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Withdrawing from the Desert: Pachomius and the Development of Village Monasticism in Upper Egypt1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

James E. Goehring
James E. Goehring
Affiliation:
Mary Washington College
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Extract

In a recent article entitled “Le monachisme égyptien et les villes,” Ewa Wipszycka cataloged for the later Byzantine period the abundant evidence of monastic habitation in or adjacent to the towns and villages of Egypt as well as in or on the margins of the cultivated land. Her analysis, which begins after the late third- to fourth-century formative period of Antony, Pachomius, and the Lower Egyptian semi-anchoritic centers in Nitria, Scetis, and Cellia, supplies convincing evidence of the rhetorical selectivity employed in the portrayal of Egyptian monasticism by the authors of the literary sources. In the literary texts, the dominance of monastic sites located in places of solitude generates a monastic geography of physical isolation. While acknowledging this dominance in the literature, Wipszycka draws together the infrequent literary references and the more numerous documentary examples of less physically isolated and more socially integrated monastic centers. The resulting picture of Egyptian monasticism is spatially and socially more complex than that derived from the literary sources alone.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 89 , Issue 3 , July 1996 , pp. 267 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1996

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References

2 Wipszycka, Ewa, “Le monachisme égyptien et les villes,” Travaux et mémoires 12 (1994) 1–44Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., 3.

4 James E. Goehring, “The World Engaged: The Social and Economic World of Early Egyptian Monasticism,” in idem, et al., eds., Gnosticism and the Early Christian World: In Honor of James M. Robinson (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1990) 130–44; and idem, “The Encroaching Desert: Literary Production and Ascetic Space in Early Christian Egypt,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 1 (1993) 281–96.

5 I use the term “urban” loosely to indicate monasteries situated in or adjacent to towns and villages as distinct from true desert cells or communities. In reality, ascetic habitation existed across the full range of geographical possibilities in Egypt. See Goehring, “Encroaching Desert,” 281–96.

6 Judge, E. A., “The Earliest Use of Monachos for ‘Monk’ (P. Coll. Youtie 77) and the Origins of Monasticism,” JAC 20 (1970) 72–89Google Scholar.

7 Note that the literary portrayals of the Pachomian movement also postdate Athanasius's idealization of Antony's withdrawal in his Vita Antonii. Text: PG 26.825–924; Bartelink, G. J. M., ed., Athanased'Alexandrie: Vie d'Antoine (SC 400; Paris: Cerf, 1994)Google Scholar. English translations: Gregg, Robert C., Athanasius: The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus (New York: Paulist Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Meyer, Robert T., St. Athanasius: The Life of Antony (Ancient Christian Writers 10; New York: New Press, 1950)Google Scholar.

8 Brown, Peter, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,” JRelS 61 (1971) 83Google Scholar; compare his later assessment in The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) 217Google Scholar.

9 The same process is seen at work in Derwas Chitty's use of Athanasius's phrase, “The Desert a City,” as the title for his general history of Egyptian and Palestinian monasticism (The Desert a City: An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism under the Christian Empire [Oxford: Blackwell, 1966Google Scholar; reprinted London: Mowbrays, 1977]). See also the reference to “desert monasteries” in Brakke, David, “Canon Formation and Social Conflict in Fourth-Century Egypt: Athanasius of Alexandria's Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter” HTR 87 (1994) 398CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Heussi, Karl, Der Ursprung des Mönchtums (Tübingen: Mohr, 1936Google Scholar; reprinted Aalen: Scientia, 1981) 69–131; Chitty, Desert a City, 1–11, 20–29.

11 Athanasius's portrait of Antony was the most successful, though certainly not the only portrait of the saint. See Brakke, David, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford: Clarendon, 1995)Google Scholar; Rubenson, Samuel, The Letters of Antony: Origenist Theology, Monastic Tradition and the Making of a Saint (Bibliotheca historicoecclesiastica Lundensis 24; Lund: Lund University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Dörries, Hermann, “Die Vita Antonii als Geschichtsquelle,” Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, philologisch-historische Klasse 14 (1949) 359–410Google Scholar.

12 Vita Antonii 14.

13 The process has much to do with the modern study of early Egyptian monasticism. In the aftermath of Chalcedon and the eventual Arabic domination, knowledge of Coptic developments mostly vanished outside of Egypt. Egyptian monasticism was defined through the monastic texts that had appeared in Greek and Latin: Vita Antonii, Vita Pachomii, and Apophthegmata Patrum.

