The Making of Monastic Demonology- Three Ascetic Teachers on Withdrawal and Resistance

American Society of Church History

The Making of Monastic Demonology: Three Ascetic Teachers on Withdrawal and ResistanceAuthor(s): David BrakkeSource: Church History, Vol. 70, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 19-48Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of ChurchHistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3654409Accessed: 24/05/2010 11:35

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The Making of Monastic Demonology: Three Ascetic Teachers on Withdrawal

and Resistance DAVID BRAKKE

Although in recent years fourth- and fifth-century Egyptian monasticism has received much scholarly attention of increasing method- ological and theoretical sophistication, conflict with demons, a primary metaphor for the ascetic life in the literature of the period, has been left relatively unexplored.1 One reason for this lack of attention is a shift in the intellectual paradigms through which scholars approach ascetic literature: as they have moved from psychological and theological models to social and performative ones in interpreting ascetic theory and practice, seemingly subjective or theological themes such as demonological theory have given way to more cul-

Earlier versions of this paper were read at the American Society of Church History (ASCH) Winter Meeting (Chicago, January 2000) and at the Princeton University Seminar on Late Antiquity (February 2000). I am grateful to the organizers of those sessions, Elizabeth A. Clark (ASCH) and Jaclyn L. Maxwell and Peter Brown (Princeton), and to the participants, especially Teresa Shaw, Virginia Burrus, Sarah Iles Johnston, and Peter Struck, for their questions, criticisms, and suggestions. For comments on the written version, thanks go to Bert Harrill and to the anonymous readers for this journal. Research for this paper was supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies.

1. Some of the most significant recent works on early Egyptian monasticism are Philip Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority, and the Church in the Age of Jerome and Cassian (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978); idem, Pachomius: The Making of a Community in Fourth-Century Egypt, Transformations of the Classical Heritage 6 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Samuel Rubenson, The Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (1990; reprint, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995); Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Graham Gould, The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993); Susanna Elm, "Virgins of God": The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity, Oxford Classical Monographs (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 226-372; and the essays of James E. Goehring, now collected in his Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Early Egyptian Monasticism, Studies in Antiquity & Christianity (Harrisburg, Penn.: Trinity Press International, 1999). For a measure of the neglect of demons, see the sparse entry "demons" in the index to Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis, eds., Asceticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), admittedly focused not on early Christianity alone.

David Brakke is an associate professor of religious studies at Indiana University. @ 2001, The American Society of Church History Church History 70:1 (March 2001)

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tural topics, such as constructions of the body and formations of ascetic institutions and practices, with their accompanying politics.2 But the neglect of demons is a function also of the weighty influence exercised by two fourth-century demonologists, Athanasius of Alex- andria and Evagrius of Pontus, and of the powerful modern explica- tions of monastic demonology based on these important sources.3 Together the Life of Antony and the works of Evagrius construct, it seems, the monastic demonology, upon which later sources only elaborate.4

There is some truth in this view, for Athanasius and Evagrius both epitomized views that were widespread among monks of their con- texts and provided paradigms for later monastic authors, such as John Cassian and John Climacus. Still, recent scholarship has warned against allowing especially the Life of Antony to determine our understanding of the nature and development of ascetic and monastic movements in fourth-century Egypt: in comparison to what Athana- sius presents, many of the early monks, including Antony himself, were better educated and less rustic, more urban and less solitary, more diverse in their lifestyles and less naive in their philosophical outlooks.5 Likewise, the best of more recent studies of monastic demonology have, so to speak, made an end-run around Athanasius and Evagrius to examine other sources, sometimes from more social and cultural perspectives.6 Such is the strategy of this essay, which exam- ines the construction of monastic demonology in three sets of writings whose authors most likely developed their views of demons apart from that of the Life of Antony: the letters or treatises attributed to Antony the Great, his disciple Ammonas, and Paul of Tamma.

All of these sources come from monastic teachers, the quality and longevity of whose ascetic discipline had made them authoritative

2. The changing scholarly approaches are well surveyed by Elizabeth A. Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton: Princeton Univer- sity Press, 1999), 14-38.

3. The classic exposition is the section on "la plus ancienne litt6rature monastique" by Antoine and Claire Guillaumont, in "D6mon," Dictionnaire de spiritualite ascetique et mystique: doctrine et histoire 3 (1957): 189-212.

4. So the Guillaumonts state that the demonology of Athanasius, Evagrius, and Cassian "devient la demonologie classique du desert" ("Demon," 210).

5. See esp. Rubenson, Letters of St. Antony and Goehring, Ascetics, Society, and the Desert. Not everyone is convinced: see Graham Gould, "Recent Work on Monastic Origins: A Consideration of the Questions Raised By Samuel Rubenson's The Letters of Antony," Studia Patristica 25 (1993): 405-16.

6. Rousseau, Pachomius, 134-41; Peter Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), 81-101; Richard Valantasis, "Daemons and the Perfecting of the Monk's Body: Monastic Anthropology, Daemonology, and Asceti- cism," Semeia 58 (1992): 47-79.

MAKING OF MONASTIC DEMONOLOGY 21

figures and whose literary works are addressed to disciples. Stylisti- cally, these writings are closely related to the tradition of wisdom literature, rooted both in such biblical books as Proverbs and Sirach and in such Egyptian texts as the Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy.7 Al- ready Alexandrian Christians had adapted this genre for the presentation of theological and ascetic teaching in the Teachings of Silvanus, Authoritative Teaching, and other works. The literary features of wisdom-addresses to the reader(s) as "son" or "children," exhortations to understand and to know, short declarative statements without extensive justification, frequent use of the connective "for" (y 6p)- indicate its basis in or its attempt to emulate the interaction between teacher and student.8 Making use of this genre, monks such as Antony, Paul, and Ammonas represented a new incarnation of antiquity's venerable figure of the spiritual guide.9 In the cities of the Roman empire, ad hoc study circles formed and disbanded around charismatic philosopher-teachers of a variety of philosophical and religious stripes.1o In Christian Egypt such figures included Clement of Alexandria, Valentinus, Origen, and Arius. While it may once have been possible to consider monks of Middle and Upper Egypt such as Antony to be clearly distinct from such Alexandrian intellectuals, it is so no longer. The discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices, the newly described presence of Hermetic circles in upper Egyptian cities,11 and

7. On the wisdom style of Antony's letters, see Rubenson, Letters, 49; of Paul's writings, see Tim Vivian, "Saint Paul of Tamma on the Monastic Cell (de Cella)," Hallel 23 (1998): 86-107, at 89.

8. William R. Schoedel, "Jewish Wisdom and the Formation of the Christian Ascetic," in Aspects of Wisdom in Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Robert L. Wilken (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 169-99. See Pierre Hadot's discussion of the relation between the literary forms of ancient philosophical works and the oral context of teaching in "Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse in Ancient Philosophy," in his Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 49-70, at 61-64.

9. Hadot, "Ancient Spiritual Exercises and 'Christian Philosophy,' " in his Philosophy as a Way of Life, 126-44; see Richard Valantasis, Spiritual Guides of the Third Century: A Semiotic Study of the Guide-Disciple Relationship in Christianity, Neoplatonism, Hermetism, and Gnosticism, Harvard Dissertations in Religion 27 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991); Michel Foucault, "Sexuality and Power," in his Religion and Culture (New York: Routledge, 1999), 115-30, at 125.

10. From among a substantial body of literature, see esp. Hans von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries (London: Black, 1969), 194-212; Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, Lectures on the History of Religions 13 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 103-108; Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (1986; reprint, Princeton: Princeton Uni- versity Press, 1993), 186-95.

11. Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, 168-76.

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the re-evaluation of an ascetic teacher like Hieracas of Leontopolis,12 among other scholarly developments, have enabled scholars to imag- ine identities for early monks more sophisticated than "simple Copts."

Likewise, while it may seem instinctually right to attribute the monastic interest in demons to the lower sophistication and pagan backgrounds of many Egyptian monks ("folklore"), demonology- that is, sustained theoretical reflection on the nature and activities of demons-was an intellectual endeavor that engaged the interests of precisely the philosophers who functioned as spiritual guides in antiquity's elite academic milieu. Within the Egyptian tradition, Ori- gen and the Valentinians most extensively developed understandings of how demons challenged the person attempting to make spiritual progress. Antony, Ammonas, and Paul constructed their monastic demonologies by adapting these earlier views on the demonic role in philosophical self-cultivation to the new monastic projects of the fourth century. Their differing theories of demons reveal the diversity of ends for which such "ambiguous and anomalous" beings could be employed.13 In Antony's teaching, elements of Origenist and Valen- tinian thought are most apparent as demons emerge as principles of differentiation resistant to the ascetic's return to an original unity of "spiritual essence." In the Letters of Ammonas, we are able to observe a monastic teacher creating a demonology that responds to crises in the spiritual development of his disciples and that justifies one form of the monastic life as superior to others. Stressing the need for complete isolation in one's cell, Paul of Tamma considers demons to have been rendered weak by the power of God; human beings represent a far greater danger to the monk's virtue. Despite these differ- ences, all three authors articulated their demonologies out of an inherited set of traditions to address a new series of tensions created by monastic withdrawal: unity vs. difference, solitude vs. community, desert vs. city. Resistance to virtue became increasingly located in the existence and influence of the multitude of other people and the means of overcoming such resistance, in the focused instruction of the single ascetic teacher. Withdrawal created its own momentum, however, which could at its extreme leave demons powerless and even the monastic guide dangerous.

