THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA Palladius and Ascetic Social Engagement A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Theology and Religious Studies Of The Catholic University of America In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy © Copyright All Rights Reserved By Robert M. Simkins Washington, D.C. 2013 Palladius and Ascetic Social Engagement Robert M. Simkins, Ph.D. Director: Philip Rousseau, D.Phil. Around 420 CE, Palladius wrote the Lausiac History, a collective biography recounting his travels amongst the desert communities of Egypt and Palestine. The text was written in response to a specific request from Lausus, who was the praepositus sacri cubiculi in the court of Emperor Theodosius II. Lausus desired to hear of the lives of the ascetic men and women Palladius had encountered in the desert. The text Palladius produced provides a vivid and personal narrative of the monastic successes and failures that he had witnessed, meshing narratives of miraculous deeds alongside tales cautioning against overzealousness and boasting. While scholarly interest in Palladius has increased in recent years, most scholars have been content to use individual anecdotes from the work in the service of their larger arguments on the ascetic life, rather than undertake a comprehensive analysis of the Lausiac History as a whole. This thesis provides such an analysis, examining Palladius’ critique of the ascetic life through attention to the text’s narrative construction and comparison between Palladius’ ascetic ideals and those of the tradition that preceded him. I conclude that Palladius’ narrative offers a reassessment of the ascetic ideal through an emphasis on ascetic struggle while de-emphasizing the location in which the ascetic life took place. As such, he strives to relocate the ascetic life from the desert to the city. His text was to serve as a guide towards the development of a Christian life of charitable ministry that was built upon self-knowledge and communal teaching. Using eye-witness accounts of ascetic failure, Palladius presents a critique that challenges previously held views on the necessity of living a life of severe austerity while isolated from larger society. His critique centers upon the damaging and delusional effects of pride, which tempts the ascetic to posit his own effort as the cause of his success. Palladius helps us to understand better the shifting landscape of asceticism in the early-fifth century as Christians increasingly resided in urban centers and sought a means to live spiritual lives that followed in Christ’s footsteps. This dissertation by Robert M. Simkins fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in Historical Theology approved by Philip Rousseau, D.Phil., as Director, and by James Wiseman, O.S.B., S.T.D., and Wendy Mayer D.Phil., as Readers. Philip Rousseau, D.Phil., Director James Wiseman, O.S.B., S.T.D., Reader Wendy Mayer, D.Phil., Reader ii Contents Chapter 1. The Desire to Write……………………………………………………………….... 1 Reflections on the Ascetic Life………………………………………………….. 6 Figures both Influential and Contentious……………………………………….. 15 Exile and an Imperial Audience………………………………………………… 26 2. Life in the Desert: Understanding God’s Providence…………………………… 36 Beginning his Desert Life………………………………………………………. 39 The Path to Ascetic Failure…………………….……………………………….. 46 Deconstructing his Desert Failure…………….………………………………… 55 Abandonment by God and the Will of the Ascetic...….……………......………. 75 Conclusion...……………………………….………………………………..….. 85 3. Differences in Transmission……………………………………………………… 87 The Egyptian Desert……………………………………………………………. 92 The Beginning of the Ascetic Life in the Life of Antony…………………….…. 95 Augustine and the Life of Antony……………………………………………… 102 Summary…………………………………………………………….………… 105 The Desert Tradition Encountered by Palladius………………………………. 107 4. Out of Solitude and into Community…………………………………………… 119 Subverting Pride through Moderated Askesis……………………….……..…. 121 Ascetic Transformation: Antony, Syncletica, and Palladius………………….. 138 iii 5. Ascetic Social Engagement………………………………………………………. 148 Humility as Communal Endeavor……………………………………………... 150 Life on the Fringes versus Life in Society…………………………………….. 154 Ascetics and Ordination……………………………………………………….. 171 Social Engagement and God’s Grace…………………………………………. 176 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………. 182 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….. 