We're beginning today the monastic sources verbal this year and in general the syllabus so that you have some idea of what we're going to be doing is we'll take, first of all, today, the background of the Vitae Patrum, just what we mean by the Vitae Patrum. And then secondly, we'll go into the life of Anthony. So I asked you to read the life of Anthony. It's in the Ancient Christian Writers and also in the Fathers of the Church Incorporated. In the Fathers of the Church, it's called Ancient Biographies or Biographies of the Elders or something like that. Ancient Christian Writers, it's one volume, by Mayer, M-A-Y-E-R. After The Life of Anthony, we'll take the Apothegmata, or The Sayings of the Fathers, and you'll be asked to read that. Then The Lousiac History, and we also have a translation of that in English.

[01:08]

And then we go into Pocomius, then John Cashion, and if we have time, Basil and Augustine, and then some other monastic rules. So that's the general outline. When we talk about the Vitae Patrem, As soon as we talk about Vitae Patrum, we're talking about ancient monastic documents. And the thing about this Vitae Patrum is that it includes various kinds, various types of writings. In the Rule of Benedict, we have references to this Vitae Patrum three times. You may recall in Chapter 18 on the Divine Office, and in what order the Psalms are to be said, at the end of that chapter, towards the end, he talks about arranging the Psalter according to one's disposition, if they don't like the way it's done in the Rule of Benedict.

[02:19]

Provided always that he take care that the Psalter, with its full 150 Psalms, be chanted every week and be gone afresh every Sunday at Matins. So you can arrange the Psalms any way you want, just so you be sure you say 150 of them. Then he says, for those monks show themselves very slothful in their sacred service, who in the course of the week sing less than the Psalter and the customary canticles. Then verse 25, whereas we read that our holy fathers and its Santos Patres, Nostros. Strenuously fulfilled in a single day what I pray that we lukewarm monks may perform in a whole week." So he's referring back to our Holy Fathers and what he's referring back to really is a story which we find in the collection called the Vitae Patrum. Now he doesn't use the term Vitae Patrum there but In Book 5 of the Vitae Patrum, and we'll see what these books mean, in chapter 4, verse 57, we have the following little story. An old man came to a father who cooked a few lentils and said, let us worship God and eat afterwards.

[03:29]

One of them recited the whole Psalter. The other read and meditated upon two of the greater prophets. And in the morning the old man went away and they forgot to eat their food. See, the story is that this guy comes and says, well, let's pray first. And in praying, one guy recited the whole Psalter. In many ways, this is a satire, because it's sort of a dumb thing to do, to come to eat with somebody and pray a little bit before you eat, and then spend the whole night in prayer and forget what you came for, to share a meal with them. But Benedict is referring back to this text, where our father's in the desert, said to Hohsalter in one day. Yeah, but how? He forgot what he was doing and he said to Hohsalter. So in some ways he's laughing up his sleeve about saying our fathers in the desert said to Hohsalter every day. But he's referring back to this story in the Vitae Patrum. Now, in the other two places in the Rule of Benedict, he specifies Vitae Patrum in chapter 42, verse 3.

[04:34]

Chapter 42 is on not speaking after Compton. And in verse 3 we say that On a non-fast day, as soon as they have risen from supper, let them all sit together in one place, and let a brother read the Conferences of Passion, or the Lives of the Fathers, or something else that may edify the hearers." So, after Lumière, and before Kaplan, sort of introduction to Kaplan, they sit together and they read. Now, it says here, the Conferences And McCann's translation says, of Cassian. In the Latin text, it just says Collationes. It doesn't specify John Cassian. Now, I'll mention that again, but it's just the conferences. Or the lives of the fathers, the Vitas Patrem. So, after supper, the monks are to read these things in common, it's a common exercise, and it's for edification. to edify one another. Apparently these things were read rather frequently, and daily this reading took place if you had supper, at least.

