From Monachos.net
By Jack Tannous, University of Oxford [*]
'Since it is the extant literature on which we must base our picture, no other characteristic is likely to strike a modern reader more immediately than asceticism, extreme or moderate, dominating or at least coloring almost all the literature.' [1]
Among the earliest extant writings of Syriac literature, Aphrahat's Demonstrations and the anonymous Liber Graduum (or Book of Steps-ktaba dmasqata) both testify to the existence of what has been termed a Syrian 'proto-monasticism' [2], a plant indigenous to the spiritual fauna of Syriac-speaking Mesopotamia which was later overpowered by a more prestigious breed from Egypt. In this paper I will discuss and compare the versions of this autochthonous Syrian asceticism reflected in these two fourth-century works.
1. Aphrahat's 'Demonstration' VI.
We will begin by taking a brief look at Aphrahat's Demonstration VI (hereafter 'D6'). Very little is known about Aphrahat, the 'Persian Sage' as he is sometimes called. In fact, that the name of this fourth-century writer is indeed Aphrahat is not something we can be certain about. We do know that he composed a series of 23 'demonstrations', the first ten in 337 and the remainder in 344 [3]; D6, 'On the Sons of the Covenant', is extremely important for our modern understanding of the lineaments of Syrian proto-monasticism. It begins with a rather simple statement: 'The words which I speak are appropriate and fitting to be received', followed by a long series of exhortations which draw heavily on biblical imagery, especially parables in the Gospels: 'Let us be the true "salt" (Mt 5.13) so that we do not become food for the serpent. Let us keep our seedlings clear of thorns so that they may give fruit a hundredfold' (Mt 17.7-8; Lk 8.7-8) [4], for example. In this first section of D6, important attitudes towards the world and towards marriage-attitudes which tell us something about the nature and outlook of Aphrahat's proto-monasticism-are reflected in some of the various exhortations: 'Let us be aliens from the world just as Christ was not of it' (Jn 17.14) [5]; 'Let us be poor in the world so that we may enrich many with the teaching of our Lord' (Jas 2.5) [6]; 'Let us leave behind us the world which does not belong to us, so that he may cause us to arrive at the place to which we have been invited' [7]; 'He who is trained in the athletic art (1 Cor 9.24-5) let him keep himself from the world' [8]; 'He who takes upon himself the likeness of angels (Mt 22.30) let him become a stranger to human beings'; 'He who takes upon himself the yoke of the "continent" ('holy') let him keep money affairs far from himself'; 'Whoever is expectantly awaiting the marriage feast of the bridegroom should not love the marriage feast that belongs to time'; 'Whoever has let himself be invited to the banquet should not (then) excuse himself and become a merchant (Lk 14.18, 19)' [9]; 'Whoever loves virginity will be likened to Elijah'; 'Whoever takes on the yoke (Mt 11.29-30; Lam 3.27) of the holy (continent), let him sit down in silence' (Lam 3.27-28) [10].
In sections two and three of D6, Aphrahat takes up the issue of spiritual warfare, speaking of 'our Adversary' who is 'skilful and cunning in his fight against us'. Satan tries to subvert the spiritual by assuming various guises by which he may sneak into their lives, but the children of light are more clever and can outwit him. 'If he takes on the semblance of an asp', for example, 'they become like young children' (Is 11.8). Or if he makes his incursion against them by means of a yearning for food, 'they vanquish him with fasting, as did our Saviour' (Mt 4.2-4). Aphrahat's real concern here appears to come at the end of his list of the various instruments Satan uses for his machinations: 'If he should incite them through lust for Eve, they live by themselves and not in the company of the daughters of Eve' [11], a comment which is followed by a string of biblical examples starting with Adam and ending with Zimri 'chief of the tribe of Simeon', whom Satan tempted and caused to sin by means of women.
