Today, that least likely of all days in the year, is the feast day of my good friend and subject of my MA research, St. John Cassian, the Massilian monk who popularised the life and teachings of the Desert Fathers, especially Evagrius, in Latin Europe!
I’ve blogged about him here before; search ‘John Cassian’ in the search bar on the right. Off to do work….
St. Hilarion’s name is well-known to those who dwell in Cyprus because the ruins of a Lusignan castle adorn the mountain upon which St. Hilarion dwelt in his final anchoretic retreat from the world. It is quite a spectacular place, as you will see from the photos scattered through this post, taken when I visited St. Hilarion’s Castle in 2005 with Rick, Madara, and Renate. I know someone whose favourite castle it is; the tourist brochures claim that it was the inspiration for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty Castle, but I’m fairly certain that was Neuschwanstein in Bavaria.
Ever since my visit to the castle I wondered, ‘Who is this Saint Hilarion? What did he do? Where can I learn of him?’
Well, this past March I was reading Pope Gregory I’s Life of St. Benedict in preparation for his feast (Benedict was saint of the week here and here). And there, in the same volume — Early Christian Lives, translated by Carolinne M. White — was Jerome’s Life of Hilarion. I recently read this piece of hagiography by Jerome, and can now tell you about this hermit who spent the last days of his life in retreat on the island of Cyprus.
The Life of St. Hilarion
St. Hilarion (d. 371) was originally from the Gaza region of Palestine. As part of the regular round of education in those days, his pagan parents sent him to Alexandria to be educated. Whilst in Alexandria, Hilarion became a Christian and was baptised.
Hearing of the fame of St. Antony (saint of the week here), Hilarion went to meet the great ascetic and coloniser of the desert. Upon encountering St. Antony, Hilarion, only fifteen years of age, devoted himself to the ascetic life as well, and lived with Antony for two months to learn the ways of this holy lifestyle. Hilarion left Antony because his desire for solitude was too great to deal with the large crowds who were always coming to visit the saint. This will be a recurring theme throughout his life.
Hilarion settled in the wilderness of Mayuma, on the Palestinian coast near Gaza, later to be a monastic centre that produced the Mia/Monophysite leaders Peter the Iberian and Severus of Antioch as well as the holy man Abba Isaiah of Scetis, revered on both sides of the Chalcedonian debate. In Mayuma Hilarion lived exposed to the elements and the attacks of the devil, akin to those experienced by St. Antony. Yet he endured all of this and maintained his ascetic lifestyle despite the challenges.
He ate sparsely, shaved once a year, never washed his sackcloth shirt which was his sole garment, memorised the Scriptures, prayed and sang Psalms continually, and slept on a mat made of rushes.
People knew of him, due in part, no doubt, to his family who thought he was crazy, and in part to the robbers who tried robbing him when he was 18 (‘Those who have nothing do not fear robbers.’ ‘We could kill you.’ ‘I am prepared for death.’). But they left him alone for 22 years, until he was 38, either for fear of holiness or respect or fear of a madman (who can say?). Eventually, a woman who had as yet borne no children came to Hilarion because her husband was put out with the lack of babies. He ignored her, but she kept persisting until he prayed for her. She conceived and brought forth a child.
Thus began the series of miracles and the lack of rest for St. Hilarion, a man who loved his solitude more than anything else. People came from near and far, not just Gaza but also the nearer parts of Egypt, to encounter Hilarion. He healed men and women, cast out demons, healed animals, saved stones that had fallen into the sea, healed people from afar, had visions, and all the usual things one would expect from a desert father.
As happened with Antony, with the fame came not only the sick, poor, and needy. There also came the monks and fellow-ascetics who came to live with Hilarion and learn from his way of life. Although he found the crowds of people in need annoying, Hilarion was pleased with this development, for he saw in these monks people committed to the path of salvation and eternal life.
Although he preferred his solitude above all, Hilarion would go on a tour of the monks’ cells every year to see them and their progress. Thus, he sacrificed his own preferences to be a pastor and spiritual guide for those who had put trust in him.
When he was 63, Hilarion became aware of the fact that he was now abbot of a large monastery with many cells of ascetics attached to it, and had, in many ways, returned to the world. He wanted to become a hermit again, but the monks would not allow him. Eventually, he escaped under the pretense of going to visit his monastic father, Antony.
When Hilarion and his party arrived in Egypt, they learned that St. Antony had but recently died. They spent some time there as Hilarion revisited the places of the Inner Mountain where he had spent time with St. Antony.
Then Hilarion re-entered the anchoretic life of a hermit near Aphroditon. Soon, the locals called upon him to end a three-year drought. Having brought rain, he saw that he was on the verge of fame again, so he went to Bruchium. From there, he fled, as says Jerome, to the oasis to escape the Emperor Julian’s men. He dwelt there for a year, and then set out for Sicily. He lived in secret on Sicily for a while, but soon someone got wind that he was there. Having performed one miracle, soon he performed many. And then the crowds came.
Hilarion left.
Then he went to Epidaurus in Dalmatia. Having saved the locals from a serpent large enough to swallow a cow, he became famous and people came to spend time with him.
Hilarion left.