[05:38]

So, during the whole season of the year, during the Paschal season, when you had supper, you would be reading either the Conferences or the Vitae Patrum. So, apparently we were quite familiar with these things, having heard them over and over again. And later on, in Chapter 73, at the end of the Rule, where Benedict says that not everything has been written in this little Rule for beginners, He says, "...then the conferences of Cassian and his institutes, and the lives of the fathers, as also the rule of our Holy Father Basil." These are a good rule of life. The scriptures, the Catholic Fathers, then Cassian, the conferences, the institutes, the lives of the fathers. Vitae aeorum, the lives of the fathers. Now, in this text, again, he doesn't say John Cashion. That's another thing that McCann does. When he says collationes, he says, well, that must be the collationes of John Cashion, because we'll see that John Cashion did write collationes, or conferences. But in the text, it says collationes patrum, so the conferences of the fathers, and their institutes and lives.

[06:46]

Apparently this is a generic term again, of conferences, just as the Vitae Patrum, and we'll see in the Vitae Patrum exactly what this entails. One sort of point on this John Cashin problem is that there were other monastic writings called conferences besides the writings of John Cashin, so there's no need to specify these as merely the conferences of Cashin. For instance, there's a statement by Gennadius in his book It's probably the Dearest Illustrious, but I'm not sure what the title of the book is. But it says, Severus wrote conferences concerning the conversatio of the Oriental monks and also the life of Martin. So you see right away that the term is used in a generic sense, the collationes, which concern the conversatio or the way of life of the Oriental monks. This is Severus who wrote that, not John Cashin. So Benedict, in talking about collationes, could be talking about a type of monastic literature which was available to him, and not referring only to John Cashin, including John Cashin, but not only referring to John Cashin.

[07:59]

The only person that Benedict mentions by name is our Holy Father Basil, which is very interesting and tells us that Basil is pretty important for understanding the mentality of the rule of Benedict. He does not mention John Cashion by name. So we see that the Rule of Benedict uses this Vitae Patrum once in this story, allusion to the story, and then twice specifying the Vitae Patrum. Now, what do we mean by the Vitae Patrum? In English, it's lives of the fathers. Well, in 1615, a Jesuit scholar by the name of Herbert Roseweed, R-O-S-W-E-Y-D, put out what he would call sort of a critical edition of the Latin tradition of monastic writings which he calls the Vitae Patrum. So if you look in the Mean Patrology, in the Latin series, do you know what the Mean Patrology is? If you look in there, in volumes 73 and 74, you find this collection called the Vitae Patrum, and it's in ten so-called books.

[09:04]

Now this is the 17th century when he finally put this edition out. But he was basing this collection, his text, on 8th and 9th century manuscripts which probably reflect a 5th and 6th century tradition. So it's possible that the same thing he calls Vitae Patrum is exactly what Benedict would include in the Vitae Patrum, although it's not exactly because we'll see some of the things that he includes in the Vitae Patrum weren't translated at the time that Benedict wrote. but it would be the general collection of monastic writings. So it's found in volumes 73 and 74 of Latin Patrology of Mean and consists of ten books. Eight of the books are in volume 73 and two books are in volume 74. Now just very briefly what these ten books are. and what its official title is, the Vitae Patrum Sive Historiae Eremitiae Libri Decem. So the lives of the fathers, that is, the ten books of the history of the hermits.

[10:07]

So right away it tells you it's about eremitical life. But a lot of the things that are said there are not merely eremitical, it's bigger than that. But basically it is eremitic tradition and the tradition of the desert. Book one is The Lives of the Fathers. I'll go through this again in more detail, but I just want to give you the ten books. The first book is The Lives of the Fathers. The second is what we call The History of Monks by Rufinus. The third is a collection of Verba Seniorum, or Sayings of the Elders, by Refinance. The fourth book is Selections from Sopetius Severus and John Cashion. Notice he's got both of those together, the person that I mentioned to you that Severus wrote Collationes, and John Cashion. And it puts them both together, selections from them, in book four of the Dite Patrum. Book five is the Verba Seniorum, translated by Pelagius the Deacon. You recall when we were talking about the authenticity of the rule of Benedict, and I said that one of the ways of dating that was we knew that Pelagius had translated certain sayings of the Fathers in a particular date, between 535 and 550, or 527 and 550.

