-
Vigiliae Christianae 67 (2013) 349-363 brill.com/vc
VigiliaeChristianae
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI:
10.1163/15700720-12341154
The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto and Athanasius Life of
Antony
Andrew CainUniversity of Colorado, Classics Department
248 UCB, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80309 USA
[email protected]
AbstractThis article examines possible literary sources
underlying the Greek Historia monacho-rum in Aegypto, which was
composed anonymously in the last decade of the fourth century, and
argues that the Life of Antony, which Athanasius had released some
forty years earlier, exercised a demonstrable influence over
it.
KeywordsHistoria monachorum, Life of Antony, Athanasius,
Rufinus
The , better known to us as Historia monachorum in Aegypto
(hereafter HM),1 the Latin title of Rufinus transla-tion of this
work,2 records the journey that seven monks from Rufinus monastery
on the Mount of Olives3 took to Egypt in 394-5 to visit various
1)The definitive critical edition, which I follow in this
article, is A.-J. Festugire, Historia monachorum in Aegypto: dition
critique du texte grec et traduction annote (Brussels, 1971). It is
now recognized that the form in which the Greek HM has survived
closely approxi-mates the original without the latters overt
pro-Origenist elements, which were excised shortly after its
composition; see C.P. Bammel, Problems of the Historia monachorum,
JThS n.s. 47 (1996): 92-104 (101).2)I.e. both the Greek original
and Rufinus translation are referred to by the Latin title. Rufinus
translated the Greek HM perhaps around 403/4, several years after
he had returned to Italy; see A. de Vog, Histoire littraire du
mouvement monastique dans lantiquit, 3: Jrme, Augustin et Rufin au
tournant du sicle (391-405) (Paris, 1996), 317-20. For the critical
edition of Rufinus translation, see E. Schulz-Flgel, Tyrannius
Rufinus, Historia monacho-rum sive De vita sanctorum patrum
(Berlin, 1990).3)See HM, Prol. 2.
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350 A. Cain / Vigiliae Christianae 67 (2013) 349-363
monastic personalities and communities. Shortly after their
return to Jeru-salem, one of the party composed this work; to this
day his identity remains a mystery, and so for the sake of
convenience we may refer to him simply as Anonymous (hereafter
Anon.). This fascinating document is one of the gems of early
Christian monastic literature, yet curiously it has been
understudied,4 especially by comparison with another, even more
seminal work in this same monastic literary tradition, Athanasius
Life of Antony,5 which the bishop of Alexandria wrote in exile
between 356 and 358, around four decades before Anon. composed his
own work. It is in fact the relation-ship between these two texts
that will occupy us in this study: was the HM demonstrably
influenced by the Greek Life in any way?
One of the most fundamental philological exercises that one can
perform on an ancient textonce, that is, a proper critical edition
is securedis that of literary source criticism.6 The HM has to date
never been properly ana-lyzed in this regard, and so the time is
ripe to fill this lacuna in the scholar-ship. Since the great
majority of fourth-century Greek patristic authors give concrete
evidence in their works of at least a passing acquaintance if not a
comprehensive firsthand knowledge of classical Greek literature,7
this liter-ary corpus seems a suitable starting-point for our
investigation. Georgia Frank has suggested that Anon.s phrase
(great and wonderful things) in the Prologue ( 1: [God] guided us
to Egypt and
4)The most serious and sustained interest that the Greek HM has
generated more recently among scholars concerns its affinities with
ancient travel literature. See especially G. Frank, The Historia
monachorum in Aegypto and Ancient Travel Writing, StudPatr 30
(1997): 191-5; Ead., Miracles, Monks and Monuments: The Historia
monachorum in Aegypto as Pilgrims Tales, in D. Frankfurter (ed.),
Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt (Leiden, 1998),
483-505. Other scholarly treatments have grappled with the
miraculous elements in the HM; see e.g. W. Harmless, Desert
Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism
(Oxford, 2004), 290-8; B. Ward, Signs and Wonders: Miracles in the
Desert Tradition, StudPatr 17 (1982): 539-42.5)All Greek quotations
from the Life in this article are taken from G.J.M. Bartelink,
Athanase dAlexandre, Vie dAntoine (Paris, 2004).6)Literary source
criticism proves to be particularly beneficial when the previously
unknown genetic relationships between texts that it unearths help
to resolve long-standing problems. See e.g. A. Cain, Patricks
Confessio and Jeromes Epistula 52 to Nepotian, JML 20 (2010): 1-15,
where I demonstrate, on the basis of verbal and conceptual echoes
of Jeromes letter to Nepotian in Patricks Confessio, that Patrick
had read this Hieronymian work at some point during his time in
either Gaul or Britain. This finding sheds new light not only on
the religious formation of Patrick and the literary texture of his
most famous writing but also on the reception of Jeromes letter in
the century following its composition.7)See e.g. P. Allen, Some
Aspects of Hellenism in the Early Greek Church Historians,
Tra-ditio 43 (1987): 368-81.