This time he moved to Cyprus, settling about two miles from Paphos. As usual, people came to see him. As usual, he got fed up. This time, however, he went north to the Kyrenia Mountains. At first, only the locals who would feed him knew of his presence. Eventually, a few determined people found him. He spent the rest of his time there, with a few disciples who gathered and the occasional visitor come for spiritual instruction or healing. He died there in 371.
What We Can Learn from St. Hilarion
Jerome claims that Hilarion’s solitude was always being disrupted by the machinations of the devil and his minions who feared the prayers of this holy man. I am not sure I agree with Jerome. While I am not one of those people who just cannot comprehend the monastic or eremitic life, anchorites who never see anyone inspire me little. I agree with St. Basil of Caesarea, that if we live alone as hermits, we cannot fulfill our Lord’s commands to serve others and submit to one another. How can a person all alone practice the great virtues of charity and peacemaking?
I think that people kept finding Hilarion because the Lord will not let holiness stay hidden. He wants his people to benefit from the lives of those whom he has set apart. Hilarion spent 22 years alone training and praying and worshipping in the desert. Our Lord Christ spent 33 years as a carpenter’s son in Nazareth.
Eventually, the time for public ministry comes to those who have been prepared. Jesus was ready, for he was perfect Man and perfect God. Hilarion was ready, he just didn’t know it or wish it. But God knew that through Hilarion’s wisdom and example and prayers great good would come to his people. Therefore, he circumvented Hilarion’s desire for solitude at every turn so that the virtues of charity and service could be brought to others by this man whom the Lord had prepared for good deeds.
We will never be free from opportunities to do good works. Even when we do not wish to do them, we ought to, just as Hilarion did. The Lord loves a cheerful giver; but a giver of any sort is better than none at all. Be on the lookout for opportunities for charity and service, for they will come whether you want them or not. Then bless the Lord that you can be the servant of all, even if you’d rather stay in alone with a book.
Re-post from elsewhere in 2008
Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritu Sancto,
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
* * *
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Those with a knowledge of Latin are already saying, “But ‘et in saecula saeculorum‘ means ‘and unto ages of ages’!” I know. Don’t ask me why, the “ages of ages” bit is also there in the Greek. Moving along . . .
You may know the above prayer from time spent in liturgical churches; we have a tendency to sing or say it following Psalms, canticles, and various prayers and antiphons based on Psalms. It tends to be called the “Gloria Patri,” after the first two words in Latin.
John Cassian (c. 360-430), the fellow I’m researching these days, says that the Desert Fathers of Egypt would say the Gloria Patri after each Psalm (Institutes 2.8), noting, “This we have never heard anywhere in the East.” Cassian had lived in Bethlehem and was later to visit Constantinople before settling in Marseilles. If Cassian speaks aright, the Gloria Patri goes back at least to the Desert Fathers, a movement that was already a hundred years old by the time he arrived and one with a strong oral culture. The Gloria Patri may be older than they are, but we don’t really know.
Anyway, it made its way from the Desert Fathers to St. Basil the Great’s Divine Liturgy (c. 370-379) as well as into St. John Chrysostom’s Divine Liturgy (late fourth century), although since both of those are from the living traditions of the East, it is hard to know what exactly the original text of each was; nonetheless, if we consider the guardedness of the East towards its tradition, the texts as we have received are probably very close to those of Sts. Basil and Chrysostom. Therefore, it was spreading in use in the late fourth century, despite Cassian’s note that he had never heard the Gloria Patri elsewhere in the East.
How the prayer came to the West is hard to say as well. The liturgies of the East were known in the West. Nonetheless, it may have come all on its own. Had it not come on its own, the most likely candidate is John Cassian. Cassian transmitted the spirituality and practices of the Desert to the monks of Marseilles in his two major works The Institutes and The Conferences.
He had a massive influence upon succeeding generations of monks, the Conferences being recommended reading in St. Benedict’s Rule (ch. 42). His recommendation of regularly praying the versicle, “O God make speed to save me; O Lord make haste to help me,” (Ps. 70:1, in Conf. 10.10.2 ff.) ensured its inclusion in St. Benedict’s office, being the standard beginning for the prayers and readings (chs. 17, 18, and 38).
It is hard to measure the impact of St. Benedict (c. 480-543) and his Rule for Beginners upon Christian spirituality. During the Early Middle Ages, more and more monasteries were founded according to his Rule or chose to live by it until the Rule became the standard authorised monastic rule of life. Since most monasteries were Benedictine and the Benedictines helped preserve Western learning during times of upheaval as well as produce many leading churchmen and missionaries, they inevitably had an effect on the liturgy of the Western Church.
Therefore, go and grab a BCP, and turn to the order for Morning Prayer. On page 6 of the Canadian 1962 version, just after the Lord’s Prayer, we read:
Minister. O Lord, open thou our lips;
People. And our mouth shall show forth thy praise.
Minister. O God, make speed to save us;
People. O Lord, make haste to help us.Here, all standing up, the Minister shall say:
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
People. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
There we see the influence of Cassian and the Benedictines. Here also we see the continuing tradition of saying the Gloria Patri. At a tradition BCP service, at the conclusion of the Psalms (outside of Lent), we proclaim the Gloria Patri.
In fact, this prayer is not only old and venerable but incredibly widespread. Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, and others all pray this prayer. Wherever we have gone, we have brought the Gloria Patri with us. As a result, if you check out this page on Wikipedia, you can see the Gloria Patri in numerous languages.
