:

Village Ascetics and the Origins of Early Egyptian Monasticism

These men live together in twos and threes, seldom in larger numbers, and
live according to their own will and ruling In most cases they live in cities
or in villages, and anything they sell is very dear, the idea being that their
workmanship, not their life, is sanctified.
Jerome, Epistle 24.34

The traditional notion that Egyptian monasticism began as a desert

phenomenon through the innovations of Saints Antony (c. 251?356)
and Pachomius (c. 290346)1 is unsupported by late antique literature
and documentation. For example, Athanasius Life of Antony relates
that before Antonys withdrawal () into the desert, There
were not yet many monasteries in Egypt, and no one knew at all the
great desert, but each of those wishing to give attention to his life
disciplined himself in isolation, not far from his own village.2
Antonys own asceticism was catalyzed by seeing an old man who had
practiced from his youth the solitary life.3 Similarly, Pachomius began
his apprenticeship under Palamon, a local holy man from the village of
eneset (Chenoboskion) in Upper Egypt who had settled a little way
from his village and had become a model and father for many in his
vicinity.4 Recent scholarship has shown that monasticism in Egypt
predates both Antonys removal to the Outer Mountain at Pispar (c.
285) and Pachomius founding of his famous monastery at Tabennese
in the Thebaid (c. 323).5 Scholars now recognize a variety of Egyptian
monasticism called apotactic, an urban-based movement in which
monks still lived in houses within city limits, still engaged in business,
and still owned personal property and held regular contact with
1. Antony and Pachomius are traditionally held to be the fathers of anchoritic
(solitary) and coenobitic (communal) forms of monasticism, respectively.
2. Athanasius, Vita Antonii 32.
3. Athanasius, Vita Antonii 32.
4. James E. Goehring, The Origins of Monasticism, in James E. Goehring,
Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Early Egyptian Monasticism
(Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999), 27; see also St. Jeromes Life of
Paul of Thebes in Caroline White (trans.), Early Christian Lives (London: Penguin
Books, 1998), 7184.
5. Birger A. Pearson, Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt
(New York: T & T Clark International, 2004), 37-40; see also Goehring, The Origins
of Monasticism; Goehring, Through a Glass Darkly: Images of the ()
in Early Egyptian Monasticism, 54, in James E. Goehring, Ascetics, Society, and the
Desert: Studies in Early Egyptian Monasticism (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press
International, 1999), pp. 1335 and 5372 therein.

society. Who were these urban ascetics, and what role did they play in
the development of Egyptian monasticism? Why are mainstream
Greek and Latin sources nearly devoid of information concerning
these ascetics? This essay will seek to answer these questions by
examining pertinent documentary and literary sources in order to
present a more accurate history of this critical period. It will also posit
that the apotactic movement developedat least in partout of the
much-earlier forms of female asceticism that were manifested through
institutionalized virginity and widowhood.
Village ascetics
A documentary papyrus (P. Col. Youtie II 77)6 dated to late May or
early June 324 C.E. contains a petition from a citizen of Karanis by the
name of Isidorus, son of Ptolemaeus, to Dioscorus Caeso, the regions
praepositus pagi,7 seeking redress for assault committed against him
by two local cattle owners. After confronting the men for allowing
their cattle to destroy his crops, Isidorus was beaten with a club until
two bystanders, the deacon () Antoninus and the monk
() Isaac, came to his aid. This document is unique in that it
contains the earliest known application of the term monachos to a
Christian ascetic figure in the papyrus record,8 and because it suggests
that early monks, rather than having fled into the desert to escape the
impeding demands of the world and society as later monks would do,
were both living within village boundaries and involving themselves in
the daily happenings of the village. The monk Isaac, writes Pearson,
is clearly not a desert ascetic, nor is he a member of a monastic
community. Rather, he lives in the village and participates actively in
civil and church affairs.9 The familiar tone in which Isidorus presents
his rescuers to the praepositus is telling: If I had not chanced to
6. P. Col. VII 171 (= P. Coll. Youtie II 77). E. A. Judge provides the full Greek
text, as well as his translation and analysis, in E. A. Judge, The Earliest Use of
Monachos for Monk and the Origins of Monasticism, in Jahrbuch fr Antike und
Christentum 20 (1977) 7289; see also H. C. Youtie and A. E. Hanson (eds.),
Collectanea Papyrologica: Texts Published in Honor of H. C. Youtie (Habelt, Bonn:
1976); James E. Goehring, The Origins of Monasticism, 2122.
7. The praepositus was an official appointed to supervise the tax collection
system of a given pagus, as well as to appoint local officials.
8. P. Neph. 48, a contract in which a purchases a house, has been given
a possible date of 323 by K. A. Worp. (See Malcolm Choat, The Development and
Usage of Terms for Monk in Late Antique Egypt, in Jahrbuch fr Antike und
Christentum 45 [2002], 7 with n. 9; see also n. 27 for a list of other early texts in
which can possibly be reconstructed.)
9. Pearson, Gnosticism and Christianity, 38.

