08 — East and West
Hilarion’s place in the great movement of which he was a part: the spread of the monastic life through the Mediterranean world, in which he stands beside Antony the father of the eremitic life and Pachomius the father of the cenobitic, as the man who carried Egyptian monasticism to Palestine and, by his wanderings and Jerome’s Life, helped diffuse the ideal westward. These files set Hilarion within the monastic mission of the fourth century and survey his veneration across the Orthodox East and the Latin West.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Desert Father; father of Palestinian monasticism)
The monastic movement of the fourth century was the single most consequential development in the Christian life of the age, and Hilarion was one of the figures through whom it spread. This section places him in that wider story — as the transplanter of the Antonian life to Palestine, the seed of the Judaean monasticism that would flower in Euthymius and Sabbas, and, through the wanderings and through Jerome’s text, a name carried across the sea to the West. It also surveys his veneration across the traditions, the foundation for the treatment of his feast and legacy in Section 09.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Hilarion and the Monastic Mission | The spread of monasticism through the Mediterranean in Hilarion’s wake; his place beside Antony (eremitic) and Pachomius (cenobitic) among the founders; the line from his Palestinian beginning to the lauras of the Judaean desert; his wanderings as an unintended diffusion of the monastic ideal across the sea. |
| Veneration | The veneration of Hilarion across East and West: his standing in the Orthodox calendars and synaxaria; his place in the Western martyrologies through Jerome’s Life; the shared veneration of a pre-schism saint by the Eastern and Western traditions; the iconography and the title “the Great.” |
See Also
- Disciples and the Laura — the Palestinian monasticism Hilarion founded
- The Cult — the early cult that underlies the wider veneration
- Feast and Cult — the feast of 21 October and the liturgical cult
- Monasticism — the monastic movement Hilarion helped spread
References
- Jerome. Life of Hilarion (Vita Hilarionis). Trans. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. 6. 1893; and trans. Carolinne White, Early Christian Lives. London: Penguin, 1998.
- Sozomen. The Ecclesiastical History III.14. Trans. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. 2. 1890.
- Chitty, Derwas J. The Desert a City. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966.
- Rebenich, Stefan. Jerome. London: Routledge, 2002.