Georgetown University, Depts. Of Theology
Inaugural Costan Lecture series on Early Christianity: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? December 4, 2014,
Professor Peter Brown, “Alms, Work and the Holy Poor: Early Monasticism between Syria and Egypt.”
Introduction, Brian Daley, S. J.
How did Peter Brown change studies in late antiquity?
1. This period is no longer seen merely as a decline from the classical golden age, Tacitus or Pliny
2. Many after Edward Gibbon saw Christianity as a source of corruption of classical culture but Peter Brown has focused on its vitality.
Note: works of Brown to find: 1988, The Body and Society re sexuality in the ancient world; article on “The Holy Man in Late Antiquity.”
Peter Brown begins:
I Social World of the Poor and Monasticism: key to social world of the poor IS monasticism. One cannot take a chance in how to treat the poor or a cripple- the person may be a freeloader or…an angel of God.
A. Monks of Syria and Egypt have been relatively neglected in early antiquity and Christian studies since Gibbon and the Enlightenment.
i) Monks were seen as fanatics and dropouts; Gibbon had contempt for them.
ii) No! They were catalysts of the social activity of an age.
A. Like St. Francis at a later time, even early monks were in revolt against economic crises and their results in the 3rd to 6th centuries as well; they were part of life in the Middle East and seismographs of changes in the society.
B. To study the east we must move away from the “decline and fall” world of western Europe and look at Syriac, Coptic and Ethiopic papyri and documents recently unearthed from eastern churches.
II. The nature of wealth, labor and the poor in the 3rd and 4th centuries
A. From Iraq wit he southern and western part of the empire- wealth and care of the poor – but who were “the poor”? In the 3rd and 4th centuries there was no simple answer.
B. Many thought Christians should give to the holy poor, as in Paul’s letter to the Romans; the poor are among the saints: the holy poor of Jerusalem (the holy poor were the only ones who counted)
C. However, the original world of the monastics who spoke of the poor was not Graeco-Roman. They wrote in Syriac (a final form derived ultimately from Aramaic, spoken by Jesus) and Syriac was a major language of religion and comers. By 600 the speakers of Syriac stretched from Antioch to China. This was a true Third World of Christians
III. There were three groups of middle eastern monks and missionaries:
• Wandering monks of Syria
• Missionaries of the Manicheans (Mani saw himself as a reformer of Christianity and his movement extended into Central Asia)
• Monks of Egypt
A. The 270’s in the fertile crescent one could find many extreme groups of Christian origin.
1. Mani- c. 300 in Syria: the Manichean Elect were cultivating extreme poverty and yet had mobility. Mani died 277.
2. They were like mendicant monks; hungry and voluntarily poor, this Elect were loved for the Lord’s namesake.
B. These met up with the monks of Egypt, c. 270 and such was Antony in Egypt- the Gospel of Matthew had converted Antony.
1. Unlike the Syrian wanderers or Manicheans, the Egyptian Desert monks just stayed in their hermitages. The first hermit gave alms and then sold his house and all his clothes and gave the cash to the poor.
2. Such a monk refused alms for himself but believed that one must work to eat. Antony died in 356.
3. Debate: which was the true way of monasticism? Now not just a question of WHO received the help, like only the holy poor, but what about a true local indigent, a beggar?
C. How was human society defined- by obligation to work for a living?
D. What claims do those not working have on those who support them with alms?
IV. The answers of the three groups under our study to the questions above reveals different perspectives on the meaning of work in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries.
A. The Manicheans’ answer
1. Irene, a lay disciple of the Manicheans, put her treasure in for the Elect. In the western desert of Egypt, in a villa, were found letters of the Elect to their hearers, 600 miles south of The Fayum, and the letters refer to the sun and the moon with imagery showing the writer was a Manichean.
2. This is how treasure became Treasure in Heaven- at stake for them was a view of the material world, and that world was hopelessly corrupt.
a. These alms went only to the Elect because they were being purified by abstaining from sex, manual labor, or immoderate food.
b. Stopping work stopped the demonic processes of the material world, in their belief system. Pale hands showed they were already somewhat “not of this world.”
B. Syrian monastic answer: Also there was deep pondering of the burden of work in 4th-6th century Syria as well. Syria was lush and abundant at this time.
