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| Chapter VII. Of the origin of the Sarabaites and their mode of life.
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Chapter VII.
Of the origin of the Sarabaites and their mode of
life.
And while the Christian
religion was rejoicing in these two orders of monks though this system
had begun by degrees to deteriorate, there arose afterwards that
disgusting and unfaithful kind of monks; or rather, that baleful plant
revived and sprang up again which when it first shot up in the persons
of Ananias and Sapphira in the early Church was cut off by the severity
of the Apostle Peter—a kind which among monks has been for a long
while considered detestable and execrable, and which was adopted by no
one any more, so long as there remained stamped on the memory of the
faithful the dread of that very severe sentence, in which the blessed
Apostle not merely refused to allow the aforesaid originators of the
novel crime to be cured by penitence or any amends, but actually
destroyed that most dangerous germ by their speedy death. When then
that precedent, which was punished with Apostolical severity in the
case of Ananias and Sapphira had by degrees faded from the minds of
some, owing to long carelessness and forgetfulness from lapse of time,
there arose the race of Sarabaites, who owing to the fact that they
have broken away from the congregations of the Cœnobites and each
look after their own affairs, are rightly named in the Egyptian
language Sarabaites,2079
| 2079 Sarabaites, this
third sort of monks whom Cassian here paints in such dark colours, are
spoken of by S. Jerome (Ep. xxii. ad Eustochium) under the name of
Remoboth. The origin of both names is obscure, but Jerome and Cassian
are quite at one in their scorn for these pretended monks. S. Benedict
begins his monastic rule by describing the four kinds of monks,
cœnobites, anchorites, sarabaites, and a fourth class to which he
gives the name of “gyrovagi,” i e., wandering monks; these
must be those of whom Cassian speaks below in c. viii. without giving
them any definite name. See further Bingham, Antiquities VII. ii., and
the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, Art. Sarabaites. | and these spring
from the number of those, whom we have mentioned, who wanted to imitate
rather than truly to aim at Evangelical perfection, urged thereto by
rivalry or by the praises of those who preferred the complete poverty
of Christ to all manner of riches. These then while in their feeble
mind they make a pretence of the greatest goodness and are forced by
necessity to join this order, while they are anxious to be reckoned by
the name of monks without emulating their pursuits, in no sort of way
practise discipline, or are subject to the will of the Elders, or,
taught by their traditions, learn to govern their own wills or take up
and properly learn any rule of sound discretion; but making their
renunciation only as a public profession, i.e., before the face of men,
either continue in their homes devoted to the same occupations as
before, though dignified by this title, or building cells for
themselves and calling them monasteries remain in them perfectly free
and their own masters, never submitting to the precepts of the gospel,
which forbid them to be busied with any anxiety for the day’s
food, or troubles about domestic matters: commands which those alone
fulfil with no unbelieving doubt, who have freed themselves from all
the goods of this world and subjected themselves to the superiors of
the Cœnobia so that they cannot admit that they are at all their
own masters. But those who, as we said, shirk the severity of the
monastery, and live two or three together in their cells, not satisfied
to be under the charge and rule of an Abbot, but arranging chiefly for
this; viz., that they may get rid of the yoke of the Elders and have
liberty to carry out their wishes and go and wander where they will,
and do what they like, these men are more taken up both day and night
in daily business than those who live in the Cœnobia, but not with
the same faith and purpose. For these Sarabaites do it not to submit
the fruits of their labours to the will of the steward, but to procure
money to lay by. And see what a difference there is between them. For
the others think nothing of the morrow, and offer to God the most
acceptable fruits of their toil: while these extend their faithless
anxiety not only to the morrow, but even to the space of many years,
and so fancy that God is either false or impotent as He either could
not or would not grant them the promised supply of food and clothing.
The one seek this in all their prayers; viz., that they may
gain ἀκτημοσύνην, i.e., the deprivation of all things,
and lasting poverty: the other that they may secure a rich quantity of
all sorts of supplies. The one eagerly strive to go beyond the fixed
rule of daily work that whatever is not wanted for the sacred purposes
of the monastery, may be distributed at the will of the Abbot either
among the prisons, or in the guest-chamber or in the infirmary or to
the poor; the others that whatever the day’s gorge leaves over,
may be useful for extravagant wants or else laid by through the sin of
covetousness. Lastly, if we grant that what has been collected by them
with no good design, may be disposed of in better ways than we have men
tioned, yet not even thus do they rise to the merits of
goodness and perfection. For the others bring in such returns to the
monastery, and daily report to them, and continue in such humility and
subjection that they are deprived of their rights over what they gain by
their own efforts, just as they are of their rights over themselves, as
they constantly renew the fervour of their original act of renunciation,
while they daily deprive themselves of the fruits of their labours:
but these are puffed up by the fact that they are bestowing something
on the poor, and daily fall headlong into sin. The one party are by
patience and the strictness whereby they continue devoutly in the order
which they have once embraced, so as never to fulfil their own will,
crucified daily to this world and made living martyrs; the others are
cast down into hell by the lukewarmness of their purpose. These two
sorts of monks then vie with each other in almost equal numbers in this
province; but in other provinces, which the need of the Catholic faith
compelled me to visit, we have found that this third class of Sarabaites
flourishes and is almost the only one, since in the time of Lucius who was
a Bishop of Arian misbelief2080
| 2080
Lucius took the lead of the Arian party at Alexandria after the murder
of George of Cappadocia in 361, and was put forward by his party
as the candidate for the see which they regarded as vacant. In 373,
after the death of Athanasius, he was forced upon the reluctant Church
of Alexandria by the Arian Emperor Valens, and according to Gregory
Nazianzen a fresh persecution of the orthodox party at once began;
and to this it is that Piamun alludes in the text. | in the
reign of Valens, while we carried alms2081
| 2081 Diaconia. The word is used again by Cassian
for almsgiving in Conf. XXI. i., viii., ix., and cf. Gregory the Great,
Ep. xxii., and compare εἰς
διακονίαν in
Acts xi. 29. | to our brethren; viz.,
those from Egypt and the Thebaid, who had been consigned to the mines
of Pontus and Armenia2082
| 2082
To work in the mines was a punishment to which the Confessors were
frequently subjected in the time of persecution: Cf. the prayer in the
Liturgy of S. Mark that God would have mercy on those in prison or in
the mines, etc. Hammond’s Liturgies, p. 181. | for
their steadfastness in the Catholic faith, though we found the system
of Cœnobia in some cities few and far between, yet we never made
out that even the name of anchorites was heard among them.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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