obtain help from the deacon Antoninus and the monk Isaac, he
writes, they would quickly have finished me off completely.10
What is obvious in this statement is that Dioscorus recognizes the
ecclesiastical titles of both Antoninus and Isaac as Isidorus makes no
attempt at elucidation. He is exploiting the mens titles precisely
because he knows they are recognized within the community. Hence,
no accompanying explanation of the offices is required, just a simple
inclusion that Isidorus trusts will lend weight to his defenders
credibility. It also seems clear that monks, like deacons, were respected
enough within the community to allow the two men to stand as
authoritative witnesses to the above-mentioned assault against
Isidorus, an assumption that is supported by Isidorus closing remarks
to Dioscorus: I submit this document, asking that they [Antoninus
and Isaac] be brought before you to preserve my claim (to be heard) in
the prefectural court both in the matter of the planting and in the
matter of the assault.11 This hypothesisthat Isidorus trusts that
Dioscorus will readily acknowledge his two witnesses precicely because
they are known and trusted leaders in the communityis
strengthened by the likelihood that neither Dioscorus nor Isidorus was
a Christian.12
In 1977, Edwin A. Judge studied this document and saw a
connection between the variety of monk represented by Isaac, and one
of the three varieties of monks mentioned in the writings of both
Jerome (Epist. 22.34) and Cassian (Conlat. 18.4, 7).13 The first two
varieties, called cenobites (cenobium)14 and anchorites
(anchoretae), were viewed favorably by both writers, whereas the third
10. Translation is from Judge, Earliest Use of Monachos, 73.
11. Judge, Earliest Use of Monachos, 73 (parentheses original).
12. E. A. Judge, Fourth-Century Monasticism in the Papyri, in Roger S.
Bagnall, et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Sixteenth International Congress of
Papyrology, New York, 2431 July 1980. American Studies in Papyrology 23 (Chico,
CA: Scholars Press, 1981), 614; see also Pearson, Gnosticism and Christianity, 39;
Choat, Development and Usage, 7.
13. Judge, Earliest Use of Monachos, 79.
14. Jerome also labels Cenobites Sauhes, stating that is what they are called in
their Gentile tongue (Epist. 22.34). Interestingly, this appellation is found in no
other extant Egyptian or Greek sources, although Walter E. Crum, in his A Coptic
Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939), 373b74a, equates it with the Coptic
(congregation, collection) and cites its appearance in the Sahidic Life of
Apa Onophrios in E. A. W. Budge, Coptic Martyrdoms etc. in the Dialect of Upper
Egypt (London: British Museum, 1914), 210. (See Monica J. Blanchard, Sarabaitae
and Remnuoth, in James E. Goehring and Janet A. Timbie [eds.], The World of
Early Egyptian Christianity: Language, Literature, and Social Context: Essays in
honor of David W. Johnson [Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2007], 49.)

