Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

760 25. monasticism
Jerusalem had begun to exert their disturbing pull. 46 In Egypt, where the
outlook of Shenoute had modified Pachomian tradition, and where
Monophysite self-confidence was less severely disturbed and capable of
more organic development, the physical aspects of monastic life in the
Delta and along the Nile were quite startlingly changed, precisely in ways
that Pachomius had foreseen and feared. 47 Rambling walled cœnobia (like
Shenoute’s ‘White Monastery’ near Atripe), more populous and more prosperous
than before, lay now at the centre of great estates, absorbing the
energies of the monks themselves, and providing employment for local
peasants. They offered material support in time of famine and unrest, and
taxable wealth for the imperial government (which was often returned to
them by donation or remission). 48 They were drawn, as a result, into the
economy of the church as a whole, sharing under episcopal supervision in
the increasing prosperity of the Christian community generally.
In the matter of legislative development, a distinction seems evident
between east and west. At the opening of the fifth century, the eastern
provinces had already begun to acquire the detailed traditions of order that
were to dominate monasticism in the Greek church and its satellites for
long afterwards. In the west, on the other hand, the rule that seems most
to have influenced later centuries, that of Benedict, would not take shape
for a century or more. The distinction, however, is unreal. ‘The Rule of
Pachomius’ or ‘the Rule of Basil’ did not exist in a hard-and-fast form. The
Pachomian material translated into Latin by Jerome did not form a single,
coherent corpus; and it is unlikely that such regulations were at any time
honoured throughout the coenobitic communities of the Nile valley. Some
even of Pachomius’ own foundations seceded from his federation soon
after his death. The ease with which Shenoute usurped the Pachomian
mantle was itself a sign of how diffuse and even insecure his legacy had
become. Other collections of rules gained competing influence. Several
items in the Sayings of the Fathers fall into sequences that are virtually rules
in embryo. 49 The Sayings focus also on figures like Longinus, superior of the
46 The flourishing establishments in Basil’s Caesarea were sadly depleted by the time of his successor
Firmus, a century later. See Firmus, Letters (SChrét. 250) esp. Epp. 12 and 43. John Eph. Lives 31
describes another species of Basilian Nachleben in sixth-century Melitene, on the eastern borders of
Cappadocia.
47 For the tenuous survival of old north-Egyptian traditions, see Chitty (1966) 144f., and Gould
(1993) 9f., 185f.
48 The generosity of patrons, in a society where wealth meant either land and its produce or gold,
was thus locked firmly into the local beneficence of hospitality and welfare. The work of Jones and,
more recently, Hendy provides a general context and access to a wide international bibliography. Much
recent work of an economic nature has focused more on the third and fourth centuries. Useful detail
can still be found in Johnson and West (1949) especially 66f. Walters (1974) discusses surviving material
evidence of refectories, bakeries and water installations, 99f, 206f., 209f. and 219f., with additional reference
at this last point to handicraft and to labour outside the monastery.
49 For example Moses, 14–18. Such prescriptive dialogues could find their way into narrative sources:
see John Eph. Lives 3.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008