12. James E. Goehring, "Hieracas of Leontopolis: The Making of a Desert Ascetic," in his Ascetics, Society, and the Desert, 110-33.

13. The quoted phrase is from Brown, Making of Late Antiquity, 20.

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I. ANTONY: PRINCIPLES OF DIFFERENCE

Scholars had long suspected that the portrayal of Antony the Great in Athanasius's Life of Antony may not present a completely reliable portrait of the famous monk since its shape clearly reflected Athana- sius's own theology as well as commonplaces in the literary lives of pagan sages. Although the letters attributed to Antony were available in Latin translations, scholars did not turn to them for more trustwor- thy information about him, but to the sayings traditions (apophtheg- mata);14 the authenticity of the letters seemed dubious, and their transmission in several different languages is complex and disor- dered.15 In 1990, however, Samuel Rubenson published his thorough study of the letters and made a compelling case for their authenticity. His work contributed substantially to the new perspectives on early Egyptian monasticism that I described above. Rather than Athana- sius's simple, uneducated Copt (a picture undermined even within the Life itself), Antony has emerged as a thoughtful, philosopically inclined ascetic, whose teaching emphasizes the transformative nature of "knowledge" (gnosis) of self and God.

In its basic elements Antony's demonology is indebted to that of Origen.16 All created beings, including angels, heavenly bodies, human beings, and demons, originated in a lost unity, from which they fell due to their "evil conduct." Antony speaks of the resulting diversity of creatures in terms of the "names" that God assigned to them- archangel, principality, demon, and the like-based on the quality of their conduct, and thus Antony echoes Origen's discussion of such names in Book I of First Principles."7 The devil and his demons, "since their part is in the hell to come," plot against human beings: "they want us to be lost with them."18 Their means of attack are diverse, and thus monks require "a heart of knowledge and a spirit of discern-

14. Hermann Dorries, "Die Vita Antonii als Geschichtsquelle" (1949), reprint in his Wort und Stunde, 3 vols. (G6ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966-70), 1: 145-244.

15. Only fragments of Antony's original Coptic survive; otherwise, there are multiple versions, of which the Georgian and Latin are most important (Rubenson, Letters, 15-34). I am dependent, therefore, on Rubenson's translation, which is based on comparison of the several versions, although at times I have preferred the older translation by Derwas Chitty, The Letters of St. Antony (Fairacres, U.K.: SLG, 1974).

16. Rubenson, Letters, 64-68, 86-88. 17. Antony, epp. 5.40-42; 6.57-62 (Rubenson, Letters, 215, 220); see Origen, Princ. 1.5.2-3

(Sources Chretiennes [SC] 252:176-82). 18. Antony, ep. 6.19-20 (Rubenson, Letters, 217). Rubenson takes the reference to "hell"

and "perdition" here to indicate that, unlike Origen, Antony does not believe that the demons can be restored to unity with God (Letters, 87). But it is doubtful that this passage alone can support such a conclusion since even Origen can speak of the devil and the demons being condemned to hell (see Jeffrey Burton Russell, Satan: The Early Christian Tradition [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981], 143, with refs.).

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24 CHURCH HISTORY

ment" to recognize their "secret evils."19 In particular, the monk must discriminate among three kinds of bodily movements: those that are natural to the body, those caused by the monk's own negligence in food and drink, and those caused by demons.20 The mind or soul that fails to attend to the teachings of the Spirit of God becomes disor- dered, allows the demons to stir up movements within the body, and serves as "a guide to the evil spirits working in its members." Still, even this condition will bring the monk to weariness and despair, to reliance on God's help, and thus to conversion and healing.21 The demons themselves are invisible, but a monk's capitulation to their suggestions renders them visible on the monk's person: "And if you seek, you will not find their sins and iniquities revealed bodily, for they are not visible bodily. But you should know that we are their bodies, and that our soul receives their wickedness; and when it has received them, then it reveals them through the body in which we dwell."22 Demons are "all hidden, and we reveal them by our deeds."23

Antony's demons operate as products, agents, and symbols of diversity and separation as opposed to uniformity and unity; thus, like all fallen creatures, they have names. Demons are "all from one in their spiritual essence; but through their flight from God great diversity has arisen between them since their deeds are varying. Therefore all these names have been imposed on them after the deeds of each one."24 There is, then, something deceptive and unreal about names, "all" of which have been "given" to creatures, "whether male or female, for the sake of the variety of their deeds and in conformity with their own minds, but they are all from one."25 Onomastic diversity belies essential unity. Although the basis of this teaching on names derives from Origen, Antony's pervasive reflection on names as secondary and as masking the origination of all spiritual beings in a unity owes as much to the Valentinian tradition as to Origen.

Speculation about the power and mystery of divine names was characteristic of Alexandrian and Egyptian Christianity from their origins.26 Such speculation was part of a wider philosophical and

19. Antony, ep. 6.27-29, 49 (Rubenson, Letters, 218-19). 20. Antony, ep. 1.35-41 (Rubenson, Letters, 199). 21. Antony, ep. 1.42-45, 72 (Rubenson, Letters, 200, 202). 22. Antony, ep. 6.50-51 (Rubenson, Letters, 219). 23. Antony, ep. 6.55 (Rubenson, Letters, 220). 24. Antony, ep. 6.56-57 (Rubenson, Letters, 220, alt.). 25. Antony, ep. 6.62 (Rubenson, Letters, 220, alt.). 26. Colin H. Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt, Schweich

Lectures of the British Academy 1977 (London: Oxford University Press, 1979), 26-48.

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religious conversation about names that addressed epistemology, language, and the effectiveness of magic.27 The Christian apologist Theophilus of Antioch adopted the theory that names reveal accu- rately the natures of their referents in his attempt to create a history of culture that would legitimate Christian claims to truth.28 In Egypt, however, Valentinus and his followers articulated a more ambivalent view of names as they extended Alexandrian name-mysticism into reflection on how both ordinary and sacred names do and do not evoke the presence and identity of the beings they purport to iden- tify.29 Valentinus used the concept of naming to transform "what in the Gnostic version [of the creation of humanity] was a metaphor of lack or deficiency into a metaphor of fullness and plenitude."30 But Valentinus's evocation of fullness depended on a contrast between "proper" or "lordly" names and more defective names "on loan."31 Followers of Valentinus elaborated on this contrast. According to the Gospel of Philip, "names given to worldly things are very deceptive, since they turn the heart aside from the real to the unreal"; they can be tools of "the rulers," who seek "to deceive humanity by the names and bind them to the nongood."32 Although the name "Christian" has great power, persons who have been baptized only and who have not received the Holy Spirit have only "borrowed the name."33 The original unity of the fullness is associated with a single true Name, "an unnamable Name" (Ovoa 6Mvov6~oacrTov), which is the Son; the fallen aeons, who have moved into multiplicity and away from unity, possess now only "a shadow of the Name" or a "partial name" (T6

xo•T( Uppos

6io•Lo).34 As the Valentinians saw it, naming in this

present world is deceptive, a function of the fall away from reality and unity into materiality and diversity. The illusory character of ordinary names plays into the hands of the demonic rulers, whose existence itself bears witness to this fall.35

27. See M. Hirschle, Sprachphilosophie und Namenmagie im Neuplatonismus, Beitriige zur klassischen Philologie 96 (Meisenheim an Glan: Heim, 1979).

28. Arthur J. Droge, Homer or Moses? Early Christian Interpretations of the History of Culture, Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie 26 (Tiibingen: J. C. B. M6hr, 1989), 104-108.

29. David Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 127-82, esp. 153-67.

30. Dawson, Allegorical Readers, 139, interpreting Valentinus's Fragments C and D (trans. Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1986], 234-37).

31. Dawson, Allegorical Readers, 161. 32. Gospel According to Philip 53:23-27; 54:18-25 (Layton, Gnostic Scriptures, 330-31). 33. Gospel According to Philip 62:26-35; 64:22-28 (Layton, Gnostic Scriptures, 338-39). 34. Clement of Alexandria, Exc. Theod. 31.3-4 (SC 23:126-28). 35. The Valentinians developed this ambivalent teaching about names in a controversy

with "ecclesiastical Christians," in which all parties were using the same terms ("Fa-

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Antony likewise associates multiple names with the fall away from

unity into diversity, epitomized by the diversity of the evil spirits. The names of "Jesus" and "saint" can themselves be deceptive, cloaks that cover with the "form of godliness" persons who actually "act accord-

ing to their own hearts and bodies."36 Ordinary names, meanwhile, fail completely to name people's true identities, that is, "themselves as they were created, namely as an eternal substance, which is not dissolved with the body."37 Multiple names of transient flesh must

give way to the single real name through self-knowledge: A sensible man who has prepared himself to be freed at the coming of Jesus knows himself in his spiritual essence, for he who knows himself also knows the dispensations of the Creator, and what he does for his creatures. Beloved in the Lord, our members and joint heirs with the saints, I beseech you in the name of Jesus Christ to act so that he gives you all the Spirit of discernment to perceive and understand that the love I have for you is not the love of the flesh, but the love of godliness. About your names in the flesh there is nothing to say; they will vanish. But if a man knows his true name he will also perceive the name of Truth. As long as he was struggling with the angel through the night Jacob was called Jacob, but when it dawned he was called Israel, which means "a mind that sees God" (see Gen. 32:24-28).38

Antony contrasts the monks' "names in the flesh" with their identity as "holy Israelite children, in their spiritual essence";39 the monks'

diversity as "young and old, male and female," with their unity as "Israelite children, saints in your spiritual essence."40 "There is," Antony tells his readers, "no need to bless, nor to mention, your transient names in the flesh."41 In light of these passages, it comes as no surprise that, with the exception of the author, the only contem- porary person whose name appears in the letters is the heresiarch Arius, who "did not know himself."42 People have multiple names of flesh-Jacob, Antony, Arius, and many other besides--just as, in their fallen condition they have diverse bodies and individual wills; but they share only one true name, Israel, as they share only one spiritual

ther," "church," "resurrection") to refer to different realities. See Klaus Koschorke, "Die 'Namen' in Philippusevangelium: Beobachtungen zur Auseinandersetzung zwis- chen gnostischen und kirchlichen Christentum," Zeitschrift fiir die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 64 (1973): 307-22, esp. 314-20.