[11:17]

And Benedict used that. And this is what is in that book, this Book 5 of the Vitae Patrum. So that would have been in existence when Benedict wrote his Rule, Book 5 would have been. Book 6, which is the Verba Seniorum, translated by John the Subdeacon, this is a continuation of the work of Pelagius, was not yet in translation when Benedict wrote his Rule. So this section of the Vitae Patrum would not have been available to Benedict. Book 7 is the Verba Seniorum, translated by Pascasius the Deacon. Now, Pascasius the Deacon is a man who lives, if I'm not mistaken, in Spain, and later than Benedict. So that wouldn't have been available to Benedict. Book 8 is the Lausiac History by Palladius. Book 9 is the Philotheus or Theophiles, which means God-lover. And Book 10 is called the Prathum Spirituale by John Moschus, or the Spiritual Plane.

[12:21]

Just curious, what's the Lausiac? We're going to go into the Lausiac History. What it is, is a travelogue by Palladius, written to a man named Lausus. and therefore it's called the Lauseack History. But that's one of the things that we're going to in more detail. We're going to go into the life of Anthony from Book 1. We're going to go into the Verba Saniorum in Book 5 by Pelagius the Deacon, and also then into Book 8, the Lauseack History. So that's why I want to give you this general feeling of what's in the vitae patrum, because then we're going to take a look at particular aspects of it. I'd like to give you a little more detail about what you find in these ten books of the Vitae Patrum. The Lives of the Fathers. I'm just going to read you a long list of the different lives that are found, and as we go through some of these names, I'm going to point out to you where you can find English translations of these things. Quite a bit of it is available in English, but it's scattered all over the place.

[13:27]

I just want you to have some idea where you can get a hold of it. So, the first book, the Lives of the Fathers, strictly speaking, the Biographies of the Fathers. That's the first book of the Vitae Patrum. According to Roseweed, the Lives of the Fathers was collected by Jerome and other people. Then the first life that he gives is the life of Paul the Hermit. Now, that life of Paul the Hermit is found in this copy of Helen Waddell, The Desert Fathers, two different editions of it, the English and the American edition of it. The American edition, this is for the sake of the dear sisters, the American edition is put out by Ann Arbor, paperback, $2.25, the University of Michigan press, the fifth printing in 1971. And so in there you find the life of Paul the Hermit, which is the first life in this book one of the Vitae Patrum.

[14:35]

Now it's also in, I think that life is also in that early Christian biographies in the Fathers of the Church Incorporated. Now the second life is the life of Anthony. The second life that we find in the first book of the Vincaipatra is the Life of Anthony. That, as I mentioned, is translated by Mayer in Ancient Christian Writers, Volume 10, and then by Sister Keenan in the Fathers of the Church, Volume 15. The Life of Hilarion. This was written by Jerome, and that may be in the Ancient Christian Biographies, too. I'm pretty sure it is. The Life of Saint Malachi, the captive monk. The life of Saint Onufrius, the hermit. Onufrius is famous because he's the man who only wore a beard. And you see in all of the pictures of his icons, this hermit who has nothing. Sometimes he has a little garland of ivy around. But usually he just has a huge, long, flowing beard.

[15:41]

And he lived in the desert in nakedness, which is a theme of the desert monks. The nudity of Christ. And so Onufrius is famous for being the man with the beard. Then you have the life of Pocomius, the abbot of Tavinesi, interpreted by Dennis the Little, the Roman abbot. I mentioned that when we talked about the authenticity of the rule of Benedict. In 527, Dennis the Little translated the Greek life of Pocomius into Latin. And that's the translation, then, that is collected into this Vitae Patrum, Book 1. So, the life of Pocomius. The life of St. Abraham, Hermit, by the deacon Ephraim. The life of St. Basil, the Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. The life of St. Ephraim, the Syrian, the deacon of Edessa. The life of St. Simon Thylidius. All of these famous hermits and saints of the desert are in this book. The life of St. John, the almsgiver.

