The Road from Egypt to Palestine the Sayings of the Desert Fathers: Destination and Destiny

ARAM, 15 (2003), 97-108 97 THE ROAD FROM EGYPT TO PALESTINE THE SAYINGS OF THE DESERT FATHERS: DESTINATION AND DESTINY JOHN CHRYSSAVGIS (I) INTRODUCTION On account of its privileged situation – in terms of geography, climate, and history – the Gaza region was to prove a remarkable place of welcome and continuity for Christian monasticism toward the end of the fourth century. Owing to its accessibility by sea and road, its proximity to Egypt and Syria as well as the Holy Land, but also its prominence in Hellenistic and Roman times, Gaza would provide a critical haven for particular expressions offering fresh perspectives in the spiritual and intellectual tradition of the monastic phenomenon. A major commercial area from biblical times, this southern coastal region was always coveted territory throughout history. The Apostle Philip also evangelized the Ethiopian eunuch on the way to Gaza (Acts 8.26). Monasticism in this region, from the fourth to the sixth centuries, is revealed as a vast range of complex dimensions, encompassing religious, social, intellectual, cultural, political, and artistic aspects. “The monastic experience of Byzantine Palestine is amply documented in a substantial number of literary sources and in a wealth of archaeological evidence, growing year by year, largely thanks to the excellent work of Israeli scholars.”1 The Christian emperors, the numerous pilgrims, and the monastic developments; the deserts, the rivers, and sand dunes; the roads, the letters, and the renowned produce of spices and wines: all of these were to play a critical role in the formation of this unique area. Travelers journey from Palestine to Egypt to visit the elders of the Egyptian desert. Even Letters 30-31 exchanged between Barsanuphius and John of Beersheba recall a journey by boat made by the latter to Egypt. From as early as the mid-fourth century, some of the better-known pilgrims include Jerome and Rufinus, Palladius and Evagrius, as well as John Cassian who later translated this tradition to the West. Toward the end of the same century, a movement began in the opposite direction, from 1 L. Perrone, “Monasticism as a Factor of Religious Interaction in the Holy Land during the Byzantine Period,” in A. Kofsky and G.G. Stroumsa, Sharing the Sacred: religious contacts and conflicts in the holy land. First-Fifteenth Centuries CE, Yad Izhak Ben Zvi: Jerusalem, 1998, p. 67. 98 THE ROAD FROM EGYPT TO PALESTINE Egypt to Palestine, as monastics fled the wilderness following the condemna- tion of Origenism by Theophilus of Alexandria in 400. Three hundred monks, including the “tall brothers,” left Egypt definitively for Sinai, Jerusalem and the region around the Dead Sea, some of them even traveling as far as Asia Minor. (II) PALESTINIAN MONASTICISM Monastics in Palestine were well aware of their biblical roots, owing to the historical significance of the region in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Barsanuphius is convinced that: God revealed the way of life through the prophets and the apostles.2 This was the land where the prophets wandered, the desert where Jesus prayed and fasted, the soil where the seeds of the church were planted. They were also characterized by a keen memory of the martyrs and confessors, who made the ultimate ascetic sacrifice of their very lives, beginning in this same region with the death of Stephen the Protomartyr. Like other monastics before and after him, Barsanuphius would draw connections between the monk and the martyr: To renounce one’s proper will is a sacrifice of blood. It means that one has reached the point of laboring to death and of ignoring one’s own will.3 And, of course, monks in this region were abundantly familiar with the ascetic figures, monastic developments and particular practices that had pre- ceded them, admitting their indebtedness especially to the desert fathers and mothers of Egypt. One will frequently read in the Letters of Barsanuphius and John statements such as: we have also seen in the ancient Fathers such an example the Fathers have said this is the way of the Fathers let us speak those things which contribute to edification, from the Sayings of the Fathers4 Yet, Gaza had its own proper history of monasticism, the origins of which are recorded by Jerome and Epiphanius. Saint Hilarion (291-371) lived for almost twenty of the earlier years in this region. Born in Thavatha, some five miles south of Gaza, he was schooled in Alexandria, during which time he also met Anthony. On returning to his native region, he assumed a small cell near 2 Letter 605. Translation forthcoming by J. Chryssavgis (Cistarcian Publications). 3 Letter 254. 