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Remembering Poemen Remembering: The Desert Fathers and the Spirituality of Memory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

William Harmless Sj
William Harmless Sj
Affiliation:
William Harmless, SJ, is the Thomas E. Caestecker Professor of the Liberal Arts at Spring Hill College.
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Extract

In 407, a tribe of barbarian raiders known as Mazices came sweeping off the Libyan desert and devastated one of the first great centers of Christian monasticism, the settlement of Scetis. Scetis was located in a remote desert valley west of the Nile and had been founded around 330 by one of the pioneers of the monastic movement, Macarius the Egyptian (d. 390). Before the attack, it had enjoyed an international reputation for its ascetic rigor and incisive wisdom. Word of the devastation spread rapidly, even to the Latin West. Augustine knew of it and counted it among the great disasters of the time.2 And when the sack of Rome took place a couple of years later, in 410, one of Scetis's survivors, Abba Arsenius, would link the two events: “The world has lost Rome and the monks have lost Scetis.” Scetis's destruction marked a turning point in the history of early Christian monasticism. The site would be resettled a few years later, and in fact would suffer other barbarian raids, notably in 434, 444, and 570. But after this first one, many of its leading monks dispersed and never returned.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 69 , Issue 3 , September 2000 , pp. 483 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2000

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References

1. The classic study is by White, H. G. Evelyn, The Monasteries of the Wadi 'n Natrtûn, part 2, The History of the Monasteries of Nitria and of Scetis (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition, 1932).Google ScholarSee also Guy, Jean-Claude, “Le Centre monastique de Scété dans la littérature du Ve siècle,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 30 (1964): 129–47, andGoogle ScholarVivian, Tim, “The Monasteries of the Wadi Natrun, Egypt: A Personal and Monastic Journey,” American Benedictine Review 49 (1998): 3–32.Google Scholar

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4. AP Anoub 1 (PG 65:129; trans, my own).Google Scholar

5. For an introduction to and overview of the Apophthegmata, see Burton-Christie, Douglas, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993);Google Scholarand Gould, Graham, The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community, Oxford Early Christian Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).CrossRefGoogle ScholarSee also the incisive survey by Guillaumont, Antoine, “L'enseignement spirituel des moines d'Égypte: La formation d'une tradition,” reprinted in Études sur la spiritualité de l'Orient chrétien, Spiritualité orientale 66 (Bégrolle-en-Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1996), 81–92.Google Scholar

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8. The Greek text of the Alphabetical Collection was published by Cotelier, Jean-Baptiste in 1647 from a twelfth-century manuscript and is reprinted in PG 65:71–440. It contains 948 sayings. Jean-Claude Guy has supplemented this with 53 more from other Greek manuscripts;Google Scholarsee Recherches sur la tradition grecque des Apophthegmata Patrum, Subsidia Hagiographica 36 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1962). Ward's Sayings of the Desert Fathers offers a complete translation into English.Google Scholar

9. Nau, F. published only the first 396 sayings from the Anonymous Collection in “Histoire des solitaires égyptiens,” Revue d'orient Chretien 12–14, 17–18 (1907–1909, 1912–13).Google ScholarFor a translation of Nau 1–132, see Stewart, Columba, trans, and ed., The World of the Desert Fathers (Oxford: SLG Press, 1986);Google Scholarfor a translation of Nau 133–396, see Ward, Benedicta, trans, and ed., The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers (Oxford: SLG Press, 1986).Google ScholarFor a complete translation into French, see Les Sentences des pères du désert: Série des anonymes, trans, and ed. Regnault, Lucien (Solesmes: Abbaye Saint-Pierre, 1985).Google Scholar

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11. The Verba seniorum of Pelagius and John was edited by the Jesuit Heribert Rosweyde at Antwerp in 1615, and is reprinted in Patrologia latina, ed. Migne, J.-P. (1844–1865), 73:855–1022.Google ScholarMost of it has been translated into English in Chadwick, Owen, Western Asceticism (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1958), 37–189.Google Scholar

