sign in sign up
<<
Home , Desert Mothers, Divinization (Christian), Macarius of Alexandria, Macarius of Egypt, Pambo, Poemen

The American Benedictine review. [Atchison, KS, etc.] : American Benedictine Review, inc. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015077515222

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/. “CHRIST IN THE DESERT”—A RESPONSE

Tim Vivian*

INTRODUCTION

In a recent issue of The American Benedictine Review, N. Bell offered a searching critique of early Christian monasti cism and found it severely deficient in a number of ways.1 He points out that the of the fourth and fifizh century were not perfect and warns those of us who admire the early monastic mothers and fathers not to succumb either to William of Thierrfs “nostalgic” vision of the desert which, Bell believes, was only “a desert of his dreams,” or to the “hyperbole” of some mod ern authors who view the of the desert ammas and abbas as “true” or “optimum” Christianity (394, 382). Bell is quite right; these are salutary warnings. The myth of a golden age has been with us probably as long as we have had historical con sciousness (examples may be found in Homer and Hesiod; Ameri cans have mythologized the “founding fathers” of the United States) and most of us tend to idealize the past. are no exception to this tendency, as witnessed in the wide belief in an ahistorical, and non-existent, “ Christianity.” Scholars and monks, too, Bell rightly reminds us, are not immune from nostalgia. Professor Bell, however, goes much further than these healthy reminders, and levels some very serious charges against the early desert monks: they may, Bell says, be monotheistic ascetics or as cetic monotheists, but he doubts that “they can truly be termed ‘Christian’” (382); their chief concern was with “their sinful bod

Tim Vivian is an Episcopal priest and independent scholar specializing in early Christian . His most recent books are The Life of the Jura Fathers (Cistercian Publications 1999) and a revised edition of Paph nutius: Histories of the Monks of Upper (Cistercian 2000). He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. * I wish to thank William Harmless, Severus Mikhail, Kenneth Russell, Jeffrey Russell, Jim Smith, an anonymous reader for ABR, and a Cistercian friend for their suggestions. 1David N. Bell, “Christ in the Desert,” The American Benedictine Review 50 (Dec. 1999) 381-96. Further references to Bell’s article will be given in parentheses in the body of this response.

393 ies and minds” (385); Christ, for them, was “no more than a teacher and exemplar” (387); they over-emphasized free will and had virtually no understanding of grace (389-90); the Christ of Evagrius of Pontus “is not the Christ of Christian tradition” (392); the Christianity of Saint is a “christless piety” (393);2 “we certainly cannot say that their was ‘Christfull’” (394); “the majority of the never fully appreciated what the sacrifice of Calvary was all about” (394); they suffer from “a perilous inhumanity” (395); and, in fact, they may barely be Christian (394). If even half of the above accusations were true—which they are not—the early desert fathers and mothers should be driven, like money-changers from the temple, out of the desert and a commis sion should be set up to decanonize the legion of monastic : Saint Antony the Great, Saint Pachomius, Saint Cassian,3 Saint Macarius the Great, Saint Macarius , Saint Shenoute the Great, Saint Onnophrius (San Onofrio), Saint Paul the , to name just a few of those who are known in the West. Can Christian tradition have been so wrong-headed for so long about these saints, as Bell implies? No. Below, on grounds both general and particular, I will attempt to show why Professor Bell is wrong and why the early ammas and abbas deserve not only study but emulation. A brief appendix of early monastic writings for readers who are interested concludes the essay.

METHODOLOGY AND GENERAL CONCERNS

Professor Bell’s criticisms of early monasticism, and the meth ods he uses in assembling his brief, first raise issues that tran scend the subject of early monasticism; in particular, they con

2This extremely unfortunate accusation, pronounced first by Johannes Leipoldt and representative of nineteenth-century European chauvinism, may be found in Armand Veilleux’s preface to David N. Bell, Besa: The Life of Shenoute (Kalamazoo: Cistercian 1983) v. See Bell’s criticisms of Shenoute’s and Christianity in that volume, 19-22. These com ments, along with his egregious statement (22) that “the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 642 [sic] was the of the country” are an affront to Cop tic Christians who continue to be persecuted and even murdered by their Muslim “saviors.” On Shenoute’s Christology, see the appendix below. 3John Cassian (360-435) traveled to Egypt at the end of the fourth cen tury and returned to southern Gaul with numerous accounts of early desert monasticism which he incorporated into his Conferences and Institutes. These works in turn influenced Saint Benedict and other Western monas

394 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001 ' cern historical methodology, the way we study any issue. His crit icism of the early mothers and fathers of the desert for their lack of emphasis on the uniqueness of Christ then leads him to a gen eral condemnation of early monastic beliefs and practices. Professor Bell’s method in his article is to heap up quotations from the desert fathers and mothers that show them to be con cerned mostly with miracles and remarkable feats (383-84), their sinful bodies and minds (385), and ways to cultivate misanthropy (386-87). To do this, he cites a wide variety of sources ranging from the Apophthegmata (the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers) to later Coptic (Egyptian) hagiographies. Unfortunately, he offers no critical evaluation of these materials, treating them as though they all have the same historical value.4 In addition, the Apophthegmata, it must be pointed out, contains well over a thousand disparate sayings attributed to over 130 ammas and abbas, with many more being anonymous. It is not a systematic treatise and was not intended to be. In fact, it is so unsystematic and diverse that one can find sayings that contradict one another. As so large a collection, it is not unlike the , which can be se lectively quoted to demonstrate almost anything, as the Devil well knows. Furthermore, the Apophthegmata is paraenetic, not theological (see its introduction, which reflects its editorial inter ests). More theological monastic works are found, for example, in Abba ’s Asceticon (not cited by Bell), which stresses com munion with the Crucified Christ; in Cassian (see the examples cited in the appendix below); and in the , with its fer vent articulation of the spirituality of the .5

tics. Cassian is considered a saint in the East (feast day February 29) but in the West only Marseilles keeps his feast day (July 23). 4Just as Prof. Bell ignores different early monastic genres, he also fails to distinguish between the different kinds of holy men (and women): thau maturge, patron, intercessor, spiritual director. This failure does not allow him any kind of nuanced judgment. Literary genre and monastic type are “ related; see Claudia Rapp, ‘For next to God, you are my salvation’: reflec tions on the rise of the holy man in late antiquity," in James Howard-John ston and Paul Antony Hayward, eds., The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the (Oxford: Oxford U 1999) 63-81. 5For Isaiah, see René Dragnet, ed., Les cinq recensions de l’ascéticon syr iaque d’Abba Isaie I: Introduction au probléme isaien. Version des logoi Ia XIII avec des parallels grecs et latins, CSCO 289-90 (Syriac text), 293-94 (Greek and Latin texts and French translation), Scriptures Syri 120-21, 122-23 (Louvain: CSCO 1968); H. de Broc, trans. Isaie de Scété: Recueil as cétique, 2nd ed., Spiritualité orientale no.7 bis, introduction by Lucien Reg