36. Antony, epp. 3.35; 7.46-48 (Rubenson, Letters, 208, 228). 37. Antony, ep. 3.12 (Rubenson, Letters, 206). 38. Antony, ep. 3.1-6 (Rubenson, Letters, 206). 39. Antony, ep. 5.1-2 (Rubenson, Letters, 212); see ep. 7.5 (Rubenson, Letters, 225). 40. Antony, ep. 6.2 (Rubenson, Letters, 216). 41. Antony, ep. 6.78 (Rubenson, Letters, 221). 42. Antony, ep. 4.17-18 (Rubenson, Letters, 211).


essence. Names, like demons, are symptoms of individuality, which is, in Rubenson's words, "a result of the fall and of diversity, and something that belongs to corporeal and transient existence."43

Antony is drawing on a long tradition of Alexandrian ascetic exegesis of Genesis 32. According to Philo, whom Clement and Origen follow, Jacob's wrestling with the angel represents the ethical life of struggle with the passions, while the name Israel, meaning "one who sees God," signifies the contemplative life, which victory over the passions allows.44 But Antony elaborates on this tradition by associ- ating "Jacob," one's "name in the flesh," with transience, diversity, corporeality, as well as struggle with the demons, and "Israel," one's "true name," with eternity, unity, spirituality, and thus overcoming the condition of fallenness represented by the demons. Antony's teaching further echoes Valentinian tradition when it connects discovery of one's "true name" with the ability to "perceive the name of Truth," a mysterious term, most likely related to, but not identical with, "the name of Jesus Christ." The "name of Truth" that belongs to God may ground the validity of the "true name" that belongs to humanity in its single spiritual essence just as for the Valentinians the name of the Son provided the only reality in which the "partial names" of fallen beings shared. The Antonian monk must withdraw from his individual, separate, surface self of the fleshly name to the shared, united, hidden self of the true name.

Demons oppose this effort by promoting difference on two levels: through embodied vice they encourage a movement away from the invisible unity of spiritual essence, and through interpersonal strife they incite division within the social unity of the church. These two aspects come together in the metaphor of "the house." At the level of the person, the fallen existence of corporeal individuality, in which the true spiritual self is hidden in the visible body, is troped as confinement in an inhospitable "dwelling."45 "We dwell in our death and stay in the house of the robber," also known as "this house of clay," "a house full of war," "this house of dust and darkness," and so forth.46 In this metaphor, a person's true identity as spiritual essence is "invisible," while externality takes on the negative valence of "out-

43. Rubenson, Letters, 68. 44. Mark Sheridan, "I1 mondo spirituale e intellettuale del primo monachesimo egiziano,"

in L'Egitto cristiano: aspetti e problemi in etli tardo-antica, ed. Alberto Camplani, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 56 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1997), 177-216, at 197-99.

45. Antony, ep. 1.71 (Rubenson, Letters, 201-202). 46. Antony, epp. 5.6, 10; 6.45, 83; 7.12, 20 (Rubenson, Letters, 212, 219, 222, 226).

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ward confusion."47 Still, it is unlikely that Antony equates external corporeality with materiality; for most of the ancients, such incorporeal entities as souls were not immaterial, but rather extremely rar- efied matter.48 The complicated transmission of Antony's letters in multiple languages makes precise recovery of Antony's own philosophical vocabulary (vois, 7Trveip), and the like) difficult, if not im- possible,49 but certain passages suggest that Antony shares the com- mon view and thus that the invisible spiritual essence to which the human mind and the demons belong is material and incorporeal. For example, "the soul" of the self-oriented monk is, Antony writes, "the breath of evil spirits," in which "breath" is the Greek 0&6p, transliter- ated in Georgian. Demonic "air" has replaced such a person's soul; this interior change has negative exterior effects, as the monk's "body [is] a store of evil mysteries which it hides in itself."50

Succumbing to demonic suggestion, then, emerges as a process of negative externalization. Demons, because they share the same spiritual essence as human beings, are "hidden" and "not visible bodily," but they become "revealed bodily" through the monk's actualizing of their sinful potential, by creating embodied deed from spiritual thought. The result is that "we are their [the demons'] bodies."'51 Just as the demonic came into being due to a fall away from unity caused by activity, so too the demonic now incites a movement from interior invisible spirituality to exterior visible corporeality, but one that em- bodies or exteriorizes negative invisible spirituality, namely, the demons. In contrast, virtuous acts effect a positive exteriorization because by them "we shall reveal the essence of our own mercy."52 The demons try to cover their tracks by similarly distracting the monk's attention from his own interior life to his monastic colleagues and external circumstances: we are "accusing each other and not our- selves, thinking that our toil is from our fellows, sitting in judgment on what appears outwardly, while the robber is all within our house."53 Although the appellation is a biblical and traditional one, based especially in exegesis of the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37),54 the demons are "robbers" for Antony because they

47. Antony, ep. 6.80, 84, 98 (Rubenson, Letters, 221-23). 48. On the distinction between incorporeality and immateriality in ancient thought, see

Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 6-15. 49. Rubenson, Letters, 69. 50. Antony, ep. 6.47 (Rubenson, Letters, 219). 51. Antony, ep. 6.49-55 (Rubenson, Letters, 219-20). 52. Antony, ep. 6.67 (Rubenson, Letters, 221). 53. Antony, ep. 6.36-37 (Chitty, Letters, 19). 54. G. J. M. Bartelink, "Les demons comme brigands," Vigiliae Christianae 21 (1967): 12-24.

See Matt. 21:13, Mark 3:27, Luke 11:21, John 10:8, Eph. 6:10-18. To the many patristic

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provoke embodiment or exteriorization of a false identity, one foreign to the monk's actual identity as spiritual essence, thus making the

body "their home" rather than the site of a legitimate revealing of one's natural essence and of one's future, resurrected "spiritual body."55

The demons' creation of alienation among monastic colleagues represents their attempt to undermine the social unity of the church, which anticipates the eventual return to the single spiritual essence and is also a "house." In several letters Antony repeats the following social history of salvation, found most completely in Letter 2:

In his irrevocable love the Creator of all desired to visit our afflictions and confusion. He thus raised up Moses, the Lawgiver, who gave us the written law and founded for us the house of truth, the spiritual Church, which creates unity, since it is God's will that we turn back to the first formation. Moses built the house, yet did not finish it, but left and died. Then God by his Spirit raised up the council of prophets, and they built upon the foundation laid by Moses, but could not complete it and likewise they left and died. Invested with the Spirit, they all saw that the wound was incurable and that none of the creatures was able to heal it, but only the Only-begotten, who is the very mind and image of the Father, who made every rational creature in the image of his image.... He gave himself for our

sins,.... and by the word of his power he gathered us from all lands,

from one end of the earth to the other, resurrecting our minds, giving us remission of our sins, and teaching us that we are members of one another.56

The church, as "the house of truth" (see Num. 12:7; Heb. 3:2-6), is the mechanism through which God restores dispersed and divided crea-

references collected by Bartelink add from Nag Hammadi Teachings of Silvanus 85:2-3, 13-14; 113:31-33; Interpretation of Knowledge 6:19.

55. Antony, epp. 6.53; 1.71 (Rubenson, Letters, 219, 202). The sayings tradition preserves a different Antonian use of the "robber" metaphor: "The monks praised a certain brother before Abba Antony. When the monk came to see him, Antony tested him to see whether he would bear dishonor; and seeing that he could not bear it, he said to him, 'You are like a village magnificently decorated on the outside, but plundered within by robbers'" (Apoph. Patr. 8.2 [SC 387:398-400] = Ant. 151; trans. Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Cistercian Studies 59 [Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian, 1975], 4, alt.). More could be said regarding the role of the body in demonic temptation and ascetic transformation in Antony: see Rubenson, Letters, 68-71; Tim Vivian, " 'Every- thing Made by God is Good': A Letter from Saint Athanasius to the Monk Amoun," ?glise et Theologie 24 (1993): 75-108, at 80-84; and David Brakke, "The Problematization of Nocturnal Emissions in Early Christian Syria, Egypt, and Gaul," Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 419-60, at 436-38.

56. Antony, ep. 2.9-14, 20-22 (Rubenson, Letters, 203-204); see epp. 3.15-25; 5.15-28; 6.6-13; 7.26-30 (Rubenson, Letters, 207, 213-14, 216, 227).

