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7 - Heterodoxy and Monasticism around the Mediterranean Sea

from Part I - The Origins of Christian Monasticism to the Eighth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2020

By
David Brakke
Edited by
Alison I. Beach  and
Isabelle Cochelin
Alison I. Beach
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Isabelle Cochelin
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Summary

Sometime between 444 and 451, Dioscorus, the patriarch of Alexandria (d. 454), wrote to Shenoute (c. 348–465), the leader of a large monastic community near Atripe, on the west side of the Nile, opposite Panopolis. Dioscorus asked Shenoute to help him enforce a memorandum that he had sent to three local bishops (appended to the letter) in which the patriarch banned a “heretic” named Elijah from the monasteries near Panopolis. Elijah, a priest and almost certainly a monk, promoted the teachings of the Alexandrian Origen (c. 185–253/4), the patriarch explained. He expressed satisfaction that a priest named Psenthaesios and “the monks with him” had rejected and expelled Elijah, but he lamented that a monastery called “The Encampment” was known to possess books by Origen and “other heretics.”

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Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West , pp. 128 - 143
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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