ABBA ISAIAH'

T HE large ascetic corpus under the name of the Abba Isaiah has
long only been known in the West in a Latin translation embedded
among other ascetic works of unequal and uncertain interest to-
wards the end of Volume 40 of the Greek Patrology (cols. 1105-1204).

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In 1911 the monk Avgoustinos in Jerusalem published the Greek original
from a late and incomplete manuscript in the Patriarchal Library (Patr.
109), filling in the gaps with a retranslation from the Latin made by
Cleopas Coicylides (subsequently Metropolitan of Nazareth). This edition
was reprinted by Schoinas at Volos in 1962. Meanwhile, soon after the
last war, I had typed for myself and a few friends a more complete Greek
text based on a collation of the Jerusalem edition with a Bodleian MS.
(Cromwell 14) and a British Museum MS. (Add. 39609) which proved
to be that from which the Jerusalem MS. had been copied—but here
a later scribe had filled in the gaps on sheets of paper inserted. Mine was
certainly not a proper critical edition, and I did not think of publishing
it then—though as a stopgap provisional text it might have been useful.
Earlier than this, in 1944, Dr. E. R. Hardy Jr. had published a short
but important fragment of the text from a papyrus of sixth- or even late
fifth-century date.2
A full critical edition of the complete Greek text is awaited from
Gottingen, and its publication will be an important event. Meanwhile,
the Solesmes French translation (with its introduction) is most timely
1
C.S.C.O. Scriptores Syri, tt. 120-3. Les cinq recensions de I'Asceticon
syriaque d'Abba hale, 6d. Rene1 Draguet (Louvain, 1968)—tt. 120-1 = vols.
289-90, Les t&noins et leurs paralleles non-syriaques: Edition des Logoi. Tt.
122-3 = vols. 293—4, Introduction au probleme isaien: Version des logoi avec
des paralleles grecs et latins. Reviewed by Lucien Regnault, 'Isaie de Sce'te' ou
de Gaza?' Revue d'ascetique et de mystique, t. 46 (1970), 1, pp. 33-44.
Abbe Isaie: Recueil asce'tique—Introduction et traduction franfaise par les moines
de Solesmes: Collection Spirituality orientate, n° 7, Abbaye de Bellefontaine,
49—Be'grolles, 1970.
1 wrote the first half of the present article before seeing Dom Regnault's
review of Draguet's work, and the whole before receiving from him the most
valuable French translation of the whole Isaian corpus (based on an improved
Greek text culled from the best manuscripts, not on the Jerusalem or Volos
edition). We seem to be in complete agreement, apart from his bowing to
Draguet's rejection of the Syriac Vita Isaiae (here also, he has since expressed
in a letter to me his acceptance of my article from one end to the other). But the
overlap between his work and mine is less noticeable than one might have
expected. So I have not thought it necessary to rewrite my article.
2
Annuaire de I'Institut dephilologie et d'histoire orientates et slaves de I'Univer-
site de Bruxelles, vii. (New York, 1944), pp. 127-40.
[Journal of Theological Studies, N.S., VoL XXII, Pt. 1, April 1971]
48 DERWAS J. CHITTY
and welcome for the work is full of interest—monastic rules, and direc-
tions and teachings on the spiritual life, with deep theological and
human insight and originality, in a Greek creatively employed (there is
general agreement that the writer was Egyptian), with a marked charac-
ter of its own. The corpus appears to have been assembled by Isaiah's
disciple Peter (also an Egyptian), who in many chapters is quoting his
master's sayings, and sometimes his own questions to him: one chapter
takes the form of a letter addressed to Peter on his entering the monastic

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life: some may be addressed to him or to others; while some again are
straight homilies.
In 1956, Antoine Guillaumont published1 such fragments as have
been found of a Coptic version, including large portions of a chapter,
'The Branches of Vice', which was then only known in Greek in a much
shorter form.
