James M. Robinson, the Pachomian Monastic

( +< The PachomianMonastic Lrbrary at the ChesterBeattv Ltbnrv and the Bibliothèque Bodmer fu JamesM. Robinson 'No The first Christian monastic order was founded in one would do anything in the house without Upper Egypt by Pachomiusearly in the Fourth Cen- permission from those in charge. not even visit a tury. What was left of its library was buried in the brother in his cell. In each house.the housemasteror Seventh Century, to judge by the date of the latest the secondkeeps all the surplus clothings locked in a material produced(ac. 1494,item 6 in the Inventory of cell until the brothers need them to wash and put on Pachomianletters, a small papyrus roll containing an again those they are using. The books. which were in archival copy of Horsiesios' Letter 3 in Sahidic). It an alcove,were also under the care of thesetwo. The was discovered late in 1952 in Upper Egypt near brothers have no money, still less anything of gold: Dishnà, and henceis referredto locally as the Dishna some of them died having never known such things. Papers,though it has been known to scholarsup to Only thoseentrusted with a ministry usedmoney r and the present primarily as the Bodmer Papyri. This when they returned to the monastery they kept nomenclaturehas obscuredthe fact that much of the nothing with themselvesfor a single day and gave material is scatteredamong someseven other reposito- everything to the steward until they might go out ries1,of which the ChesterBeatty Library is the most again. And all that governmentis written in detail in important. I would like to lay this fascinating story the book of the stewards.' before you by describingfirst the PachomianMonas- What is here referredto as the book of the stewards tery Library, then the Discoveryand Marketing of the is apparently the extant Preceptsawhere a rather Library, then the Acquisition by Sir Chester Beatty massiveliteracy program is envisagedand occasional and Martin Bodmer, followed by an Inventory of the referencesto books and to the Library occur(PrecepÍ.s approximatecontents of the Library. To the Endnotes 139,140, 82, 100, 101)s: 'Whoever is appendeda Postscriptdescribing how the basicfacts entersthe monasteryuninstructed shall be about the discoveryand marketing of the library were taught first what he must observe; and when, so established. taught, he has consentedto it all, they shall give him twenty psalms or two of the Apostle's epistles, or someother part of the Scripture.And if he is illiterate. he shall go at the first. third, and sixth hours to l. The PachomianMonasterl' Library someonewho can teach and has been appointed for him. He shall stand before him and learn very stu- Right after the conversion of the Roman Empire diously with all gratitude.Then the fundamentalsof a Pachomiusfounded the first monastic order of Chris- syllable,the verbs,and nouns shall be written for him, tianity. It would be anachronisticto make inferences and evenif he doesnot want to. he shall be comoelled about its library from medievalmonastic libraries. But to read.' 'There something can be inferred from the Pachomian shall be no one whatever in the monastery Order's own legendsand rules. who does not learn to read and does not memorize The First Greek Lfe oí Pachomius63 gives some something of the Scriptures. [One should learn by information about how books were viewed in the heart] at leastthe New Testamentand the Psalter.' 'No PachomianOrder2: one shall have in his own possessionlittle 'He [Pachomius]also usedto teach the brothers not tweezersfor removing thorns he may have steppedon. to give heed to the splendor and the beauty of this Only the housemasterand the secondshall have them. world in things like good food, clothing, a cell, or a and they shall hang in the alcove in which books are book outwardly pleasingto the eye.' placed.' 'No The First Greek L,fe of Pachomius 59 gives some one shall leave his book unfastenedwhen he impressionof a PachomianLibrary3: goesto Íhe svnaxisor to the refectorv.' Manuscriptsofthe Middle East 5 (1990-1991) ! TeÍ Lugt Press.Donkersteeg 19.2312 HA Leiden.Netheriands. 1993 ISSN0920-0401 JAMESM. ROBINSON.THE PACHOMIANMONASTIC LIBRARY 21 'Every day at evening, the second shall bring the codex was to cut a roll into a stack of sheetsand fold books from the alcoveand shut them in their case.' the stack down the middle, a procedurethat produced Official lettersof Pachomiusin Coptic were transla- no growing edgesthat needed to be cut apart. The ted into Greek and then in 404 C.E. translated by very fact that this codex was not fully inscribed has Jerome into Latin. Only the Latin translation has left this aberration in the manufacturing procedure survived, copied down through the centuriesfor the intact. The codexwas apparentlyproduced outside the edificationof Europeanmonks. The Coptic and Greek main tradition of book manufacture. or in any