4 See Letters 60, 86, 212, and 469. The relationship between the Sayings and the Letters is discussed below. J. CHRYSSAVGIS 99 the port of Maiouma, whence he also received numerous visitors for counsel. He abandoned Palestine – in order to avoid the increasing number of visitors – around 356, the year of Anthony’s death, settling during the final years of his life in Cyprus. Although not unhistorical in its basis, Jerome’s account of Hilarion’s life is romantic and even problematic in its detail. He may have received his information from Epiphanius, who seems to have been a pupil of Hilarion while living in his own monastery near Eleftheropolis and before being ordained bishop of Salamis in Cyprus (367). Jerome is apparently unaware of the pre-history of the region. Eusebius tells how, at the end of the second century, a bishop, Narcissus, fled to the wilderness near Jerusalem in order to avoid calumny. And the anonymous sixth-century Life of Saint Chariton relates the story of a confessor of the faith during the reign of Aurelian (c.275), who later founded a monastery in the desert just north of Jerusalem. This monastery was to become famous in the next century, when Euthymius arrived there.5 Although it is difficult to reconstruct any historical details of Chariton’s activity, owing to the gap that separates his life from his biography, he is believed to have established monasticism in the Judaean wilderness. The historian Sozomen was born in Bethelea near Gaza (c. 380) and, while writing in Constantinople around 440, recalls the influence of monks such as Hilarion on the region generally but also the impact of monks such as Silvanus and his group on his family and on himself.6 Thavatha, of course, was to become familiar as the site of the monastery of Abba Seridos. The scenic section along the Mediterranean Sea, between Thavatha and Maiouma, quickly became a crossroad for those coming from north and south, searching for God “in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground” (Heb. 11.38). From 380 onwards, and especially from the turn of the fifth century, the desert dwellers of Egypt also directed their steps to the region near the Gaza region, known for its fertility and its solitude at once. The decid- ing factors for this massive monastic emigration seem to include, on the more personal and religious planes, the deaths of the two Macarii – of the Egyptian in 390, and of the Alexandrian in 393 – and, on the more political and social planes, the persecution of intellectualists and Origenists at the time. At some time between 380 and 400, Abba Silvanus, a Palestinian by birth and one of the renowned elders of the Egyptian desert, moved with his twelve disciples briefly to Sinai and, finally, to Palestine. In Scetis, the Abba lived with his disciples in the semi-eremitic manner, with scattered cells around his own dwelling and a central church for worship on Saturday and Sunday. The same 5 See Chitty, The Desert a City, Oxford, 1966, pp. 14-15. 6 The Life of Hilarion may be found in PL 23: 29-54. It was translated into Greek by Sophro- nius, a contemporary of Jerome. See also Sozomen, Historia Ecclesiastica I, 12-13 PG 67: 896- 900 and V, 14-15 in Sources Chretiennes 306, Paris 1983, pp. 215-216. 100 THE ROAD FROM EGYPT TO PALESTINE lifestyle was adopted near Gerara, where the group settled. Silvanus died before 414 and was succeeded by Zaccharias, his foremost disciple. Another of his disciples, Zeno the Prophet, enjoyed a considerable role in the first half of the 5th century, largely as a result of his own disciple, Peter the Iberian, who became the non-Chalcedonian bishop of Maiouma. Another well-known monk and monastic author in this region was Abba Isaiah of Scetis. A later emigrant from Egypt, Isaiah had spent many years in a monastery but also in the desert of Scetis. He moved to Palestine, fleeing fame, between 431 and 451. He first settled near Eleftheropolis, moving finally to Beit Daltha near Gaza, some four miles from Thawatha. There he stayed for several decades, serving for his contemporaries and visitors as a living example of the old Scetiote ascetic life, until his death in 489.7 It is not the last that we hear of these places. For Gaza and its environs will be indelibly marked by the presence of two remarkable elders in the next century, Barsanuphius and John, and by the products of their teaching, both their Letters: Questions and Answers as well as their disciples, especially Doro- theus. Indeed, the city of Thavatha is mentioned on the Madeba Map, a mosaic map from a church in Madeba (modern Jordan) dating from the latter part of Justinian’s era8 and therefore almost coinciding with the latter part of the lives of Barsanuphius, John, and Seridos. (III) THE SAYINGS OF THE DESERT FATHERS: DESTINATION AND DESTINY One of the fascinating puzzles confronting scholars of this period concerns the origin and development of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

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