01 — Foundations
The historical and ecclesial ground on which the figure of St. Poemen the Great (Greek Poimēn, “shepherd”; c. 340 – c. 450) stands: the desert of Scetis in lower Egypt where the Sayings place him, the brotherhood — natural and monastic — of which he was one, the barbarian raids that scattered them and the flight to Terenuthis, and the meaning of the name “Shepherd” borne by the desert’s master of discernment and mercy. Because Poemen wrote nothing and is the subject of no vita, almost everything in this section is reconstructed from the Apophthegmata Patrum themselves; these files establish what can be said and how securely.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Desert Father; master of discernment)
Poemen belongs to the second or third generation of the Egyptian desert fathers, after Antony opened the wilderness and Macarius founded Scetis. He is known almost entirely through the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, in which his name heads by far the largest dossier of the alphabetical collection. This section sets the geography of the lower-Egyptian settlements — Nitria, Kellia, and Scetis — and the brotherhood of monks (his brother Anoub among them) that the Sayings remember; it follows that brotherhood through the devastation of Scetis by the Mazices and the flight to a ruined temple at Terenuthis; and it unfolds the name “Poemen,” its resonance with the Good Shepherd of the Gospel, and the portrait of the man that the sayings yield. Throughout it is honest that the chronology is inferred and that the very portrait is a literary as well as a historical construct — a caution carried forward to the source-critical centerpiece of the guide.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Brothers of Scetis | Poemen and his brothers as monks of Scetis, the desert founded by Macarius the Great; his brother Anoub (Anoub 1; Poemen 1–2); the barbarian (Mazices) raids that devastated Scetis (the great raid traditionally dated c. 407–408 and later ones); and the flight to Terenuthis, where the brothers sheltered in a ruined pagan temple and Anoub taught by throwing stones at the statue (Anoub 1). The geography of Nitria, Kellia, and Scetis, and the chronology-problem of a life reconstructed only from the Sayings. |
| The Shepherd Name | The name Poemen = Greek poimēn, “shepherd,” and its resonance with the Good Shepherd (John 10:11; Psalm 22/23 LXX); an overview of who Poemen was — the great elder of discernment and mercy whose dossier is the largest in the Sayings; a synthetic portrait from the sayings (sober, humble, merciful, the teacher monks streamed to); his place in the second/third generation after Antony and Macarius; and the source-critical caution that the portrait is also a construct. |
See Also
- The Counsellor of Monks — Poemen as the spiritual father to whom monks streamed for a word
- The Apophthegmata of Poemen — the dossier from which the whole picture of Poemen is drawn
- The Poemen Collection Problem — “one Poemen or many?”; why the coherent portrait is also a source-critical problem
- Monasticism — the desert origins of the monastic life of which Poemen is a chief witness
References
- The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection. Trans. Benedicta Ward, S.L.G. Rev. ed. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1984. (The Poemen dossier, pp. 165–193; Anoub 1, p. 33; Poemen 1–2, pp. 165–166.)
- Regnault, Lucien, O.S.B. The Day-to-Day Life of the Desert Fathers in Fourth-Century Egypt. Trans. Étienne Poirier, Jr. Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s Publications, 1999.
- Harmless, William, S.J. Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
- Gould, Graham. The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.