While monastic establishments were proliferating in the deserts of Egypt and Palestine, ultimately gaining ground in the urban centers of Caesarea and Constantinople, the western half of the empire was struggling to survive. The order that Constantine had established in the early fourth century began to unravel. The Goths, once effectively held at bay beyond the Danube, were continually pressuring the borders and would reach Rome in 410 A.D. The wave of invasions would continue, until the successful overthrow of the Emperor Romulus Augustulus by Odoacer in 476. The fall of the western half of the empire would inspire a hagiography and a series of narratives having as their main focus the maintenance of ascetic peace in the midst of turmoil, as Roman civilization and its order collapsed. How can one practice the ascetic discipline of the desert, while tending to the responsibilities of missionary work, or overseeing the spiritual needs of those who are struggling under the pressures of life in a decaying city?
In the Greek half of the empire, the ascetic impulse in the fourth century had taken hold to such an extent that it almost became a rival to the institutional church. The Synod of Gangra in 340 made it an offense worthy of anathema to teach that marriage is to be condemned (Canon 1), or that the churches are to be “despised” in favor of the monastic cell (Canon 5). These abuses the Synod had to address bring to sharp relief the influence of the ascetic tradition. However, in the Latin West, these stories of heroic ascetic feats were motivating intellectuals and aristocrats who had seen the gradual and immensely difficult Christianization of the empire to imitate these desert dwellers. By the late 4th century, a young intellectual like St. Augustine (354-430) would be fired by such stories like that of St. Anthony. Merely reading the Life of St. Anthony could inspire the embrace of a life of poverty and ascetic discipline, as we see in Augustine’s Confessions in a passage that sheds light on an ascetic impulse typical of many Christian Roman aristocrats and intellectuals:
In their wanderings they came upon a certain house, where there lived some of your servants who are poor in spirit, for of such is the kingdom of God. There they came upon a book where was written the life of Antony, and one of them began to read it, and he was amazed and was set ablaze, and in the midst of his reading was contemplating taking up such a life and leave his secular post in order to serve you. For they were agents of that (imperial department) which they call the “special branch.” He then was filled with holy love and sobering shame. Angry with himself, he turned his eyes towards his friends and said to them, “Tell me, what all of these labors of ours are achieving? What are we after? For what cause are we laboring for the state? Can we hope for any higher office in the palace than to be friends with the emperor? And while there, what is not fragile and full of danger? And how many dangers must we risk in order to come to even greater dangers? And when will we get there? But if I want to be a friend of God, I can be that now.” He said this, and feeling the birth pangs of the new life his eyes returned to the page. And as he was reading he was being changed inwardly, where you can see, and, as was evident, his mind rid itself of the world. For when he read and pondered over the afflictions of his heart, at times he was angry with himself., and said to his friend, “I now make a break with from our earthly hopes, , and will now serve God at this time and place. If it troubles you too much to follow my example, let no one oppose me.” His friend replied that he would join himself to him in such great rewards for such a great service. And both men, now yours, O Lord, were building their own tower at suitable cost, forsaking all to follow you. Then Ponticianus and his companion who were walking with them who were looking for them through the other parts of the garden, came to the same place, and finding them, counseled that they should return home, for much of the day had already faded. Instead, they declared their resolution and purpose, and how they were firm and resolved in it. They begged them that if they refuse to join them, not to give them trouble. Ponticianus and his friend, however, did not change from their former service, yet they told us that they wept for themselves. They devoutly congratulated them and commended themselves to their prayers, and dragging their hearts on the ground they went back to the palace. The others, however, fixing their hearts towards heaven, stayed in the house. Both had wives who, having heard this, also dedicated their virginity to you.[1]
