a resemblance to the tendencies in Syria and Asia Minor that made celibacy a requirement for all Christians.29 Hierakas has been held up as an example of a widespread ascetic ideal or tendency in Egypt, suggesting a common background from which the other prominent figures of early Christian monasticism also sprang.30 This is perhaps a dubious generalization on the basis of one example. Our only knowledge of Hierakas and his group comes from Epiphanius, who includes him in his great collection of heresies (Epiph. pan. 67). Hierakas is perhaps more significant in that he provides an instance, as do others elsewhere, of the sharp distinction that could be made in the Church between ascetics who were orthodox and those who had deviated too far from the traditional teaching.
Although we have pointed out that there is no evidence of any direct connection between the various religious movements that have been mentioned and the rise of Christian monasticism, there may be numerous connections to be found in the general stock of popular ideas current in the late Hellenistic world, to which these movements had contributed and from which they were partially derived. This common fund of popular ideas was shared by early monastic writers. This is particularly true of the ideas lying behind various ascetical practices such as fasting.31 To illustrate this possibility by an analogy, one need only consider how the mental world of a modern Christian can be influenced, often unconsciously, by such diverse teachings as those of Marx, Darwin and Freud.
3. THE LITERATURE OF EARLY CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
The principal source of our knowledge of the origin of Christian monasticism lies in the literature that the movement produced. This literature includes biographies, collections of sayings, letters and homilies of various monks, ex professo treatments of the ascetic and monastic life, such as those of Basil, Evagrius and Cassian, and finally the works of historians.
The most important of the biographies is the Life of Antony, generally accepted as the work of Athanasius, who was bishop of Alexandria and therefore head of the Church in Egypt for almost fifty years in the middle of the fourth century. It was written soon after the death of Antony and was early translated into Latin. It quickly became the most important piece of propaganda for the monastic movement throughout the Christian world. The literary form of this document and the models Athanasius used remain a matter of discussion, but it is generally accepted as the first great work of Christian hagiography.32 More will be said of it below. A number of letters attributed to Antony also survive in ancient translations and are generally accepted as genuine.33 Sayings attributed to him may be found in the Apophthegmata Patrum, which are anonymous collections of sayings and anecdotes of famous monks compiled in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. These collections have come down to us in a number of ancient versions, which differ considerably among themselves. Of these, the most important in the West is the Latin collection known as the Verba Seniorum.34
Another category of monastic literature is composed of Pachomian materials. These include a number of lives of Pachomius and his successors in Greek, Coptic and Arabic. There is disagreement over which are the most important.35 There have also survived many writings of Pachomius himself and his immediate successors, Horsiesius and Theodore, in Coptic and partially in Latin. Knowledge of Pachomian monasticism passed into the West, however, primarily through St. Jerome’s translation of his rule from a Greek version. This rule influenced a number of pre-Benedictine rules in the West and the Rule of St. Benedict itself. Some additional information about the Pachomians may be found in the Lausiac History by Palladius. This work, originally written in Greek, was early translated into Latin and was very influential in spreading knowledge of Egyptian monasticism to the West. Its author had spent much time in Egypt, first as a monk and then as a bishop, where he gathered the stories that make up the collection. A
similar work, known as the Historia monachorum in Aegypto, was written originally in Greek, but has survived also in a longer Latin version attributed to Rufinus of Aquileia, a contemporary of Jerome and Cassian. It purports to be the record of a journey up the Nile at the end of the fourth century by a group of pilgrims interested in witnessing the phenomenon of Egyptian monasticism.