TIM VIVIAN 395 From the Apophthegmata Prof. Bell cites Theodore of Pherme (386-87) and John the Little (389) as examples of, he implies, an extreme that never mentions Christ. Most damning, it seems, is the suggestion that Theodore actually extolled lack of compassion: “He also said, ‘If I do not cut myself off from these feelings of compassion, they will not let me be a .’”6 Bell, however, does not note that this saying is part of a string of six ut terances joined by “He also said” (Bell omits this incipit from his quotation).7 It is clear that the referent to the demonstrative pro noun “these” in “these feelings” has been lost in the transmission of the saying, along with its context. Placed within a larger monastic setting, however, Theodore’s saying, which at first seems full of a “perilous inhumanity” (Bell 395), is spiritually sensible. The abbas ofien warned the younger monks not to be so concerned with tending the spiritual and physical fires of others that they lost sight of their own and let them burn down and gut ter out. It is also clear from the early monastic sources that young monks sometimes used ostensible concern for others as an excuse to gad about from cell to cell and neglect their own prayer lives. A modern setting of Theodore’s words would place them in the mouth of a spiritual director warning a priest or monastic that the twelve committees she is serving on are having a deleterious effect on her prayer life. More importantly, Isaiah of Scetis explicitly connects such as cetic awareness and practice with the cross of Christ, a connec tion that Prof. Bell believes is absent from early monastic thought (see the discussion below): “A brother asked Abba Isaiah for a word, and the old man responded and said to him, ‘If you want to follow our Lord Jesus, do what he says, and if you want your old self crucified with him [Rom 6:6], you must cut off from yourself nault (Begrolles en Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine 1985). An English translation of Isaiah is forthcoming from Cistercian Publications. For the Philokalia, see G.E.H. Palmer, et al., trans., The Philokalia: The Complete Text (London: Faber and Faber 1979). 6See Alphabetical Apophthegmata Theodore of Pherme 15; Benedicta Ward, trans, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, rev. ed., 1984) 7; 65.192A. 7A5 Chiara Faraggiana Di Sarzana has pointed out, “: Some Crucial Points of their Textual Transmission and the Prob lem of a Critical Edition," 29 (1997) 467 . . . “Some sen tences can be cut up or abridged. Thus, the history of the incipit of an apophthegmatical text became very important."

396 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001 until the day you die those who would bring you down from the cross.’”8 A monk, therefore, follows Christ by doing what says and being crucified with him. The monastic life is the cruci fied life;9 those who do not understand this, out of pity, ignorance, or arrogance, will attempt to pull the monk off his or her cross. Theodore and Isaiah see this clearly and advise their disciples to resist such efforts at all cost. Theodore and Isaiah’s admonitions to flee from people, which Prof. Bell sees as acting contrary to Christ (396), have still larger social, theological, and biblical contexts connected with the as cetic transformation of the self in Christ in anticipation of the reign of God. By ignoring these contexts, Bell risks completely misunderstanding the early (and modern?) monastic enterprise. Jesus did in fact tell his disciples to hate their parents and fami lies (Lk 14:26); he also told one would-be follower to honor his mother and father and give up everything and come follow him (Mt 19:16-22). He told a man who wanted first to bury his father to let the dead bury their own; his was to go and proclaim God’s kingdom (Lk 9:60). “No one,” Jesus tersely warned, “who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Lk 9:62). The sayings of the desert fathers and mothers are no more uncompromising than those of Jesus, and no less focused on God’s kingdom; in this, as in so many other ways, the ammas and abbas of the desert follow in the footsteps of their Master. Je sus’ words made the early monks tremble, but they followed them nevertheless; his words make us shudder, so we ignore them. What Prof. Bell interprets as misanthropy is in fact the early monastic quest, firmly rooted in the gospel, to separate oneself from easy compromise with the seductions of this world; more over, this separation (anachoresis) was the means whereby the monk attempted to construct a new identity in and with Christ.10 As Macarius the Great bluntly instructs his disciples, “Do not have friendships with anyone except your brothers in poverty. Do not run to anyone on account of some good that he has done for you; run to God alone. Serve him; it is he who serves you in the

8Systematic Apophthegmata 1.8; Jean-Claude Guy, ed., Les Apophtegmes des péres: Collection systématique. Chapitres I-IX, Sources chrétiennes 387 (Paris: Cerf 1993) 106. 9See also Systematic Apophthegmata 1.13 (Guy 108) and 1.17 (Guy 112). 10On the monks’ social “reconstruction,” see Peter Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U 1978) 81-90.

M.J. DOHERTY 397 compassion of sonship. Stay away from friendships with people; keep all your friendship between yourself and God.”11 Thus re made or, in fact, reborn,12 the monk could “be free from the dis tracting and life-denying pressures of society, its illusions of sta tus and security, the flattery of clients, the arrogance of patrons, and everything that contributes to a merely earthly definition of oneself.”13 The early monastic mothers and fathers believed in their hearts that they had indeed put their hands to the domini cal plow and were sowing seed and turning it under good earth in expectation of the heavenly harvest; they were not about to turn back. Getting involved in human affairs, they believed, diverted their attention from God (which is why the earliest monks re fused to be ordained).14 That may seem harsh to us, smoothly adapted to the world as we are, but for the early monks it was fol lowing Christ.15 But even if one grants that Theodore was misanthropic (which, given the larger context outlined above, is doubtful), this does not mean, as Bell implies, that most, or even many, of the desert saints were. The early monks almost always show as much con cern for their neighbors as for themselves.16 Perhaps Saint

11Virtues of Saint Macarius 68; E. Amélineau, ed., Histoire des monastéres de la Basse-Egypte (Paris: Leroux 1894) 182. 12The taking of monastic vows was sometimes seen as a kind of second , from which time the person’s life, at least spiritually before God, began anew. See Life ofAntony 65.4. 13Michael Battle, “The Problem of the Aethiop: Identity and Black Iden tity in the Desert Tradition,” Sewanee Theological Review 42 (Michaelmas 1999) 414-28; 426. 1"See, for example, Virtues ofSaint Macarius 49, 54, and 69; Amélineau, ed., 166-67, 170—71, 184-85. 15Jesus also said that he came not to bring peace but a sword (Mt 10:34); in this, he was following the true spirit of his forebears. As Kenneth Leech, Experiencing God: Theology as Spirituality (San Francisco: Harper and Row 1985) 67, has pointed out, “The sense of disturbance and conflict is central to Jewish spirituality.” It is also central to monastic spirituality. Capitalist Christianity, or “Christian ," as Leech terms it, “pro tects itself against the disruptive, disturbing God of Jewish and Christian history,” and thus will also find monastic spirituality, with its demands, to be uncomfortable and forbidding. See Cassian, Conferences 4.7.1-2 for his understanding of the divine origin of conflict. For an insightful study of the “God of the Desert," see Leech 127-61. 16See, for example, Life of Antony 3.5 (“He would spend part of what he earned on bread and part of it he would give to those who were begging”),

398 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001 Antony, in one of his letters, said it best: “Whoever against his neighbour sins against himself, and whoever does evil to his neighbour does evil to himself. Likewise, whoever does good to his neighbour does good to himself.”17 Stories illustrating the love and compassion of the ammas and abbas abound: when some monks come to expecting him to chastize a brother who has fallen asleep at prayer, the old man gently tells them, “For my part, when I see a brother who is dozing, I put his head on my knees and let him rest.”18 When Macarius the Great catches some thieves plundering his goods, not only does he assist them in tak ing the rest, but he helps them load the camel.19 When Abba is summoned to a monastic council to condemn a sinner, he goes (only after much persuasion) carrying a perforated jug filled with sand that trickles out as he walks. When he arrives, the monks ask what he is doing and he replies simply, “My sins run out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I am coming to judge the errors of another.”20 When John the Little prepares to flee marauders invading Scetis, “the brothers tearfully surround him, saying to him, ‘Will you also leave, our father? Are you afraid of the barbarians?’” John responds:

By the name of Christ God, I am not afraid. No, the perfect goodness in God’s presence does not allow each of us to pursue his own salvation alone; instead, according to an angelic purpose, each of us, especially the devout person, performs all his deeds while regarding his own good and that of his brother equally. This barbarian, even if he is sep arated from me by , nevertheless is an image and creature of God

and Life of Pachomius (Bohairic) 10 (“[We do this work] for our bodily sub sistence also; and whatever is above and beyond our needs we give to the poor, following the words of the Apostle, only let us remember the poor [Gal 2210]”); Tim Vivian and Apostolos N. Athanassakis, trans., The Life of Antony (Kalamazoo: Cistercian: forthcoming), and Armand Veilleux, ed., Pachomian Koinonia, volume 1, The Life of Saint Pachomius (Kalamazoo: Cistercian 1980) 31. 17Antony, Letter 6.63-65; Rubenson, The Letters of St. Antony. Monasticism and the Making of a Saint. Studies in Antiquity and Chris tianity (Minneapolis: Fortress 1995) 220. 18Alphabetical Apophthegmata Poemen 92 (Ward 179-80). 1Qi‘llphabetical Apophthegmata Macarius the Great 40 (Ward 137-38). A parallel saying, Macarius the Great 18 (Ward 131), explicitly cites Scripture (1 Tim 6:7 and Job 1:21) as warrants for such action. 20Alphabetical Apophthegmata Moses 2 (Ward 138-39); see also Poemen 113 (Ward 183).

TIM VIVIAN 399 in the same way that I am. If I resist this barbarian he will kill me and will go to punishment because of me.21

As Professor Bell says in a different context (384), such exam ples are legion and one could multiply them at length, but these will have to suffice here. These illustrations are all eminently worthy of anyone who follows Christ. The world would be a much better place if we could follow more ofien and more devotedly these early monastic examples. By not acknowledging or ignoring the wider context of the monastic sources he cites, Bell loses—or never gains—sight of the wider monastic ethos rooted in Christ and the Bible (see below). One of my Greek professors once told us that in translating a text context is 90% of meaning. In trans lating biblical or patristic or medieval texts into modern idiom, we must keep sight of their contexts and understand them in their world first, before we attempt to bring them into ours.22

EARLY MONASTIC BELIEFS AND PRACTICES

Professor Bell excoriates the early monks for their lack of em phasis on what is unique about Christianity. He locates the uniqueness of Christianity in the atonement and crucifixion of Je sus and the saving sacrifice of Christ and goes‘on from this to wonder whether the ammas and abbas were “really” Christian at all (394). The argument here is a syllogism: Belief in the atone ment and resurrection is required to be a real Christian; the early monks do not emphasize the atonement and resurrection; there fore, the early monks are not real Christians. A lack of emphasis, however, does not demonstrate a lack of belief. Once again, con text is important. Undoubtedly, the monks of Egypt were influ enced by the Alexandrian emphasis on (“God became human so we might become divine”: Saint Athanasius). ’s emphasis on and the mystical journey to God, which

21Maged S. Mikhail and Tim Vivian, trans, “Life of Saint John the Lit tle," Coptic Church Review 18: 1 & 2 (Spring/Summer, 1997) 50-51. Bell dis misses (389), but here is a perfect illustration of its salutary effect. 22F or a fine understanding of this, see Columba Stewart, “Writing About in the 1990s,” American Benedictine Review 48 (Dec. 1997) 341-46. As Stewart warns, “I am concerned that there is a growing ten dency in the academic study of early monasticism/asceticism to sidestep and even to devalue what was central to the self-understanding of those monks and ascetics: their religious quest and spiritual experience” (342).

400 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001 the monks of Egypt absorbed (as did so eminent a theologian as Saint ), is naturally going to place less emphasis on the death of Christ. Clearly Platonism is at work in the think ing of both Origen and the early monks.23 The monks were heirs of all these intellectual and spiritual currents. If one combines Platonism, mysticism, divinization, the Alexandrian emphasis on the over the humanity of Christ, and an emphasis on the Incarnation over the death of Christ, then it would be surprising if one saw the monks talking at length about the atonement and crucifixion. Nevertheless, Christ’s crucifixion and atonement were important for the early monastic mothers and fathers. The Orthodox East has long (always?) emphasized the Incar nation and placed less emphasis on the crucifixion of Christ. There are only one or two crucifixes extant in all of Coptic art (un til recently), and those are late, probably an influence from Italy.24 Does that mean the are not Christian? No. Simi larly, if one goes into a Baptist church, one will not find any cruci fixes. Does that make the Baptists non-Christian? Of course not. It is a question of emphasis, and every Christian group, just as every Christian, will have a different theology and spirituality.

23Bell rightly points out (391), that the Antony of the Life of Antony may be more Athanasian than Antonian. Samuel Rubenson has convincingly shown that Antony’s letters are both authentic and strongly Platonic/Ori genistic. But even here Christ is “creator and healer” (not just an exemplar: Bell 387): as “the Goodness of God,” “the Only-Begotten,” Christ was sent by God “as salvation of the entire world” to heal humanity’s “wound.” Antony, quoting Paul and Isaiah, goes on to tell of Christ's sacrifice. See Rubenson, The Letters of St. Antony, 207 (Letter 3.15-25). 24Crucifixes are unknown among Christians in general until the middle of the fifth century; see V. Grossi, “Cross, Crucifix,” in Encyclopedia of the Early Church, ed. Angelo Di Berardino (New York: Oxford 1992) 1.210. Modern Copts do use images of the crucifxion in their liturgies, especially during Holy Week, “The Week of Suffering.” As Father Maximous el-An thony explains, “The monks place an of Christ in pain, or an icon of Christ crucified, in the middle of the church, and they light candles and oil lamps before it. When the monks enter the church, they kneel before this icon and kiss it. This icon holds a special place for it is through this icon that the monks are able to contemplate the torments of Christ throughout the Week of Suffering. Accompanied by mournful chants, it helps enor mously in creating an atmosphere of living with Christ in his pain.” See Fa ther Maximous el-Anthony, “Windows into : in the Monastic Life Today,” in Elizabeth S. Bolman, ed., Monastic Visions: Wall Paintings from the of St. Antony at the Red Sea (New Haven: Yale U, forth coming).

TIM VlVlAN 401 Such is true within the New Testament itself. The Letter of James mentions Christ only a few times and places a great deal of emphasis on works, while rebuking the (Pauline?) over-emphasis on faith. By Bell’s criterion, that makes James’ letter non-norma tive, perhaps even barely Christian. Luther thought the same, and wanted to exclude James’ letter from the Protestant canon. But Luther did not understand James within his historical, Jew ish context. Ironically, Prof. Bell urges us “to keep our eyes on historical fact” (394), but he himself completely ignores the his torical facts, the context, of early desert monasticism. It is a historical truism that what people assume, they do not write about. Prof. Bell seems exasperated that the desert fathers and mothers do not go on at length about the crucifixion and atoning sacrifice of Christ. But as Henry Chadwick has pointed out, early monastic writings were never intended as systematic theologies. The Apophthegmata, for example, stress neither the Holy Spirit nor miracles.25 Does that mean the early monks did not believe in either? No. The Apophthegmata is interested pri marlily in praktiké, ascetic practice, so other areas are not stressed.26 The Holy Spirit and miracles can be found aplenty in other monastic sources.27 To pile up only negative examples, as Bell does, is both unfair and methodologically unsound; it is polemical rather than scholarly. One wonders: Could Saint Bernard, or any of the other Cistercians whom Prof. Bell finds to be “perfect” (396), survive someone going through their works with a flea comb in order to ferret out every objectionable nit? In

25As Bell points out (383-84), other monastic sources do emphasize the miraculous, which shows that one must pay close attention to the nature and purpose of each monastic genre. 26Concerning the “Coptic Palladiana,” versions of four chapters related to the Lausiac History of Palladius, Adalbert de Vogi'ié has noted that the Lives of and Evagrius contain no miracle working while the Lives of and are full of miracles. See his preface to Tim Vivian, Disciples of the ’s Beloved, vol. 1, Coptic Palladi ana (Eastern Christian Texts in Translation; Leuven: Peeters, forthcom ing). 27For just one example of early monastic emphasis on the Spirit, see 'I‘im Vivian, “The Good God, the Holy Power, and the Paraclete: "Po the Sons of God’ (Ad filios Dei) by Saint Macarius the Great,” Anglican Theological Re view 30.3 (1998) 338-65. On miracles, see Benedicta Ward’s introduction to Norman Russell, trans, The Lives of the Desert Fathers: The Historia Monachorum in Aegypto CS 34 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian 1981) 39-46.