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The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto and Athanasius Life of
Antony 351
showed us great and wonderful things) evokes the opening lines
of Herodo-tus Histories where he introduces his subject matter as
.8 While this possibility is tantalizing, it must nevertheless be
pointed out that the two adjectives in question, whether used as
substan-tives or as attributive adjectives, are so frequently
paired in pagan,9 biblical,10 and early Christian11 literature that
Herodotusor any other author, for that mattercannot confidently be
pinpointed as the source for Anon.s phrase.
My own excavation of the prose of the HM has yielded
disappointing results, as I have not been able to identify a single
convincing phraseologi-cal borrowing from, or even allusion to, a
work of classical Greek literature. It is not at all feasible to
posit that Anon. was unschooled in and therefore presumably
unfamiliar with most if not all of the classical Greek literary
canon (as it was constituted in the late fourth century, that is),
for as I have demonstrated recently in another study,12 his prose
is steeped in traditional sophistic devices of style, and from the
copiousness of such conceits we may safely infer that he was indeed
classically trained. In view of his educa-tion, how are we to
account for the evident absence of classical literary references?
The least complicated explanation is that, unlike Jerome13 in Latin
and Gregory of Nazianzus14 in Greekto take rather extreme
8)The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian
Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 2000), 53. 9)E.g. Plato, Tim. 20E;
Aristeas, epist. ad Phil. 155; Diodore of Sicily, hist. 1.31.9,
15.86.1.10)E.g. LXX Deut. 28.59; Ps. 105.21; Job 42.3.11) E.g.
Origen, c. Cels. 1.67, 6.42; Eusebius, praep. evang. 8.9.24.12) A.
Cain, The Style of the Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto, REAug
58 (2012): 57-96.13)Jeromes encyclopedic knowledge of large
portions of the classical Latin canonand his flamboyance in putting
this knowledge on display in his writingsis well documented. The
seminal monographs are by A. Lbeck (Hieronymus quos noverit
scriptores et ex quibus hau-serit [Leipzig, 1872]) and H. Hagendahl
(The Latin Fathers and the Classics: A Study on the Apologists,
Jerome, and Other Christian Writers [Gteborg, 1958]). See more
recently e.g. A. Cain, Liber manet: Pliny, Epist. 9.27.2 and
Jerome, Epist. 130.19.5, CQ n.s. 58 (2008): 708-10; Id., Three
Further Echoes of Lactantius in Jerome, Philologus 154 (2010):
88-96; Id., Two Allusions to Terence, Eunuchus 579 in Jerome, CQ
n.s. 63 (2013): 1-6. The classical (and patristic) sources of two
of Jeromes most famous works, his Epitaphium sanctae Paulae (epist.
108) and the letter to Nepotian on the monastic priesthood (epist.
52), have recently been unearthed in full-length commentaries; see
A. Cain, Jeromes Epitaph on Paula: A Com-mentary on the Epitaphium
Sanctae Paulae, with an Introduction, Text, and Translation
(Oxford, 2013); Id., Jerome and the Monastic Clergy: A Commentary
on Letter 52 to Nepotian, with an Introduction, Text, and
Translation (Leiden, 2013).14)See e.g. K. Demoen, Pagan and
Biblical Exempla in Gregory Nazianzen: A Study in Rheto-ric and
Hermeneutics (Turnhout, 1996); R.R. Ruether, Gregory of Nazianzus:
Rhetor and Phi-losopher (Oxford, 1969).