Now Professor Draguet of Louvain has put us once more immensely
in his debt by publishing, in text and French translation, the main
Syriac version (S), along with four smaller Syriac recensions, of which
one (Sa) is of considerable interest, and a lesser Greek collection (Ga)
which has marked differences from the usual Greek corpus (G). Of this
last he has studied four manuscripts (including Cromwell 14), two of
which, one in Moscow (£), and one in Venice (/?), show marked differ-
ences from the others and the published text and from each other, both
in order and in content.2 It is noticeable that the papyrus fragment,
usually supported by f/8, frequently confirms the Sa reading against
that of S and the normal G (y/c). 5, the main Syriac recension, contains
all the elements of G except \6yoi 19 and 29 (the latter is also absent
from £j8), and the Pseudo-Basilian piece, Constitutiones Monasticae I
(6d. Gamier, ii. 767-75) which is added as \6yos 30 in many Greek
manuscripts, sometimes attributed to Basil, sometimes to Isaiah, though
in fact, in spite of some superficial reminiscences of Isaiah's work, it
cannot be attributed to either.3 In addition, S opens with three pieces,
of which S I and III are versions of the Macarian Homilies 19 and 3 (cf.
Draguet, Musion 83, 1970, pp. 483-96), while 5 II is a shorter version
of the Collation des douse anachoretes of which P. Guy published the
Greek text in Anal. Boll. 76 (1958), pp. 419-27.4 At the end of the
1
L'Asceticon copte de I'abbe" hale (Bibliotheque d'fitudes coptes, t. V, Cairo,
1956). See also Coptic Studies in honor of W. E. Crum (Boston, 1950), pp. 49-60.
2
As I pointed out in The Desert a City, p. 74, this type of text is also found
in a number of marginal emendations and additions in the Bodleian manuscript,
Cromwell 14.
3
I was certainly mistaken in saying in The Desert a City, p. 75, that 'its lan-
guage and vocabulary seem to be that of Esaias'.
4
Draguet has apparently overlooked one recorded manuscript. Dr. A. B.
 ABBA ISAIAH 49
Corpus, S XXVII-XXIX are three works of Evagrius, attributed in some
manuscripts to him, but in others to Isaiah. Within the main body of the
Corpus are two works hitherto unknown in the Greek Corpus—S VI, a
very important small collection of Apophthegmata as related by Isaiah,
to which we will return presently (Draguet has found the collection in
Greek in | ) ; and S XVI, an Antirrhetikos (scriptural replies to the on-
set of the passions) of which the only other known example, far more
systematic, is among the works of Evagrius (Syriac text published by

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Frankenberg, pp. 472-545): this also is recorded by Draguet as found
in a less complete form in Greek in /?. Not infrequently, pieces which
are separate in G are grouped together in S.1 The chapter on 'The
Branches of Vice' is found in its long form in S, and also in f)3.2 We are
rather tantalized to learn that each of these two Greek manuscripts has a
further collection of Apophthegmata within the Corpus, for which we
must wait for the Gottingen edition, as they have no parallel in the Syriac.
We should note that the oldest manuscripts of S, A (dated A.D. 604)
and D from which it was copied, so that it itself must be of sixth-century
date, already attribute the corpus to 'the blessed Isaiah the monk'.
Abba Isaiah is also quoted by name at least three times in the 'Questions
and Answers' of Varsanuphius and John. We shall return to this later.