12. The best recent overview of the question is by Gould, Desert Fathers on Monastic Community, 5–25. Gould's own position is that the oral tradition behind the text is substantially trustworthy and that it accurately describes fourth-century monastic views and conditions: “The oral tradition intentionally preserved material both of an anecdotal and a doctrinal character, and its reduction to writing was relatively conservative even though losses and changes undoubtedly occurred. Skepticism about the historical value of the Sayings is thus not well founded on a consideration of the evidence which is currently available” (24).Google ScholarRubenson, Samuel argues for a much more skeptical view in The Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 145–62. Rubenson has expressed a basic skepticism about the dependability of any lengthy oral tradition; he also sees the Origenist crisis of 400 as a watershed event that resulted in a deliberate falsification of the monastic tradition. This is part of his larger thesis that the seven letters attributed to Antony are authentic, and that they are evidence that Antony was theologically literate and held decidedly Origenist views, things that he believes were deliberately suppressed in the picture of early monasticism presented in both Athanasius's Life of Antony and the Apophthegmata. Gould has sharply criticized Rubenson's account;Google Scholarsee his article “Recent Work on Monastic Origins: A Consideration of the Questions Raised by Rubenson's, SamuelThe Letters of St. Antony,” Studia Patristica 25 (1993): 405–416.Google ScholarFor an overview, see Pollok, J., “The Present State of Studies on the Apophthegmata Patrum: An Outline of Samuel Rubenson's and Graham Gould's Perspectives,” in Starowicyski, Marek, ed., The Spirituality of Ancient Monasticism (Cracow: Tyniec, 1995), 79–90.Google Scholar

13. Regnault, Lucien, “Les Apophtegmes des pères en Palestine aux Ve-VIe siècles,” Irénikon 54 (1981): 320–30.Google Scholar

14. Guy, , introduction to Apophtegmes des Pères, SC 387: 77.Google Scholar

15. Bousset, Wilhelm, Apophthegmata: Studien zur Geschichte des altesten Monchtums (Tubingen: Mohr, 1923), 68–71.Google Scholar

16. Chitty, Derwas, The Desert A City: An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism Under the Christian Empire (reprint of 1966 edition; Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1997), 66–71;Google ScholarGuy, , “Introduction,” Apophtegmes des Pères, SC 387:77–79.Google Scholar

17. Driscoll, Jeremy, “Exegetical Procedures in the Desert Monk Poemen,” in Mysterium Christi: Symbolgegenwort und theologische Bedeutung: Festschrift für Basil Studer, ed. Löhrer, Magnus, Studia Anselmiana 116 (Rome: Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, 1995), 155–78.Google ScholarDriscoll's fine study is limited to examining a handful of examples of Poemen as a biblical interpreter. There is also a brief article by Regnault, Lucien, “Poemen,” in The Coptic Encyclopedia(New York: Macmillan, 1991), 6:1983–84.Google Scholar

18. See Guillaumont, Antoine, “Le Problème des deux Macaires,” Irenikon 48 (1975): 41–59;Google ScholarBunge, Gabriel, “Evagre le Pontique et les deux Macaires,” Irenikon 56 (1983): 215–27, 323–60.Google Scholar

19. Poemen appears in several later Coptic sources where he is portrayed as a key disciple in the circle surrounding Macarius the Egyptian: Virtues of Macarius 13,17,82; Zacharias of Sakha, Encomium on the Life of John the Little 71–72.Google ScholarFor the texts, see Amélineau, E., Histoire des monasteres de la Basse-Egypte (Paris: Leroux, 1894). Poemen also appears in the Syriac version of the Ascetkon of Abba Isaiah, logos 6.Google ScholarFor the text, see Les cinq recensions de l'Asceticon syriaque d'Abba Isaie, ed. Draguet, Réné, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 293, Scriptores Syri 122 (Louvain, 1968).Google Scholar

