WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 33:4 (1992:Winter) p.383 

In 
The Spirit of Rivalry 

Early Christian Monachism 

John Wortley 

T HE MONASTIC LITERATURE OF 8tTlrf1crEl!; 'l'UX(J)<pEAEt<; (" spiri­
tually beneficial tales") is a treasure-house of curious and 
often unexpected elements. This article will focus atten­

tion on one of these surprises: an element of what could be 
called "spiritual competitiveness" that appears to have existed, 
at least occasionally, among certain desert fathers. 

A note of rivalry is in fact sounded in the very first lines of 
the earliest of the Christian monastic documents known to us, 
Athanasius' Life of Antony. The preface of this work (address­
ing some monks whose names have not survived) begins thus: 
"It is a good contest-for-superiority [aJ.llAAu] in which you 
have engaged with the monks of Egypt, setting out either to 
equal or to surpass them in your ascetic quest for virtue." 1 

Athanasius is, of course, applauding their enthusiasm rather 
than inciting them to invidious competitiveness. He is 
encouraging them to strive for excellence, which is no more 
and no less than one might expect of monks; especially in view 
of their tendency to appropriate to themselves the ti tIe 
"spiritual athletes," which is correctly the common patrimony 
of all Christians. 

What we are dealing with here, however, is something that 
goes beyond striving for excellence: a response that seems to 
have taken Athenasius' words a little too literally . We are 
dealing with monks who seem quite purposefully to have set 
out "either to equal or to surpass" others in virtue. And not 
only to equal or surpass, but to know whether one has suc­
ceeded in the endeavor. It is a question of striving, and then of 
seeking to know how well one has done. "Am lout-distancing 
the field?" (so to speak) and "Who (if anybody) is ahead of 

I Vita Antonii, prooem., Migne, PG XXVI 838A: uya8l)v U/llAAav ev­
£cr'tl)cradh: 1tpo<; 'tou<; £V A iy{)1t'tcp /lovaxou<;, T)'tOl 1tuplcrw8i1vm, ~ 1((X 1. U1t£p[3cXA­
A£Oflm 'tOU't01)<; 1tPO£AOIl£vOl 'tU 1I:u't' uP£'tl)V U/lwv ucrKljcr£t. 

383 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
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384 RIVALRY IN EARLY CHRISTIAN MONACHISM 

me?"-these are the sort of questions that seem sometimes to 
be asked. 

It is not unreasonable to make use of the competitive language 
of the track-and-field stadium (as indeed Athanasius does) for 
the monastic career, for the Apostle Paul sometimes portrays 
the Christian life in terms of a race. 2 So too does the writer of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he exhorts the faithful to 
"run with patience the race that is set before us" ('tpEXWJ.U:V 'tOY 
ltPOKElIl£VOV TtlltV a:ywva, Hb. 12:1). It could, however, be 
argued that in using the word aywv these writers were re­
sponsible for introducing a note of competition into the 
practice of Christianity: the competition that strives, not merely 
for excellence, but to exceed the performance of others. It is 
the distinction that we make between (say) the musician who 
labors to perfect his skill and the hurdler who strives to outdo 
his fellow athletes. Paul certainly did not help matters in the 
famous passage where he says that, in the stadium, many run, 
but only one receives the prize (1 Cor. 9:24). Presumably he 
expected his readers to realize that, at this point, his analogy 
breaks down for Christians, all of whom can expect to be 
rewarded if they have "fought the good fi ght [aywv] of the 
faith" (1 Tim. 6:12), which surely is the point of the Parable of 
the Laborers in the Vineyard (M t. 20: 1-16): 8EAW O£ 'tou'tq.J 'tep 
Eoxa'tq.J Oouvat W<;; Kat (JoL But since Paul omitted to spell this 
out, it is scarcely surprising if some early monks pressed 
towards the prize as though there would only be one winner, a 
single gold medal, in the KaAo<;; aymv 't1l<;; ltlo't£w<;;-in other 
words, if some of the athletes of Christ acted as though they 
were every bit as much in real competition with each other as 
the sprinters in the Olympic Games. 

Nor was this misconception limited to the simpler monks. 
Even the great theorist of monastic life, Evagrius of Pontus (ab. 
399), paraphrasing Paul's words "Take an athlete: he cannot win 
any crown unless he has kept all the rules of the contest" (2 
Tim. 2:4, tr. Jerusalem Bible) says: "In such a way let the monk 
(certainly leaving aside every material consideration of this 
world) progress, running towards the good and beautiful 
trophies of tranquillity."3 A trophy ('tpoltatOv) is undoubtedly 

2 1 Tim. 6: 12; 2 Tim. 4:7; Phil. 3: 14, etc. 

3 tv tOUtO\~ ltCU 0 1l0VetXO~ lloJ.\<Jtet 0 1ta<Jetv UAt'\V tot) KO<JIlOU tOUtOU K(Xtet­
Amwv, Kett Enl 'tu Wpettet Kett KetAU 'tT1~ i]<JUXlet~ U1to'tPEXCUV 1tP01tatet: 
Evagrius Rerum monachalium rationes 2, Migne, PC XL 1253B. 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 33:4 (1992:Winter) p.383 

JOI-IN WORTLEY 385 

the sign of one's victory-hence, inevitably, of another's defeat, 
for there is but one first prize per competition. 

It would be misleading to suggest that the element of spiritual 
(or, more correctly, of ascetic) competitiveness is a pro­
nounced feature of the literature of the paterika and the 
gerontika. But it is certainly a quietly persistent one. The stories 
in which it is most clearly discernible 4 all follow the same 
pattern more or less, in part or in whole. The pattern is simple 
enough: a monk supposing himself to be of advanced piety 
poses the question: to what degree [of holiness] has he attained? 
(d~ 1tOla JlE'tpa, d~ 1tOlOV JlE'tpOV, Eq>8aoE). Or: with whom is he 
to be compared [in holiness], with whom does he have his 
portion [JlEPO~, as in Lk. 12:46 etc.]' In response to the question 
he is sent to a person (or persons) of less distinguished, usually 
very humble and of non-monastic status who, in the event, 
turns (or turn) out to be well ahead of the questioner in 
holiness. Which greatly edifies him in the virtue of humility. 5 

What makes this tapas remarkable (and what this paper is 
about) is the impropriety of the question asked (or implied). In 
one of the examples cited below, admittedly a late one (SB), the 
question is actually characterized as a AOY10Jl6<;. This is a 
notoriously difficult word to translate in the eremitic literature; 
it is not in itself sin, but it does suggest the 'black thoughts' that 

<\ There are less obvious examples; for instance that to which A. J. FESTUGIERE 
drew attention in Historia monachorum in lEgypto (Brussels 1971: hereafter 
'Historia' [=5ubsidia H agiographica 53]) ch.11 (cf .. Le probleme litteraire de 
I'Historia Monachorum," Hermes 83 [1955] 257-84 at 272-77) concerning 
Abba Sourous: three monks meet and say to each other: "Let each of us reveal 
his own rspiritual] way of life and how he is honored by God in this life" 
( £'nOEtSa'tco £Koa'tOC; i)~wv 'tfJV cou'tou 7tOA1'tdov KOt 07tCOC; 7tOpa 8£OU tv 
'tip ~t'll 'totn'll 't£'ttJlTJ'tat). The rest of the chapter tells how they vied with 
each other in revealing their Ko'top8wJlo'to. As Festugiere says, "c' est manifes­
tement un aywv" -and also a topos, of which he goes on to trace the pre­
Christian antecedents. There is also some indication that some monks may 
sometimes have vied with each other in the matter of fasting; see e.g. J. 
Cassian Instil. 5.22 (ed. and tr. ].-c. Guy, Jean Cassien, Institutions 
cenobitiques (=5 C 109 [Paris 1965]); and F. N au, .. H istoire des solitaires 
egyptiens,» ROrChr 12-18 [1907-13; hereafter 'Nau'] passim, providing the 
Greek text of the first four hundred tales found in Cod. Paris. Coislin 1265 
[5ystematicon; see n.9 infra], numbered consecutively with a French 
translation of tales 1-215. On the general question of the spirit of rivalry 
among the early monks, see A.-J. FESTUGIERE, Les Moines d'Orient IV.l: 
Enquete sur les Moines d'Egypte (Paris 1964 [=French tr. of HistoriaJ: 
hereafter 'Festugiere, Moines') 78 n. 

