Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

758 25. monasticism
prompt one to expect a regime at once tainted by heretical association and
cut off from the mainstream of Christian development. There is no doubt
that the history of monasticism in the sixth-century east was wholly interwoven
with the progress of the Monophysite controversy. Monks were at
once the most influential leaders of the heretical cause and the most
revered victims of orthodox persecution. Shifts of government policy
under Zeno and Anastasius, and indeed during the reign of Justinian
himself, had a constantly disruptive effect on the practice of the ascetic life
– exile, polemic and pastoral concern being the order of the day. Nothing
can blind us to the fact, however, that significant numbers (perhaps the
majority) of Chrisitans in the eastern empire were willing to accommodate
themselves in some degree to the Monophysite party; and only orthodox
prejudice can lead one to believe that the Palestinian laura had become a
dominant model. The majority of the ascetics described by John were certainly
from Syria and certainly Monophysite in their loyalty; but his account
ranges fully over a great crescent from Thrace to the Nile, and presents us
with an image of monastic practice adopted throughout the eastern provinces
of the empire.
A recurrent pattern is easy to discern. Each monastery had its archimandrite,
and its ‘rule’ in the sense of customary order: there can be no doubt
that, in John’s day, that had become the norm, with complex buildings,
regular hours and a highly developed liturgy. More than once, he admires
explicitly fine craftsmanship in monastic buildings, and the sumptuousness
of their church furniture. 39 A monastery, however, would still bear the
stamp and often the name of the holy man who had found it. The process
of coenobitic development was still based on an original master and the
gradual accretion of disciples. 40 Other patterns occurred: the Palestinian
rhythm, by which one graduated from community to solitary life; and the
development of increasingly ordered forms of devotion among pious families.
Within each community – a custom hinted at by Theodoret – masters
could still preside over groups of disciples, and even transfer with them to
other places. More experienced ascetics practised isolated programmes of
self-denial, not always approved of by their peers, but initiated by their own
enthusiasm, and carried out in corners and at odd hours of the day or night.
Such anecdotes add a voice to the jumbled ground-plan of cells and courtyards
revealed by monastic archaeology. 41 John’s chief point was to stress
39 John Eph. Lives 4, 7, 12, 14, 17f., 20, 31, 33, 35, 42, 47. 9, 12 and 58 give particularly full accounts
of buildings and their appointments. For a general survey, see Harvey, Asceticism and Society in Crisis.An
excellent summary of John’s descriptions of the monastic regime is given by Palmer (1990) 81–8; and
his book as a whole provides a superb example (the monastery of Qartmin in south-east Turkey) that
illustrates, in archaeology and in associated documents, many aspects of Syrian asceticism in this
period. Janin’s provincial survey (1975), covering large areas of Greece and Asia, offers again a richly
documented gazetteer. 40 John Eph. Lives 5f., 22, 27, 34, 54.
41 The narrative is vividly corroborated by the remains at Qartmin: see Palmer (1990) 97–107.
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