Introduction

Introduction This book explores social and economic concerns that contributed to the promotion of certain forms of Christian monasticism over others between roughly 360 and 451 c.e. Its focus is ascetic poverty and competing claims to material support made by ascetic laymen and church leaders. The monastic movement was just taking shape: How should monks interpret scrip- tural pronouncements on poverty? What relation was there between early monastic practice and apostolic tradition? What were the implications for members of the clergy? To what extent, and on what conditions, was material dependency acceptable in late Roman society? Although we will pursue these questions mainly in Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, the issues involved are best introduced by the warning that Augus- tine, bishop of Hippo, sent to monks of Carthage in 401: Slaves of God, Soldiers of Christ, may you thus ignore the deceits of that most fervent enemy, who, desiring with his customary foulness to obscure in every way your good reputation,...hasscattered everywhere so many hypocrites in the garb of monks, who wander around the provinces never sent, never sta- tionary, never settled, never stable....all seek, all demand either the ex- penses of their profitable poverty or a reward for their pretended holiness. Under the general name of monks your good and holy profession, which in the name of Christ we desire to spread throughout Africa as it has through other lands, is being reviled.1 1. Augustine, De opere monachorum 28.36; ed. Joseph Zycha, pp. 585–86: O servi dei, milites Christi, itane dissimulatis callidissimi hostis insidias, qui bonam famam vestram . omnimodo cupientes obscurare putoribus suis, tam multos hypocritas sub habitu monachorum usque- quaque dispersit, circumeuntes provincias, nusquam missos, nusquam fixos, nusquam stantes, nusquam sedentes....et omnes petunt, omnes exigunt aut sumptus lucrosae egestatis aut 1 2 introduction Augustine bears witness here to the pervasion of wandering monks throughout the Roman Empire at the turn of the fifth century. Such hypocrites, he claims, feigned holiness to reap material gains. Their begging threatened to discredit monasticism as a whole. Against their example he implored his readers to “show people you are not seeking an easy meal in idleness, but that you are seeking the kingdom of God through the straight and narrow life of [this monastic] profession.”2 That meant manual labor, practiced within the confines of a monastery. In these passages Augustine reveals a preoccupation with the impact of wandering, begging monks on public opinion and the problems they raised for the social acceptance of the “good and holy” monastic profession he wished to promote in North Africa. Similar concerns for public opinion were shared by church and monastic authorities throughout the Roman Empire, as we shall see. But the issues raised by such monks in the late fourth and early fifth centuries were far more complex. Augustine wrote On the Work of Monks not simply to exhort his readers toward a more re- spectable form of monastic life, but also to discourage them from emulating certain long-haired, itinerant ascetics who had reportedly gained a consid- erable following as spiritual teachers among local monks and ordinary Christian laymen. Such “long-hairs” did not work, that is, they did not practice manual labor. Instead they offered admirers spiritual edification in exchange for material support, while seeking to live like the “birds of the sky” that “neither sow nor reap,” or the “lilies of the field” that “neither toil nor spin,” in literal accordance with the “freedom from care” that Jesus encouraged his disciples to embrace in his Sermon on the Mount (Mt 6: 25–34; cf. Lk 12:22–31). It was against their notions of ascetic propriety that Augustine composed his treatise. In his view, they had not only mis- interpreted and abused evangelic precepts by refusing to work, but by claiming a right to material support on the grounds that they were teachers, they were also claiming for themselves the apostolic privileges that right- fully belonged only to vested members of the clergy. Inasmuch as it served to discredit such ascetic teachers, Augustine’s de- piction of “hypocrites in the garb of monks” must not be taken at face value. The same goes for denouncements of wandering “pseudomonks” made by his Eastern counterparts at this time. As we shall see, such accusations and condemnations of ascetic vagrancy and begging were often expressions of simulatae pretium sanctitatis...subgenerali nomine monachorum vestrum propositum blas- phematur, tam bonum, tam sanctum, quod in Christi nomine cupimus, sicut per alias terras, sic per totam Africam pullulare. Trans. adapted from Mary Sarah Muldowney, p. 384, who reads cupiens for the cupientes of CSEL. 2. Augustine, De opere, ed. Zycha, p. 586: ostendite hominibus non vos in otio facilem victum, sed per angustam et artam vitam huius propositi regnum dei quaerere. introduction 3 a rivalry for social and spiritual authority. Indeed, often what caused con- cern was that the monks in question had gained prestige