variety, called Remnuoth by Jerome and Sarabaitae by Cassian,

were viewed contemptuously. Jerome states that the remnuoth are
inferior and despised, and that they live according to their own will
and ruling and will not brook subordination. Cassian states that the
Sarabaitae are half-hearted and at all costs to be avoided. Rather
cunningly, he equates this group with the New Testament figures
Ananias and Sapphira, a couple whom God caused to suffer
ignominious deaths as punishment for their conspiracy to deceive the
Apostles about the amount of money they had sold their property for
(Acts 5:111).15 These literary sources are of special interest as Jerome
and Cassian describe that large numbers of Sarabaitae dwelt in cities
and villages.16 In Egypt, writes Cassian, there are almost equal
numbers of coenobites [sic] and Sarabaites. But in other provincesI
have found this third kind, the Sarabaites, to be abundant, and almost
the only sort of monk (18.7). Jerome states that in his province
(Pannonia), the [Sarabaitae] are the chief if not the only sort of
monk (22.34). In his prologue to the History of the Monks in Egypt,
the author17 writes that while some of the Egyptian monks live in
towns, some in the country, the best of them [are] scattered through
the desert. But after visiting Oxyrhynchus (c. 3945), he was amazed
to find
monks everywhere inside the city and also in all the countryside
round about. What had been the public buildings and temples of a
former superstitious age were now occupied by monks, and
throughout the whole city there were more monasteries than
housesWe were told by the holy bishop of that place that it
contained twenty thousand virgins and ten thousand monks.18

15. Cassian states: But when the memory of the dread sentence on Ananias and
Sapphira had faded, gradually there appeared the Sarabaites. This is an Egyptian
word, meaning persons who have deserted their communities and live each to
himself. They are descended from Ananias and Sapphira. They do not follow the
perfect way: they prefer to pretend to follow it. No doubt they want to be rivals of,
and to gain the kind of credit given to, people who choose Christs utter poverty
above all the riches of the world (Conlat. 18.7).
16. Jerome states: These men live together in twos and threes, seldom in larger
numbersIn most cases they live in cities or in villages (Epist. 22.34), while Cassian
states that they make a public profession of renunciation, and acquire the credit of
the title, and then go on living in their homes just as before, carrying on the same
work (Conlat. 18.7).
17. The anonymous author of the History of the Monks in Egypt originally
wrote his work in Greek; Rufinus (c. 345c. 410) made a Latin translation c. 403 C.E.
18. Historia Monachorum in Aegypto 5.26.

Writing decades later (381384), Egeria still distinguished between

ascetics who lived in villages and those who lived in the outskirts and
deserts.19 She mentions both the ascites (ascetics), or the ones who
lived in remote places, and only came at great festivals into the
cities, and the apotaktitai (= apotactites, people set apart or
renouncers), or run-of-the-mill monks and nuns who resided in
the villages.20
Such witnesses surely paint an entirely disparate portrait of
monasticism in late antique Egypt. Although perhaps exaggerated, the
claims that large amounts of ascetics dwelt in cities and villages
certainly hold value. But why has so little evidence of their existence
been preserved in mainstream literary sources? Jeromes remark that
the Sarabaitae will not brook subordination is telling. James
Goehring posits that political and ecclesiastical motive tainted the
literary sources that he claims represents the successful ecclesiastical
party:
These city monks have lost the struggle for authority and have been
dismissed. They are rejected as those who pervert the monastic life
for their own gain and are unworthyof even bearing the title of
monk. The title is reserved for those who withdraw from the social
world of the village and leave the village thereby under the authority
of the clergy.21