Aphrahat's reason for discussing the dangers of women, and possibly his reason for writing D6 itself, becomes clear in section four: the sons and daughters of the covenant have been cohabiting, inappropriately:
Therefore, my brethren, any man who is a bar qyama (son of the covenant [12]) or a qaddisha (holy person) who loves ihidayuta (singleness) and wants a woman, who is a bat qyama (daughter of the covenant) like him, to live with him, in such a case it is better that he should take a wife openly and not be unrestrained in lust. Likewise, in the case of a woman, it is appropriate for her, if she is not going to separate from a man who is an ihidaya, to be openly with a husband. It is fitting that a woman should live with (another) woman, and a man ought to live with (another) man. Even in the case of a man who wants to live in qaddishuta (holiness, abstinence from marital intercourse), his spouse should not live with him, lest he revert to his former natural state (1 Cor 7.8), and he be accounted an adulterer. [13]
Here we encounter terms which lay at the heart of Aphrahat's proto-monasticism; understanding them will help us get a grasp on the nature of Aphrahat's native ascetic tradition. S.P. Brock provides a helpful and concise discussion of the meaning of these words-which also appear in other early Syriac writings-in his book, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of St. Ephrem [14]. In our present context, qaddishuta, literally 'holiness', the state in which a qaddisha, or holy person lives, has a special meaning of 'abstinence from marital intercourse', something which 'can be a temporary or permanent state' [15]. As for qyama, it might just be the most debated word in modern Syriac scholarship; possible meanings include 'resurrection', 'standing', and 'stance', though its most likely English equivalent is 'covenant' [16].
The last term in our quotation from Aphrahat, ihidayuta, 'singleness', is related to the word ihidaya, which Brock calls the 'key term of the Syrian protomonastic tradition' [17]. There are, he says, three ideas behind the term ihidaya: 'singular, individual, unique; single-minded, not divided in heart; and single in the sense of unmarried, celibate' [18]. Space will not permit an exploration of this term's resonances throughout Syriac literature; instead, we will quote Brock again:
The ihidaya is a follower and imitator of Christ the Ihidaya par excellence; he is single minded for Christ; his heart is single and not divided; he is single as Adam was single when he was created; he is single in the sense of celibate. [19]
Within D6, celibacy and singleness stand out as two of the most important characteristics of the Sons and Daughters of the Covenant. In a passage in section 6, Aphrahat tells us,
Those who do not take wives are ministered to by the Watchers of heaven. Those who preserve qaddishuta [holiness, abstinence] will find rest in the sanctuary of the Most High. The Ihidaya who is from his Father's womb (Jn 1.18) gives joy to all the ihidaye. There is no male or female there, no servant or freeborn (Lk 6.35; Gal 3.28), rather all are children of the Most High, and the pure virgins who are betrothed to Christ will have their lamps shine brightly there as they enter, with the Bridegroom, to his bridal chamber (Mt 25.7-10). All those who are betrothed to Christ are far removed from the curse of the Law, and they are delivered from the punishment of Eve's daughters. For they do not have husbands, or (as a result) receive the curse and be in pains; they do not reckon death (to be anything) because they do not hand over children to him. Instead of a husband who dies, they are betrothed to Christ. [20]
Later, in section seven of D6, Aphrahat advises 'Virgins who have betrothed your souls to Christ' to respond to any of the bnay qyama who want to live with them, 'I am betrothed to a man who is King, and it is him to whom I am ministering; If I leave (this) ministry to him and I minister to you (instead), then my betrothed will become angry with me, write a letter of divorce, and dismiss me from his house' [21].