not only among their ascetic peers but also among the Christian laity, who rewarded them with alms. So observes the emperor Julian, whose treatise To the Cynic Her- acleius preserves our earliest (ca. 361) explicit testimony for wandering monks: Long ago I gave you a nickname, and now I think I will write it down. It is apotaktistai [renouncers], a name applied to certain persons by the impious Galilaeans. They are for the most part men who by making small sacrifices gain much, or rather everything, from all sources, and in addition secure honor, crowds of attendants, and services. Something like that is your method, except perhaps for uttering divine revelations....Andperhaps too there is this difference, that you have no excuse for levying tribute on specious pre- texts as they do; which they call elee¯mosyne¯ [alms], whatever that may mean. But in other respects your habits and theirs are very much alike. Like them you have abandoned your homeland and wander all over....3 Julian’s sketch is, of course, as much a caricature as Augustine’s, meant to chasten ascetics of his own calling. It nevertheless makes plain what Au- gustine and other Christian writers only imply: certain wandering monks received both popular acclaim and alms by virtue of their material renun- ciations (i.e., their ascetic poverty) and their charismatic behavior or ut- terances (here specified as prophesying). From an ecclesiastical perspec- tive, such acclaim could prove challenging indeed. At Constantinople it became pivotal in a series of confrontations between church officials, whose claims to spiritual authority derived mainly from their church office, and monks, who derived both apostolic authority and aristocratic patronage by virtue of their ascetic practices and spiritual services. As vagrant beggars, spiritual teachers, or charismatic “enthusiasts,” wandering monks raised the basic question of what it meant to be a monk wherever they appeared. When the Council of Chalcedon in 451issued the first church canons that addressed the movements of monks and placed their activities under episcopal control, monasticism was still an evolving phenomenon. One purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the se- questered form of monastic life that the Council favored, as well as the self- 3. Julian, Oratio 7.224BC; ed. and trans. adapted from Wilmer C. Wright, p. 122: pa¬ lai me¡n oy˚n e›ue¬ mhn e›gv¡ toy∆to to¡oÈnoma, nyni¡ de¡ay›to¡eÈoika kai¡ gra¬ cein. a› potaktista¬ ß tinaß o› noma¬ zoysin oi\ dyssebei∆ß Galilai∆oi• toy¬ tvn oi\plei¬oyß mikra¡ proe¬ menoi polla¡pa¬ ny, ma∆llon de¡ta¡pa¬ nta pantaxo¬ uen jygkomi¬zoysi, kai¡ prosktv∆ ntai to¡ tima∆ suai kai¡ doryforei∆suai kai¡ uerapey¬ esuai. toioy∆to¬ n ti kai¡ to¡ y\me¬ teron eÈrgon e›sti¬, plh¡niÈsvß toy∆ xrhmati¬zesuai....iÈsvß de¡ kai¡ dia¡to¡ mhde¡n y\mi∆n ei›nai pro¬ sxhma toy∆ forologei∆n ey› prosv¬ pvß, o\ poi∆on e›kei¬noiß, hÍn le¬goysin oy›koi˚dÚ o·pvß e›lehmosy¬ nhn, ta¡dÚaÈlla ge e› stin y\mi∆n te ka› kei¬noiß paraplh¬ sia. kataleloi¬pate th¡ n patri¬da v· sper e›kei¬noi, perifoita∆te pa¬ nth.... 4 introduction sufficient, work-based ideal that authorities like Augustine promoted, were in fact novel developments in monastic history, supplanting an earlier, widely practiced ideal in which an ascetic elite, observing apostolic princi- ples, provided spiritual edification to Christian communities in return for their material support. But this book is also a study in cultural history that explores why certain Christian holy men became recognized as legitimate, while others, who embraced Jesus’ most demanding precepts for Christian perfection, became marginalized and repudiated in this most crucial pe- riod for the establishment, spread, and acceptance of monastic institutions. THE MODEL HOLY MAN With the victories of Constantine in the first quarter of the fourth century, a cultural revolution gained supremacy in the Roman Empire that would eventually transform or supplant traditions held for centuries. The process of Christianization that followed is most notorious for its violence against pagan temples, sacred groves, and statuary, and for imperial legislation against the practice of ancient rites. Yet this process required more pene- trating suasion than could be effected by the swift and irregular destruction of outward symbols of the cultural past or imposed by the threat of capital punishment.4 Ancestral customs tended to reassert themselves where ne- glected by church and imperial forces.5 Christianization required that imag- inations be reoriented toward new cultural icons, based not only on scrip- tural examples but also on living exemplars who vividly embodied the ideals that the Scriptures described.6 At the same time, church leaders had to acknowledge and accommodate the sensibilities of their large congrega- tions, now being filled with the mainstream of Roman society.7 The pres- sures on these leaders to persuade and accommodate were exerted in turn upon a figure that rose to prominence in the rhetoric, literature, and society of the late fourth century: the Christian monk.

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