When we proclaim the glory of God in this form, we are joining with Christians across the ages — at least 1600 years of church history includes this prayer in its worship and use of the Psalms. And when we say the Gloria Patri, we are joining with Christians of varying traditions from around the globe, joining in the mystical communion of the Body of Christ, raising our anthems high to the throne of God, united in one voice.
How cool is that?
This post has gone on long enough. But I hope you have caught a glimpse of the Gloria Patri as it has wended its way across the globe and through history right into your Prayer Book or BAS or version of the Daily Office or breviary or local congregation’s morning worship.
I’ll get to the usefulness of this as prayer and a small rant later.
I am partway through Step 4 of John Climacus’ (Saint of the Week here) Ladder. Not being a monk, I find a lot of his wisdom wasted on me. Still …
A lot of people these days are really stoked about “narrative” and “narrative theology” and suchlike things. I remember once at a party a guy who worked for the Canadian Bible Society remarking that the Gospel could never be put into propositional statements because Jesus taught in parables. Given that that was a propositional statement, I was amused. Given also that the content of the Gospel is not Jesus’ parables but his life, I was a bit irked.
A lot of people try to pit narrative against proposition, though. This is wrongheaded, as Edith M. Humphrey (once Anglican, now Orthodox [yes, I'll mention that every time I mention her]) notes in her book Ecstasy and Intimacy. We need both. We need balance. In Step 4, about obedience, St. John Climacus, Father of the Church, demonstrates the usefulness of both ways of presenting truth.
Approximately half of this Step on the ladder to paradise is occupied with stories about a monastery John once visited in Alexandria. He was filled with wonder at what he saw there. The monks lived in obedience to their abbot to a very high degree. To test them, he would make them lie on the ground for undetermined lengths of time just to see if they would do it. Once, to see if a postulant was worthy of admission, he made this man, a former fornicator (with both humans and animals), thief, and liar confess in detail his deeds before all the brothers at Divine Liturgy. Brothers who were disobedient enough were cast out or sent into the Prison where they only got bread and raw vegetables for food.
The monks were also obedient to one another and sought to outdo each other in virtue and in bearing one another’s burdens, claiming the sins of others for themselves to help brothers avoid punishment.
The result of this radical obedience was great virtue. John writes, “If they had to speak, what they talked about all the time was the remembrance of death and the thought of everlasting judgment.” (95, Classics of Western Spirituality translation) The advanced brothers were so humble that, when asked about hesychia by John, they claimed to be merely corporeal men with no knowledge of such things.
These men were calm of heart, humble, meek, pure. The longer they lived in the monastery, they less they were involved in backbiting and prideful actions.
Now, I’m not sure if I can handle such radical obedience. But imagine if we tried to do things for people without grumbling or complaining (cf. Philippians!). Imagine if we tried to be the servant of all (cf. Mark!). Imagine if, when asked to do something that is largely indifferent, we did it, seeing it as a way of learning humility. Imagine if we saw everyone around us as Kings and Queens. Or, to take another image, imagine if we saw them as Christs (cf. Matthew! Also, John of Ephesus, Lives of Eastern Saints, Chapter 5 about Simeon & Sergius, Patrologia Orientalis 17, pp. 84-89) rather than as nuisances.
Anyway, Climacus pairs this narrative teaching technique with propositional statements such as this:
Obedience is a total renunciation of our own life, and it shows up clearly in the way we act. Or, again, obedience is the mortification of the members while the mind remains alive. Obedience is unquestioned movement, death freely accepted, a simple life, danger faced without worry, and unprepared defense before God, fearlessness before death, a safe voyage, a sleeper’s journey. Obedience is the burial place of the will and the resurrection of lowliness. (91-92)
I like this technique, this balance between narrative and proposition. Western preaching has swung too far to the propositional, but I do not think it should be lost. We should find, however, a place for deep and meaningful storytelling in our teaching, as we see St. John Climacus doing in Step 4.
In the words of my friend Fr. Ioannis, “How clever the ancients were!”
Of the various patristic holy men you’ll encounter in readings of hagiography, few grab the imagination quite so much as St. Simeon the Stylite (c. 385-459) — not even his younger contemporary and imitator, St. Daniel the Stylite (saint of the week here).
Years ago, I read the Life of Simeon by his (alleged?) disciple Antony (not that Antony) when I was just getting into Patristics, monasticism, and hagiography. Last week, I read Theodoret of Cyrrhus’ Historia Religiosa (trans. by EM Price for Cistercian as A History of the Monks of Syria), and one of the longer of his 30 biographical sketches was that of this famous Syrian ascetic. (I am soon to read the Syriac Life and make it a whole set, don’t worry.)
When Simeon came along, Christian Syrian asceticism already had a long and venerable history stretching to generations before Antony took refuge in the Egyptian desert. Ancient Syrian Christianity always had an ascetic streak, calling people to become “Sons and Daughters of the Covenant”, calling the faithful to live together in celibate marriages, calling believers to go into the Desert in “anachoresis” from the secular world, calling Christians to rise up and become the Perfect on the narrow road to the city of Christ (recall the Liber Graduum from this post).