20. Regnault, Lucien, “Aux origines des collections d'Apophtegmes,” Studia Patristka 18 (1989): 61–74.Google Scholar

21. On the criterion of multiple attestation as well as other criteria for historicity in New Testament studies, see especially Meier, John P., A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 1, The Roots of the Problem and the Person, Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 167–95, as well as the bibliography that Meier gives at 186–87 n.7.Google Scholar

22. AP prologue (PG 65:73; trans. Ward, xxxvi).Google Scholar

23. AP Pambo 2, 5, 8, 9; Theophilus 2; cf. Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica 4.23 (PG 67:28–872).Google Scholar

24. AP John Kolobos 5,25,30,31,32.Google Scholar

25. AP Arsenius 38, Macarius 22, Moses 10,13.Google Scholar

26. AP Arsenius 1,2,4,5,6, 8,13, 21,26, 28, 31, 38.Google Scholar

27. AP Poemen 1 (PG 65:317).Google Scholar

28. AP Poemen 92 (PG 65:344; trans. Ward, 179–80).Google Scholar

29. This is preserved in the collection of the eleventh-century Byzantine scholar Evergetinos, Paul, Synagôgé tôn theophtoggôn rématôn kai didaskaliôn tôn theophoggôn kai hagiôn paterôn (Athens, 1957–1966), 3:2B, 22.Google Scholar

30. AP Poemen 113 (PG 65:352; trans. Ward, 183).Google Scholar

31. AP Poemen 64 (PG 65:337; trans. Ward, 175).Google Scholar

32. AP Poemen 62 (PG 65:356–57; trans, my own). Cf. Verba seniorum 5.9 (PL 73:876).Google Scholar

33. AP Poemen 11 (PG 65:324–25; trans, my own).Google Scholar

34. AP Poemen 12 (PG 65:325).Google Scholar

35. For example, AP Bessarion 7, Moses 3, Ammonas 10; AP Systematic 5.31.Google Scholar

36. AP Poemen 6,12,22,23,62,64,70,74,86,87,90,92,99,113,114,116,173,195.Google Scholar

37. AP Poemen 1 (PG 65:317).Google Scholar

38. AP Poemen 195 (Suppl. 8) (Guy, Recherches, 30; trans, my own).Google Scholar

39. AP Macarius 27 (PG 65:273; trans. Ward, 133).Google Scholar

40. See Hausherr, Irénée, Penthos: The Doctrine of Compunction in the Christian East, trans. Anselm Hufstader, Cistercian Studies 53 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1982). Technically speaking, penthos is “sorrow,” while katanyxis is “compunction”; but early on, penthos came to be translated in the Latin tradition as compunctio.Google Scholar

41. Nicholas Kataskerperios, Life of Saint Cyril of Philea, cited in Hausherr, Penthos, 18.Google Scholar

42. AP Systematic 3.29–30 (SC 387:166; trans, my own). Cf. AP Poemen 119.Google Scholar

43. AP Poemen 208 (Suppl. 21) (Guy, Recherches, 31; trans. Ward, 195).Google Scholar

44. AP Systematic 3.25 (SC 387:164; trans, my own). Cf. AP Poemen 72.Google Scholar

45. AP Poemen 144 (PG 65:358; trans. Ward, 187).Google Scholar

46. Sayings by Poemen that mention penthos (or its corollary, “weeping”) are: AP Poemen 26, 39, 50, 69, 72, 119, 122, 144, 204 (Suppl. 17), 208 (Suppl. 21), 209 (Suppl. 22); cf. Poemen 6 and 8. Sayings about penthos by others, but preserved by Poemen include: AP Arsenius 41; Dioscorus 2; Timothy 1. For examples in the mouths of others, see AP Antony 33; Ammonas 1; Eupreprius 2; Evagrius 1; John Kolobos 19; Macarius 2, 27, 34, 41; Matoes 11,12; Moses 6; Melisius 2; Pambo 4; Peter Pionite 2; Silvanus 2; Syncletia 1, Orl.Google Scholar