To summarize this brief exploration: Aphrahat's version of proto-monasticism is related to the institution of the Sons and Daughters of the Covenant. Though he does not give us a detailed description of the exact nature of this group, most noticeable among their characteristics is their abstinence from sexual intercourse, regardless of whether they are married; they have taken up the likeness of angels-who as Jesus said, do not marry, nor are given in marriage-and have become strangers to human beings. Their existence, then, is a sort of a 'sneak preview' of the sort of life Christians will enjoy in eternity. To conclude, we will quote Brock on the bnay qyama,
The bnay qyama would appear to be a group of people who led some form of consecrated life, and whose common denominator was probably the fact that they had all undertaken a vow of chastity, whether as 'virgins,' or as qaddishe in the technical sense of this word. This group, which could also be referred to simply as the qyama, seem to have formed the core of the local church community; no doubt the priests and bishop will have been drawn from among their number, but in the early period (which includes Ephrem's lifetime) the clergy and the qyama will by no means have been coterminous. [22]
Alluding to the passage from Aphrahat we have been discussing, Brock observes:
From Aphrahat we learn that the members of the qyama lived in small associations, sometimes of men and women together [.], forming house communities or informal religious communes. They were essentially a feature of town and village life, a far remove from the Egyptian monastic model of anachoresis or withdrawal from town and village to the desert [.]. [23]
2. The 'Liber Graduum'.
Compared to seemingly interminable scholarly discussions of the bnay/bnat qyama in Aphrahat's Demonstrations, the asceticism reflected in the Liber Graduum (hereafter 'LG') has received relatively little attention. Perhaps this is the case because, unlike the Demonstrations, the type of asceticism reflected in LG was apparently a short-lived and localized phenomenon. Robert Kitchen speaks of some of the problems surrounding this work:
The LG has been a difficult work to place in the history of early Syrian asceticism. Its anonymity and lack of historical geographic detail thwart our ability to understand it in its social and historical environment. Even after a detailed study of its contents, the LG appears to be an isolated community whose continuing impact on Syrian asceticism is very limited. Few Syriac authors seem to have read it, though the manuscripts available are as numerous as many a more famous work of the same era. [24]
Based on internal evidence, it has been dated to the mid-to-late fourth century and was perhaps written in what is today northern Iraq [25].
LG is a collection of 30 memre (discourses), which, in addition to including expositions of the 'steps' necessary to reach the 'city of the Lord Jesus' [26], also contains sermons and what Kitchen calls 'extended Biblical-theological exegeses of fundamental issues' that, when combined with the fact that LG is the work of only one author, leads him to conclude that 'The LG was therefore perceived not as a neat systematic treatise, but as the "collected works" of the author' [27]. Although he is aware of its internal diversity, Kitchen can still state that 'Perfection as the recapturing of the status of Adam and Eve before the Fall is the fundamental motif of the LG [.]' [28].
Although the author of LG is aware of the institution of the bnay qyama, they play what might generously be called a marginal role in the work [29]; instead, his is a Christian community separated into two groups: the Upright (kene) and the Perfect (gmire) [30]. We can get a feel for the author of LG's vision of the Christian life and version of proto-monasticism by outlining some of the distinctive attributes of each of these two groups in his community.
Robert Kitchen lists three ways that the Upright and the Perfect can be distinguished from one another [31]. First, there is the issue of the major and minor commandments. Generally speaking, there are two sets of commandments: major commandments, which are 'true solid food', and minor commandments, which are 'the vegetables and the milk' [32]. The Perfect keep the major and the Upright keep the minor. The author of LG calls the major commandments those 'through which a man is made perfect; that is to say, those commandments which were given by our Lord and his apostles to the perfect and distinguish them from the "vegetables and milk"' [33]. He lists quite a few of them, for example:
To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; pray for him and be perfect. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. If anyone takes your coat by force, let him have your cloak as well. Love him who hates you, bless him who curses you, pray for the man who harms you and persecutes you [.]. [34]
A second way of distinguishing the two groups, according to Kitchen, 'is achieved by placing the tasks and commandments of the Upright and Perfect in virtually adversarial dichotomy, particularly evident in memra 14' [35]. In this memra, for example, the author writes:
The righteous [i.e., Upright] feed the hungry, clothe the naked and ransom the oppressed by means of their property and wealth: the perfect give all their possessions on one day to the needy and oppressed, and take up their cross and follow their Lord, and spiritually serve him, loving all men and praying for them. [.] The righteous will have an inheritance on this side of the city of the perfect: the perfect will be with Our Lord in Eden and Jerusalem above, because they have imitated him. [36]