By Simeon’s day, Syrian Christianity was becoming more and more Greco-Latinised, and asceticism was already looking to fourth-century Egypt for its roots, examples, and golden years. Syrian asceticism delighted in the intense. Sure, Egyptians would go off into tombs for a while and wrestle with demons as Antony did, or found monasteries of thousands of people, as Shenoute did.
Syrian ascetics would live in the wild with nothing to protect them from the elements. Some were called “grazers”, and they lived off the wild plants that grew in the Syrian wilderness. Others would wear iron tunics, only removing them when their bishop came along and enforced obedience. Still others refused to sit or lie down, sleeping in an upright position, suspended from the ceiling with ropes. What, as ER Dodds asked in Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety, was the cause of all this madness?
A madness for Christ — a burning zeal to know Him and suffer for Him and suffer for one’s sins and be made holy through askesis and abandon the world and all its allures. As Theodoret says in De Caritate, appended to the end of the Historia Religiosa, it was love for God that drove the monks to perform the feats he records.
Enter, then, Simeon.
He entered the monastic life at a monastery in Teleda. During his time in this monastery, he decided that it would be a good idea to wrap a rope around his waist beneath his tunic. He tied the rope really tight and never washed it or removed it. Eventually, he started to stink, and someone stuck his hand up the tunic and the jig was up.
Simeon ultimately decided that he was more suited to the solitary life, but the abbot would not release him. However, due to some of Simeon’s antisocial ascetic practices, he was eventually free to go. So he moved into a nearby well. Soon, the abbot thought better of it, and the monks brought him back from the well.
He later escaped the monastery in Teleda.
He settled in an enclosure atop a hill near Telanissus. After several years of asceticism in this location, he built himself a pillar (Gr. stylos, hence “Stylite”) and lived atop it and two successively higher ones for the next 36 years.
Holy men and women were not unheard of in the Syrian world, as we saw above, and they had various social functions to play, arbitrating in disputes, praying for rain, cursing infidels, diverting marauding bands of Saracens — that sort of thing. The sort of thing you need someone who is removed from society to do, the sort of thing an outsider can do, the sort of thing someone who is close to the Divine can do.
So people heard that there was this guy living on a pillar. And if you live on a pillar, you must be, mad, holy, or both. And if you’re holy, you can probably arbitrate in disputes, dispense wisdom, intercede for the faithful, etc. So people started flocking to Simeon on his pillar and getting all of the above.
Amongst those who flocked to Simeon were his disciples, who built a whole monastic complex at the base of the pillar (as also happened with Daniel). They helped regulate and organise the various pilgrims and suppliants who came to Simeon’s pillar.
Simeon, when not dealing with the masses below, would pray continually. He would pray, alternately standing up straight and bending over double. This bending over eventually caused him back problems, while the constant standing caused him foot problems.
This, in short, is the long career of Simeon the Stylite up on his pillar. He was a living symbol for the entire monastic movement, a man positioned between earth and heaven, a man ceaseless in prayer, a man who cared naught for this world around him.
More on Ancient Syrian Asceticism:
Primary Sources
Theodoret of Cyrrhus, A History of the Monks of Syria. Trans. EM Price, Cistercian Publications.
The Book of Steps: The Syriac Liber Graduum. Trans. R.A. Kitchen, Cistercian Publications.
The Lives of Simeon Stylites. Trans. Robert Doran, Cistercian Publications.
The Syriac Fathers on Prayer. Trans. Sebastian Brock.
Secondary Sources
Brown, Peter. “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,” Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971): 80-101, reprinted, with additional notes, in Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 103-52. Classic introduction to the holy man — however, be aware of its 25th anniversary sequel:
—. “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity, 1971-1997.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 6 (1998): 353-376.
Burton-Christie, Douglas. The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism. This work focusses primarily on Egypt, yet its story of the origins of Christian monasticism is interesting and discusses aspects of the Desert Fathers of Syria.
Harvey, Susan Ashbrook. Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and the Lives of the Eastern Saints. The Introduction, pp. 1-27, gives a good introduction to ancient Syrian Christianity and asceticism as found in Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Persia.
Our first examination of the fight with demons was that of St. Antony, the locus classicus of the monastic fight with the Devil in the ancient world (here with an older post here), followed by an unplanned post on Shenoute’s violent treatment of “the Devil”. Our second look at fighting the demons is from another Greek biography of a desert saint, the Life of Savvas by Cyril of Scythopolis.
St. Savvas (we met him here before) was a Palestinian monk who founded several monasteries including the Great Laura which is still operational today. Savvas had as his custom to spend Lent away from the lauras and coenobia he had founded and live a life of austerity and prayer in the Judean Desert. One Lent, Savvas went to Castellion, the site of an abandoned Roman fort:
He underwent on this hill many trials inflicted by the demons. Doubtless he himself, as a man subject to fear, would have wished to withdraw, but He who had formerly appeared to the great Abba Antony appeared also to him, bidding him have confidence in the power of the Cross; so, taking courage, he overcame by faith and endurance the insolence of the demons.