[16:42]

The life of Saint Epictetus, a priest, and Astonius, monk. The life of Saint Macarius the Roman. Now, when you come to Macarius, there are various Macarii. There's Macarius of Alexandria, there's Macarius of Rome, a number of different Macarii. This is Macarius of Rome. The life of the Blessed Postumus, the father of 5,000 monks. It was a quite populated monasticism in those days. The life of Saint Frontonio, Abbot. The life of Saints Barlow, the Hermit, and Josaphat, the King of India. The Oriental Church, I think, still celebrates the Feast of Barlam and Josaphat. It's one of the Oriental Feasts. And that's written by John Damascene. The life of Saint Eugenia, virgin and martyred, the life of Saint Euphrasia, virgin, the life of Saint Euphronosia, virgin, and then the life of Saint Mary, the harlot, the niece of the hermit Abraham.

[17:57]

And her life is found in Helen Waddell. the life of Mary the harlot. Then you have another harlot, St. Thais, P-H-A-I-S. She's another one of these people who were converted and became a nun. The life of St. Pelagia, also a harlot, and that's found in Waddell, in the Desert Fathers. The life of St. Mary of Egypt, also a harlot. The life of St. Marina, Virgin, the life of Blessed Fabiola, The life of Saint Paula, the Roman widow, and this was written by Jerome, they were great friends, Paula and Jerome. The life of Saint Marcella, widow, also written by Jerome. So notice, those are the lives that you find in this book one of the Vitae Patrum. So that's really where the whole collection gets its name from, because there's where you really have the lives. Now, in the second book you find the history of the monks in Egypt attributed to Rufinus.

[19:01]

There are excerpts of that in Waddell, The Desert Fathers. The third book is the Verba Seniorum. So that's the first of the Verba Seniorum collections. Verba Seniorum means Sayings of the Elders. Now, we're going to go into the Sayings of the Elders, also known as the Apophegnata in Greek, but we'll go into that later. This third book of the Lives of the Fathers, then, is this kind of collection of sayings, and it was collected probably by Rufinus. Now, Rufinus lived at the time of Jerome, so around 400. So, he was already collecting these things and translating them into Latin. There are excerpts of that in Waddell. The fifth book is the... No, the fourth book, excuse me, are excerpts from Sopecius Silvarus and John Cashin. And what you find in the Desert Fathers, you find excerpts of Cassian, excerpts of the excerpts, because the Vitae Patrum made excerpts of Cassian, and now she's come along and she's made excerpts in her translation.

[20:05]

You find the thing on Assyria and of mortification. That's two of John Cassian's institutes, which she has translated. The fifth book is the Verba Saniorum, translated by Pelagius, who later became the Pope. And that's the one that's important for the rule of Benedict. And you find books one ... now, all this book stuff is going to be confusing, but in book five, you have what you call five books of sayings. We would maybe say chapters, but that's not exactly what they're called either, they're called the books. So, actually, what Pelagius and John the Subdeacon did was take a collection of 22 books of sayings, and they each translated part. And Pelagius translated book 1 to 17, and that's book 5 of the Vitae Patrum, and John the Subdeacon continued it, and that's book 6.

[21:07]

So it's really a unit, it should be, because it's broken up in the Latin tradition. But you find this almost complete this book five, translated in Owen Chadwick's book called Western Asceticism, which we have in the library. And this Western Asceticism includes sayings of the Fathers, selections from John Cashin, and a translation of the Rule of Benedict. It's a very interesting translation because Owen Chadwick is quite a good Latin scholar. So we have that too, complete in English. And then there are excerpts in Waddell. Then, with regard to Book 6, which is the Verba Saniorum by John the Subtecan, in Waddell, again, there are selections. Book 7, which is Verba Saniorum, translated by Pascasius, is found in the writers, Fathers of the Church, Incorporated. in Volume 62, called Iberian Fathers Volume 1.

