Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/90

78 PACHOMIUS. life, and will love and serve all men according to thy commandment." He was, however, obliged to accompany his fellow-conscripts, and suffered many hardships during this period of enforced service : but the settlement of the contest having released him from it, he hastened back into the Thebaid, and was baptized in the church of Chenoboscia, near the city of Diospolis the Less ; and, aspiring at pre-eminent holiness, commenced an ascetic life, under the guidance of Palaemon, an anchoret of high repute. After a time, he withdrew with Pa- laemon to Tabenna, or Tabenesis, which appears to have been in an island or on the bank of the Nile, near the common boundary of the Theban and Tentyrite nomi. Some time after this removal his companion Palaemon died, but whether he died at Tabenna, or whether he had returned to his previous abode, is not clear. Pachomius found, however, another companion in his own elder brother Joannes, or John, who became his disciple. But his sphere of influence was now to be enlarged. Directed by what he regarded as a Divine intimation, he began to incite men to embrace a monastic life ; and obtaining first three disciples, and then many more, formed them into a community, and prescribed rules for their guidance. As the community grew in number, he appointed the needful officers for their regulation and instruction. He built a church as a place of worship and instruction for the poor shepherds of the neighbourhood, to whom, as there was no other reader, he read the Scriptures. The bishop of Tentyra would have raised him to the rank of presbyter, and requested Athanasius, pa- triarch of Alexandria, when visiting the Thebaid, to ordain him : but Pachomius, being aware of the design, hid himself until the patriarch had departed. His refusal of the office of presbyter did not diminish his reputation or influence ; new disciples flocked to him, of whom Theodorus or Theodore was the most illustrious, new monasteries sprung up in his neighbourhood, including one for women, founded by his sister. Of these several communities he was visitor and regulator general, appointing his disciple Theodore superior of his original monastery of Ta- benna, and himself removing to the monastery of Proii, which was made the head of the monasteries of the district. He died of a pestilential disorder, which had broken out among the monks, apparently in A. D. 348, a short time before the death or expulsion of the Arian patriarch, Gregory [Gregorius, No. 3], and the restoration of Athanasius [Athana- sius], at the age, if his birth is rightly fixed in A. D. 292, of fifty-six. Some place his death in A. D. 360. In speaking of Pachomius as the founder of monastic institutions, it must not be supposed that he was the founder of the monastic life. Antonius, Ammonas, Paulus and others [Antonius; Am- MON4.S; Paulus] had devoted themselves to religious solitude before him ; and even the practice of persons living an ascetic life in small communities existed before him ; but in these associations there was no recognized order or government. What Pachomius did was to form communities on a regular plan, directed by a fixed rule of life, and subject to inspection and control. Such monastic comnmnities as existed before him had no regularity, no per- manence : those which he arranged were regularly constituted bodies, the continuity of whose existence was not interrupted by the death of individuals. Miracles, especially divine visions, angelic conver- PACHOMIUS. sations, and the utterance of prophecies, are ascribed to him, but not in such number as to some others. There are various pieces extant under the name of Pachomius : — 1. Two Regulae Monasticae ; one shorter preserved by Palladius {Hist. Lcmsiac. c. 38), and said by him to have been given to Pachomius by the angel who conveyed to him the Divine command to establish monasteries. This rule is by no means so rigid as the monastic rules of later times. Pal- ladius reports it partly, it would seem, in the very words of the original, partly in substance only. He adds that the monasteries at Tabenna and in the neighbourhood, subject to the rule, contained 7000 monks, of whom 1500 were in the parent commu- nity first established by Pachomius ; but it is doubtful if this is to be understood of the original monastery of Tabenna, or that of Proii. The longer Regula, said to have been Avritten in the Egyptian (Sahidic ?) language, and translated into Greek, is extant in a Latin version made from the Greek by Jerome. It is preceded by a Praefatio^ in which Jerome gives an account of the monasteries of Tabenna as they were in his time. Cave (Hist. Litt. ad ann. 340, vol. i. p. 208, ed. Oxford, 1740 — 1743) disputes the genuineness of this Regula^ and questions not only the title of Pachomius to the authorship of it, but also the title of Jerome to be regarded as the translator. He thinks that it may embody the rule of Pachomius as augmented by his successors. It is remarkable that this Re- gular which comprehenQs in all a hundred and ninety-four articles, is divided into several parts, each with separate titles ; and Tillemont supposes that they are separate pieces, collected and arranged by Benedictus Anianus. This Regula was first published at Rome by Achilles Statins, a. d. 1575, and then by Petrus Ciacconus, also at Rome, a. d. 1588. It was inserted in the Supplementum Biblio- thecae Patrum of Morellus, vol. i. Paris, 1639 ; in the Bibliotlieca Patrum Ascetica, vol. i. Paris, 1661 ; in the Codex Regularum of Holstenius, Rome, A. d. 1661 ; and in successive editions oi the Biljlioiheca Patrum, from that of Cologn. A. D. 1618 : it appears in vol. iv. of the edition of Lyon, a. d. 1677, and in vol. iv. of the edition of Gdland, Venice, a. d. 1765, &c. It is given also in Vallarsi's edition of the works of Jerome, vol. ii. pars i. 2. Monita, extant in a Latin version first published by Gerard Vossius. with the works of Gregorius Thauraaturgus, 4to. Mayence, 1604, and given in the Bibliotheca Patrum (ubi supra). 3. SS. PP. Pachomii el Theodori Epistolae et Verba Mystica. Eleven of these letters are by Pachomius. They abound in incomprehensible allusions to certain mysteries con- tained in or signified by the letters of the Greek alphabet. They are extant in the Latin version of Jerome (Opera, I. c. and Bibliotheca Patrum, I.e.), who subjoined them as an appendix to the Regida, but without explaining, probably without under- standing, the hidden signification of the alphabe- tical characters, which were apparently employed as ciphers, to which the correspondents of Pachomius had the key (comp. Gennadius, De Viris Illustr. c. 7 ; Sozom.H.E. iii. 14). 4. 'Ek rwv euroAtcv rov dylov Uaxovfj-iov, Praecepta S. Pachomii s. Pa chumil, first published in the Acta Sanctorum, Mail, vol. iii. in Latin in the body of the work, p. 346, and in the original Greek in the Appendix, p. 62*, and reprinted in the Bibliotlieca Patrum of Galland, vol. iv., where all the extant works of Pachomius are given, (The chief authorities for