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352 A. Cain / Vigiliae Christianae 67 (2013) 349-363
contemporary examplesAnon. was not readily inclined to give
ostentatious and gratuitous displays of classical erudition, or at
any rate he did not deem this as something practicable for the
purposes of his narrative. It is perhaps the case that he was of
the same temperament as Rufinus of Aquileia, the Latin translator
of his work and almost certainly the abbot of his monastery in
Jeru-salem, who famously mocked Jeromes devotion to the pagan
classics.15
By contrast with secular literature, sacred literature has left
a very visible and lasting imprint on the HM. As even a cursory
reading of his work shows, Anon.s prose is saturated at every turn
with biblical quotations, para-phases, and allusions, whether he is
speaking in his own voice as the narra-tor or is attributing the
references to the monks.16 But what about the influence of
non-biblical early Christian literature on the HM? A saying about
the virtue of hospitality that Anon. ascribes to the monk Apollo,
You have seen your brother, you have seen your God ( , , , ),17 is
identified by Russell and Ward as coming from Athanasius Life of
Antony, but they fail to furnish a specific reference.18 In fact,
however, neither it nor anything even approximating it is found
anywhere in this work. What is more, it originated neither with
Apollo nor even with Anon. but had actually been in currency for at
least two centuries.19 It, or some slightly variant form thereof in
Greek, is found
15)See e.g. Rufinus, apol. c. Hier. 2.8. His rebukes of Jerome
notwithstanding, Rufinus was a classically trained and accomplished
vir litteratus in his own right. For his literary activities, see
G. Fedalto, Rufino di Concordia: Elementi di una biografia, in
Storia ed esegesi in Rufino di Concordia (Udine, 1992), 19-44; F.X.
Murphy, Rufinus of Aquileia: His Life and Works (Washington, DC,
1945).16)See the index of biblical passages in P.W. van der Horst,
Woestijn, begeerte en geloof. De Historia monachorum in Aegypto
(ca. 400 na Chr.) (Kampen, 1995), 124-6 (Van der Horsts catalogue
does however not include many references, e.g. faint
allusions).17)HM 8.55. In his rendering of this passage Rufinus
opted for more neutral and rhetorically flaccid wording: ut certum
sit in adventu eorum adventum domini haberi (Schulz-Flgel,
Tyrannius Rufinus, Historia monachorum, 304). Cf. See R. Greer,
Hospitality in the First Five Centuries of the Church, MonStud 10
(1974): 29-48; H. Waddell, The Desert Fathers (Ann Arbor, 1957),
113-14. On the reception of guests in eastern monastic culture, see
e.g. Athana-sius, v. Ant. 17.7, 67.1; John Cassian, coll.
1.12.18)N. Russell and B. Ward, The Lives of the Desert Fathers:
The Historia monachorum in Aegypto (Kalamazoo, 1980), 131.19)J.B.
Bauer, Vidisti fratrem vidisti dominum tuum (Agraphon 144 Resch und
126 Resch), ZKG 100 (1989): 71-6, hypothesizes, somewhat
implausibly to my mind, that this saying orig-inated with Melito of
Sardis.
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The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto and Athanasius Life of
Antony 353
elsewhere in Clement of Alexandria20 and in the Apophthegmata
patrum,21 and a similar formulation in Latin is attested as early
as Tertullian.22
The alleged verbal borrowing suggested by Russell and Ward is
the only one from the Life of Antony that thus far has been
proposed in the scholar-ship, but, as we saw, it fails the
source-critical litmus test. Another possibil-ity may be adduced.
The two relevant passages are found in the prologues to their
respective works:2324
Historia monachorum, Prol. 2 Life of Antony, Prol. 2-3
, , , .23
Having been repeatedly asked by the pious brotherhood on the
holy Mount of Olives to write for them an account of the Egyptian
monks way of life and great love and ascetic discipline which I
witnessed, I have entrusted myself to their prayers and presumed to
apply myself to the composition of this narrative so that there
might be for me as well some benefit and comfort [from the
monks].
, , , . .24
Since you asked me for an account of the blessed Antonys way of
life and wish to learn how he began the ascetic discipline, what
kind of man he was before this, in what manner he died, and whether
the things said about him are true, in order that you may also
bring yourselves to imitate him, I very delightfully accepted your
request. For to me as well the mere recollection of Antony is a
great benefit and comfort.
20)Strom. 1.19.94.5, 2.15.70.5 ( , ).21) Apoph. patr. Ammonathas
3 (PG 65:136) ( , , , ).22)Orat. 26 (fratrem domum tuam
introgressum ne sine oratione dimiserisvidisti, inquit, fratrem,
vidisti dominum tuum, maxime advenam, ne angelus forte
sit).23)Festugire, Historia monachorum, 6.24)Bartelink, Vie
dAntoine, 126.