[22:10]

And there you find questions and answers of the Greek fathers, and it's translated by Claude Barlow. So we have that in English, too, that Book 7 of the Deuteronomy. Now, Benedict wouldn't have known that one. Book 8 of the Vitae Patrum is the Lausiac history, the history that was written by Palladius, who later became Bishop of Helenopolis, for a man in the court of the emperor at Constantinople named Lausus. And that's where it gets the name Lausiac History. It was written about 420. Now we have that also complete in translation with a fine introduction in Ancient Christian Writers, Volume 34, translated by Mayer, so you'd be expected to read that too. And then there are excerpts in Helen Waddell. Book 9, which is called the Philotheus or Theophilus, you may remember that name from the Gospel of Luke, or Theophilus, which means God-lover. What exactly this is, I'm not too sure, I haven't read the Latin text and I don't recall ever having seen any English translation of it.

[23:19]

It means the God-lover and it's probably spiritual nose-gaze of some sort, or reflections. The tenth book is the Pratum Spirituale, or the Spiritual Plane, and this is rather a classic by John Moskos. There are selections in Waddell. So that's what that book, those ten books that Roseweed presents us in me consists of. Now, what you notice right away of these different kind of things that are in the Vitae Patrum, you have various kinds of writings. And Owen Chadwick, in his little book on John Cashin, which is the second edition in 1968, in Cambridge, and it's just called John Cashin, which is an excellent little book. And pages 1 to 8 talks about the four different types of monastic documents that the first Christian monks are to put out.

[24:21]

And these four different types are not rigorously distinct, they overlap, but he divides the monastic writings of the early monks into four different types. The first type he calls a collection of sayings. That's really the most primitive type of writing. These are the apothekmeta. Now these apothekmeta, that's the Greek word which comes from means a clear statement, so it's just little pithy sayings, usually. We'll go into those. Also called in Latin the Abhortationes Patrem, or the Exhortations of the Fathers. Also known as the Verba Saniorum, or the Words of the Elders, the Sayings of the Elders. And because these collections of sayings, or the Apothegmata, or part of the Vitae Patrum, this larger collection, you can also call these sayings Vitae Patrum. And frequently when they talk about the Vitae Patrum, they're talking about these sayings. So these words are rather confusing at times. Sometimes they use the term Vitae Patrum when they're referring specifically to the type of collection of Verba Saniorum, or sayings of the Fathers.

[25:29]

And that's what makes it difficult when you're reading a history book. But I'm hoping I'm making some sense of the difference between these things. The Vitae Patrum is the generic term for this whole collection, taken from the first book, which is really Lives of the Fathers. And then the Verba Seniorum is within that collection, but because it's in the collection, it has been also sometimes called the Vitae Patrum. As for instance, the Vitae Patrum Book 5, which Benedict would have known, are really Verba Seniorum. Am I making any sense to you? That's it. And so when you read history books, sometimes it gets awful. You say, well, what in heaven's name are they talking about? One time they used Vitae Patrum. One time they used Verba Sancti. What's the interrelationship between the two? Are they exactly the same or not? These little sayings were collected in various collections and in many different languages. So there was a tradition, for instance, of Coptic sayings, then these things may be in Greek, the Coptic might have just been translated, or there were other sayings which somebody collected and wrote in Greek originally.

[26:35]

They were in Arabic. in Syria, and then you have the Latin translations, and all of these have variants to them. So it's just a big forest of different traditions, but a lot of similarity in the things, but various collections. Now, Roseweed's Vitae Patrum, if you remember, in Book 3, Book 5, Book 6, and Book 7, are these kind of collections of sayings. Those are the Vairabhasena Yoram. Now, we will look at these later when we analyze the Apophegmentos, so we will go into them, and especially into Book 5, which is the one that Benedict used. Another type of monastic writing would be what we call biographies. Now, he says there are two types of biographies. The first is the biography of individual hermits, and the second are collections of sharp biographies. Now, the first type, the examples there are found in Book I of the Vitae Patrum, The Life of Anthony, written by Athanasius in 367 A.D.