402 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001 this regard, Bell’s article brings to mind such anti-monastic polemics as those by Gibbon, Harnack, and Lietzmann. Besides, one can find early monastic references to the crucifix ion and sacrifice (and resurrection) of Christ, but (1) such refer ences are oflzen implicit and (2) they often come through practices and actions rather than disquisition. Below are examples of im plicit references from just two sources, the Ascetic Discourse of Stephen of Thebes,28 and chapter III of the Greek Systematic Apophthegmata, “On Compunction.”29 Chapter III of the Greek

Systematic Apophthegmata is concerned mostly with the fear of God and the final judgment that awaits each person; Abba Am “ monas in anguish worries how he will be able to stand before the

judgement seat of Christ” (III.4). Ammonas’ worry is healthy; it assumes accountability on our part and a concern on Christ’s part regarding our actions. Christ’s sacrifice 0n the cross is both as

sumed and implicit: risen in glory, he is now the great Judge of humankind. In the same chapter Evagrius exhorts his listeners to think about “the day of resurrection and our appearance before

God” (III.2). Evagrius’ assumption here is the same as Peter’s in Acts (Christ was crucified but has now been exalted at the right

hand of God) and Paul’s in Romans and 1 Corinthians (just as Christ has been raised, we shall be raised)“0 With Christ as Judge, Evagrius urges his listeners to “keep in mind the good things in store for the righteous, the confidence they have with

..__.---ts.=.in<_E-l!ibillifa God the Father and with his Christ, with angels, , and heavenly authorities, with all the heavenly company, the king dom of heaven and all its gifts, happiness, and enjoyment” (I115).

The emphasis in these sayings is on Christ the King and Christ the Judge,31 but those emphases do not exclude the crucifixion,

28See Tim Vivian and Apostolos N. Athanassakis, “The Ascetic Dis course of Stephen of Thebes,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 34.4 (1999) 425

54. For the Greek text, with a French translation, see Edouard des Places, “Le ‘Discours Ascétique’ d'Etienne d‘Thébes: texte Grec inédit et traduc tion,” Le Muséon 82, (1969) 35-59, and for another French translation, Michel van Parys, “Etienne de Thebes: Enseignement sur la vie monas tique,” in Paul 'I‘irot, et al., Enseignement des péres du desert: Hyperéchios, Etienne de Thebes, Zosime. Spiritualité Orientale 51 (Begrolles-en-Mauges: Bellefontaine 1991).

29Guy, ed., Les Apophtegmes des péres 148-83. I cite these two because I have recently worked with them.

30Acts 2:23, 33; Rom 6:4; 1 Cor 15:4, 20. 31In the Coptic Life of Macarius the Great (Coptic Palladiana) 12 [Long

TIM VIVIAN 403 resurrection, and atonement; rather, they subsume in heaven what happened on earth. As was noted above, the early monks did not focus their atten tion on the crucifixion; crucifixes are unknown in early Egyptian Christianity. But the Apophthegmata do suggest a quiet, implied connection between sorrow and weeping and the passion and cru cifixion of Christ. When Abba John the Little heard a brother laugh during an agape meal, he wept and lamented, “What does this brother have in his heart? He has laughed when instead he ought to weep because he is eating an agape meal” (III.16). Un less one fully grasps the context, John’s response will seem rather dour and puritanical. But we need to remember that the agape meal commemorates, remembers, the Last Supper.32 The bread eaten at the agape meal, the eulogia, was either consecrated bread left over from the that preceded the meal or bread blessed separately (panis benedictus).33 Each agape meal, then, like each Eucharist, remembers Christ’s last meal; after his agape, Christ walked out into betrayal, abandonment, scourging, crucifixion, and death. So here Abba John assumes, remembers, the events of Good Friday; without them, his outburst makes no theological or spiritual sense.34 and Mary the Mother of Christ became im portant spiritual witnesses to and reminders of the events at Cal vary. The soul, the early monks believed, should be like Mary Ma gadalene “when she bent OVer at the tomb and was weeping" [Jn 20:11-16] (III.50). Abba Poemen was once asked where his thoughts had been during some kind of mystical experience (ek stasis) and he powerfully responded, “My thoughts were with Saint Mary, the Mother of God, as she wept by the cross of the Savior [Jn 19:25]. I wish I could always weep like that.” 35 This

Recension], Christ is called “the just judge [see 2 Tim 4:8], who rewards those who stand in fear before him and who love his gospel well”; M. Chaine, “La double recension de l'Histoire Lausique dans la version copte," Revue de l'orient chre'tien 25 (1925-26) 239-59 (esp. 259). 32See Cecil Donahue, “The AGAPE of the of Scete,” Studia Monastica 1 (1959) 37-49. 33See Alphabetical Apophthegmata of Thebes 2 (Ward 110); Don ahue 111. 34The early monks also ate the agape meal not in a refectory but in church, which building they held in “the highest reverence and honor” (Donahue 103). 35Alphabetical Apophthegmata Poemen 144 (Ward 187). Jn 19:25 does

404 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001 spirituality of the cross would deepen and develop over the ages in the West, with perhaps its most profound expression coming in the anonymous thirteenth-century “Stabat mater,” but it can be found in inchoate form in the mothers and fathers of the desert. Should they be criticized, as Prof. Bell is wont to do, for not writ ing the “Stabat mater”? If so, we should equally criticize them for living in mud-brick cells and not having had the foresight to build Vézelay and Cluny. Although Prof. Bell warns against being anachronistic (390), he himself has fallen into what the historian H.A. Drake has termed “conceptual anachronism” which projects “modern assumptions about values and behavior onto periods in which such standards may not apply.”36 In this case, Bell anachronistically berates the early monks for not being Augus tinian medieval Roman Catholics.37 The “Stabat mater,” like each Eucharist, declares that Christ’s sacrifice is not merely an historical event but a present ; Mary Magdalene and Christ’s mother, then, become our mourn ing representatives. Thus, as Abba Poemen and Abba John the Little understand, both the “Stabat mater” and the Eucharist point back to our own participation in the events of Christ’s cruci fixion. Given this reality, the surprise is not that the early monks wept so much, but that we weep so little. What at first seems like bizarre behavior among the monks, all that weeping beneath the shadow of the cross, becomes in reality the only sane response: “It was said about Abba Arsenius that his whole life while sitting and working with his hands he would have a rag on his chest on account of the tears that fell from his eyes” (III.3). Here again, the monks do not parade their crosses, like monastic Pharisees standing on cloister street corners. Instead, they assume the real ity of the cross; even more, they live it. Reflecting early monastic beliefs and practices, John Cassian has Abba Pinufius instruct a monastic beginner in the transforming power of the Cross of Christ: “Consider, therefore, the demands of the cross, beneath whose mystery [sacramento] you ought to live from now on in this not say that Christ’s mother was weeping; perhaps Poemen conflated Mary Magdalene’s weeping in Jn 20:11 with that of the Blessed , but un doubtedly Jesus’ mother was weeping. 36H.A. Drake, Constantine and the : The Politics of Intolerance (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins 2000) 17. 37It is clear from his book on Shenoute (see n. 2 above) that Bell finds Coptic spirituality in general to be distasteful.