Kitchen's third method of distinction between the two groups 'is the series of 25 dichotomies presented in memra 19, "on the explanation of the way of perfection"' [37]. In this memra, the author presents us with a series of biblical commandments, introducing each one with 'The perfect road is this.', and then following it with 'but the path that leads you away from it is this.', which itself is an introductory formula for another biblical quotation or several quotations which temper somewhat the austerity of the commandment that lies along the road of perfection. For example,
The perfect road is this: 'men do not marry wives, and women who are not married to husbands will be like the angels and will not be able to die' (Mt 22.30). 'And he who has not left his wife and sons and his family and everything which he has on earth is not worthy of me (Mt 10.37). But the path that leads away from it is this: 'What God has joined together you are not to put asunder' (Mt 19.6) [.]. The perfect road is this: 'A virgin who is not married to a husband and a man who does not marry a wife please the Lord in body and spirit; but those who enter into marriage please him in their turn (mutually)'. But the path that leads you away from that is this: 'Marriage', he says, 'is honorable and their marriage bed is pure' (Heb 13.4). [38]
Kitchen very helpfully provides us with a series of other distinguishing characteristics of these two groups: while the Upright, for example, still own property and engage in business activity and are responsible for using their wealth in the service of others, the Perfect have renounced all such attachments and spend their lives as 'itinerant preachers' and 'spiritually direct[ing] those below them' [39]. These job descriptions, along with the differentia already mentioned point to the most significant line of division between these two groups of Christians: 'The boundary line between uprightness and perfection is the renunciation of the world and the requisite celibacy' [40].
3. Comparing the systems of Aphrahat and the Liber Graduum.
Now that we have had brief looks at both Aphrahat's Sons of the Covenant and LG's Upright and Perfect, we can take a moment to compare the two. The bnay qyama and the Perfect have some very interesting similarities: both are a celibate, spiritual elite within their communities whose celibacy is at least partially inspired by the New Testament idea that angels neither marry nor are given in marriage. Kitchen writes,
In the pre-monastic period, the bnay/bnat qyama are the elite ascetic group, living within the community. The characteristics and duties attached to them are closely analogous to the profile of the Perfect in the LG. Both groups require celibacy, embrace poverty, and transcend the limits of traditional spiritual discipline. Teaching and prayer are their primary vocations. [41]
It should also be pointed out that, while he does not make it explicit in D6, Aphrahat, by singling out one group within the Christian community, has implicitly done what the author of LG does explicitly-he divides his Christian community into two parts, a greater and lesser. With these similarities noted, however, the two groups described by our authors are not the same, nor are Aphrahat and LG's communities. As already mentioned, the author of LG is aware of the bnay qyama but fails to identify them with the Perfect. Kitchen writes:
As for the relationship of the bnay/bnat qyama to the Upright and Perfect, we have seen that the author of the LG knows that the former institution exists and is still functioning in his sight. The two structures are parallel in their approach to asceticism and church organization, but there is no direct evidence of the conscious influence of one upon the other, the evidence points strongly to the Upright and Perfect being a local phenomenon in the church of the LG. Certainly, the bnay/bnat qyama had longer staying power, albeit through a number of transformations. [42]
One significant difference between the sons of the covenant and the Perfect is their attitude toward and participation in the world. The latter seem to be much more other-worldly than Aphrahat's group of spiritual elites, who, while they may be celibate, are still more actively involved in the affairs of everyday life. Again, Kitchen:
The great distinction is that the bnay/bnat qyama seem to be more at ease countenancing participation in the world's possessions with moderation while the Perfect theoretically are completely aloof. However, the author of the LG also indicated that some of the Perfect had become too involved in the acquisition and management of property (741:20-744:11). The very noticeable presence of the bnat qyama is in contrast to the relative absence of women in the writings of the Author of the LG. [43]
Within fourth-century northern Mesopotamia, then, we see an interesting diversity of proto-monastic practices which nonetheless display some uncanny similarities, specifically in their division of communities into two parts and their emphasis on celibacy and continence. This represents, alas, perhaps much of what we can say with any confidence about the general nature of this now-vanished form of Christian asceticism. Providing a satisfying account for how this situation came to be would require research into other early Christian writers from the area, such as Tatian and Ephrem, in addition to contemporary, non-Christian Mesopotamian religious phenomena such as Manichaeism. Given the paucity of sources we possess about earliest Syriac Christianity, however, any such account would be forced to rely on conjecture to such an extent that it would likely be found unsatisfying by many.
