'Proœmium' and first chapter of a treatise on Church history
'Prooemium'[Editorial Note 1] and first chapter of a treatise on church history
A clear understanding of Christianity depends upon the history of the church. Here is a summary of that history. After the crucifixion of Christ, the Christian religion was preached first across Judea and then throughout the Roman empire and other, foreign nations. These are the nations contained within the Empire: Italy, Gaul, Spain, England, Illyricum, Greece, Asia minor, Armenia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Africa, and sometimes also Dacia, Mesopotamia, Babylonia and a part of Arabia. In these regions therefore the Christian religion increased daily, and though it was assailed by almost continual persecutions under the pagan Emperors, it continued without any internal dissension for 280 years after the death of Christ. Certain questions about the time of Easter and about performing the baptism of heretics were mooted by the Roman Pontiff but they soon subsided, because the rest of the churches did not insist upon them, the pontiff and his supporters did not press them too hard, and no schism occurred. Finally in the year 312 the Emperors Constantine the great and Licinius embraced the Christian religion, and overthrowing the preceding tyrants, put an end to the bitterest persecution of them all, which had raged for ten years. But in the year 323 Constantine overcame Licinius, who was leaning towards the Pagan religion, and became sole Emperor of the whole Empire which was now spread far and wide throughout the world. From that time the Pagan religion began to diminish and disappear, since the Idols and the altars were soon thrown down and the temples too in the end were overturned; and the number and external splendour of the Christians began to increase. Along with the external splendour, ambition, arrogance, hypocrisy and moral corruption of every kind were immediately introduced into the churches.
Meanwhile under the pagan Emperors various heresies had sprung up against the Church, especially after the death of the Apostles. However they were attacked by the ecclesiastics and soon faded away; others grew up in their place and then similarly died away by the diligence of the ecclesiastics. As a result no single one of them prevailed over a wide area, although all of them taken together attracted a very large proportion of Christians. But at the time of the war in which Constantine overcame Licinius, a dissension arose which fundamentally subverted the Church, as different parties came out on top one after the other. For when a certain dispute occurred in Egypt among the Presbyters of the city of Alexandria about the son of God, as to whether he had been created or not, Bishop Alexander of that city, after vacillating for a long time, finally decreed that he had not been created, and excommunicated those who defended the position that he had been, the chief of whom was Arius. A very large number of the bishops of the East, and especially Eusebius, the Bishop of Nicomedia, took the view that it had not been right to excommunicate Arius and his colleagues. Alexander started a slander against Arius alleging that he taught that Christ was a mere man. The Church split into parties. The Emperor Constantine convened a Council at Nicaea in Bithynia in A.D. 325 and ensured that, after a formal hearing of the case, Arius was again condemned, and Constantine had a decree passed that the son is homousion[Editorial Note 2] with the Father. The decree was understood in different senses by different people. As a result of this some Westerners and the Egyptians did indeed gradually incline to the Sabellian dogma. But it was the Easterners who were more perturbed, since it was understood that the earlier Synod of Antioch, with the consent of the whole church, had decided against Paul of Samosata, who had the same views as Sabellius concerning God, that the son was not homousion with the Father.
Soon after the Council ended, Alexander died and Athanasius succeeded him in the bishopric. Athanasius had played a considerable role in earlier disturbances. But now he gives still more trouble, and being accused of various crimes, he is ordered to defend himself in the Council of Caesarea in A.D. 334. He refuses to appear before the Council, even though he had been ordered to do so by the Emperor. In the following year a new Council is convened at Tyre. In the end Athanasius went to Tyre, compelled by threats from the Emperor. But as he was on the point of being condemned, he secretly fled to the Emperor. But the Emperor too condemns him by his own personal verdict and banishes him to the Gauls. The Easterners receive Arius and his allies into communion on the ground that they had been suppressed by false accusations. Athanasius persuades the Bishops of the Gauls that he had been unjustly condemned by false accusations in order that Arius might be accepted. The Athanasians immediately fasten the name of Arians on the Easterners. On the death of Constantine the great, the Empire is divided between his sons, Constantinus, Constantius and Constans. Constantinus, who was master of the Gauls, restores Athanasius. On the death of Constantinus, Constantius, Emperor of the East, orders him into exile once again, and Gregory is installed in his Bishopric in his place. Athansasius, who was already fearing for himself, had summoned a Council of the Bishops of Egypt who were subject to him, and in the name of them all he sent a letter to the Westerners in his own defence. And now he openly resists the commands of the Emperor, by taking refuge with a crowd of people in a certain church. He is besieged by a force of soldiers, sets fire to the church and secretly flees to the West. ✝ ✝ Julius, Bishop of the City of Rome, thinking that the time had now come for him to make himself supreme judge of the whole Christian World, takes upon himself the patronage of Athanasius. He sends Legates to the Easterners and orders them to be in Rome on a certain day to give account of their actions in a Council which he convened, otherwise they would be held suspected. But the Easterners, marvelling at the man's ambition, manfully reply that all Bishops are equal, that Eastern Churches cannot be judged by Westerners, and that they will not appear. Only Westerners therefore appear. They held communion with Athanasius even before his case had been examined, and when the Council had ended, Julius wrote to the Easterners, defending Athanasius and claiming supreme authority for his own episcopal see in determining cases. From this time the issue was no longer Athanasius but Julius. For this reason Julius and his Flock incited their Emperor, Constans, against his brother, Constantius. Finally by the agreement of both emperors a Council was called at Sardica. When the Bishops of the West and of Egypt arrived at Sardica, they prejudged the issue even before the case was re-examined, and held communion with Athanasius and others whom the Easterners had excommunicated as impious. When this became known, the Easterners, who had arrived at Sardica by this time, demanded that they should abstain from communion with reprobate persons until the case should be heard; otherwise they would not appear. But the others absolutely refuse to abstain. And so both sides, convening separately, expound their own case by sending letters to the Churches in every part of the world. In addition to this, the Westerners and the Egyptians in their letters confirm the opinion of Sabellius about the single Hypostasis of the Father and the son, and they make the Roman Pontiff the supreme judge in ecclesiastical matters. These events took place in A.D. 347. From that time the Church is split, with the party of Athanasius
<4r>From that time the church is split, with the party of Athanasius avoiding communion with the other party. Under pressure from the Westerners, the Emperor Constans repeatedly threatens his brother Constantius if he will not restore Athanasius. The Easterners urge that he should be restored rather than involve Brothers and Empires in civil wars. After his restoration, Magnentius kills Constans and seizes the Empire of the West. But Constantius overcomes him in war. Being now master of the whole empire, he summons a Council at Milan, and commands the Westerners to submit to the decree of Tyre against Athanasius. For, he says, neither are the Westerners judges of the Easterners, nor should the decisions of one Council be revisited in another. The Westerners solemnly promise that they will freely yield provided that the Nicene decree about the belief in the homousion is first confirmed. They receive the reply that it is not now a question of belief but of the crimes and condemnation of Athanasius. The Westerners therefore subscribe the Tyrian decree, with the exception of only about five, who agreed that Athanasius was not innocent but insisted that the Nicene decree should be confirmed first. These men therefore were sent into exile. While all this was happening, the Emperor summoned Athanasius to his presence. But he was afraid for himself and refused to appear. A certain George was appointed by the Bishops to his position. Athanasius offers resistance, and shuts himself up in a Church with a multitude of people. The Prefect of Egypt brings in soldiers and surrounds the Church. There is a fight. The soldiers are repelled and their weapons are hung up in the Church as a trophy by Athanasius's fellows. Moreover in the letter in which they announce that they had resisted to the point of blood, the whole people is exhorted to sedition. But later fresh forces are brought in and the Athanasians are overcome. Athanasius, who had fled earlier, takes refuge in the home of a very beautiful girl, and then flees to the desert, or at least he writes as if from the Desert. For he now writes a great deal, raging and gnashing his teeth against his enemies: celebrating those who had died in the sedition as martyrs; extolling the authors and leaders of the sedition, who had been imprisoned or flogged to death for it, as confessors; lashing out with insane abuse against the Emperor and his ministers as outrageous persecutors; claiming moreover that Arius had died in a privy; freely spreading all sorts of vicious nonsense among the people through his credulous partisans.
When the sentence against Athanasius had been confirmed, a new Council of the Westerners is convened at Rimini[Editorial Note 3]. It turns out to be by far the biggest convention. The largest party defend the homousion. The other party finds fault with the novelty and temerity of the term. Both sides send separate delegations of their ten most select Bishops from their whole number to the Emperor, who was waging war against the Persians in the East. In a disputation with the Easterners, these Legates are all refuted. As they give in, the whole Synod also gives in, apart from twenty Bishops, but they too finally surrender. The whole of the West subscribes on oath, apart from a very few who were not able to be present because of their infirmities, whose number barely exceeded five.
Not long after this, Constantius died and Julian succeeded him. He defects from the Christian faith and brings back the pagan religion. Athanasius and his allies, returning from exile, hold consultations about restoring the situation in Alexandria. They refine the belief which they had lately proclaimed about one usia[Editorial Note 4] and one hypostasis[Editorial Note 5], a belief which lay convicted of Sabellianism, and now take the position that there are three equal hypostases, and that the usia is not numerically one as they had formerly said, but one only in kind[Editorial Note 6]. And thus the Latins changed the meanings of the words, and by one substance they no longer understand one substance numerically but one in kind, and by three persons they mean numerically three personal substances. In this way, while they avoid the imputation of Sabellianism, they fall into an avowal of three equal Gods. But since Hypostasis and Substantia heretofore had meant the same thing, and the Greeks already spoke of three Hypostases and the Latins of one substance, there arose a dispute between parties of Athanasians. The Greeks called the Latins Sabellians because of the avowal of one Substance, while the Latins in turn called the Greeks Arians because of the three hypostases. But when the matter is examined, the sense of both is discovered to be the same, the disputes are settled, and hypostasis begins to signify no longer substance but person.
From this time the affairs of Athanasius wonderfully prospered. For the Egyptians avidly follow him. But at the trumpet call of the Roman Pontiff the bishops of the West daily defect from the decrees of Rimini, violating their oath, and embrace this new faith. In the East too the Bishoprics began to be invaded by the Athanasians even if they were not vacant, bishop being set up against bishop in the same city. And now Julian had been succeeded by Jovian, and Jovian was succeeded in the West by Valentinian and in the East by Valens. Valens indeed resisted the waves of the Athanasians. But when he died, his successor, Theodosius the great, took the side of the Athanasians, and quickly convened a council of the Bishops of that party in Constantinople, all the rest being excluded from the Council, and a decree was passed that all the Bishops of the party of the Easterners should be ejected from their sees. From that time they were not able subsequently to recover their sees; they were weakened for many years after that by various afflictions, and they have only been able to pass down to our own times a kind of feeble remnant.
Add to this that a certain Antony, withdrawing into the Desert of Egypt and professing a monastic life at the beginning of the reign of Constantine the great or a little bit earlier, was the first of all men to attract disciples to that profession. And their number grew to such an extent that in the Reign of Constantius, the deserts of Egypt were filled with many thousands of monks. And since Antony was very closely connected with Athanasius, they all stood by Athanasius. Hence also the rest of the population of Egypt, captivated by the glamour of this profession, for the most part followed Athanasius. Then about the end of the reign of Constantius this profession emerged from Egypt and spread first through Syria and Italy, and soon throughout the whole of the Roman world; and by means of stupendous stories and false miracles, it introduced and propagated everywhere not only the belief in three Gods but also the cult of saints and relics, and later also of Images, and every kind of superstition.
This is a summary of the history of the church, which I thought I should preface for the better understanding of what follows. The topics I have undertaken to expound in what follows are these. In the first place we shall discuss the monks, the authors of everything that went wrong[Editorial Note 7]. Secondly, the worship of Saints, relics and images which they brought into the Christian world. Thirdly, the worship of three equal Gods, which they brought in with it. Fourthly, the morals of the Athanasians and of their leader Athanasius; Fifthly, the morals, worship and external profession of faith of the adversaries of Athanasius. Sixthly, the constitution of the true, ancient church from the writings of the Apostles and of the Fathers who preceded the Nicene Council. Seventhly, the decline and fall[Editorial Note 8] of the Church, which will be narrated historically. Finally, the divine predictions of this decline and fall and of the general Apostasy.
