22. Evergetis - Dumbarton Oaks

ELEVENTH CENTURY
22. Evergetis: Typikon of Timothy for the Monastery
of the Mother of God Evergetis
Date: First edition, 1054–70;
periodically revised later; put in final form, 1098–1118 1
Translator: Robert Jordan
Edition employed: Paul Gautier, “Le typikon de la Théotokos Évergétis,” REB 40 (1982), 5–101,
with text at 15–95.
Manuscript: Codex Atheniensis, National Library 788 (12th c.) 2
Other translations: French, by Gautier, REB 40 (1982), 14–94.
Institutional History
A. The First Founder, Paul Evergetinos, and His Works
According to the document translated below, the monastery of the Mother of God Evergetis, “Benefactress,”
was founded [2] by a certain Paul, a wealthy Constantinopolitan, on an estate (proasteion)
that he had acquired through a family inheritance. The foundation occurred in either 1048 or 1049,
on this suburban property outside the walls of Constantinople. According to our document, the
foundation was very modest [3] during Paul’s five-year tenure as superior, consisting of some
small cells inhabited by a few disciples, including Paul’s eventual successor Timothy, who joined
[2] Evergetis in 1049.
As it transpired, Paul Evergetinos’ legacy to Byzantine monasticism was primarily literary.
He was the author of a massive ascetic florilegium, the Evergetinon, which enjoyed a wide circulation
in the Byzantine world, surviving in no less than forty manuscripts today. 3 The work is
divided into four volumes, each of which is subdivided into fifty hypotheses. The first volume
concerns itself with the general principles of monastic asceticism, the second with monastic usages
and the requirements of cenobitic life, the third with personal morality, and the fourth with
progress in the spiritual life. The author’s emphasis is on the practical aspects of monastic life. He
relies on a fairly short list of sources, using the Apophthegmata Patrum most of all, for which the
Evergetinon is one of the most important textual witnesses. There is hardly any use of Basil of
Caesarea. According to Richard (“Florilèges,” col. 503), Paul does not hesitate to adapt some of
his texts to suit his own purposes, but generally he cites them literally. The Evergetinon may have
inspired two later ascetic florilegia by Nikon of the Black Mountain, author of (20) Black Mountain
and (21) Roidion, and by John of Antioch, both of whom were important monastic reformers
in their own right. 4 As Solignac notes (“Paul Évergétinos,” col. 563), the work is so large that it is
difficult to see how Paul could have completed it during the relatively short term of his superiorship
at Evergetis, yet he also assembled a collection of monastic catecheses, utilizing works of Maximos
the Confessor, Pseudo-Makarios, Evagrios Pontikos, Mark the Hermit, and the Great Catecheses
of Theodore the Studite. 5
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