349 - The Greek Historia Monachorum in Aegypto and Athanasius' Life of Antony

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.

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.

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).


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.

Documents

349 - The Greek Historia Monachorum in Aegypto and Athanasius' Life of Antony