30 CHURCH HISTORY

tures to the original unity.57 Although it originated with Moses and the prophets, only Christ could heal the "incurable wound" of human sin, and he was able to gather people from all lands and teach them about their essential unity. Since restoration of unity and the suppres- sion of corporeal individuality are the goals of the church, the demons prey especially on the monk who attends to his own will ("every man who delights in his own desires"), and they "sow the seed of division" among monastic colleagues since "he who loves his neighbor loves God."58 The "house of truth" should, through a harmony of wills in love, socially embody the unity of undifferentiated essence. Demon- ically inspired division exposes the house's character as a collection of individual and therefore conflicting wills.59 The demonic intruder is, then, "a robber in our house" because it alienates the monk from his spiritual essence at the levels both of his own personality and of the monastic community.

Once again Antony's teaching echoes that of at least one stream of Valentinian thought. Valentinus himself drew on the language of the Parable of the Good Samaritan to describe the fallen human heart as a "caravansary" ('rrv8cv0XEov) (Luke 10:34), rendered "impure by being the habitation of many demons."60 The Valentinian author of the Interpretation of Knowledge elaborated on this demonic inhabitation of the person and, like Antony, on its consequences for the church: "Since the body is a caravansary (rravsoxeov [sic]) that the rulers and the authorities have as a dwelling place, the inner person, having been imprisoned in the modeled form, came into suffering. And having compelled him to serve them, they forced him to assist the powers

(ev/pyeaLot). They divided the church (exxXrlau), so that they might

inherit."61 Although much of the preceding text is lost in a lacuna, the phrases that remain-"robbers," "down to Jericho" (6:19-21)-indicate that this discussion too works from the Good Samaritan Parable. In this case the demonically inspired social division took the specific

57. On the origin of the phrase "house of truth" in exegesis of Num. 12:7 and Heb. 3:2-6, see Janet Timbie, "Biblical Interpretation in the Letters of Antony: Exploring the House of Truth," paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the North American Patristic Society, Chicago, May 2000.

58. Antony, ep. 6.46-48, 104-105 (Rubenson, Letters, 219, 223-24). 59. Asked why he avoided his fellow monks, Arsenius is said to have replied, "God knows

that I love you, but I cannot live with God and people. The thousands and ten thousands of the heavenly hosts have but one will, while people have many. So I cannot leave God to be with people" (Apoph. Patr. Ars. 13; Ward, Sayings, 11).

60. Valentinus, Epistle on Attachments (Fragment H; Layton, Gnostic Scriptures, 245). 61. Interpretation of Knowledge 6:30-38. In monastic sayings the term

iv/py•aL becomes

shorthand for the demonic, especially the demon of fornication (for example, Apoph. Patr. 5.27, 30, 32, 42 [SC 387:264, 266, 270, 282]).


form of controversy over spiritual gifts (15:26-18:38). While Valenti- nus had identified the "heart" as the dwelling that the robber demons invade, this teacher anticipates Antony by making it the body and extending the demons' work to dividing the church. Antony's label- ing of the body as "the house of the robber" and as potentially the demons' body belongs to this tradition. But Antony departs from his Valentinian predecessors by understanding the estranged body not as the natural, created state, but as the result of succumbing to demonic temptation, and thus as amenable to restoration through the ascetic program.

Still, the Antony of the Letters faces demons that are far subtler and more dangerous than those faced by the Antony of Athanasius's Life.62 Because Antony considers the ascetic life to be a process of return to an original undifferentiated unity, the demons represent the tendency toward separation, division, and individuality. Although they incite a movement toward false externality, they are themselves not forces external to the monk because the monk's very existence as a separate individual implies the demonic pull of division. Demons are built into the structure of the fallen cosmos as the principles of differentiation. There is no individual existence without demonic estrangement, but Antony believes that eventually existence will give way to essence: "Now therefore, I beseech you, my beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, not to neglect your true life, and not to confound the brevity of this time with time eternal, nor mistake the skin of corruptible flesh with the reign of ineffable light, and not to let this place of damnation squander the angelic thrones of judgment."63 Antony's sense of the radical fallenness of this "place of damnation" suggests currents in his thought that run not only from Origen and from Christian wisdom such as the Teachings of Silvanus,64 but also from the Gnostics and the Valentinians. Antony himself may betray his awareness of such proclivities in his teaching and so his need to renounce them when, speaking of "forerunners" of Christ, he says, "I do not hesitate to say that Moses, who gave us the law, is one of them."65 In any event, his demonology harnessed insights from such philosophical traditions of Egyptian Christianity to a monastic goal of annihilation of the individual self or, rather, its reabsorption into an original undifferentiated unity. This objective is similar to what Hadot

62. See Rubenson, Letters, 139-40. 63. Antony, ep. 5.37 (Rubenson, Letters, 214). 64. On Antony and wisdom literature from Nag Hammadi, see Wincenty Myszor, "An-

tonius-Briefe und Nag-Hammadi-Texte," Jahrbuch fiir Antike und Christentum 32 (1989): 72-88.

65. Antony, ep. 3.16-17 (Rubenson, Letters, 207).

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32 CHURCH HISTORY

identifies as the aim of note-taking for ancient philosophers: "the point is not to forge oneself a spiritual identity by writing, but rather to liberate oneself from one's individuality, in order to raise oneself up to universality... to accede to the universality of reason within the confines of space and time."66 Antony adapts previous demonologies to create a philosophical ideology, in a cosmological or mythological mode, for monastic withdrawal; as principles of differentiation, the demons render problematic individuality and difference, the symptoms of society as a collection of selves.

II. AMMONAS: ENEMIES IN THE DESERT

As epistles of spiritual direction that reflect actual interaction between the monastic guide and his disciples, the Letters of Ammonas present a particularly welcome form of evidence. If the attribution to Ammonas the disciple of Antony is correct,67 the letters must be dated to the third quarter of the fourth century, a period of change in many of the monastic groups of Egypt, as recognized leaders passed away and their successors struggled to carry on their legacies.68 Unlike Antony's letters, which remain abstract in their content and consistent in their themes, the fourteen letters of Ammonas speak to concrete difficulties in the lives of the recipients and reveal an ascetic master adapting his teaching to changing circumstances. Fortunately, the collection of the letters in Syriac retains the sequence of this interaction; the extant Greek text is the result of a cut-and-paste job that has obscured changes in Ammonas's thought, while at least preserving some of his original Greek vocabulary.69 Examined in sequence, the letters reveal how a monastic teacher constructed simultaneously theories of demons and of his own authority.

The letters divide roughly into four moments in the relationship between Ammonas and his disciples, moments defined by the evolv- ing authority of Ammonas and by crises that Ammonas identifies as "trials" or "temptations" in the ascetic lives of the recipients. In

66. Hadot, "Reflections on the Idea of the 'Cultivation of the Self,' " in his Philosophy as a Way of Life, 206-13, at 210-11.

67. The most extensive discussion of their authenticity remains Franz Klejna, "Antonius und Ammonas: Eine Untersuchung tiber Herkunft und Eigenart der iltesten Mbnchs- briefe," Zeitschrift fiir katholische Theologie 62 (1938): 309-48, at 320-26.

68. In general, see Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority, and the Church, 33-67. 69. Klejna, "Antonius und Ammonas," 312-20. The Syriac text was edited by Michael

Kmosko, Ammonii Eremitae Epistolae, Patrologia Orientalia (PO) 10.6 (Paris: Firmin- Didot, 1913); the Greek by F. Nau, Ammonas: Successeur de saint Antoine, PO 11.4 (Paris: Firmin-Didot, n.d.). I have used but have regularly altered the translation by Derwas J. Chitty and Sebastian Brock, The Letters of Ammonas, Successor of Saint Antony (Faira- cres, U.K.: SLG, 1979).


Letters 1 to 4 Ammonas presents a relatively simple map of the monk's spiritual progress. The struggle to attain virtue with one's "whole heart" through ascetic discipline is rewarded when the monk receives from God first a "divine power" (&6viotps OFix) or "guardian" (<p•Xka), which protects the soul from Satan and the demons, and then revelations of "mysteries." The divine power is called also "sweetness" (yXkuxirrr's), "joy" (Xolp&), and "fervor" (0ptq).70 Letters 5 to 8 concentrate on the advanced monk who has received such "secrets set in heaven" and who helps others as a model and an intercessor.71 Ammonas adduces biblical figures such as Elijah, Elisha, and especially Moses as persons who received the Spirit, saw the Kingdom of God, and then prayed for others, not themselves;72 but the author implicitly presents himself as such a figure as well when he speaks of things that he would reveal to his recipients but which cannot be written on papyrus.73 These first eight letters present a relatively serene picture of the ascetic life; although the reception of the divine power requires effort and is achieved by "few,"74 it appears virtually guaranteed to the one who works hard. And Ammonas's unaffected presentation of himself as spiritual guide to his disciples suggests an untroubled relationship between himself and his addressees.

The tone changes dramatically in Letter 9, the first of a series of letters, culminating in the twelfth, that addresses the role of "trials" and "temptations" in the monastic life. Clearly Ammonas's disciples have discovered that the struggle for virtue is not easy and that the divine power or fervor does not guarantee steady progress toward spiritual insight, as Ammonas's earlier letters implied. Thus, Ammo- nas must complicate his scheme: he admits now that receiving God's "blessing" always provokes trials from Satan and the demons and that the original divine fervor departs from the monk, who must then persevere in ascetic discipline to receive a new, better "second fervor."75 Letters 11 and 12 respond to a specific crisis: the recipients wish to leave their monastic retreat, a desire that Ammonas calls a "temptation" (rrELpato-6S).76 Confronted by rebellious disciples, Am- monas now states that the monk's original "fervor" may not be divine at all, but may come from Satan, and he insists on the necessity of

70. See esp. Ammonas, epp. 2.1; 3.1-4 (PO 10:570-71, 573-77; see PO 11:435-37, 450-52). 71. For example, Ammonas, ep. 6 (PO 10:582-85). 72. Ammonas, ep. 8 (PO 10:586-88; see PO 11:445-46). 73. Ammonas, epp. 5, 8 (PO 10:581.11; 586.7-8). 74. Ammonas, ep. 6.1 (PO 10:582.9). 75. Ammonas, epp. 9-10 (PO 10:589-98). 76. Ammonas, ep. 11.1 (PO 10:598.9-10; see PO 11:447.4-7).