5 See the general note in festugiere, Moines 90 n.t. 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 33:4 (1992:Winter) p.383 

386 RIVALRY IN EARLY CHRISTIAN MONACHISM 

pave the way for sin. Small wonder then that it should be 
reckoned a Aoytcr/lO~ to seek to know than whom one is holier, 
for it is a cardinal point of Christian and, a fortiori, of monastic 
teaching that pride is the greatest of sins, and here is the acme of 
pride. There is a dominical saying that goes right to the heart of 
the matter: "When you shall have done all these things which 
are commanded of you, say: 'We are useless slaves; we have 
[only] done what we were obliged to do'" [eSouAOt eXXP£lOt 
Ecrll£v, 0 cD<p£tAO/l£V TCOtllcrat TC£TCOtT]Ka/l£V, Lk. 17:10]. To this 
could be added that warnings "If any man desire to be first, the 
same shall be last of all and servant [eSuXKOVO<;] of all" (Mk. 9:35), 
and even: "To sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine 
to give" (Mt. 20:23). Yet in spite of these sayings and in spite of 
the constant insistance on humility as the greatest and most 
essential of monastic virtues,6 we encounter these alleged 
attempts, even on the part of some eminent professors of the 
ascetic life, to discover how near the top of the ratings they 
stand. For example: 

(1) Possibly the best known of these 'comparison stories' is 
"The Tale of Antony and the Leather-Worker," told of Antony 
the Great (ca 250-356), widely believed to have been the first 
Christian monk. 7 It actually begins in medias res so far as the 
above schema is concerned, for Antony is simply said to have 
been praying in his cell (i.e., there is no mention of him asking a 
question) when "a voice" came to him saying that he had not 
yet attained the stature of a leather-worker living in Alexandria 
(,Av'tovt£, OUTC(() £<peacra~ d<; 'to /l£'tpov wueS£ 'tou crK,\)'t£(()~ 'tou 
EV 'AA£~aveSp£t~ oV'tO~), 8 so he went to visit him. Under 

6 Legion are the references to humility in the apophthegmata and the 
OtTJrTt(J£t~, for it is "the crown of virtues" (Or. 9; Nau 98, 222, 416). Thus Nau 
552 (Euergetinus 1.44.3.8): "A man's works will bring him to perdition if 
humility is absent, for many end up proud on account of their great works, as 
did the Pharisee"; and Nau 558 (Euergetinus 1.44.3.4): "Humility is certainly 
the greatest of the virtues," just as pride is the greatest of sins (Abba 
Longinus). 

7 BHC 1442xg; Nau 490; Paul Euergetinus, Synagoge I-IV (Athens 1980) 
1.45.83; J. WORTLEY, A Repertoire of Byzantine Beneficial Tales (forthcoming: 
hereafter 'W') no. 638. 

8 There is a hint of this in one of the apophthegmata of the Alphabeticon 
(=Apophthegmata Patrum, collectio alphabetica, ed. J.-B. Cottelier in Migne, 
PC LXV 71-440; cf J.-c. Guy, Recherches sur La tradition grecque des 
apophthegmata patrum [Brussels 1962 and the translation in French by L. 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 33:4 (1992:Winter) p.383 

JOHN WORTLEY 387 

pressure (ci1tE IlOt, aDEA<pE, "Ca<; 1tp&~Et<; oou) the leather-worker 
admitted to saying, morning and night: "All this city ... will 
enter the kingdom of heaven on account of its righteousness 
and I alone will inherit damnation for my sins.» Antony praised 
him as "a fine goldsmith" (cO<; KUAO<; Xpuooxoo<;) staying quietly 
at home who would inherit the kingdom; whereas he, in the 
wilderness, had not made as much progress (ou KU'tEAU~OV o£) 
and clearly was inferior to him in piety. 

(2) Very closely associated with this story in many ways is 
"The Tale of Macarius and the Two Women." 9 Macarius the 
Alexandrian (293-393) was a survivor of the first generation of 
Christian monks and he is by no means without importance in 
the tradition of eremitic monachism. 10 The story under review 
tells how, again without any question being posed, "a voice" 
told Macarius that he had not yet attained the stature of two 
women of Alexandria; so he went to visit them. 11 They told him 
how they had lived together normally with their husbands 
(who were brothers) for eighteen (or fifteen) years in the same 
house without a word spoken in anger. They had thought of 

Regnault, Les sentences des peres du desert, Collection alphabitique (Solesmes 
1981), and in English by B. Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Oxford 
1975)]). See Alphabeticon, Antony no. 24: "It was revealed to Abba Antony in 
the wilderness that there is one like unto you (Ccr'tl 'tl<; 0IlOtO<; crOt) in the city, a 
doctor by profession, who gives his superfluous [income] to those in need and 
sings the trisagion with the angels all day long": PG LXV 84B. 

9 EHG 999yb: De praestantia mulierum duarum (Greek text unpublished); 
Systematicon 20.17 (=Apophthegmata patrum, collectio systematica): critical 
edition by the late J.-C Guy, completed by Bernard Flusin, in Les 
Apothegmes des peres, collection systematique I (=SC [Paris 1993]); see also 
Nau; Latin translation of "Pclagius and John" (6 th_7'h century) in Migne, P L 
LXXIII 851-1052; French tr.: L. REGNAULT, Les sentences des peres du desert, 
serie des anonymes (Solesmes 1985: hereafter "Regnault, SPD anon. ') and Les 
sentences des peres du desert: nouveau receuil (Solesmes 1970: hereafter 
'Regnault, SPD nouv. '); Nau 489; W637; Migne, PL LXXIII 10Df. 

10 See D. J. Chitty, The Desert a City (Oxford 1966) 32f; see also Historia 
Lausiaca 18; he is often called Macarius the Egyptian, but it appears to be the 
same person; cf Historia Monachorum in i'Egypto 21; Synaxarium Ecclesiae 
Constantinopolitanae 401ff. 

11 EUX,0llfvOU 1tO'tE 'tou a~~a MUKUPlOU cv 'tip KEAAtcp uu'tou, ~AElEv uu'tip 
<pwvl) AfYO'\lcrU: " MUKaptE, OU1tW E<p8uau<; d<; 'to Ilf'tPOV 'twv Ouo YUVatKWV 
'tT1crOE 'tT1<; TtOAfW<;." avucr'tCx<; oilv 'tip Ttpw'1: 6 ytpwv KUt A.u~wv 'tl)v ~ulvl)v 
pa~oov, TlP~a'to 'tljv 600t7t0PlUV 1tOtf'lcr8at CTtt 'tl)V TtOAtv (unedited Greek text in 
Cod. Paris. Coislin 126, ff. 272-75, and 232, ff. 237" -38). 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
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388 RIVALRY IN EARLY CHRISTIAN MONACHISM 

joining the order of virgins ('ro 'tWV nap8EvU)v 'taYJla)12 but, at 
the prayers of their husbands, they had decided to stay, 
refraining from uttering any worldly statements. Macarius 
concluded that status is irrelevant; it is God who grants his Spirit 
to all. 