1. Adam and the myth of the curse of labor had spread to influence non-Jewish writers such as Hesiod.
2. The gods wanted to be without toil and so that is why they burdened humans.
3. This reflects the social trauma of the agrarian revolution- there was a myth of a golden age of no toil before the fall of Adam and Eve.
4. BUT…the Syrian Christians did not believe that the material universe was corrupted but human society had fallen from a state of leisure.
a. In this literature about the fall of Adam and Eve, it did not bring about a weaker will, but the fall was from the work-free world. Work is the true curse in the Syriac literature.
b. Only toil that was for a spiritual and angelic purpose was good and this was why Syriac monks were supported by lay people;
c. Wandering angelic monks of Syria were entitled to alms to further the weightless labor of the spirit.
C. Egyptian monks’ answer:
1. They were posed between two wings of the ascetic movement:
a. Syria rose above labor
b.Manichees despised the world
2. In Egypt, ferocious self-sufficiency! Monks were expected to support themselves by their own labor: anticipates the Pelagian perspective: work of the hands.
3. Work was embraced by the Egyptian monks because in Egypt work denoted the monks’ abiding humanity in contrast to the ethereal non-materiality of the Manicheans.
D. By 400, a battle of the social imagination regarding work was won in Egypt by workers.
V. Implications of all this: in the west, we are used to seeing the monastery as a kind of holy kibbutz and this work as worship had an effect on the later Rule of St. Benedict.
A. Syrian could have created a monasticism more similar to Buddhism in that the lay would work to support the monks; in late 4th century there is the legend that (Fa Sien??) Bodhidharma? Walked from India to China and was from the lands of the begging bowl.
B. Division of rich and poor seemed less disturbing to the Manicheans and the Syrians so they tolerated it
C. Instead, the monks of Egypt were human and linked by labor to the sufferings of society. The monks of Egypt support the real poor and not just the Holy Poor.
CONCLUSION
The model of society that emerges for Christians is that of the rich and the poor with serious obligations placed on the rich.
[Italics indicate this was the real take-away of the lecture, at least in my interpretation.]
Inaugural Costan Lecture series on Early Christianity: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? December 4, 2014,
Professor Peter Brown, “Alms, Work and the Holy Poor: Early Monasticism between Syria and Egypt.”
Introduction, Brian Daley, S. J.
How did Peter Brown change studies in late antiquity?
1. This period is no longer seen merely as a decline from the classical golden age, Tacitus or Pliny
2. Many after Edward Gibbon saw Christianity as a source of corruption of classical culture but Peter Brown has focused on its vitality.
Note: works of Brown to find: 1988, The Body and Society re sexuality in the ancient world; article on “The Holy Man in Late Antiquity.”
Peter Brown begins:
I Social World of the Poor and Monasticism: key to social world of the poor IS monasticism. One cannot take a chance in how to treat the poor or a cripple- the person may be a freeloader or…an angel of God.
A. Monks of Syria and Egypt have been relatively neglected in early antiquity and Christian studies since Gibbon and the Enlightenment.
i) Monks were seen as fanatics and dropouts; Gibbon had contempt for them.
ii) No! They were catalysts of the social activity of an age.
A. Like St. Francis at a later time, even early monks were in revolt against economic crises and their results in the 3rd to 6th centuries as well; they were part of life in the Middle East and seismographs of changes in the society.
B. To study the east we must move away from the “decline and fall” world of western Europe and look at Syriac, Coptic and Ethiopic papyri and documents recently unearthed from eastern churches.
II. The nature of wealth, labor and the poor in the 3rd and 4th centuries
A. From Iraq wit he southern and western part of the empire- wealth and care of the poor – but who were “the poor”? In the 3rd and 4th centuries there was no simple answer.