34 CHURCH HISTORY

withdrawal to fight the devil before one can return to society to direct others." He makes his most explicit claim to authority thus far, stating that "he who is writing this to you" has "attained" to the status of saints who have the divine power and to whom "heavenly mysteries" have been revealed.78 Letters 13 and 14 return to the theme of the master-disciple relationship, speaking in general of the "righteousness" monks receive from their "fathers" and in particular of Ammonas's solitude and reception of revelations.

The letters then reveal four moments in the relationship between Ammonas and his disciples: first, original instruction in the ascetic's ascending path to spiritual insight (Letters 1-4); second, enlarged exposition of the reward of the ascetic life, implicitly figuring the master as the model of such achievement (Letters 5-8); third, revision of the original instruction in light of a crisis in the master-disciple relationship (Letters 9-12); fourth, renewed and more explicit asser- tion of the master's authority in terms of the revised paradigm (Letters 13-14). As players in this ascetic drama, Satan and the demons perform their roles as appropriate to each moment. Originally present but not prominent, they disappear entirely in the second moment, only to reappear dramatically and strongly in the moment of crisis and then to assume their limited but essential role in the final letters.

According to Ammonas's original scheme, as described in Letters 1 to 4, demons perform their standard function in monastic life of resisting the monk's attempt to attain virtue, but their effectiveness is offset by the "divine power" that the persevering monk receives. Ammonas speaks of the struggle for virtue as acquiring either a "living body," characterized by grace, joy, and love of the poor, or a "dead body," characterized by vainglory and entanglement in plea- sures.79 The vice of vainglory (xevooSao) is key: the monk who successfully resists it demonstrates the "whole heart" that is necessary to make his body alive, to persuade God to hear his prayers, to receive the divine power, and to gain access to mysteries. The demons, in contrast, try to persuade the monk to practice his ascetic discipline for the praise of human beings; the monk who succumbs to this temptation is revealed to be "in two minds" (Ev •4rvL••Q), and thus his body is destroyed, God ignores his prayers, and he receives no divine power.so These early letters contain no extended discussion of the

77. Ammonas, epp. 11.2; 12 (PO 10:660.6-7; 603-607; see PO 11:448.4-6; 432-34). 78. Ammonas, ep. 12.4 (PO 10:606.5-6). 79. Ammonas, ep. 1.1-2 (PO 10:567-69). For "death" or "being dead" as a metaphor for

lacking virtue, see Teach. Silv. 89:12-14; 90:19-27; 98:28-99:4; 105:1-7; 108:12-16; "living" is contrasted at 106:5-9.

80. Ammonas, ep. 3 (PO 10:573-77; see PO 11:450-52).

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means by which the demons seek to disrupt the monk's discipline; rather, Ammonas dwells at length on the divine gift, the "power encompassing the soul"

(?vacv s xU•

x Q0p qs• • rXs), which repels Satan and guides the soul past "the powers of the air" (Eph. 2:2) in its ascent to God.81 This power takes the form also of "the great wealth of knowledge" or "new vision" (&v6f3PXeLs), which provides the discernment to see through any human or demonic deception that would cloak evil as good.82 Any temporary loss of fervor is easily remedied by a period of renewed self-examination.83

In Ammonas's early view, the demons serve as weak foils for the divine power, which is simultaneously the reward for and enabler of the monastic life. While Ammonas explicitly says that his recipients do not yet possess the divine power, which "not many" monks have and which must be sought and cultivated,84 he can also call this power the "joy" or "fervor" that inspires the monk to world renunciation, prayer, and fasting.85 In its guise as "guardian" of the soul, the power seems to be either the guiding angel that such earlier Christians as the Shepherd of Hermas and Origen promised would aid the one seeking virtue or even the Holy Spirit itself.86 But Ammonas more character- istically speaks of the power in subjective terms, as a feeling of "sweetness" (yXxasrr'•q)

that the monk both cultivates as the inspira- tion for his ascetic labors and seeks as the penultimate reward for them, the ultimate goal being access to revealed mysteries. It is this subjective aspect of Ammonas's teaching, its emphasis on the monk's experience of "sweetness," that will cause him problems later. But for the moment the pervasive role of the divine power, fervor, or sweetness lends Ammonas's early account of the ascetic life an optimistic, confident mysticism that leaves the demonic forces lurking in shad- ows.

Indeed, demons disappear almost completely from Letters 5 to 8, in which Ammonas discusses the revelatory powers of the advanced ascetic, whose "purity of heart" has led to the indwelling of "the divinity" (

,? ) and to translation into the Kingdom, from which

he returns to guide others.87 The "blessing of the fathers" that subse-

81. Ammonas, ep. 2.1-2 (PO 10:570.5-10; 571.13-572.3; see PO 11:435.6-12; 436.11-14). 82. Ammonas, ep. 4.1 (PO 10:577.6-579.3; see PO 11:438.5-439.11). 83. Ammonas, ep. 3.4 (PO 10:576.3-577.5). 84. Ammonas, epp. 2.1; 4.2 (PO 10:571.2-8; 579.4-7; see PO 11:435.15-436.6; 439.12-16). 85. Ammonas, ep. 2.2 (PO 10:572.4-8; see PO 11:436.15-437.5). 86. Guiding angel: Shepherd, Mand. 6.2; Origen, Princ. 3.2.4 (SC 268:170); Hornm. Luc. 35.3-5

(SC 87:414-18). On the notion of one's "invisible companion," see Brown, Making of Late Antiquity, 68-71, 89-91.

87. Ammonas, epp. 6, 8 (PO 10:582-83, 586-88).

36 CHURCH HISTORY

quent monks inherit is the vision of "hosts of angels," exemplified by Jacob, who "even wrestled with an angel and prevailed.""88 Although Ammonas prays, as Jesus did for his disciples (John 17:15), that his addressees will be "kept from the evil one," struggle here is not with Satan, but with angels. Ammonas's presentation of himself as having achieved the highest level of spiritual insight is a restrained one. His numerous references to his prayers on behalf of his disciples implicitly indicate that he has reached the stature of Moses, who "having received the Spirit, prayed for the people." Ammonas assures his readers that they, too, will advance to this state of insight and inter- cession and praises them as persons who already are "wise and understand everything." They are, in the final words of Letter 8, "growing and gaining strength day by day."90

But the ninth letter opens with the addressees "in travail of heart," having "entered into great trial"; faced with this challenge, Ammonas revises his original vision of the monastic life to highlight the struggle with Satan and his demons as essential to ascetic progress: "For if trial [rrELpourp6-s] does not come upon you, either openly or secretly, you cannot progress beyond your present measure. For all the saints, when they asked that their faith might be increased, entered into trials. For when someone receives a blessing from God, at once his trial is increased by the enemies, who want to deprive him of the blessing with which God has blessed him. For the demons, knowing that in being blessed the soul acquires progress, wrestle against it either in secret or in the open."91 The example of Jacob returns, but not his wrestling with the angel as in Letter 8. "The evil one" inspires Esau to fight with Jacob in order to take away his blessing, but Jacob prevails. Ammonas now explicitly speaks of what he has achieved: "And I, your father, have also endured great trials, both in the open and in secret. I persevered, expecting and supplicating, and the Lord delivered me."92 It is Ammonas's new-found emphasis on the necessity of trials to spiritual progress that leads him to the Ascension of Isaiah, which describes how martyrdom, the ultimate trial, is followed by the prophet's ascension through the seven heavens.93 Although the basic model of the ascetic life remains ascent to the revelation of heavenly mysteries, the necessity of demonic trial for that ascent is a new feature, added under the pressure of the disciples' experience.

88. Ammonas, ep. 7 (PO 10:584-85). 89. Ammonas, ep. 7.2 (PO 10:585.11-12). 90. Ammonas, ep. 8 (PO 10:588.2-11). 91. Ammonas, ep. 9.1 (PO 10:589.1-8; see PO 11:441.3-9). 92. Ammonas, ep. 9.1 (PO 10:589.8-590.6; see PO 11:441.9-442.2). 93. Ammonas, ep. 10.1 (PO 10:594; see PO 11:444-45).