The life of a desert ascetic from Egypt brought to light the futility of their aristocratic lives and imperial ambitions. Finding only perils and toil in trying to be the emperor’s “friends,” they found that it was of greater and more immediate benefit to be the socii Dei, God’s friends. The last part of this long passage draws in sharp relief the result of the two sets of friends’ choices: those who chose to remain in the service of the palace returned “with hearts dragging on the ground,” whereas the others, who had chosen to follow the example of St. Anthony, remained with “hearts fixed towards heaven.”[2] Likewise, the life of St. Anthony would so captivate St. Augustine’s heart and mind that he too would long for such a life. During the years of his priesthood, he established the “garden monastery,” composed of companions such as Alypius. This would be his monastic retreat within the hectic world of the parish, which was about to get even more hectic when he was ordained to the episcopate in 396-397. When he later served as bishop of a contentious diocese like Hippo, dealing with the Donatists on the one hand and having to preside over petty disputes on the other, going off to the desert like St. Anthony was an impossibility. Before had to leave this community to assume his duties as bishop of Hippo, though, he formed a group of priests into a community taking monastic vows.[3]
Another aristocrat whose imagination was captivated by the desert ascetics was Sulpicius Severus (363-425), author of the Vita Sancti Martinii. While admiring the desert ascetics, he nevertheless saw his task as a much bigger one: to make the hectic and turbulent life of a missionary bishop like St. Martin look like, and even surpass, the greatest ascetic achievements of the Egyptian desert dwellers. He parallels in this sense Leontius of Pontus’ work in presenting St. John the Almsgiver as the ideal bishop-ascetic. For Sulpicius Severus, St. Martin surpassed all the desert ascetics because he achieved the heights of spiritual experience as a missionary bishop, living out the vita passiva in the midst of the vita activa.[4]
One way that Sulpicius Severus attempts to bring attention to Martin’s desire for the vita contemplativa is to emphasize his deep desire for the “life of a hermit” at the age of twelve, even as his father had planned a military career for him from his youth.[5] Severus thus paints a picture of a young man who enters military service “not voluntarily” (non tamen spontem), desiring instead the “service of God.” By giving us a picture of a man drawn to the eremitic life from the time of his youth, Severus makes clear his preference for the vita contemplativa, and he will make the case for St. Martin’s superiority over other ascetics in the manner in which he kept an active life and yet was able to undertake ascetic labors up and beyond those of the Egyptian monks. But Severus then presents St. Martin’s missionary labor is presented as an ascetic feat in itself. [6]
While military service appeared to foil Martin’s desire for monastic life, it was precisely in this service where he had a crucial experience that virtually identified him as one having a close connection to the poverty of Christ: a vision of Christ with part of the cloak Martin gave to a naked beggar. Severus represents St. Martin’s act of giving the beggar half his cloak as a service done to Christ:
In the following night, when Martin had resigned himself to sleep, he had a vision of Christ arrayed in that part of his cloak with which he had clothed the poor man. He contemplated the Lord with the greatest attention, and was told to own as his the robe which he had given. Ere long, he heard Jesus saying with a clear voice to the multitude of angels standing round - "Martin, who is still but a catechumen, clothed me with this robe." The Lord, truly mindful of his own words (who had said when on earth - "Inasmuch as ye have done these things to one of the least of these, ye have done them unto me"), declared that he himself had been clothed in that poor man; and to confirm the testimony he bore to so good a deed, he condescended to show him himself in that very dress which the poor man had received.[7]
The charitable act of giving a cold beggar half of his cloak becomes an instance of Martin’s identification with the poverty of Christ. Such a move which forms the basis of all Christian ascetic activity: the stripping away of worldly riches and honor in favor of Christ. Severus makes a direct parallel with the act of the incarnation: just as Christ condescended to put on the cloak of humanity, so he also puts on the garb of poverty, so that St. Martin can be shown to be a disciple of Christ in poverty.