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354 A. Cain / Vigiliae Christianae 67 (2013) 349-363
A synoptic comparison of these two passages reveals several
interesting points of convergence. First of all, each author is
discussing the occasion of his writing and acknowledges that the
impetus to write came from a group of monks.25 Both Anon. and
Athanasius embrace their authorial roles and avow to memorialize
the ascetic way of life () of their holy sub-jects. Most
significantly, they both voice, using strikingly similar language,
their anticipation about deriving spiritual edification from their
composi-tional activity.26 The statements in question are: (Anon.)
and (Athana-sius). Excepting the negligible difference in internal
word order, the two sentences share virtually all of the same words
(the copulatives and are functionally synonymous).27 Furthermore,
in the surviving Greek literature from antiquity the collocation of
these particular wordsinclud-ing the unusual construction in which
the genitive depends on the nominative is found in only two texts,
the ones under discussion.28 The high statistical improbability of
these two combinations occurring independently of each other is
sufficient to warrant strong suspi-cion of literary
interdependence. This suspicion is only confirmed by the fact that
both sentences share identical contexts in their respective
works.
So, then, the conspicuous coincidence of both verbal and
conceptual parallels would appear to make it all but certain not
only that Anon. had read the Life of Antony but also that he
treated the Athanasian text, at least in this isolated instance, as
a model for his own monastic hagiography. That he both knew the
Life and demonstrably imitated it should hardly be sur-prising.
After all, following its release in the late 350s the Greek Life
became an instant classic in monastic circles throughout the
East,29 and owing to two Latin translations made of it within a
decade or so of its original
25)Athanasius addressed his work ostensibly to some unnamed
monks living in the West; see Bartelink, Vie dAntoine, 46.26)Cf. D.
Krueger, Literary Composition as a Religious Activity, in Id.,
Writing and Holi-ness: The Practice of Authorship in the Early
Christian East (Philadelphia, 2004), 1-14. See also P. Leclerc,
Antoine et Paul: mtamorphose dun hros, in Y.-M. Duval (ed.), Jrme
entre lOccident et lOrient: XVIe centenaire du dpart de saint Jrme
de Rome et de son installation a Bethlem. Actes du colloque de
Chantilly, septembre 1986 (Paris, 1988), 257-65.27)See H.W. Smyth,
A Greek Grammar for Colleges (New York, 1920), 917a.28)This has
been verified through consultation of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae
database.29)See W. Harmless, Desert Christians: An Introduction to
the Literature of Early Monasti-cism (Oxford, 2004), 97-100; P.
Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority, and the Church in the Age of Jerome
and Cassian (Oxford, 1978), 92-5.
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The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto and Athanasius Life of
Antony 355
release,30 it found an eager readership in the Latin-speaking
world. In the late fourth and early fifth centuries the
now-bilingual31 Life also spawned numerous imitators and would-be
rival hagiographers in both Greek and Latin, including Jerome,32
Sulpicius Severus,33 Paulinus of Milan,34 the author of the First
Greek Life of Pachomius (c.400),35 and Palladius.36 The anonymous
author of the Greek HM may now join their company.
The presence of this Athanasian intertext raises the question:
has the Life left its mark on the HM in any other tangible way?
Since there do not appear to be any other substantial
phraseological borrowings like the one discussed above, we may
direct our inquiry elsewhere. For instance, the presence of certain
hagiographic motifs in both works may conceivably point in the
direction of literary dependence. One such theme is that of the
monastic Wunderkind, the elderly child (puer senex, ) who from a
very early age displays the wisdom, self-discipline, and all-around
virtuousness that otherwise are found only in lifelong veterans of
the monastic life. There are two characters in the HM who conform
to this
30)The first translation, which remains anonymous, appeared
shortly after the release the the Greek Life. The critical edition,
accompanied by an Italian translation and readers notes, is in
G.J.M. Bartelink, Vita di Antonio, Vite dei santi, I (Rome, 1974);
cf. G.J.M. Bartelink, Die lteste lateinische bersetzung der Vita
Antonii des Athanasius im Lichte der Lesarten eini-ger griechischen
Handschriften, RHT 11 (1981): 397-413. The second, more elegant
transla-tion was done by Evagrius of Antioch by 370. It has yet to
receive a modern critical edition and was last edited in the
seventeenth century by Bernard de Monfaucon (PG 26:837-976) and
Hribert Rosweyde (PL 73:125-70).31) Translations of the Life into
other languages, such as Coptic and Syriac, also proliferated. See
G.M. Browne, Coptico-Graeca: The Sahidic Version of St. Athanasius
Vita Antonii, GRBS 12 (1971): 59-64; G. Garitte, Le texte grec et
les versions anciennes de la vie de saint Antoine, in Antonius
Magnus Eremita 356-1956 (Rome, 1958), 1-12; F. Schulthess, Probe
einer syrischen Version der Vita Antonii (Leipzig, 1894).32)See S.