14 Vita Antonii 14; Wipszycka, “Le monachisme égyptien,” 9.

15 The main Coptic and Greek texts of the Life of Pachomius have been edited by Lefort and Halkin respectively. Lefort, L. Th., ed., S. Pachomii vita bohairice scripta (CSCO 89; Scriptores coptici 7; Paris: e typographeo reipublicae, 1925; reprinted Louvain; CSCO, 1965)Google Scholar; idem, S. Pachomii vitae sahidice scriptae (CSCO 99/100; Scriptores coptici 9/10; Paris: e typographeo reipublicae, 1933; reprinted Louvain: CSCO, 1965); Halkin, François, Sancti Pachomii vitae graecae (Subsidia hagiographica 19; Bruxelles: Socété des Bollandistes, 1932)Google Scholar. Translations: Lefort, L. Th., Les vies coptes de saint Pachôme et des ses premiers successeurs (Bibliothèque du muséon 16; Louvain: Bureaux du Muséon, 1943)Google Scholar; Veilleux, Armand, Pachomian Koinonia, vol. 1: The Life of Saint Pachomius and His Disciples (Cistercian Studies 45; Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1980)Google Scholar. Citations from the first Greek life are cited as Gl. Citations from the Coptic lives are cited as Bo (Bohairic) and S (Sahidic). The numeral immediately following the S identifies the specific Sahidic version (S7 = Sahidic life number 7). SBo indicates the “complete” version fashioned by Veilleux by filling in lacunae in the Bohairic version from the Sahidic and Arabic texts. Following section numbers are those found in Veilleux's Pachomian Koinonia. Veilleux follows the sectional divisions for Gl found in Halkin's Sancti Pachomii, and for Bo, those found in Lefort's Les vies coptes. The vita traditions are complex. A history of the debate can be found in Goehring, James E., The Letter of Ammon and Pachomian Monasticism (Patristische Texte und Studien 27; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1986) 3–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a discussion of the issues, see Rousseau, Philip, Pachomius: The Making of a Community in Fourth-Century Egypt (The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 6; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) 37–48Google Scholar.

16 Such is already the case in the Vita Pachomii; Bo 2; Gl 2.

17 Bo 7–8. His parents are portrayed as non-Christian (Bo 4; Gl 3). Note, however, that Pachomius's sister's name is given as Mary (Bo 27; not named in Gl 32). A recent study of Bohairic chronology (Joest, Christoph, “Ein Versuch zur Chronologie Pachoms und Theodoros,” ZNW 85 [1994] 132–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar) argues for a date of 308 CE for Pachomius's conversion.

18 The traditions do not, for the most part, correctly identify the emperor as Maximinus Daia. See Chitty, Desert a City, 7, 17 n. 39; and Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia, 1. 267. Joest's revised chronology (“Ein Versuch,” 144) calls this entire episode into question.

19 Bo 8; Gl 5.

20 Bo 9.

21 Bo 10; Gl 6; compare Bo 15.

22 Vita Antonii 3.3–4.

23 Lefort, L. Th., “Les premiers monastères pachômiens: Exploration topographique,” Muséon 52 (1939) 383–87Google Scholar; Goehring, “Encroaching Desert,” 288–89.

24 Bo 17; Gl 12; on its location, see Lefort, “Les premiers monasteres pachômiens,” 293–97. Tabennese is the Sahidic spelling for the Bohairic Tabennesi. The Sahidic spellings are used for place names throughout this essay.

25 Bo 17; Gl 12.

26 Deserted tombs (Vita Antonii 8), fortresses (Vita Antonii 12), and temples (Historia monachorum in Aegypto 5; André-Jean Festugière, Historia Monachorum Aegypto: Édition critique du texte grec et traduction annotée [SH 53; Bruxelles: Société des Bollandistes, 1971] 41–43) were all put to use by ascetics. Open spaces within towns and villages likewise offered locations for monastic habitation. Wipszycka, “Les monachisme égyptien et les villes,” 3.

27 See below, pp. 272–74.

28 Bo 23; Gl 24; compare Gl 106.

29 See, for example, Bo 22; Gl 23; Paralipomena 9 (Halkin, Sancti Pachomii Vitae Graecae, 133–34); Epistula Ammonis 19 (Goehring, The Letter of Ammon, 139–41)

30 Bo 26; Gl 28; compare Paralipomena 21–22.

31 Travel often took place by ferry or boat (Bo 30), and boats were soon given to the Pachomian communities (Bo 53, 56). Communication with Alexandria likewise took place via travel up and down the Nile (Bo 28; Gl 30).