To turn to the lesser Syriac recensions—Sa contains, in whole or in
part, in a different order, S IV-VI, IX-XI, and XIII-XV (G 2-4, 7, 9,
15-16, 20-1). The oldest manuscripts of this recension (s and t) are of
sixth-century date (one of them, t = Add. 12, 175, is dated A.D. 534),
so they must be treated at least with respect. It is however to be noticed
that no manuscript of this recension earlier than the ninth century
(when the S recession was already well-known) attributes the works to
Abba Isaiah. For s and t they are the works of 'Egyptian fathers', or
'solitary brethren who were in the desert of Egypt'. Actually, this recen-
sion contains only one of the works in which Isaiah or his disciple Peter
is named in S and G—G 21 = S XIV. Here G has 'E-rn]pwTrjdr] 6 aj8/Jas
'Haatas. S, having mentioned Peter in the title, puts the opening in his
Osborne, who is working on a thesis on the Liber Graduum, pointed out to me
in Kmosko's introduction to that work (Patrologia Syriaca, iii, p. ccxciv) the
account of Codex R, i.e. 180 of the Syrian Monastery of St. Mark in Jerusalem.
The last four folia of this mutilated manuscript (of seventh to eighth century)
contain, following on the Liber Graduum, the first five pieces of the S corpus,
attributed as in S to the Abba Isaiah, but in a different order—I, IV, V, II, III.
1
This misled me into saying, ibid., that the 'Give heed to thyself piece
(G 27) is absent from the Syriac. It is in fact found (with a few paragraphs
omitted), joined on to G 24, in S XXIV.
2
Draguet states (v, p. 373) that the long form 'n'a de parallele grec complet
qu'enf/J'. He has not noticed my recording, op. cit., p. 81, n. 125, its occurrence,
attributed to Mark the Monk, in Cod. Atheniensis 549, pp. 433-63.
621.1 E
50 DERWAS J. CHITTY
mouth, 'I asked the Abba'. The opening of 5a represents simply
'HpajT-qdr] yepwv. Here one would suppose the Isaiah-Peter attribution in
SG to be original, and the anonymity of 5a to be secondary.
The other three Syriac recensions prove in fact to be variant versions
of a single work, the 'De Virtutibus' (G 7A = S XIII. 10-27), found
alongside the Sa version, Sx in all three of the best manuscripts, stj,
Sy in t only, Sz in J only. Sx and Sy place the chapter among or
adjoining the works of Abba Moses: Sz attributes it to John the Solitary.

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It is also attributed to Moses in the lesser Greek recension, Ga, in the
Sabaite collection of Apophthegmata (MS. Burney 50), in the Latin
L 1 (MS. Darmstadt 1943), and in the Ethiopic Collectio Monastica. Ga
(MS. Coislin 283) also attributes to Abba Moses G 16 = S XV (Sa
2 and 3), and G 3A = S X. 1-27 (Sa 7); 1 to Abba Macarius, G 3B = S
X. 28-80 (Sa 8); and to Abba Ammonas G 27 = S XXIV. 2-18 (this
attribution is found in a number of manuscripts, always with Trjpei
atavrov axpifiaJs instead of Trpocrexe oeavra)): Coislin 282 also attributes
to Ammonas G 6 = S XIII. 1-9, and G 16 (as in {) = S XV).
Who are the Abba Isaiah and his disciple Peter to whom the Corpus
is ascribed ? Ever since the identification was proposed by G. Kriiger in
1899, there has been general agreement among scholars that they are
the Abba Isaiah the Egyptian and his disciple and successor Peter the
Egyptian, of whom a glowing account is given in the Life of Peter the
Iberian, which also relates Isaiah's death on 11 August A.D. 491.2 The
same Abba Isaiah is also mentioned frequently in the Plerophories of
John Rufus, in the Letters of Severus of Antioch, in Zacharias' Life of
Severus, in the Chronicle of Zacharias, and in the short Life of Isaiah
surviving, like the other documents mentioned, in Syriac, and attri-
buted to the same Zacharias Scholasticus. This last attributes to Isaiah
writings which can with fair confidence be identified as our Corpus.
Draguet, while accepting this last identification, discounts the evi-
dence of the Life as later hagiography, rejecting both its Zacharian
authorship and its contemporary character. Basing his argument on the
apophthegmatic collection 5 VI and certain other apophthegmata, and
1
Coislin 283 also implicitly agrees with the fragmentary manuscript u (Add.