For Severus, his hero exemplified the ascetic ideal primarily in his missionary work, in the toil and labor of episcopal life. His choice of life would present him with struggles that would test his resolve. Severus starkly shows his subject’s ascetic sanctity by introducing a conflict with the devil almost at the very beginning of St. Martin’s ministry. The devil, appearing to him as a man, asks him where he is going, to which St. Martin replies that he would go “wherever the Lord commands him.” At this the devil replies “Wherever you go, and whatever you do, the devil will resist you.” The devil then flees at his response, which quotes the Psalms: “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear what man can do to me.”[8] The devil takes an interest in the ascetic struggler for the purpose of derailing his holy resolve, and thus struggle with the devil is very much a part of the hagiographic genre, as we have seen in the vitae of St. Anthony and St. Pachomius. This is especially the case with those works dealing with monastic and ascetic lives. The saint is also a warrior, God’s warrior, who takes up self-denial and prayer as his chief weapons. The fact that the devil tries to foil his intentions shows him to be a serious participant in the ascetic life, as serious as that of the desert ascetics.
As I have already noted, from a young age, St. Martin is said to have desired the life of a hermit:
Now when he was ten years of age, against the wishes of his parents he fled to church, asking to be made a catechumen. Afterwards, in a wonderful manner being completely devoted to the work of God, when he was twelve years of age, he desired to become a hermit; and he would have taken all the vows if his youthful years had not been a barrier. For his soul was always attentive to matters of the monastery or the church, having meditated on those things in his youth which he would later give his complete devotion.[9]
The beginning of the narrative leaves no room for doubt about the nature of the vocation that the young St. Martin would follow. The question is, of course, what direction it would take. Would he, after his forced military service, retire to a monastery, or would he take the vows of a hermit? Severus gives us an astounding answer to this question.[10] Martin would opt for neither the coenobitic or the eremitic life but would instead forge a third way: a missionary, who also practices, with excellence, the way of poverty and ascetic meditation. Practicing what might be considered the “active life” of a missionary bishop, Martin nonetheless desires and achieves the solitude of the monastery. The earlier drive for an ascetic life comes through in sharp relief, almost to the point where Severus needs to emphasize this point in chapter ten with an account of St. Martin’s way of life. He exercises his duties of a bishop, but without “abandoning the purpose and virtue of a monk.” As Severus notes that the monastery lies within two miles of the church, its near inaccessibility highlights the ascetic impulse of the solitary that pervades Martin’s seemingly more active vocation.
And yet Martin’s missionary life can be an exercise in ascetic virtue in itself, in that the act of saving souls puts him in conflict with dark forces, both this-worldly and otherworldly, that would oppose him. But Martin’s main achievement, for Severus, is that he performed these great ascetic feats as a man in the world:
[I]n comparison with the hermits [of Egypt]…[Martin] was unfairly handicapped. For when they performed those undoubtedly marvelous feats we hear of, they are free from all entanglements and have only heaven and the angels to look on. Martin, on the other hand, moved among crowds and in the haunts of men, amidst quarrelling clergy and raging bishops, and harassed by almost daily scandals on every side. Nevertheless, he stood unmoved amidst all of these things upon a foundation of unshakable spiritual power and worked wonders unequalled even by those dweller s in the desert of our own days and other days…And even if their achievements had been equal to his, would any judge be so unjust as not to see good reason for holding that Martin was the mightier?[11]
Severus makes clear that while his Martin does not fit the conventional picture of an Egyptian ascetic struggler, he nevertheless surpasses his models in that he undertakes his ascetic struggle in the midst of “quarreling clergy and raging bishops,” and also amidst pagans in his efforts to convert them.
Sulpicius Severus’ Martin, along with Leontius of Pontus’ John the Almsgiver, gives us an example of what we might call the “worldly ascetic,” a struggler who brings the fight against demons to the world. He is not necessarily an “urban” ascetic, but his life (or Sulpicius Severus’ reconstruction of it) does raise some important questions about how an active life can experience the blessings and benefits of a contemplative life. More importantly, it raises the question of how living out such an active life can be evidence of a deeper spiritual struggle. This relates in a direct way to the urban ascetic, since such a person will be eager to live out the life of spiritual struggle as he engages in the works of service in the world. In many respects, this is precisely the dilemma that Pope Gregory the Great faces, but as a diocesan bishop of a large city in crisis, he, like his fellow bishop John the Almsgiver, takes it into new directions by living out that dilemma in the midst of a noisy and at times violent city.