While in the first four letters, Ammonas had evinced great confidence in the ability of "the divine power" to repel Satan from the soul, in Letters 9 to 11 he struggles to articulate a new theory of this power that can account for his disciples' difficulties, one that finds an increasing role for Satan. In Letter 9 he suggests that the loss of original motivation is the work of God: the Holy Spirit first visits the soul and brings it "joy and sweetness," but then departs. How the monk responds to this loss-whether with resigned inactivity or with intensified asceticism-determines whether he ends up "fleshly" or receiving "greater joy."94 But Ammonas was clearly dissatisfied with this response, and his opening words of Letter 10 present that epistle as a kind of amendment to the previous letter.95 Now Ammonas presents a theory of two "fervors." The first fervor granted by God still gives the monk a "sweetness" that motivates his ascetic discipline, but Ammonas now sees it as also unstable, potentially lost through the trials that inevitably follow it. It is "troubled and irrational" compared to the second fervor, which is "peaceful, rational, and persevering." It is now the second fervor that "gives birth to the capacity in a person to see spiritual things as he struggles in the great contest, having a patience that is unperturbed." What determines whether a monk receives the second fervor is how he responds to trials: "If a person resists Satan in the first trial, and conquers him," God will give him the second fervor.96 Ammonas's disciples now face this test, and he encourages them to attain the second fervor through constant self- reproach.97 In contrast to the previous letter, in which it was the departure of the Holy Spirit that prompted the monk's spiritual crisis, Ammonas now sees an inevitable loss of enthusiasm exacerbated by attack from Satan.

When the disciples' dissatisfaction crystallizes into a resolve to leave their monastic retreat and return to society, Ammonas further enlarges the role of Satan. Ammonas characterizes the disciples' inclination to leave their "place" (T6-rros) as a "temptation" that comes from themselves and does not represent "the will of God."98 While he could previously speak of the divine fervor as an unproblematic impulse to ascetic discipline and virtue, Ammonas must now reckon with impulses that are wrong, that suggest an incorrect monastic life,

94. Ammonas, ep. 9.4-5 (PO 10:592.7-593.12; see PO 11:443.10-444.11). 95. "After I had written the letter, I remembered a certain word, which moved me to write

..."; Ammonas, ep. 10.1 (PO 10:594.1). 96. Ammonas, ep. 10.2 (PO 10:595.1-596.10). The extant Greek text has removed any

discussion of two fervors. 97. Ammonas, ep. 10.3 (PO 10:596.11-598.8). 98. Ammonas, ep. 11.1 (PO 10:598.9-599.5; see PO 11:447.4-10).

38 CHURCH HISTORY

in this case one that is not withdrawn. The possibility thus arises that the original fervor and its accompanying "sweetness" could be demonic: "Solomon says in the Proverbs, 'There are many ways that are good among people, but their end leads to the pit of hell' (Prov. 14:12). He says this about those who do not understand the will of God, but follow their own will. For such people, not knowing the will of God, at first receive from Satan a fervor which is like joy, but is not joy; and afterwards it gives them gloom and public shame. But the one who follows the will of God endures great labor in the beginning, but afterwards finds rest and gladness. Do nothing therefore out of joy, until I have come to talk to you."99 This passage represents a striking change from the early letters, which do not address the possibility of false "joy"; here an initial feeling of "joy" is a likely sign that one's fervor comes from Satan, since divine fervor is marked by "great labor in the beginning" and by "gladness" only "afterwards." He brands the disciples' inclination to leave their solitude as coming "out of (false) joy" (hrC , missing in the Greek). Ammonas then generalizes, echoing Origen, that every human motivation comes from one of three sources: Satan, the self, or God, only the last being acceptable.100 Inasmuch as most people cannot easily discern among these, obedience to one's monastic guide becomes essential. Jacob returns yet again, now exemplary because he obeyed his parents when they told him to leave (Gen. 28:2). Ammonas himself obeyed his "spiritual parents," and the disciples should stay where they are until their "father," Ammonas, tells them what to do.101 In Letter 4 Ammonas had spoken in passing of the possibility of demonic deception in discerning good and evil actions, but now one's entire motivation for ascetic discipline, one's presumed "divine fervor," can be a Satanic counterfeit. In the face of this much graver demonic threat, obedience to the spiritual master becomes fundamental. Demonic resistance and paternal authority intensify together.102

Ammonas's disciples were not considering abandoning the ascetic life for secular society. They were choosing another monastic path, a less socially isolated one, at a time when full-fledged desert withdrawal of the kind seen in the Life of Antony was only beginning to emerge as the ideal. In fact, one of the effects of Athanasius's influential work was to raise up, out of the numerous and diverse ascetic

99. Ammonas, ep. 11.2 (PO 10:600.3-10; see PO 11:448.2-8). 100. See Origen, Princ. 3.2.4 (SC 268:168-74). 101. Ammonas, ep. 11.3-5 (PO 10:600.11-602.10; see PO 11:448.9-449.5). 102. On asceticism's requirement of demons and authority in the Byzantine state, see Averil

Cameron, "Ascetic Closure and the End of Antiquity," in Asceticism, eds. Wimbush and Valantasis, 147-61, at 157-58.


lifestyles practiced in Egypt at this time, one particular mode, extreme withdrawal into the desert, as the model for all monks. The literary shadow cast by the Life eclipsed more city-based monastic lifestyles, which "orthodox" church leaders such as Jerome eventually vilified as "false."103 Ammonas wrote his letters in the decades following the publication of the Life, a time when the process of eclipse was under- way. His twelfth letter defends desert withdrawal in Athanasian fashion as the only way in which the monk can "see the adversary" and "overcome" him, practice quietness, receive the divine power, and finally return to human society as a spiritual guide. Elijah and John the Baptist are biblical examples of "holy fathers" who "were solitary in the desert" and were able to achieve "righteousness" not among people, but only after "having first practiced (&o~xEv) much quiet

(oar-Xa)."104 This language picks up on themes that Athanasius

had enunciated decades earlier in his second Festal Letter and then more recently dramatized in the Life of Antony.105 In turn, Ammonas attacks city-based monks as "unable to persevere in quiet" and en- slaved to "their self-will." Because they receive their "comfort" from their neighbors rather than from God, such monks are "unable to conquer their passions or to fight against their adversary." They do not receive the divine power.106 The presence of people enervates the contesting monk. Ammonas employs the view that the demons in- habit the desert in particular and that one can fight them only when alone to argue for the superiority of one form of the monastic life over another. In his effort to maintain his authority over his disciples and to prevent them from taking up another discipline, Ammonas has made combat with Satan and withdrawal into solitude for this combat central to his ascetic program. Perhaps because this ideology of full desert withdrawal became paradigmatic in monastic thought, the Greek tradition preserved this twelfth letter of Ammonas as his first.

Ammonas's final two surviving letters (13 and 14) elucidate this new scheme apart from the context of crisis that motivated Letters 9 to 12. Written from one monastic teacher to another, the thirteenth letter presents Ammonas himself as someone who has completed the

103. Goehring, "The Origins of Monasticism" and "The Encroaching Desert: Literary Pro- duction and Ascetic Space in Early Christian Egypt," in his Ascetics, Society, and the Desert, 20-26, 73-88, building on the important essay of E. A. Judge, "The Earliest Use of Monachos for 'Monk' (P. Coll. Youtie 77) and the Origins of Monasticism," Jahrbuch fir Antike und Christentum 10 (1977): 72-89.

104. Ammonas, ep. 12.1-2 (PO 10:603.3-605.2; see PO 11:432.5-433.13). 105. Athanasius, ep.fest. (cop.) 24 (=2) (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium [CSCO]

150:37.5-38.26; trans. David Brakke, Athanasius and Asceticism [1995; reprint, Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998], 320-21); V. Ant. 49.1-4 (SC 400:266-68).

106. Ammonas, ep. 12.5-6 (PO 10:606.7-607.9; see PO 11:434.3-15).

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spiritual program that he has developed in the earlier letters: reception of the Spirit, withdrawal into solitude, trial from Satan, revelations from God, and finally guidance of others. More than in any other letter, Ammonas is explicit about his own experience: "I went forth from you... I came to my place... I am in my solitude.., .the revelations given to me... I also at this time have been afflicted by temptation... ," and so forth.107 Ammonas's journey culminates in a spiritual interpretation of the living creature seen by Ezekiel, of which the visionary ascetic can offer "only a little" in writing.108 Satanic trial has found its place in Ammonas's version of the ascetic life and has brought with it a chastening of the original sense of confidence and optimism. This more restrained tone is evident when Letter 14 is compared with Letter 7. In the earlier letter, "the blessing of the fathers" (older monks) that their succeeding "sons" might "inherit" is the visionary "joy of God," which enables the monk to see "face to face the hosts of angels."109 In the later epistle, having developed in the meantime the possibility of a false joy, Ammonas tells his disciples that "the inheritance which your fathers give you is righteousness."110

In the Letters of Ammonas, we can see a monastic teacher develop- ing his demonology in response to the changing conditions of his disciples and their relationship with him. Originally not a prominent aspect of his optimistic program of ascetic ascent to visionary insight, Satan and his demons become increasingly useful to Ammonas as his students encounter discouragement in their spiritual progress and exhibit disturbing desires for independence from their teachers. Re- sistance, trial, and temptation, once encountered by the disciples, become essential to their monastic path and, correspondingly, so does obedience to their father, Ammonas. In this case, the effective powers of Satan as adversary and Ammonas as teacher rise in tandem. The newly articulated necessity for struggle with the demonic then serves as the basis for a defense of Antonian desert withdrawal and a criticism of urban monasticism. The "polarization" created by demonology brings the clarity of an either/or ideology--either the desert or human society-to a situation that was, on the ground, diffuse and messy.111 The desert appears now as the necessary condition for a

107. Ammonas, ep. 13.4-6 (PO 10:610.1-611.9). 108. Ammonas, ep. 13.8-9 (PO 10:612.3-613.6). 109. Ammonas, ep. 7 (PO 10:584-86). 110. Ammonas, ep. 14.2 (PO 10:616.3). 111. On the polarizing effect of demonology bringing clarity to the confused religious

situation in late ancient Egypt, see David Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt: Assim- ilation and Resistance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 273-77.