187 iv Chapter 1 The Desire to Write In the early months of 407 CE, Palladius, the exiled bishop of Helenopolis, sat in a dark cell and recalled the prophetic words of John of Lycopolis, who had warned him of the suffering he would endure if he left the desert and became a bishop. Palladius had been exiled by the emperor Arcadius to Syene, a remote outpost in southern Egypt, after he had appealed to Pope Innocent I in Rome following the trial of John Chrysostom.1 Chrysostom had found himself on the losing side of a battle between himself, Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, and the empress Eudoxia.2 Exiled multiple times, he would ultimately succumb to exhaustion as his military escort marched him with little rest through extreme climates.3 John Chrysostom died on 14 September 407 CE while Palladius was imprisoned.4 As Palladius endured his banishment, he understood that God’s providence had played a role in the events leading to his exile and Chrysostom’s death. What he did not know was precisely what role providence had played. He reflected on John of Lycopolis’ warning. Had Palladius been led to the episcopacy out of his 1 The events surrounding Palladius’ appeal of Chrysostom’s exile are detailed in Palladios, Dialogue sur la vie de Jean Chrysostome (henceforward Dial.), introduction, texte critique, traduction et notes par Anne-Marie Malingrey, Sources Chrétiennes, 341 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1988). ET by Robert T. Meyer, Palladius: Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom, Ancient Christian Writers, 45 (New York: Newman Press, 1985). All translations are those of Meyer unless otherwise indicated. On the location of Palladius’ exile see Dial., 20.41-42. 2 Soc., Hist. eccles., 6.15-18; Sozom, Hist. eccles., 8.16. For a detailed account of these events, see J.N.D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: the Story of John Chrysostom – ascetic, preacher, bishop, esp. pp. 238-43. Liebeschuetz has attempted to provide nuance to these arguments in regard to John’s condemnation relative to his relationship with Eudoxia. See J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and State in the Age of Arcadius and Chrysostom, esp. pp. 195-208. 3 Dial., 11. 4 Soc., Hist. eccles., 6.21. 1 2 own vainglory? Or had God set him on this path as a means towards the achievement of greater virtue? He would spend eleven months in this cell, giving him ample time to contemplate these questions. After his release, Palladius renewed his travels around Egypt and eventually made his way back to his native Galatia. Little more than a decade after being exiled, Palladius, now the bishop of Aspuna,5 received a request from Lausus, the praepositus sacri cubiculi in the court of Theodosius II.6 As part of what may have been an imperial attempt at reconciliation with Chrysostom’s supporters,7 Lausus requested that Palladius write for him an account of the monks Palladius had met during his time living in the desert.8 Lausus appears to have met Palladius in 391 CE while Palladius was in Egypt9 and he now sought a renewal of their acquaintance in the guise of a text on ascetic living. With the emperor Theodosius II just beginning to take full command of his duties and with the animosities of the previous regime towards Chrysostom’s supporters nearly at an end, the time may have seemed right to quell any lingering hostilities between the imperial court and 5 Soc., Hist. eccles., 7.36. 6 On the role of the praepositus, see James E. Dunlap, “The Office of the Grand Chamberlain in the Later Roman and Byzantine Empires,” in Two Studies in Later Roman and Byzantine Administration, pp. 161-314. 7 Claudia Rapp, “Palladius, Lausus and the Historia Lausiaca,” in Novum Millennium: Studies on Byzantine History and Culture dedicated to Paul Speck, pp. 279-89. 8 Palladius, Historia Lausiaca (henceforward HL), edited by Cuthbert Butler, The Lausiac History of Palladius, Texts and Studies, vi, parts 1 and 2. Unless otherwise stated, all translations are by Robert T. Meyer, Palladius: the Lausiac History, and all page references to Butler are to the second part of Texts and Studies, vi. References to the HL will follow the paragraph numbering used by Meyer. 9 In the closing passages of the History Palladius says to Lausus, “Pray for me, and keep yourself as I knew you from the consulate of Tatian” (HL, 71.6, Butler, ed., p. 169, Meyer, tr., p. 154). On the problems with the dating of this meeting see Butler pp. 246-47. Presumably, Lausus had also undertaken a journey to the Holy Land in search of the monastic life and this is when he and Palladius met. However, we know nothing about Lausus’ time in Egypt nor why he chose to forego this life for imperial service. Cf. Rapp, “Palladius, Lausus and the Historia Lausiaca,” pp. 282-83. 3 the Christian bishops who had defended him. The text Palladius produced, subsequently named the Lausiac History after its recipient, remains one of the more vivid and personal accounts of asceticism in the late-fourth and early-fifth centuries. Written as a travelogue and mixed with second-hand anecdotes of well-known ascetic men and women, the text recounts Palladius’ wandering amongst desert communities and his recurring struggle with health and motivation as he sought spiritual perfection in the Holy Land. Amongst the miracle stories, whose type would be familiar to most readers of ascetic texts, Palladius interspersed narratives of monks who had fallen victim to pride and licentiousness. These stories, somewhat peculiar for the genre, give Palladius’ work a degree of nuance rarely found in other works of his time and serve as illustrations that even ascetics striving for God sometimes found themselves falling victim to the same temptations that their time in the desert was intended to eliminate.