14,606) of 5a in attributing to Moses Sa g=(3 = G 4A+C = S XI. 1-76, 98-
106, to which it adds G 7B = S XIII. 30-5.
2
I accept, though still with some slight reserve, Devos's dating, in his article
in Anal. Boll. 86 (1968), pp. 337-50, 'Quand Pierre l'lbere vint-il a Jerusalem ?',
for the death of Isaiah and Peter the Iberian, as against my dating of A.D. 489
in The Desert a City, p. 104. Devos certainly seems to be right in placing the
coming of Peter the Iberian to Jerusalem in A.D. 437-8, as against my A.D. 428
(op. cit., p. 87). I had misread V. Petr. Ib. to mean that both Pinianus and
Passarian were still alive on Peter's arrival, and had supposed the writer to have
misdated Melania's visit to Constantinople.
 ABBA ISAIAH Si
on the evidence of two layers within the S and G recensions (both of
which recensions seem to come at the end of a long process in the
formation of the Corpus, although S at least dates back in its present
form to the sixth century), he would identify the author of the oldest
layer with a fourth-century Scetiote father, a disciple of Macarius the
Egyptian, and would date the conversations recorded in S VI at about
A.D. 400.
Professor Draguet and I seem constantly to be drawn independently

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to the study of the same sources—the same manuscripts—and to arrive
at opposite conclusions. I am sorry once again to have to enter into
controversy with him. At least we are in agreement, I believe, in recog-
nizing the importance of the historical issues involved—and in our
appreciation of the writer, 'ce sage entre les sages par la nettete et la pro-
fondeur de sa vision chretienne du monde et par sa connaissance du
coeur de l'homme'.
I believe we have a cast-iron case, on the internal evidence of S VI
itself, for a late fifth-century date for that document, and therefore im-
plicitly for the Corpus as a whole. If that is so, the case against Kruger's
identification, and against the Life of Isaiah, loses all its sting. I propose
to deal first, shortly, with the evidence as to the formation of the Corpus,
then at greater length with S VI, then with the Life of Isaiah, and finally
to add some words as to the significance of the Corpus and its place in
history.
1. Draguet seems to have demonstrated one point: again and again,
both in order and in division of chapters and in detail, Sa and Ga con-
vict £ and G of being later recensions (though Draguet agrees that in
other cases 5 and G appear to have the more primitive text): also Gf
and Gp, while differing often from each other, witness often to a more
primitive form of the corpus than Gy/c. It is also to be noticed that the
latter is the only full recension in which the SaGa elements are not con-
centrated, with very few intrusions, in the first half of the corpus.
Draguet would attribute to an earlier layer the portions of S (SA)
represented in Sa, together with other portions (SB) which he regards
as belonging to the same 'couche' though absent from Sa. Other por-
tions, practically half the whole Corpus, he would classify as the work
of quite a different, later writer (iSC)—leaving a residue, SD, which he
would hesitate to classify. He regards with caution, but does not com-
pletely reject, the suggestion that the compiler of the Corpus, in some
form, and the writer of SC, may be identical.
For all Draguet's great learning and considerable acumen, a sub-
jective element is bound to enter into such classification. I myself would
question the criteria on which he distinguishes between SB and SC;
52 DERWAS J. CHITTY
for instance, in the kind of allegory which he is already to admit in SB,
and that which he relegates to SC. Nor do I find certainty of any such
incompatibility between SA and SC as Draguet assumes. Of alleged
copticisms I am always suspicious1 (although ready to admit that both
Syriac versions were made from the Greek, he believes Sa was based
on a much more Coptic form of the KOIVTJ, decopticized later by G and S).
