The Monasteries of Saint Anthony and Saint Paul by The

The American Benedictine review. [Atchison, KS, etc.] : American Benedictine Review, inc. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015077514894 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#cc-by-nc-nd-3.0 This work is protected by copyright law (which includes certain exceptions to the rights of the copyright holder that users may make, such as fair use where applicable under U.S. law), but made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license. You must attribute this work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Only verbatim copies of this work may be made, distributed, displayed, and performed, not derivative works based upon it. Copies that are made may only be used for non-commercial purposes. Please check the terms of the specific Creative Commons license as indicated at the item level. For details, see the full license deed at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. CHRONICLE: A JOURNEY TO THE INTERIOR: THE MONASTERIES OF SAINT ANTONY AND SAINT PAUL BY THE RED SEA Tim Vivian Journeying to the interior is both physical fact and spiritual re ality in early Christian monasticism, especially in Egypt, where the physical interior is clearly marked and life-threatening. The attacks of the demons in the Life of Antony demonstrate that the spiritual interior can also be dangerous. For millennia Egyptians have lived and died by the Nile: the country is green and well-wa tered where the great River and its tributaries flow; then there is a narrow strip, mostly arid, a border zone that divides the habit able region from what lies beyond; next is the desert, hundreds and hundreds of miles where there is virtually no water and very little vegetation. Except for the inhabitants of sparsely populated oases and a few nomadic Bedouin, no one lives here now or lived here in ancient times. In the third and fourth centuries, however, a few hearty follow ers of Christ crossed over the border and journeyed to the inte rior, seeking to confront God, the Devil, and themselves in ways they considered not practical or possible within the cultivated re gions. Such persons, like Saint Onnophrius (Abu Nofer), naked with his long beard serving as clothing, became heroes of the monastic endeavor and were immortalized in Egypt in both story and paintingl; Onnophrius even crossed the Mediterranean as a saint, becoming an important figure in both Italy and Spain (San Onofrio).2 Tim Vivien is an Episcopal priest and independent scholar. His most recent work is The Life of the Jura Fathers (Cistercian, 1999). He may be reached at 10105 Mountaingate Lane, Bakersfield, CA 93311-2778 or at StOri [email protected]. 1For his story, see the Life of Onnophrius in Tim Vivian, trans., Histories of the Monks of Upper Egypt and the Life of Onnophrius (Kalamazoo: Cis tercian 1993) 143-66. 2See J.M. Sauget, “Onofrio,” Bibliotheca sanctorum 9 (1967) 1187-97, and C.A. Williams, Oriental Afflnities of the Legend of the Hairy Anchorite 2 vols. (Urbana: U of Illinois P 1925-26). 277 The most famous of all these spiritual desert explorers is Saint Antony the Great (251-356), one of the most important figures of ancient Christianity. Late in the third century, around 270, Antony had a conversion experience calling him to the ascetic life (Life ofAntony 2); after spending some time as an ascetic near his village, Antony began a series of movements to the interior. At first he lived in a tomb “that lay at a distance" from his village (Life 8.1), fighting the Devil and his minions. Then, in 285, he: journeyed to “the outer mountain,” Mount Pispir (Deir el Maimoun), about 75 km. south of Memphis on the east bank of the Nile; here he continued his asceticism and attracted numer ous disciples. Wenty-eight years later, in 313, Antony journeyed into full desert, stopping finally at Mount Colzim, “the inner mountain.”3 In Egypt, as mentioned above, the Nile is the center of geogra phy. Away from it is desert; beyond that is the “further” or “re moter” desert.4 Therefore, although the Nile is in the center of the country, to move away from it is to journey not to the exterior, as we would think, but to the interior, to the desert. The early monks saw this interior wilderness as both geographical and spir itual reality where they confronted the aridity of the earth and of the heart. But in this desert the monk, as new Adam and Eve, also found paradise regained.5 In this interior Antony found a wa ter source and a cave and prepared a garden (Life 49-50). Here he would spend the rest of his life. Fame, and