32 In 367–68 CE, a monk (apotaktikos) named Anoubion made payment for taxes on good agricultural land (apora) in the Hermopolite nome that belonged to the monastery of Tabennese (P. Berl. lnv. 11860A/B). Wipszycka, Ewa, “Les terres de la congrégation pachômienne dans une liste de payments pour les apora,” in Bingen, Jean, et al. , eds., Le monde grec pensée, littérature, histoire, documents: Hommages à Claire Préaux (Bruxelles: L'Université Bruxelles, 1975) 623–36Google Scholar; compare Gl 106.

33 Regulations of Horsiesius 55–64; Lefort, L. Th., Oeuvres de s. Pachôme et de ses disciples (CSCO 159; Scriptores coptici 23; Louvain: Durbecq, 1956; reprinted Louvain: CSCO, 1965) 98–99Google Scholar; Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia, 2. 217–18.

34 Note Gl 113, which mentions two boats returning from a commercial trip to Alexandria where the monks had sold mats to procure foodstuffs and tunics.

35 G1 146; compare Bo 204.

36 SBo 96, 124, 132; Gl 113. Compare Roger Rémondon (“Le monastère alexandrin de la metanoia etait-il beneficiaire du fisc ou a son service?” in Studi in onore de Edoardo Volterra, vol. 5 [Milan: Giuffre, 1971] 769–81) for a discussion of the involvement of the later Egyptian monasteries in the transportation of the grain tax not only on the Nile, but also between Alexandria and Constantinople.

37 Goehring, “The World Engaged,” 139–41.

38 Bo 49; Gl 54; on its location, see Lefort, “Les premiers monastères pachômiens,” 387–93.

39 Grossmann, Peter, “The Basilica of St. Pachomius,” BA 42 (1979) 232–36Google Scholar; note the map of the site on p. 234. A color photograph of the remains of the basilica (p. 203) offers a good illustration of its location at the edge of the village, well within the fertile valley.

40 Egyptian villages were normally surrounded by fertile land (Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity. 114).

41 Gl 149.

42 Epistula Ammonis 28; compare Bo 59–60; Gl 55,60, 109, 113. The point of embarkation for the monks from Pbow may have been Šenesēt (Gl 107).

43 Note that the author of the Bohairic Vita asserts that Šenesēt too was deserted when Pachomius first arrived (Bo 8). The fact that it contained some inhabitants and that Pachomius was baptized in its church and cared for many of its people during the subsequent plague gives the author no pause. Pachomius's initial efforts were linked with deserted villages; since he began his ascetic career in Šenesēt, it too became deserted for the author.

44 Note the description of Oxyrhynchus in the Historia monachorum in Aegypto 5; Wipszycka, “Le monachisme égyptien et les villes,” 3.

45 This may result from the use of “deserted” to refer to less than complete depopulation, or it may arise from exaggeration in the vita tradition.

46 van Minnen, Peter, “House-to-House Enquiries: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Roman Karanis,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphie 100 (1994) 230–31Google Scholar; compare Lewis, Life in Egypt under Roman Rule, 65–67.

47 Neglect of the irrigation system, disputes over water, and the burden of Roman taxation (including liturgies) all effected village economies and population. Evans, J. A. S., A Social and Economic History of an Egyptian Temple in the Greco-Roman Period (Yale Classical Studies 17; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961) 276–77, 282–83Google Scholar; Hobson, Deborah, “Agricultural Land and Economic Life in Soknopaiou Nesos,” BASP 21 (1984) 108Google Scholar; van Minnen, Peter, “Deserted Villages: Two Late Antique Town Sites in Egypt,” BASP 32 (1995) 41–55Google Scholar; Boak, Arthur E. R., “An Egyptian Farmer of the Age of Diocletian and Constantine,” Byzantina Metabyzantina 1 (1946) 53Google Scholar; compare Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 138–39.

48 Lewis, Life in Egypt under Roman Rule, 159–84; Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 153–60, 172–74; Boak, “An Egyptian Farmer,” 39–53.