Bk. 1, ch. 1.
The[Editorial Note 9] first recorded eremite was a certain Paul, who, fleeing the persecution of Decius and Valerian, remained in the Desert[Editorial Note 10] down to the times of Constantius. But he gathered no disciples; and he does not seem to have chosen that manner of life because it was holier but because it was safer. There follows Antony, who in A.D. 271, during the reign of Aurelian, began to profess the monastic life. Within a short time he made a solitary mode of life a common practice and a vocation. He was the first of all the eremites to collect disciples, and he filled the deserts of Egypt during the reign of Constantine the great with flocks of monks. For this reason he is considered by all to be the founder of this way of life.
Athanasius[Editorial Note 11] delighted in this discipline ✝[1] and often met with Antony, and sometimes went into the desert to visit the monks; he also favoured their doctrine and practice so much that he appointed Clergymen from these flocks of monks as often as he could especially. Not only, says Baronius,[Editorial Note 13] did he transfer the practices of the Monks to the clergy, but he also engaged Monks whom he knew to excel in morality and administrative skill as bishops of various Churches, because he knew that they would be powerful fighters against the encroaching heresy of Arius and towers of strength, so to speak, against the Meletian schismatics. Now who exactly these were – Athanasius himself writes to the monk Dracontius whom he knew to be vigorously objecting to accept this ministry, and admonishes him in these words among others: for you are not the only one of the Monks to be appointed [i.e. as Bishop], nor have you alone been in charge of a monastery nor have you alone been chosen by the monks. For you know that Serapio is a monk, and you know how many monks he is in charge of. Nor is it unknown to you how many monks Apollonius was the father of. You know Agatho, and Aristo is not unknown to you. You remember Ammonius, who went off into foreign parts with Serapio. Perhaps you have also heard of Cue in the upper Thebaid. You will also be able to learn about Paul who is with the Lati[Editorial Note 14] and many others; and yet when they were appointed Bishops they did not object, etc. These and many other things Athanasius tells Dracontius in his Apology for his flight[Editorial Note 15], and it is clear that in the end he won over Dracontius, and Dracontius, along with other orthodox bishops, strove vigorously for the Catholic faith and suffered exile. So ✝[2][Editorial Note 16] Baronius. And under the year 340 ✝[3] Baronius also says: Athanasius came to Rome – and he was the first to bring to the City the teaching of the Egyptian monks, and he also gave an account of the wonderful life of the great Antony, who was still alive, which he had written himself. – ✝[4] St. Jerome says about these things: none of the noble ladies of Rome at that time had heard of the principles of the monks, and because of the novelty of the thing, none of them dared to assume a name which was ignominious[Editorial Note 19] (as was then thought) and had a poor reputation among the people. This lady (i.e. Marcella) learned of the life of the blessed Antony, who was still alive at the time, and the discipline of the monasteries of Pachomius in the Thebaid and of the virgins and widows, from some Alexandrian priests and from Papa[Editorial Note 20] Athanasius, and later from Peter, who in order to escape from the persecution of the Arian Heretics, had fled to the safe and secure port of their communion at Rome. These reports adduced by Baronius are in harmony with what Sulpitius Severus[Editorial Note 21] writes about Martin: namely that when he heard that Hilary, whose disciple he was, had been sent into exile by Constantius, i.e. in A.D. 355, he set up a monastery for himself at Milan.
When monasticism had invaded Egypt and Italy, it spread instantly from these two fountain-heads of superstition through the whole of the East and the West. From Egypt it first invaded Syria and then Asia minor and Greece; and from Rome it spread through the Gauls, Africa and the whole of the West.
<10r>In the reign of Constantius, Hillarion, a disciple of Antony, carried it into Syria. And no one, says ✝[5] Jerome, had heard of a monk in Syria before St. Hillarion. He was the founder and instructor in this vocation and way of life in this province. Through his example innumerable monasteries came into being through the whole of Palestine, and all the monks ran eagerly to join him. Next, in the reign of Julian, Basil the great disseminated monks throughout Pontus and Cappadocia [Basil, Epist 63 & 79; Baronius, under the year 361. 50, 51][Editorial Note 23]; among others he invited Gregory of Nazianzen, who had already been made a Presbyter, to the desert [Greg. Naz. de silentio et jejunio, Baron. under the year 363. 82][Editorial Note 24]. Among the Armenians and the Paphlagonians and those who lived by the Pontus, Bishop Eustathius of Sebastia in Armenia is said to have been the originator of the Monastic way of life [Sozom. bk. 3, ch. 14][Editorial Note 25]. And after Monasticism had been propagated this far, it easily invaded the rest of the East.
On the invasion of the West: it is certain and established, says Baronius, that almost all the provinces of the Western World and their islands had been filled with throngs of monks in this very same century [i.e. before the year 400]. Rome first received this discipline from the great Antony through Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria. And from the Roman church, as from a repository of discipline, the other churches of the Western world borrowed it, all of them as usual eagerly embracing what they had seen Rome had followed. – But the single individual in the Western world who combined monasticism with the clerical order is declared by St. Ambrose to have been St. Eusebius, Bishop of Vercellae. This Eusebius of holy memory, he says, was the first in the Western parts to join these different things together, so that though he lived in the city he retained the practices of the monks, and he ruled the Church with the sober temper of fasting. – St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, (continues Baronius) carried this excellent kind of life across into the Gauls, and St. Augustine took it to Africa; and he combined the clerical order and Monasticism into one, and adorned the church with its brightest stars. [Baron. under the year, 328. 20, 21, 22][Editorial Note 26]. Undoubtedly, as Sulpitius reports, when Hilary returned from exile and passed through Rome (which occurred in the final year of Constantius, A.D. 360), Martin followed in his footsteps into the Gauls, and established a monastery not far from the city of Poitiers; from there he was summoned ✝[6] in the year 371 to become Bishop of Tours. After the Gauls, it is Spain that is infected. Then Africa too, through Augustine, on which see Possidius in his life of St. Augustine[Editorial Note 27], and Augustine himself de diversis serm 28, 29 or 48, 49.
When Antony first started this movement, individual monks lived apart, each in his own monasterium.[Editorial Note 28] Then as their number grew, they soon came together into companies, and formed Coenobia .[Editorial Note 29] The initiator of this change is said to have been Pachomius, a disciple of Antony. Finally, about the end of the reign of Constantius or a little later, coenobia were constructed also in the cities. And the cities and towns began to be as filled with this kind of men as the desert places. For ✝[7] Augustine writes that there was one at Milan and several at Rome at the time when he was visiting those parts, which was in the reign of Theodosius. ✝[8][Editorial Note 31] And Evagrius travelling at that time to Egypt, asserts that there were many more monasteries than houses in Oxirinchus, a city of that province, and that neither the gates themselves nor the towers of the city nor any single corner of it were free of the habitations of monks. This is proof of the stupendous growth of the movement.
Palladius[Editorial Note 32], who went to Egypt with Evagrius and had not seen the other part of the Monks of Egypt, describes the lives of more than fifty of their Abbots in the deserts which he visited. He says that some of them were fathers of thousands of monks: for example, Ammonas of three thousand, Pachomius of the same number, or rather of seven thousand (for that was how many obeyed his laws), and Serapio was the father of ten thousand. Hence in comparing the deserts with the cities of Egypt he did not hesitate to say that there were as many monks in the deserts as people in the cities. [Pallad. in Apollo][Editorial Note 33]. So if a very large part of the cities too was comprised of monks, evidently the greater part of Egypt had rushed headlong into monasticism. Hence it is not surprising that Athanasius had so many supporters there, and was able to spread his views among the mass of the people just as he pleased. Certainly in one city, Oxirinchus, ✝[9][Editorial Note 34] Ruffinus numbers twenty thousand virgins and ten thousand monks, and asserts also that in that city there was (according to him) not a single heretic or pagan, but all the citizens were Christians and indeed all Catholic. Such was the attraction of the profession!
The immense numbers in Egypt are mentioned by everybody. In the regions of the East also, especially in Syria and Mesopotamia, a huge number is implied by ✝[10] Jerome and several others. In the West there was not yet such a multitude. However the number had grown so much that in the Gauls almost two thousand gathered at Martin's funeral. [Sulpit. Epist. 3][Editorial Note 36] ‡ ‡ And in Rome, before the pontificate of Anastasius, i.e. before the year 398, there were very many monasteries of virgins and an uncountable number of monks, as Jerome states in the life of Marcella.[Editorial Note 37] We can infer how large their numbers were from their habit of moving about in bands all over the place, causing seditious riots in the cities and bringing force to bear on the Provincial Governors, as if in a regular war, as the Emperors say in ✝[11] a Law passed against them in A.D. 398. A hundred years later Zosimus[Editorial Note 39] too reports rioting by monks in Constantinople, as they rose up in support of Chrysostom, and he composed this description of them. These men, he says, abstain from regular marriages, and form populous communities of unmarried men both in the cities and in the villages, who are not fit for war or for any necessary service of the country, but they have somehow succeeded from that day to this in transferring a major part of the land to themselves, and under the pretext of sharing all things with the poor, have reduced, I would say, practically everyone to poverty.
Meanwhile as monasticism thus spreads throughout the world, the Clergy everywhere becomes monastic. What happened in Egypt can be understood from what you have already heard before about the Bishops appointed by Athanasius in the reign of Constantine the Great and Constantius. Add[Editorial Note 40] to this what ✝[12] Jerome tells us about Paula who was making a journey through Alexandria and the town of Nitria. As she caught sight of the latter, she said, the holy and venerable Bishop Isidore the Confessor came to meet her with innumerable crowds of monks, of whom many were distinguished by the rank of Priest and Levite; she was indeed happy for the glory of the lord, and confessed that she was unworthy of such an honour. The Clergy suffered a similar mutation in the West, as is clear from the 7th Epistle of Augustine to Papa[Editorial Note 42] Aurelius, where he says: it is a most demeaning insult to the Clerical Order if deserters from the monasteries are to be chosen to join the ranks of the Clergy, since we normally accept only the better and more estimable of the residents of the monastery into the Clergy. Monasteries of Clergymen were also set up in the West. Eusebius, Bishop of Vercellae, introduced this custom,[Editorial Note 43] as ✝[13][Editorial Note 44] Maximus of Turin testifies in the following words. Because Eusebius, he says, excelled in the vigour of virginity, he instituted the principle of virginity; because he gloried in the deprivations of abstinence, he introduced the strict regimen of the monks; because he was distinguished in the administration of his Episcopate[Editorial Note 45], he selected several of his disciples as heirs of his ministry. Some people leave to their children treasures of gold and silver, but no one left richer treasures than the holy Eusebius, since all of them became either priests or martyrs. For not to mention other things, it is admirable that in this holy Church he arranged that the same men be both monks and Clergy and that the sacerdotal offices be housed in the same inner recesses in which also an extraordinary chastity is preserved, so that in the men themselves there was both contempt for material things and the carefulness of Levites; so that if you saw the cots of the Monastery, you would judge them to be following eastern principles, if you observed the devotions of the Clergy, you would rejoice at the sight of an angelic order. Thus Maximus. What Ambrose wrote in Epistle 82[Editorial Note 46] to the people of Vercellae about choosing a Bishop accords with this. In the Church of Vercellae, he says, two things seem to be required of a Bishop, the continence of the monastery and the discipline of the Church. For Eusebius of holy memory was the first person in the regions of the West to combine these different things with each other, so that, though he dwelt in a city, he maintained the practices of the monks and governed the church with the sober temper of abstinence. It is a great addition to the grace of a priest if he constrains his youth to the practice of abstinence and a rule of virginity[Editorial Note 47], and turns those who live in the city away from the habits and manners of city life. And at the very beginning of the epistle he mentions how other Churches habitually sought their Bishops from the Church at Vercellae. After giving many examples of how Eusebius made a deliberate choice and election of the hardships of Exile for the sake of the faith, he adds: this patience under suffering grew strong in the holy Eusebius because of the practice of the Monastery, and he derived the ability to tolerate hardship from the habit of severe observance[Editorial Note 48]. These words imply that Eusebius had become a monk quite a long time before the year 355 when he was driven into exile, and once he was made a Bishop, he set up a Monastery of Clergy in his own home. So too Hilary was undoubtedly a monk before his exile, since it was during his exile that his disciple Martin went to Milan and very soon built a monastery for himself close to the city. Thus it was by the example of Eusebius that Monasteries of Clergy were disseminated throughout the West. Jerome gives. On the date, cf. M.D. Donalson, A Translation of Jerome's Chronicon with Historical Commentary (Lewiston: Mellon University Press 1996), pp. 55, 56 (sv 374 and 377 AD). us an excellent example of this fact in his Chronicle under the year 372, where he says, the clergy of Aquileia are regarded as a choir of the blessed, and selecting three of them for praise above others he adds: Florentinus, Bonosus and Ruffinus are regarded as outstanding Monks. Dom. Augustine observed these things while living in Italy for some considerable time, and in the year 389 he took monastic observances back with him to Africa. Soon after becoming a Bishop he established a Monastery in the Bishop's house, as ✝[14] he himself testifies. And from this monastery he provided almost ten bishops, as Possidius writes, ✝[15], for different Churches, as he was requested. And in the same manner they too established Monasteries, and as their zeal for the advancement of the word of God grew, he says, they supplied to other Churches brothers who were promoted to enter the priesthood. Martin too seems to have transferred the same kind of Monasteries from Italy, where he had lived as a monk for some time, to Gaul. For what else did ✝[16] Severus mean by saying in his narrative of Martin's foundation of a monastery containing eighty disciples near the city of Tours of which he had just been made Bishop: We have seen several of them later become bishops. For what kind of city or Church would it be which did not desire to have for itself a priest from Martin's Monastery? And ✝[17] elsewhere he says about Briction, one of Martin's Presbyters, that he had never had anything before he became a Clergyman (since he had been reared in the monastery by Martin himself), and that from his earliest years he had grown up in the Monastery among the sacred teachings of the Church, and Martin himself had taught him. It can be inferred that the same customs also existed among the Spanish from the letter of Papa[Editorial Note 53] Siricius, written at the beginning of the year 385 to Himerius, Bishop of Tarragona, where Siricius says as follows: It is our desire and wish that monks who are approved for their moral gravity and holy way of life and faith be involved in clerical duties. In accordance with this ambition of the Pontiffs, the Emperors too in the year 398 ✝[18] laid down by legislation that the Clergy should be ordained from the ranks of Monks. By[Editorial Note 55] these means Monastic manners so completely permeated the Clergy that from that time Clergymen, who hitherto were not distinguished from the rest of the people by the colour of their clothes, adopted the monastic colour. Undoubtedly the colour of the Monks, says ✝[19] Baronius, was drab-coloured or almost black, that of the Clerics had been neither drab nor white but rather violet or chestnut; but now all the Clergy changed the colour to black because they had adopted Monasticism. The same seems to be true of the shape of the tunic and of the cowl, which is likewise derived from the Monks, as well as the tonsure of the head in the shape of a crown.