TIM VIVIAN 405 life, because you no longer live but he who was crucified for you lives in you” [see Gal 2:20].38 These sayings from the Apophthegmata hearken back to the biblical story or stories; they assume the world of the Bible, a vi tal point that Prof. Bell ignores. The modern edition of the Ascetic Discourse of Stephen of Thebes comprises 23 pages; in those pages there are around 150 references to the Bible.39 The world of the Discourse is the universe of the Bible. Although direct quota tions occur far less than indirect references and allusions, the Bible is assumed in every sentence, almost every word. But it is the Bible read “spiritually,” allegorically and topically, where bib lical “facts” point to deeper “spiritual” truths. Stephen’s first sen tence provides a perfect illustration of both his method and his spirituality. This is the word remembered and kept alive in the present, where the word is pregnant with meaning and associa tion and is ever giving birth: Stephen is “making a text memo rable, that is to say, operative over time in the deepest parts of the of the one to whom the word is given. The word is re-membered again and again in the monk’s heart, and it con tinues to bear fruit there/’40 The setting here, we must remem ber, is the monastic practice of rumination on Scripture in the

38Cassian, Institutes 4.34; Jean-Claude Guy, ed., Institutions cénobi~ tiques SC 109 (Paris: Cerf 1965) 172. Cassian's words echo 1500 years later in those of , who had read Cassian carefully and lectured on him before the novices at Gethsemani: “Here it is essential to remember that for a Christian ‘the word of the Cross’ is nothing theoretical, but a stark and existential experience of in His death in order to share in His resurrection. To fully ‘hear’ and ‘receive’ the word of the Cross means much more than simple assent to the dogmatic proposition that Christ died for our sins. It means to be ‘nailed to the Cross with Christ,’ so that the ego-self is no longer the principle of our deepest actions, which now proceed from Christ living in us.” Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite (New York: New Directions 1968) 55-56. See also Hyperechius, Ad hortatio ad monachos 139. Using the sign of the cross is also common in early monastic literature; see, for example, Hyperechius, Adhortatio 10. In the Life of Antony 72-80 Antony both defends the cross against pagan philosophers and utilizes it to effect a healing, though this section may well be more Athanasian than Antonian. 391 am largely indebted to des Places, supplemented by van Parys (see note 28 above), for these figures. 40Jeremy Driscoll, “Exegetical Procedures in the Desert Monk Poemen,” Mysterium Christi: Symbolgegenwart und theologische Bedeutung. Festschrift frir Basil Studer, ed. Magnus Lohrer and Elmar Salmann (Rome: Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo 1995) 155-78; esp. 158.

406 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001 desert, where “prayer without ceasing,” that is, the constant ut tering of Scripture on the lips, becomes the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, not only “the deepest parts of the consciousness” but also the very fabric of one’s physical re ality. In other words, one’s entire being. “First of all, child,” Stephen declares, “renounce the world. Re nounce your country, your parents [see Gen 12:1]. Renounce what is material and visible, that is, the cares of this world [see Mk 4:19, Lk 8:14], so you can see the good kingdom of heaven.” The monk, suffused with Scripture, knowing large parts of it by heart, would immediately hear, in Stephen’s exhortation to renounce parents and country, God’s call to . But Abraham is not some remote figure: the monk, in obeying God’s call to renuncia tion, actually becomes Abraham (as each Eucharist more than just recalls Christ’s sacrifice). And he would know God’s promise (Gen 12:2): “I will make ofyou a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” So that you will be a blessing. This, then, becomes the subtext, the foundation, of the entire Discourse: the monastic life entails re nunciations, hardships, and privations, even hand-to-hand com bat against the powers and principalities, but it is a blessing. And it is God’s calling. The monk, therefore, does not go it alone but like Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, and all the saints, lives within the embrace of salvation history.41 But mimesis and identification, as deep as they go with Abra ham, penetrate much deeper still. “Observe your teacher,” Stephen says, “how he walked in humility, providing us with an example so we might follow closely in his footsteps” (Ascetic Dis course 24). That teacher, as the scriptural allusions (Mt 11:29 and 1 Pt 2:21) would have undoubtedly made clear, is Christ.42

41Ascetic Discourse 25-28. On renunciation, see Apophthegmata Antony 32-33 (Ward 8). 42Although Bell discusses Christ as paidagégos (385), he believes, incor rectly, that for the monks he was no more than “a teacher and exemplar” (387). Nor does Bell note the scriptural warrant for understanding Christ as teacher: in the New Testament Christ is often teacher (didaskalos); among numerous examples, see Mt 8:19, Jn 1:38, and Jn 8:10. (150-215) “hellenized” the teacher by making him an instructor (paidagogos): “our Instructor is like His Father God, whose son He is, less, blameless, and with a soul devoid of passion . . . . Our Instructor, the Word, therefore cures'the unnatural passions of the soul by means of exhor tations.” The Instructor 1.2, trans. A. Cleveland Coxe, The Ante-Nicene Fa

TIM VIVIAN 407 Stephen opens his Discourse with “renounce” (apotassou), the clarion call of monasticism; he repeats it twice in the first sen tence and seventeen more times in the first eight sentences. In that single word the would hear not just Abraham but Christ himself: “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up [apotassetai] all your possessions” (Lk 14:33). These pos sessions, “material and visible,” are “the cares of this world.” The monk would surely recall that such cares, in Jesus’ parable, choke the seeds that fall not on good earth but on thorns (Lk 8:14). Stephen will later return to this image and promise (#92): when the monk leaves “the world,” he or she “is sown in good earth, bringing forth fruit a hundredfold.” Even a cursory study of early monastic sources proves Armand Veilleux’s observation that “all the motivations that [the early monks] themselves revealed to us in their writings come from Scripture. Do we have any right to pretend that we know their se cret motivations better than they did?“3 The Life of Antony may be more Athanasian than Antonian (see above), but that does not make it any less monastic, and its whole self-understanding is biblical.44 How can this not be real Christianity? The other works cited above are infused with and permeated by the Scriptures.45 For the early monks it was the word that saved, both the biblical word and the monastic word that became a sort of second canon: “Give us a word, father, that we may be saved” (these words be came the Apophthegmata). In this sense, perhaps the early monks are more like early Protestants in that first and foremost thers, vol. 2, Fathers of the Second Century (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, repr. 1979) 209-10. Such healing of the passions would have naturally appealed to a monastic audience (see Ascetic Discourse 4-8). In the Virtues of Saint Macarius 65 (Amélineau, ed. 178), Macarius couples the teacher with the crucified one: “the teacher has received the likeness and the form of the true shepherd, the true teacher, he who allowed the strokes of nails and the stroke of the lance to be carved in his body.” 43'Armand Veilleux, “Monasticism and in Egypt,” in Birger A. Pearson and James E. Goehring, eds., The Roots of Egyptian Christianity. Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress 1986) 271 306; esp. 306. 4"1See my introduction to Vivian and Athanassakis, trans., The Life of Antony. 45On this subject, see especially Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monas ticism (Oxford & New York: Oxford U 1993).