47. Burton-Christie, , Word in the Desert, 185–92.Google Scholar

48. AP Systematic 4.3,13,10 (SC 387:186,188,190; trans, my own).Google Scholar

49. AP Poemen 106 (PG 65:348; trans. Ward, 182).Google Scholar

50. AP Poemen 31 (PG 65:329; trans. Ward, 171).Google Scholar

51. AP Poemen 184 (PG 65:368; trans. Ward, 193).Google Scholar

52. AP Poemen 60 (PG 65:336; trans. Ward, 175, modified).Google Scholar

53. AP Poemen 178 (PG 65:365).Google Scholar

54. AP Poemen 186 (PG 65:368).Google Scholar

55. AP Poemen 19,181 (PG 65:325,364).Google Scholar

56. AP Poemen 132 (PG 65:356; trans. Ward, 186).Google Scholar

57. Verba seniorum 10.64 (PL 73:923; trans. Chadwick, 118).Google Scholar

58. AP Poemen 16,19,31,38,40,57,59,60,106,132,150,161,168,170,181,184,185,186,203 (suppl. 16).Google Scholar

59. Burton-Christie, , Word in the Desert, 193–98.Google Scholar

60. AP Poemen 108 (PG 65:348; trans, my own).Google Scholar

61. AP Poemen 174 (PG 65:364; trans. Ward, 191).Google Scholar

62. AP Poemen 188 (Suppl. 1) (Guy, Recherches, 29; trans. Ward, 193); cf. AP Poemen 25.Google Scholar

63. AP Poemen 63 (PG 65:337; trans. Ward, 175).Google Scholar

64. AP Poemen 27 (PG 65:329; trans. Ward, 171).Google Scholar

65. Of the 117 sayings of Poemen in the Greek Systematic Collection, 43 appear in book 10; of the 76 sayings of Poemen in the Latin Verba seniorum, 28 appear in book 10. By way of comparison, the next largest clusters are (in the Greek Systematic): 11 sayings by Poemen listed under book 15 on humility; 9 sayings listed under book 3 on compunction; and 9 sayings listed under book 4 on temperance in food and self-mastery. For a chart correlating the Systematic Collection with the Alphabetical, see Guy, Recherches, 126–81.Google Scholar

66. AP Poemen 160 (PG 65:362; trans. Ward, 189).Google Scholar

67. AP Poemen 35 (PG 65:331; trans. Ward, 172).Google Scholar

68. AP Poemen 36 (PG 65:331; trans. Ward, 172). Other threesomes are AP Poemen 29, 62, 91,103,140,185.Google Scholar

69. AP Poemen 52 (PG 65:333).Google Scholar

70. AP Poemen 20 (PG 65:328).Google Scholar

71. AP Poemen 57 (PG 65:336; trans. Ward, 174).Google Scholar

72. The others (besides AP 20, 52, and 57 cited above) are: AP Poemen 21 (scorpion); Poemen 51 (two farmers); Poemen 111 (flies in a pot); Poemen 127 and 130 (building a house); Poemen 145 (towing a boat down a river); Poemen 146 (putting out campfire); Verba seniorum 10.50 (dung and mud around a well). AP Poemen 59 plays on the dangers of living near a lake; this does not sound very desert-like, until one realizes that Scetis was located near marshy natron lakes. AP Poemen 14 does use the un-desert-like image of the king's bodyguards.Google Scholar

73. AP John Kolobos 3,15,16, 41. Antony and Syncletia are two others who use analogies with some frequency (AP Antony 10, 21,35; Syncletia 1, 6, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26).Google Scholar