Pope Gregory I (ca. 540-604) was a bishop of a decaying city. A man who at once advocated flight from the world and at the same time was caught up in the turbulence and violence of late antique Rome, he was, as historian Carol Straw puts it, a man who had mastered that paradoxical Christian condition of being “in the world but not of it.”[12] What occasioned the writing of the Dialogues is, according to Straw, a “hunger of Christians for communion with the holy.”[13] Reconciling polarities, and living with paradoxical situations, are central to St. Gregory’s project: a hunger for the holy, and a desire to transcend the spiritual and moral decay surrounding him and meet God. In relation to this quintessential desire in Gregory’s work, Straw identifies a key element in the Dialogues when she states that Gregory “came to view the world as clearly divided into realms of purity and impurity: the righteous of the world were forced to live among the reprobate, like Job becoming the ‘brother of dragons and the friend of ostriches.’”[14] This is what makes St. Gregory’s Dialogues so relevant to the present question of urban asceticism, because the whole matter of how ascetic impulses are channeled into urban situations lies in this tension in the life of spiritual struggle in the midst of spiritual blight. St. Gregory witnessed the political and cultural decay of Old Rome under its new Gothic masters, and tried to hold its religious culture together as best he could. Gregory’s experience with the problems of attaining sanctity in the context of a decaying city, I think, makes him a suitable and appropriate study in the history of urban asceticism.
St. Gregory underlines the central concern that he has as a bishop, which he identifies as a lack of the “spiritual repose” he enjoyed as a monk.[15] It is here that an ironic twist is noticeable, because in many ways, St. Gregory’s life and ministry would in some ways connect him more closely to the essence of the ascetic struggler of the first centuries of Egyptian monasticism. We saw how St. Anthony would take up the challenge of going to the desert in order to engage in “spiritual combat” (askesis). For St. Gregory, the key would be to draw out, in his own day, in and around the city of Rome, examples of holy hermits, monks and bishops who, in the midst of turbulent times, would attain great sanctity. The Church, and particularly its sacraments and its priestly and episcopal orders, would be central in his search for ascetic labor and sanctity.
St. Gregory emphasizes the centrality of the episcopal orders as springs of ascetic sanctity by the second dialogue, where he showcases the lives of St. Paulinus of Nola and St. Pope John I. St. Paulinus is a man “more outstanding than many of the holy men” of which he had been speaking up to this point. What makes him stand out so much in St. Gregory’s mind? A man who had been prominent in consular affairs before leaving the world to pursue ascetic labors in the 380’s, he was forcibly made a presbyter, and then bishop of Nola, being called out of his ascetic retreat.[16] Or was he?
St. Gregory’s account jumps right into the midst of St. Paulinus’ episcopate, during the turmoil of the Vandal invasions in 455. The Vandals had taken much of the citizenry of central and northern Italy to Africa to be sold as slaves, and St. Paulinus, in an effort to raise ransom money, sells church furnishings, until he is left with nothing. In response to a woman’s plea for a ransom for her son, St. Paulinus provides himself, to be passed off as the woman’s slave, in exchange for her son. St. Gregory, interestingly enough, does not begin his relation of St. Paulinus’ life with his earlier ascetic labors as a monk, but begins here, introducing us to him as a full-fledged bishop, offering himself as a slave so that he could lead “a great multitude back to freedom, imitating Christ, who had taken the nature of a slave to rescue us from being the slaves of sin.”[17] This, for St. Gregory, makes St. Paulinus a greater ascetic struggler than many desert ascetics, in that he, in imitation of Christ, lowers himself to be a slave. St. Gregory achieves a rhetorical sleight of hand, since St. Paulinus, now a bishop, laboring in the midst of a decaying and embattled city, achieves the highest rank of any martyr or ascetic struggler, and that without having been martyred or going out to the desert to confront demons, like St. Anthony. And St. Gregory has even this dimension of ascetic struggle covered in the life of Bishop Datius of Milan.