408 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001 they understood themselves biblically. That is, their entire self consciousness and -understanding were shaped by the Scrip tures, by lectio, by psalmody, by the biblical types and heroes. The monks saw themselves very much as part of salvation history, part of the drama beginning with Abraham and leading to Christ. They seem to have emphasized the vast sweep and panorama of salvation history rather than a climactic moment. As pointed out above, for the early monks action, biblically-in spired action, is what counted. Putting the saving word into prac tice. When modern theologians discuss Christian practice, they borrow the ancient Greek word for “action,” . For the monks, orthopraxis was just as important as orthodoxy, perhaps even more so, and they conceived of orthopraxis, more often than not, as imitation of Christ. Numerous sources demonstrate that the semi- would leave their cells and journey, often for miles, to central places with churches so they could participate in the Eucharist. Some scholars have suggested that they took the “reserved” back with them. People do not build churches (and there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of monastic churches) and travel long miles for the Eucharist if they do not believe Christ has died and is risen. Here again, the monks did not write about how important the Eucharist was; they demonstrated its centrality (and the centrality of Christ’s cruci fixion and resurrection) with their feet, and with all their heart. Saint Euthymius (377-473), likewise, honored Christ’s resurrec tion by traveling. Each year he would leave his monastery in and go out alone into the desert for Lent, after forty days going up to Jerusalem for .46 Euthymius physically acted out what most of those monks lived: Lenten lives devoted to an anticipation of, and pointing toward, Easter and the heavenly Jerusalem. Euthymius symbolically followed in Christ’s foot steps, becoming himself an alter Christus in the desert. The desert here becomes the way of the cross, leading up to Jerusalem and resurrection, and Euthymius’ movements each day would be stations of the cross. Prof. Bell cites such imitatio Christi (385), only to wave it away. But imitatio was vitally important to the monks.47 To give

46Cyril of Scythopolis, Life of Euthymius 7; RM. Price, trans., Cyril of Scythopolis: The Lives of the Monks of Palestine (Kalamazoo: Cistercian 1991) 10. 47See H. Bacht, who supplements the work of Irenée Hausherr, “La loi

TIM VIVIAN 409 just one example, according to early Coptic monastic tradition Christ one day passed by the cell of Saint Bishoi (or Bishoy), founder of one of the ancient in Scetis (Wadi al-Na trun), and Bishoi stooped down to wash his master’s feet. Another time Bishoi was told in a vision by Christ to go out into the desert where the Lord would meet him, so Bishoi took some disciples and went. As they were walking, they saw an old man, feeble and exhausted, who asked to go with the monks. But the brothers were anxious to meet Christ and ignored the old man. Bishoi, however, when he saw the old man’s plight, took pity on him and carried him along with him. When Bishoi caught up with the other monks at the location where they were to meet Christ, he straightened his back and the stranger disappeared. As Otto Meinardus concludes: “Christ had sat at the roadside, waiting to be helped. In their haste to see Christ they had forgotten to be Christians.“8

CONCLUSION

The ammas and abbas of the desert desired with all their hearts to see Christ. In their desire they did not forget to be Christians, to perform (as John the Little puts it above) all their deeds while regarding their own good and that of their brothers and sisters equally. As Abba Poemen summarized, “These three things are the most helpful of all: fear of the Lord, prayer without ceasing, and doing good to one’s neighbor."9 Each member of this ethical is biblical.50 Jesus put it very bluntly: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, he will separate the sheep from the goats, and his criteria (or criterion) for this separation will be simple: who fed the hungry, welcomed the stranger, clothed the du ‘retour aux sources” (De quelques aspects de l'idéal monastique pachomien),” Revue Mabillon 51 (1961) 6-25. 48Otto Meinardus, Monks and Monasteries of the Egyptian Deserts (rev. ed.; Cairo: AUC Press 1992) 105. The Copts believe these events have pro‘ found and lasting significance. Because of his actions toward Christ, Bishoi‘s body remains uncorrupted to this day and reposes in a reliquary in the main church at the Monastery of Saint Bishoy and numerous ancient and modern icons (and now even coffee mugs) show Bishoi washing Christ's feet. See “The Monastery of Saint Bishoy" (visitors’ pamphlet) 7. 49Alphabetical Apophthegmata Poemen 160 (Ward 189) PG 65.361A (some mss. lack “Without ceasing”). 50See Prov 1:7 (among numerous others), 1 Th 5:17, Mt 19:19 and paral lels.

410 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001 naked, cared for the sick, and visited those in prison (Mt 25: 31 46)? Sayings and stories about the early ammas and abbas doing all these things are legion, so many as to defy even listing.51 T0 of fer just one example, the Coptic Life of Pambo summarizes well in two paragraphs the early monks’ Christ-following concern for others, both monastics and laypersons. Pambo would also do this other thing: he gave nothing for the service of ser vants unless it was to an old man, poor and infirm, who was unable to acquire bread for himself. Moreover, with regard to the monks who lived there, he did not give them anything from the provisions he had at hand but instead chose for himself ten faithful brothers whom he sent to the islands and to Libya each year and to the lepers’ colony in Alexandria; loading the boats with grain and bread, they would dis tribute them to those in need and also to the churches of villages that were in need and to the churches of the interior deserts in barbarian territory. I tell you this so you (pl.) will understand why he did not give any thing to the monks who lived there. Seek and you (sing.) will under stand that he began a custom among the brothers who lived in Egypt and Pernouj [Nitria]: each one would give an artaba52 of grain per per son each year and they would put them at the service of those in need, distributing them to the hospices for lepers and to the widows and or phans.53 Each of the monks would have the responsibility each year to give the artaba of grain from his charitable labor, and this is their cus tom up to today.54

It is possible that this is an idealized view of early monastic life, like Luke’s depictions in Acts of the primitive Christian com munity, but I doubt it: it is too specific for wishful thinking. At their best, the mothers and fathers of the desert lived simple lives of work and prayer devoted to God and to others. At less than

510n hospitality, see Lucien Regnault, La Vie quotidienne des Peres du desert en Egypte au IVe siecle (Paris: Hachette 1990) chapter XI, “L'Accueil des visiteurs,” 153-63. In fact, examples of all the above practices may be found scattered throughout Regnault’s fine study. 52Coptic ertob comes from the Persian by way of Gk artabé, a measure ranging from 24 to 42 choinikes, roughly equivalent to English quarts. A choinix of grain was considered one person‘s daily allowance. 53See Dt 14:29, Is 1:17, and Jas 1:27. 54'I‘im Vivian, “Coptic Palladiana I: The Life of Pambo,” Coptic Church Review 20:3 (Fall 1999) 66-95; esp. 94. Although the Coptic Life ofPambo is related to chapters 9-10 of the Lausiac History by Palladius, the latter does not contain these two paragraphs; for a discussion, see Vivian, “Pambo” 66, 80-84.