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social relationship, that of the guide and disciple, that had earlier flourished in the cities.112

III. PAUL OF TAMMA: DISTURBERS OF SOLITUDE

Practically unknown to modern-day scholars until fragments of his works were published in 1988, Paul of Tamma was a Coptic-speaking monk of Middle Egypt whose ascetic discipline reached legendary status among his late-fourth- and early-fifth-century contemporar- ies.113 According to his ancient biography, he "died six times (seven in the Arabic text) from the excesses of his ascetic practices" (by, for example, burying himself in sand and impaling himself on a sharp stone) "and each time was resuscitated by Jesus."114 The surviving fragments of his works are not nearly so sensational, but they do reveal an uncompromising insistence on isolation in one's monastic cell: the true monk is poor, humble, vigilant, and alone.115 The author exhibits a certain distance from the emerging episcopal orthodoxy represented by Athanasius. He quotes the Acts of Paul and Thecla in the same manner as he does any other authoritative book of Scripture ("for it is written"), refers to Lake Acherusia from the Apocalypse of Paul, and alludes to the Acts of Andrew and Matthias.116 Correspond- ingly, Paul rejected ordination of monks, figuring the solitary monk as the typological fulfillment of the biblical priest.117 In his view, the isolated monk relies on the power of God, which renders demons harmless, especially in comparison to people, who represent the real danger to Paul's monastic ideal. The risk involved in human contact

112. See Goehring, "Encroaching Desert," 86, on the desert fostering the guide-disciple pattern and its characteristic literary form, the apophthegmatum.

113. Paul of Tamma, Opere, ed. and trans. Tito Orlandi (Rome: C.I.M., 1988). The translations from the Coptic text are my own. I have consulted Tim Vivian's translations of On Humility, On Poverty, Letter, and Untitled Work in his "Paul of Tamma: Four Works on Spirituality," Coptic Church Review 18 (1997): 105-16, and his translation, with Birger Pearson, of On the Cell in idem, "On the Monastic Cell," 95-107. The dating of Paul to the late fourth and early fifth centuries seems required by a tradition that associates him with St. Bishoi at the time of a barbarian attack on Scetis in 407-408 (idem, "On the Monastic Cell," 87-88).

114. Ren&-Georges Coquin, "Paul of Tamma, Saint," in The Coptic Encyclopedia, ed. Aziz S. Atiya, 8 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1991), 6:1923-25, at 1924.

115. See Sheridan, "I1 mondo spirituale," 201-207. 116. Paul of Tamma, On Humility 10 (Opere, 128), quoting Acts of Paul and Thecla 6; On the

Cell 2 (Opere, 88), referring to Apocalypse of Paul 22; On the Cell 117 (Opere, 112), referring to Andrew's sojourn "in the city of the cannibals." Several additional quotations that Paul introduces with "it is written" remain unidentified (Vivian, "Four Works," 107 n. 16; idem, "On the Monastic Cell," 89 n. 18).

117. L. S. B. MacCoull, "Paul of Tamma and the Monastic Priesthood," Vigiliae Christianae 53 (1999): 316-20.

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led Paul to reject even the guide-disciple relationship that Ammonas's demonology had supported.

Paul's most extensive surviving work is On the Cell, which is extant in two versions: a short version survives intact, while a long version lacks its opening section. It is possible that Paul created the short version from the long for the benefit of a particular person, for the former, unlike the latter, is identified as a "letter."118 In any case, the

long version includes Paul's most important discussion of demons:

Therefore, you shall give yourself to God while in your cell. You shall guard yourself against your enemies and drive them away with the name of the Lord your God while in your cell. Do not fear the demons. I myself have waged war against them in the desert, and God scattered them by his love, not by my power. As for me, I am weak and powerless; God alone is the strong one. Now, therefore, do not fear them, for they are powerless before him. It is rather humanity from which you are going to be saved as you take flight for yourself, knowing that "it is the constricted time" [Rom. 13:11; 1 Cor. 7:29]. For David constricted himself and was saved-[he became] very constricted on account of humanity. For by means of human beings the saints and our Lord died, and I have suffered more on account of human warfare than on account of the warfare of the desert. Now, therefore, flee by yourself.119

This passage summarizes the key elements of Paul's demonology: the ascetic life is indeed a battle with demonic enemies, who are located in the desert; these enemies are, however, weak in comparison to the

power of God, on whom the monk in his cell relies; people are the real

dangers to the monk. "It is rather humanity from which you are going to be saved."

Paul's basic metaphor for the ascetic life is a "battle" with evil "enemies"-Satan and the demons-who are defeated in the monk's cell.120 The monastic lifestyle of "estrangement, poverty, need, and

rejection from everyone" leads to "triumph over the enemy."121 While "lack of self-control" in one's speech "delivers you into the hands of your enemies," the vigilant monk nonetheless "shall look boldly upon your enemies like the lions that roar (see Prov. 28:15) and 'a bear deprived of her cubs' (2 Sam. 17:8)."122 The desert is where the demons reveal themselves and attack the monk; they have "no mercy

118. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 101 (Opere, 100). 119. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 108-16 (Opere, 110-12). 120. For battle imagery, see esp. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 40-42; Untitled Work 101 (Opere,

92-94, 116). 121. Paul of Tamma, On Poverty 6 (Opere, 122). 122. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 23, 25 (Opere, 90-92).

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for the human being who is sitting alone quietly" because of their resentment at having already been defeated ("stripped naked") by God.123 Remaining in the cell and desiring its "grace"124 are the fundamental means of achieving quietness and victory over the demons. If the monk stays with God in his cell, he will draw the devil out of hiding and "subdue him"; if the monk abandons God, the devil will "mock" the monk and give him "sufferings." It is by the cell that the monk gains the "acquaintance of God."125

Since the goal of the cell-bound monk is a state of tranquility described as "quietness" (io-vux•), "rest"

(&v•trrcaxTUs), or a "lack of

preoccupations" (UpyEpvplWVL),126 the demons' primary strategy is to introduce "disturbance" into the monk's life, especially by leading him into concern for or contact with other people. Paul warns against spirits that are "disturbing" or "lying" and against "confusion"; "the devil" may be the supernatural source of such disturbance, but human contact is even more perilous: "Do not listen to anyone speaking with you who is disturbed, lest you become disturbed yourself and abandon your cell."127 "Human speech" and demonic "disturbance" are twin temptations to leave the cell.128 Demons make use of other people in their efforts to disturb the monk. For example, Paul warns against the "evil spirit" of "vainglory"; he contrasts this vice with the virtue of keeping one's "labor between you and God" and thus indicates that he understands vainglory to be doing one's labor in order to receive the praise of other people. Staying alone in one's cell, hidden from the admiring gaze of others, is the clear antidote to such "pride."129 Or, even more insidiously, the demons suggest that the monk can aid other people by leaving his cell: "When you come upon the grace of the cell, guard yourself on the right (see Zech. 3:1) because they [the demons] wage war against you by means of false mercy, as if you might save humanity, in order to take from you the grace of the cell."'13 Demonic deception, then, introduces disturbing concern for

123. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 60-61 (Opere, 94-96, 102-104). 124. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 88 (Opere, 100, 108). 125. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 34-35 (Opere, 92). 126. Paul of Tamma, On Poverty 2-4; On Humility 10; On the Cell 61 (Opere, 122, 128, 96);

Sheridan, "I1 mondo spirituale," 203-204. 127. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 28-33 (Opere, 92). 128. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 93 (Opere, 100, 108). 129. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 99-103, 118 (Opere, 108-12). 130. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 62 (Opere, 96, 102-104). This translation represents my own

composite of the two versions, which are individually obscure. See Orlandi's note (Opere, 146) and Vivian and Pearson's similar translation (Vivian, "On the Monastic Cell," 100).

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other people, by tempting the monk either to seek the praise of others or to be of spiritual benefit to them.

Inasmuch as the weak demons work their little power to disturb by encouraging attention to other people, human beings are the real danger to the monk seeking the tranquillity of the cell. Paul condemns all human attachments, even renouncing the monastic guide-disciple relationship for the cell-based monk. While at times Paul warns against "walking with" specific kinds of people-"strong," "weak," "dissolute"-his general principle is absolute solitude: "For this reason do not walk with any person: so that you do not abandon your way and become confused."131 In contrast to having "many friends," Paul advises, "Acquire for yourself a counselor, one from a thousand" (Sir. 6:6), a "faithful friend" (Sir. 6:15) who will "bear all your trou- bles."132 Although it is tempting to think, in accord with other monastic literature, that Paul refers here to adherence to a single monastic teacher, the grand claims that he makes for this "faithful friend"-"a strong wall," "a shady tree," and so forth-suggest that the "one from a thousand" is actually God, not any human counselor.133 Another citation of Sirach 6:6 supports this reading: "You shall become a sage when you are in your cell, when you are building up your soul in your cell, when the glory is with you, when the humility is with you, when the fear of God surrounds you day and night, when your anxiety rests in him, when your soul and your thoughts are gazing at him, looking toward him all the days of your life. Do not look toward any human being. Do not permit any human being to look toward you. 'Take for yourself a counselor, one from a thousand' (Sir. 6:6), and you are going to be at rest all the days of your life. You shall test the teaching that you follow, walking alone, while God is with you."134 Here Paul reworks a portion of the Teachings of Silvanus, which likewise uses Sirach 6:6-13 to encourage its reader to "entrust yourself to God alone as father and as friend" (97:3-98:22). This passage of Silvanus is known to have been transmitted separately from the remainder of the text under the name of Antony the Great, 15 and Paul's knowledge of it may date its independent circulation to the fourth century. Elsewhere Silvanus identifies Christ as the "faithful friend" of Sirach 6:15 (110:14-16). While the Silvanus passage seems

131. Specific: Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 94-97 (Opere, 100, 108). General: idem, On Poverty 10 (Opere, 124).

