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Territory, Anti-Intellectual Attitude, and Identity Formation in Late Antique Palestinian Monastic Communities

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Territory, Anti-Intellectual Attitude, and Identity Formation in Late Antique Palestinian Monastic Communities Religion &Theology Religion & Theology 17 (2010) 244–267 brill.nl/rt Territory, Anti-Intellectual Attitude, and Identity Formation in Late Antique Palestinian Monastic Communities Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony Department of Comparative Religion, Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel [email protected] Abstract Identity both religious and secular is influenced by external factors. This article is an attempt to show how this is the case in connection with two Palestinian ascetic communities and how these two communities though both influenced by the Chalcedonian controversies, as well as the second Origenist controversy developed very differing identities. Keywords identity formation, Palestine, ascetic centres, Chalcedonian controversies, Origenist controversy 1. Introductory Remarks It is widely acknowledged that Christianity in Late Antique Palestine was far from being a religious or cultural monolith; rather, its cosmopolitan nature was one of its distinctive marks. Palestinian monasticism, which arose in the second half of the fourth century, was likewise, an international movement. Most of the monks and virgins came from abroad, and they conducted their liturgy in a variety of languages, including Greek, Georgian, and Armenian,1 1 V. Sabae 20, 32, ed. E. Schwartz, Kyrillos von Skythopolis (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 49; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1939). Eng. trans. Cyril of Scy- thopolis, Lives of the Monks of Palestine (Cistercian Studies; intr. J. Binns; trans. R. M. Price; Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1990); Theodorus Petraeus, Vita sancti Theodosii 18, 45, ed. H. Usener, Der heilige Theodosios (Leipzig: Deichert, 1890). On the monastic liturgy in the Judean desert, see J. Patrich, Sabas, Leader of Palestinian Monasticism: A Comparative Study in Eastern Monasticism, Fourth to Seventh Centuries (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1995), 229–253. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/157430110X597845 B. Bitton-Ashkelony / Religion & Theology 17 (2010) 244–267 245 yet they adopted Palestine as their new homeland.2 Given the Palestinian international amalgam, the issue of communal and religious identity forma- tion is a particularly intricate and intriguing one. Far from being a static entity, communal and religious identity is a social construct and the outcome of a discourse.3 Thus many factors were at work in shaping the identity of those ascetics that streamed to Palestine in Late Antiquity; traditions from their various homelands, along with local and invented traditions, myths, symbols, and collective memories4 – all played a role in molding such groups, develop- ing their self-perception, and ensuring their continuity and their social and political power. Moreover, communities and individuals invariably have a range of identities to choose from, consciously or unconsciously, and the 2 Since the publication of D. J. Chitty’s classic study on the historical development of Pales- tinian monasticism (D. J. Chitty, The Desert a City: An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism under the Christian Empire [Oxford: Blackwell, 1966]), much has been done in this field. For comprehensive studies on late antique Palestinian monasticism, see J. Binns, Ascetics and Ambassadors of Christ: The Monasteries of Palestine, 314–631 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); L. Perrone, “Monasticism in the Holy Land: From the Beginnings to the Crusaders,” Proche-Orient Chrétien 45 (1995): 31–63; P. Rousseau, “Monasticism,” in The Cambridge Ancient History 14 (eds. A. Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins, and M. Whitby; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 745–780; B. Bitton-Ashkelony and A. Kofsky, “Monasti- cism in the Holy Land,” in Christians and Christianity in the Holy Land. From the Origins to the Latin Kingdoms (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 5; eds. O. Limor and G. Stroumsa; Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 257–291. Several aspects of the heterogeneity of Palestinian monasticism are noted in Y. Hirschfeld, “The Monasteries of Palestine in the Byzan- tine Period,” in Christians and Christianity in the Holy Land. From the Origins to the Latin King- doms (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 5; ed. O. Limor and G. Stroumsa; Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 401–419. 3 I was much inspired by the collective volume edited by Richard Miles, Constructing Identi- ties in Late Antiquity, (London: Routledge, 1999), especially his introduction, 1–15, as well as by the Leiden project on identity as presented by Bas ter Haar Romeny, “From Religious Associa- tion to Ethnic Community: A Research Project on Identity Formation among the Syrian Ortho- dox under Muslim Rule,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 16, no. 4 (2005): 377–399. See now the presentation of the results of the Leiden project in a special volume Religious Origins of Nations? The Christian Communities of the Middle East (Church History and Religious Culture 89; ed. Bas ter Haar Romeny; Leiden: Brill, 2009), especially 1–52. For identity as an essentially social entity, see the illuminating introduction to the collective volume, Identities, Race, Class, Gender, and Nationality (eds. L. Martin Alcoff and E. Mendieta; Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 1–8. 4 On the role of collective memories in constructing early Christian identity, see M. Halbwa- chs, La topographie légendaire des évangiles en terre saints: Étude de mémoire collective (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1941). See also the critical assessment of Halbwachs’s theory in relation to the question of identity formation in E. A. Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 10–32. On Halbwachs’s theory regarding the origin of the holy places in Palestine, see my Encountering the Sacred: The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity (The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 38; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 28–29..
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