Andrew Crislip - Illness and Spiritual Direction in Late Ancient Gaza: The Correspondence of Barsanuphius and John with the Sick Monk Andrew

Some 50 letters survive addressed from Barsanuphius and John, the Great Old Men of Gaza, to an elderly sick monk named Andrew (Letters 72-122). The correspondence between the two Great Old Men and the sick monk Andrew constitutes a remarkable document from the end of antiquity, revealing the contentious discussion of illness and its function and meaning within ascetic practice. This discussion is played out in the process of spiritual direction or symbolic healing, a dialogue that reflects the conflicting points of view of both the sufferer and the healer. The conversation would last for months through Andrew’s declining fortunes, through which the 52 letters to Andrew and his ascetic brother reveal a persistent crisis of meaning on the part of Andrew. Andrew was concerned with three interrelated problems: the personal meaning of illness for Andrew (Why am I sick? Has god abandoned me?); the divergent demands of illness and ascetic practice (Must I cease ascetic practice? Have I then failed as a monk?); and the social discord that ensues from Andrew’s illness (Am I to burden my fellow monks? What if my brethren neglect my needs?) These are questions that had exercised monks for centuries, witnessed in such authors as Evagrius Ponticus, Amma Syncletica, and Basil of Caesarea. The Letters of Barsanuphius and John show that the responses to these questions elaborated by early monastic writers continued to vex later generations. Barsanuphius and John apply a variety of rhetorical strategies of spiritual direction, empathy, paradox, and refocusing Andrew’s attention to his “thoughts” (which he can control) instead of his body (which he cannot). Barsanuphius pointedly asserts that illness is an ascetic practice in and of itself, and is in fact more effective and more powerful that mere (voluntary) bodily discipline. While such ideas are not new to Barsanuphius and John, the Letters are especially valuable in showing how such ideas play out in the dialogic process of spiritual direction. The Letters also show that, for all the charisma of holy men like Barsanuphius and John, monks did not always find these explanations convincing, for the relationship between the sick monk and the Great Old Men was contentious, and the outcome of their spiritual direction not apparently a happy one.