While Gregory displaces Paulinus’ ascetic feats from his time as a monk and instead highlights his ascetic self-negation as a bishop, Gregory presents St. Datius as a model ascetic warrior who wrestles with the Devil himself. Finding a suitable house in which to take residence for his short stay, he chose one which was rumored to be “possessed by the devil.” His response to this is in keeping with the attitude that many an ascetic laborer has had since St. Anthony. St. Gregory records him taking a defiant stance, stating that the house being haunted was “all the more reason for us to take up our residence there, since the evil spirit haunts it and drives all human occupants away.”[18] St. Datius becomes, in St. Gregory’s hands, the model ascetic warrior, the spiritual man of war who contends with evil forces, taking the fight to the devil himself, just as St. Anthony did in his struggles in the desert, making the desert “a garden of paradise.” For St. Datius, as for St. Anthony, the presence of the devil in a particular place or location was an invitation to fight, a welcome confrontation with the forces of evil. Just as St. Anthony would venture into the desolate places of the Nitrian desert to confront demons, so St. Datius would enter a house possessed of the devil in order to engage in spiritual combat. The contest, as St. Gregory’s account describes it, is almost reminiscent of the encounters Anthony would have in the tomb. He is awakened by the demonic activity (in this case, the sounds of sheep, lions, squealing pigs and mice), but rather than being frightened away, he engages the spirits, in a sense laughing at them on account of the fact that the devil, once trying to imitate God and dethrone him, now is reduced to imitating beasts: “You are the one who said, ‘I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ Because of your pride you have become like a pig and a mouse. Because you basely wished to imitate God, you find yourself now imitating animals as you deserve.”[19] These echoes of the old desert ascetics resound quite forcefully here, but this time, it is a bishop who comes into the devil’s domain, taking the fight to him, and beating him at every turn through divine power.[20]
One way in which St. Gregory tries to parallel the sanctity of these urban bishops with monastic saints like St. Benedict is in the account of St. Sabinus, Bishop of Canosa, and the poisoned wine incident. He discerns that the wine he is served is poisoned, in this case by his archdeacon who has ambitions to succeed him in the episcopate. Like St. Paul, he drinks from the cup knowing full well that it is poisoned, and before he drinks, he passes the solemn sentence: the archdeacon who attempted to poison him will not become a bishop. As he drank the poisoned wine, the poison “had passed from the bishop’s lips into the archdeacon’s body,” and he, rather than St. Sabinus, died instantly.[21] With this story, St. Gregory highlights the authority of the bishop in this age of anxiety and change, by displaying it with “signs and wonders,” but also as a result of his being a “holy man” who “was a model of right living for his followers.”
Another way St. Gregory’s Dialogues converges with the Desert Fathers is articulated through the cultivation of holiness through tests of temptation. Anyone living as a “holy man,” being a “model of right living for his followers,” invites certain tests of true character, and this underlines a concern St. Gregory has about the ability to lead an ascetic life as a bishop when such tests do come. This concern is vividly captured in the story of Bishop Andrew of Fondi, who is described as a “revered man” who “led a most virtuous life and with priestly watchfulness kept himself secure in the stronghold of self-control.”[22] In other words, his practice of “priestly watchfulness” kept him from succumbing to lustful passions, so much so that he retained a holy woman in his episcopal residence. This becomes a cautionary tale against overconfidence in one’s ascetic virtue, for while a bishop laboring in the world can become a model of spiritual struggle, he must also remember that he is not immune from temptations, no matter how experienced he is in holding it back; one misstep could be spiritually fatal. The emphasis on watchfulness for St. Gregory thus underscores a basic principle in the sayings of the Desert Fathers: “As a bodyguard is always standing by to protect the Emperor, so the soul should always be ready to fight the demon of lust.”[23] In the case of the bishop of Fondi, it would take a Jew from Campania to drive that point home to him, and, according to St. Gregory, to the benefit of himself, and the salvation of the Jew.