(3) There is a formal statement of <the question' in "The Tale 
of Eucharistus and Maria." 13 This story begins: "Two of the 
fathers prayed to God to inform them what stature they had 
attained" (Duo 'tWV na'tEpu)v napEKaAEoav 'tOY 8EOV tva nAllPo­
cpoPlloll auto\><; d<; nOlov fcp8aoav JlEtpOV: PC LXV 168 D-69 A). 
A voice came to them directing them to go to an Egyptian 
village where they were to meet and be entertained by Maria, 
then by her shepherd-husband, Eucharistus. Coerced into 
telling wherein their virtue consisted (ou JlTt YEu(J(OJlE8a nvo<; 
faV JlTt avaYYElAll<; TtJllV tTtv £Pyaolav oou, the fathers 
threatened), Eucharistus revealed that their profits were di­
vided three ways: for the poor, for hospitality and for them­
selves. 14 The couple were chaste 15 and they wore sackcloth by 
night. The visitors were greatly edified by their experience. 

(4) The three foregoing stories all concern monastic persons 
on the one hand and relatively humble ones on the other, but 
this is not always the case, as we can see from "The Tale of the 
Emperor Theodosius II (408-450) and a Jordanite Monk." 16 
This tells of an elder who had spent forty years naked and alone 
by the Jordan. In prayer, he asked: "With whom do I have my 
portion?" (JlE'ta 'tlVO<; fXU) JlEpO<;;). A heavenly voice answered: 
"With the Emperor Theodosius [II]." Off went the elder to see 
for himself-and he was received by Theodosius at Constan­
tinople. Asked about his good works, the emperor admitted 
that during thirty-nine years in office (so the year is now ca 447) 
he had worn a hair shirt for thirty years, avoiding baths and 

12 This is not the only phrase indicating that 6 1tap(:)(vwv might well mean a 
place for ladies in retirement, rather than a monastery for women. Cf 
Historia Lausiaca 33. 

13 BHG 2125: Narratio de Eucharisto et Maria, in Alphabeticon: "Euchar­
istos"; W35. 

14 This division of earnings is a topos in the psychophelitic literature; see 
BHG 1318e (Nau 628, W50) pt. 2; BIlG 121, 122 (Daniel of Scete 10; W470); 
Nau 9 (W522); BHG 1075d (Paul of Monembasia 5; W705); BHG 1322g 
(W864); and also Vita Antonii 3. 

15 The mariage blanc is another topos: at least ten examples are known. 
16 BflG 1445v: De Theodosio II imperatore narratio altera; W512; F. Nau, 

ed., Pat. Or. 8 (1911-12) 171-74. 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 33:4 (1992:Winter) p.383 

JOHN WORTLEY 389 

meat. He had performed many good works: "With my own 
hands I cleanse with oil (O!lllXw) and wash the bodies of those 
who are diseased or afflicted with leprosy and serve them in 
other ways.» In order to earn his food, he occupied himself 
with calligraphy at the hippodrome, where he never paid any 
attention to the contests, the winners, or even when he had to 
award the crowns to the successful contestants. The monk left 
asking for the emperor's prayers, "For I have not attained to 
your stature.» 17 

(5) A similar story with a much less distinguished hero is to be 
found in "The Tale of the Vegetable-man" (Auxuva<;),Ul al­
though the language is a little different. There was an elder who, 
after dwelling in the desert for many years, wished to know 
whether he was well-pleasing to god (KUptE 1tAllPOCPOPlloov !lE 
d EUP£O'tllou OOt). An angel told him: "You have not yet 
attained the stature of the vegetable-man of such-and-such a 
place" (OU1tW £y£vou KU'teX 'tOY AaxaveXv £v 'tipOE 'tip 'tomp), so 
the elder went to see the vegetable-man and was received as his 
guest. Very reluctantly, when begged to do so (1tOtlloov 
uyu1tllv, (iOEACPE, £l1tE !lOt 'tTtv 1tOAl'tdav oou), he told the monk 
that he only ate at night and that he gave away everything he did 
not need. Morning and night he would say: "All this city, from 
the least to the great, will enter the kingdom on account of their 
good deeds, whilst I go to perdition for my sins"-the same 
words as in the tale of Antony in (1) above. The monk was not 
very impressed with this, but then they heard singing outside 
the gardener's hut. "Does this not trouble you?" he asked the 
man. "No,» he replied; "I think of them as people entering the 
kingdom." "Forgive me, brother; I have not yet attained that de­
gree of perfection" (OU1tW £cp8aoa d<; 'to !l£'tpov 'tOlno), said the 
monk, and he returned to the desert without eating. 

(6) Another similar story, but with some interesting differen­
ces, is found among the Syriac apophthegmata:19 A monk lived 
many years as a good member in a community, then in the 
desert, on herbs. When he asked what his [heavenly] reward 
would be, he was told to meet a certain shepherd. This man had 
eaten nothing but vegetables and drunk only a little water once 

17 There are at least five psychophelitic stories about Theodosius II, more 
than about any other emperor. 

18 BHG 1438i: De lachanopola; Systematicon 20.22; Nau 67; W538. 
19 Tr. Regnault, SPD nou'lJ., 19f; sec also E. A. Wallis Budge, cd., Th e 

Paradise, or Garden of the Holy Fathers (London 1907) r 104; also W858. 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 33:4 (1992:Winter) p.383 

390 RIVALRY IN EARLY CHRISTIAN MONACHISM 

a day for thirty years. His wages were given to the poor. The 
monk, who ate every green thing that came his way, was much 
impressed by this ("Tu as plus de merite que moi "). He added 
to his labors and thus became perfect. The concluding passage, 
however, indicates very clearly that in this case the element of 
comparison has been conflated with the motif of the 'hidden 
saints': "II louait Ie Seigneur, s'emerveillant du nombre des 
saints ignores qu'il y avait dans Ie monde. "20 

(7) As noted above, in all six stories there is the salutary warn­
ing that neither the desert nor the monastic profession can in 
themselves confer holiness; there are holy men and women in 
all walks of life. 21 Thus the monk of (5) tells the vegetable-man 
quite candidly: "Yours is a work that surpasses my labors of so 
many years" (CX{Hll £cr'tlY T, £pycxcricx T, imEPPucrcx 'tiDy 'tOcrO'\)WlV 
£'tiDy /lou 'tOy K01tOY). Not quite all the 'comparison' stories, 
however, point outside the cloister. A striking exception is 
"The Tale of the Mad Gardener."22 A senior monk wished to 
know what level he had attained (Ei<; 1tOlOY /l£'tpOY £<p8cxcrEY ). It 
was revealed to him that a brother in a certain community was 
more advanced than he was. He interviewed all the monks of 
that community, and they finally produced the gardener. 
"What is the manner of your labor?" ('ti<; £crTlY T, £pycxcricx crou;), 
the monk asked. Very reluctantly, the brother replied that he 
was a madman. 23 Also that the higoumen, or superior, stabled 
the ox that worked the irrigation machine in his cell. Every day 

20 Cf e.g. BIlG 2101 (Daniel of Scete 7; W461): 1tOOO\)~ l(P\)1ttO\)~ £xn 
OOUA.o\)~, a phrase that often recurs in one form or another: see e.g. Pralum 
Spirituale 18 (end); Vila Sancti Andreae Sali (BHG 117; PG CXI 625- 888) 
passim. 