The extensive works of St. Basil himself provide the best source of knowledge about the form of monasticism he instituted in Asia Minor. The most important of these is the collection known as the Asceticon, which includes the longer and shorter rules.36 These were early translated into Latin (perhaps by Rufinus) and exercised considerable influence on Western monasticism. The works of Evagrius of Pontus and John Cassian also provide an important witness to the spirituality of Egyptian monasticism, especially at the end of the fourth century. The extent of Evagrius’ influence in the West, as well as the amount of his work translated into Latin, remains a much disputed point.37 The work of Cassian, originally written in Latin in southern Gaul, testifies perhaps as much to the adaptation of Egyptian monasticism in the West as it does to the original movement.38
There are also the works of the historians Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret of Cyrrhus. Socrates and Sozomen both wrote in the first half of the fifth century with the express intention of bringing the work of Eusebius up to date. The monastic movement is prominent in their histories, for which they used as sources the works mentioned above as well as others that have been lost. Theodoret, a contemporary of theirs in Syria, wrote a History of the Monks, which covers chiefly the area around Antioch.39
4. THE DEVELOPMENT OF MONASTICISM IN RELATION TO THE CHURCH
The more obvious roots of Christian monasticism are to be found in the teachings of the New Testament, with which the early monks showed exceptional familiarity,40 and in the changed relationship of the Church to society that developed in the fourth century. One aspect of this change was the cessation of the persecutions and the consequent acceptance of Christianity by the Roman empire. It should be mentioned, however, that the persecutions themselves have also been invoked as one cause of the rise of monasticism. The last persecutions — those of Decius in A.D. 240 and of Diocletian in 304 and following years — were particularly severe in Egypt. Many Christians fled to avoid martyrdom, and some of these would have formed a nucleus of desert ascetics. The hardships inevitably encountered by such fugitives would have contributed to the ascetic practices they then adopted.41 This is a difficult conjecture to assess, since we have no certain knowledge of any particular figures who adopted the anchoritic life as a result of flight from martyrdom. Indeed, according to his biographer, the first major figure in the monastic movement, Antony, went to Alexandria during the last persecution in the hope of achieving martyrdom (Vita Anton. 46).
The cessation of the persecutions, on the other hand, has also been cited as one of the factors that gave an impetus to the monastic movement. The monk came to replace the martyr as the hero of the early Church in its new triumphal condition. When the triumph of the Church drove the demons from the cities, the new heroes of the faith pursued them to the desert, there to engage in single-handed combat.42 This rather complex theme can be traced through several stages in the Patristic writings.43 The martyrs undoubtedly held first rank as the heroes of the early Church. They had made the ultimate sacrifice; like Jesus himself, they had laid down their lives. In the third century, we find the virgins placed in the same company as the martyrs by Origen, who interpreted the thirtyfold, sixtyfold and one hundredfold of the parable of the sower (Mark 4:8) to refer to the widows, virgins and martyrs (Orig. hom. in Iesu Nave 2,1). At the end of the third century, Methodius of Olympus calls the virgins martyrs (Meth. conviv. 7,3). Athanasius, in a speech placed in the mouth of Antony, cites the virgins and the martyrs as testimony to the faith and teaching of Christ (Vita Anton. 79).
This equation of the virgins with the martyrs led eventually to a new equation — that of monastic profession with baptism, or rather a second baptism.44 Martyrdom had earlier been seen as a substitute for baptism or, for those already baptized, as a second baptism. When the monastic life came to be equated with or placed on the same level as martyrdom, it was but a short step to compare monastic profession to baptism, as St. Jerome did in a famous letter to Paula concerning her daughter: “Only four months ago Blesilla, by the grace of Christ, was washed by a kind of second baptism, that of profession” (Hier. epist. 39,3-4). Just as baptism was held to forgive sins, so monastic profession came to be held to forgive sins. This idea seems to occur already in Athanasius’ Life of Antony, though without an explicit reference to monastic profession as a second baptism (Vita Anton. 65). There are innumerable references to this complex of ideas in later monastic literature, and it undoubtedly had some role in raising the monastic life to a level of high esteem and providing motivation for following it. To what extent the idea of monastic life as a replacement for martyrdom served to provide the original impetus for the monastic movement is, however, difficult to evaluate.