While he was persevering in uninterrupted prayer and fasting, towards the end of Lent, when he was keeping vigil one night and begging God to cleanse the place from the impure spirits that lurked there, suddenly the demons began to make a beating sound and to display apparitions in the likeness sometimes of snakes and wild animals and sometimes of crows, wishing through such apparitions to terrify him. Since they were thwarted by his perseverant prayer, they departed from the place, shouting in human speech the words, ‘What violence from you, Sabas! The gorge you colonized does not satisfy you, but you force your way into our place as well. See, we withdraw from our own territory. We cannot resist you, since you have God as your defender.’ With these and similar words, they withdrew from this mountain with one accord at the very hour of midnight, with a certain beating sound and confused tumult, like a flock of crows. (Ch. 27, pp. 119-120 in English, trans. R. M. Price)
Following Savvas’ ordeal at Castellion, the old remains of the fort were converted into a coenobium, a monastery where the monks share together a communal life.
Our first point is to see that Christ again, as with St. Antony (but not Shenoute), plays a role. He appears to Savvas and gives him courage, calling him to “have confidence in the power of the Cross.” Christ is the true champion defender of the Christian. He fights alongside us and gives us the strength we need, whether our battle be with demons on a hilltop or the darkness of sin in our own souls. Christ is there to give his followers the strength they need.
The power of Christ is given to us in the power of the Cross. As I mentioned in my post “From what are we saved?”, Pope Leo saw in the Cross, alongside the defeat of sin and death, the defeat of the Devil and his minions. When we put our trust in Christ, our trust in his sacrifice at Golgotha, he gives us the benefits of his most precious death and resurrection. This includes power not only over sin and death but over the Devil.
Thus, trusting the great power of Christ in His Cross, Savvas was able to withstand the forces of the demons.
And what is in the saint’s arsenal against the demons as he trusts in Christ’s Cross? Prayer, fasting, vigils. These are the standard weapons in the battle against the demons. As we trust in the power of the Cross, we pray, we fast, we stay up through the night. Through these actions, in the battle against evil, be it demons appearing as snakes or late-night porno on the internet, the Christian is able to overcome the evil of the world.
Prayer is a given. I think most Christians pray. My (Anglo-Catholic) uncle once said that if you don’t pray and read your Bible, what business do you have calling yourself a Christian?
Fasting is less popular today. It is one of the neglected disciplines, even though Christ seems to imply it is something that his followers will do after the Ascension (see Mt. 6:16-18). If you are interested in fasting, I recommend you read Wesley’s sermon on the subject.
Vigils are even less popular. Oddly, some of the monks of the Desert believed that sleep deprivation was a help in the fight against demons, even though I, personally, find myself stirred up to irascibility much more easily when I haven’t got enough sleep. Nonetheless, I think that sometimes maybe we should organise groups of people to spend the entire night praying. Or to ensure that the entire time a particular event is occurring that there is someone praying, night and day. This soaking of the world in prayer is, I believe, a way to keep us focussed on the spirit, a way to keep us alert against the demons and the evil within us and around us.
These, then, are the lessons we can gain from the example of St. Savvas and the demons.
The Temptations of St. Antony by Hieronymous Bosch
I first got into the world of the “Church Fathers” in the third year of my undergrad (2004). My entrypoint was not, as for many, Augustine’s Confessions or the dogmatic writings of the Cappadocians. No, indeed. My point of entry was the world of the Desert Fathers as reflected in their sayings (Sr. Benedicta Ward’s translation for Penguin Classics) and in St. Athanasius’ Life of St. Antony (Carolinne M. White’s translation for Penguin Classics’ Early Christian Lives).
Since then, I have tasted the dogmatic theology of Sts. Augustine and Athanasius, Sts. Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, and the sermons of St. John Chrysostom. Among these, St. Athanasius’ On the Incarnation, St. Basil’s On the Holy Spirit, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus’ Five Theological Orations have been shining stars. And my dear friend Pope St. Leo the Great. Of course.
These shining stars have helped me think more clearly about who Jesus is, what He has done for us, and how the All-holy Trinity is to be properly discussed. In turn, this thought has, for me at least, raised my worship to new heights as I worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth. That alone is worth the effort of reading Patristic theology.
For me, though, it is the return time and again to the devotional literature of the monasteries that has been most potent. There, in John Cassian’s Conferences and Palladius’ Lausiac History, or in Cyril of Scythopolis’ Lives of the Monks of Palestine and Evagrius Ponticus’ Chapters on Prayer — in these and more, I have found the exhortations to holiness that motivate me.
For example, Cassian’s first Conference is all about purity of heart. Purity of heart is the goal of the ascetic (Christian?) life. The end of purity of heart — its purpose — is the vision of God, of Christ. If we are not pursuing purity of heart, we are not pursuing the truest goal of human existence.
This call is one I need to hear constantly, not because I don’t think rest, relaxation, and entertainment are worth my time but because I think I waste a lot of time anyway.
This wasting of time is acute when you read saints’ lives. These men, be they John of Ephesus’ Monophysites or Cyril of Scythopolis, are very concerned about rendering a sacrifice of their lives to God that is acceptable. They are concerned about whether they have prayed often enough. They are concerned about whether they are giving enough to the poor or just wasting their time in idle pursuits.
Thankfully, their exhortations to holiness are accompanied by practical considerations about reading, studying, and meditating on the Bible, about praying, about resisting temptations, about what holiness actually looks like. These exhortations are what kept the monks from despair.
