04 — Archimandrite of the Hermits
The section in which Sabbas the Sanctified passes from founder of a single house to superior-general of a whole monastic province. In 490 the reluctant ascetic was ordained priest by Patriarch Sallustius of Jerusalem; in 494 the same patriarch made him archimandrite and exarch of all the anchorites and lavras of the Jerusalem patriarchate, paired with Theodosius the Cenobiarch as head of the coenobites — the twin headship that divided Palestinian monasticism by way of life and bound it to the see of Jerusalem. These files follow the office and the partnership: the founding, administering, and disciplining of the desert network, the secession of some sixty monks who founded the New Lavra around 507, and the lifelong alliance of the two archimandrites in the governance of the monks and the defense of Chalcedon.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Desert Father; founder of the Great Lavra)
By the 490s Sabbas was no longer simply the abba of the Great Lavra but a figure of patriarchal stature, and the Church of Jerusalem made his standing institutional. The ordination of around 490 gave the founder the priesthood his growing community needed; the appointment of 494 gave the whole eremitic movement of the patriarchate a recognized superior-general in his person. The arrangement was deliberate and durable: the patriarch divided the supervision of all his monks between two men according to their form of life — Sabbas over the hermits and lavras, Theodosius over the communal houses — and so constituted, for the first time, an ordered and patriarch-supervised monastic province out of the scattered ascetic settlements of the Judean desert. This section treats both the office and the man who shared it. The first file follows Sabbas’s exarchate proper — its powers, its labors, its journeys, and the revolts it provoked, the gravest of them the secession that founded the New Lavra (whose later Origenist entanglement is reserved for section 06). The second follows the partnership with Theodosius the Cenobiarch: their friendship, their complementary roles, their joint embassies and letters to the emperor Anastasius, their shared defense of the Council of Chalcedon, and their joint commemoration as the fathers of Palestinian monasticism. Throughout, the primary witness is Cyril of Scythopolis, whose lives of the two men are unusually reliable for a hagiographer (METHODOLOGY §3.5; see The Life by Cyril of Scythopolis).
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Leader of Palestinian Monasticism | Sabbas’s reluctant ordination to the priesthood (c. 490) by Patriarch Sallustius, and his appointment in 494 as archimandrite and exarch over all the anchorites and lavras of the Jerusalem patriarchate; his founding, administering, and supervising of the desert network; his journeys and care for the monks; the discipline he imposed and the revolts against him, including the secession of some sixty monks who founded the New Lavra c. 507; his relations with the patriarchs Sallustius, Elias, and Peter; and the institutional achievement of an ordered, patriarch-supervised monastic province. |
| Sabas and Theodosius | The partnership with Theodosius the Cenobiarch (c. 423–529), organizer of communal monasticism in the Judean desert; the twin headship of 494 — Sabbas archimandrite of the lavras and anchorites, Theodosius archimandrite of the coenobia — dividing Palestinian monasticism by way of life; their friendship, collaboration, complementary roles, and joint defense of Chalcedon in letters and embassies to Anastasius; Theodosius’s death in 529 and Sabbas’s three years later; and their joint commemoration as the fathers of Palestinian monasticism. |
See Also
- The Lavra and the Cenobium — the eremitic and communal forms the twin archimandrites governed
- The Christological Struggles — the joint defense of Chalcedon against Anastasius, treated in full
- The Second Origenist Controversy — the later doctrinal afterlife of the New Lavra secession
- The Life by Cyril of Scythopolis — the primary source for the office and the partnership, and its reliability
- Monasticism — the eremitic and cenobitic forms ordered under the twin headship
- Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem — the patriarchate of Jerusalem under whose authority the exarchate was held
References
- Cyril of Scythopolis. Lives of the Monks of Palestine (the Life of Sabas and the Life of Theodosius). Trans. R. M. Price, intro. and notes John Binns. Cistercian Studies 114. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1991.
- Patrich, Joseph. Sabas, Leader of Palestinian Monasticism: A Comparative Study in Eastern Monasticism, Fourth to Seventh Centuries. Dumbarton Oaks Studies 32. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1995.
- Binns, John. Ascetics and Ambassadors of Christ: The Monasteries of Palestine 314–631. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
- Chitty, Derwas J. The Desert a City: An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism under the Christian Empire. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966.