In other words, early urban ascetics were disparaged, not only because
of their location in cities and villages, but also because of their
insubordination to church authorities. Jerome accuses such monks of
[living] according to their own will and ruling and disparaging the
clergy.22 Cassian writes that the Sarabaitae become monks to gain the
reputation of monks, but make no effort to follow their discipline,
and are outside all control from the elders. They [live] two or three
together in a cell; under no direction: aiming above all else at having
freedom from the elders.23
The reason for such ecclesiastical polemics is apparent: city monks
were perceived as charlatans and usurpers of the true form of monastic
worship exemplified by those who withdraw from the villages to dwell
19. Egeria, Travels 20.58, 49.12. Egeria is traditionally thought to have been a
nun or abbess from either Spain or Gaul who recorded her pilgrimage to Palestine,
Egypt, Edessa, and Asia Minor in the late fourth century.
20. Egeria, Travels. John Wilkinson (ed.), Egerias Travels, 3rd ed. (Warminster,
England: Aris and Phillips, 1999), 48.
21. Goehring, The Origins of Monasticism, 23.
22. Jerome, Epist. 22.34.
23. Cassian, Conlat. 18.7.

in cenobia or in the outer desert. They are seen as those who pervert
the monastic life for their own gain and are unworthy.24 Their
independence from the clergy made them immediate targets of those
appointed to maintain order within the local ekklsiai. Their presence
within the cities disrupted the clergys claim to authority over the
cities. Such power struggles led ultimately to the suppression of early
monachoi within mainstream literary sources. According to Goehring,
however, while the ecclesiastical rhetoricthat carried the day
continues to affect the presentation of monastic history, the
documentary evidence has begun to challenge their control of that
history.25 It is to that history we now turn.
Origin(s) and Development
As few specifics as are revealed by late antique literature and
documentation concerning the workings of early apotactic26
monasticism, these historical sources reveal even less about the
movements origin(s) and development. Part of the difficulty
underlying scholars attempts to reconstruct the movement lies in the
fact that before the word appears in P. Col. Youtie II 77 in 324
C.E. as a social designation, no uniform terms were applied to male
Christian ascetics.27 The word first appears in a number of
Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible (absent from the Septuagint)
for yehidim (Syr. idy) in Psalm 68:7, and later in texts discovered
at Nag Hammadi such as the (Coptic) Gospel of Thomas (16:4, 49:1,
75) (firstsecond century) and the Dialogue of the Savior (120, 1201)
(second century).28 Unfortunately, the word is absent from the
fragments of Thomas discovered at Oxyrhynchus, so it is uncertain
whether the Greek version on which the Coptic translation is based
employed the term.29 If it did, the solitaries there referred to could
24. Goehring, The Origins of Monasticism, 23.
25. Goehring, The Origins of Monasticism, 23.
26. The term (renouncers) comes form the Greek verb
(cf. Lk. 14:33, ), to leave, give up, or part with.
27. Choat, Development and Usage, 7.
28. Samuel Rubenson, Asceticism and Monasticism, 1: Eastern, in Augustine
Casiday and Frederick W. Norris (eds.), The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol.
2: Constantine to c. 600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 638. For
the Nag Hammadi materials, see Marvin Meyer (ed.), The Nag Hammadi Scriptures:
The International Edition (New York: HarperOne, 2007).
29. Birger Pearson, Earliest Christianity in Egypt: Further Observations, in
James E. Goehring and Janet A. Timbie (eds.), The World of Egyptian Christianity:
Language, Literature, and Social Context: Essays in Honor of David W. Johnson
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 10910.

possibly represent a late second-century class of ascetics in

Alexandria.30 If this is the case, these monachoi may have been the
subject of the injunction in the Epistle of Barnabas (c. 96130?): Do
not, by retiring apart, live a solitary life, as if you were already [fully]
justified.31 It is not until the end of the first quarter of the fourth
century, however, that the term begins to appear in
documentary sources as a designation for Christian ascetics. Shortly
thereafter, begins to be coupled with more specific and
specialized terms such as (from , to withdraw),
(virgin), and (renouncer).32 Malcolm Choat
feels that the proliferation of these terms in the papyri during this
period is a sign that male ascetics had made their presence felt in
public, and as such required descriptive terms.33 But why the sudden
appearance?