I may not fear for my salvation as they did (being a good Protestant), but I think living a holy life is important. May their exhortations have an experience on me for all my days as I seek to love the Crucified God Who saved me.
A lot of mystical literature, from the Neo-Platonists to today, includes imagery of ascent. The fourth-century Syriac Liber Graduum is no exception. In 19 we read:
1. Give me now your full attention, O one who wishes to become a solitary and is anxious to travel quickly to the city of our Lord Jesus. I will show you how you may go directly to the city of our King, if you have the strength to journey as I will show you. Because the steps are difficult to climb, I will guide you [how] to climb. Since, however, there are also numerous paths that deviate from the straight road — on which many mountains loom about you, and day after day you are blocked until the day of your death comes — it will find you on [one of] the paths that turn off from one side or the [other], seeing that you do not know how to go directly on the road to that city. If during your life you do not investigate about that road, traveling diligently in order to reach that city, you will not be able to go to it when you have departed from this world, for the end of your road is Perfect and its beginning is when you begin to uproot from yourself all faults. (Trans. Kitchen & Parmentier, pp. 183-184)
Memra 19 goes on to discuss the ascent to the city of Jesus, discussing various commandments that one must follow in order to make the climb. There are two paths — the path of the Perfect that takes you straight up, and that of those less-so, that will not get you there ultimately, but will perfect you and mature you and make you strong enough to climb the narrow, treacherous path of the Perfect.
Alongside the ascetic labours (Memra 20: … there is no other ascent to this step … except by this ascent … much watching and fasting, lowliness, and powerful crying out with many tears, much supplication and with the sweat of afflictions [p. 217]), there is always prayer. It is very useful in the ascent of the Perfect and the fight against sin.
Fourth-century Syriac authors were not the only Christians in history to believe in Perfection. While his conception differs on some key points — the Liber Graduum‘s Perfect are celibate ascetics who have renounced all attachment to the world — John Wesley is very famous for his teaching on Christian Perfection.
This Lent, in fact, I read Wesley’s Plain Account of Christian Perfection.
We may disagree with what Wesley calls “Perfection”, but I believe that by the grace of God (as Wesley says), it is attainable. Christian Perfection is having your heart filled with naught but love — love of God and love of neighbour. These are the two commandments on which hang all the Law and the Prophets, after all. The Perfect in Wesley’s view may still commit sin involuntarily or through ignorance, but will not willfully sin.
Now, the question of sinlessness aside, can we fault Wesley’s answer to how we are to wait for this change?
Not in careless indifference, or indolent inactivity; but in vigorous, universal obedience, in a zealous keeping of all the commandments, in watchfulness and painfulness, in denying ourselves, and taking up our cross daily; as well as in earnest prayer and fasting, and a close attendance on all the ordinances of God. (Ch. 19)
Like the Liber Graduum, Wesley also calls us to prayer:
All that a Christian does, even in eating and sleeping, is prayer, when it is done in simplicity, according to the order of God, without either adding to or diminishing from it by his own choice.
Prayer continues in the desire of the heart, though the understanding be employed in outward things.
In souls filled with love, the desire to please God is a continual prayer. (Ch. 25, Q. 38, §5)
Wesley was a reader of the Fathers, with a special love of Chrysostom’s homilies and Ephraim the Syrian’s poetry. It is clear to me from reading A Plain Account that the Greek Fathers have influenced Wesley’s thinking about humanity. He believes that God is actually powerful enough to take the peccator that I am and make me really and truly justus.
Indeed, Wesley’s call to piety, like that of the other famous Anglican Patrist of that age, William Law, is an application of the ascetic, mystical writings of the Fathers to a modern layperson’s situation. The wisdom of texts such as the Liber Graduum is adapted for a new audience — much like how Cassian adapted the wisdom of the Desert Fathers and Mothers for a Gallic audience.
Besides having a more optimistic anthropology than the Lutherans or the Reformed, Wesley and the ancient ascetics call us forth to a holiness that is beyond virtue. I know that sounds silly, but it is true. We tend to think that we are “good” by being nice to people, even rude people and jerks, and by giving to the poor. Maybe we are “good” because we evangelise. Maybe it’s because we go to protests and write letters to MP’s. Maybe it’s because we don’t look at porn.
Wesley and the Fathers would applaud these things. And then they would tell us to go further.
They would tell us to live lives saturated with prayer, to do everything out of love, to fast, to study the Scriptures assiduously, and to seek out opportunities to do good whenever we can. By doing so, we will put to death “the flesh” and rise nearer to the likeness of God, healing the wounded image within.
I think we can do it. And I think most of us western Christians don’t even try out of sheer laziness.
Shame on me for being lazy rather than righteous.
“Kill the flesh, in order to acquire a body.” -Sergei Bulgakov
One of the more famous bits of St. Augustine of Hippo’s Confessions is the scene where he, as a youth, broke into someone’s orchard and stole a bunch of unripe pears which tasted terrible (the story is so popular there is even a Petra song about it). He and his buddies stole them entirely for the thrill of stealing, entirely for the excitement of sin. They didn’t even want to eat the pears; that wasn’t the point. St. Augustine, it seems, still felt bad about it years later. The story is as follows:
I wanted to commit my theft, and I did it compelled by neither want nor poverty but by a distaste of justice and a feast of iniquity. For I purloined that in which I abounded — and in much better! Nor did I wish to profit in this affair in which I was striving with theft, but only in the very theft and sin. There was a pear tree near our vineyard, weighed down with fruit alluring neither in appearance nor in flavour. To shake this tree and make off with its produce, we no-good youths made haste in the dark night when we had carried on our game in the streets according to our pestilential custom. And we carried off from there enormous loads of fruit not to to our meals but rather to cast before swine; even if we ate some, nevertheless it occurred that it was pleasing to us to do that which was not allowed.