21 We touch here upon the vexed and ancient question of the comparative 
value of the contemplative and the practical life: see Festugiere, Moines 26 
n,410. One does, however, sometimes encounter the suggestion that the good 
works of those who remain in the world are of no value; thus e.g. N500, 
Greek text in Paul Euergctinus, Synagoge 1.44,4, tr. Regnault, SPD anon. 201 
no. 1550. 

22 BHG 1440md: De hortulano salo; Nau 631; W631; Greek text in Paul 
Euerginus, Synagoge (Athens 1980) 1.33.14 (non 17, lit no null i), pp.489f. 

23 There may be as many as ten incidences of feigned madness in the 
known tales e.g. BHG 1318g, W20; BllG 628c, W36; BllG 1681b (Serapion 
1), W447; BHG 2101, W461; BHG 2099z, W468; Systematicon 15.52, W583; 
BHG 1450e, N408, W592, etc.; it is not clear whether this is one of them. 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 33:4 (1992:Winter) p.383 

JOHN WORTLEY 391 

it destroyed the ropes and mats he had plaited. 24 He had 
suffered all this for thirty years without a cross word or an 
angry thought for either the higoumen or the ox. The monk 
went away much edified (K<Xt aKoucr<x~ 6 YEPWV f8<xujl<xcrEV' fK 
'tou'tou yap if'¥YW 'tllv Aomllv fpy<xcrl<XV <XU'tOu ).25 

It should, however, be noted in passing that this is but one 
manifestation of a story that occurs in many variations, of which 
the earliest dateable seems to be the tale of the Tabennesiotc 
sister who simulated madness in Palladius' Lausiac History (34), 
written ca 407. Only its beginning concerns us here, and there is 
no preliminary question: "An angel appeared to the holy 
Piteroum ... and said to him: "Why do you hold yourself in 
such high esteem for piety, living in such a place as this? [8t&. 'tl 
jlEY<X <ppovEic; [vt cr£<xu'tcp w~ EUA<x~ftC;, K<Xt fV 'totou't'P 
K<x8E1~6jlEVO~ 't61t'P;] Do you want to see a woman who is more 
pious than you? Then go to the ladies' monastery of the 
Tabennesiotes and there you will find one with a diadem on her 
head." What he found was the hidden saint whom all the sisters 
took for a mad woman and treated with the cruelty that was the 
common lot of the mentally ill until all too recently.26 

Before leaving Palladius, we should briefly mention the 
strange story of Serapion Sindonion or Sindonita ("the loin­
cloth"), for rarely is the spirit of ascetic competitiveness more 
strikingly exhibited. Briefly (for the story is quite detailed): 
when this abba arrived in Rome, he enquired whether there 
were a great ascetic (of either sex) in that city. Being told that 
there was an elderly virgin he visited her, only to discover that 
in a quarter of a century she had never set foot out of doors. He 
now challenged her to demonstrate her degree of mortification 
by stepping out. She rose to that challenge, but now he had 

24 Is it conceivable that there is here (as my colleague, Rory Egan, suggests) 
an echo of the traditional story of Oknos, "the weaver," who eternally plaited 
a rope in Hades that was devoured by an unseen ass behind him as fast as it 
was woven? Cf. Plin. HN 35.137 (spartum torquens quod asellus adrodit); 
Paus. 10.29.2; Prop. 4.3; Diod. 1.97.3 (1tA£1COV'tOS ~i:v EOS avopos O"XOlVtOU 
~a1Cpav, 1tOAArov oi: h 'trov 01tto"(t) AUOV't(t)V 'to 1tA£1CO~£VOV); full references in 
J. Schmidt, "Oknos," RE 17 (1937) 2383ff. 

25 BHG 1440md, N631, W631; (sic) Greek text in Euergetinus, Synagoge 
1.33.14 (not 17); tr. Ragnault, SPD anon., 275: "en effet il avait devine par lit Ie 
reste de sa pratique"; it is not clear whether the text means the visitor's or the 
mad gardener'S pratique. 

26 Historia Lausiaca 34, in D. C. Butier, The Lausiac History of Palladius 
(Cambridge 1898-1904) II 98 lines 16ff; W206. 



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392 RIVALRY IN EARLY CHRISTIAN MONACHISM 

another one: to walk back home again stark naked. He was 
willing to do this, but she refused because (she said) the people 
would think she was mad or devil-possessed. serapion now 
rejoiced in the realization that he had been wrong to think that 
she was more pious and dead to the world than he was. The 
whole incident is a curious reversal, even a mirror-image, of the 
usual topos (which it certainly resembles and echoes in many 
ways). It concludes: "Then, leaving her humbled and having 
destroyed her vanity, he went his way."27 

(8) The most fully-developed form of the comparison story, 
indeed possibly the most sophisticated of all the beneficial tales 
that have yet come to light, is "The Tale of Sergi us, the demotes 
of Alexandria. "28 This is actually a conflation of four stories in 
the format: A 1, B 1, C, D, B 2, A 2. (A) An Egyptian monk, Elpi­
dius, driven out into the desert by accidie, found a naked elder 
named Pyrrhus, who claimed to have lived more than seventy 
years in the desert without seeing a man. At the end of the 
narrative (A 2), Elpidius finds this man dead and gives him burial, 
but meanwhile Pyrrhus has recounted his story: (B) Pyrrhus 
fell into the AOYl<:qlO<; of asking God with whom he had his 
portion and whether there was his equal upon earth (£1t£lO"TlA8£ 
1l0t £"tEpo<; AOYtO"llo<; 'tou 1tapaKaAEO"at a1.nov (Sc. God) 'tOD 
yvwpiO"m 1l0t Il£'ta 'tivot; hw 'tilv IlEpi8a Kat £i. apaYE EO"'tt nt; E1tt 
YTl<; E1tiO"Tlt; 1l0U, Wortley 128.31 f). When he had accomplished 
seven days of praying, a voice came to him saying he had his 
portion with sergius, the demotes of Alexandria: of whom he 
went in search. It transpires that, in this context, demotes 
means the commissioner for prostitutes in Alexandria. At the 
end of the narrative (B2) this man follows Pyrrhus into the 
desert and lives with him there until his death. But meanwhile 
he recounts, under duress, two stories of some good he had 
done in this world: (C) Once he paid a beautiful woman toiling 
in a tavern one hundred pieces of gold to sleep with him. On 
discovering that she was doing it to payoff the debt that 
enslaved her husband and children, he let her go untouched, 

27 't&t£ Ka'tUA£l'l'U<; u{nT]V tv 'tU1t£lVO<PP0<JUVll KUt KAa<JU<; u{nll<; 'tov 'tu<pov 
aV£XWPTJ<J£. Historia Lausiaca 37 (=Butler [supra n.26] II 113.16-116.2); W210. 

28 B H G 1449i, De Sergio, demota Alexandrino; W716; Greek text and 
French tr. in J. WORTLEY, Les recits edifiants de Paul, e7Jeque de M onembasie 
et d'autres auteurs (Paris 1987: hereafter 'Wortley') 126-37; English tr. and 
notes in id., The Spiritually Beneficial Tales of Paul, Bishop of Monembasia, 
and of Other Authors (Kalamazoo [forthcoming 1994]) . 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
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JOHN WORTLEY 393 

money in hand, to restore her family. (D) On another occasion 
he saved the sisters of a community from debauchment by a 
lascivious governor by hiding them and dressing up the 
prostitutes to look like them. But when it was over, the girls 
would not go back to the brothels: they stayed on as sisters. 