49 Lewis, Life in Egypt under Roman Rule, 163–65, 183–84; Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 144; Boak, Arthur E. R. and Youtie, Herbert C., “Flight and Oppression in Fourth-Century Egypt,” in Arslan, Edoardo, ed., Studi in onore di Aristide Calderini e Roberto Paribeni (2 vols.; Milan: Ceschina, 1956–57) 2. 325–37Google Scholar; Johnson, Allan Chester, An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, vol. 2: Roman Egypt to the Reign of Diocletian (ed. Frank, Tenney; Paterson, NJ: Pageant, 1959) 114–15Google Scholar (P. Upps. 7), 482–83, 546; Rousseau, Pachomius, 9–10.

50 Lewis, Life in Egypt under Roman Rule, 164–65; Bowman, Alan K., Egypt after the Pharaohs: 332 BC–AD 642 from Alexander to the Arab Conquest (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986) 77Google Scholar.

51 Boak and Youtie, “Flight and Oppression,” 325–37; Lewis, Life in Egypt under Roman Rule, 163–65, 183–84; Bowman, Egypt after the Pharaohs, 11; Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 144; Rousseau, Pachomius, 9–10.

52 Goehring, “The World Engaged,” 139–40; Wipszycka, “Les terres de la congrégation pachômienne,” 623–36. This may have been the case for Pbow in particular, since the evidence for the Pachomians' revitalization of Tabennese would probably have been known by that time.

53 Lewis, Life in Egypt under Roman Rule, 68 (only males are recorded); van Minnen, “Deserted Villages,” 43.

54 Bo 9.

55 S7 (Lefort, 5. Pachomii vitae sahidice scriptae, 87–96); SBo 117–23; Gl 114–17.

56 Bo 180; Gl 139.

57 Bo 25; Gl 29.

58 Goehring, James E., “New Frontiers in Pachomian Studies,” in Pearson, Birger A. and Goehring, James E., eds., The Roots of Egyptian Christianity (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity 1; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) 252–57Google Scholar.

59 A female monastery was established in the village of Tabennese, although it is never included in the number of monasteries listed in the sources. It is viewed as a sister monastery of Tabennese. Bo 27; Gl 32 (Greek text in Halkin, François, Le corpus athénien de saint Pachôme [Geneva: Cramer, 1982] 21–22)Google Scholar.

60 Although Lefort's efforts to connect the Pachomian monasteries to specific sites are intriguing, they remain speculative (“Les premiers monasteres pachômiens,” 379–407). Compare Jullien, M., “A la recherche de Tabenne et des autres monastères fondés par saint Pachôme,” Études 89 (1901) 238–58Google Scholar; Gauthier, Henri, “Notes géographiques sur le nome Panopolite,” BIFAO 4 (1904) 63–64, 86–87, 94–95Google Scholar; idem, “Nouvelles notes géographiques sur le nome Panopolite,” BIFAO 10 (1912) 93–94, 103, 121–27; Coquin, René-Georges, “Akhmim,” in Atiya, Aziz S., ed., The Coptic Encyclopedia (8 vols.; New York; Macmillan, 1991) 1. 784Google Scholar.

61 Bo 50; Gl 54. The monastery of Šenesēt was the third community in the koinonia. It had existed independently under the leadership of an old ascetic named Ebonh prior to joining the Pachomian system and was already known as the monastery of Šenesēt when Pachomius accepted it into the koinonia.

62 The monastery of Šmin, the sixth community in the koinonia, is not named as such in the main published editions of the Vita Pachomii (see above, n. 14). Pages preserved in Toronto, however, include Šmin in a list of Pachomian establishments. Spanel, Donald, “A Toronto Sahidic Addition to the Pakhom Dossier (Fischer Al, ff. 1–2),” The Ancient World 6 (1983) 115–25Google Scholar.

63 This is the site of the current Monastery of Palamon. René-Georges Coquin and Maurice Martin, “Anba Palaemon,” in Atiya, The Coptic Encyclopedia, 3. 757; for a photograph that shows the relationship of the monastery to the village, see Robinson, James M., “The Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices,” BA 42 (1979) 208Google Scholar.

64 Lefort, “Les premiers monasteres pachdmiens,” 383–87.

65 S5 (Lefort, S. Pachomii vitae sahidice scriptae, 146–47); SBo 54; compare Gl 81.

66 Hobson, Deborah W., “House and Household in Roman Egypt,” YCS 28 (1985) 225Google Scholar; Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antquity, 111 n. 11.

