THE BYZANTINE HOLY PERSON: THE CASE OF AND JOHN OF GAZA1

Aryeh Kofsky (University of Haifa, Israel)

The Monastic Circle of Gaza

In this study I will try to evaluate a certain evolution in the figure of the Christian holy person that took place in the monastic circle of Gaza in the sixth century, thus indicating some nuances in the multi- faceted picture of the holy person in Late Antiquity and Early Byzan- tium, especially as it evolved during the last three decades of the seminal studies of Peter Brown.2 Monastic life flourished in the region

1 This research was supported by The Israel Science Foundation founded by The Israel Academy of Science and Humanities. 2 P. Brown, ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity’, in: idem, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford 1982, 103–152; idem, ‘The as Exemplar’, Representation 1 (1983) 1–25; idem, Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman World, Cambridge 1995, 57–78. For assessments of the evolution of Brown’s view of the holy person in Late Antiquity, see S. Elm, ‘Introduction’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 6 (1998) 343–351; S. Ash- brook Harvey, ‘The Stylite’s Liturgy: Ritual and Religious Identity in Late Anti- quity’, ibid., 523–524. And see Brown’s own assessment, ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity, 1971–1997’, ibid., 353–376. Brown’s model was founded primarily on evidence from Syria, Asia Minor, and—to a lesser extent— Palestine. According to Brown the different situation in stems from the harsh reality of the desert, where the clear-cut separation between the desert and the inhabited land caused a closing up of Egyptian hermitic monasticism in a struggle for survival (‘Rise and Function of the Holy Man’, 109). On the group segregation of Egyptian hermitic monasticism and its concern not to exercise its spiritual influence beyond its narrow circle, see P. Rousseau, ‘The Spiritual Authority of the “- ”: Eastern Elements in Some Western Hagiography of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries’, Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 22 (1971) 397. But this monastic segre- gation can also be viewed as a rhetorical means of reconciling in the texts the ten- sion between episcopal and ascetic authority in Egypt. See J.E. Goehring, ‘The Encroaching Desert: Literary Production and Ascetic Space in Early Christian Egypt’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 1 (1993) 281–296; D. Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of , Oxford 1995. Brown’s reconstruction also does not explain the figure of a holy man, notably Pachomius, in Egyptian cenobitic monasticism. See M.S. Burrows, ‘On the Visibility of God in the Holy Man: A Reconsideration of the Role of the Apa in the Pachomian Vitae’, Vigiliae Christianae 41 (1987) 11–33. 262 aryeh kofsky of Gaza from the fourth century to the seventh. As with the first known monk of Palestine, Hilarion, a native of the region, the monas- tic influence of Egypt and its environs was felt throughout the period.3 Nevertheless, Gaza monasticism assumed an independent character, reflected in the outstanding personalities and ascetic writings that emerged especially in the fifth and sixth centuries.4 Troubles at Scetis, the center of Egyptian desert monasticism, at the end of the fourth century and beginning of the fifth led many to seek monas- tic life elsewhere.5 The immigration of monks from Egypt, among them such distinguished spiritual leaders as Abba and Barsanu- phius during the fifth and sixth centuries led in fact to the transfer of the monastic intellectual center from Scetis to Gaza. Gaza may also have become an important center for the forma- tion and transmission of the Sayings of the (Apophthegmata Patrum) tradition.6 In the mid-fifth century Gaza monasticism became a core of monophysite resistance led by the Georgian monk Peter, otherwise known as Peter the Iberian, and by his friend Abba Isaiah of Egypt.7 Abba Isaiah lived in seclusion, maintaining contact with the outside world only through a —perhaps partly by letters of spiritual direction8—yet at the same time continuing the supervi-

3 On Egyptian monastic relations with Palestinian monasticism, see S. Rubenson, ‘The Egyptian Relations of Early Palestinian Monasticism’, in: A. O’Mahony, G. Göran, and K. Hintlian (eds), The Christian Heritage in the Holy Land, London 1995, 35–46. 4 For general surveys of Gaza monasticism, see D.J. Chitty, The Desert a City: An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism under the Christian Empire (Oxford 1966) 72–77, 103–105, 132–140; L. Perrone, ‘Monasticism in the Holy Land: From the Beginnings to the Crusades’, Proche-orient chrétien 45 (1995) 48–52; idem, ‘I Padri del monachesimo di Gaza (IV–VI sec.): la fedeltà allo spirito delle origini’, La Chiesa nel Tempo 13 (1997) 87–116; B. Bitton-Ashkelony and A. Kofsky, ‘Gaza Monasticism in the Fourth-Sixth Centuries: From Anchoritic to Cenobitic’, Proche-orient chretién (forthcoming). 5 H.G. Evelyn-White, The History of the Monasteries of Nitria and Scetis, New York 1932, 150–167; D.J. Chitty, The Desert a City, 66–74. 6 L. Regnault, ‘Les Apophtegmes des Pères en Palestine aux Ve–VIe siècles’, Irénikon 54 (1981), 320–330; idem, Les Pères du désert à travers leurs Apophtegmes, Solesmes 1987, 73–83. For a general discussion on the question of the place of redaction of the Apophthegmata, see Chitty, The Desert a City, 60–61; idem, ‘The Books of the Old Men’, Eastern Churches Review 6 (1974) 16–17; G. Gould, The Desert Father on Monastic Community, Oxford 1993, 1–25. 7 See A. Kofsky, ‘Peter the Iberian: Pilgrimage, Monasticism and Ecclesiastical Politics in Byzantine Palestine’, Liber Annuus 47 (1997) 209–222; Bitton-Ashkelony and Kofsky, ‘Gazan Monasticism’. 8 L. Regnault, Abbé Isaïe, Recueil ascétique, Abbaye de Bellfontaine 19853, Introduction,