This is not the place to investigate all the complexities of such 
an amazing narrative; only the section B l-C-D concerns us 
here, a section that is almost certainly derived from the 
"Paphnutius cycle" (399 infra). There is be little doubt that, 
although the story of 5ergius is set in a still-Christian Egypt, the 
narrative as it stands was constructed considerably later than the 
tales reviewed so far. It has all the characteristics of the recit 
tardif of the tenth century, a genre in which Paul of Monemba­
sia and other authors whose names are lost composed their 
tales. There is a Georgian translation of the Arabic text of this 
story in the Athonite Codex Iviron Georgian 9, an appendix to 
the Georgian Pratum Spirituale. This codex was copied in 977,29 
which establishes that date as the terminus ante quem for its 
publication. Given its developed nature and its similarity to 
other recits tardifs, this may well be the latest of the known , .,. 
companson stones. 

So far we have been looking at 'detached' stories, tales with no 
particular context of their own that can and do occur in all kinds 
of collections. But there are also comparison stories firmly em­
bedded in saints' lives, of which two instances have come to 
our notice. Doubtless many similar incidents are waiting to be 
discovered in the massive corpus of Greek hagiography. 

(9) The Life of Saint Theodoulus the Stylite of Edessa 30 is a 
fascinating text. Taken at its face value (which is almost certainly 
misleading), it is a document of the late fourth century. It tells 
how, perched on his column at Damascus, Theodoulus asks in 
prayer: "With whom shall I inherit the kingdom?" A voice re­
plies: "With Cornelius the actor (1tav8oupo~) from the city of 
Damascus." The saint bitterly laments being classed with this 
"flute player of the demons" (which might suggest some con­
nection with the "Paphnutius cycle," [17 infraJ). He descends 

29 According to Caritte, Byzantion 36 (1966) 396ff. 
30 EHG 1785; AASS maii VI (1688) 756-65, 748-553 : see cc.12-18; cf 

Delehaye's comments in Les Saints stylites (=Subsidia Hagiographica 14 
[Brussels 1923]) cxviii--cxx: "Ii serait aise d'en trouver les elements a travers la 
litteraturc du Moyen age." 



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394 RIVALRY IN EARLY CHRISTIAN MONACHISM 

from his column, goes into the city and asks to be directed to 
Cornelius the actor. A citizen takes him to the hippodrome and 
there is Cornelius, an instrument of music in one hand and a 
prostitute in the other. Theodoulus presses him for details of 
his virtue, which quite reduces the artist to laughter; but finally, 
he tells his tale. One night he was returning to his house after a 
late-night show, and there was a pretty woman standing in the 
shadows. He pressed her into his embrace and at first she 
seemed willing enough. But then she started aside like a broken 
bow and burst into tears. It appeared that she was the child of 
parents of standing, but an orphan. She had been married to a 
less-than-satisfactory husband who quickly ran through the 
dowry she brought him He had now been in prison for eight 
months, for debt-and he was dying of hunger. She had been 
begging, but in vain, and thus she was reduced (much against 
her will) to prositituting her charms. When Cornelius heard 
this, he ran to his house, gathered up all the money he could 
find or borrow, all articles of value and even his theatrical 
costumes. He wrapped all this in a cloth and gave it to the 
woman to pay her husband's debts, which amounted to four 
hundred gold pieces. Here (as in Sergius' story) the message is a 
little different but nonetheless salutary-and categorical: that 
one significant act of kindness can outweigh a whole lifetime of 
ascetic endeavour. 

Enough has now been said to demonstrate that, while these 
comparison stories are indeed beneficial to the soul ('I'UXro­
CjH::A£l<;), the means by which they confer their benefit describes 
some behavior that is, on occasion, rather at variance with the 
gospel precepts. In everyone of the above nine cases, it is 
either stated or implied that a 'holier than thou' relationship 
among Christians not only can exist, but also that it can be 
openly avowed to exist. Several of these are tales about people 
who would gladly pride themselves on not being as other men 
are; people who are a little too concerned with their perfor­
mance (hence, also with its rewards). How could these 
examples of what looks for all the world like spiritual U~Pl<; have 
found their way into the tradition of eremitic monachism -and 
managed to stay there, in spite of that appearance? 

(10) The answer to the first part of this conundrum is less 
difficult to find than one might imagine. There is yet another 
comparison story to be considered and this could well be the 
oldest of all the stories of the type described so far. It is a 
second example of a tale embedded in a vita: in this case, in The 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 33:4 (1992:Winter) p.383 

JOHN WORTLEY 395 

Life of Saint Paul of Thebes. 31 It is now generally believed that 
this vita was indeed written (in Latin) by none other than the 
great Jerome/Eusebius Hieronymus (ob. 420). The author 
makes no secret of the fact (in his Prologus) that he is writing a 
quite deliberate counter-blast to Athanasius' Vita Antonii, 
which it echoes in many ways. The object is to demonstrate 
that there had been a yet 01der,32 more primitive, more 
distinguished monk who penetrated the fastesses of the desert 
even before Antony did. In this Jerome was certainly success­
ful, for the eastern-unlike the western-church has long com­
memorated Paul, not Antony, as the "first monk" (29 October: 
IlVTlIlTl 'tou aaiou ITauAou 'tou eTl~aiou 'tou rrpo)'tou 
llovaxou).33 

Paradoxically, it is not Paul but Antony the Great, who is the 
protagonist of the incident in the vita to which we now turn our 
attention. The passage in question tells how, when Antony was 
already ninety years old (i.e., ca 341), while he was living in the 
remoter desert, "the idea came into his mind that there was no 
monk living in the desert more excellent than he" (c. 7, haec in 
mentem eius cogitatio incidit nullum ultre se [perfectumJ 
monachum in eremo consedisse). He therefore prayed that he 
might know whether this were true or not. It was revealed to 
him by night, as he slept, that, yes: there was one, further in, 
and much better than he was, whom he ought to set out to visit 
[at illi pernoctem quiescenti revelatum est esse alium interius 
multo se meliorem ad quem visendum deberet proficisciJ. The 
rest of the narrative describes how Antony travelled to see 
Paul, conversed with him and, eventually, with the help of two 
lions, buried his corpse. 

We now appear to have discovered the archetypal 'competi­
tion' story; but, alas, it is not quite so straightforward. "Is there 
any monk living in the desert more excellent than I?"-that is 
the prayer that the Latin text appears to put into the mouth of 
Antony. Everything turns on the word perfectum; but it may 

31 BHG 1466; PL XXIII 17-28; also Rosweyde, Hurter (n.34 infra). 
32 Paul is said to have been 112 years old when he died, compared with 

Antony's alleged 106. He also has the aura of martyrdom about him: he is 
said to have fled into the desert at the time of the Decian persecution and 
never to have returned. It should be added that while Jerome is conceded to 
have been the author of Vita Pauli, it is very noticeable that in his latest and 
excellent book, La vie quotidienne des peres du desert en Egypte au IV' siecle 
(Paris 1990) passim, Dom Lucien Regnault betrays a certain disquiet with this 
attribution. 