B. Many thought Christians should give to the holy poor, as in Paul’s letter to the Romans; the poor are among the saints: the holy poor of Jerusalem (the holy poor were the only ones who counted)
C. However, the original world of the monastics who spoke of the poor was not Graeco-Roman. They wrote in Syriac (a final form derived ultimately from Aramaic, spoken by Jesus) and Syriac was a major language of religion and comers. By 600 the speakers of Syriac stretched from Antioch to China. This was a true Third World of Christians
III. There were three groups of middle eastern monks and missionaries:
• Wandering monks of Syria
• Missionaries of the Manicheans (Mani saw himself as a reformer of Christianity and his movement extended into Central Asia)
• Monks of Egypt
A. The 270’s in the fertile crescent one could find many extreme groups of Christian origin.
1. Mani- c. 300 in Syria: the Manichean Elect were cultivating extreme poverty and yet had mobility. Mani died 277.
2. They were like mendicant monks; hungry and voluntarily poor, this Elect were loved for the Lord’s namesake.
B. These met up with the monks of Egypt, c. 270 and such was Antony in Egypt- the Gospel of Matthew had converted Antony.
1. Unlike the Syrian wanderers or Manicheans, the Egyptian Desert monks just stayed in their hermitages. The first hermit gave alms and then sold his house and all his clothes and gave the cash to the poor.
2. Such a monk refused alms for himself but believed that one must work to eat. Antony died in 356.
3. Debate: which was the true way of monasticism? Now not just a question of WHO received the help, like only the holy poor, but what about a true local indigent, a beggar?
C. How was human society defined- by obligation to work for a living?
D. What claims do those not working have on those who support them with alms?
IV. The answers of the three groups under our study to the questions above reveals different perspectives on the meaning of work in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries.
A. The Manicheans’ answer
1. Irene, a lay disciple of the Manicheans, put her treasure in for the Elect. In the western desert of Egypt, in a villa, were found letters of the Elect to their hearers, 600 miles south of The Fayum, and the letters refer to the sun and the moon with imagery showing the writer was a Manichean.
2. This is how treasure became Treasure in Heaven- at stake for them was a view of the material world, and that world was hopelessly corrupt.
a. These alms went only to the Elect because they were being purified by abstaining from sex, manual labor, or immoderate food.
b. Stopping work stopped the demonic processes of the material world, in their belief system. Pale hands showed they were already somewhat “not of this world.”
B. Syrian monastic answer: Also there was deep pondering of the burden of work in 4th-6th century Syria as well. Syria was lush and abundant at this time.
1. Adam and the myth of the curse of labor had spread to influence non-Jewish writers such as Hesiod.
2. The gods wanted to be without toil and so that is why they burdened humans.
3. This reflects the social trauma of the agrarian revolution- there was a myth of a golden age of no toil before the fall of Adam and Eve.
4. BUT…the Syrian Christians did not believe that the material universe was corrupted but human society had fallen from a state of leisure.
a. In this literature about the fall of Adam and Eve, it did not bring about a weaker will, but the fall was from the work-free world. Work is the true curse in the Syriac literature.
b. Only toil that was for a spiritual and angelic purpose was good and this was why Syriac monks were supported by lay people;
c. Wandering angelic monks of Syria were entitled to alms to further the weightless labor of the spirit.
C. Egyptian monks’ answer:
1. They were posed between two wings of the ascetic movement:
a. Syria rose above labor
b.Manichees despised the world
2. In Egypt, ferocious self-sufficiency! Monks were expected to support themselves by their own labor: anticipates the Pelagian perspective: work of the hands.
3. Work was embraced by the Egyptian monks because in Egypt work denoted the monks’ abiding humanity in contrast to the ethereal non-materiality of the Manicheans.
D. By 400, a battle of the social imagination regarding work was won in Egypt by workers.
V. Implications of all this: in the west, we are used to seeing the monastery as a kind of holy kibbutz and this work as worship had an effect on the later Rule of St. Benedict.
A. Syrian could have created a monasticism more similar to Buddhism in that the lay would work to support the monks; in late 4th century there is the legend that (Fa Sien??) Bodhidharma? Walked from India to China and was from the lands of the begging bowl.
B. Division of rich and poor seemed less disturbing to the Manicheans and the Syrians so they tolerated it
C. Instead, the monks of Egypt were human and linked by labor to the sufferings of society. The monks of Egypt support the real poor and not just the Holy Poor.
CONCLUSION
The model of society that emerges for Christians is that of the rich and the poor with serious obligations placed on the rich.
[Italics indicate this was the real take-away of the lecture, at least in my interpretation.]