In one case, the use of tows, which, as Draguet has failed to observe,
seems to be used in our Corpus in a peculiar way, as a conjunction

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(followed by a subjunctive), and not as an ordinary adverb, and which
he regards as belonging to the SC layer, I believe I can show a reason-
able probability that it belongs to the SA layer, and that it is itself a
copticism.2
Without a full critical edition of the Greek text, the problem of the
development of the Isaian corpus cannot really be sorted out, and I do
not propose to deal with it further here, except to say that, if indeed two
layers are involved (and this is not improbable), and if the earlier layer
is mainly represented by Sa (supported by Ga), we cannot overlook the
absence of any mention of Isaiah or Peter in GaX {GarjQ which does name
Isaiah as the author of S X and V, is really a different recension) or
in the oldest manuscripts of Sa, either in the text or in the titles of
the works—I have already pointed out their attribution to Egyptian
Fathers (which would not exclude Isaiah and Peter), or in some cases
to Moses, Macarius, or Ammonas. In the rest of the Corpus, Isaiah and
Peter are frequently named, in the text as well as in the titles. The
natural conclusion would seem to be that, if two layers of authorship
are indeed involved, Isaiah and Peter are responsible for the authorship
of the later, not the earlier layer, and Peter or a disciple of his is the
compiler of the whole Corpus. I propose to refer to this again towards
the end of the present article.
2. Supposing Peter had started to make and publish an ascetic corpus
during his master Isaiah's lifetime, the latter would naturally have in-
sisted on his own part remaining anonymous: it could be headed
'Egyptian Fathers', and there would be no objection to including
edifying works of earlier ascetics. So the compiling of the Greek that
lies behind the Sa collection (the Syriac version dates back at least to
A.D. 534) might already be Peter's work—although in S VI at least we
shall see evidence that S and Gf are generally more reliable evidence for
the original text, and Sa is secondary—curtailed and altered.
1
It is hard, in any case, to see why (pp. 46*-48 # ) the Greek words nerdvoia,
•noXirtia, <j>vois, 6Xws, are evidence of Copticism when transliterated by Sa, but
not when translated by S.
2
See Appendix I.
 ABBA ISAIAH S3
The discovery of this chapter of Apophthegmata in Greek and Syriac
is an important event. For it proves, as Draguet points out,1 to be one
of the sources lying behind the Alphabetical Collection, wherein all these
stories are to be found, though often curtailed and badly mangled. But
here the general narrator is speaking throughout in the first person—
'Abba John told me", etc. G£, supported by S, clearly identifies this
general narrator as our Abba Isaiah—'' Tov avrov Aoyoy." The heading of
Sa, in spite of Draguet's rendering, 'Discours du Senior', does not

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necessarily imply the definite article in Greek, and should rather be
rendered p'-qfiara yepovros (to which the manuscript adds Elire yipu>v).
But in spite of the anonymity in 5a, and whatever its explanation, it is
reasonable to accept Isaiah as the narrator. He opens, 'Brethren, what
I have heard and seen with the old men, these things I tell you, taking
away nothing from them and adding nothing.' But actually all he tells
us is what he has heard, not what he has seen. His informants appear
to be six in number, all of them telling him of an earlier generation.2
It will be necessary for us to take each in turn.
A (Draguet vi. 2). 'Abba John told me'—about Anoub and Poemen
when they and their brothers withdrew to Terenuthis on the first
devastation of Scetis by the Mazices. This is A P . G (or as Draguet
would say, Alph) Anoub 1. 'And they spent all their time in peace, and
died' (or 'were perfected'—but pace Draguet, the Sa word, no less than
that used in S, most naturally means 'died') 'in a good old age'. Draguet
on p. 88 says 'Le Jean qui raconte a Isaie les debuts du groupe Anoub-
Poimen est vraisemblablement Jean Colobos. Celui, ne vers 399' (sic!—
a misprint for 339, but repeated on p. 29, n. 1), 'mourut vers 409
a Clysma; il avait quitte Scete, lieu de la conversation d'Isaie, entre
395 et 407'. There is further elaboration on the same lines on p. 29,
n. 1. Actually there is nothing to be said, pace Tillemont, for dating back
the first devastation to 395. It certainly had not occurred when Theo-
philus' encyclical against Anthropomorphism arrived there in 399, and
it would not have gone unrecorded among all the stirring and tragic
events of the years that followed. 407 is the earliest date for it (fixed by
a reference in Augustine, ep. iii. 1) rather than the latest. John's with-
drawal from Scetis to Clysma was in fact, according to our only sources
for it, on the occasion of the same devastation, and he never returned
to Scetis, dying, according to the same source, in 409. So in any case
1
I had already pointed this out, after a somewhat cursory inspection of the
Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum, in The Desert a City, p. 80, n. 117—
cf. p. 18, n. 66, and p. 74.
