American Society of Church History

Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Elizabeth A. Clark
Reviewed work(s):
The Letter of Ammon and Pachomian Monasticism by James E. Goehring
Source: Church History, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Sep., 1987), pp. 381-382
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church
History
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3166070
Accessed: 31/07/2009 10:18

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BOOK REVIEWS 381

Criticisms like these, however, do not finally weigh heavily against the
vitality and importance of the book. Its greatest contribution is that it makes
Christianity intelligible and even interesting in the context of the Graeco-
Roman world where it slowly won adherents.
University of Chicago ROBERT M. GRANT
Chicago, Illinois

The Letter of Ammon and Pachomian Monasticism. By JAMES E. GOEHR-

ING. Patristische Texte und Studien 27. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986.
viii + 307 pp. DM 178.
The Letter of Ammon purports to have been written by a bishop at the
request of its addressee, possibly Theophilus of Alexandria. First published
in 1680, the letter became part of the scholarly debate over the priority of
Greek or Coptic Pachomian sources. Goehring begins with a clear summary
of the complex arguments that have surrounded the Pachomian Vitae and the
Letter of Ammon. He stresses the letter's importance for our reconstruction of
the Pachomian movement, despite the evidence that Ammon stayed at Pabau
for only three years, A.D. 352-355, before becoming a monk at Nitria and
eventually a bishop. The letter was written forty or fifty years after Ammon
left Pabau. These historical details prompt questions regarding the "contami-
nation" of Pachomian with Nitriote materials, and Ammon's interest in
promoting "orthodoxy" (the anti-Arian and probably anti-Origenist senti-
ment is evident in several passages). One important contribution of the Letter
of Ammon is, according to Goehring, the chronological detail it provides: for
example, the Letter permits the dating of Pachomius's death to A.D. 346.
Goehring argues for the superiority of the F manuscript (= Florentine,
tenth or eleventh century) to the other three extant manuscripts. The critical
edition of the text Goehring prepared for this volume thus relies mainly on F;
variant readings are listed in the apparatus. An English -translation and
extensive notes follow the Greek text.
The subject matter of the Letter concerns the life, deeds, and spiritual gifts
of Theodore, a successor to Pachomius as head of the monasteries. Goehring
compares Ammon's project with that of Athanasius in his Vita Antonii: the
hero is both glorified and linked to theological orthodoxy of the author's (not
the subject's) day.
Although Goehring's discussion of the debates over texts and manuscripts
will not intrigue the general reader, the chapter on the literary and historical
interpretation of the text, taken together with the translation of the Letter and
accompanying notes, will greatly interest scholars of early Christianity, of
Gnosticism, and of monasticism. In addition, Goehring presents us with a
fine example of how religious documents are "manipulated" for orthodox
382 CHURCH HISTORY

ecclesiastical purposes. Goehring's book is a highly erudite contribution to

early Christian scholarship.
Duke University ELIZABETH A. CLARK
Durham, North Carolina

Palladius: Dialogue on the Life of Saint John Chrysostom. Edited by ROBERT

T. MEYER. Ancient Christian Writers 45. New York: Newman Press,
1985.249 pp. $16.95.
The Dialogue was composed shortly after the death of John Chrysostom in
407, almost certainly by Palladius, Bishop of Helenopolis, the author of the
Lausiac History, a valuable source for the history of early monasticism,
previously translated by Robert Meyer in the same series. The work is not a
bios, strictly speaking, but a dialogue modeled on Plato which seeks to refute
the charges made against John in a no longer extant work by his nemesis,
Theophilus of Alexandria. As such it relates John's entire life but concen-
trates on his controversial tenure, from 398 on, as Patriarch of Constantino-
ple, and on his exile and death. Palladius was in an especially good position to
know the events surrounding John's deposition and exile, including the
Origenist controversy in Egypt which brought John Chrysostom into conflict
with Theophilus when the Tall Brothers sought refuge in Constantinople.
Scholars, therefore, notably Dom Chrysostom Baur in his masterful two-
volume biography of John, have treated the Dialogue as their most valuable
source of information on John's life.
The Dialogue is, however, in the words of J. B. Bury, which he no doubt
intended in more than one sense, "a very partial book." It is, as Meyer
acknowledges in his introduction, an impassioned defense of John by a bishop
who himself suffered for his support of him. As such, it signally contributed to
John's dramatic posthumous rehabilitation as a saint and even as a martyr.
Readers of the extensive accounts of John Chrysostom in Socrates and
Sozomen will note that Palladius seems to have downplayed John's conflict
with the Imperial Court. Florent van Ommeslaeghe's close examination of
the anonymous Life ascribed to Martyrius of Antioch and of Photius's
Bibliotheca reveal that Palladius did not know or suppressed some of the
charges brought against John in the synod that deposed him.
For all its partiality, though, the Dialogue remains our foremost source of
information on one of the most influential of the Fathers of the Church. It
also throws a revealing light on the milieu in which John lived; we learn that
John severely undermined his relations with his clergy by not entertaining
them at banquets. Meyer provides a sensitive and readable translation, an
informative introduction, and a helpful series of indexes. His extensive notes
supplement those in the 1928 Coleman-Norton edition of Palladius's work