132. Paul of Tamma, On Humility 14-19 (Opere, 128). 133. Paul of Tamma, On Humility 18 (Opere, 128); pace Vivian, "Four Works," 108. 134. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 77-81 (Opere, 98, 106). 135. Wolf-Peter Funk, "Ein doppelt Uiberliefertes Stuick spiitaigyptischer Weisheit,"

Zeitschrift fiir iigyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 103 (1976): 8-21.


still to envision its reader as having a human counselor (97:19-21), Paul's solitary monk relies not on any human being, but on God alone; God is the one who "directs him by his counsel." 36 God's strength is that which defeats the monk's demonic enemies. The isolated monk's total reliance on God rules out even a human counselor: "Do not be hypocritical by seeking the word of the Lord from a godly person."137

Ironically, the monk learns of his need to sever all human ties and to acquire God as his counselor from a human monastic teacher, Paul himself, in his textual incarnation. Paul was not reluctant to offer guidance in writing to other monks. In addition to the five works that fragmentarily survive, we know the titles of at least five more works attributed to him that have yet to surface.138 In fact, he commands, "You shall not approach the cell without instruction because of (or, about) deception."139 Possibly Paul refers here to a period of instruction that precedes the monk's withdrawal into his cell, after which he is to have only God as his teacher. He may be exhorting his reader to advance to such a stage when he writes, "Therefore, fight for yourself from now on, O human one, for I have done my utmost with you."140 Just as Paul acts as spiritual director through his books, so having God as one's teacher appears to mean study of the Scripture, for Paul precedes his lengthy discussion of the monk's single "faithful friend" with biblical exhortations to "meditation" and to "persist in reading."141 Paul's works indicate contact with the tradition of learned, spiritualizing exegesis based in Alexandria and exemplified by figures like Didymus the Blind,142 and his Scripture appears to have included works that did not make the canonical list that Athanasius promul- gated in 367, such as the Acts of Paul and Thecla. His canon, like that of Didymus and other "academic" Christians in Alexandria, was deter- mined not so much by any episcopally defined list as by the ascetic's quest for spiritual guidance in his effort to contemplate God.143 The cell is the privileged location for solitary study of Paul's monastic

136. Paul of Tamma, Untitled Work 105-107 (Opere, 116). 137. Paul of Tamma, On Humility 29 (Opere, 132). 138. Michel Pezin, "Nouveau fragment copte concernant Paul de Tamma (P. Sorbonne inv.

2632)," in Christianisme d'Egypte: Hommages ai Rend Georges Coquin, ed. Jean-Marc Rosenstiehl (Louvain: Peeters, 1995), 15-20.

139. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 59 (Opere, 94, 102). 140. Paul of Tamma, On Humility 31 (Opere, 132). 141. Paul of Tamma, On Humility 12-14 (Opere, 128), citing Pss. 38:4, 118:92; 1 Tim. 4:13. 142. Sheridan, "I1 mondo spirituale," 204-207. 143. David Brakke, "Canon Formation and Social Conflict in Fourth-Century Egypt: Atha-

nasius of Alexandria's Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter," Harvard Theological Review 87 (1994): 395-419, esp. 399-410, 418. In this respect Paul resembles, but in a desert mode, his urban ascetic predecessor Hieracas of Leontopolis (Goehring, "Hieracas of Leontopo- lis," esp. 130-33).

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Bible, understood as having God as one's counselor, "one from a thousand." "Books"-whether the writings of Paul himself or works drawn from Paul's comparatively expansive sense of Scripture-"are the true spiritual guide."144

For Paul's cell-based reading monk, demons are merely weak vic- tims of God's power who can only disturb him by suggesting renewed contact with other people. This monk's real enemy is now his own self: "Do not obey your heart; rather, let your heart obey you."145 His only real companion is his cell: "Do battle bravely in behalf of your dwelling place, for it is what is going to remain with you."146 As for other beings, whether human or divine, for them the monk has vanished: "The measure of a sage sitting in his cell is the Lord, for he resembles God in that he is invisible."147 Antony, the reputed pioneer of desert withdrawal, retained a prominent role for the church in his spirituality, and his demons were subtle and pervasive. In comparison, Paul of Tamma's withdrawal is complete; the organized church plays no role, and demons have lost their power.

IV. CONCLUSION: FROM CHURCH TO CELL

Unlike Athanasius, the author of the Life of Antony and thus of the best known monastic demonology of the fourth century, the three authors I have discussed were desert monks, actual practitioners of the discipline that Athanasius so eloquently celebrated. Their writings, in terms both of their literary forms and of their ideas, show that Antony, Ammonas, and Paul were the intellectual heirs to the spiritual guides of the second and third centuries who directed their disciples' ascent to virtue within and alongside the Christian commu- nities of urban Alexandria. By striking out into the desert, however, the monachos or "single one" radicalized the quest for simplicity of heart and likewise intensified an ambivalence about the multiplicity of human relationships that was deep-rooted in the Late Antique project of self-cultivation and particularly acute for Egyptian villagers of this period.148 A series of tensions arising from this ambivalence shaped how these monks appropriated their predecessors' teachings about resistance to the ascetic project, that is, the demonic. Their varied demonologies may reflect a gradual trend over the course of

144. Valantasis, Spiritual Guides, 61, discussing the Life of Plotinus and the Enneads. 145. Paul of Tamma, Untitled Work 210 (Opere, 120). 146. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 84 (Opere, 98, 106). 147. Paul of Tamma, On the Cell 47-48 (Opere, 94). 148. Deep-rooted: see Michel Foucault, The Care of the Self, vol. 3 of The History of Sexuality

(New York: Random House, 1986), 71-95. Egyptian villagers: Brown, Making of Late Antiquity, 82-86.

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the fourth century, in which some eremetical monks increasingly emphasized the cell as the locus of solitude: an original emphasis on the desert as providing isolation from "the world" narrowed to an emphasis on the cell as providing isolation from even the monastic community.149

The earliest demonology of those I have studied, that of Antony, the purported pioneer of desert withdrawal, represented essentially a third-century mythology adapted to a spirituality of unity, in which the church continued to play a significant role. For Antony, demons, incorporeal as they were, embodied the fallen state of diversity, in which a multiplicity of selves provided, paradoxically, the essential context for achieving a simplicity that would transcend difference. Antony did not mention the desert explicitly in his letters, and his demons, coextensive with fallen creation itself, could hardly be limited to any particular place. In contrast, the demonology of Antony's disciple, Ammonas, placed the combat with demons precisely in the desert. For Ammonas, demons became increasingly essential to ascetic progress as his disciples' original fervor became dangerously misdirected; the demonic served to legitimate obedience to the monastic guide and to reduce the diversity of possible monastic paths to the single practice of desert withdrawal. Finally, Paul of Tamma's demons lived in the desert, but the monk battled them in his cell. For Paul, the demons, although real enemies of the monk, served mainly as a rhetorical foil for the danger of human beings, whose capacity for disturbing a monk's ascetic tranquility necessitated complete solitude in the cell and renunciation even of the guide-disciple relationship. Marking a journey from church to desert to cell, all three authors articulated demonic resistance within the space between simplicity and multiplicity, desert and city, solitude and community.

These polarities were not the primary concerns of Athanasius. His dramatic picture of a monk beset by a frightening but ultimately powerless onslaught of appearances, oracles, and possessed persons suggests a bishop anxious to prevent a possible failure of Christian nerve just as the divine Christ appeared to have triumphed over the demonic gods. Athanasius's Life of Antony addressed an international audience, lay and monastic, that had experienced Christian emperors for only fifty years and still lived among a lively pagan culture: "And if there is need, read this even to the pagans, so that even in this way they might recognize not only that our Lord Jesus Christ is God and Son of God, but in addition that the Christians, those who serve him

149. Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority and the Church, 45; once again Gould is skeptical (Desert Fathers, 154-57).

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truly and believe in him piously, not only prove that the demons, whom the Greeks themselves consider gods, are not gods, but also tread on them and chase them away as deceivers and corrupters of humankind, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen."150 To monks who could still hear the voices of their pagan past (and others' pagan present) in the cries of the demonically possessed and the oracular predictions of the annual Nile flood, the Athanasian Antony exhorts, "The Lord, as God, silenced the demons, and it behooves us, instructed by the saints, to do as they did and to imitate their courage."151 As vivid and influential as the Athanasian vision was, we should not see in it the only important monastic demonology before Evagrius. Rather, a number of demonological proposals, experiments in adapting inherited wisdom to new modes of withdrawal, prepared the way for Evagrius's articulate and con- troversial intervention into Egyptian ascetic theory.

150. Athanasius, V. Ant. 94.2 (SC 400:376). 151. Athanasius, V. Ant. 27 (SC 400:210).

The Making of Monastic Demonology- Three Ascetic Teachers on Withdrawal and Resistance

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