3J Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae 177.1f. 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
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396 RIVALRY IN EARLY CHRISTIAN MONACHISM 

well be an interpolation. Here is a note by Jean Martianay, the 
Maurist editor of the text reprinted by Migne: "That word 
per/eeturn, which we cannot find in any manuscript copy [sieJ, 
could easily be deleted, if it did not immediately go on to 
describe how it was revealed to him that there was one, further 
in, and rnueh better than he, which gives some support to it 
[the word per/eeturn J."34 The answer seems to have condi­
tioned the question. Because the voice says that the other monk 
is better, the first one is made to ask whether this is so by 
supplying a word (per/eeturn) that was not previously there. 35 

No matter how the word per/eeturn found its way into the 
text, however, once that word is removed, things begin to 
make more sense. It becomes clear that, far from falling victim 
to any invidious pride, all Antony wanted to know was whether 
there was any monk living yet further into the desert than was 
he, i.e., who had penetrated into the yet remoter zones that 
were as yet unknown to him. For until then, Antony believed 
himself (as he is still believed by some) to have been the first 
monk to leave the periphery of the OiXOU~EVT] and go off into 

H UVox isthaec perfectum, quam in nullo ms. exemplari invenimus [sic!] 
facile expungi posset, nisi quod statim subdit, revelatum esse alium interius 
multo se meliorem, suffragium qualecunque adderet": P LXXIII 22A-B with 
n.9 (italics added for emphasis). Presumably Martianay retained perfectum in 
spite of his manuscript evidence against it because it is present in the editio 
princeps, published by Heribert Rosweyde in Vitae Patrum, PL 
LXXIII-LXXIV and ed. H. Hurter, reprinted in W. A. Oldfather, cd., Studies 
in the Text-Tradition of St. Jerome's Vitae Patrum (Urbana 1943) 41. In the 
absence (as yet) of a critical edition, it is impossible to assert definitely that 
perfectum is an interpolation, but the likelihood is certainly very strong. There 
are twelve words in Hurter's edition (of which this perfectum is one) that are 
not to be found in a single one of the eighty-nine (out of 128 known) 
manuscripts examined by]. F. Cherf, as he reports in uThe Latin Manuscript 
Tradition of the Vita Saneti Pauli," in Oldfather 65-142, esp. 66. 

35 This, in turn, might conceivably have come about because the answer 
itself had become somewhat distorted. The editor might well suspect-from 
the alternate reading for interius, ulterius in terris-that meliorem (since 
distance is scarcely patient of value judgements) could have been a mistaken 
reading for something like longiorem or ulteriorem. But in the light of the 
versions (see below) such a mistake (if it were such) must have been made 
very early. I am indebted to my colleague, Professor Rory Egan, for suggesting 
that, given the questionable usage of perfectum, this might be, not an 
interpolation, but a misreading (say) of profectum-which certainly makes 
more sense. But, as noted above, there is as yet no manuscript evidence for 
either; we are dealing with an unsolved mystery. 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
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JOHN WORTLEY 397 

the desert.36 It was in response to his request that he was led yet 
further into the desert, there to encounter Paul of Thebes. 37 

It is not inconceivable that, in its original form, this is a 
genuine anecdote of the great Antony. It would have been 
consistent with the teaching of Vita Antonii for someone to 
have gleaned and preserved an additional anecdote. Athanasius 
encourages his readers (of whom Jerome was clearly one) 
diligently to enquire of the Egyptian monks in order to fill out 
and complete his own report. 38 Jerome was in Egypt for some 
time, shortly before 386. It might have been he who learned 
this tale from the Egyptian monks; but that in itself is no 
guarantee of its veracity. 

Whether it be fact or fiction, however, no matter how 
tempting it might be to think otherwise, this incident with the 
word perfectum interpolated simply cannot be demonstrated 
to have been the archetypal 'competition' story, for it is now 
generally accepted that Jerome's Latin Vita Pauli almost 
certainly precedes all the various Greek and Oriental Lives 
(ODCC s.v. "Paul of Thebes"; the older view, now abandoned, 
was that Jerome freely translated and expanded a Greek text of 
ca 365-370, possibly brought to his attention by Evagrius of 
Pontus, which mayor may not have rested on the testimony of 
those who buried Antony.)39 The fact of the matter is that 
although, as noted above, the word perfectum is found in most 
(if not all) Latin manuscripts, there is not a trace of its equivalent 
in any known manuscript of the oriental translations or of the 
two known early Greek versions of the Vita Pauli first collated 
by Bidez and more recently by Corey. The Greek versions 
read thus: 

36 See J. C. O'Neill, "The Origins of Monasticism," in The Making of 
Orthodoxy: Essays in honour of Henry Chadwick (Cambridge 1989) 270-87: 
" Antony was notable for one thing alone, his zeal to face the devil in a severer 
test by living among the tombs and by going out into the desert itself' (273, 
my italics). 

37 The motif of the monk who returns (having been sent away by him at 
their first encounter) just in time to bury an elder frequently recurs in the tales. 

38 Migne, PC XXVI 838: <lAiya tow EKelVO'IJ f.LVllf.LOVEUOa~ bttotelAW Kat 
Uf.LElt; fir f.LlJ 1tauollo9E tOUt; Ev9£vflE 1tA£ovtat; EPWt~V' tOWt; ya.p EKaotO'IJ 
AEyoVtOt; 01t!:p otOE f.L6yt~ btEi~E(t)~ ~ 1tEpt i:Kdvo'IJ yEVllto.t 0t11YTlOt~. 

39 Thus F. Nau, ULe texte original de la Vie de Paul de Thebes," AnalBoll20 
(1901) 130-53, esp. 149f, commenting on J. Bidez, Deux versions grecques de La 
Vie de Paul de Thebes (Gand 1900). 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
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398 RIVALRY IN EARLY CHRISTIAN MONACHISM 

A: EV aAAll EPTlJlq> 'Av'twvto~ ~hE'tPl~£V, w~ o{)'to~ 
OTl'Y£tcr8al dw8fl, EV 'tft Ev8uJ.111crfl Tft~ Olavo(a~ au'tOu 
E1tllA8£v d ouod~ £'t£po~ EvOo't(hw 'tll~ EpT1J..lOU 'twv 
Jlovaxwv ou1'Yfl. cp oux 'tll~ VUK'tO~ llcruxa~ov'tl 
a,1t£KaAuq>8Tl ctval £'t£pov EvOo'ta'tw 1tOAA0 ~£A'tlova, 
1tPO~ QV Oq>£l/..fl cruv'tux(a~ xaplv cr1touoacral. 

B: a,m1YYflA£V O£ 'AV'tWVLO~ llJltv 1t0't£ on EAo'YlcraJlTlv 
EV Eau't0 on ouod~ apa 'twv Jlovaxwv CPKTlcr£V 
EcrW't£pov 'tll~ EpTJJlOU 'tauTl~. Kat 'tft vUKn EKdvll, £n 
au'tou Ev8uJloUJlEVOU, a,1t£KaAUq>8Tl au't0 1tapa 'tou 
Scou on Ecr'tiV 'tl~ EcrW't£pO~ Kat ~£A'tiwv crOll cP 
Oq>dAfl~ cruv'tUX£tV Jl£'ta 1t(lcrTl~ xapa~.40 

The reader will have noted that it is almost exclusively in the 
Greek-speaking world and its penumbra that we find examples 
of the competition story; areas in which there was nothing 
equivalent to the celebrated perfectum in the versions of the 
Life of Saint Paul of Thebes. Paradoxically, so far as I am aware, 
there is not a single example of a competition story in the Latin 
west (where the vita did include that perfectum) that cannot be 
shown to have been translated almost directly from an eastern 
source. 41 

Might it not, however, be possible that the Vita Pauli incident 
without the word perfectum could be recognized as the arche­
typal 'competition' story? There are two pointers in that di­
rection: First, as noted above, there is no question in the 
competition stories told of the earliest monks, e.g. Antony and 
Macarius. There are all the other elements of the story, but no 
question. Second, if (as seems to have been the case in the 
written text of Vita Pauli ), the answer conditioned the question, 
is it unlikely that the same thing would have happened as the 
competition topos was passed along orally, even to the extent of 
the answer actually supplying the question it presupposed? One 
can add that even in the stories mentioned above where no 

40 BHG 1466; Bidez (supra n.39) 10-13. The Synaxarion (394, 16-20) follows 
the Greek lives in making it clear that Paul's significant excellence lay in the 
distance of his penetration into the desert: T01nov. w~ <pam. 0 fl£ya~ 'Av'twvtO~ 
Ka'taA.a~ffiv Kat 'tou 'tono'\} Kat 'to 'tpono'\} Kat 'taU XPovo'\} 'tT1~ avaXWPTlcrfW~ 
t9auflacrf' Kat yap np&'ta~ av9pwnwv d~ 'to. 'tT1~ tpTlflO\) Ev06'tfpa 
npofABEtV E'tOA.flllcrE. 

