THE ORIGINS OF THE COMMUNAL MONASTICISM: PACHOMIUS’ LIFE FROM A COENOBITIC PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Christian monasticism in its various forms is one’s response to God’s invitation to participate in his life through the practice of the evangelical counsels, particularly chastity, poverty and obedience. The etymology of the term, the Greek monastērion – „hermit’s cell” or „monastery”–and monakhos–”solitary,” refers more to theeremitic rather than communal life. This is also the originof monasticism. It begins with the eremitic life, then the anachoretic life, and finally the cenobitic life. The latter one was initiated at the turn of the third and fourth centuries in Upper Egypt by Pachomius. The biographies taken from the Coptic, the Greek, and the Arabictraditions attest to the interest in the holy man and his work. This article is an attempt to reconstruct the life of Pachomius based on these sources in the context of the monastic community life he initiated, i.e. the cenobitism.