2
The Solesmes translators have added this chapter to their corpus as Logos
30, using the Greek text of $ as published by Draguet.
 54 DERWAS J. CHITTY
his conversation with Isaiah after that devastation could not have taken
place in Scetis. Nor does our story read as if it were written within two
years of that event. John Colobos was surely not the recounter of this
story, which reads most naturally as written after Poemen's death—and
that probably did not take place until the 450s. Poemen survived
Arsenius (see below), and was visited by a Syrian John, 'who was exiled
(clearly after Chalcedon) by the Emperor Marcian' (G Poemen 183),

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and, except that he could not speak Coptic, might well be Isaiah's
informant. The omission of 'the first' in SaL2 cannot be interpreted as
taking us back to a time before the second devastation (dated by White
in 434).
B (Draguet 3). 'Paphnutius told me, "All the time of the life of the
old men, Abba Anoub and Abba Poemen, I used to visit them twice a
month—and my cell was twelve miles from them".' Draguet, p. 88, says
that Paphnutius 'ne peut guere etre que le Paphnuce Cephalas de Pallade
et le Paphnuce Bubalis de Cassien'! But Paphnutius was an extremely
common name. Poemen and his brothers certainly did live in Scetis
before the first devastation. But Paphnutius Bubalis was more than
ninety years old when Cassian knew him, and could not have spoken
thus of Anoub and Poemen as apparently his seniors. Isaiah's informant,
who survived the brothers, had probably known them, not in Scetis,
but in their later unspecified abode in Egypt. G Paphnutius 3, which
reproduces the present story, is already embarrassed by the apparent
anachronism if the great Paphnutius was involved, and turns it round,
'Abba Poemen said that Abba Paphnutius used to say . . . ' .
Once more the implication is that Anoub and Poemen are already
dead.
No explanation has yet been found why the appendage (3b) about
Elisha and the Shulamite, should be attributed to Cronius in G
Cronius 1.
c (Draguet 4A). 'Abba Amoun told me that "I said to the old man
Abba Poemen...".' This, without the 'me', is found in G Amoun
Nitr. 2b. But Draguet agrees (loc. cit.), 'Amoun ne peut etre identifie
avec precision. II n'est en tout cas pas Amoun le Nitriote contemporain
d'Antoine.' What is certain is that Poemen, the old man, speaks to
Amoun as to a young man—'for youth needs to be on its guard'.
A possible identification might be with the Amoun of Rhaithou who
visited Sisoes in the latter's old age at Clysma (G Sisoes 17 and 26—
see below).
D (Draguet 4B). 'I said to Abba Peter the (disciple) of Abba Lot—
and he answered that "Abba Lot said . . . " ' (see G Petr. Pion. 2). The
 ABBA ISAIAH 55
text does not make it clear whether T means Isaiah himself or his last
informant Amoun; or later whether it is Lot answering Peter or Peter
answering his questioner. Sa alone makes an inversion, 'I and Abba Lot
asked Abba Peter and I said...': this is most unlikely to be correct—the
translator may have misread' 'ixera TOV d/?/?a AU>T" for" TWTOV aft^a Aoir".