While in this way the influence of monasticism spreads widely from Egypt, a similar superstition, percolating from the West, compels all the rest of the clergy to continence. This is not surprising. For a very large number of the Western churches seem never to have arrived at the sanctity of other churches or to have fully abandoned their Pagan superstitions. Evidence of this is the Council of Eliberitanum, which took place in Spain a little bit before the reign of Constantine the great in A.D. 305; its canons clearly reveal the state of that church. Several canons which were brought in against sexual immorality indicate the lax morals of the people, and especially this one: it has been decided that women be prohibited from keeping vigil in Cemeteries; for often under the pretence of prayer they secretly commit misdeeds[Editorial Note 57]. And the following canons smack of superstition. If any Cleric or believer shall take food with Jews, it has been decided that he abstain from communion, so that he should be corrected[Editorial Note 58]. Again: anyone who in Lent or at Easter shall know his wife and refuse to abstain from her, must do penance for one year, or pay a price, namely 25 solidi, to the Church, or he should divide it among the poor. If it happened because of Drunkenness and he did not make a habit of it, let him do penance for 40 days. Again: it has been decided that candles should not be burnt in a cemetery during the daytime; for the spirits of the holy ones are not to be disturbed[Editorial Note 59]. This canon has its origin in the pagan superstition that supposed that the spirits of the dead hover around sepulchres and consecrated places. It was from this belief, which persisted for quite a long time among such semi-Christians, that the foolish cult of saints and relics was introduced into the churches. Moreover the same Synod formulated this canon: it has been decided that it be totally prohibited for Bishops Presbyters and Deacons, that is, all clergymen who are placed in the ministry, not to abstain from their wives and beget children; anyone who does so is to be deprived of his clerical status.[Editorial Note 60] This Canon seems to have been brought in so that Christian Priests would not fall short in piety of those Pagan Priests who were bound to celibacy, such as the priests of Apollo, Juno, Diana and Vesta. I find nothing earlier than this about the continence of the Clergy. In the East at any rate at this time the clergy were allowed to enjoy marriages which had been either contracted or permitted by the Bishop before the dignity was assumed, as is clear from this canon of the Council held at Ancyra in the year 314: [20] any men who are ordained as Deacons, if at the time of their ordination they proclaim and state that they wish to be united in matrimony because they cannot continue in this state, they may remain in the ministry if they subsequently take wives, because the Bishop has given them license to do so. Any men who have kept quiet and have received the laying on of the hand, professing that they will continue in this state, and later enter into marriage, will certainly have to resign from the ministry. ‡ ‡ So too the Council of Neocaesarea, at this very time, determined that if a Presbyter took a wife, he should lose his standing. The East therefore by preference selected virgins, but yet did not exclude Married men, except when matrimony involved a violation of their promise. ✝ ✝ Ten or a dozen years later, in opposition to a certain Eustathius, who condemned marriages both for Laymen and the Clergy and was responsible for many men dissolving their marriage bond and professing continence, the Council at Gangra in Asia minor formulated this ✝[21] canon. If anyone contends, concerning a Presbyter who has taken a wife, that it is not right to accept communion when he is celebrating the eucharist, let him be anathema. At about the same time some people at the famous Nicene Council wished that Married clergy throughout the East should abstain from their wives, as Socrates and Sozomen tell us, at the urging of Hosius, if I am not mistaken, who had attended the Council of Eliberitanum and played a leading role at the Nicene Council. But Paphnutius opposed it, and the Council merely formulated this canon against extraneous women. [22] The great Synod has stringently prohibited that a Bishop or a Presbyter or a deacon or anyone else at all who is in clerical orders be allowed to have a subintroducta woman[Editorial Note 64], unless perhaps it is either a mother or a sister or an aunt or such persons only as are beyond suspicion. # # Some of the Papists make great efforts to extend this decree also to the wives of the clergy as if they too should be counted as subintroductae and thus as women who do not escape suspicion and scandal and are therefore forbidden. And lest such a harsh interpretation of the Canon, an interpretation which conflicts with ecclesiastical history, should lack support, Basil in ✝[23] one of his Epistles, alleges in rebuke of a presbyter Paregorius, that he kept a wife with him at home contrary to the decree of Nicaea. But pace the Papists, she was not his wife but a little old woman from outside whom Paregorius, who was in his seventies, had taken into his home to look after his affairs. There is not a single word in the whole epistle about a wife of Paregorius. In addition, in the Carthaginian Councils the Africans routinely explain this canon as solely about extraneous women. And like the Africans, the men of Gaul banned the wife from the bed only and not from the home, as is clear from canon 3 of the Council at Arles which was held around the year 390. And they were accustomed at this time to follow the Roman church. Nor is it clear that any other church was so absurd as to expel wives from the homes of all the clergy.
And indeed if there was a discussion in the Nicene Council about the sexual virtue of the clergy, as is evident from this canon, and if, in addition to the Bishop of Carthage and the Legates of the Roman Pontiff, Hosius was also present, a man who had attended the Council at Eliberitanum, and as is well known, had very great authority at Nicaea, who can doubt that he (if no one else), following the fathers' and his own principles, put forward the question of wives when the sexual virtue of the clergy was being discussed? and consequently (as the ecclesiastical writers also tell us) that question was rejected by the Council? since the Council only passed a Canon about extraneous women. In the East therefore continence on the part of married men had not yet begun. The matter had gone no further than this: that those who, after entering holy orders without specific permission to marry, subsequently contracted marriage, would be stripped of their standing on the grounds that they had lapsed and failed to live up to the expectation or perhaps the promise that had been given.
Meanwhile in the regions of the West the continence of the clergy percolates from Spain into Italy and other regions, if in Italy it had not sprung up earlier. For the Roman Papa, Siricius, in chapter 7 of his letter to Himerius, Bishop of Tarragona in Spain [Editorial Note 66], issued at the beginning of the year 385, prohibits intercourse with a wife to those who are in holy orders. From this it would seem that this usage was more prevalent in the Roman see than among the Spanish, and from there had received authority and confirmation among the others. The same Law was quite frequently confirmed by Innocent I and Leo I. Hence too Ambrose in letter 82 to the people of Vercellae says: The apostle gave the instruction: 'the husband of one wife'[Editorial Note 67] – not in order that he might be encouraged by apostolic authority to beget children in the priesthood; for he spoke of one who has children and not of one who begets them.[Editorial Note 68] But it is probable that this custom was in force among the Italians, if not before the Council at Eliberitanum, at least in the time of Pope Liberius, who began to reign in the year 350, because we have the following ✝[24] decree from Liberius: One must abstain in these forty most holy days from one's wife and live chastely and piously, so that those days may be passed with sanctified heart and body until one arrives at Easter, because fasting has almost no value if it is polluted by the marital act and if prayers, vigils and alms-giving do not commend it. The continence of the Laity during Lent, and the continence of the Clergy at all times, are full brothers, and very close to each other by nature. If the former's fasting will be polluted, so will all the sacred offices of the latter (of which some are performed every seven days, some on a daily basis, and some may occur at any time). In fact there is a more powerful reason in the case of the clergy. In their holier function they must be holier and purer. Accordingly, as the continence of both orders, both of the Clergy at all times and of the Laity throughout Lent, was enjoined by the Spanish in the Council of Eliberitanum, so there is no doubt that in the rest of the churches, a similar continence for both orders sprang up at the same time, unless the continence of the Clergy arose earlier. Any of the Spanish who embraced one would not balk at the other. This was therefore the condition of Italy. 🅇 But, previous page, But the Council of Turin on the borders of Italy, in the year 397, determined only that [25]Ordained persons who have begotten children in the ministry, are not permitted to go on to the higher grades of orders. The situation here then had not progressed to the point that those who begat children lost their clerical standing. In the Ga In the Gauls ✝[26] the Council at Arles[Editorial Note 70] decreed about the year 390 that no one can be inducted into the priesthood who is in the bonds of matrimony, unless he promises a profession of monastic vows[Editorial Note 71]. And before the year 355 Hilary becomes Bishop of Poitiers though he has a wife and a daughter, who were still alive at the time of his return from exile, as Fortunatus ✝[27] reports. And yet Sozomen, bk. 3, ch. 14, in composing a catalogue of celebrated Monks and of the men at this time who were following the philosophical life as they call it, numbers him among the rest. And his disciple Martin founded a monastery for himself in the year 355. Fortunatus also reports that the same Hilary so highly valued the celibate life that he put off the wedding of his Daughter, who was seeking a husband, in the expectation of a nobler spouse, and in the end his prayers were answered in that she passed from this life to her bridegroom Christ.[Editorial Note 73] So far had this superstition already grown in the Gauls. To the Africans ✝ ✝ To the Africans moreover in A.D. 385 Pope Siricius sent a letter[Editorial Note 74] instructing that priests and Levites should not have intercourse with their wives, because they are occupied by daily necessities in the divine ministry. And he urges this from the following passages of scripture, wrongly applied. Abstain so that you may be free for prayer, 1 Cor. 7. Unto the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, Tit. 1.[Editorial Note 75] They that are in the flesh cannot please God, Rom. 8.[Editorial Note 76] By this Epistle however the Pope did not so much introduce a custom as confirm one that had been introduced previously. For the Council of Carthage in the year 398 formulated this Canon: [28]When incontinence was reported in the case of certain Clerics, even though it was with their own wives, it was decided, as was confirmed in different Councils also, that subdeacons who handle the sacred vessels and Deacons and Presbyters and also Bishops in accordance with the previous statutes, should abstain even from their wives, so that they should seem to be as if they did not have them; and if they will not do it, they should be removed from Ecclesiastical office. But that the rest of the Clergy not be compelled to this except at a more advanced age. These last words are illustrated by the Council held at Carthage in the previous year in this canon: [29]. # #✝[30] Council at Carthage, Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage, said: When we discussed the question of continence in a previous Council, – it was decided that clerics should be continent in all ways so that they may be able with singleness of heart to ask what they require of the lord; so that we too may guard what the Apostles taught and antiquity itself preserved. Faustinus, a Legate of the Church at Rome, said, It is decided that Bishops presbyters and deacons, or any who handle the sacraments, should be guardians of sexual virtue and abstain from their wives. It was said by all the bishops: It is decided that sexual virtue is to be preserved in all men who serve at the altar. You see here that the origin of this custom among the Africans had already fallen out of the memory of the old men, with the result that they believed that they had received it from the Fathers by Apostolic tradition. Hence one can state with justification that this custom began here at the time of Constantius or earlier. And it is probable that it was introduced in the Reign of Constantine the great, at the time when the Donatists were occupying almost the whole of Africa, and a handful of the rest, who depended upon the Bishop of Rome and the other bishops throughout Italy and Gaul, were compelled to accept both the baptism of heretics and anything else that seemed good to the Europeans. This therefore was the condition of the West.