74. Verba seniorum 11.20 (PL 73:936). In the Alphabetical Collection, this saying is listed under the name of Amoun, the founder of Nitria (d. 353): AP Amoun of Nitria 2 (PG 65:128). That is clearly a mistaken attribution. In AP Amoun of Nitria 3, a brother comes to Scetis (!), not Nitria, to visit Amoun. The Amoun of this saying is clearly Poemen's disciple, whereas Amoun of Nitria died probably before Poemen was born. In the Latin version, the name given is Ammon, not Amoun. This story appears also in Abba Isaiah's Asceticon Logos 6.4b (Syriac version), where it is part of a set of first-person narratives about Poemen and his disciples.Google Scholar

75. AP Poemen 8 (PG 65:321–324; trans. Ward, 167).Google Scholar

76. AP Cronius 1, 2, and 4. Other examples in the Alphabetical Collection are: AP Agathon 8, Ammonas 11, Epiphanius 13, Peter Pionite 2, Syncletia 11.Google Scholar

77. AP Poemen 16, 30, 34, 50, 54, 60, 71, 112,115, 126, 136, and 204 (Suppl. 17). Several of these (34 and 126) are not allegories in the sense of a symbolic decoding of the text. Rather, they are “spiritual” readings as Origen and his disciples would have understood it: that is, texts that, if taken very literally, seem problematic. In each case, Poemen reinterprets these texts in light of desert spirituality. A number of other sayings show him citing Scripture in answer to problems: AP Poemen 87,100,114,117,131,153. This way of handling of Scripture is a common one in the Apophthegmata: see for instance AP Antony 19,22,32, 37; Agathon 14; Epiphanius 7,12,14,15; Sisoes 23,42,44; Syncletia, 4, 7,13,18.Google Scholar

78. AP Poemen 16 (PG 65:325; trans. Ward, 169, modified).Google Scholar

79. On food and fasting, see Regnault, Lucien, La Vie quotidienne des Pères du Désert en Égypte au IVe siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1990), 75–94;Google ScholarBrown, Peter, The Body and Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 218–22. Cf. AP John Kolobos 3;Google ScholarEvagrius Ponticus, Praktikos 7 (trans. Bamberger, John Eudes, Evagrius Ponticus: The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer [Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1981]).Google Scholar

80. Driscoll, , “Exegetical Procedures,” 163.Google Scholar

81. AP Poemen 30 (PG 65:329; trans. Ward, 171, modified).Google Scholar

82. Burton-Christie, , Word in the Desert, 211, notes that the legend of reptile-devouring deer appears in an Alexandrian scientific text, known as the Physiologus, dating from about 140 B.C.E.Google Scholar

83. Guy, , “Introduction,” Apophtegmes des Pères, SC 387:78Google Scholar

84. A basic list is as follows: Antony (AP Poemen 75, 87, 125); Adonias (AP Poemen 41); Ammonas (AP Poemen 52, 96); Alonois (AP Poemen 55); Ammoes (AP Ammoes 4); Bessarion (AP Poemen 79); Copres (AP Copres 1); Dioscorus (AP Dioscorus 2); Isidore the Priest (AP Isidore the Priest 5, 6, 10; AP Poemen 44); John the Little (AP John Kolobos 13,43, AP Poemen 46,74,101); Joseph of Panephysis (AP Joseph of Panephysis 2, Verba seniorum 10.30); Macarius the Egyptian (AP Poemen 25); Moses (AP Moses 12; AP Poemen 166, Verba seniorum 10.63); Nisterus the Cenobite (AP Nisterus 1, 2; AP Poemen 131); Paesius (AP Poemen 65); Pambo (AP Poemen 47,75,150); Paphnutius (AP Paphnutius 3, AP Poemen 190); Pior (AP Poemen 85); Simon (AP Poemen 137); Sisoes (AP Poemen 82, 187); Theonas (AP Poemen 151); Timothy (AP Poemen 79); Zacharias (AP Zacharias 5).Google Scholar

