Ascetics, Authority, and the Church in the Age of Jerome and Cassian: Second Edition

APPENDIX I: GREEK, COPTIC, AND LATIN LIVES OF PACHOMIUS

APPENDIX I GREEK, COPTIC, AND LATIN LIVES OF PACHOMIUS1 The link between Dion. and II is in dispute. Lefort considered that Dion. translated a Greek text similar to, possibly the source of, II; and that this earlier text was the first Greek life of Pachomius. 2 Chitty made a more careful comparison of the two, and considered that II had been a model for Dion., subsequently modified; a conclusion echoed by Veilleux. 3 Peeters mentioned an added complication: the influence of HL on the sources of Dion. 4 Both Chitty and Lefort came to their conclusions against the back­ ground of wider controversy. When he edited the Greek lives, Halkin pointed out that there was nothing in II that could not have come either from I or from the Paralipomena.s Among elements of I not found in II, he mentioned passages about Theodore, and about events following the founder's death. 6 Lefort appealed to these 'omissions' to make a contrary t:mphasis, claiming them as evidence that II was more primitive; but, Chitty pointed out, 'the Theodoran chapters omitted in [II] are fewer than those retained, and are also fewer than those omitted which do not concern Theodore , . 7 Chitty also asked if anyone could prove that the first biography must have been of Pachomius alone: 8 he stressed the importance of De Oratione, 108 (probably by Evagrius, and therefore prior to his death in 399), with its phrase, {3un rwv Ta.{3ElIVT)OLWrwV fJ.ovaxwv.9 These points robbed Lefort of proof, but did not prove themselves that II was late. Other matters raised by Halkin strengthened the con­ trary opinion. II does not reproduce I, 17, 98 f., where the biographer apologizes for bothering readers with matters of little importance. Such apology would have made sense where existing but unfamiliar material was being presented to a non-Pachomian audience. More 1 The prefix 'V. Pack.' has been omitted through this appendix. 2 Lefort, Vies, pp. xxvii-xxxviii; lxxxvii f. 'Chitty, 'Pachomian Sources Reconsidered', JEH v (1954), 56-9; Veilleux, Liturgie, 32. 4 P. Peeters, 'Le dossier copte de s. Pachome et ses rapports avec la tradition grecque',AB lxiv (1946), 262. sHalkin, Vitae Craecae, 55*. 6 Ibid. 58*. 7 Lefort, Vies, p. xxxix; Chitty, 'Pachomian Sources Reconsidered', 63. 'Chitty, op. cit., 48. 9 Ibid. 39, 65; see PC lxxix. 1192A. 244 APPENDIX I interesting is the relation between II and the Paralipomena (which many accept as an early attempt to establish or maintain a written tradition-although Peeters warned of its apparent dependence on a long history of anecdote).l0 Whenever II relates material found in both I and the Paralipomena, it is, according to Halkin, the latter that is fol10wedY The only exception is II, 17, where the phrase, OOT€ T01TOV TciJ d.V(JpW1TC� (J€OV echoes I, 18, while all other elements in the passage appear to depend on Paralipomena, 14; but this is a phrase that might easily have been preserved by oral tradition alone. Reading Lefort, some of these suspicions are strengthened further. He approached the matter more by undermining I-'clearly a com­ pilation,12_; and he pointed to passages apparently derived from the Paralipomena that suggested piecemeal construction.13 Chitty coun­ tered these points by arguing that all the Paralipomena could have been based on independent oral tradition, with no literary relation to I; that I could, even so, have been in existence when that oral tradition emerged; and that all existing apophthegmata about Pachomius could have been drawn from I, rather than vice versa�4 Chitty described as subjective Lefort's feeling that I was a com­ pilation; and he was unimpressed by Lefort's examples of muddled chronology and varied spelling of names.15 Chitty's more general argu­ ment-that II depended on I-is less satisfactory. He described as 'clear indications of the secondary document' the alleged tendency of II to use lengthy phrases, to pile up quotations from Scripture, to show con­ cern for style, and to emphasize narrative less than edification.16 These judgements are no less subjective than those of Lefort, dependent on Chitty's defence of 'the principle, followed in an earlier generation by Ladeuze and Dom Cuthbert Butler, of preferring in general the shorter and more factual account of an event to the longer and more picturesque'.17 When he examined the passages where the two lives either correspond or diverge, Chitty betrayed the uncertainty of the whole procedure: 'If...