Chrysostom implies that the same situation obtained in the East, Hom. 2 de patientia Iob[Editorial Note 79]. The husband of one wife, he says, not in the manner in which it is observed in the churches now; for a priest should be adorned with absolutely complete chastity. And before Chrysostom, Epiphanius, in Haeres. 59, ch. 4,[Editorial Note 80] in giving a general description of the condition of the Church, says: She by no means admits to the order of Deacon, Presbyter, Bishop or Subdeacon anyone who still lives in matrimony and seeks to have children, even though he be the husband of one wife, but only him who refrains from intercourse with his wife or has been bereft of her; this is particularly true of those places where the Ecclesiastical canons are carefully observed. Yes, but you will say, still in some places Presbyters, Deacons and Subdeacons do beget children. I reply that this is not done on the authority of the Canons, but by the slack thinking that sometimes afflicts people. And similarly at the end of his books about Heresy[Editorial Note 81] in the exposition of the faith, he includes this among Catholic doctrines and customs. The priesthood, he says, preferably consists of an order of virgins, or if not of virgins, certainly of Monks. And if suitable men are not available from the order[Editorial Note 82] of Monks to undertake that function, priests are customarily appointed from men who abstain from their wives or who, after a single marriage, are in a state of widowhood. Thus Epiphanius; and from this you may also believe to be true the general statement that Jerome made in the book against Vigilantius in the Year 404, saying: What will the Churches of the East do? What will those of Egypt do and those of the Apostolic see? who accept virgins or abstainers as Clergymen; or if they have had wives, they cease to be husbands. But when Epiphanius published his books about heresies in the Year 374, in which (as above) he states that clergymen abstain from their wives particularly in those places where the ecclesiastical canons are observed, it is evident that before the year 374 such canons had been formulated as much in the Eastern as in the Western Councils, and that the ecclesiastical law had already by that time become universal. Since therefore these canons could not have been laid down before the Council of Nicaea, and the only allies of the Westerners from whom this custom came into the East, were the Egyptians and those in the East who adhered to Athanasius, the following conclusion may not improperly be drawn. That Athanasius in the reign of Constantius, while spending a good long time in the West travelling through its Provinces of Italy and Gaul, and observing their ways, and also enjoying an intimacy with Hosius, learned to regard this practice of continence, which had flourished in the West from the time of the Council of Eliberitanum (if not before), as pious and akin to monastic principles. Then returning home after the Council of Sardica, as he had formerly transferred monasticism from Egypt to the West, so now in return he brings Western continence with him back to Egypt. And after the death of Constantius, he took pains that it be propagated throughout the East, together with his creed, while certain westerners, such as Eusebius of Vercellae and Lucifer of Calaritanum, who were at that time living in the East, promoted the enterprise, and the Councils of the Athanasians which were subsequently held throughout the East and Egypt embodied it in their canons.
From that time therefore this rule became universal; but learn from Augustine how foreign it is to true religion. He speaks as follows at the end of bk. 2 of de adulterinis conjugijs[Editorial Note 83]: The Lord has said, Everyone who divorces his wife except for fornication makes her commit adultery.[Editorial Note 84] Undoubtedly the reason is that though she was virtuous with her husband, now that she has been dismissed, she is compelled by her incontinence to have intercourse with another man while the former one is still alive, and this is to commit adultery. And even if she does not do it, nevertheless he has done as much as he can to make her do it, and God will impute this to him as a sin, even if she remains chaste. But who would not know how very rare are those women who live so virtuously with their husbands that even if they are dismissed by them, they do not try to find others. Thus Augustine speaking of Laymen, to which the case of the Clergy which we are discussing is almost identical. And lest you should think that married Clergy abstained from their wives voluntarily[Editorial Note 85], listen also to what Augustine writes about this subject in the same treatise[Editorial Note 86]. When, he says, we attempt to deter men who have dismissed their wives from perishing by their persistence in adulterous marriages, we customarily place before them the continence of the clergy. The clergy are generally constrained against their will into accepting that burden [of continence], but once they have accepted it, they carry it through right to the due end of their lives. We say to them: What if you too were constrained by the compulsion from the people to accept this,[Editorial Note 87] surely you would stick to your duty in chastity, instantly turning to the lord to obtain the strength that you had never before imagined. But honour, they say, would be a very great consolation[Editorial Note 88] to them. We reply, but a greater fear would restrain you too. For if many ministers of God have taken up this burden that is suddenly and unexpectedly thrust upon them, in the hope that they will shine more brightly in Christ[Editorial Note 89], how much more should you live continently, avoiding adultery, not because you fear to shine less brightly in the kingdom of God but because you fear to burn in the fires of Gehenna. How much better therefore would it have been to co-opt only celibates into the Clergy, as the Papists now do (not that I approve of this) than to undo those whom god has joined and Christ commanded not to be disunited by anybody. But it pleased the Athanasian Doctors to negate the laws of Christ by contrary laws, and under a false appearance of chastity to convert the chastest marriages into adultery; to whom belong not adulterers only but all the disciples of Athanasius who have taken an active role in passing laws or executing them or who have consented to such laws.
In fact I would not praise monastic practice too highly as chaste. Continence is not for everybody, nor is a vow of continence to be too strongly urged for fear that many men, having been drawn too hastily into a manner of life that they cannot sustain, may lapse into two offences as a result of one legitimate and chaste marriage – the violation of their oath and fornication in their heart, if nothing worse. Neither is an oath a very secure path to chastity. Incontinence rages all the more when it meets with resistance. By sidestepping it you will overcome it, by meeting it head on and struggling, you will be overcome. If you have already overcome your desires and are safe, make a vow. If not, it is better freely to take no account of incontinence. By your vow you will indeed drive your wife away, but you will increase your incontinence. For a vow will bring on thoughts of preserving chastity; from thoughts will emerge struggles with sexual immorality; and from struggles either wounds or death. More chaste and more like angels are they who never think about chastity and sexual immorality, or not except in passing, but keep their minds occupied with better things in which piety is safe. But those who are much occupied with preserving their chastity will not fare well.
In case I seem to be misleading you, listen to some evidence about the poor success of the monastic vow. It will be enough to give just one or two instances because of the distasteful nature of the subject. [31] Palladius gives the following account of a certain celebrated Moses, a father of monks in the Egyptian desert. Demons, he says, attacked the blessed Moses and drove him to a habit of fornicating intemperance; he was very much tempted by them, to the point that they were not far from driving him away from his principles. When he approached the great Isidore who dwelt in Scete, he reported to him for a third time[Editorial Note 91] his struggle with fornication. The holy man gives him this reply: Do not be discouraged, brother; these are the beginnings, and they have attacked you all the more violently because they are seeking to bring your former habits back. For as when a dog has been used to gnawing a bone in a butcher's shop, he does not abandon his habit, but if the shop is closed and no one gives him anything, he no longer goes there though famished with hunger; so you too, if you persist in the exercise of your continence, mortifying your members which are upon the earth, forbidding entry to gluttony which causes intemperance, the demon will have a problem because he does not have the wherewithal to arouse you, and he will leave you alone. Christ's servant Moses, therefore, withdrew and shut himself up in his cell from that hour, and practised the greatest endurance in everything, and especially in abstinence from food, in that he took nothing else but 12 ounces of dry bread, working extremely hard and saying fifty prayers every day. But despite that, although he had emaciated his poor body, he nevertheless remained on fire, and especially in his dreams. And when he got up, he met with another monk who was holy and very much respected, and said to him: What am I to do, Father? The dreams of my mind pour darkness over my reason, since I delight in them from old habit. The holy man says to him: You have not withdrawn your mind from the images which occur in your dreams, and that is the reason why you are experiencing this. Do therefore as I say. Give yourself up gradually[Editorial Note 92] to vigils, pray soberly[Editorial Note 93], and you will soon be liberated from them. And when the famous man had heard this advice as from a man who was proficient by experience, he returned to his cell, and he said that, as far as he was aware, he did not sleep the whole night, he did not even go down on his knees on the pretext of prayer, in order to avoid the tyranny of sleep. When he had remained in his cell for six years, standing in the middle of his cell the whole of every night, and praying continually to God and not closing his eyes, he still could not overcome his intemperate desire. For in truth desire cannot be really subdued. For though he had wasted his body by his hardships, he had not been able to subdue that shameful passion. Palladius then proceeds to tell how the Devil struck Moses with a cudgel as he was struggling against incontinence, and how Isidore meeting with him finally said: Cease then, brother Moses, to contend with the Demons; and do not provoke them in this way. For there is a limit to fortitude even in ascetic practice. And he replies: I will not cease to fight with them until the fantasy of my dreams ceases. Then Isidore says to him: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, from this instant your filthy dreams have ceased. Do not be proud of yourself for this as if you had overcome the affliction by your own ascetic efforts. He exerted his powers against you so violently for your own benefit, so that you would not succumb to feelings of pride. Thus Palladius. Evidently it was so difficult to overcome lust by means of monastic ascesis that the fire, which had been made to blaze more fiercely, could not finally be extinguished without a miracle. Or perhaps since it could not be extinguished, the old man pretended that it had been, in order in the end to protect his name. For this man was numbered among the leading monks because of his monastic ascesis, notwithstanding his sexual impurity, so much so that he was said to have grace against demons, and was called great by the mass of ordinary monks, as the same Palladius tells us[Editorial Note 94]. There is a similar story about Abbot Elias [32], who had responsibility for a monastery of three hundred women and was afflicted by unclean thoughts and used to say that three angels appeared to him in a dream and seemingly cut off[Editorial Note 96] his testicles. As a result of this he was liberated from his thoughts and ruled the monastery chastely. But I will rather report what Palladius tells us about himself and a certain Egyptian Abbot by the name of Pachon. Pachon, he says, when he had reached his seventieth year, dwelt in ✝[33][Editorial Note 97] Scete. And it happened, Palladius continues, that I was troubled by a passion of longing for a woman in my thoughts and nocturnal fantasies, and I had difficulty dealing with it. And when I was