85. For stories on Arsenius passed on by Abba Daniel, see AP Arsenius 17,19,23, 26,39,42, 43; Agathon 28; Daniel 6, 7. David is cited as the source for four others: AP Arsenius 29,33, 34, 35. Matoes cites a story about Abba Paphnutius (AP Matoes 3), and about Abba Tithoes (AP Tithoes 4); Peter cites one about Macarius the Egyptian (AP Macarius the Great 8) and one about Agathon (AP Agathon 1); Paphnutius cites two about Macarius the Alexandrian, though these are listed under the name of Macarius the Egyptian (AP Macarius the Egyptian 28, 37). Other examples: AP Arsenius 13 (from Mark); Arsenius 24(from Alexander); Achilles 5 (from Ammoes); Bessarion 1 (from Doulas).Google Scholar

86. AP Antony 4 (PG 65:77; trans. Ward, 2).Google Scholar

87. AP Arsenius 41 (PG 65:105).Google Scholar

88. Chitty, , Desert A City, 69–70.Google Scholar

89. Guillaumont, , “Le problème des deux Macaires,” Irenikon 48 (1975): 41–59.Google Scholar

90. AP Poemen 125 (PG 65:353; trans. Ward, 185): “Eίπεν ό άббâς Ποιμήν, ότι εîπεν, ό μακάριοςάббâς 'Aντώνιος, ότι … ” Cf. AP Antony 4 (PG 65:77): “Eΐπεν ό άббâς 'Aντώνιος τ άбб Ποιμένι, ότι…”Google Scholar

91. Regnault, , “Poemen” Coptic Encyclopedia 6:1983–1984.Google Scholar

92. For the text, see Collectio monastica, ed. Arras, Victor, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (hereafter CSCO) 238–39 (Louvain: Peeters, 1963).Google ScholarArras's edition has a translation of the Ethiopic text into Latin. Regnault, Lucien translated the key chapters 13–14 into French in Les Sentences des Pères du Désert: Nouveau recueil (Solesmes: Abbaye Saint-Pierre, 1970), 287–338.Google ScholarThe principal study is by Regnault, , “Aux origines des collections d'Apophtegmes,” Studia Patristica 18.2 (Leuven: Peeters, 1989), 61–74;Google Scholarsee also Sauget, J. M., “Une Nouvelle Collection éthiopienne d'Apopthegmata Patrum,” Orientalia Christiana periodica 31 (1965): 177–88. All translations from the Collectio monastica are my own. I wish especially to thank Dr. Getatchew Haile of the Hill Monastic Library at St. John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota, for checking these against the Ethiopic originals, correcting mistakes and making a number of very valuable suggestions. In the notes that follow, I abbreviate “Ethiopic Collectio monastica” as “Eth. Coll. mon.”Google Scholar

93. For chapters that contain only a single story, see Eth. Coll. mon. 4 = AP Arsenius 33; Eth. Coll. mon. 8 = AP Daniel 7; Eth. Coll. mon. 9 = AP Daniel 3; Eth. Coll. mon. 10 = AP John Kolobos 15; Eth. Coll. mon. 38 = AP Paul the Simple. For chapters that contain excerpts from sermons or treatises, see Eth. Coll. mon. 16 = Moses the Black, Seven Headings of Ascetic Conduct (PG 65:288–89); Eth. Coll. mon. 23 = Abba Isaiah, Asceticon Logos 3; Eth. Coll. mon. 26 = Pseudo-Nilus (that is, Evagrius Ponticus), De octo spiritibus malitiae (PG 79:1145–1164); Eth. Coll. mon. 50 = Palladius, Lausiac History 18 (story of Macarius and the hyena;Google Scholarsee Butler, Cuthbert, The Lausiac History of Palladius, Texts and Studies 6.1–2 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898–1904]).Google Scholar

94. Monks from Scetis appear prominently. The monk-compiler mentions interviewing Dioscorus (13.56); he also knew Moses and Zacharias (14.34, 14.32; 13.96) and his disciple John (14.10; 14.32).Google Scholar

95. Regnault, , “Aux origines” 64. Three others (13.35, 14.63, 14.64) contain first-person reminiscences in sayings that start off impersonally.Google Scholar