[27:41]

A Latin translation was made of this life before 400 by Evadrius, so already it was in existence very early in the Latin West. The life of Paul by Jerome, the life of Poconius. These are the kind of lives that are found in Book 1 of the Vitae Patrem, so that's another type of monastic writing. Now, we're going to look at the life of Anthony first of all, when we start looking at specific things in the Vitae Patron, because it is the earliest document that has been written, as far as we know. I mean, Anthony is considered sort of the father of monks, and then after him you get all of these other writings, but very quickly after him. Now, some of the Apothegmata are certainly as old as the life of Anthony, And in some of the Apothegmata, or the sayings of the fathers, they say, Abbot Anthony said, and then they give you a little saying. So they're very old also, and sort of contemporaneous with the life of Anthony. But the first actual document that we have that's been stabilized is the life of Anthony, and that's why we look at it first.

[28:45]

And then after that, we'll take a look at the apothecary. Now, the second type of biography, or the second type under this second major category, are collections of short biographies like the Lausiac History of Calendris. Now, what Galatian history is, Pliny goes on a journey to Egypt and to the Orient. And as he travels around, he writes stories of people that he's met, and stories that they tell him about people that he knew. So incorporated into this travelogue are these stories of hermits and of monks. So it's a type of biography. But notice it also belongs to the third category that we'll see, the reports of travelers. So it belongs to the biographies and the reports of travelers. This is found in Book 8 of the Vitae Patrum. Also, the history of monks by Rufinus would fit into this sort of collection of biographies. Now, the third main category, with first collection, second biographies, the third is the reports of travelers.

[29:49]

This we have the Lausiac History. on this trip, and he says what he saw. That's Book 8 of the Vitae Patrum. The history of monks by Rufinus fits into that same Category 2, because it's, I think, what seven monks saw in, what they say that they saw in Egypt, and then they wrote the history about it. And that's in Book 2 of the Vitae Patrum. The dialogues of Sepetius Severus also belong to this category because he records what he saw in Egypt. He's traveling around and what he saw he writes down. And the conferences of John Cashion fit into this category of travelogues, because what John Cashion pretends to be doing is giving 24 conferences that he heard the elders in Egypt give when he and Germanus were traveling in Egypt. So see, the literary form is a type of travelogue, although this is not very emphasized. He really emphasized what they said. So his writings really fit into the fourth category, which Chadwick calls ethical divinity.

[30:56]

This is monastic spirituality, and the goal of these kind of writings is to help monks practice the good life and the contemplative life. So John Cashin is very important in this category. And then people like Evagrius would belong here, Evagrius writing on prayer and on the spiritual life. And also what you find in books 9 and 10, the Philotheus and especially the Prophet Spirituality by John Moscos in book 10, that would belong to this ethical divinity. And this gives us the theory of monastic life. Now there are various language traditions of all of these writings, and that's why it gets so complicated. Maybe not so much John Cashin, but everybody else. All of the sayings of the Fathers are in all languages and various types of collections. The same way with Halauziac history, Latin, Greek, Syriac, Coptic, and Arabic, and besides that, the collections have been put together in various ways.

[31:58]

So the little collections, for instance, the Sayings of the Fathers, one of the Book 5 and 6 of the Vitae Patrum, which is a translation of a Greek collection, has been put together a little bit different than the original Greek. And the Greek is a little bit different than maybe you find in the Syriac tradition. Besides that, these little collections are put together in various ways. So that, for instance, We have the Latin collection of the Vitae Patrum of Roseweed, which is based on the Latin traditions of the 8th and 9th century manuscripts, but reflects an earlier Latin tradition. But there's also a Syriac collection, similar to what we would call the Vitae Patrum, which we have an English translation of, called the Paradise of the Fathers. Maybe you've seen that in our libraries, two big volumes. And this is translated by Wallace Budge. Volume 1 and 2 are called The Paradise or the Garden of the Fathers. And then to make it even more complicated, he republished Volume 1 of this Paradise of the Fathers and calls it Stories of the Holy Fathers.