Rebenich, Inventing an Ascetic Hero: Jeromes Life of Paul the First
Hermit, in A. Cain and J. Lssl (eds.), Jerome of Stridon: His Life,
Writings, and Legacy (Aldershot, 2009), 13-27; see also P. Nehring,
Jeromes Vita Hilarionis: A Rhetorical Analysis of its Structure,
Augustinianum 43 (2003): 417-34.33)See E.-C. Babut, St. Martin de
Tours (Paris, 1912), 75-83, 89-90; C. Tornau, Intertextuality in
Early Latin Hagiography: Sulpicius Severus and the Vita Antonii,
StudPatr 35 (2001): 158-66.34)For the critical edition, see A.A.R.
Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, Vita di Ambrogio, Vita di Agostino,
Vite dei santi, III (Milan, 1997), 51-124.35)See D. Brakke, Demons
and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity
(Cambridge, Mass., 2006), 85-6; A. Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia, I:
The Life of Saint Pachomius and his Disciples (Kalamazoo, 1980),
407n1.36)See Palladius, hist. Laus. 8.6.
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356 A. Cain / Vigiliae Christianae 67 (2013) 349-363
hagiographic stereotype. One is Abba Helle, who had persevered
since childhood in ascetic discipline ( ).37 The other is Apollo.
From childhood he had given proof of great ascetic discipline ( )38
and at the tender age of fifteen withdrew into the desert, where he
spent the next forty years of his life.39 Although the topos (in
its Christian incarnation, that is) has its roots ultimately in the
Bible,40 in the Greek hagiographic tradition the prototype of
ascetic precocity in childhood is none other than Antony.41
Athanasius opens the Life by painting an idyllic picture of his
upbringing. As a boy he had no desire to associate with his rowdy
peers but rather he preferred, like Jacob, to lead a quiet and
abstemi-ous lifestyle at home under the watchful supervision of his
pious parents, with whom he always went to church eagerly.42 Even
though his passing notices about Helles and Apollos youthful
asceticism lack the picturesque potency of Athanasius description,
Anon. may well have been inspired by him to disclose these details
about two of his subjects.
The possible influence of the Life of Antony on the HM outside
of the echo adduced above can more reliably be gauged by inspecting
the Anto-nian material in the HM for any demonstrable genetic
correspondences with the content of the Life. Antony appears in the
HM on several occa-sions. He is mentioned briefly as the monastic
mentor to both Pityrion and Ammonas43 and as the one-time companion
of Cronides,44 whose age
37) HM 12.1.38)HM 8.2.39)HM 8.3.40)E.g. Christ at the age of
twelve holding intelligent discussions with rabbis about Scrip-ture
Jewish law (Lk. 2.39-52).41) For post-Antonian examples of the in
Greek and Latin hagiographic literature, see Anon., Lives of
Pachomius SBo 31 and G1 36; Gregory of Nyssa, v. Greg. Thaum. p. 8
Heil; Gregory of Nazianzus, orat. 43.23; Jerome, epist. 24.3.1, v.
Hilar. 2.2; Sulpicius Severus, v. Mart. 2.2; Palladius, hist. Laus.
17.2; Cyril of Scythopolis, v. Euth. p. 13 Schwartz, v. Sab. pp.
88-90, 92, 94 Schwartz. See more generally M. Amerise, Girolamo e
la senectus: eta della vita e morte nellepistolario (Rome, 2008),
122-28; M. Bambeck, Puer et puella senes bei Ambrosius von Mailand:
zur altchristlichen Vorgeschichte eines literarischen Topos,
Rom-Forsch 84 (1972): 257-313; T. Carp, Puer senex in Roman and
Medieval Thought, Latomus 39 (1980): 736-739. On infant prodigies
in the Greco-Roman world, see M. Kleijwegt, Ancient Youth: The
Ambiguity of Youth and the Absence of Adolescence in Greco-Roman
Society (Amsterdam, 1991), 123-31.42)v. Ant. 1.2-3.43)HM
15.1-2.44)HM 20.13. Palladius (hist. Laus. 7.3, 21.1) met this same
monk, who told him stories about Antony and other great Egyptian
ascetics.
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The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto and Athanasius Life of
Antony 357
Anon. placed at 11045 in 394, but none of these three is named
in the Life. The story about Antony and Paul the Simple reported in
Chapter 24 does not derive from the Life either (additionally, Paul
is nowhere named in it). The anecdote about Antony and Macarius, in
which the former christens the latter as his monastic successor,46
is excluded from consideration for the same reason.