96. Eth. Coll. mon. 14.64 (CSCO 238:125).Google Scholar

97. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.57, 79, 89, 97 (CSCO 238:98,103,107–8).Google Scholar

98. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.96,14.3,14.66 (CSCO 238:108–9,126).Google Scholar

99. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.6 (CSCO 238:84).Google Scholar

100. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.7 (CSCO 238:84–85).Google Scholar

101. Eth. Coll. mon. 14.44 (CSCO 238:120); AP Poemen 62 (PG 65:356–57; trans, my own). Cf. AP Systematic 5.9 (SC 387:250); Verba seniorum 5.9 (PL 73:876); Syriac version of Enanisho, book 1, saying 581 (Budge, E.A.Wallis, The Wit and Wisdom of the Christian Fathers of Egypt: The Syrian Version of the “Apophthegmata Patrum” by Ânân Îshô of Bêth Âbhê ([London: Oxford University Press, 1934], 172–73).Google Scholar

102. Cf. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.96 (CSCO 238:108): “I knew that Abba Poemen had also said: ‘It is the great glory that a man knows his measure.’ ”Google Scholar

103. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.24 (CSCO 238:89).Google Scholar

104. Eth. Coll. mon. 14.11 (CSCO 238:111).Google Scholar

105. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.46 (CSCO 238:95–96).Google Scholar

106. The admonition to pray unceasingly appears in a variety of texts: Athanasius, Vita Antonii 3, 55 (Eng. trans. Gregg, Robert C., Athanasius: The Life of Antony, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1980);Google ScholarPonticus, Evagrius, Praktikos 49 and Ad virginem 4Google Scholar(Gressmann, H., Nonnenspiegel und Monachsspiegel des Euagrios Pontikos, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 4 ], 1465); AP Benjamin 4, Epiphanius 3, Lucius 1; AP N 85, N 123.Google ScholarFor a discussion, see Regnault, , “La prière continuelle ‘monologistos’ dans la litterarure apophtegmatique,” Irenikon 47 (1974): 467–93,Google Scholarreprinted in Les Pères du Désert à travers leur Apophtegmes (Solesmes: Abbaye Saint-Pierre, 1987), 113–39;Google ScholarBunge, Gabriel, “ ‘Priez sans cesse’: aux origines de la prière hésychaste,” Studia Monastka 30 (1988): 7–16.Google Scholar

107. Cf. AP Systematic 3.4 (SC 387:151).Google Scholar

108. Eth. Coll. mon. 14.63 (CSCO 238:125).Google Scholar

109. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.5 (CSCO 238:84).Google Scholar

110. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.49 (CSCO 238:96).Google Scholar

111. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.7 (CSCO 238:84–85).Google Scholar

112. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.6 (CSCO 238:84).Google Scholar

113. This theme appears in AP Felix 1; Macarius 25; Nau 228. Cf. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.16 (CSCO 238:87): “An old man said, ‘When I bring to my memory the brothers of that time who followed the Lord, then they had a fervent spirit and the word of the Lord was in their mouth. But today when I think of the coolness of the brothers and the foreign tongue that they have in their mouth, I am like a man who is relegated to a foreign land where he does not recognize himself.’ ” See also Eth. Coll. mon. 13.26.Google Scholar

114. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.84 (CSCO 238:106).Google Scholar

115. AP Poemen 21 (PG 65:328).Google Scholar

116. AP Poemen 49,57, and 84.Google Scholar

117. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.78 (CSCO 238:102–3). Three other examples of Poemen as an exegete are: Eth. Coll. mon. 14.3 (CSCO 238:109), in which he decodes the paradoxical Pauline phrase: “that the one who wishes to become wise must make himself a fool in order to become wise” (ICor. 3:18); Eth. Coll. mon. 13.96 (CSCO 238:108), in which he decodes an obscure phrase from the Psalms: “You gave your grace to man because they renounce by inhabiting” (Ps. 67:19); and Eth. Coll. mon. 13.89 (CSCO 238:107), in which he uses Ps. 17:30 (“By my God, I can leap over a wall”) to explore the psychology of grace.Google Scholar