Along similar lines, the theme of self-control in the face of a passion-filled society is highlighted in what is perhaps the most famous vita in St. Gregory’s Dialogues: St. Benedict of Nurcia. As Gregory comments, while Benedict was “still living in the world, free to enjoy its earthly advantages, he saw how barren it was with its attractions and turned from it without regret.”[24] He is a man who is raised in a wealthy and distinguished family in Nurcia, is sent to Rome for his education but, seeing the depravity to which his fellow students fall, he abandons them and goes “into solitude.”[25] It is here that he performs his first miracle: the broken tray incident, where a young St. Benedict, having gone into solitude accompanied by his nurse (who had broken a tray that she borrowed, and quite distressed over it) prays over the shattered tray and it miraculously mends together “without even a scratch.” As news of this miracle spreads, he gains the admiration of many, the tray becoming a kind of relic. St. Benedict, however, prefers to “suffer ill-treatment from the world rather than enjoy its praises,” thinking it far more beneficial to labor “for God, not to be honored by the applause of men.”[26] We get the sense here that Gregory does not want it any other way, in his effort to connect with the broader ascetic tradition. Benedict, though not necessarily an urban ascetic, nonetheless instructs him on how to maintain self-control in the face of intense chaos, whether it come by persecutors, demons, or barbarians. What is most significant to St. Gregory is not his miracles (though he includes a good number of them), but his ascetic feats: staying in his cave in Subiaco, and dealing with the lustful temptations by thrusting himself, naked, into a thick patch of nettles. The meaning of his life, for St. Gregory, is summed up in the fact that St. Benedict “lived ‘with himself’ because at all times he kept such close watch over his life and actions.” It is precisely his ability to search “continually into his own soul” and always beholding “himself in the presence of his Creator,” to the point of keeping “his mind from straying off to the world outside” that is so attractive to St. Gregory, giving him hope to do the same.[27] This emphasis on watchfulness is illustrative of the importance that St. Gregory places on the ascetic life, as well as how he sees his own ministry as bishop of a decaying city in uncertain times: a labor for God which is filled with struggle, with little respite.
Yet how can a bishop like him, having to contend with the world, keep his “mind from straying off to the world outside?” Again, St. Benedict offers inspiration. St. Benedict suffers to some extent from the malicious intentions of others, and he meets these challenges with an ascetic calm that Gregory covets. This desire for self-control in less-than-peaceful times comes to the fore in his discussion about the two ways in which someone can be “carried out of” themselves: either falling beneath oneself through sins of thought, or rising above oneself through “the grace of contemplation.” He continues:
He who fed the swine fell below himself because of the waywardness of his soul, and his impure life. The Apostle Peter, when the angel set him free from his chains, was also out of himself and raised to a state of ecstasy, but he was above himself. When both of them came to themselves again, the former left behind his evil ways in order to be united to his heart, whereas the latter returned from the former heights of contemplation.[28]
In this small passage, Gregory lays down a very contemplative principle key to any Christian ascetic life: rising above yourself to the contemplation of God. How does St. Benedict do it, and more importantly, how does his example provide St. Gregory with the key to the very question that vexes him at the beginning of the Dialogues: the recapturing of spiritual repose?[29]
Gregory offers the answer: “…the saintly Benedict really lived ‘with himself’ out in that lonely wilderness by always keeping his thoughts recollected. Yet he must have left his own self far below each time he was drawn heavenward in fervent contemplation.”[30] Here we hear the strong echoes of the desert ascetics, of spiritual solitaries seeking, against all attacks of demons, visions and enemies spiritual and physical, to “recollect” themselves: in short, to fight demons and to find God. For a bishop like Gregory, this offers inspiration to live a life of inward contemplation and stillness, while living an active outward life.