TIM VIVIAN 4 1 1 their best, they still lived lives focused on God, but understood that focus at times in ways that seem near-sighted to us now: ex cessive asceticism, occasional denigration of the body,5'5 misogyny. But, I would suggest, their ills are no worse than our own. Of course not all of the early monks were perfect; the early monas tics undoubtedly had their share of eccentrics, misanthropes, and loonies. Such a mix is not uncommon in any age. Prof. Bell, how ever, asserts that the Cistercians perfected the pitiful vehicle of early monasticism and gave it wings to soar (396); thus he suc cumbs to his own warnings against nostalgia. I seriously doubt that most Benedictines and Cistercians would think that their monasteries, or their Orders, are perfect. But the Benedictine and Cistercian monks that I know, both personally and from study, all say—and live like—their lives are devoted to Christ and a greater knowledge of him. For all their faults, the ammas and abbas of the desert do not deserve opprobrium but rather praise of the highest order. As Thomas Merton concluded,

Ours is certainly a time for solitaries and for hermits. But merely to reproduce the simplicity, austerity, and prayer of these primitive is not a complete or satisfactory answer. We must transcend them, and transcend all those who, since their time, have gone beyond the limits which they set. We must liberate ourselves, in our own way, from in volvement in a world that is plunging to disaster.56

Without the early desert mothers and fathers, their words and example, Saint Benedict and Saint Bernard would not have ex isted as monastic and spiritual saints, nor Citeaux or Cluny or Gethsemani—or any modern monastery—as spiritual centers,

55The conclusions reached by Terrence G. Kardong, “John Cassian’s Teaching on Perfect Chastity,” American Benedictine Review 30 (1979) 249 63, and Kenneth C. Russell, “Cassian on a Delicate Subject,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 27 (1992) 1-12, in their studies of John Cassian’s appar ent obsession with nocturnal pollution, caution us against being too quick to write off the asceticism of the desert tradition as the consequence of the hermits’ hatred of the body. See also Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia U 1988); Kenneth C. Russell, “John Cassian on Asceticism,” Re view for Religious 56 (1997) 156-68; and Russell, “Reaching Saint Antony Across the Scholarly Barriers," 381-4 (1997) 93-127, esp. 107-09. 5G'I'homas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers ofthe Fourth Century (New York: New Directions 1960) 23.

412 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001 and this world, God’s world, would be a much poorer, even deso late, place.

APPENDIX A VERY BRIEF EARLY MONASTIC CHRESTOMATHY

Below, without much commentary, are some supplemental early monastic readings in response to specific points raised by Prof. Bell in his article, with references to the article given in parentheses and in footnotes.

The Purpose ofAsceticism (385)

“It behooves us, then, to carry out the things that are sec ondary—namely, fasts, vigils, the solitary life, and meditation on Scripture—for the sake of the principal scopos [goal], which is pu rity of heart or love. . . .Thus fasts, vigils, meditating on Scrip ture, and the being stripped and deprived of every possession are not perfection, but they are the tools of perfection/’57

Seeing the Son of God (387) “An old man said, ‘The monk’s cell is the furnace of the Baby lonians where the three children found the Son of God [Dan 3] and is the pillar of cloud from which God spoke to Moses [Ex 33:9].’”53

Pursuing the Crucified Christ (387)

“An old man was asked: ‘How can a fervent brother not be shocked when he sees others returning to the world?’ And he said, ‘Watch the dogs who chase hares. When one of them has seen a hare he pursues it, until he catches it, without being concerned with anything else. So it is with him who seeks Christ as Master;

57John Cassian, Conferences 1.7.2-3; John Cassian: The Conferences, trans. Boniface Ramsey, ACW 57 (New York: Paulist 1997) 46. Columba Stewart, “Writing About John Cassian in the 1990s," p. 345, has wisely warned that we moderns too often get obsessed with early monastic prac tices (especially with regard to and sexual abstinence) and as a re sult do not keep our eyes on the prize, Cassian’s scopos, purity of heart. 58Systematic Apophthegmata VII.46; Guy, ed., Les Apophtegmes des péres: Collection systématique, 376-78.

TIM VIVIAN 413 ever mindful of the cross, he cares for none of the obstacles that get in his way, till he reaches the Crucified.”’ 59

Greeting Christ in the Visitor (387)

“When we asked why the daily fast was thus ignored by them, without scruple one of the elders replied: ‘The opportunity for fasting is always with me. But as I am going to conduct you on your way, I cannot always keep you with me. And a fast, although it is useful and advisable, is yet a free will ofi'ering. But the exi gencies of a command require the fulfillment of a walk of charity. And so receiving Christ in you I ought to refresh Him.”60

Seeing the Glorified Christ on the Mountain of Solitude (387) “To gaze with utterly purified eyes on the divinity is possible but only to those who rise above lowly and earthly works and thoughts and retreat with Him into the high mountain of soli tude. When they are freed from the tumult of worldly ideas and passions, when they are liberated from the confused melee of all the vices, when they have reached the sublime heights of utterly pure faith and of preeminent virtue, the divinity makes known to them the glory of Christ’s face and reveals the sight of its splen dors to those worthy to look upon it with the clarified eye of the spirit.”61

The Primacy of Grace (389) “Therefore, let this word be manifest to you, that you should not regard your progress and entry into the service of God as your own work; rather, a divine power supports you always.”62

Grace and Free Will (389-90)

Cassian knew of Augustine’s view of grace: the human will is so tainted that, if ungraced, it can do no more than choose evil;

5S’Benedicta Ward, trans., Wisdom of the Desert Fathers (Oxford: SLG Press 1975) 62, altered. 60John Cassian, Institutes V.24 (NPNF 11:243). 61John Cassian, Conferences 10.6; John Cassian: Conferences, trans. Colm Luibheid, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist 1985) 128-29. 62Antony, Letter 6.82; Rubenson, The Letters ofSt. Antony 221-22.

414 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001 and so overwhelming is God’s grace that, ultimately if God calls, the soul cannot resist. Cassian thought Augustine’s views ex treme and devoted Conference 3 to denouncing them. Cassian in sisted on the reality of moral freedom and insisted that resistance to God is indeed possible. Cassian was no Pelagian and insisted on the necessity of grace with a fervor and complexity never found among Pelagians. Cassian knew monks battled terrible forces of evil within themselves and within the world and to do so they needed the generous outpouring of God’s grace every step of the way, from beginning to end. But for Cassian grace, while ab solutely necessary, aids but does not compel. (1) Conference 3.19.1: “We are very clearly taught that the be ginning of a good will is bestowed upon us at the Lord’s inspira tion . . . and also that the perfection of the virtues is granted by him in the same way, but that it is up to us to pursue God’s en couragement and help in either a haphazard or a serious man ner.” (2) Conference 3.19.2: “It is obvious from this testimony what we ought to ascribe to free will and what to the plan and daily help of the Lord, and that it belongs to to offer us op portunities of salvation and favorable moments and victory, but that it is up to us to pursue either intently or lazily the benefits that God bestows.” (3) Conference 3.20.1: “We ought to believe with a firm faith that nothing at all can be done in this world without God. For it must be admitted that everything occurs either by his will or by his permission.”63

Grace of the Spirit in Prayer (389) “Aflame with all this their hearts are rapt in the burning prayer which human words can neither grasp nor utter. Some times the soul which has come to be rooted in this of real purity takes on all the forms of prayer at the same time. It flies from one to the other, like an uncontrollable grasping fire. It be comes an outpouring of living pure prayer which the Holy Spirit, without our knowing it, lifts up to God in unspeakable groanings. It conceives so much within itself at that instant, unspeakably

63John Cassian: The Conferences, trans. Ramsey 136-37.

