The Lives of the Jura Fathers (review)

The Lives of the Jura Fathers. Translated by Tim Vivian, Kim Vivian, and Jeffrey Burton Russell. Cistercian Studies Series 178. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1999. Pp. 240. $49.95 (cloth), $21.95 (paperback).

With the publication of The Life of the Jura Fathers (henceforth VPJ), a fascinating and important chapter in the history of western monasticism has been opened for the English-speaking world. Written c. 520, the VPJ describes the spontaneous development of monasticism in the Jura Mountains. The anonymous author presents the acts of Romanus, his brother Lupicinus, and Eugendus, their successor, in terms familiar from the preface to Cassian's Institutes. But whereas Cassian moderated the rigors of the Egyptian ancients for use in Gaul, the Jura Fathers, we are told (ch. 65), realized and even surpassed the Egyptians' amazing accomplishments. Thus the author deliberately grafts his work into the rich traditions of monastic literature and in so doing incurs debts to Basil of Caesarea, Cassian, Pachomius, Rufinus' Historia Monachorum, Sulpicius Severus, and the Vita Antonii. The VPJ is for this reason an important witness to the deliberate synthesis of eastern paradigms to give form to early western monastic culture. The translators give a sense for the contemporary ethos by including three supporting documents (Avitus of Vienna's Letter 19 to Viventiolus and Eucherius of Lyon's The Passion of the Martyrs of Agaune and In Praise of the Desert). Because this slim volume includes all these texts and a thorough historical introduction to the age, it will be of interest for anyone who wishes to learn more about pre-Benedictine monasticism in the Christian West.

The introduction does an excellent job of placing the texts in their historical situation. But this is not their only relevant context. The ascetic life is the realizing of a philosophical program, oriented toward a theological vision and enacted on the basis of anthropological principles. The inattention to these important categories is disappointing. In relying heavily on the image of the desert, which in monastic sources is the enormously charged field of salvation, the author cannot avoid evoking theological resonance. The introduction rightly emphasizes the polyvalence of 'the desert' in early Christian literature (32-46). It is therefore surprising that the commentators fail to draw on Peter Brown's The Body and Society and Andrew Louth's The Wilderness of God, both eminently quotable, in this connection. These books would have broadened the scope of the introduction in important directions, philosophical and theological. The general failure to treat such elements weakens the introduction considerably.

The translation itself is solid and sturdy--no mean feat in light of our anonymous author's demanding latinity. With more than a little education, an ear for poetic cadence, and a refined sense of style, the author has produced a very complex work. His penchant for neologisms provides additional reason for the anglophone reader's gratitude to the translators. (In fact, the sheer oddness of his diction added to the strenuous debate about the VJP in the late nineteenth century: Bruno Krusch, querying the VJP's character and dating, bolstered his case for the text's contamination with reference to about half-a-dozen unusual words. But his objections have since been laid to rest.) The translators have produced an English version that hugs the Latin closely enough to convey the occasional odd turn of phrase, without being on that account unmanageable.

The economy of the Latin is often sacrificed, as is the author's beloved alliteration, but the translation is faithful without being slavish. The overall success of this strategy is particularly evident in Romanus' diatribe against a haughty old monk (ch. 30): "Et tu, diabolico errore caecatus, iam iamque iustae procul dubio humilitate consientiae meliores secernere uel damnare audes?"; "And you, blinded by diabolical error, do you now already dare to distinguish and condemn those who doubtless are your betters in the humility of their upright consciences?" Tim Vivian writes in the...