on the point of abandoning the desert because of this temptation, because this mental disturbance shook me terribly, I did not disclose the problem to my neighbours or even to my master Evagrius, but I came secretly into the deep desert[Editorial Note 98], and spent fifteen days with the aged fathers in the solitude which was at Scete. Among them I came across the holy man Pachon. Since I had found him more sincere and more advanced {in} asceticism, I ventured to open my mind to him. And that holy man said to me: This should not seem to you a strange and alien thing. It is not happening to you because of self-indulgence and idleness and negligence. For testimony is borne to you both by your morals and by your poverty in those things that are necessary and by the fact that you have no commerce with women, but rather this comes to you from the enemy because of your zeal for virtue. For it is a three-fold enemy that impels us to fornication. Sometimes the flesh assails us when it grows wanton having been given too dainty and indulgent care. Sometimes the emotions of our minds rise up against us because of our thoughts. And sometimes too the demon himself exerts his tyranny over us out of malice. For I too have found this out after long and careful observation. Behold me as you see me, an old man. For though I have now spent forty years in this cell, taking care of my salvation, and have reached such an age, I am tempted to this very day – and he swore an oath as he was saying it. In the twelve years since I passed my fiftieth year, he has not missed a day or a night in attacking me. I therefore suspected that God had withdrawn from me, seeing that the Demon had such power over me, and so I chose rather to die without temptation than to engage in filthy behaviour because of the vice and passion of my body. Coming forth from my cell therefore and going through the desert, I came upon the cave of a Hyena. I lay naked across the entrance of that cave the whole day, so that the wild beasts would devour me as they came out. And when it was evening – the beasts came out and sniffed me from my feet to my head, licking me all over. I was expecting to be devoured, but they departed from me. I judged therefore that God had altogether spared me and I returned to my cell. And after the Demon had refrained for a few days, he attacked me more violently than ever, so that I was on the very point of blaspheming. For he transformed himself into an Ethiopian girl, whom I had seen in my youth picking ears of corn in the summer, and she seemed to me to sit upon my knees, and she shook me so much that I supposed I had intercourse with her. Overcome by anger, I hit out at her, and with that she vanished. In despair therefore I came out and wandered through the deep desert, and I came across a small snake. I applied it to my genitals that even thus I might be bitten and so die, but in vain. But after this I heard a voice saying to me in my thoughts: Go away, Pachon, and keep up the struggle to the end. I have allowed him to exert so much power over you, so that your spirit would not become too proud and arrogant, as if you could overcome this passion by yourself, and so that you might acknowledge your weakness and never have confidence in the manner of your life but have recourse to the help of God. Thus admonished and strengthened, I returned to my cell, and dwelling there thenceforth with confidence and worrying no more about the struggle, I spent the rest of my days in peace. And when the demon saw my contempt for him, he was overcome by shame from that time and no longer came near me. When he had strengthened me for the struggle against Satan with these words and had fortified me against the demon of fornication, he dismissed me, bidding me to conduct myself with a brave heart in all things[Editorial Note 99]. Thus Palladius about himself and Pachon – about the great Pachon, I say, to whom Palladius chose to reveal the secrets of his breast in preference to his neighbours, in preference to his master, in preference to all the fathers throughout the desert who were enfeebled by old-age and brought to perfection by long discipline, as the one who was the more sincere and the more experienced in ascesis. By the ascetic practises of so many years this very great man did more to provoke the wild beast of lust than to subdue it, nor was he able to liberate himself from those bad desires, until enfeebled by old age he began to neglect and despise those desires which he had fought against in vain, worrying no more about the struggle. By this means the desires which had been strengthened by the long period of struggle, began to diminish, though not altogether to cease; for up to the very day on which he said these things, the septuagenarian confessed that he was being tempted. These two men, Moses and Pachon, were contemporaries of Athanasius. Jerome too – the great Jerome I mean – has told us similar things about himself. [34]When I was young, he said, and the deserts of solitude walled me in; I was not able to bear the promptings to sin and the ardor of my nature, and though I tried to break it with frequent fasting, my mind still seethed with thoughts. And elsewhere [35]: O how often, he says, when I myself was living in the desert, in that extensive waste which, scorched by the burning heat of the sun, affords a rugged habitation for monks, I fancied myself to be participating in Roman pleasures. I lived alone, because I was filled with bitterness. My misshapen limbs bristled with sackcloth, and my dirty skin had taken on the mangy appearance of the flesh of Ethiopians. Every day there were tears, every day there were groans, and if ever sleep crept up and overcame my struggles against it, I laid my bones, scarcely hanging together, naked against the hard earth. I say nothing about food and drink, since sick monks too use cold water, and to take anything cooked is self-indulgence. Companion only of scorpions and wild beasts, I was often among choruses of girls. – My face was pale with fasting, and my mind seethed with desires, though my body was cold and only the fires of lust kept bubbling up before me, whose flesh was already dead. – I also had a horror of my very cell as if it shared the secret of my thoughts. And angry and relentless with myself, I used to go deep into the desert alone. To such a degree was Jerome tormented by these thoughts; and yet he could not liberate himself from them before old age. For in the Preface to his commentary on Amos, when he was already enfeebled by old age and was giving an account of its infirmities, such as griping pains in the stomach, the torment of gout in feet and hands, and such like, he adds: In comparison I would rather put up with illness, so long as I am spared the one overpowering tyrant, lust. Old age too sometimes suffers promptings to vice; and no one, according to St. Cyprian, is safe for long, being very close to danger. But it is one thing to be titillated, another to be overcome by pleasure. In this point the young, who know the compulsions of a vigorous body, speak with the Apostle: Who will deliver me from the body of this death?[Editorial Note 102] Here among the dead cinders a tiny spark very occasionally attempts to revive, but it is not able to start a fire. Therefore, O Pammachius, whose head is now white like mine, pray earnestly for me to the lord that I may deserve to have wisdom for my companion. Thus Jerome, who testified that he could no longer bear the effort of writing with his own hand because of old age, and right from his youth had made war upon his passions by means of the hardships of the desert, as he ✝[36] writes elsewhere, saying: When I was a young man, in fact almost a boy, and I was curbing the first onslaughts of youthful passion by the hardships of the desert. Now after so many examples, who would want anything more impressive, and yet if you inspect the lives of the greatest men, which their friends have described as exemplary, presenting their lives as more than heroic and delineating nothing with their flattering pens which is not great, even in these you will find signs of enormous struggles with the spirit of fornication. Evidently it was so deeply impressed on the breasts of monks that they must suffer a conflict with the spirit of fornication that they could not depict a Hero accurately without this struggle. Hilarion was the founder and instructor of the monastic profession in Syria exactly as Antony was in Egypt, and Jerome has described his life as admirable in every way. But as he entered upon this profession, an envious and malignant Devil, says Jerome[Editorial Note 104], tickled his senses and intimated to his adolescent body the usual fires of pleasure. The young pupil of Christ was compelled to think about what he did not know and to view in his mind a display of something that he had not experienced. Being therefore angry with himself and beating his breast with his fists as if he could shut out his thoughts with a blow of his hand, he says, 'You ass, I will make sure that you do not kick'. I will not feed you with barley but with straw; I will wear you out with hunger and thirst; I will burden you with a heavy load; ✝[37] I will track you down through heat and cold, so that you will think of food rather than sex. And a bit further on: Many are his temptations, and many the insidious attacks of demons day and night; if I tried to tell of them all, a volume would not suffice. How often did naked women appear to him when he lay down, how often did magnificent feasts appear before him when he was hungry? Pachomius was the founder of the coenobitic life, and he became the father of seven thousand monks, and he is said to have received the rules of his doctrine engraved in bronze from the hand of an Angel, and he is celebrated as an angel himself by the ✝[38] Author of his life. This very great Man therefore, as he was striving to fashion the rules of the coenobitic life, began to meet with violent opposition (says that author) from a devil, who gnashed his teeth over him like some extraordinary wild man and concocted various temptations for him. –Frequently as he was sitting down to table and giving thanks to God, they [very wicked spirits] appeared in the guise of very beautiful women, different in appearance, and they seemed to stand beside him conspicuous in their provocative and disgusting nudity. And lest you believe that the spirit of fornication easily ceases, these were not the fantasies of ebullient youth. Pachomius had spent a long time in a Monastery before the vision of the Angel; and then a long time with a certain Palaemon; then fifteen years and more with his brother. It was only then, as he was about to gather his disciples together, that we are told that he saw these things, as he was already declining into old age. And his Historian writes that he was indeed troubled by them, but he crushed the wiles of the devil by closing his eyes. Happy Pachomius, who could see such things, or rather form them by the vehemence of his imagination, and that frequently, and what is more for a very long time, and yet remain unharmed and innocent. For in extreme old age he had a vision of a woman exceeding all human beauty, as the same historian tells us. Again, Antony was both the father and the model for all monks, and yet his earliest struggle (as Athanasius tells us in his life)[Editorial Note 107] was with nocturnal allurements, with sordid thoughts inspired by a devil in the daytime, with the titillation of the flesh, with the nocturnal figure of a woman, with the softness of pleasure, with the spirit of fornication that often troubled him. What then are we to think about lesser monks? If the three Patriarchs of the monks, each one of whom also was supremely renowned throughout the world for the spirit of prophecy and innumerable miracles, descended into the arena, who could expect to avoid the struggle? Who could desire to be better than such great men, or expect to avoid the struggle which he had read about in their lives – especially in the life of Antony which was published almost as statute law to be imitated by all? In fact the whole training and conduct of the Monks was intended to master the passions and perturbations of the mind. This is what they constantly write and converse about. This was the point of all the monastic ascesis: the fasts, the vigils, the endurance of hardship. And it was not the man who came to the desert already superior to his passions who was perfect, but the one who overcame his passions by means of ascesis, or at least had made very great efforts to overcome them. For the more greatly anyone had been tempted by the enemy and the more bravely he had fought by means of ascetic practices, the more advanced and wiser and more perfect he was held to be.
