Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

monasticism 751
within his system. Weekends were always shared with others; and a laura
developed its own economy, requiring the supervision of a steward and his
subordinates (bakers, cooks and storekeepers), who lived out their period
of office within the communal buildings. The steward would oversee the
collection and distribution of raw materials among the ascetics, and the
marketing of their produce. In the more northern region, topography
could also contribute to integration: for some of the laurai here (although
not that of Theoctistus itself) were established on flatter ground and
acquired more cohesion. Common prayer on Saturdays and Sundays
encouraged complex rituals in well-furnished churches; a feature reinforced
in monasteries built close to centres of pilgrimage (increasingly
common in the Jericho region, close to the Jordan river). Euthymius wished
his own retreat to become a cœnobium at his death – a wish fulfilled in 482. 13
Most striking of all, the regular movement from community to solitude was
seen as compatible with a principle of stability: monks should avoid ‘a
feeling of resentment or loathing towards the place where we are and
towards our companions’; and Euthymius retained a ‘fear that our rule be
subverted by change of place’. Nor did he lose entirely a readiness to share
in the pastoral activities of the church, preaching to outsiders, baptizing,
and collaborating with the local bishop – in every respect a precedent for
later developments. 14
Further south, near Gaza, Esaias exemplified the same pattern. He had
lived in a cœnobium before moving to Scetis. After leaving Egypt, he shut
himself up in a cell, while Peter, his disciple, dealt with visitors. Yet he was
ready to legislate for more organized followers, and was not untouched by
the controversies of the church in his day. 15 The pattern persisted. Severus,
the later patriarch of Antioch, adopted a solitary life near Gaza but built
also a monastery for his gathering admirers. A more formal stage, perhaps,
is illustrated by the monastery of Gerasimus – another Asian arrival in
Palestine, from Lycia. His cœnobium, built in the Jericho plain probably
between a.d. 440 and 460, was actually sited in the midst of the cells of the
laura itself, still with the function of training the less experienced.
Sabas, Euthymius’ successor as the dominant monastic figure in
Palestine, was originally from Argaeus, close to Basil’s Caesarea. He first
13 Chitty (1966) 102f.
14 Community arrangements: V. Euthym. 17f. Liturgy: V. Euthym. 28f. (Note also the implications of
48; and compare V. Sab. 32, 36.) Own cell a cœnobium: V. Euthym. 39 (an ordered liturgy and hospitality
to strangers were to be central). Stability: V. Euthym. 19, tr. Price (1991) 26. Pastoral responsibility: V.
Euthym. 10, 12, 14f. Euthymius’ habitual Lenten retreat finds an interesting and contemporary parallel
in Eparchius of Clermont-Ferrand (Greg. Tur. Hist. ii.21). The earliest monastic churches for which
we have archaeological evidence were built no differently from those in settled centres, and seem
designed to fulfil the same liturgical and pastoral needs: see Walters (1974) 34f.
15 For convenience of reference, see Chitty (1966) 73f. and Chitty (1971); also Zacharias of Mitylene,
HE (CSCO Script. Syr. 3, 5–6) v.9, vi.3.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008