John Chryssavgis
Aspects of Spiritual Direction: The Palestinian Tradition
Introduction There is no subject more essential and at the same time more misunderstood - most crucial and most critical alike - than that of spiritual authority. The various dimensions and problems of spiritual authority comprise a central aspect of the church which has not been meticulously charted in either ecclesiastical or academic circles. Consequently, there is a surprising sparsity of information in the patristic tradition on the aberrations in attitude or the abuses in action on the part of the •elder• in the relationship of spiritual direction. Even the primary sources that deal with the particular qualities or charisms necessary for the practice of spiritual fatherhood 1 are not in fact concerned with the potential dangers or potent effects of pseudo-direction. The Christian classics of spiritual literature will not normally undermine the responsibilitiesproper to the director, but they will rarely underline the results of improper direction. Only general advice will be offered by the Church Fathers against the possible harm in: submitting oneself to a master without experience, or to one still subject to the passions, because he might initiate one into the diabolical life instead of the evangelical. 2
The "two old men•: Barsanuphiusand John The great age of Palestinian monasticism constitutes a link between the earlier Egyptian movements of the third-fourth centuries and the later Byzantine developments of the seventh-eighth centuries. Monastic life flourished in Palestine during the fifth and sixth centuries, coming to an end in 638 when Jerusalem fell to the Arabs and the centres of monasticism shifted to the West and to Asia Minor. The two main regions of Palestinian monastic life were the area from the Holy City of Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, and Gaza. It is in the latter region that a monk named Barsanuphius, himself an ascetic from Egypt, settles with a disciple named Seridos. When others gradually gather around these two charismatic men, a monastery is built and Seridos is appointed abbot. Barsanuphius moves to a cell sometime between the years 525-527 and leads a solitary life, receiving only abba Seridos for personal counsel. Very soon afterwards another hermit named John - of whose background we know less - assumes a similar life in a nearby cell. They both die around the middle of the sixth century, sometime between 543-546.
1 The basic study on spiritual fatherhood remains that by I. Hausherr, SpiritualDirection in the Early ChristianEast (Kalamazoo 1990; originally in French: Rome 1955). See esp. ch. 8 on "the efficacy of spiritual direction", 243-266. 2 Cf. Symeon the New Theologian, The Practical Chapters(Kalamazoo 1982), 33-34.
The Sixth Century - End or Beginning? ed. P. Allen and E.M. Jeffreys, Byzantina Australiensia 10 (Brisbane 1996), 126-130. Aspects of Spiritual Direction: The Palestinian Tradition 127
Barsanuphius and John in their cells see no one, only advising people through messages delivered in the form of written questions and answers. In this way they guide not only the nearby monastery but also numerous daily visitors from afar. Barsanuphius, known as •the great old man•, is more spiritual in his responses; John, known simply as ·the other old man•, deals with more practical matters. Sometimes they just say: •go and ask the other old man•. Often twentieth-century scholars, indeed sometimes the primary sources themselves, tend to emphasise the more extraordinary qualities of the early desert-dwellers. However, Barsanuphius and John are normally less spectacular: they are not the eccentric miracle• workers,3 but the practical advisers; they are not extreme ascetics,4 but offer instead balanced teaching and positive hope; they are not speculative mystics or charismatic visionaries,5 preferring rather to encourage and edify people in their daily struggle. Some 850 pieces from this religious correspondence survive, a living testimony of men and women inquiring at the time about diverse aspects of the spiritual life. The questions addressed to the elders come from clergy and laity. They range in content from personal temptations to interpersonal relationships, from spiritual issues of joy or depression to practical matters of property and employment, from social questions concerning Jews and pagans to superstitious themes such as magic, from theological and liturgical directions to questions dealing with talking in church or taking a bath. Barsanuphius and John have behind them two centuries of ascetic experience in the tradition of the Desert Fathers. Their spirituality is in the succession of the earlier inhabitants of Nitria, Scetis and Kellia. Indeed in the wonderful expression of Lucien Regnault, the French translator of these as yet unedited letters, •What the Sayings of the Desert Fathers let us glimpse only in the form of transitory flashes, is here played out before our very eyes like a film•. 6
Direction and Submission: a course by co"espondence In their Letters, the two elders are clear and convinced about one matter: the need for spiritual direction and for submission to a spiritual guide. We all need an adviser; no one can travel the journey alone. This legacy they have bequeathed to their own disciple, Dorotheus of Gaza, •oo you know someone who has fallen? Well, you can be certain
3 There are nonetheless certain miracles attributed to their power: see Letters 1, 43, 47, 124, 171, 227, 510, 581 and 781. The letters are in Greek, though Barsanuphius himself was certainly a Copt. See the Greek text cited by S. Schoinas (Volos 1960), originally edited by St Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, ~<; VUX<*A£mCffl'l1t£PteXOOOa aru>lq)\(1£1.<; ... aury~taa µtv 1tapa O