The monastic movement spread across the Christian world during the fourth century. The first monk in Gaza was Hilarion, who, by 350, was the leader of a large monastery. Then the last we hear of monasteries in Gaza is in the biography of John the Almsgiver, patriarch of Alexandria from 610 to 620. Gaza was an important commercial and cultural urban center surrounded by a thriving rural hinterland. Pagan religion and classical culture proved resilient, surviving longer than in other regions, with persecution of Christians continuing through the fourth century. Gaza's location on the Palestinian coastline provided a refuge for monks fleeing from Egypt after barbarian raids, and this led to a tradition of spiritual fatherhood with influential figures such as Abba Isaiah and Barsanuphius and John settling in Gaza. Gaza became an intellectual center of Egyptian monasticism, and it is likely that key works such as the Sayings of the Desert Fathers were written here. This background of classical learning and Egyptian spiritual fatherhood enabled a rich literary tradition with instructions, hagiographies, letters, and polemics. Dorotheus lived during the sixth century, first in the monastery of Seridus, where he was a disciple of Barsanuphius and John, and then in another monastery near to the city of Gaza. His writings come from the end of the period of Gazan monasticism and show the principles of monastic life that had developed in the region during these productive centuries.
While many studies of this period have emphasised contrasts—between Christianity and paganism; between desert and city, Dorotheus's approach was shaped by both classical and Christian culture. These shared traditions and methods led him to develop an ascetical form of education, influenced by the philosophical and rhetorical traditions of late antiquity. This is not a temporary imparting of knowledge but rather a lifelong transformative process of shaping personality. His teaching shows the nature of virtuous life and how it builds monastic character. It explores the connections and shared methods of ascetic and classical education while also showing how asceticism redefined and reshaped educational principles and methods.
The sections of this book show how Dorotheus was familiar with the study of rhetoric and philosophy and how he applies these to an ascetic education. Like the schools of classical learning in nearby Gaza, pupils form a community around the teacher. Using the methods of rhetoric to convey and persuade, the pupils reflect on authoritative texts, which, in the case of the monastery, are from scripture and commentary. Dorotheus, looking after the infirmary, also uses the medical approach of Galen and others to show how the health of both soul and body can lead to virtuous living. Then, the end of education is to gain knowledge, which helps us to become godlike and to be imitators of Christ, who is our exemplar. We gain this knowledge through using the powers of the soul, which include the emotional and desiring faculties that direct us towards God. Then comes habituation, with methods used in the monastery to build up the community and the monk's virtue within it. Here work and prayer are among the methods of habituation.
Yet, as well as sharing aims and assumptions, ascetic education has different understandings of education. The classical philosophical tradition valued natural reason as leading accurate knowledge and right behaviur to right judgments and behavior. But, for Dorotheus, reason is part of our fallen nature, and so has to be overcome rather than cultivated. Instead of reason, humility is the root of knowledge. Humility removes self-deception and trust in our fallen human understanding, and instead leads us to rely on the guidance of teachers and the discipline of interdependence with others as we live alongside them in community. Humility leads not only to right behavior but to right, truthful, and accurate knowledge of the self and the world around.
While Dorotheus's Christian asceticism reshapes classical learning, so do his philosophical roots lead to a distinct approach to asceticism. His understanding of the human soul follows the Platonic understanding of the three parts of the soul—the rational, the irascible, and the desiring. Rightly ordered, the rational part leads the monk to make rational judgments about what is the will of God, the irascible gives one the energy and determination to endure struggles, and the desiring part makes the monk long for, love, and desire God. This departs from the Evagrian ideal of apatheia or elimination of passion or desire. For Dorotheus, passions are not removed but should be rightly ordered. When the three parts are directed toward God, then the whole person becomes aligned to God's will.
As the education continues, the monk builds up the habit of virtues. This is compared to a craftsman building a house. So faith is the foundation stone, and the various virtues such as gentleness, temperance, and patience are all needed for the construction. Patience and courage are the cornerstones that give the building structure. And humility is the mortar that ensures that the virtues work together harmoniously. Over it all is love, which is the roof. This extended image expresses how the monk is transformed and the community built, as he learns the crafts of creating community.
Dorotheus's instructions convey the distinct quality of Gaza's monasticism, a brief episode that built an understanding of monastic and Christian life as a systematic study rooted in classical education methods but reinterpreted as an ascetic Christian discipline. They provides an understanding of what monastic life is and how it can be built up. This vision has entered into monastic tradition, and many of Dorotheus's manuscripts became read in Russia, Sinai, and Mount Athos, and there was a Latin translation in the eleventh century. This study traces the roots of Dorotheus's understanding of asceticism in classical culture and the distinctive ways that he developed this to provide an account of the ascetic life that has entered into and influenced the Christian monastic tradition.
