History of the Monks in Egypt

Contents

Reading pages: 0 · 1 · 2–6 · 7 · 8–10 · 11–17 · 18–28 · 29–34

1. 0Rufinus’s prologue: at the request of the brothers on the Mount of Olives he will describe the monks of Egypt whom he saw, their virtues and their miracles.
2. 1John of Lycopolis: his prophecies to Theodosius and others, healings, and a long discourse to Rufinus’s party on boasting, purity of heart, and solitude, with stories of monks who fell or repented.
3. 2Abba Hor, father of many monasteries, who learned to read by grace, received a promise from an angel, and resisted a demon posing as Christ the King.
4. 3Ammon and the Tabennesiot monks, who veil their faces at meals so that their abstinence stays hidden.
5. 4Benus, a monk of great gentleness who never swore, lied or grew angry, drove away a hippopotamus and a crocodile in Christ’s name.
6. 5Oxyrhynchus, a city full of monks and virgins, with twelve churches and no heretics or pagans, whose people competed to show hospitality.
7. 6Theon, a silent recluse near Oxyrhynchus who healed the sick through his window, bound robbers by prayer, knew Latin, and was followed by the desert beasts.
8. 7Apollonius of Hermopolis: his call and victory over the demon of pride, his miracles among pagans and in famine, the Easter feast sent from God, and his teaching on joy, hospitality, daily communion and hidden fasting.
9. 8On the way south Rufinus’s party is kept from a dragon; a monk tells how his master Ammon set dragons to guard his cell against robbers and killed a man-eating dragon by prayer.
10. 9The presbyter Copres tells of Patermuthius, a robber turned monk whose prayer stopped the sun and raised the dead, and of his own miracles: blessed sand for barren fields, a fire ordeal with a Manichee, and stolen vegetables that would not cook.
11. 10Copres tells how Syrus, Isaiah and Paul were carried miraculously upstream to visit Anuph, a confessor who told them of his visions and died three days later.
12. 11Copres tells of Helenus, who carried fire unharmed, resisted craving, rode a wild ass and a crocodile, read hearts, and protected a disciple from demons; Copres then shows his garden planted in the desert.
13. 12The aged hermit Elijah near Antinoë, who had lived seventy years in a terrible desert cave and still healed the sick.
14. 13Pithyrion, disciple of Antony and of Ammon, who taught that to cast out a vice’s demon one must first conquer that vice in oneself.
15. 14Eulogius, a priest who discerned the hidden sins of those coming to communion and sent them away to do penance.
16. 15Apelles the smith, who drove off the devil with red-hot iron, tells of the hermit John, who prayed standing for three years, unmasked Satan disguised as a priest, healed, and discerned the state of distant monks.
17. 16Paphnutius asks God whom he resembles and is shown a musician who had been a robber, a village headman of upright life, and a merchant; each follows him into the desert, and Paphnutius dies teaching that God has hidden saints in every walk of life.
18. 17The walled monastery of Isidore in the Thebaid, which no one leaves once entered, whose monks work signs and die foreknowing their end without sickness.
19. 18Serapion of Arsinoë and his ten thousand monks, whose harvest wages feed the poor of Egypt and Alexandria; the monks of Memphis and Babylon, and the so-called granaries of Joseph.
20. 19The deacon Apollonius, martyred with the converted pipe player Philemon, the judge, and their guards, who were drowned at Alexandria; miracles occur at their tomb.
21. 20Dioscorus, a presbyter who examined his monks before communion and taught when nocturnal emissions do or do not involve sin.
22. 21Arrival at Nitria, with its fifty dwellings under one father, where the monks run to meet guests with bread and water and excel in love, hospitality and knowledge of the Scriptures.
23. 22The Cells, a desert settlement beyond Nitria where hermits live out of sight and hearing of each other, meeting only on Saturday and Sunday.
24. 23Ammonius of Nitria, one of the Tall Brothers, who gave away his own monastery to a newcomer, and the brothers who build and secretly furnish cells for new arrivals.
25. 24Didymus, an elder of Nitria who trod on scorpions and vipers unharmed.
26. 25Cronius, a disciple of Antony aged a hundred and ten, notable for his humility.
27. 26Origen, a disciple of Antony (not the Alexandrian theologian), whose stories of his master inspired his hearers.
28. 27Evagrius of Pontus, disciple of Macarius, master of the discernment of thoughts, who warned against drinking much water.
29. 28The two Macarii; Macarius the Egyptian makes a murdered man clear an innocent suspect, dispels the illusion of a girl turned into a mare, heals a diseased girl, and refutes a Hieracite heretic by raising the dead.
30. 29Macarius of Alexandria: a paradise in the desert refused as a demonic snare, the bunch of grapes passed round Scetis, his vision of demons distracting monks at prayer and at communion, and a tribune converted by a word.
31. 30Ammon, founder of Nitria, who persuaded his bride to live with him in virginity, healed a young man once his parents returned a stolen ox, and was carried across the Nile.
32. 31Paul the Simple, who left his adulterous wife for the desert, learned perfect obedience from Antony, and through his simplicity worked greater healings than his master.
33. 32Piammon of Diolcos, who saw an angel record the names of worthy communicants, did penance with those omitted until they were reconciled, and was healed by the angel of the altar.
34. 33John, a monk near Diolcos with a gift of consoling the sorrowful and of healing.
35. 34Epilogue: the monks of the upper Thebaid, whom the travellers could not reach, and the eight perils of their journey, ending with an escape from crocodiles near Nitria.