67 While the cause of the townspeople's opposition to the Pachomians is not given, there is no reason to assume that they opposed them on religious grounds alone.

68 S5 (Lefort, 5. Pachomii vitae sahidice scriptae, 145); SBo 52; compare Gl 83; on its location, see Lefort, “Les premiers monastères pachômiens,” 403–4. The monastery of Tse was the fifth community in the koinonia.

69 Bo 57 (Lefort, S. Pachomii vita bohirice scripta, 56); Gl 83; on its location, see Lefort, “Les premiers monastères pachômiens,” 403–4. The monastery of Tsmine was the eighth community in the koinonia.

70 The author of the Sahidic account of the founding of Tse follows it immediately with the story of a gift of a boat to the Pachomians by a city councilor from Kos (Apollinopolis; modern Kous) (S5 [Lefort, 5. Pachomii vitae sahidice scriptae, 145–46]; SBo 53). The boat is offered so that Pachomius might receive cargo for the monks' use. While the gift of the boat is not linked directly to the monastery of Tse, the placement of the story immediately after the account of the founding of Tse suggests an association between the two in the mind of the author. While the distance between Šmin and Kos (over 150 kilometers along the Nile) militates against an actual connection between the two stories, the very nature of the gift, that is, a boat for delivering cargo to the monasteries of the koinonia, underscores the author's understanding of the koinonia as a group of affiliated monasteries connected by the river. The gift of a boat was easily understood and fit readily into the account of monasteries established in the fertile Nile valley; it is hard to imagine an author's use of such a story in an account of desert communities.

71 SBo 51 (equals Bo 51 plus missing pages from S5 [Lefort, S. Pachomii vitae sahidice scriptae, 145]); G1 54. The monastery of Tmousons was the fourth community in the koinonia.

72 Bo 59; Gl 55; but note Bo 81, 95.

73 Lefort, “Les premiers monastères pachômiens,” 400; Coquin and Martin, “Dayr Anba Bidaba,” in Atiya, The Coptic Encyclopedia, 3. 731–32. Lefort suggested Tmousons's possible identification with Dayr Anba Bidaba, a monastery-village located beside a pond in the midst of the cultivated zone some two kilometers west of Nag Hammadi.

74 Bo 56; Gl 80; on its location, see Lefort, “Les premiers monastères pachômiens,” 399–403. The monastery of Tbewe was the seventh community in the koinonia. Petronius, its founder, came from the town of Pdjodj, located in the diocese of Hiw (Diospolis parva). Pdjodj has been identified with the modern village of Abu-Chouche, located on the western shore of the Nile.

75 While it is not specifically stated that the donation went to his son's community, there is no reason to think otherwise.

76 Gl 83 (Halkin, Sancti Pachomii vitae graecae, 56–57).

77 S4 58 (Lefort, S. Pachomii vitae sahidice scriptae, 230; idem, Les vies coptes de saint Pachôme et de sespremiers successeurs, 303. Lefort choses to translate επτοψ ΝСΝΗ as “à la montagne de Snê.”

78 Bo 58 (Lefort, S. Pachomii vita bohairice scripta, 56–57); on its location, see Lefort, “Les premiers monastères pachômiens,” 404–7.

79 Crum, W. E., “,” A Coptic Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1939) 440–41Google Scholar; Lefort, “Les premiers monastères pachômiens,” 404–7. Even if one accepts the term “mountain,” however, the precise location of the monastery remains unclear. The term occurs in papyrus documents in reference to the further or proper desert, to the nearer desert or escarpment at the edge of the fertile zone, as well as to raised arable land that borders the desert (Cadell, H. and Rémondon, Roger, “Sens et emplois de τὸὄρος dans les documents papyrologiques,” Revue des études grecques 80 (1967) 343–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Thus even if one accepts the Bohairic reading, there is no assurance that the monastery of Phnoum was located in the desert. A lease contract dated 616 CE (P. Lond. 483), for example, refers to a monastery, hamlet and fields located in the mountain of the village of Tanaithis (ἐν τῷ ὄρει κώμης Ταναίθεως). The text refers to livestock and pasturage, and even fish in the waters around the monastery (πιάσι ὀψάρια ἐκ τῶν παντοίων ὑδάτων τῶν περικλωθεν τοῦ αὐτοῦ μοναστηρίου). The monastery of Phnoum may well have existed in a similar location in or near a village of the same name in the Latopolite nome.