(Text by Jack Tannous, 2004)
[*] The present article is a slightly modified version of an essay written for Sebastian Brock's Syriac Studies Seminar at Oxford, Spring 2003.
[1] Robert Murray, 'The Characteristics of the Earliest Syriac Christianity,' in N. Garsoian, T. Mathews, and R. Thomson (eds.), East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period (1982), 6.
[2] See, for instance, S.P. Brock, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of St. Ephrem (1985), 107-17. About the Liber graduum's author and community, Robert Kitchen, The Development of the Status of Perfection in Early Syriac Asceticism with special reference to the Liber Graduum and Philoxenus of Mabbug (1997, Oxford Dissertation), writes, 'This is not a monastery and the author is not an abbot, and there is none of the language characteristic of later Syriac monasticism', p. 59.
[3] Cf. A. Vööbus, History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient I (1958), 173.
[4] Kuriakose A. Valavanolickal (trans.), Aphrahat Demonstrations (1999), 103-104.
[5] ibid., 105.
[6] ibid., 107.
[7] ibid., 108.
[8] ibid., 109.
[9] ibid., 110.
[10] ibid., 113. For more about the meaning of the word continent ('holy') in the preceding quotations, see below.
[11] ibid., 114.
[12] On the precise definition of these terms, see the following paragraphs.
[13] ibid., 116.
[14] Brock, Luminous Eye, 109-16.
[15] ibid., 109, 110. Brock locates the origin of this specialized meaning in Exodus 19:'.in Exodus 19:10 God tells Moses "Go to the people and sanctify (qaddshu) them", but in verse 15 we find Moses telling the people "do not approach your wives"', p. 110.
[16] ibid., 110, 111. But see also, Sidney H. Griffith, 'Monks, "Singles", and the "Sons of the Covenant". Reflections on Syriac Ascetic Terminology", in E. Carr, et. al. (eds.), Eulogema: Studies in Honor of Robert Taft, SJ, (1993), 150, where he argues that, given the polyvalence of Semitic languages more than one meaning could be suggested by the word qyama: 'While "Resurrection" is not an apt translation of the word qyama in the contexts we have been discussing, it is nevertheless unlikely that the concept was far from Aphrahat's mind in his discussion of the bnay qyama.'
[17] ibid., 115.
[18] ibid., 112.
[19] ibid., 115.
[20] Valavanolickal, Aphrahat's Demonstrations, 120.
[21] ibid., 121.
[22] Brock, The Luminous Eye, 111.
[23] ibid., 111, 112.
[24] Robert A. Kitchen, Development, 285. But see A. Guillaumont's short entry, 'Liber Graduum,' in the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité for a slightly different take on the importance of LG, col. 759, 'D'après l'ancien éditeur syriaque, dont l'avant-propos a été conservé avec le texte, l'auteur, dont il ignorait déjà le nom, aurait été 'l'un des derniers disciples des Apôtres' et l'un des premiers à écrire en syriaque: affirmation qui montre le prestige et l'autorité dont jouissait le livre, mais qui ne peut être retenue.'