It is indeed a good thing to be superior to one's passions. And some passions can be overcome as it were by force. But what is this immense struggle with lust? It is assuredly a kind of struggle which does not so much extinguish the passion as inflame it, and easily makes a chaste person unchaste and an unchaste person yet more unchaste. For how would even the chastest person, when he comes into the desert and has continually before his eyes the ascetic practices of the monks, and knows that they are undertaken in order to overcome the passions – how would he not fall into thinking about the preservation of chastity and avoidance of sexual immorality? And even if these thoughts at first were very chaste, yet if they became frequent (and they would be very frequent for someone who was living in the desert), they would not remain innocent forever. And after the first lapse, the mind, having become polluted and less in control, would now make less resistance, and would not in the end find any means of facing up to them. Where shall the unhappy man now turn? Shall he bind himself with a vow of continence? But the vow itself will occasion many thoughts, and the passion, suppressed by force, will rage all the more fiercely. Only for those who are chase is a vow appropriate. Shall he have recourse to the monastic ascesis? But the cell, the solitude, the habit, hunger, thirst, vigils, every ascetic practice will constantly recall to his mind the reason for these things; and the more effort he puts into them, the more often and the more vehemently it will do so. A weary and enfeebled mind will pay less attention to devotion, and more easily give way to all sorts of impressions, and will be driven wandering in every direction. Lack of sleep will intensify the force of the imagination, as happens to fever patients, madmen and others who are broken down by excessive wakefulness. Hence constant dreams at night, frequent fantasies during the day, which will be as vivid as if the things themselves were standing there in their own substance. Hence those innumerable stories of monks about the multifarious apparition of demons. By these ascetic practices, therefore, the spark of lust will not so much be extinguished as blown up into a great fire by the winds of thought that are raised. And the flame will not readily go out until the material is consumed by age. This beast cannot be overcome by force, but only avoided by aversion and flight. Thinking about sexual virtue itself is very much to be avoided, and the mind is to be turned to better things in which it may safely rest. For lust is a serpent which harmlessly flees the man who passes it by with averted eyes; it disturbs the man who lets his mind dwell on it with all sorts of mental turmoil; but if a man gives it chase and struggles with it, it attacks him back and fills his whole breast with poison. And the man who directs his thoughts to chastity, that is, to victory over lust, by means of a vow, by immoderate fasting, by excessive vigils, by daily association with men who are struggling, and the like, is not engaged in flight but in combat, and only after a long time and very great hardship, wounded all over, drenched with blood and inevitably oppressed in later life with the stench and pain of his wounds, will he finally in great wretchedness overcome the beast. And that this is the truth of the matter, not only reason but also the experience of the monks confirms. For the received opinion among them was that the Devil ravages Monks with temptations more malignantly than the rest of mankind because of the sanctity of their profession, and the reason is that he wants to knock them down from their lofty principles, especially if they win fame for their conduct, to stop them attracting others to the same zeal for virtue by their example; and God permits this, so that they will not be too puffed up by the glory of their holy profession and ascetic practice, and become proud. This belief indeed arose precisely from the fact that monks felt that they were more distracted by temptations after they had taken up their profession than before, and the more they struggled, the worse it became. You have already had instances of this belief. Add to them that Athanasius, who knew the condition of the monks very well, describes the temptations of the devils from their and his own experience in this way. Pachomius agrees with Athanasius, about whom ✝[39] Ruffinus reports: He frequently used to say to the brothers: Because (as the Lord God is my witness) I have often heard unclean spirits of demons speaking among themselves of the different and varied arts which they employ against the servants of God and especially against monks. Ruffinus asserts that he heard this from the brothers; he also ✝[40] tells the following story. A certain brother, he says, sought out Abbot Sisoius saying: Do you think, Father, that the devil persecutes us now in the same way as he did the fathers of old? [Sisois] replies: He persecutes us more now, because as the time of punishment approaches, he is in greater anguish; and he does not think it worthwhile to go after all the weaker brethren whom he quickly subverts whenever he has a mind to, but he goes after the strong men and great. When they see, he says, all Christians and especially Monks making progress by their zeal for hardships, they first attack and tempt them by putting obstacles in their path. And the obstacles are the wicked thoughts of the men themselves which they suggest. But you should not be frightened by their threats; for they are instantly thrown down by prayers, fasting and faith in the Lord. However when they have failed, they do not stay quiet but make their approach with cunning and artifice; and if they cannot openly entice the heart with obscene pleasures, they attack another way, and strive to inject terror by imaginary images of things seen, by taking the shape of women, beasts, serpents, of enormous bodies and armed hordes. If they are defeated in this way too, they try a yet different approach, they claim for themselves a knowledge of prophecy and of predicting the future; and they inflate themselves so tall as to reach the roof in height, and of immense width – in the end they bring with them the prince of Demons, etc. This is the series of temptations which the monastic ascesis inflicted on all those who aspire to the summit of virtue through toil and struggle, inciting flagrant desires and even melancholy and delirium in the end and the vivid fantasies of terrible things that are consequent upon them. So too in the lives of the fathers rendered into Latin [41][Editorial Note 109] by a certain Pelagius, Antony is reported to have said: That God does not permit struggles to be stirred up in this generation, because he knows that they are weak and cannot bear them; clearly declaring that Monks are more harassed by temptations than secular people, and especially those Monks who aspire to greater things by struggling more bravely. Likewise Abbot Joseph of Thebes is reported to have said [42]: That there are three orders which are honourable in the sight of the Lord. The first is when a man is weakened and temptations are applied to him and he accepts them with thanksgiving. In his opinion therefore, when a monk is weakened by ascetic practices, temptations are applied to him, and this is the first degree of perfection. Similar is the story that when a certain Monk [43] had made some considerable progress, so that at first he fasted daily, then two days at a time, and then he wanted food only once a week, he finally aspired to greater things and begged his Abbot saying: I beg you, father, to send me away, and I will go into the desert. For eremites are held to be more perfect than coenobites; consequently those of the coenobites who had made greater progress often aspired to the solitary life. The Abbot therefore replies: My son, do not think of this, you are not able to endure such hardship, as well as the temptations of the devil and his cunning tricks; and when temptation comes to you, you will not find there anyone to comfort you amid the perturbations that the enemy will bring to bear upon you. This Abbot thus felt that those who strive more are besieged by greater temptations, and indeed the solitaries more than the coenobites. In the same manner [44]when Abbot Abraham questioned Abbot Pastor saying: Why do the demons so assail me? Abbot Pastor said to him: Do the demons assail you? The demons do not fight with us when we do our wills, because our wills have become demons, and these[Editorial Note 110] are what trouble us so that we do them. And if you want to know what sort of persons they are with whom the demons fight: with Moses and those like him. Pastor means then that the more perfect men labour under greater temptations of thought, so that a monk may estimate his progress from the number and vigour of the evil thoughts that threaten him, and that only the most perfect like Moses are troubled by them. [45]Akin to this is the story that when a brother said to a certain old man, I see no conflict in my heart, the old man replied: You are like a fourfold gate, so that whoever wishes to enter you does so from wherever he wishes, and he goes out from wherever he wishes, and you do not see what is going on. For if you had a door and kept it closed, and you did not permit evil thoughts to enter by it, then you would see them standing outside and fighting against you. Likewise that saying of the abbot Cyrus of Alexandria, [46] who responded as follows to those who were asking him about thoughts of fornication: If you do not have thoughts, you do not have hope, since if you do not have thoughts you have deeds. And this is because he who does not fight in thought against sin and does not gainsay it, sins corporally. And he who sins corporally has no trouble from his thoughts. This is the wonderful Philosophy of the Monks. Certainly people who are sexually virtuous and who neither keep vigil while fighting against their thoughts, i.e. while exacerbating them, nor give them a place in their own breasts, but avoid them when they see them from afar, and turn the gaze of their minds quickly on to other objects, are much less molested by these thoughts than the impure mob is wont to be. But the experience of the monks has taught them that those who, from the general population, or rather from the mass of fornicators, are converted to monasticism and begin to make an effort in the manner of monks to fight against their thoughts, are now more troubled by them and more harassed than before, – to such an extent that, in comparison with the passions which they now feel, their former passions seem not so much passion as almost a state of tranquillity. Add to this what ✝[47] Palladius says about Hellenus, a celebrated Anchorite. One of the brothers, he says, made a request of Hellenus, wishing to live with him in the desert. And when he replied that the man would not be able to withstand the temptations of the demons, the brother obstinately insisted that he would endure everything. So he took him under his care, but bade him live in a separate cave. Then demons came to him in the night and attempted to choke him, after first troubling him with filthy thoughts. You have here both the opinion of Hellenus and its confirmation by experience. Similar is the doctrine of the Abbot Theonas in ✝[48] Cassian[Editorial Note 112]. For when Cassian and other monks asked Theonas why we are sometimes titillated by lighter stings of the flesh when we are fasting mildly, and sometimes we are harassed by fiercer promptings when we are abstaining more severely and the body is afflicted and worn out, so that when we get up we find ourselves spattered by the emission of the natural fluids.[Editorial Note 113] Theonas replies: When we are making extraordinary efforts to benefit both the flesh and the spirit, the malice of our most deceitful enemy so assaults us that as he strives to lower the confidence of our conscience and to humiliate us as if by some kind of accusation, especially on those days on which we desire to be pleasing in the sight of God with greater merit for sexual integrity[Editorial Note 114], he pollutes us [old men] so as to keep us from holy communion by the simple emission of that fluid, without any itching of the flesh or consent of the mind, nor by the illusion of some phantom; though in certain beginners whose bodies have not yet been enfeebled by the rigour of lengthy fasting, this illusion is believed to be brought about by the agency of the devil, so that when he sees that they are pursuing more intense fasts, he may undermine all their efforts by this ruse; so that they feel that they have not only failed to make any progress towards purity of body by stricter fasting, but also that they have fallen rather seriously back, and consequently they dread the rigour of abstinence as an enemy, though it is the teacher of incorruption and the nurse of purity.[Editorial Note 115] Thus far Theonas; showing that flagrant thoughts are not only excited by excessive fasting in young men, but the natural motion is stirred by excessive fasts in old men too, who are free from the titillation of the flesh. Hence the conclusion is that the body is equally inflamed and disposed to lust, in despite of the will, both by excessive fasts and by abundance of food, and only the temperance which verges on neither extreme is a sure protection of chastity. Doctors note that those who suffer from wasting away of the body[Editorial Note 116] are more inclined to nocturnal fantasies and pollutions. That disease consists in poor digestion; and thus in a deficiency of internal nutriment that can be turned into genuine blood and flesh. How much more therefore is it credible that the healthy bodies of monks, sustained with less nutriment, are disposed to lust? And therefore what great fires it was inevitable that monks should burn with, since they added quite a few other causes to this one? The vow of continence which inflames by forbidding; the lack of books, for those who aspired to the more perfect life of the Anchorites were not even normally instructed in the sacred books, but spent their whole time in working, praying and, so far as they could, thinking; the lassitude of mind which makes thoughts wander and dwell upon quiet objects for the sake of refreshment; the solitude which induces and favours melancholy, whence also erratic thoughts which cannot be controlled and vivid fantasies; excessive vigils which increase lassitude, melancholy and the force of the imagination, and leads to delirium and even (as far as fasting allows) to madness; the operation finally of the devil which the Monks believed to be the sole cause. By the united action of so many and such powerful causes the lustful rustic is converted into an even more lustful monk. And who will adequately describe the fires of lust in those who[Editorial Note 117] are taught to overcome the ordinary flames by such great stimulants? Listen at least to Evagrius, Bishop of Pontus, the master of Palladius, who when he was a monk and indeed one of the more chaste, at that time surveyed the habitations of the monks of Egypt throughout the Desert, and noted their morals; and he ✝[49] describes thus the normal condition of the monks. The demon of lust, he says, inflames souls with the desire of all sorts of bodies, and presses more fiercely on those who aspire to continence, undoubtedly so that they will abandon their enterprise as pointless hardship. And poisoning their soul[Editorial Note 119] and he makes them both speak and hear words, exactly as if the thing itself were being seen and were at hand. This is that state of delirium to which I said that monks finally arrived. This is when they so powerfully fabricate spectres because of the vehemence of their imaginations as if the things themselves were there and speaking with them. Such was the Ethiopian woman whom Pachon imagined sitting on his knees. Such were the naked women that Antony, Pachomius, Hilarion and others seemed to see. Such were the many phantoms and voices of phantoms, which were thought to be apparitions and the voices of demons. The unavoidable conclusion from all this is that those spectres were not prone to appear immediately on the entrance of the monk into the desert, but somewhat later, when his body began to be emaciated by daily fasting and was brought to a new condition and temperament. To such a degree did the ardour of lust and the force of imagination reinforce each other that the eremites could no longer bear the sight of real women. One of them is struck with horror at the sight of a woman; another closes his eyes and does not even dare to look upon his mother or his sister; a third one brushing by chance against a woman, his blood quickly boils up and he fornicates, and he is sometimes an old man who had spent his whole life in monastic ascesis. Another one, overcome by his thoughts, goes down to the towns and looks for a woman, and he too is at times an old man. Another one attempting to have intercourse with a devil who was simulating a woman is struck down and left half dead. ✝[50] Another one brushes against a boy and sins. Hence Abbot taught
✝[51] Cassian declares that he knew a certain brother, who had the status of a Presbyter at the time, who contrary to the use of nature, in his desire to suffer rather than to inflict ignominy, burned with an unbearable fire of lust, as he himself confessed to a certain old man because of the violence of his flames, seeking counsel. This is a species of monstrosity that could neither be generated nor survive outside of the sewers of the Egyptian cells, which were seething with a fetid decaying mass of filth. Let any region anywhere in the world, barbarous or pagan, display the like. Many in the end seem to have been so roasted and tortured by the filthy pit of their thoughts that they could not bear their cells but ran all over the desert as if driven by a Gadfly, in their passionate desire to extinguish the flames even by death, and not infrequently they returned to the world contrary to their oath, so that in this way, if in no other, they might extinguish them.
Hence the elder monks were always concerned about the junior monks, in case any who were not yet confirmed in their habits and as it were toughened in their skins and thus still enjoyed rather acute sensations, would not be able to endure the stimuli of their thoughts and, not enduring, would fall away from their principles. They urged therefore that all of them should open up their thoughts to the older men, in order to receive solace and counsel from them in return. Thus in the lives of the Fathers translated by Pelagius we are told that a certain brother, when incited to fornication, often betook himself to a certain old man and revealed his thoughts to him, and that the old man, consoling him, replied: Do not give in to the devil nor slacken your effort, but rather as often as he is troublesome, come to me, and he will be rebuked and go away. For nothing wears out a demon of fornication more than if his incitements are revealed, and nothing makes him so happy as when thoughts are concealed. Similarly ✝[52] Ruffinus tells us that when another brother approached a certain old man a number of times and confessed that he was being attacked by a spirit of fornication, the old man replies: Do not be afraid, my son, and do not conceal your thoughts; for that is how an unclean spirit is confounded and departs from you. For nothing so crushes the spirit of demons as if a man reveals the secrets of his unclean thoughts to the holy and most blessed fathers. And Abbot Moses and Germanus declare in a lengthy discourse in ✝[53] Cassian: Harmful thoughts hold dominion over us so long as they are hidden in the heart – And therefore all things that arise in our hearts are to be carried to the elders, lifting the veil of embarrassment – Otherwise it happens that while we keep them within ourselves and blush to reveal them to the elders, we are unable to find remedies. So too Abbot Theonas (as the same ✝[54] Moses reports) used to discourse before Serapio and the younger monks whom he had under him about the domination of hidden thoughts, explaining their nature and the atrocious power they had so long as they were concealed. Equally too ✝[55] Abbot Poemen said, In nothing does the enemy so much rejoice as in the man who is unwilling to reveal his thoughts. This sentiment is also attributed to Antony himself: If it is possible, a monk ought to declare to the elders, how many steps he walks or how many cups of water he drinks in his cell, so that he may not go astray in them. This practice then is rightly to be attributed to Antony, the originator and common father of the monks. And there is no doubt that what Antony proclaimed held the status of established law among them all. And this was the ori{g}
And not only did the young men go to see the old men, but also the old men used to travel around the deserts in order to give strength to the weak. For it is reported in the Lives of the fathers translated by Pelagius that a certain elder used to say: That our fathers had a practice of coming to the cells of the new brothers who wished to live solitary, and used to make visitations to them, lest any of them should be tempted by the demons and harmed by his own thoughts. Anyone who was found to be harmed they brought to the church, and a bowl of water was set down there, and prayers were said for the one who was suffering from temptations, and all the brothers washed their hands in the bowl, and the water was sprinkled over the brother who was in temptation, and thus immediately that brother was purged. From these words it seems that this practice was most prevalent in the early days of Monasticism and gave a start to confession before the elders, and once this doctrine of confession had been sufficiently promoted, the practice gradually went out of use, as the fathers no longer travelled around the deserts, but the junior monks approached the fathers as the occasion arose./ They meant therefore that the lighter sins of thought were thus washed away by blessed water. But to allay the pains of more serious sins the Elders prescribed some formula of penitence.
