Sarabaites
As sarabaites (Latin sarabaitae ) an early group of Christian monks in Egypt was described by authors of the old church as negatively assessed.
Surname
The ancient authors suggest that Sarabaitae (according to Johannes Cassian and authors who are dependent on him) and Remnuoth (according to Hieronymus ) are Egyptian names. However , these groups of monks are unknown in the entire Coptic literature . Philologists have tried to understand the Coptic terms behind the Latin names. The suggestions are:
- ⲡⲙⲛⲟⲩⲱⲧ / rmnowoːt / "lonely man";
- ⲥⲁⲣ-ⲁⲃⲁⲓⲧ / sar-abajt / "someone who lives scattered about a monastery";
- ⲥⲁⲣ-ⲁⲃⲏⲧ / sar-abēt / "monastery man";
- ⲥⲁ-ⲣⲁⲩⲏ / sa-rawē / "Man from a group of cells" or "Man from near a neighborhood."
However, the authors mentioned probably do not describe a group that called themselves Remnuoth / Sarabaites and had a recognizable way of life, but use the two terms (without even knowing Coptic) as swear words to differentiate themselves from undesirable forms of monasticism ( othering ); They only contribute to the understanding of Egyptian monasticism that it was very diverse.
Authors of the Old Church
Benedict Rule and Master's Rule
The Regula Benedicti lists various "types of monks" in the opening chapter. This chapter is 80% a literal takeover of the material from the Regula Magistri . Benedict of Nursia wants to found a community ( schola ) that lives cenobitically under rule and abbot. The alternative to this is a “pathetic way of life” ( miserrima conversatione ) by monks who
- have been tried neither by rule nor by experience;
- be faithful to the world in their works;
- live without a shepherd (= abbot) as you see fit;
- are inconsistent.
The Magister's rule describes the Sarabaites as the worst kind of monks. They would not have separated from the lifestyle of the “world”, but with their tonsure they raise the claim to be monks; what they liked they called sacred, what they disliked was forbidden.
Johannes Cassian
Cassian's conlationes patrum (18.7) are the only real source for the Sarabaite description of the Magister's rule . However, as a historian of early monasticism, Cassian turned the historical development on its head: in reality it led from anachoresis, the hermit life, to the cenobium, the monk's colony. "But according to Kassian's ascetic-spiritual concept, anachoresis grows out of the cenobium as a more perfect form of life."
Cassian gives the impression that the Sarabaites are coenobites who have strayed from the right path, who have separated from their monastic colony and who practically lived together as small groups on their own. In contrast to the particularly high-ranking anchorites, who, after a long stay in a monk's colony, led a solid inner life as a hermit, the Sarabaites had "unproven" moved into the desert. Although he does not explicitly refer to her as heretics, there are set pieces of the description of heretics: late emergence, wandering, selfishness, exotic name.
Jerome
Hieronymus knows a similar group of monks under the (otherwise not attested) Coptic name Remnuoth :
“They form the lowest level of monasticism and have no reputation. In our province [= Syria Palestine] they are the only and original kind of monasticism. They live in twos and threes, but not in large numbers, together as they see fit, without being dependent on anyone. Some of what they work for they put together to make a living from it. They mostly live in cities and fortified places. What they sell is more expensive than usual, as if their manual skills, not their way of life, are what determine holiness. There are often arguments among them; because because they get their own living they don't want to be dependent on anyone. In fasting they compete with one another, and what should be done in secret, they make a competition out of it. With them everything gives the impression of what they are looking for, the wide sleeves, the shoes that are more reminiscent of bellows, the coarse dress, the frequent sighs, the visit of the virgins, the disparagement of the clergy. If there is a festival day, they eat themselves up to vomiting. "
Impact history
Under the influence of Benedict's rule, wandering basketball was fundamentally rejected in the Western Church and, with the exception of the mendicant orders, abandoned. In the Orthodox churches, on the other hand, wandering preacher monks (e.g. in Russian and Ethiopian monasticism) can be found up to the present day.
literature
- Maribel Dietz: Wandering Monks, Virgins, and Pilgrims: ascetic travel in the Mediterranean world AD 300-800. Pennsylvania 2005. ISBN 0-271-02677-4 .
- Malcolm Choat: Philological and Historical Approaches to the Search for the Third Type of Egyptian Monk . In: Mat Immerzeel, Jacques van der Vliet (Ed.): Coptic Studies on the Threshold of a New Millennium: Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Coptic Studies , Leuven 2004, pp. 857-865.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Malcolm Choat: Philological and Historical Approaches to the Search for the 'Third Type' of Egyptian Monk , New York 2020, p. 857.
- ↑ Malcolm Choat: Philological and Historical Approaches to the Search for the 'Third Type' of Egyptian Monk , New York 2020, p. 858.
- ↑ Malcolm Choat: Philological and Historical Approaches to the Search for the 'Third Type' of Egyptian Monk , New York 2020, pp. 864f.
- ↑ David Tomlins: The Prologue . In: Michael Casey (Ed.): Introduction to the Benedictine Rule. A spiritual training program . EOS, Sankt Ottilien 2010, p. 27.
- ↑ David Tomlins: The Prologue . In: Michael Casey (Ed.): Introduction to the Benedictine Rule. A spiritual training program . EOS, Sankt Ottilien 2010, p. 33.
- ^ Maribel Dietz: Wandering Monks, Virgins, and Pilgrims: ascetic travel in the Mediterranean world AD 300-800, Pennsylvania 2005, pp. 80f.
- ↑ Klaus Freitag : Art. Sarabaiten . In: Der Neue Pauly , online query on May 26, 2020.
- ^ Karl Suso Frank: Introduction . In: Ders .: Asceticism and Monasticism in the Old Church (= ways of research . Volume 409) Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1975, pp. 1–36, here p. 15.
- ^ Maribel Dietz: Wandering Monks, Virgins, and Pilgrims: ascetic travel in the Mediterranean world AD 300-800, Pennsylvania 2005, p. 77.
- ^ Maribel Dietz: Wandering Monks, Virgins, and Pilgrims: ascetic travel in the Mediterranean world AD 300-800, Pennsylvania 2005, pp. 87f.
- ^ David Brakke: Heterodoxy and Monasticism around the Mediterranean Sea . In: Alison I. Beach, Isabelle Cochelin (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West . Cambridge University Press, New York 2020, pp. 128-143, here pp. 133f.
- ^ Library of the Church Fathers
- ^ Samuel Rubenson: Art. Monasticism I (Idea and History) . In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum , Volume 24, 2012, Sp. 1009-1064, here Sp. 1022.