80 Lefort, Les vies copies, lxxviii; Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia, 1. 2.

81 van Minnen, Peter, “The Roots of Egyptian Christianity,” Archiv für Papyrusforschung und verwandte Gebiete 40 (1994) 84–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 Bo 50–51, 56; Gl 54, 80.

83 Goehring, “The World Engaged,” 134–44.

84 See above, pp. 273–74; Bo 25; Gl 29.

85 Bo 37; compare Gl 37. Goehring, James E., “Theodore's Entry into the Pachomian Movement,” in Wimbush, Vincent L., ed., Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity 6; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990) 349–56Google Scholar.

86 Bo 180.

87 G1 139.

88 Gl 106.

89 Regula Pachomii, Praecepta 76–77.

90 Bo 39; Gl 39.

91 Paralipomena 21–22.

92 Bo 26; Gl 28.

93 Regula Pachomii, Praecepta 84.

94 Regula Pachomii, Praecepta 90, 102, 54. In the two cases that refer to monks in the village, Jerome changes the text in his Latin translation to in monasterio. See Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia, 2. 189.

95 Regula Pachomii, Praecepta, 108, 111, 118.

96 Bo 56; Gl 80.

97 Regulations of Horsiesius 55–64.

98 Ibid., 52.

99 Goehring, James E., “Through a Glass Darkly: Diverse Images of the Apotaktikoi(ai) of Early Egyptian Monasticism,” Semeia 58 (1992) 28Google Scholar.

100 Judge, “The Earliest Use of Monachos,” 72–89; idem, “Fourth Century Monasticism in the Papyri,” in Roger Bagnall, ed., Proceedings of the Sixteenth International Congress of Papyrology, New York, 24–31 July 1980 (American Studies in Papyrology 23; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981) 613–20; Goehring, “Through a Glass Darkly,” 139–41.

101 Goehring, “The World Engaged,” 139–41.

102 P. Berl. inv. 11860A/B; Wipszycka, “Les terres de la congrégation pachômienne,” 623–36; Judge (“The Earliest Use of Monachos,” 73–74) makes the same point with respect to the monachos that appears in a Karanis petition.

103 Gl 134.

104 The question of the legal availability of vacant land and buildings for occupancy by individuals like Pachomius lies beyond the scope of the present essay. In the period in question, the praescriptio longi temporis awarded uncontested possession of property to an individual who had been in possession of it for forty years, regardless of how the person actually came into possession of it (Kramer, Casper J. and Lewis, Naphtali, “A Referee's Hearing on Ownership,” Transactions of the American Philological Society 68 (1937) 357–87Google Scholar; Bagnall, Roger S. and Lewis, Naphtali, Columbia Papyri VII: Fourth Century Documents from Karanis (American Studies in Papyrology 20; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979) 173–85Google Scholar; Crook, J. A., Legal Advocacy in the Roman World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995) 104–7)Google Scholar. The cultivation of land in this period was often unprofitable (Kraemer and Lewis, “A Referee's Hearing,” 366–67). This may account for the lack of opposition to Pachomius's occupation of it. On the other hand, the opposition of local townspeople to his founding of a monastery near the nome capital of Šmin (Gl 81) may have been occasioned in part by legal concerns over the land in question. Documents do record disputes over vacant property (SB 5232; Johnson, An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, 158–59) and complaints about others encroaching on one's land (van Minnen, “House-to-House Enquiries,” 244–45).

105 Urban property was not taxed. See Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 153.

106 Goehring, “The World Engaged,” 141; Ruppert, Fidelis, Das pachomianische Mönchtum und die Anfänge klösterlichen Gehorsams (Münsterschwarzach: Vier-Türme-Verlag, 1971) 320–24Google Scholar.

107 Compare the White Monastery of Shenute. Coquin, and Martin, , “Dayr Anba Shinudah, History,” in Atiya, The Coptic Encyclopedia, 1. 761–66Google Scholar.

108 Melitian ascetic communities also appear to have been closely connected with villages. P. Lond. 1913 refers to a community in the village of Hipponon in communication with the monastery of Hathor in the eastern desert of the Upper Cynopolite nome. See Goehring, James E., “Melitian Monastic Organization: A Challenge to Pachomian Originality,” Studia Patristica 25 (1993) 388–95Google Scholar.