Antonys appearance in Chapter 22 on Amoun warrants a close
compar-ison with Chapter 60 of the Life. In the opening sentence
Anon. says that Antony saw Amouns soul borne up to heaven ( ), and
at the very end of the chapter he adds that his soul was escorted
by angels ( ). Athanasius says something similar ( [60.10];
[60.1]), though he uses different verbs and he also does not
mention angels,47 and further-more the image of the soul being
carried off to heaven after death, expressed with any number of
verbs, is a commonplace of hagiographic literature48
45)Anon. reports advanced ages for many of his monks. G. Frank,
The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late
Antiquity (Berkeley, 2000), 56-7, cites his preoccupa-tion with
their longevity as yet another affinity that the HM has to pagan
paradoxographies.46)HM 21.2.47)Cf. Palladius, hist. Laus. 8.6: [So
perfect was he] that the blessed Antony saw his soul borne aloft by
angels ( ).48)Anon. has a particular fascination with the mechanics
of how pious souls are ushered into the presence of God. As soon as
Abba Anouph delivered up his soul, angels immedi-ately received it
and choirs of martyrs escorted it to heaven while the monks
Sourous, Isaiah, and Paul looked on and heard the sound of heavenly
hymns (11.8), and the soul of a pious villager who learned the
monastic ropes from Paphnutius was borne up to heaven by angels
singing hymns (14.17). As for Paphnutius himself, prior to his
death he was approached by an angel who readied him for the event,
telling him that the [Old Testament] prophets have come to welcome
him into their celestial fold (14.23). As soon as he died, he was
assumed into heaven with the choirs of the righteous as angels sang
hymns to God (14.24). Angels often do the welcoming of souls into
heaven; see e.g. Basil, hom. in Gord. mart. 8; Ambrose, obit.
Theod. 56; Gregory of Nazianzus, orat. 43.79, epigr. apud Anth. Gr.
8.54.1; Jerome, epist. 39.3.2; Paulinus of Nola, carm. 18.141-4;
Uranius, obit. Paul. Nol. 4; Gerontios, v. Mel. 70; Theodoret,
hist. rel. 8.15, 11.5; Hilary of Arles, v. Hon. 34; Cyril of
Scythopolis, v. Ioh. Hesych. pp. 214-15 Schwartz; Leont. v. Ioh.
Eleem. p. 395 Festugire-Rydn. Jerome similarly foretells that
Eustochium and her mother Paula will be welcomed into heaven by
troops of glorified virgins (epist. 22.41.1, 108.31.2). According
to Philostratus (v. Apoll. 8.30), the Neopy-thagorean philosopher
Apollonius of Tyana, at the hour of death, was summoned by an
invisible choir of maidens singing, Hasten from earth, hasten to
heaven, hasten ( , , ). For the related literary motif of the
deceased being greeted in the afterlife by family and friends, see
Cicero, senect. 84; Seneca, cons. ad Marc. 25.1; cf. Themis-tius,
orat. 20.234c-d, where Themistius father is welcomed by Plato and
Aristotle.
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358 A. Cain / Vigiliae Christianae 67 (2013) 349-363
and thus there is no compelling reason to suspect literary
dependence in this particular case.
Of potentially far greater significance is that Amouns prolific
thauma-turgy attracts comment from both Athanasius ( [60.4]) and
Anon. ( [22.7]), and that both authors cite the same miracle as a
case in point:4950
Historia monachorum 22.7-9 Life of Antony 60.5-10
. , . . , , , . , . .49
( ), , . . , . , , , . , , , . , , , . , , , , , . .50
49)Festugire, Historia monachorum, 130.50)Bartelink, Vie
dAntoine, 296-8.
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The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto and Athanasius Life of
Antony 359
Once some monks were sent to him by Antony to fetch him. For
Antony was in the further desert. When they were on their way back
they came to a branch of the Nile. The brothers suddenly saw Amoun
transported to the opposite bank, but they themselves crossed over
by swimming. When they came to where Antony was, he spoke first to
Amoun, saying, God has revealed to me many things about you and he
has manifested your departure from this life. I therefore felt
compelled to summon you to me so that we might enjoy each others
company and intercede for each other. Then he set him at a spot
some distance away and ordered him not to leave it until he
departed this life. When he died, completely alone, Antony saw his
soul borne up to heaven by angels.