Behold my heart, God! Behold my heart, which you pitied in the depths of the abyss. Now, behold, may my heart tell you what it sought there that I became evil freely and there was no cause of my evil except for evil. It was foul, and I loved it; I loved to be lost, I loved my rebellion — not that to which I was rebelling, but my rebellion itself did I love. My shameful soul was jumping from your firmament into destruction, not seeking anything with disgrace but disgrace itself. (Conf. 2.IV, my trans.)
St. Augustine spends the rest of Book 2, chh. V-X, going into depth about the anatomy of sin and the blackness of his own heart. You can read it all in Chadwick’s translation, pp. 28-34, or online here (Latin) and here (English).
In my current research, I came across another story about a saint in an orchard. This was the tale of St. Sabas (439-532) and the apples as told by Cyril of Scythopolis (524-558) in the Life of Sabas, one of his seven Lives of the Monks of Palestine. At some point between the ages of eight and eighteen (probably earlier than later), when he was living in the Monastery of Flavianae in Cappadocia, the following occurred:
Once, when he was working in the monastery’s orchard, a certain desire came upon him to eat an apple that appeared ripe and exceedingly delightful before its regular season. Since he was burning with desire, he plucked the apple from the branch, but, when he had considered it, he prevailed against himself nobly.
So he rebuked himself with a pious reasoning, saying, “The fruit that put me to death through Adam was ripe for looking and good for eating, when he preferred that which appeared delightful to the eyes of the flesh over the intelligible beauty and considered the satiety of the belly more honourable than spiritual enjoyments. On account of this, death came into the world. And so I must not turn away from the beauty of self-control, weighed down with any spiritual drowsiness — for just as a blossom comes before all fruit-bearing, so self-control comes before the doing of good.”
Thus, when he had conquered the desire with this stronger reasoning, he threw the apple to the ground and trampled on it with his feet, trampling his desire along with the apple. From then on, he gave to himself such a rule not to experience the taste of apples until death. (Life of Sabas III, my trans.)
Following his encounter with the apple in the orchard, St. Sabas devoted his life to ascetic labour so as to produce virtue. He went on to found the Great Lavra, a monastic settlement in Palestine.
The difference between these stories about youths encountering fruit trees is striking. One is a tale of woe and sin, of seeking disgrace for disgrace’s sake. The other is a tale of victory and virtue, overcoming the flesh with the spirit. One imagines that young Augustine was more fun than young Sabas — only he seems sort of … neurotic at times, all messed up over those pears. But the real difference is not in the facts themselves but in the genre of writing we find here.
Augustine’s Confessions is among our earliest autobiographical bits of literature (other early autobiography comes from the pen of St. Gregory of Nazianzus and his poetry). This work is written as one long prayer to God, confessing both in terms of the sinful state of Augustine’s soul as well as, after conversion, the power of God and Augustine’s belief in God. Thus, it binds together in a single narrative two types of confession. It is psychological and theological, seeking to show the reality of sin within the depths of the abyss of the human heart as well as the power of God to raise us out of sin and into the virtuous life of the righteous.
The Confessions edifies through telling us what God can do for sinners like us. That is its devotional purpose. Each of us may have wicked inclinations, but God can transform us through His Spirit, through good preaching, good friends, good books, Holy Scripture, and the prayers of our mothers.
Cyril’s Life of Sabas is a different creature. It is hagiography, and as such hovers between the borders of history and myth. At one level, the purpose of hagiography is write down the stories of holy men and women so that these stories will not be lost. Good deeds must perish unless they are sung of (I forget the reference for that quote). That is the same purpose as history as well as of heroic poetry. At another level, these particular stories are written down in their particular order to demonstrate what holiness looks like. The point is not necessarily to show us psychologically real person who is simul justus et peccator (to toss a bit of Luther in). Rather, the point is to show us what a holy life looks like.
We may say to ourselves that holiness is unattainable. Or ridiculous. Why give up apples? But, two chapters after he gives up apples, we see young Sabas walking into a giant bread-oven whilst it was lit and not getting harmed. Holiness is not just ascetic labour but also the accompanying miracles and virtues. The holy men of old gave up the world, gave up their parents, gave up their inheritances, gave up apples (of all things!) to draw closer to God and meet Him where He is.
The point of hagiography is to edify us through these holy examples. We are to stand in awe of the God who can take an Augustine — such as we all are, with our dark hearts full of wickedness, seeking disgrace for the thrill of it — and make him into a Sabas — such as we all hope to be, conformed into the image of Christ. Our worship of God is thus lifted higher and exalted — the whole purpose of theological enquiry, by the way.
And we are encouraged, for it is God who makes the saints holy. Thus we can become holy ourselves. He will effect this change in ourselves. This is the point of hagiography, even if St. Sabas may never have walked through the fires unscathed (even though he may have, if you believe in a God for Whom nothing is impossible).