[Editorial Note 1] 'Preface'
[Editorial Note 2] This is Newton's usual spelling of this word, which in Greek is ὁμοούσιον, homoousion..
[Editorial Note 3] Ariminum.
[Editorial Note 4] Greek οὐσία, ousia, 'being'
[Editorial Note 5] Greek ὑπόστασις, hypostasis.
[Editorial Note 6] 'species'. I do not know how to translate 'species' here, but Souter, Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D. (Oxford: Clarendon 1949) gives εἶδος as the Greek equivalent, and I have also seen the phrase 'of one substance in kind' used in this context (Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ed. Milman, ch. 21, n. 58).
[Editorial Note 7] 'omnium malorum'; more literally 'all the evils'.
[Editorial Note 8] 'casus'.
[Editorial Note 9] Cf. Yahuda 2.3, f 70r ff.
[Editorial Note 10] 'Eremus', from Greek ἔρημος (erēmos). Newton or his sources also use 'desertum' and 'solitudo'. I have not normally attempted to distinguish them in translation, using 'desert' throughout.
[Editorial Note 11] Similar material in Yahuda 2.5b, f 42v.
[1] ✝ Athanasius in the Life of Antony[Editorial Note 12]
[Editorial Note 12] Cf. St. Athanasius, Select Works and Letters (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 4, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1998), pp. 195-221.
[Editorial Note 13] See editorial note 16 below for the reference to Baronius.
[Editorial Note 14] Cf. Latopolis, a town on the Nile south of Thebes.
[Editorial Note 15] This seems not to be in Athanasius's Apology for his Flight, but in Letter XLIX; see St. Athanasius, Select Works and Letters (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 4), p. 560.
[2] ✝ under the year 328. 23, 24
[Editorial Note 16] In the edition I consulted (Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici (Lucca, 1730-46)), the passage is at vol. 4, p. 215. In addition to the discrepancies noted below, Newton's transcription differs in some small details from this edition. Newton possessed Baronius, Caesar, Annales Ecclesiastici, 12 vols. in 6 (Coloniae Agrippinae 1609-13). Harrison 120.
[3] ✝ under the year 340.7[Editorial Note 17]
[Editorial Note 17] Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici (Lucca, 1730-46), vol. 4, p. 342.
[4] ✝ Jerome, To Principia, Epistle 6[Editorial Note 18]
[Editorial Note 18] Jerome, Epistles, 127.5. See Saint-Jerôme, Lettres, ed. J. Labourt (Paris: Les belles lettres 1961), vol. 7, p. 140-41 and Select Letters of St. Jerome, ed. and tr. F.A. Wright (London 1933), Loeb Classical Library, p. 448-9.
[Editorial Note 19] The sentence as given in the MS can't be construed. I have translated 'ignominiosum', as in Baronius, Labourt and Wright.
[Editorial Note 20] Here 'Papa' refers to a 'Bishop', as also in f 13r. Later (f 15r) Newton uses it of 'Pope' Siricius. Cf. Souter, Glossary of Later Latin, sv papa.
[Editorial Note 21] Servius Sulpicius, Life of St. Martin, ch. 6, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second series, vol. 11 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1991), p. 7. Cf. Yahuda 2.3, f 1r.
[5] ✝ in the Life of Hillarion.[Editorial Note 22]
[Editorial Note 22] Jerome's 'Life of Hilarion' is translated in Jerome, Letters and Select Works, (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 6), p. 303 ff.
[Editorial Note 23] Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici (Lucca, 1730-46), vol. 5, pp. 30-1.
[Editorial Note 24] Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici (Lucca, 1730-46), vol. 5, p. 180. Baronius gives the title of Gregory's work as De silentio in jejunio, 'On silence during fasting'.
[Editorial Note 25] Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 3.14.31. Sozomène, Histoire ecclésiastique, ed. and tr. Sabbah and Festugière, 3 vols. (Paris : Les éditions du Cerf 1996), vol. 2, pp. 132-3.
[Editorial Note 26] Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici (Lucca, 1730-46), vol. 4, pp. 214-15.
[6] ✝ in the eighth year of Valentinian. Gregory of Tours.
[Editorial Note 27] Possidius, Life of Augustine, ch. 5.
[Editorial Note 28] 'monasterium', like the Greek μοναστήριον (monastērion), originally meant 'monk's cell' or 'eremite's cell'; from the fourth century on it means 'monastery' in a communal sense; see Souter, Glossary, Lampe, Patristic Greek Lexicon.
[Editorial Note 29] 'coenobium', like the Greek κοινόβιόν (koinobion), means a 'community of religious' (Souter, Lampe).
[7] Augustine, On the Morals of the Church, ch. 33'.[Editorial Note 30]
[Editorial Note 30] Cf. 'On the Morals of the Catholic Church' §33 in a volume of St. Augustine's writings in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 4, (Buffalo 1887), p. 60.
[8] ✝ Evagrius in the lives of the Holy fathers, ch. 5.
[Editorial Note 31] A comparable passage is found in Historia Monachorum in Aegypto, ed. A.-J. Festugière (Bruxelles: Sociétéé des Bollandistes), ch. 5 'On Oxyrhynchus'.
[Editorial Note 32] Greek text in Cuthbert Butler, ed., The Lausiac History of Palladius, repr. 2 vols. in 1 (Hildesheim: Georg Olms 1967). A not very faithful English translation is Palladius, The Lausiac History, tr. Robert T. Meyer (London 1965). The Lausiac History of Palladius, tr. W.K. Lowther Clarke (London/New York: Macmillan 1918) seemed to be better. The Latin version N. is using in this MS differs from Butler's Greek text at various points. Newton owned Palladii Divi Evagrii Discipuli Lausiaca quae dicitur historia, et Theodoreti Episcopi Cyri Θεόφιλὴς, id est religiosa historia (Paris 1555). Harrison 1233.
[Editorial Note 33] There does not seem to be a life of Apollo in the Lausiac History, though there is a life of Apollonius, which refers to five thousand monks whom he visited and supplied with necessities. There is a life of Apollo in the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto, (ed. Festugière), pp. 46-71.
[9] ✝ Lives of the Holy Fathers, ch. 5.
[Editorial Note 34] This appears to be Rufinus of Aquileia, Historia Monachorum seu Liber de Vitis Patrum; it is printed in Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 21, col. 387 ff. Our passage is at col. 408C. I have also consulted the Greek text: Historia Monachorum in Aegypto, ed. A,-J. Festugière (Paris : Société des Bollandistes 1961); see ch. 5 'On Oxyrhynchus', §4. On Rufinus's translation of this work see Adalbert de Vogüé, Histoire littéraire du movement monastique dans l'antiquité, 8 vols. (Paris: Les éditions du Cerf 1991-), vol. 3, p. 317ff.
[10] ✝ Jerome in the Life of Hillarion and in Isa. 20.[Editorial Note 35]
[Editorial Note 35] Jerome's 'Life of Hilarion' is translated in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series, vol. 6, pp. 303-15; 'in Isa.' might be Jerome's Commentary on Isaiah.
[Editorial Note 36] Servius Sulpicius, Letter 3, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second series, vol. 11, p. 23.
[Editorial Note 37] Cf. Jerome, Epistle 127, To Principia, §8; cf. Saint Jerôme, Lettres, ed. Labourt, vol. 7, p. 143.
[11] ✝ Bk. 16 'On Penalties', Theodosian Code'[Editorial Note 38]
[Editorial Note 38] This looks like Codex Theodosianus, ed. Krueger and Mommsen (1904/2000), bk. 9, title 40 (De poenis), §16. Cf. The Theodosian Code, ed. and tr. C. Pharr (Princeton 1952), p. 257.
[Editorial Note 39] Zosimus, Historia Nova [New History], 5.23.4. Cf. Zosime, Histoire nouvelle, ed. F. Paschoud, 4 vols. (Paris: Les belles lettres 1971-89), vol. 3(1), p. 35-6.
[Editorial Note 40] Cf. Yahuda 2.3, f 73r ff.
[12] ✝ Jerome, Epitaph for Paula, To Eustochium.[Editorial Note 41]
[Editorial Note 41] Jerôme, Lettres, ed. Labourt, 108.14 in vol. 5, p. 108.
[Editorial Note 42] Here 'Papa' refers to a 'Bishop'; cf. f 9r and fn. 37 above (of Athanasius). Aurelius is described as bishop ('episcopus') of Carthage at 'insertion from f 18v' below; cf. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley: University of California Press 1969), p. 143.
[Editorial Note 43] Cf. Yahuda 2.3, f 73r.
[13] ✝ In Ambrose, sermon 69 on the birthday of Eusebius of Vercellae.
[Editorial Note 44] See Ambrose, Sermon 56 'De Natali sancti Eusebii Vercellensis episcopi', sects. 3 and 4 in Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 17, cols. 720A-B in the version online.
[Editorial Note 45] Pontificium here is 'Episcopate', not 'Papacy'. See Souter, Glossary and the Dictionary of Medieval Latin.
[Editorial Note 46] Ambrose, Epistulae et Acta, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 82/3 (Vienna 1982), Epistulae extra collectionem, 14.66 on p. 270.
[Editorial Note 47] 'integritas'; cf. 35r below and fn. 161, where I translate it as 'physical integrity'. For this 'monastic' meaning of 'integritas', see the Dictionary of Medieval Latin.
[Editorial Note 48] Ambrose, Epistulae et Acta, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 82/3, Epistulae extra collectionem, 14.71 on p. 273.
[14] ✝ Sermons on various subjects, 28 or 48.[Editorial Note 49]
[Editorial Note 49] Cf. f 11r above.
[15] ✝ in the life of Augustine.[Editorial Note 50]
[Editorial Note 50] Possidius, 'Life of St. Augustine', ch. 11, in Early Christian Biographies, ed. Roy J. Defferari (Washington: Catholic University of America press 1952), p. 85. Fathers of the Church series.
[16] ✝ in the life of Martin.[Editorial Note 51]
[Editorial Note 51] Sulpicius Severus, Life of Martin, ch. 10, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 11, p. 9.
[17] ✝ Dialogues 3. ch. 20.[Editorial Note 52]
[Editorial Note 52] Sulpicius Severus, Dialogues, 3.15, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 11, p. 53.
[Editorial Note 53] 'Papa' here refers to a 'Pope'. For the passage of Siricius quoted in the text, cf. Migne, Patrologia Latina vol. 13, col. 1144B (online).
[18] ✝ Bk. 32 on Bishops and the Clergy, Theodosian Code.[Editorial Note 54]
[Editorial Note 54] Codex Theodosianus, ed. Krueger and Mommsen (1904/2000), bk. 16, title 2 (De episcopis, ecclesiis et clericis), §32; translation at Pharr, p. 446.
[Editorial Note 55] Cf. Yahuda 2.3, f 77r.
[19] ✝ Under the year 394. 9, 10.[Editorial Note 56]
[Editorial Note 56] Cf. Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici (Lucca, 1730-46), vol. 6, pp. 146-7.