New Testament Models

Although asceticism ()34 was not as clearly defined or organized
in the apostolic church as it was in later centuries, ascetic ideals are
nonetheless discernable in the writings of the New Testament.35 Pauls
allusion to the Isthmian and Imperial Games at Corinth in his athletic
metaphor in 1 Cor. 9:247 can be seen as a standard for the Christian
ascetic life:
Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one
receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes
exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable
wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlesslybut I

30. Pearson, Earliest Christianity in Egypt, 110.

31. Barn. 4.10 (Ante Nicene Fathers [hereafter ANF], vol. 1, 139).
32. Rubenson, Asceticism and Monasticism, 638.
33. Choat, Development and Usage, 7.
34. The Greek (exercise, training) was a term applied by Greek
philosophers to moral training, often signaling abstention from physical pleasures. It
appears only once in the New Testament (Acts 24:16), and only in verb form

.
35. I do not imply here that Jesus call to his followers to live a disciplined life
was interpreted and practiced in the same ways by both the earliest Christians and
Christians living in later centuries when ascetic practice became widespread. These
early injunctions found in the New Testament did however serve as models for later
ascetic practice, and that is my point.

punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I

myself should not be disqualified.36

Jesus invitation to his disciples to practice self-abnegation by

following him epitomizes the ascetic call: Whoever does not take up
the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life
will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.37
Such self-abnegation was enacted by Jesus disciples through
watchfulness and preparation for the Parousia (Gk. coming,
arrival) (Mt. 24:42, 25:13; 1Cor. 16:13), fasting (Mt. 6:168; Mk.
2:1820), chastity (Mt. 19:12; 2 Cor. 7:1), the renunciation of property
(Mt. 19:21; Mk. 10:28; Lk. 9:5762), and the pursuit of virtue and
sanctification (Phil. 4:8; 1 Thes. 4:34).
One of the main foci of late antique monasticism was to continue
or preserve the perfect way of life practiced by the earliest disciples
of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament, particularly in Acts of the
Apostles. The monks, writes Chadwick, always looked back to the
apostolic Church as the source of their way of life.38 These later
Christians saw the rigorous discipline, morality, and purity of the early
church as the model par excellence of the ascetic lifestyle. For
example, the renunciation of personal property that was often enjoined
by Jesus on aspiring disciples as a prerequisite to following him is a
recurring theme throughout the New Testament. If you wish to be
perfect, answered Jesus to the rich young man, go, sell your
possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have
treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.39 Speaking to Jesus, Peter
said concerning the Twelve disciples: Look, we have left everything
and followed you.40 The community of early believers in Jerusalem
were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private
ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was
held in common There was not a needy person among them,
36. Cf. Basil, Ep. 265: So now also, if we consider the matter in this way, we
find that the Lord, by placing before you the contest for the true religion, has opened
up to you by means of your exile a stadium of blessed struggles. See also Basils
quote of 1 Cor. 9:25 in Ep. 22.
37. Mt. 10:389; cf. Jn. 12:256. (All scriptural references are from the NRSV
unless noted.)
38. Owen Chadwick, Western Asceticism, vol. 12 in The Library of Christian
Classics series (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1958), 13; see also William
Harmless, Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 132, 2978, and 4178, therein.
39. Mt. 19:21; cf. Mk. 10:21.
40. Mk. 10:28; cf. Lk. 9:5762.