Thus, both genres are useful. We live in an age when things like the Confessions are more in vogue. We like to know that even good men, great men, have been there, too. Indeed, many people like to humanise our Lord Christ by making him imperfect yet still sinless (else how could he be fully human? — they say). We may find obsessing about our mothers’ teats and our desire to suckle as infants as selfishness a bit neurotic, but overall the Confessions are enduring literature that speak to a need in our souls.
I think hagiography is as well. Hopefully we’ll start to read more of it.
The Venerable Bede a Church Father?
28 05 2011Indeed, Bede is thoroughly and indisputably mediaeval. He was born in the 600′s and died in 735. The fiction of a Roman Empire existed in the West as Italy was nominally under the Emperor in Constantinople, but in reality the Roman Empire in the West was long gone, with no Emperor in Italy since 476. Justinian, the great codifier of Roman law and sponsor of the last flourishing of Classical art as well as the first flourishing of Byzantine art had died in 566. Barbarians had divided the West into a variety of kingdoms — Frankish, Anglo-Saxon, Visigothic, and so forth.
Bede is not ancient.
So why include him in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture?
Those, such as Thomas C. Oden, who are calling for mainline and evangelical Christians alike to rediscover the Church Fathers and “paleo-orthodoxy” usually call us to the first five centuries of consensual Christian thought. Yet even Oden, general editor of IVP’s ACCS, knows that that isn’t really enough.
AD 500 is an acceptable cut-off point for the Classical world, although I’m willing to stretch it to Justinian’s death because of how monumental his reign was and how decidedly different the map of the world was — legally, artistically, politically — be the end of his reign. Yet if we cut of the age of the Church Fathers at 500, we’re missing Second Constantinople and its very important recasting of Chalcedonian doctrine into terms a Monophysite could hopefully reconcile with.
By cutting off the Age of the Fathers at 500, in the East, we’re missing Severus of Antioch and his brilliant statements of Cyrilline Christology in the 500′s. We’re missing St. Maximus the Confessor and St. John Climacus (saint of the week here) in the 600′s — one very important for Christology, the other for mysticism East and West — and St. John of Damascus (saint of the week here) in the 700′s — very important for his defence of icons and consolidation of orthodox doctrine.
In the West, we miss St. Benedict of Nursia and St. Gregory the Great in the 500′s — one vital for the development of monasticism and spirituality in the West, the other for biblical interpretation, conversion of the Germanic peoples, and pastoral concern — as well, of course, as Boethius and Cassiodorus, also very important and very popular Christian writers of the 500′s. We have to leave out Isidore of Seville from the 600′s — important for pretty much every idea under the sun (and beyond) throughout the Middle Ages.
Perhaps a temporal designation for “Church Father” does not quite work. The Eastern Orthodox do not do this, but instead consider the Fathers as a conceptual designation, thus including St. Simeon the New Theologian (1100′s) and St. Gregory Palamas (1300′s) as Church Fathers although they stand outside the Age of the Fathers.
Nonetheless, the idea of a Church Father tends towards the early, not the late, towards the ancient, not the mediaeval.
The Church Fathers are those who men* who have left behind a written legacy that is orthodox, who had a certain holiness of life, and who were part of the formation of Christian orthodoxy. So men like the Cappadocians or St. Augustine of Hippo who have laid foundations of theology that are so important that even today’s heterodox read them to gain insight, or those like St. Benedict and the Desert Fathers and Mothers who laid the foundations for monasticism and spirituality that are so important that our vision of monasticism would have been wildly different without them are easy choices for Church Fathers.
However, there is no ancient consensus, just as there was no mediaeval consensus, no Reformation consensus, and there is no contemporary consensus. What the early mediaeval and Byzantine theologians and spiritual writers provide us is a consolidation and synthesis of the patristic legacy.
Thus we get settlements over the date of Easter, the spread of Benedictine monasticism and Augustinianism in the West as well as a certain level of liturgical systemisation. By 735, the western church was inescapably mediaeval, but without the early mediaeval synthesists, the shape of the mediaeval church and beyond would have been very different.
In the East we have a similar story with Christology, icons, hesychastic monasticism and so forth in the early Byzantine world. By 749, with the death of John of Damascus, we have a thoroughly Byzantine church in the East.
Back to the Venerable Bede. What Bede provides us is the same thing any of the other Fathers provides us. He gives us a different perspective from today’s. He provides us an insight into an older form of orthodoxy and an older way of reading Scripture. He also gives us insight into the holiness of the people who lived in the age that forged our own orthodoxy and our reading of Scripture.
So, no, Bede isn’t ancient. But I believe that Bede is a Church Father and well worth reading, especially since he is the only Englishman whom the Church of Rome recognises as a Doctor of the Church!
*The “Church Mothers”, sadly, do not exist because most women in antiquity and the Early Middle Ages did not write. Our ancient Christian female writers are Perpetua (possibly), a few of the Desert Mothers (who are not so much writers as part of an oral tradition), and Egeria who left us a travelogue of her trip to the Holy Land in the fourth century. Sadly, the other holy women of this period did not leave us a written record, despite the high level of literacy amongst many of them.
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