Andrew Cain: The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto and the Origenist Controversy in Late Fourth-century Palestine

In the mid-390s, seven monks from Rufinus’ monastery on the Mount of Olives visited numerous monks and monastic communities throughout Egypt. Within months of their return to Jerusalem, one of them composed, in Greek, an engaging account of this trip. Although cast ostensibly as a travelogue, this work, best known today as the Historia monachorum in Aegypto, is a sophisticated piece of hagiography which graphically portrays the Egyptian monks as prophets and apostles like those in the Bible.In my recent book,The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto: Monastic Hagiography in the Late Fourth Century (Oxford, 2016), I demonstrated that the various discourses attributed to the Egyptian monks in the Greek Historia monachorum (HM) evince striking affnities with the ascetic teaching of Rufinus’ mentor Evagrius of Pontus, and I argued that the anonymous author (Anon.) of the HM conceived his work as veiled propaganda for Evagrian-style asceticism.In this communication, I further explore the question of authorial intent and suggest that another consideration may also have prompted Anon. to compose the HM: the recent series of conflicts, rooted ultimately in a dispute over Origen’s theology, between his own monastery and Jerome’s rival monastery in nearby Bethlehem. I argue that in idealizing the Egyptian monks as miracle-working men of God, and in highlighting the personal connection to them that his monastery enjoyed, Anon. used his hagiography to claim a certain spiritual authority by association with them and thereby sought to gain symbolic leverage over his anti-Origenist opponents in Bethlehem.