for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought

the proceeds of what was sold.41
In the Conference of Abba Piamun (18.47), Cassian claims that these
early disciples of Jesus in Jerusalem who had consecrated all their
possessions to the church were actually the originators of what he saw
in his own day as the true form of ascetic and monastic worshipthe
form being practiced by the coenobites: The system of the coenobites
arose at the time when the apostles were preaching. The crowd of
believers in Jerusalem was of this sort The whole Church, I assert,
lived then as the coenobites live, now so few that it is difficult to find
them.42 Cassian then claims that after Gentiles, or crowds of
strangers and men of different races who were weak in the faith, came
into the church, the body of believers became infected with indolence,
thus causing the entire church to diminish its perfect life. Yet, there
was a remnant of Christians still fervent in the faith:
And so the Christians who were still fervent as the Christians of
apostolic days, and remembered the original and perfect way of life,
left their cities anddwelt in places outside the cities, or in even
more remote haunts. They began to keep privately and as individuals
the rules which they remembered were given by the apostles to the
whole Church.43

The institutions of celibacy and virginity (chastity), and the

renunciation of personal property (poverty), became, in later
centuries, hallmarks of Christian monasticism. Property ownership
was the source of bitter contention between local ecclesiastical leaders
and monks who labored for profit and refused to turn their goods over
to church officials for general distribution. The story is told in the
Apophthegmata Patrum how Abba Theodore of Parme, who,
possessing three beautiful books, would loan them out and receive a
profit in return. When he asked Abba Macarius what he should do
with the books, the old man answered, saying, Ascetic labours are
beautiful, but the greatest of them all is voluntary poverty.44 In his
letter to one Censitor regarding monks, St. Basil argues that because
they have long ago withdrawn from the world, and have mortified
their bodies, they can offer no monetary benefit to the public and
should therefore be excluded from taxation. For if they are living
41. Acts 4:324.
42. Cassian, Conlat. 18.5.
43. Cassian, Conlat. 18.5.
44. Ap. Patr. 1.5.161.

according to their profession, he writes, they have neither money

nor bodies.45 Much of Cassians vitriol against the Sarabaitae was due,
among other things, to their publicly professing renunciation while at
the same time going on
living in their homes, carrying on the same work They disobey
the Gospel commands not to be anxious about our daily bread or our
everyday affairs. It is only possible to obey these commands if you
abandon all your property, and so subject yourselves to the superiors
of a community that you cannot say you are your own master in
anything.46

Female Asceticism as Precedent

The practices of virginity and celibacy begin to appear very early
within Christian literary sources. Already in the early second century
orders of ascetic virgins () seem to have been a part of the
ekklsiai, thus showing that these institutions were becoming
necessary foundations to disciplined Christian living.47 In his Apology
(c. 177) to Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher and Christian convert
Athenagoras (c. 133190?) writes: Nay, you would find many among
us, both men and women, growing old unmarried, in hope of living in
closer communion with God.48 In his letter to the Philippians, Bishop
Polycarp (c. 69c. 155) talks of virgins along side deacons and
presbyters, and gives instructions for them using the definite article:
And the virgins ( ) must walk in a blameless and pure
conscience.49 The usage here of the article suggests a definite and
distinct group within the church, a group who saw themselves (at least
from the second century) betrothed not to a man, but to Christ.50
Cyprian (d. 258), writing in the first half of the third century, spoke of
virgins as the ecclesiastical seed and the more illustrious portion of
Christs flock. He continues: The glorious fruitfulness of Mother
Church rejoices by [the virgins] meansand in proportion as a
copious virginity is added to her number, so much the more it
increases the joy of the Mother.51

45. Basil, Ep. 284.

46. Cassian, Conlat. 18.7.
47. Chadwick, Western Asceticism, 14.
48. Athenagoras, Apology 33 (ANF, vol. 2, 146).
49. Polycarp, Ep. Phil. 5.3 (parentheses added).
50. Methodius, Banquet of the Ten Virgins 8 (ANF, vol. 6, 31920).
51. Cyprian, Treatises 2.3 (ANF, vol. 5, 431).