What ties these narratives together is their single-minded focus on the maintenance of ascetic peace in the midst of a decaying and tumultuous civilization, a means of transmuting the ascetic literature from Egypt and Palestine (especially the Life of St. Anthony) into a specifically Latin form of spirituality, based on discipline and an ordered life. These are the main sources that influenced the course of Latin spirituality and that gave it its distinctive features. The Latin penchant for ordering and systematizing would find its greatest achievement, in the realm of spirituality, in these texts written in an age of crisis, by individuals who sought an ordered spiritual life in the midst of a chaotic, disordered world. Through these vitae, the ascetic tradition would pass into the Latin world in a unique way, but the tensions are the same: finding spiritual struggle within the context of the flurry of city life.[31]
[2] Peter Brown explains how the ascetic tradition, settling down into a “humdrum movement” in Syria and the east, nonetheless spoke in a “melodramatic manner” in the west to “the disquiets of an entire Christian upper class.” He continues: “The saeculum, the “world”-seen very much in terms of their own upper-class culture and their own vast wealth-stood condemned by the lives of these distant, miraculously authentic, Christians. Upper-class Christians, women quite as much as men, became avid readers of monastic literature produced, in the first place, in Egypt. Seldom had codices containing the history of obscure foreigners provoked such moral landslides in the lives of influential Romans. The Life of Anthony appeared immediately after the great hermit’s death in 356. It was ascribed to none other than Athanasius of Alexandria. It was soon available in a Latin translation. In 386, an imperial official from Gaul met Augustine (the future bishop of Hippo) who was, at that time, a teacher of classical rhetoric in Milan.” Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000 (Second Edition) Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006 p. 82 Cf. Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (The Pelican History of the Church) (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1967), 180-183.
[3] Possidius, Sancti Augustini Vita Scripta a Possidio Episcopo (ed. with notes by H.T. Weiskotten) (Princeton, 1919) Cap. V Peter Brown makes the observation that as bishop, St. Augustine “would envy the monks their regular life of prayer, reading and manual labor.” Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 2000) pp. 136ff and The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000 (Second Edition) (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006).
[4] Sulpicius Severus, Dialogi. (Scriptores ecclesiastici quinti saeculi). (Galland Biblioth. Vett. Patr. Tom. VIII Anno Domini CCCCIII). Professor Ken Wolf in fact sees this as an instance where the vita passiva is extolled over the vita activa, even as the latter is praised. My own take on this relationship is a little more subtle, in that many times the lines between the two get blurred when applied to an urban ascetic. Professor Wolf does admit that for urban saints like Raymond of Piacenza, some aspects of the vita passiva had to be part of his ministry, but this, I think, begs the question. Every kind of Christian sanctity has as its end the eternal contemplative state, to the degree that the vita activa is seen as a preparation for the vita passiva. While the latter is certainly deemed more excellent than the former, both are deemed necessary to writers like Sulpicius Severus.
[6] Clare Stancliffe brings out the apologetic nature of Severus’ Vita when she points out that he had two different audiences in mind: those bishops who were suspicious of ascetic exercises on the one hand (noting the case of Priscillian the bishop, who was condemned as a heretic for certain ascetic teachings) and those who were of Jerome’s opinion that Martin was not “ascetic enough.” See St. Martin and His Hagiographer: History and Miracle in Sulpicius Severus. (Oxford Historical Monographs) (New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1983).
[7] Vita Beati Martinii, Cap. III. Above translation taken from Alexander Roberts’ translation in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Volume 11 (New York, 1894).
[8] Ibid., Cap. VI. Encounters with the devil in the hagiographical sources are a sign of the legitimate calling of the ascetic, given the fact that he, like Jesus, is tested in this conflict. See David Brakke, Demons and the Making of a Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) 2006, pp, 5ff
[9] Sulpicius Severus, “De vita beati Martini Liber Unus”, Scriptores Ecclesiastici Quinti Saeculi. (Paris: Galland Bibliotech Vetteris Patris), tomus VIII.
[10] Ibid., Cap. X.
[11] Severus, Dialogues 24 quoted in K. Wolf, The Poverty of Riches: St. Francis of Assisi Reconsidered (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 55
[12] Carol Straw, Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 65-66.
