THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 270
The First Christian Monasteries
18.2. The First Christian Monasteries
Palladius says that 600 lived in Cellia. This was a purely eremitical life; but in Nitria it was otherwise. The following is Palladius' account, as he saw it in 390.
In Mount Nitria 5000 monks dwell following different manners of life, each according to his power and desire; so that anyone could live alone, or with another, or with several. In the mountain there are seven bakeries and a great church by which stand three palm trees, each with a whip hanging from it; one is for the monks who misbehave themselves, one for thieves, and one for chance comers : so that anyone who offended and was judged worthy of stripes, embraced the palm tree and made amends by receiving on the back the fixed number of blows. Close to the church is the guest house, and any guest who comes is entertained until he goes of his own accord, even if he stay for two or three years.
For the first week they let him stay in idleness, but after that they make him work, either in the garden or the bake-house or the kitchen. Or if he be a man of position they give him a book to read, but do not allow him to have intercourse with anyone till noon. Physicians dwell in this mountain, and confectioners; they use wine, and wine is sold.
They all make linen with their hands, so that they have no needs. And about three in the afternoon one may stand and hear how the psalmody arises from each habitation, and fancy oneself rapt aloft into Paradise. But they assemble at the church only on Saturday and Sunday.
Palladius tells, too, of one Apollonius, a merchant, who became a monk in Nitria, and being too old to learn a handicraft, purchased medicines and stores at Alexandria and cared for all the brotherhood in their sicknesses, for twenty years going the round of the cells from daybreak till three in the afternoon, knocking at the doors to see if anyone was sick: and of another who on becoming a monk retained his money and devoted it wholly to works of hospitality towards the poor, the aged and the infirm, and was judged by the fathers to be equal in merit to his brother, who had dispossessed himself of his belongings and given himself up wholly to a life of strict asceticism.
What has been said will bring out the special feature of this type of monasticism — its voluntariness: even when the monks lived together, there was not any common life according to rule. A large discretion was left to each one to follow his own devices in the employment of his time and the practice of his asceticisms. In short, this form of monachism grew out of the eremitical life, and it retained its eremitical or semi-eremitical character even in the great monastic colonies of Nitria and Scete.
We may now pass to the Pachomian monachism dominant in the southern parts of Egypt. Pachomius was a pagan by birth; he was born about 290, and became a Christian at the age of twenty. He adopted the eremitical life under Palaemon, a hermit who lived by the Nile in the diocese of Tentyra (Denderah). The legend of his call to be the creator of Christian cenobitical life is thus told by Palladius.
Pachomius was in an extraordinary degree a lover of mankind and a lover of the brotherhood. While he was sitting in his cave an angel appeared unto him and said: ‘Thou hast rightly ordered thy own life; needlessly therefore dost thou sit in the cave; come forth and bring together all the young monks and dwell with them, and legislate for them according to the exemplar I will give thee.’ And he gave him a brazen tablet whereon was engraved the Rule.
There follows what probably is the most authentic epitome of the earliest Christian Rule for Monks. St Pachomius founded his first monastery at Tabennisi near Denderah c. 315-320, and by the time of his death in 346 his order counted nine monasteries of men and one of women, all situated between Panopolis (Akhmim) to the north and Latopolis (Esneh) to the south, and peopled by some 3000 monks in all. After his death other monasteries were founded, one at Canopus near Alexandria, and several in Ethiopia; so that by the end of the century Palladius tells us there were 7000 Pachomian or Tabennesiot monks — St Jerome's 50,000 may safely be rejected.
Palladius visited the Pachomian monastery at Panopolis (Akhmim) and has left us what is by far the most actual and living picture of the daily life. He tells us that there were 300 monks in this monastery, who practised all the handicrafts and out of their superabundance contributed to the support of nunneries and prisons. The servers of the week got up at daybreak and some worked in the kitchen while others laid the tables, getting them ready by the appointed hour, spreading on them loaves of bread, mustard leaves, olive salad, cheeses, herbs chopped up, and pieces of meat for the old and the sick. "And some come in and have their meal at noon, and others at 1 or at 2 or at 3 or at 5, or in the late evening, and others every second day. And their work was in like fashion: one worked in the fields, another in the garden, another in the smithy, another in the bakery, another at carpentry, another at fulling, another at basket-making, another in the tanyard, another at shoemaking, another at tailoring, another at calligraphy"; he mentions also that they keep camels and herds of swine: he adds that they learn by heart all the Scriptures. From the Rule it appears that they assembled in the church four times a day, and approached Communion on Saturday and Sunday.
To obtain a deluxe leatherbound edition of COMMENTARII DE BELLO GALLICO by Julius Caesar, subscribe to Castalia History.
For questions about subscription status and billings: library@castaliahouse.com
For questions about shipping and missing books: shipping@castaliahouse.com