10

Such references to virginity during the first two centuries of the

Christian era suggest a widespread practice that seems to have become
commonplace within the ekklsiai.52 In Egypt, virgin asceticism
flourished as a semi-organized institution from at least the mid-third
century, nearly fifty years before the birth of desert monasticism. The
Life of Antony relates how shortly before Antony devoted himself to
an ascetic life, he [placed] his sister in the charge of respected and
trusted virgins, and [gave] her over to the convent for rearing.53
These virgins (and widows) lived lives of renunciation together in
common houses, a model which seems to have been adopted by
apotactic monks sometime around the start of the fourth century.
According to Judge, the apotactic movement represents the point at
which the men at last followed the pattern long set for virgins and
widows, and set up houses of their own in town, in which the life of
personal renunciation and service in the church would be practiced.54
The old man from the neighboring village whom Antony emulated
was exactly this type of ascetic; he lived an ascetic lifestyle while still in
village boundaries. Goehring feels that village asceticism had more to
do with a withdrawal from certain social patternsfamily life, sexual
relations, etc.rather than from a distancing from the village or
community.55 Such an observation certainly coincides with what we
know about the lifestyle of virgins and widows.
Documentary sources of the fourth or fourth/fifth century show
that the term () rapidly became the preeminent monastic
appellation for male ascetics, appearing in at least twenty-four
instances within eighteen separate papyri.56 Much less prominent is
the term () as it appears in only eight papyri.57 The
precise application of each of these terms to specific styles of ascetics,

52. S. J. Davis, The Cult of Saint Thecla: A Tradition of Womens Piety in Late
Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 879; see also S. Elm, Virgins of
God: The making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994),
227372.
53. Athanasius, Vita Antonii 312.
54. Judge, Earliest Use of Monachos, 85.
55. Goehring, The Origins of Monasticism, 201. It is interesting to note that
disciples of famous ascetics may have followed their heroes into the wilderness
because they felt cheated by the holy mans departure from the village or city, rather
than from mere emulation. In the case of Antony, Goehring writes: In seeking
solitude in the desert away from the village, he was taking with him the power of
God made available to the village through his presence. The ascetic had a function in
the village, and Antonys innovative departure called this function into question.
56. Choat, Development and Usage, 8, note 23; see also his convenient list on
pp. 910.
57. Choat, Development and Usage, 123.

11

at least in the early to mid-fourth century, is problematic. First, the

precise manner in which entered Egyptian ascetic vocabulary
is disputed. Whether the lexical development occurred through
contact with the Syrian ascetic tradition or through Egyptian locals
observations of the solitary practices of early monks can not now be
demonstrated with certainty.58 Second, even after such terms begin to
appear in the documentary sources, there still exists much debate
among scholars as to how they should be understood or to what extent
they can be equated with literary ascetic terms such as remnuoth or
sarabaitae.59 Without a more focused picture of the lexical development
of early monastic terms, it is impossible to demonstrate a stronger
connection between the explosion of male asceticism in late third/early
fourth century Egypt and the much earlier tradition of female
asceticism. Even so, it is now clearbased on early Egyptian
documentary sourcesthat the origins of Egyptian monasticism can
no longer be viewed as linear developments stemming from the
innovations of saints Antony and Pachomius. The reality of village
ascetics, and the role they played in the development of the
phenomenon called Christian monasticism, can no longer be silenced
by the literary propaganda of clergymen. In the words of William
Harmless, The evidence we have is partial and fragmentary But
partial and fragmentary as it is, it still shows thatthe monasticism
that surfaced in the early fourth century had a variety whose richness
should not be underestimated.60

58. For a survey of the evidence, see F. Morard, Monachos, moine. Histoire du
e
terme grec jusquau 4 sicle, in Freiburger Zeitschrift fr Philosophie und
Theologie 20 (1973) 72/89; Judge, Earliest Use. (Sources taken from Choat,
Development and Usage, 8, note 20.)
59. Choat, Development and Usage, 7.
60. Harmless, Desert Christians, 419.

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