Once when he had to cross the river Lycus (it was flooded at the
time), he asked his companion, Theodore, to remain at a distance
from him so that they would not see each others nakedness while
they swam through the water. Then, even after Theodore had
departed, he was ashamed over seeing himself naked. All this time
he felt disgrace and anxiety. Then sud-denly he was transported to
the oppo-site shore. When Theodore, a devout man himself,
approached and saw that he had arrived before him and was not even
moist from the water, he asked to learn how he crossed over. Since
he did not want to speak to him, he grabbed Amouns feet and
threatened not to set him free until he learned from him what had
happened. Observing Theodores contentiousness, especially in the
declaration he had made, Amoun got him to promise that he would
tell no one of this until after his death. Then he explained that
he had been lifted up and placed on the opposite shore and that he
had not walked on the water, for this was by no means possible for
men but only for the Lord and for those whom he permits, as he had
done in the case of the great apostle Peter. Theodore related this
after Amouns death.
Although these two passages intersect in their reporting of
Amouns levita-tion over water, they otherwise diverge from each
other quite significantly. Perhaps the least troublesome of these
discrepancies is that Athanasius identifies the body of water as
the Lycus, a canal which forks off from the Nile,51 while Anon.
refers less specifically only to a branch of the Nile.
51)See Sozomen, hist. eccl. 1.14.
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360 A. Cain / Vigiliae Christianae 67 (2013) 349-363
Athanasius makes much of Theodores personal involvement in the
event, principally because he is able to corroborate the miracle by
citing his eyewitness testimony, but Anon. only speaks vaguely
about the brothers, and so not only is no witness named, but there
is a plurality of witnesses.52 Athanasius showcases the miracle,
and is intent upon explaining its mechanics (i.e. he specifies that
Amoun technically did not walk on water), but from Anon. it
receives minimal treatment and in fact it is rather inci-dental to
the anecdote as a whole. Anon.s account revolves around Amouns
conversation with Antony prior to his death, but Athanasius says
nothing about any such interaction. Indeed, in the Life Antony sees
Amouns soul rise to heaven from a great distance but does not talk
to him (he recognizes it as Amoun only when he is told so by a
divine voice), and in the HM Ant-ony not only converses with him
but he assigns Amoun the place where he will die.
Is there a genetic relationship between these two accounts? If
Anon.s omits certain elements present in Athanasius (e.g. Theodores
name), this could simply be a function of his own authorial
priorities, but on the other hand if his account includes elements
not found in the Life, then he has either fabricated material or,
more likely, he has retrieved these elements from elsewhere. His
divergences from Athanasius are so significant that we may conclude
that he did not base his account on the one in the Life, even
though as a reader of this work he would have been familiar with
it. He opted instead to follow one or more oral traditions with
which he had come into contact in Egypt.53 So, then, in this case
as well as in every other instance when he mentions Antony in the
HM, Anon. made the conscious decision to include content not
preserved in the Life. From this it is possible to infer that he
intended the HM, in terms that is of its contribution to the
continuation of Antonian lore, to supplement the Life by providing
readers with information not yet set down in writing. Furthermore,
I suggest that Anon., despite his imitation of the Life in the
Prologue (imitation in this case being a form of flattery), had
another aim in mind in that he wished to
52)Late antique hagiographers routinely cited their own or
others eyewitness testimony as a means to vouch for the absolute
veracity of their narratives; see e.g. Gregory of Nyssa, v. Macr.
1; Jerome, epist. 108.21.2; Gerontios, v. Mel., prol. See further
C. Stancliffe, St. Martin and his Hagiographer: History and Miracle
in Sulpicius Severus (Oxford, 1983), 324-7, and also R. Bauck-ham,
Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony
(Grand Rapids, 2006).53)These are the very traditions alluded to by
S. Rubenson, The Letters of St. Antony: Monas-ticism and the Making
of a Saint (Minneapolis, 1995), 179: The references to Antony in
the Historia monachorum are important as evidence of traditions
independent of the Vita.
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The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto and Athanasius Life of
Antony 361
present a more holistic, even-handed assessment of Antonys
importance in the grand scheme of the fourth-century monastic
movement in Egypt. For Athanasius,54 the sun of Egyptian
monasticism rose and set with Antony,55 but in the HM we are given
a very different impression. Antony does not monopolize the stage
as he does in the Life, but rather he shares the spotlight with, or
rather for the most part he cedes the spotlight to, many other
monks who eclipse him in prestige in Anon.s thaumaturgical
hierarchy.56
The Antony of the HM is a venerable monastic forefather, to be
sure, but he is but one among many. Unlike Athanasius, Anon.