[33:07]

And this contains the life of Anthony, the life of Procumius, the Lauseack history, and the sayings of the fathers. Notice, it's the same ingredients that you had in the Vitae Patrum, but it's just shuffled a little differently. And besides that, the tradition is just a little bit different. So you have to be very careful when you're quoting from the lives of the fathers. What tradition are we talking about? I don't know if you are aware of this Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert. You may have read that. Little Sayings from the Fathers of the Desert, of the 4th century, New Directions book, 1970. And it's got a very fine introduction by Thomas Merton. Then he goes into these little sayings. The problem is, of course it's not a critical thing, but I don't know where he got these things from. Whether he got it from the Syriac tradition, whether he got it from the Latin tradition, the Greek tradition. He doesn't say where he got it from. So when you read something like this, Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, you come across an interesting little story and you say, my goodness, I wonder if Bendig was aware of that story.

[34:15]

But one of the ways you could tell whether he was, if it was in Book 5 of the D.K. Patran, you know already that he had Book 5. Suppose the story is in Book 7, which was translated by Picasius the Deacon. Benedict probably wouldn't have known it, unless he knew it in some other tradition. And that's part of the difficulty, and why it's necessary to specify where you get a text from, so that you can see what the interrelationship is. But I would advise both of you to read this, Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert. It's a very fine little introduction to the whole feeling of the Desert Fathers. It's obvious, then, that there are various collections or traditions of the sayings, biographies, travelogues, and ethical teachings. The Latin collection is known as the Vitae Patrum. The Syriac collection is known usually as the Paradise of the Fathers.

[35:16]

Now, Mike, I want you to read the life of Anthony, and then when we get to the sayings of the Fathers, I want you to read the one that Owen Chadwick has translated, the one that Benedict would have used, that Book 5 of the Vitae Patrum, and the Lausiac History. Joel, if you have time, I would suggest that you read the Syriac tradition. It's going to have the same content, really, but it's going to be in a little bit different form. But it's easy enough, you know, it's two big volumes, but just sort of take your time. It's called The Paradise of the Fathers by Wallace Budge. Now there's, as I mentioned, there's two volumes. Two volumes are in a collection called The Paradise of the Fathers, and it decides that he's put out both volumes, different editions, which are called The Stories of the Fathers. So you might find one or the other, but it's by Wallace Budge. And I was doing one by Chadwick? Chadwick, yeah. But see, you don't have to start on that one yet, Mike.

[36:18]

I want you to read The Life of Anthony first. And if you read the Syriac, then you're going to find The Life of Anthony in there. So you'll find all of these things in there, Joel. There's no problem there. So we see that these larger collections are made up of smaller collections. It's very similar to what's happened in Sacred Scripture with the J-P-D-E traditions, and they're all joined together, and it's like the difference between the Sumerian Pentateuch and the Jerusalem Pentateuch. Pretty much the same, but little bitty differences. There's a variance there, especially when you get to the prophet Jeremiah. You know that in the Septuagint, it's much different than it is in the Hebrew text, which indicates that there were various traditions of the prophet Jeremiah. That's the same kind of thing that you find in monastic sources. So these collections of sayings especially are very complicated, and we'll see that more in detail when we go into the Apophegmata.

[37:21]

Now, I repeat, we plan to look at the life of Anthony, that's what we plan to do first, then the Apophegmata, then the Lausiac history. Remember, these are part of the collection called the Vitae Patrum, and these are things that Benedict would have known. Now, according to the source study of the Rule of Benedict, the Rule uses the following parts of Roseweed's collection. from Book One, The Life of Anthony, The Life of the Roman Macarius, and The Life of Poconius. Now, maybe more, but at least that much. From book two, The History of Monks in Egypt, the rule of Benedict. Now, this is based on Butler's study of the sources. I have to check Dave O'Gray and see if he's brought it more up to date to be able to tell more what Benedict used from this collection that Roseweed established in the 17th century. Book three and book five of the Sames. Book 3, the Verba Seniorum by Ravinus, and Book 5, the Verba Seniorum, translated by Pelagius the deacon.

[38:22]

And then Book 8, the Lausiac History. Now, hopefully, as we go along, we'll get a better picture of this and see the interrelationships and where the dependency is. And as you read these, Mike, be very careful. If something strikes you that you see in the Rule of Benedict, you say, my, that's awful similar. And then it may very well be that this is a source. And you see that Benedict's thinking has been determined by these kind of things that he has read. Now, I'd like to go into a little bit about the procedure for this course that we're having this year. There will be lecture presentations, and for instance, for the life of Anthony, I want you all to read it, and then I will present my own analysis of the life of Anthony and what you can milk out of the text. Now, I want you to read it so that you can be critical if you think that I'm going too far with this. So, there'll be an analysis and a synthesis of these various works, these documents, with reflections on what it really means to us and whether these things are relevant.

