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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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75 Pages
Page 13
A few words may be added on the evidence of the Vita as to the form and motive of early monachism. In the Life of Anthony, the stages are (1) ascetics living in the towns and villages, not withdrawn from society (S:S:3, 4); (2) solitary monasticism in the desert, away from human society; and, as the fame of Anthony increases, (3) the formation (S:44) of clusters of cells centering round some natural leader, the germ of the laura (such as the community of Tabennae under Pachomius). Of organised monastic communities the Vita tells us nothing. With regard to the motive of the earliest monasticism, this has been variously sought in (1) the development of the ascetic element present in Christianity from the very first; (2) in the influence of the Alexandrian School, especially Origen, who again is influenced by the spirit of revolt against the body and detachment from the world which characterised neo-Platonism (see Bornemann's work mentioned above); (3) in the persecutions, which drove Christians to the desert (Eus. H. E. vi. 42), which some adopted as their home; (4) to the (not necessarily conscious) imitation of analogous heathen institutions, especially the societies of hagneuontes which were gathered round or in the temples of Serapis (Weingarten, R. E., X. 779-785. Revillout, p. 480 n, refers to Zoega, p. 542, for the fact that Pachomius himself was a monk of Serapis before his forced baptism by his Christian neighbours; and that after it he continued his ascetic life with no external difference. (5) To the desire to avoid civil obligations, already marked in the Rescript of Valens (Cod. Th. xii. 1. 63, quidam ignauiae sectatores desertis civitatum muneribus, &c.). Of the above motives the Vita gives no support to any but the first, which it directly confirms, and perhaps indirectly to the second. The date of the Vita depends mainly on the view to be taken of S:82, where see note 16.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/anthony-life.asp?pg=13