TIM VIVIAN 415 pours forth so much in supplication, that it could not tell you of it at another time nor even remember it all.” 6"

Yearning for the Grace of God (389) John Cassian, Conference 10.10. The speaker is Abba Isaac of Scetis, on using Ps 69:2 as a prayer formula: “I am troubled by the pangs of rage, of greed, of gloom. I am drawn to scatter that gentleness which I had embraced as my own. And so if I am not to be carried off by turbulent rage into bitterness I must groan mightily and call out ‘Come to my help, 0 God; Lord, hurry to my rescue.’ I am tempted to boredom, by vanity, by the surge of pride. My mind takes subtle pleasure in the negligence or the easy-go ing attitude of others. And so if this devilish prompting of the en emy is not to overcome me I must pray in all contrition of heart ‘Come to my help, 0 God; Lord, hurry to my rescue.’ . . . I feel that my spirit has once more found a sense of direction, that my think ing has grown purposeful, that because of a visit of the Holy Spirit my heart is unspeakably glad and my mind ecstatic. Here is a great overflow of spiritual thoughts, thanks to a sudden illu mination and to the coming of the Savior. The holiest ideas, hith erto concealed from me, have been revealed to me. And so if I am to deserve to remain thus for much longer, I must anxiously and regularly cry ‘Come to my help, 0 God; Lord, hurry to my res cue.”65

The Christ of Evagrius (392) Admittedly, there is not much on Christ in the Praktikos, but in the Kephalaia Gnostica and elsewhere, Evagrius has a magnif icent vision of Christ’s redemptive enterprise embracing and transforming the entire fallen universe and restoring it so God may again become all in all. One might not like the Origenist ring of that, but it is Christian, and faithful to the vision of cosmic re demption found in the New Testament and in the desert Ori genists. One of the letters in ’s corpus is actually by Evagrius: Letter 8. It is an unusually brilliant articulation of the classic Cappadocian doctrine of the Trinity.66 One can criticize

“Cassian, Conferences 9.15; John Cassian: Conferences, trans. Luibheid 110. 65John Cassian: Conferences, trans.Luibheid 133-134. 66For the Greek text and a translation, see Roy J. Deferrari, ed. and

416 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001 Evagrius for many things, but before doing so one should read his introduction to the Antirrheticus in which he sees the monk as one who imitates Christ in the desert. While the mainstream Christian tradition has been critical of Evagrius—and in certain ways, rightly so—it has not been because of his Christology strictly speaking, but because of his cosmology. And the monks of Egypt were critical of Evagrius and his party for that. The Ori- . genist controversy was not about literate vs. illiterate monks, nor simply about power politics of Archbishop Theophilus of Alexan dria, but rather was about the meaning of Christ encountered in Christian prayer, the Christ who was the center of the monk’s prayer.“ (1) Kephalaia Gnostica III.57: “As those who teach letters to children trace them on tablets, thus also Christ, teaching his wis dom to the rational beings, has traced it in corporeal nature.” 68 (2) “Letter to Melania” 12:442-65: “What was unnatural, was that God was born of a woman. But God, because of his love for us, and because his nature is not bound by, or subjected to any law, was born of a woman because He wanted it so, without bring ing to naught what He was, in order to deliver from conception and birth us that are subject to the curse and to sin, that He might give us second birth with a birth to which blessing and righteousness belong. For since we have ruined our nature by free will, we have come down to our present conception and birth which are subject to the curse. But He, while remaining what He is, in his grace took upon Him, at birth, all the things which fol low after birth until death, things which are not only unnatural to Him but also, I would say, unnatural to us. For we have fallen into these things because of the sin we have committed of our own free will. He delivers us from them, in that He voluntarily, with out having sinned, loaded them upon Himself, for we are unable to rise above them by ourselves; because we have committed this sin we have fallen into them. Not only did He not remain in them, trans., Saint Basil: The Letters, 4 vols., LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U 1926) 46-93. 67See Elizabeth A. Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scrip ture in Early Christianity (Princeton: Princeton U 1999) and Tim Vivian, “Coptic Palladiana II: The Life of Evagrius (Lausiac History 38),” Coptic Church Review 21.1 (Spring 2000) 8-23. ” 68Cited by Martin Parmentier, “Evagrius of Pontus’ ‘Letter to Melania,’ Bijdragen, tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie 46 (1985) 2-38; esp. 22.

TIM VIVIAN 417 but He also pulled us out of them, because, as we have said, He had descended into them out of his love, not as a consequence of sin. What was supernatural, was that a man was born of a woman without intercourse: the virginity of his mother stayed in tact. And what was also supernatural to men, was that a man died of his own free will and after his death rose of his own free will, without corruption and the help of others. Thus God who loves man, became man and was born of his own free will, with out intercourse, and He also died in the way He wanted, and rose again without corruption according to his will, this God who be came man, while still being God.”69 (3) “Letter to Melania” 12: “For He [Christ] is the leaven of the godhead, who in his goodness has hidden Himself in the unleav ened dough of mankind. And not only did He not lose his nature, his taste and his power, He even raised the whole dough unto all that is his [cf. 1 Cor 5:6, Gal 5:91. For leaven that is hidden in un leavened dough, appears itself to be unleavened only for a short time. After a period, however, not only does the dough appear to be leavened, but it truly is. In the same way our Lord has ap peared as a man in our time, in our world, and in our measure. But in his own time, in his world and in his kingdom, this man does not only appear to be God, but he truly is. And as in this world there were not two beings, God and man, but one, God for himself and man for us; thus in this world too, there are not two beings, God and man, but one God who for himself is God and God who is man because God has become man. As the one who has become man for the other, thus also the other becomes God for the one.” 70

Saint Shenoute the Great and Christ (393) In his magisterial Christ in Christian Tradition, Aloys Grillmeier has definitively refuted the “inappropriate” “harsh judgement” that Shenoute’s theology is “Christless.” 71 Grillmeier speaks of Shenoute’s “pronounced Jesus-piety” and “biblical Christocentrism,” and credits the abbot of the

69“Letter to Melania,” Parmentier, trans. 18-19. 70“Letter to Melania,” Parmentier, trans. 19. 71See Aloys Grillmeier, in collaboration with Theresia Hainthaler, Christ in Christian Tradition 2.4 (English ed.; London: Mowbray 1996) 168 and 168 note 4.

418 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001 with being a “socius Christi [ally of Christ]” and “the founder of Coptic Christology.” 72 Prof. Bell’s accusation against Shenoute is based more on his reading (and misreading) of Besa, Shenoute’s biographer (see 11. 2 above) than it is a coherent understanding of Shenoute.73 In opposition to such previous Western academic and religious chauvanism, Grillmeier importantly concludes:

Thus for ecumenical reasons it must be our special concern to correct wrong judgements on Shenoute and Besa and their monastic commu nities and to point to their explicit and implicit Christocentrism. We would, so to speak, rip the heart out of the body of the Coptic church and its piety if we spoke of an absence of Christ in such monastic com munities, which are in no wise to be separated from the life of this church.74

Below are just two short excerpts from a “Catechesis” by Shenoute the Great.75 One notes the lived nature of these words. (1) “Glory be to you [God] and to your blessed Son from the of the heavens and from that which is therein. Be praised, O God. Glory be to you and to your blessed Son from the oikumene [world] and from all that is therein. Be praised O God: glory be to you from all your things, to you and to your blessed Son, from whom are all your things, and all his things are yours. Be praised, O God, you and your blessed Son, whose name to gether with yours are one and the same in the mouth of the one who struggles against those who support this new ungodliness [that is, those who said prayer could be made only through Christ and not to Christ]. For this is his wealth and his hope:

“when entering [the house, say]: God, and when leaving: Jesus, and when resting: God, and when rising: Jesus, and when blessing: God, and when petitioning: Jesus. “In order not to stop any longer here: it is clear that we are naming the consubstantial Trinity when we say Jesus.”

"Grillmeier 167-234; 187, 217, 230, 167. 73See Grillmeier 229-34. 74Grillmeier 234. 75Grillmeier 186.

’I'IMVIVIAN 419 (2) “If you celebrate a feast and are joyful [say]: Jesus, if you have worry and suffering: Jesus; if the sons and daughters laugh: Jesus; those who touch water: Jesus; those who must flee from barbarians: Jesus; those who see monsters or other frightening things: Jesus; those who have pain or illness: Jesus; those who have been taken captive: Jesus; those who were unjustly judged and suffer injustice: Jesus. The name of Jesus alone is on their lips and is their salvation and their life: he and his Father.”

420 ABR 52:4 - DEC. 2001