disciples, followed him, however, and he journeyed back and forth between Colzim and Pispir to minister to the crowds calling on him. Shortly after Antony’s death, a monastic community was founded around his 3The Life of Antony refers to both the “outer” (exé) mountain, Pispir (54.6, 61.1, 63.1, and 91.1), where there was a community of disciples, and to the “inner” (eso, endon) mountain, Colzim (51.1, 91.1), where he lived, which becomes just “the mountain" (55.1, 60.1). Both occur in 91.1: as his life drew to a close, Antony wanted to thwart attempts to mummify his body and so “shared his plans with the monks on the outer mountain [en toe exo orei] and then hastened away. So he went to the inner mountain [to endon arcs] and remained there, as was his custom.” Numerical references to the Life are to the Greek text edited by G.J.M. Bartelink, Vie D’Antoine, Sources Chrétiennes 400 (Paris: Cerf 1994) 123-377. 4See Historia Monachorum 1.44-45; The Lives of the Desert Fathers, trans. Norman Russell (Kalamazoo: Cistercian 1981) 59. 5See Tim Vivian, Journeying into God: Seven Early Monastic Lives (Min neapolis: Fortress 1996) 166-87. 278 ABR 50:3 - SEPT. 1999 memory and the sanctity that he had given to the mountain; this early foundation would eventually become Deir Anba Antunius, the Monastery of Saint Antony, a community that flourishes to day deep in the interior of the Egyptian desert.6 Thousands of Coptic pilgrims, the lineal and spiritual children of Antony’s late antique Egypt, come to Saint Antony’s each year, most to visit the famous cave of Saint Antony, but the monastery, despite Antony’s renown, is relatively unknown in the West.7 That may soon change. Saint Antony’s is the home of a series of remarkable wall paintings that date to 1232-33 and have no fully extant parallel in the monasteries of Egypt. For centuries West erners have known of these paintings, and scholars and travelers have studied and written about them over the years, but they have seen through a glass darkly: nearly eight centuries of dirt and smoke had colored the paintings black and made them al most invisible. But now they are being cleaned and restored. The Antiquities Development Project (ADP) of the American Research Center in Egypt, funded by USAID, has undertaken the cleaning and restoration by a team of Italian conservators, a task that has just been completed. As part of the endeavor, a book on Saint Antony, the monastery, and the wall paintings, is being prepared by an international team of scholars, led by Elizabeth S. (Betsy) Bolman and supervised by Michael Jones, head of the ADP.8 To my great delight, Dr. Bolman asked me to participate in the pro ject, so for one week in 1998, March 29-April 5, two years after my visit to the monasteries of the Wadi al-Natrun,9 Betsy and I went to the monasteries of Saint Antony and Saint Paul by the Red Sea. Like Onnophrius and Antony, I was able, however briefly and incompletely, to make my own journey to the interior. 6For more on Antony see Vincent Desprez, “Saint Antony and the Begin nings ofAnchoritism,” ABR 43 (1992) 61-81 and 141-72. 7As recently as 1952, Jean Doresse could describe Saint Antony’s and Saint Paul’s as “forgotten”; see his “Deux monasteres coptes oubliés,” La Re vue des Arts 2 (1952) 3-14. 8See Elizabeth S. Bolman, ed. (provisional title), Monastic Visions: The Wall Paintings at the Monastery of Saint Antony by the Red Sea (forthcom ing). 9See Tim Vivian, “The Monasteries ofthe Wadi Natrun, Egypt: A Monas tic and Personal Journey,”ABR 49:1 (1998) 3-32. TIM VIVIAN 279 Leaving the World We left Cairo the afternoon of the 29th and traveled east on Highway 44 for 118 kilometers, turning south short of Suez. The traditional route, taken by earlier travelers who have left ac counts (see below) was to take the highway south from Cairo to Beni Suef, then turn east. The coastal route, however, seems to be preferred now. Near Suez, we traveled another 106 kilometers south until we reached the lighthouse at Zafarana, where we turned west at a military checkpoint onto Highway 54 for 45 kilo meters. This highway cuts through the Wadi Arabah that lies be tween the northern and southern Galala mountain ranges. About fifteen minutes before we reached Saint Antony’s, we saw a sign in Arabic and English indicating the turnoff to the monastery, 17 kilometers distant. In 1884, the Jesuit priest Michel Jullien made the journey to Saint Antony’s and Saint Paul’s under very different circum stances by camel caravan.10 We had a very comfortable trip by au tomobile.

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