case letters have not been seensince - until, at the same made use of a technique that did not gain general time, from the same dealer,and (with but one excep- acceptance. tion) at the same repositoriesas the Dishna Papers, Another experimentat economy is ac. 2554 (Inven- they suddenly reappeared.The inference seems in- tory item 28), a largely uninscribed and unbound escapablethat they were part of the same discovery. folded stack of sheetsconstructed by pasting face to As a matter of fact, the site of the discoverynear the face two usedrolls and cutting them into the sheetsof foot of the Jabal Abu Maná' was in full view of the a quire, on whose unbound leaves administrative headquartersmonastery of the Pachomian Order, at recordshad begun to be inscribed.with the result that the foot of the cliff to which funeral processions such a makeshift quire, left still largely uninscribed, moved from the monastery,itself not above the inun- would provide writing material that would not have dation level, to bury their dead on higher ground, been expensiveat all. according to their records, and apparently to secrete It may be no coincidencethat much of the material their Library or Archives as well. High up in the Wádi of the highestquality in the coilectionis older than the Shaykh Ah there is an overhang cut by a prehistoric PachomianOrder itself, suggestingthat it enteredthe torrent that is everywhereinscribed in scrawling red Library as gifts from outside,perhaps contributed by paint with the graffiti of pious monks. prosperouspersons entering the Order. This might be The holdings of the Chester Beatty Library that the most obvious way to explain non-Christian texts come from the jar at the foot of the cliff. and even in a monastic library. such as the Homeric and before that from the little alcove in the Pachomian Menander material. But some such explanationis aiso monasterywhere the tweezerswere kept. give a direct neededfor such excellentearly Greek New Testament impressionof the primitivenessof some of the books texts as P. Bodmer II (P 66, the Gospel of John, that made up the Library. Inventory item 3), and P. Bodmer XIV-XV (P 75, the The eight leavesof ac. 1390 (Inventory item 23) Gospelsof Luke and John, Inventory item 8), where begin with a school-boy's Greek exercisesin solid one might even think of Athanasius living in hiding geometry that rendered the rest of the quire of little with the Order while in exile as the source of such financial value. the kind of material a Pachomian gifts. monastery might be able to afford. On the empty The bulk of Christian codices date from the first pagesa few chaptersof the Gospel of John in Coptic century of the Pachomian Order's existence,namely were written in a non-literary,cursive hand, beginning the early Fourth to the early Fifth Century, and often in the middle of a sentence.This may be explainable present the competenceof a trained scriptorium, as the placewhere the mutilated text being copied had though without adornment. But there is no specific begun. Or perhaps ac. 1390 was one in a seriesof indication that they came from a singlescriptorium or cheapwriting materials,the only one to have survived, that such a scriptorium belongedto the Order. onto which the complete Gospel was copied. The Some texts in the collection. such as some of the preceding(lost) writing surface on which the Gospel archival copies of letters from Pachomian Abbots. was being copied would have endedin the middle of a again suggest,in the primitiveness of the material verse, which would explain why the text that has employed, that the usual standards of a scriptorium survived begins there,just where the other happened were lacking. Ac. 1486,an archival copy of a Coptic to break off. Thus ac. 1390may give someinsight into letter from the PachomianAbbot Theodore (item 4 in the limitations of the monastic effort to build its the Inventory of Pachomianletters), was written in the collection. Fifth or Sixth Century on a long thin irregular skin, A similar impression of primitiveness may be obviously the leg of an animal that could not be used conveyedby the largely uninscribed ac. 1499 (Inven- to produce leavesfor a codex. ChesterBeatty Ms. W. tory item 25) containing a Greek grammar and a 145 (item 3 in the Inventory of Pachomian letters) Graeco-Latin lexicon for decipheringPauline epistles. makes a similar impression. It is a Fourth Century One of the uninscribedquires of this codex has leaves copy of a letter of Pachomius. not yet cut apart at the growing edge, like French The presenceof relativelyunskilled products along- paperbackbooks usedto be. This not only reflectsthe side of relatively professionalcodices may indicate a fact that this codex was never completed, but also plurality of places of origin, and perhaps a contrast documents how unusual its construction had beenó.

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