[39:32]

Now, why do we read the life of Anthony today? Why waste our time in a 4th century hurt? Who is he to me? So, the necessary reading is that we're going to read as many sources as we can find available in English. The Life of Anthony, Sayings of the Fathers, Lausiac History. When we get to Basel, one of the rules of Basel has been translated. John Cashion has been translated. Augustine, some of his works are translated. His rule is not translated, but there are some modern translations of it. And, possibly by the time we get up there, if we still have time, the Rule of the Master will finally be out in English, and we can go into that. When you read these documents, read critically. In other words, ask the documents questions. I'm going to suggest to you some questions that you can ask. Another thing I would highly recommend is that you read little summary articles in encyclopedias, in books, and in histories. For instance, just look up Anthony in the Catholic Encyclopedia, and it'll give you a very brief little summary of who he is, when he lived, his life, and things like that.

[40:40]

This is always a good way of approaching something which is rather big. Now, one book that I want you to read I'd like both of you to read it, but especially I expect you to read it, Mike, and not immediately the whole thing, because it covers this whole period, is The Desert, a City, by Derwas Chidi. I think it's on your bibliography. It's D-E-R-W-A-S-C-H-I-T-T-Y, The Desert, a City. It's one of the finest books on early monasticism. It's an introduction to the study of Egyptian and Palestinian monasticism under the Christian Empire. It's put out Oxford, Blackwell, 1966. It's 222 pages. Now, I would like for you especially, Mike, to read that. Now, Joel, because there's only one copy and you might not be able to get it, there's another book which is also of interest, but I have much more criticism about it, and that's by Jacques Lacarrière, The God Possessed.

[41:44]

It treats the same area, but I think that Lacarrière is prejudiced and gives a prejudicial approach. Yeah, he does. So, along with reading The Life of Anthony, begin reading Derwas Chidi. Are these available? They're in our library. So, read critically, and read these little introductory articles and encyclicals. Do you read French, Brian? No. Okay. So, you don't read French, do you? No. Okay. I expect a project or a paper. Now, the way we're going to do this is, for instance, when you take the upper fragment of. Book five. You will be expected to give a presentation of what you've discovered from this. Sort of the background of it, what these apothecary... I'll give you some of this too, but I want you to be able to present some of it too.

[42:52]

And especially then an analysis of the texts. And it's very good when you do something like that is to ask questions of the book that you're reading. For instance, If you're reading The Life of Anthony, you can ask the question, what is the origin of monastic life? Where does it come from? then this is a very early monastic document. And does it tell us anything? What can we read? It's not going to say the origin of monastic life is. This is where you have to read in the text and see what underlies the text for the origin of the monastic life. What is the purpose of monastic life? Why did Anthony do what he did? What is the purpose of this kind of monastic life? The motivation for the monastic life. and the structure of monastic life. See if there's anything like this in the life of Anthony.

[43:54]

These are the kind of questions that you ask a text when you read it. And then the text becomes alive to you because it's answering questions that you're interested in. You can, for instance, with regard to the Opus Dei lectures that Pope Patrick has given you, while you're reading these things, keep in mind, well, how did these monks use the Psalms? How did they use Scripture? Is there any indication of fixed prayer times? as you find later on. And sometimes you find just very little, subtle allusions to something which gives you a feeling for what's beyond everything. So that's the kind of questions I want you to ask as you read these texts. Now, is there any question or observation? Well, I just had my wife's birthday. It's B-U-D-G-E. All right. Good. I'll try to get a better bibliography, but this is just something you can be working with. I want to give you some maps and things like that, because as we're studying, especially the geography and the history, it's good to relate these things to a book.

[45:04]

OK.

[45:10]

@Transcribed_v004
@Text_v004
@Score_JJ