Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

monasticism 759
the way in which the community enfolded those endeavours (even that of
stylites), and enjoyed priority of merit. Communities remained open, also,
valuing both hospitality and the care of the poor. 42 On the fringes of that
ordered world, John described wandering ascetics and radically pious lay
persons (in this context women come to greater prominence), 43 who also
devoted much of their practical energy to the care of the sick and the poor,
and to the entertainment of travellers and strangers. 44 Over all presided the
bishop – one of John’s chief motives was to show that bishops, also, could
be holy! So they exercised their authority over monasteries, characterized
as they were by attachment to a sacramental life. 45
Two things strike one about these vivid accounts. First, monastic order
was not an end in itself. One did not base one’s life on loyalty to a specific
written rule or even to a permanent community. The fundamental social
component of the ascetic life was still the relationship between master and
disciple. The reputation of the master was the stimulus for the formation
and organization of the community in the first place; and the master’s own
practice and advice was the factor that did most to control the ambition and
behaviour of his associates. The monastery and its habitual order were the
extended instrument, or at least the protective setting, of a master’s formative
power. That was why a life governed by ‘rules’ could still acknowledge
some dependence on the biographical tradition enshrined in the Sayings of
the Fathers and its later supplements and imitations. Second, the cœnobium/
laura relationship observed in Palestine had now entered a new phase, in
that the laura had come to live in the cœnobium. Within a domestic setting
that catered for a communal life, men who were psychologically, as it were,
hermits pursued in private a programme of prayer and self-discipline
within the communal buildings themselves. At the root of the whole enterprise
one discovers two fundamental motives: a fear of judgement and a
compassion for the unfortunate. The first engendered an urgent sense of
responsibility for the direction of one’s own life; the second encouraged
mercy for others, equally subject not so much to economic or physical misfortune
as to a disappointment or weakness entirely like one’s own.
Such were the perceptions that did most to shape the structure of
eastern monastic life in the fifth and sixth century. Such, also, were the
adaptations visited upon the heritage of Pachomius and Basil. The monastic
life continued in Asia Minor – the youthful experience of Euthymius
and Sabas bears witness to that – even though Constantinople and
42 From community to solitude: John Eph. Lives 6 (though in conjunction with other processes), 16,
29 (in which solitaries seek winter refuge in communities). Pious families: 21, 56. (A splendid history of
more general character is provided in 58.) Masters and disciples: 2, 3, 15, 29, 32f., 35. Eccentricity within
the community: 11, 17, 36, 54. Stylites: 2, 4 (and see the example provided by Palmer (1990) 105f.).
Community more meritorious: 3 (very forceful), 4, 13, 15, 19. External relations: 2, 5, 13, 17, 29, 31, 33,
44. 43 John Eph. Lives 12, 27f., 54. 44 John Eph. Lives 31, 39, 45f., 52f., 57.
45 John Eph. Lives 2, 4, 12, 16, 25.
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