nowhere explic-itly credits Antony with founding the monastic life
in Egypt, though he is keen to confer the honor of monastic
innovator on numerous other monks, including Or,57 Apollo,58 and
Patermuthius, the last of whom is said to have been the first of
the monks in this place and also the first to devise the monastic
habit.59 In many cases Anon.s Antony achieves importance merely on
account of his association with others who went on to become
prominent monastic figures themselves.60 In the episode analyzed
above
54)Antonys pre-eminence in Athanasius view lies just as much, if
not more, in this monk as a champion of Nicene orthodoxy. Indeed,
it is by now widely acknowledged by scholars that the Antony of the
Life is by and large a literary construct of Athanasius devising
meant as propaganda to further the bishops Nicene theological
agenda. On the Athanasian Antony as the face of Nicene orthodoxy,
see e.g. D. Brakke, Athanasius and Asceticism (Baltimore, 1995),
201-65.55)Although he does not expressly mention Athanasius
contribution to the explosive growth of the Antony legend, Sozomen
nonetheless upholds, as universally accepted fact, Antonys seminal
place in the early Christian monastic tradition: , , (hist. eccl.
1.13.1).56)Antony is credited by Anon. with cures of many kinds
(21.1), including a limited ability to exorcise demons (24.10), but
these feats pale in comparison with others reported in the work,
such as several ascribed to Patermuthius: raising the dead
(10.9-11, 15), making the sun stand still (10.12-14), walking on
water (10.20), teleporting himself (10.20), and being trans-ported
physically to paradise (10.21).57)HM 2.2-6.58)HM 8.3-4.59)HM
10.3.60)HM 15.1-2; 20.13; 21.1. For how parts of the Life show
Antony as an active master of disci-ples rather than simply as an
exemplar of piety to be imitated by others, see P. Rousseau, Antony
as Teacher in the Greek Life, in T. Hgg and P. Rousseau (eds.),
Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 2000),
88-109.
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362 A. Cain / Vigiliae Christianae 67 (2013) 349-363
he is secondary to Amoun, and in another anecdote he is
secondary to Macarius, on whom he bestows his prophetic spirit.61
The same is true for the story told in Chapter 24 about how Paul
the Simple began his monastic career under Antonys tutelage. Here
Antony is a sagacious teacher but eventually his apprentice
surpassed him in that those demons which Antony was unable to
exorcise he sent to Paul, who drove them out instantly.62 I do not
mean to suggest that Anon. was being critical of the Antony legend,
only that he was attempting to present a more balanced portraiture
than the Athanasian one, a portraiture that acknowledges, without
overstating, Antonys overall importance while situating him
alongside others.
This concludes our investigation of the literary sources of the
HM. The findings may briefly be summarized. There are no
phraseological echoes of a classical (Greek) literary text
detectable in Anon.s prose. Scripture, on the other hand,
ubiquitously manifests itself in multiple forms. The only apparent
trace of an early Christian text comes from the Life of Antony, the
most widely diffused piece of monastic hagiography in the late
fourth cen-tury. None of this of course should be taken to imply
that Anon. was not well-read in either secular literature or
Christian literature besides the Bible and the Life of Antony. As I
pointed out earlier, this assumption is invalidated by Anon.s very
ability to manufacture stylistically impressive prose,63 which is
indicative of advanced training in rhetoric which by con-temporary
custom would have been preceded by a traditional education in
classical literature. Indeed, during the course of his schooling,
which pre-sumably had been in the Greek East, he would have read
the standard authors on the syllabus such as Homer, Demosthenes,
Euripides, and Menander.64
The newly adduced phraseological-conceptual borrowing from the
Life of Antony in the preface to the HM, which (if accepted as
legitimate) consti-tutes the first verifiable echo from a
non-biblical piece of Christian litera-ture to be recognized in
this writing, provides evidence that our anonymous author, like
other contemporary Greek (and Latin) hagiographic authors, not only
read the Life but also looked to it for some measure of
inspiration
61) HM 15.2.62)HM 14.9.63)See Cain, The Style of the Greek
Historia monachorum in Aegypto.64)See T. Morgan, Literate Education
in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (Cambridge, 1998), 316 (and
passim); N.G. Wilson, Scholars of Byzantium (London, 1983),
18-27.
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The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto and Athanasius Life of
Antony 363
when he composed his own work. Yet, by the same token, he
deliberately based his own portraiture of Antony, presented
serially and in isolated epi-sodes throughout the HM, on locally
circulating oral tradition(s) in Egypt rather than on the Life. His
deviation from the Athanasian archetype, I have suggested, is
closely related to his concern to provide readers already famil-iar
with the wildly popular Life something of a corrective to this work
by portraying a more well-rounded Antony who certainly holds a
prominent place in early Egyptian monastic history but by no means
completely dom-inates its landscape to the exclusion of other
legendary figures to whom Anon. gives more of a pride of place in
his narrative.