This idea is related, perhaps, to what we may call the reforming aspect of early Christian monasticism. The steady growth of the Church, especially in the periods of relative peace before and after the Decian persecution, had led to what contemporaries regarded as laxity in discipline. This view is evident already in the writings of Tertullian and particularly in the dispute that arose at the end of the Decian persecution over the reconciliation of the lapsi.45 When the persecutions ceased altogether in the early fourth century and Christianity became the object of imperial favor, the problem became more acute. In the course of the fourth century, the Church ceased to be a persecuted minority and became the state religion of the empire. Whereas formerly the Church had identified itself as a minority group often in opposition to the state, it now came to be identified with the state.46 By the end of the fourth century, the identification of Christian and citizen was virtually complete, and no non-Christian could hope for advancement in the imperial service.
Such a radical change of social position could not but influence the internal operation of the Church. Indeed, the emperors, beginning with Constantine himself, took a very active role in Church affairs, and the imperial family showered the Church with favors such as buildings and endowments. Even before the Council of Nicaea in 325, which Constantine called to settle matters of Church doctrine and discipline, privileges and exemptions from civil burdens had been conferred on all grades of the Christian clergy.47 In addition, bishops had been given jurisdiction in many instances.48 In A.D. 321, Sunday had been declared a public holiday. The Christian liturgy also began to show signs of that imperial pomp and splendor that Constantine himself loved to display.49 All this meant that there were now many additional reasons for becoming a Christian and even for seeking office in the Church other than simple faith in Jesus Christ.
While the identification of the Church with society led to a superficial dominance of society by the forms of Christianity, it also led to an invasion of the Church by the values of secular society (or the “world,” as the monastic literature called it), something perceived even by contemporaries.50 Since the opportunity for martyrdom no longer existed for those who wished to respond fully to the teaching and example of Christ, the development of monasticism may well have been in compensation for this, to provide an outlet for those who were not satisfied with a mediocre Christianity. Monasticism appears, then, against the background of the changes in the Church of the fourth century as a reform movement, or rather as a new form for the older Christian idea of reformation in Christ.51 This may be one of the principal reasons for the rapid development of monasticism.
5. ANACHŌRĒSIS AND THE EREMITICAL MOVEMENT
The term anachōrēsis, meaning ‘retirement’ or ‘withdrawal,’ has a pre-Christian history of usage in the sense of withdrawal into oneself. This idea can be found in numerous pagan philosophical writings of various schools.52 A tendency to retreat or withdraw from the world fo
r the sake of contemplation and peace of mind can be found in such varied writers as Cicero, Seneca, Dio Chrysostom, Marcus Aurelius and Plotinus. The notion of flight from the world and detachment from all things is quite explicit in the last. The idea is present also in Jewish and Christian writers such as Philo and Origen. In his life of Plotinus, Porphyry portrayed his master as loving to withdraw from the city. It has been suggested that Athanasius had this work in mind when he composed his Life of Antony. Certainly he portrayed Antony as the archetypical anchorite.53 But by this time anachōrēsis may have been almost a technical term for withdrawal from the world.
For the Christian who sought this retirement, however, there were other precedents. In Matt 14:13, it is said of Jesus that “he withdrew . . . into a desert place by himself.” The words used here are anachōrein and erēmos topos, which of course give rise in the monastic vocabulary to ‘anchorite’ and ‘hermit.’ In John 6:15, it is said that Jesus “withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” There was also the example Jesus had given by spending forty days in the desert engaged in fasting, prayer and spiritual combat (Matt 4:2-10). For the early Christian anchorites, it was this example that was primary, rather than that of the pagan philosophers, of whom most had probably not even heard.54
The question of who the first Christians were who took up this life of retirement or anachōrēsis was disputed in antiquity and remains surrounded by obscurity today. The earliest example of a Christian hermit known by name is provided by Eusebius, who tells the story of a bishop of Jerusalem named Narcissus. The latter lived at the beginning of the third century. He became so upset because of the slander he suffered on account of his virtuous conduct that he withdrew and lived many years in the deserts and remote regions. He returned during the rule of his third successor and, according to Eusebius, caused great amazement on account of his anachōrēsis and his “philosophic” conduct of life (Eus. hist.eccles. 6,10).55 Whether or not this qualifies as an example of the later withdrawal for ascetic motives is dubious. Eusebius does not cite it as an example of a movement.
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