[13] Ibid., 67. Carol Straw notes, that in much of the scholarship up to the 1980’s, the Dialogues was regarded, especially by J.M. Wallis-Hadrill, as “the joker in Gregory’s pack.” She goes on to quote him in this vein: “What are we to make of them in the grand company of the Moralia, the Homilies, the Regula pastoralis, and the Register?” Straw notes the difficulty represents in the Gregorian canon of writings, especially the Moralia, where miracles are viewed as “historically necessary to nourish the faith of early Christians, or convert those hard of heart,” but these dramatic displays of divine power are “no longer essential,” thus allowing Gregory to emphasize the value of charity and good deeds, which should “kindle hearts with heavenly love.” But the beginning of the Dialogues gives us a clue to Gregory’s central concern. Answering Peter’s lament that the world was bereft of living saints, Gregory replies that even if miracles are wanting, the world was still abounding in people with great virtue. “The Dialogues present continually a distinction between external and internal virtues, as Gregory strives to lead his audience inward Chastity and abstinence are external signs just as those more wondrous feats, such as suspending a stone in mid-air or multiplying loaves of bread. Both kinds of deeds are external phenomena set in contrast to internal charity. Though charity is what really matters, sometimes the full strength of this virtue remains hidden in this life simply because others lack the spiritual discernment to see it. The virtue of a saint may appear only after death, when his relics proclaim his happiness in heaven.” 67-68. Cf. J.M. Wallis-Hadrill, “Memoirs of Fellows and Corresponding Fellows,” in Speculum 61 (1986): 769 and Sofia Boesch Gajano, “Dilivelli culturali e mediazioni ecclesiastiche nei Dialogi di Gregorio Magno,” Quaderni storici 14 (1979): 398-415 Reconciling polarities, and living with paradoxical situations, is central to Gregory’s project. See Bernard McGinn’s review of Professor Straw’s book in The Journal of Religion, vol. 73, no. 2 (April 1983), 250.
[14] Ibid., 4. Cf. R.A. Markus, “Gregory the Great’s Europe,” in Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series, Vol. 31 (1981) 21-36.
[15]Gregory the Great, “Dialogi,” Patrologiae cursus completus: series Latina. Sive, Bibliotheca universalis, integra, uniformis, commoda, oeconomica, omnium SS. patrum, doctorum scriptorumque ecclesiasticorum qui ab aevo apostolico ad usque Innocentii III tempora floruerunt. Ed. J.-P. Migne, 22 vols. (Paris: Exudebat Migne, , etc. 1844-1902), Cap. I.
[16] Dennis Trout, in David Brakke’s review article, Church History, vol. 71no. 1 (March 2002), 170-171.
[17] “De Paulinus Nolanae,” P.G. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 77. See St. Gregory the Great, Dialogues (trans. Odo John Zimmermann, OSB) (The Fathers of the Church Series), (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press 1959), vol. 39, 114.
[18] “Dialogi,” Caput IV:285, in Patrologia Latina (hereafter PL).
[19] Ibid., Caput IV: 285.
[20] Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, 190ff.
[22]Ibid., liber tertius, cap. VII: Hic namque venerabilis vir cum vitam multis plenam virtutibus duceret, seque sub sacerdotali custodia in continentiae arce custodiret. Cf. Prologus, Regula Sancti Benedicti, 45: “Constituenda est ergo nobis dominici schola servitii.”
[23] Desert Fathers, “On Lust,” 36
[24] Dialogi, Liber II, Prologomenum.
[25] Ibid., Cap. 1.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid., Cap 3: Hunc ergo venerabilem virum secum habitasse dixerim, quia in sua semper custodia circumspectus, ante oculos Conditoris se semper aspiciens, se semper examinans, extra se mentis suae oculum non divulgavit.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid., 4.
[30] Ibid., 64.
[31] Therefore, a hagiographical-literary reading of these hagiographic sources still carry the day. In saying this, of course, I do not negate the value of a more historical-sociological reading, since these Latin vitae give us very specific Latin views of sanctity, with bishops taking a prominent role, but the cloth they are cutting from is the same cloth that produced the desert and urban ascetics of Egypt and Palestine. Latin Christendom would cut from this cloth, and its hagiographers would make the tropes of ascetic sanctity their own.