[25] The internal evidence consists of 1) reference to the 'Lesser Zab', a tributary to the Tigris in a way that suggests familiarity with this small river by both the author and his audience; 2) references to Christian persecution with which the author seemed to be contemporary, suggesting either the reign of Diocletian, or, if the reference to the Zab is in fact an indicator of location, the persecutions of Christians which happened in the Persian Empire under Shapur; and 3) comparison of the author of the Liber Graduum with Gregory Nazianzen, Basil of Caesarea, and Evagrius Ponticus by the Syriac editor. About this latter point, Kitchen states, 'Since all three gained renown in the late fourth century, the editor could not have done his work before that period'. See R. Kitchen, 'Conflict on the Stairway to Heaven: The Anonymity of Perfection in the Syriac Liber Graduum', Symposium Syriacum VII, p. 212, and also A. Guillaumont, 'Liber Graduum', Dictionnaire de Spiritualité.
[26] LG, 20:1. An anonymous ET based on M. Kmosko's LT in Patrologia Syriaca III. The ET can be found bound in a spiral at Pusey House Library, Oxford, 63.50.c9.
[27] Kitchen, Development, 44.
[28] ibid., 46. Almost perfunctory in discussions of LG are its connections, or lack thereof, with Messalianism. Columba A. Stewart, Working the Earth of the Heart: the Language of Christian experience in the Messalian Controversy, the Writings of Ps-Macarius and the Liber graduum, (1989, Oxford Dissertation), 65, gives the following 'synopsis' of the doctrines and practices associated with Messalianism in the four Greek heresy lists it appears on: '1) The presence of an indwelling demon in each soul; 2) The inefficiency of baptism for the expulsion of each demon; 3) The sole efficacy of prayer for the expulsion of the demon; 4) The coming of the Holy Spirit or the heavenly bridegroom; 5) Liberation from passions [.]'. Additionally there are five practices associated with Messalians in these lists: '6) claims about visions and prophecy; 7) avoidance of work, and the desire for sleep; 8) excessive sleep and claims that dreams are prophetic; 9) Disregard for ecclesiastical communion and structures; 10) Denial, perjury, and prevarication'. A connection between Messalianism and LG, first put forth by M. Kmosko in the introduction to LG in PS III has been challenged by, among others, A. Vööbus. S.P. Brock, The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life (1987), 42 writes of LG and the Ps-Macarian homilies that, '[.] it seems preferable to see these texts as the product of charismatic communities out of which Messalian tendencies were liable at times to emerge'.
[29] Kitchen, pp. 68-69, reports that the bnay qyama make only two appearances in the entire LG (at 265:19-22 and 776:14-15). In the first instance, the author writes, 'At first one forgets that he is a bar qyama and after a while one will [even] forget that he should serve God, just as the Israelites forgot the mighty one who had saved them' (p. 69). Kitchen reports that 'the other reference says much less. The mature Christian will eventually be able to teach various groups who were previously superior to him: parents, priests, and the [bnay] qyama' (p. 69).
[30] Because Kitchen and the translators of the various bits of LG which have been put into English call this second group the Perfect, we will too. With this said, however, it should be acknowledged that it might be more appropriate to refer to them as the 'Mature'. Also, it should be noted that Kitchen, p. 50 ff., detects six different groups within LG-the Upright, the Sick, the Children, the Perfect, the Disciples of Faith, the Disciples of Love. The distinction between the Upright and the Perfect is the most significant, however, and for our purposes, we will focus only on it.
[31] Kitchen's three differentia can be found on pp. 50, 55.
[32] LG 1.2, ET by Martin Parmentier, Liber Graduum: The Book of Grades (1984), 7.
[33] LG 2.1, Parmentier, 11.
[34] LG 2.2, Parmentier, 12.
[35] Kitchen, Development, 50.
[36] LG 14.2. ET in Lionel Wichkham, 'Teachings about God and Christ in the Liber Graduum,' in Logos: Festschrift Für Luise Abramowski (1993), 497.
[37] Kitchen, Development, 55.
[38] From Pusey House Library, anon. ET. Strangely in this translation, memra referred to by Kitchen as 19 is no. 17. This is an excerpt from 17.5.
[39] Kitchen, Development, 50-53.
[40] ibid., 53.
[41] ibid., 131.
[42] ibid., 132.
[43] ibid., 131.