41 E.g. "Pelagius and John" (the Latin Systematikon), PL LXXIII 855-1022: 
e.g. 20.17, 22. 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
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JOHN WORTLEY 399 

question is stated, there is in most instances-in addition to the 
voice from heaven-the statement of the monk on discovering 
the excellence of the person(s) he has been sent to visit, e.g., "I 
most certainly have not yet attained anything near your stature." 
In most instances, this bears a remarkable similarity to the 
question asked (when it is stated). One cannot help wondering 
here too which came first: the question or the conclusion. This 
narrative, however, has now gone too far out on the limb of 
speculation-and reached its limit. It must return to more solid 
ground, where there remains one major stone that has not yet 
been turned. 

More or less coxval with Vita Pauli is the "Paphnutius cycle" 
mentioned earlier, a series of three linked competition tales, 
somewhat similar to those described above, but also very dif­
ferent in some ways. The cycle occurs in The History of the 
Monks of Egypt,42 which (it is now generally agreed) contains 
substantially material collected in Egypt by visiting monks from 
Jerusalem during the winter of 394-395. This is what the so­
called Paphnutius cycle says:43 

In the area adjacent to Heracleopolis in the Thebai·d, the 
visitors from Jerusalem heard the following about a recently 
departed father (Paphnutius) who was obviously already 
becoming something of a legend. 

(1) After many years in the ascetic life, Paphnutius asked God 
to let him know which of the saints who had lived the life of 
virtue he most resembled [£OEE'tO 'tOU SEQU yvcoptcr8ilvut U1Yri:p 
'tlVO<; 'troY Ku'top8cocraY'tcov aYlcov Elll av 0IlOLO<;]. An angel 
appeared to him and told him he was like the flute-player at 
Heracleopolis. When Paphnutius visited this person, he dis­
covered that although he was an ex-brigand and sinful (not to 
mention his disreputable calling), he did admit to two virtuous 
acts: (a) he had once saved a virgin from being ravaged by 
brigands; (b) and on another occasion he had given a woman 
(who was prepared to sell herself to him for that price) three 
hundred pieces of gold gratis in order to redeem her husband 
and children. The man followed Paphnutius into the desert and 
for three years led a life of great piety. 

(2) Paphnutius asked a second time which of the saints he 
most resembled ['tlVt 'trov aYlcov apa av Elll O~LOLO<;]. This time he 

42 Festugiere, HME and Moines; English tr.: N. Russel, The Lives of the 
Desert Fathers (Oxford 1981). 

43 HME 14; W165-67. What follows is merely a precis of a substantial story. 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
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400 RIVALRY IN EARLY CHRISTIAN MONACHISM 

was sent to the chieftain of a village [fOll(n<; 'tip 'til~ 1tATlcriov 
KOOf.lTl<;; 1tpro'tOKrof.lTt'tn] whose great virtue lay in this: that for 
thirty years he had slept apart from his wife, practiced great 
hospitality and almsgiving, observed strict morality in his 
farming operation, had not taken his child's side in legal action, 
and so forth. Paphnutius said, however, that the man lacked the 
acme of virtue: the knowledge of God. So he took him into the 
mountain (14.10-15). (There is a brief interlude here in which, 
while fording a river with the ex-chieftain, he prayed God to 
reveal to him which of the two was greater [tOEE'tO 'tOU 8£OU 
KPEl't'trov cpavilvat 'trov 'to101nrov]: he was rewarded by a vision of 
the other's soul being borne aloft by angels [14.16f].) 

(3) Paphnutius asked a third time that it should be revealed to 
him whom he resembled [1taAtv it~io'U OTlAro8ilvat au'tip 'tivo~ 
ElTl of.lOto<;;]. A divine voice sent him to meet a rich merchant 
(there is an oblique reference to Mtt. 13:45 here) descending the 
Nile with a hundred ships, distributing his goods to monks and 
to the poor. Paphnutius led this man into the wilderness. 
"Having shut himself up in the cave where his two predecessors 
had died, [the merchant] persevered with prayer to God. After a 
little time had elapsed, he left his body and became a citizen of 
heaven" (14.18-22).44 At this point (14.23) Paphnutius lost heart 
and could no more fight the good fight ['tilv 'tl'Uxilv Ct1tEAEYE'tO 
f.lTlKE'tl 1tAEOV acrKilcrat O'Uvaf.lEVo~], but an angel came and 
assured him of his reward forthwith-and he died before the 
sun had made another circuit. 

It will readily be appreciated that these experiences of Paph­
nutius are a little different from those of Antony, Macarius, and 
all the other protagonists whose stories we have reviewed in this 
paper: they meet people who, in their own way, are trying to 
lead an ascetic life in the world. The moral of the story is loud 
and clear: monks have no monopoly on holiness. 45 Paphnutius, 
on the other hand, encounters: first, a scoundrel who happens 

{{ Tr. N. Russel, The Lives of the Desert Fathers (London 1980) 97. 
{S This is not a common theme of beneficial tales, but it is found elsewhere, 

e.g. BRG 1318y, W51) de duobus fratribus post alterius mortem reconciliatis: 
One of the two brothers died whilst they were at enmity with each other (this 
is a commonplace). The surviver went first to Mount Olympus, but the elder 
he consulted there could not help. He was then sent to one who turned out to 
be a woman. She sent him to a centurion at Constantinople who at first 
denied that he had any ability to be of assistance. Finally he took the 
surviving brother to the Great Church by night. The doors opened at his 
prayers; the dead brother appeared and a reconciliation was effected. The 
conclusion is that not only monks are holy men. 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 33:4 (1992:Winter) p.383 

JOHN WORTLEY 401 

to have done two good works; then an honest layman who 
strives to be simply an honest layman. It is only at the third 
encounter that he finds one already on his way to asceticism, 
and he is but a pre-postulant, so to speak. Nor does Paphnutius 
experience any great humility on hearing the deeds of those 
with whom he is invited to compare himself: "I am not aware of 
having accomplished anything equal to this myself," he says to 
the flute-player, «but so far as the ascetic life is concerned, you 
have no doubt heard that I am famous." Thus he tells the honest 
chieftain he has done well, but one thing he lacks: he must 
withdraw into the wilderness to lead the ascetic life-which he 
does. Here, in contrast to the stories of Antony, Macarius, and 
so forth, the message is that the monastic life is the acme of 
holiness; that he who would be saved must leave all and follow 
Christ. Thus, somewhat paradoxically, though the Paphnutius 
stories are mainly about laymen, the message seems to be that 
the road to salvation is a monastic road. It is true that the 
question posed by Paphnutius seems less obnoxious than the 
one generally attributed to Antony, but underlying it is the same 
lack of humility (especially noticeable in the interlude where he 
is crossing the river) and, eventually, the same salutary warning, 
even though Paphnutius seems not to realize the full sig­
nificance of it when he urges his interlocutors, be they never so 
holy, to follow him into the desert. 