118. Eth. Coll. mon. 13.72 (CSCO 238:101).Google Scholar

119. For example: AP Antony 19; Arsenius 9; Eupreprius 7; Macarius 23, 28, 41; Moses 6; Poemen 69; Sisoes 35; Serapion 2; N 91 & 387;Google Scholarcf. Felix, AP 1. On this genre, see the classic article of Jean-Claude Guy, “Remarques sur le texte des Apophthegmata Patrum,” Recherches de science religieuse 43 (1955): 252–58;Google Scholaralso Gould, Graham E., “A Note on the Apophthegmata Patrum,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s., 37 (1986): 133–38;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWard, Benedicta, “Traditions of Spiritual Guidance: Spiritual Direction in the Desert Fathers,” The Way 24 (1984): 61–70, reprinted inGoogle ScholarSigns and Wonders (London: Variorum Reprints, 1993).Google Scholar

120. AP Felix 1 (PG 65:433; trans. Ward, 242) describes an incident in which an elder refuses to give a “word” to some seekers and says that the charism of the “word” has disappeared from the “old men”: “now, since [the brothers] ask without doing that which they hear, God has withdrawn the grace of the word from the old men and they do not find anything to say, because there are no longer any who carry their words out.”Google Scholar

121. Gould, , Desert Fathers on Monastic Community, 21.Google Scholar

122. Zacharias of Sakhâ, Encomium on the Life of John the Little 71;Google Scholarfor the text, see Amélineau, E., Histoire des Monasteres de la Basse-Egypte, Annales du Musee Guimet 25 (Paris: Leroux, 1894), 379;Google Scholarthe translation is by Mikail, Maged S. and Vivian, Tim, “Zacharias of Sakhâ: An Encomium on the Life of John the Little,” Coptic Church Review 18 (1997): 46.Google Scholar

123. Zacharias mentions that his main source for the life of John the Little was a book entitled Paradise (Life, 1). Some 36 percent of the Encomium has parallels in the Apophthegmata. It is possible that the work entitled Paradise is simply a Coptic version of the Apophthegmata, but it also possible that it had a more narrative structure. Zacharias seems to draw on other sources: in no. 71, he cites Poemen as his source; and in no. 75, he draws on other unnamed sources. On Zacharias's distinctive understanding of “narrative” (istoria), see the valuable discussion by Vivian, “Zacharias,” 4–6.Google Scholar

124. Athanasius, , Vita Antonii 88 (SC 400:362);Google ScholarGregg, , Life of Antony, 95.Google ScholarOn this issue, see Brakke, David, “ ‘Outside the Places, Within the Truth’: Athanasius of Alexandria and the Localization of the Holy,” in Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt, ed. Frankfurter, David (Leiden: Brill, 1998), esp. 453–63.Google Scholar

125. On Evagrius's life and works, see Guillaumont, Antoine and Guillaumont, Claire, Évagre le Pontique: Traité Practique ou le Moine, SC 170 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1971), 21–112;Google Scholarfor a brief survey, see idem, “Evagre le Pontique,” Dictionnaire de Spiritualite 4: 1731–44.Google ScholarOn Evagrius as an Origenist, see Guillaumont, Antoine, Les “Kephalaia Gnostica” d'Evagre le Pontique et l'histoire de l'origénisme chez les grecs et chez les syriens, Patristica Sorbonensia 5 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1962);Google ScholarClark, Elizabeth A., The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

126. Evagrius, , Praktikos 91 (SC 171:692); trans. Bamberger, 39.Google Scholar

127. Evagrius, , Praktikos 100 (SC 171:710); trans. Bamberger, 41.Google Scholar

128. AP Poemen 90,183 (PG 65:344,365–68).Google Scholar

129. AP Poemen 105 (PG 65:348; trans. Ward, 182).Google Scholar