[Editorial Note 57] Canon 35..
[Editorial Note 58] Canon 50.
[Editorial Note 59] Canon 34.
[Editorial Note 60] Canon 33.
[20] Canon 9.[Editorial Note 61]
[Editorial Note 61] Cf. The Seven Ecumenical Councils, ed. H.R. Percival in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 14, p. 67, Canon X.
[21] ✝ Canon 4[Editorial Note 62]
[Editorial Note 62] Cf. The Seven Ecumenical Councils, ed. H.R. Percival in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 14, p. 93, Canon IV.
[22] Canon 3[Editorial Note 63]
[Editorial Note 63] Cf. Percival, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second series, vol. 14, p. 11.
[Editorial Note 64] It does not seem to be clear exactly what this term means; cf. Percival, p. 11. Souter, Glossary: 'secretly introduced'; Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-List (London: Oxford University Press 1965): 'woman living in priest's house'.
[23] ✝ Epistle 198 to Paregorius[Editorial Note 65]
[Editorial Note 65] Cf. Letter 55 in Saint Basil, The Letters, ed. and tr. Roy J. Deferrari, 4 vols. (London/Cambridge Mass., 1961), vol. 1, pp. 346-51.
[Editorial Note 66] For this letter see Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 13, col. c. 1139A (online).
[Editorial Note 67] Cf. 1 Timothy, 3.2.
[Editorial Note 68] Newton's abbreviation of this passage obscures the meaning. The 'he' in 'not in order that he might be encouraged' refers to the priest. See Ambrose, Epistulae et Acta, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 82/3, Epistulae extra collectionem, 14.62 (on p. 267).
[24] ✝ in the Concilia of Binius, vol. 1, p 473.[Editorial Note 69]
[Editorial Note 69] This looks like Binius, Severinus, Concilia generalia, etc. Harrison 224. For the decree of Liberius, cf. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 8, col. 1409A (online).
[25] canon 7.
[26] ✝ canon 2.
[Editorial Note 70] Arelate.
[Editorial Note 71] nisi fuerit promissa conversio; the translation of 'conversio' as 'profession of monastic vows' comes from the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources.
[27] ✝ in the life of Hilary in Sur.[Editorial Note 72]
[Editorial Note 72] Venantius Fortunatus, 'Life of Hilary', III (8). See Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, vol. IV, part 2, pp. 1-7 'Vita Sancti Hilarii'. Could Sur. be Laurentius Surius, a prolific 16th century hagiographer?
[Editorial Note 73] The story of Hilary's daughter is in Venantius Fortunatus, 'Life of Hilary', VI (18-20) and XIII (46-8).
[Editorial Note 74] Cf. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 13, cols. 1160A, 1161A.
[Editorial Note 75] Titus 1.15.
[Editorial Note 76] Romans 8.8.
[28] Canon 25 in the Code of the Councils of the Africans, in reality Canon 3 of the Council of Carthage III.[Editorial Note 77]
[Editorial Note 77] Cf. The Seven Ecumenical Councils, ed. H.R. Percival in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 14, p. 454, Canon XXV.
[29] Canon 19.
[30] ✝ As appears in the Code of the Canons of the Africans.[Editorial Note 78]
[Editorial Note 78] Cf. Percival, p. 444 ff.
[Editorial Note 79] Homily 2 On the Patience of Job.
[Editorial Note 80] Cf. Epiphanius, Panaria, ed. F. Oehler, 3 vols. (Berlin 1859), bk. 2, tome 1, Heresy 59.4.
[Editorial Note 81] Epiphanius, Panaria, bk. 3, tome 2, 'Expositio fidei Catholicae', ch. 20.
[Editorial Note 82] Newton appears to have omitted the word 'ordine', which appears in the Latin translation of Epiphanius' text.
[Editorial Note 83] 'On Adulterous Marriages'. 'De adulterinis conjugiis', 2.xvii.18 in Sancti Aureli Augustini, De fide et symbolo [and other treatises], ed. J. Zycha, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 41 (Vindobonae 1900). It is translated in Saint Augustine, Treatises on Marriage and Other Subjects, tr. C.W. Wilcox et al., Fathers of the Church, vol. 27 (Washington 1955: Catholic University Press of America), p. 125-6.
[Editorial Note 84] Cf. Matthew 5.31-2.
[Editorial Note 85] This is the translation that the argument seems to require, but the Latin might more naturally be taken to mean 'abstained with the consent of their wives'.
[Editorial Note 86] 'De adulterinis conjugiis', 2.xx.22 in Sancti Aureli Augustini, De fide et symbolo [and other treatises], ed. J. Zycha, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 41; Treatises, tr. C.W. Wilcox, p. 131.
[Editorial Note 87] Cf. Possidius, Life of Augustine, ch. 4; Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, pp. 138-39.
[Editorial Note 88] 'consoletur' (subj.) in MS; 'consolatur' (indic.) in text of Augustine.
[Editorial Note 89] Augustine's text has 'in Christi hereditate' ['in the inheritance of Christ'] for Newton's 'in Christo'.
[31] In the life of Moses, ch. 22.[Editorial Note 90]
[Editorial Note 90] Cf. Palladius, Lausiac History, ed. Butler, 19 'Moses the Robber', p. 60; Clarke, 19. 5 (p. 86); Meyer, 19.5 (p. 67).
[Editorial Note 91] 'tertio' corresponds to nothing in Butler's Greek text.
[Editorial Note 92] 'paulatim' corresponds to nothing in Butler's Greek text.
[Editorial Note 93] Greek νηφόντως, nēphontōs.
[Editorial Note 94] Palladius, Lausiac History, 19. 11.
[32] In Palladius in the life of Elias.[Editorial Note 95]
[Editorial Note 95] Palladius, Lausiac History, ed. Butler, 29. Cf. Meyer, pp. 88-90. Clarke, 109-10.
[Editorial Note 96] Normally spelt 'exsecuisse', but it does look like 'execuisse' in the MS
[33] In Palladius in the life of Elias.[Editorial Note 95]
[Editorial Note 97] This story is actually in the life of Pachon in Lausiac History, ed. Butler, 23; cf. Meyer, pp. 81-3, Clarke, 101-3.
[Editorial Note 98] The Greek here is πανέρημος, panerēmos ('absolute desert', Lampe, Patristic Greek Lexicon), whereas a few lines before it is the usual ἔρημος, erēmos. The translator translates both by solitudo.
[Editorial Note 99] This final sentence, which does not appear in some MSS of Palladius, was excised by Butler, and does not appear in Meyer and Clarke.
[34] Epistle to Rusticus.[Editorial Note 100]
[Editorial Note 100] Jerome, Epistle 125.12, translated in St. Jerome, Letters and Select Works, (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 6, p. 248; also in Select Letters of St. Jerome, ed. and tr. F.A. Wright (London 1933) in the Loeb Classical Library, pp. 418-19; Saint-Jerôme, Lettres, ed. J. Labourt (Paris: Les belles lettres 1961), vol. 7, p. 124-5.
[35] Epistle to Eustochium on the Preservation of Virginity.[Editorial Note 101]
[Editorial Note 101] Jerome, Epistles 22.7, ed. J. Labourt, vol. 1, p. 117; ed. and tr. F.A. Wright, pp. 66-9.
[Editorial Note 102] Romans, 7.24.
[36] ✝ Epistle to Nepotianus.[Editorial Note 103]
[Editorial Note 103] Jerome, Epistles 52.1; ed. and tr. F.A. Wright, pp. 188-89; Jerome, Letters and Select Works, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second series, vol. 6, p. 89.
[Editorial Note 104] Jerome, 'Life of St. Hilarion' in Jerome, Letters and Select Works, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second series, vol. 6, p. 304.
[37] ✝ inducam[Editorial Note 105]
[Editorial Note 105] 'I will lead you through heat and cold'.
[38] ✝ in Rosweydus in the Lives of the Fathers.[Editorial Note 106]
[Editorial Note 106] Cf. Heribertus Rosweydus, ed., Vitae Patrum De Vita et Verbis Seniorum libri X (Antwerp 1615). There is a Life of Pachomius in the Lausiac History, ed. Butler, 32. In the translation in Meyer, 92 ff. the story of the bronze tablet is at §1 ff.; the seven thousand monks are in §8. The stories about the demon and the beautiful women seem not to appear.
[Editorial Note 107] Athanasius, 'Life of Antony', 6-7 in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 4, pp. 195-221.
[39] ✝ Ruffinus in the Lives of the Fathers, bk. 2, sec. 35.[Editorial Note 108]
[Editorial Note 108] Cf. Rufinus of Aquileia, Historia Monachorum seu Liber de Vitis Patrum in Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 21, col. 387 ff., but I have not been able to find this reference to Pachomius.
[40] ✝ ib. sec 174
[41] bk. 10, sec. 4 in Rosweydus, bk. 5.
[Editorial Note 109] Perhaps this is the pope Pelagius I, who 'as a deacon ... made a Latin translation of selections of the 5th. century Greek Sayings of the Elders' (J.N.D. Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes (Oxford 1986), p. 63).
[42] ibid., bk. 1, sec. 9.
[43] ibid. bk. 7, sec. 24.
[44] ibid. bk. 1, sec. 62.
[Editorial Note 110] 'hae' refers to 'voluntates nostrae', 'our wills'.
[45] ibid. bk. 11, sec. 43.
[46] ibid., bk. 5, sec. 5.
[47] ✝ Lausiac History, ch. 59[Editorial Note 111]
[Editorial Note 111] I cannot find this in the Lausiac History, but cf. Rufinus, Historia monachorum, ch. 11 in Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 21, col. 431B (online). A similar story is told about an Abbot Helles, presumably the same person, in Historia monachorum in Aegypto, 12.12-14 (ed. Festugière, p. 96).
[48] Conference 22, ch. 2, 3.
[Editorial Note 112] John Cassian, Collationes, bk. 22, sects. 2 and 3. Cf. Jean Cassian, Conférences, ed. and tr. E. Pichery (Paris: Editions du Cerf 1955-9), vol. 3, pp. 114-8; John Cassian, Conferences, tr. B. Ramsey (New York: Paulist Press 1997), Ancient Christian Writers no. 57, pp. 763-5.
[Editorial Note 113] Cassian, Collationes, 22. 2. tr. Ramsey, p.763.
[Editorial Note 114] 'integritas'
[Editorial Note 115] Cassian, Collationes, 22.6; tr. Ramsey, p. 765.
[Editorial Note 116] 'consumptio corporis'; could this be the disease of 'consumption'?
[Editorial Note 117] I can't follow the grammar of this sentence, though it is correctly transcribed. I have translated it as if it was 'eis qui' instead of 'quae'.
[49] ✝ Evagrius, On Eight evil thoughts, in the Bibl. S. Patr.[Editorial Note 118]
[Editorial Note 118] Evagrius Ponticus, 'On eight evil thoughts' is available in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 40, cols. 1271-78; our passage is at col. 1271. 'Bibl. S. Patr.' presumably stands for 'Bibliotheca Sanctorum Patrum', 'the Library of the Holy Fathers'.
[Editorial Note 119] Newton omits a clause, and destroys the structure of the sentence. It should run: 'Atque animam inficiens, ad ejusmodi opera deprimit, et dicere et rursus', etc; 'And poisoning their soul he degrades them to actions of that sort and makes them both speak and hear words, exactly as if the thing itself were being seen and were at hand.'
[50] ✝ The Greek Author translated by John the subdeacon, sect. 34 in Rosweydus
[51] ✝ Cassian on the institutes of the Coenobites, bk. 12, ch. 20.[Editorial Note 120]
[Editorial Note 120] Cassianus, De Institutis Coenobiorum, ed. M. Petschenig, 2nd. edn. (Wien 2004), Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 17. John Cassian, The Institutes, tr. B. Ramsey, Ancient Christian Writers no. 58 (New York: Newman Press 2000), p. 265-6.
[52] ✝ Lives of the fathers, bk. 2, ch. 9.
[53] ✝ Conferences, 2, ch. 10, 11, 12, 13.[Editorial Note 121]
[Editorial Note 121] Cassianus Collationes XXIIII, 2.10-12, ed. M. Petschenig, 2nd. edn. (Wien 2004). Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 13.
[54] ✝ ibid. conference 2, ch. 11.
[55] ✝ In Rufinus, 'lives of the fathers', bk. 2, sec. 177.