The reader hardly needs reminding at this point that we have 
still to discover whence arose all this invidious comparing and 
contrasting of levels of piety. Pere Festugiere first recognized 
that among the ollY11crn<; 'VUXWq>£A£t<; there are a few for which 
ancient protoypes can be identified. 46 He drew attention to 
three stories of the Delphic Oracle all of which resemble the in­
cidents examined in this paper in several ways, but most 
significantly in that the spirit of competition (uywv) is distinctly 
present in them. 

The first concerns a rich Magnesian who brought a great 
offering to Apollo and asked the Pythia who was the best and 
most enthusiastic of men in honoring the god and made the 
most pleasing offerings, confidently expecting himself himself to 
bear the palm (i.l1tOAa/l~avov'ta ooellcrEcreat au'tip 'to rrpwn:tov). 
Answer: [Not you but] Clearchus of Methydrium in Arcadia. 
To him the rich man proceeded and found a farmer living in 

46 A.-J. Festugiere, "Lieux communs litteraires et themes de folk-lore dans 
l'hagiographie primitive," WS 73 (1960) 123-53, esp. 142ff. 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 33:4 (1992:Winter) p.383 

402 RIVALRY IN EARLY CHRISTIAN MONACHISM 

very simple circumstances but honoring the god with what he 
had to the best of his ability. "The moral was that the gods 
preferred the simplest offering given regularly and piously to 
the most costly and elaborate expenditure of wealth. "47 

Then there is the story of Gyges, ruler of Lydia, who asked 
the Pythia who was the happiest of men (an aliquis martalitem se 
esset /eliciar). "Aglaus of Psophis,» came the reply-a very 
obscure Arcadian living on a minuscule farm that he had never 
left, parvuli ruris /ructibus cantentus. 48 Third, there is the case 
of Anacharsis the Scythian (or possibly of Chilon of Sparta) who 
asked whether any man were wiser than he (£'l n<; au'tOu 
cro<pcl.yc£po<; EtTl). The reply was formal: "I say that a certain 
Myson of Oeta has been born in Chen, who is provided with 
sounder brains than you" (Oi:'ta'iov nva <PTlJll Mucroov' £Vl XTlVl 
y£vEcrSat crou JlCxAAOV 1tpa1ttb£crcrtv apTlPo-'ta 1t£UKaAtJlncrlV). 
Myson was visited and found to be a very simple peasant in an 
obscure corner of the land.49 

Parke and Wormell point out that these three cases of 
answers to question of who is the most pious, the happiest, and 
the wisest, all follow the same pattern. It need hardly be added 
that the comparison stories examined above also faithfully repro­
duce part or (more commonly) all of the same pattern: a 
question to the divinity, an unexpected answer mentioning a 
third person, followed by a visi t to that person-to which the 
Christians have usually added some admission of inferiority to 

that person by the protagonist. Given also the three-fold nature 
of the Paphnutius cycle, it is difficult to disagree with Fes­
tugiere: 

Tout cela Esc. the Historia stories] ne brille pas par 
l'humilite et serait, en vrai, incomprehensible, du moins 
dans un tel ouvrage a la gloire des moines, si I' on manquait a 
percevoir, plus ou moins lointains, de vieux souvenirs de 
folk-lore pai·en, des echos, a peine attenues, de la <jnAo'tqlta. 
grecque. 

47 H. W. PARKE and D. E. W. WORMELL, The Delphic Oracle (Oxford 1956) I 
384, II no. 238, citing Theopompus, FGrHist 115F344=Porph. Abst. 2.16. 

48 Parke and Wormell I 348, II no. 244, citing Val. Max. 7.1.2 and inviting 
comparison with Plin. HN 7.151. 

49 Parke and Wormell I 384f, II no. 254, citing D. L. 1.106 etc. (tr. by the 
authors). 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 33:4 (1992:Winter) p.383 

JOHN WORTLEY 403 

So much for the Paphnutius cycle. Can this shed any light on 
how the word perfectum found its way into Jerome's text and 
how the rather obnoxious questions of the other competition 
stories came into being? So far as the first is concerned, 
probably not. The absence of perfectum from the other 
versions establishes it as a somewhat late interpolation, but not 
too late considering its persistence in the Latin Mss. It seems 
rather unlikely that the influence of the Paphnutius stories 
brought this about, partly because they circulated (so far as we 
are aware) in Coptic and Greek, not Latin (though one can 
never be sure), but mainly because the question asked in all 
three Paphnutius stories is of the second of the two types 
described at the beginning of this paper, "Whom am I 
like?"-not "Is there anybody [comparative adjective] than I?" 

What, however, the existence of the Paphnutian cycle does do 
(as Festugiere pointed out) is to demonstrate very clearly that 
"de vieux souvenirs de folk-lore palen" were certainly in 
circulation and, moreover, were capable of insinuating 
themselves into and distorting Christian stories. Thus it is at least 
plausible that Antony's very simple request to know if there 
was anybody who had penetrated further into the desert was 
transformed, through a succession of tales, into the over­
weening desire to know if he were the holiest of men by the 
pressure of a prevailing folklore: folklore descended from a 
culture in which there was nothing amiss in inquiring an aliquis 
mortalium se esset felicior. From this, it is a short step-perhaps 
even a natural one when the world was Christianized and mona­
chized-to an ullum ultra se perfectum monachum in eremo 
consedisse, no matter in what language the question were asked. 

It is nevertheless remarkable that the impropriety of such a 
question for a Christian (a fortiori for a Christian monk), both in 
the vita and in the tales, apparently passed unchallenged. But it 
may be that this can be explained in terms of more than the 
pressure of ancient traditions. Attention has already been drawn 
to the extremely high value placed on humility as a monastic 
virtue: "Not to judge others, but to consider yourself inferior to 
everybody ... that is humility." 50 It need hardly be emphasized 
that nearly all the earlier stories cited above are not only lessons 
in humility, but very striking lessons in monastic humility, both 

50 Nau 330 (=Matoes 11 in Alphabeticon, Euergetinus Synagoge 1.45.29: f!i"j 
lCpivW;; [or lCp'ivEJ aAAou~ aAA.O. YEVOU 1moKa,(J) 1tuv't(J)v ... au'tTt Ea,tV 
'ta1tdv(J)(Jt~. 



WORTLEY, JOHN, The Spirit of Rivalry in Early Christian Monachism , Greek, Roman and 
Byzantine Studies, 33:4 (1992:Winter) p.383 

404 RIVALRY IN EARLY CHRISTIAN MONACHISM 

for the individual and for the institution. I suppose the fact of 
the matter was that some monks did have a tendency to think of 
themselves as more holy than 'those of the world', and that they 
had to be continually reminded that this was not necessarily the 
case. This, however, is not the easiest of lessons to inculcate. A 
story that would serve the purpose almost had to start with a 
monk falling into the error it sought to combat. One may there­
fore conclude that there might well have been persons in old 
time who were as scandalized by the question of comparative 
holiness as readers today. Nevertheless, being themselves 
engaged in the invisible warfare of the 1((1./...0<; UYWV 111<; 7tl(J'tEW<;. 
they were well aware of the dangers of spiritual pride and hence 
were probably prepared to close their eyes to the impropriety 
of the question, for in each case the questioner received his 
correction. This in the pious (and on their terms not un­
reasonable) hope that the end would justify the means. 

UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA 

NO'lJember, 1992