Draguet, however, says (loc. cit.): 'L'etat des sources est trop confus
pour qu'on puisse identifier Pabba Pierre que, selon Sa, Isai'e et Lot
interrogent de concert. Si ce Lot est celui d'Alph, rien ne s'oppose a ce

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qu'il ait pris part a une conversation a Scete vers 400.' But why should
our other witnesses have added another step to the pedigree of the main
saying ? It is far more likely that Sa should have done some telescoping.
Of Lot little is known. If it be the same, we find him in G Joseph 6 and
7 questioning Joseph of Panephysis, the speaker in Cassian's Collations
16 and 17—We may note that Poemen also is found (G Jos. 3) going to
Panephysis during his time at Scetis, to question Joseph. But in G Lot
1, Lot is living by the marsh of Arsinoe, and goes to consult Arsenius
about an Origenist monk. Geographically, this suggests the time (see
below) when Arsenius had left Scetis, and was at Troe by Memphis.
Lot would hardly have gone all the way from Arsinoe to Scetis.
Once more, though the evidence is less clear, Isaiah's informants
appear to be the disciples of those who had been among the younger
monks in Scetis before the first devastation.
E (Draguet 5). 'When I was sitting once in the cell of Abba Abraham
the (disciple) of Abba Agathon, there came to him a brother saying to
him, "Father...", and the old man answered him, " . . . For my father
Abba Agathon stayed once with a certain brother called Macarius in the
Thebaid...".' Although G Agathon 1 makes Peter of Lot still the
speaker (thus proving the dependence of the Alphabetical Collection on the
Isaiah collection)—and in other ways makes havoc of the story—we may
assume safely that T here means Isaiah himself. Abraham is described
as already an old man whom younger monks would come to consult. His
master Agathon seems already to have been an advanced monk—on
whose lips brother Macarius would hang—at his time in the Thebaid,
which we may assume to have been subsequent to his time in Scetis.
The series of anecdotes about Agathon, told by Abraham, which follow,
give the basis of G Agathon 2, 12, 23, 24, 29, 3, 8, 9, 10, 16. At least
one of them, 5C, shows Agathon in Scetis already with disciples, in-
cluding Abraham. A story, which appears as N495 in Guy's analysis
(Recherches, p. 67) of the unpublished portion of Coislin. 126 (Draguet
refers to it, p. 48, n. 2), confirms this: Abraham in Scetis reports to
Poemen something which has just happened between Abba Agathon
and Abba Heraclius. G Poemen 67 also shows Abraham 'of Abba
56 DERWAS J. CHITTY
Agathon' questioning Poemen. Two other apophthegmatashow Agathon
as already an Abba, but definitely of the younger generation. In G
Poemen 61, Poemen gives Abba Joseph his reasons for calling Agathon
'Abba' though he is still young (veiLrepos)—'His mouth has made him
to be called Abba.' G Elias 2 seems to take us away from Scetis—'The
old men were saying to Abba Elias in Egypt about Abba Agathon, "He
is a good Abba". And the old man says to them, "For his generation
(Kara TTJV yevtav avrov) he is good . . . : Kara Se rovs dpxalovs, I have

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seen a man in Scetis . . . " . '
Draguet, convinced (p. 88) that Agathon 'doit appartenir a une
generation dont l'apogee se situerait vers 350', assumes (p. 48, n. 2) that
both these apophthegmata must refer to a different Agathon. But
Draguet himself has given cogent reasons (p. 64) for believing that the
mention of Amoun in G Agathon 16 (not 5 as stated on p. 48, n. 2),
which suggested to Evelyn White (p. 50—but he is far more hesitant
than Draguet implies) that Agathon was a contemporary of Amoun of
Nitria, is due to a false reading, and only Agathon was originally
mentioned.
It will perhaps be best to quote Draguet's reasons for concluding, all
the same, that Agathon did belong to this earlier generation. On p. 48,
n. 2, he states:
Les indications, qui se veulent premises, de Alph, Arsene 42 (PG 65,
108), que Bousset accepte (Apophthegmata, p. 64), fixent aux environs
de 360-365 l'arrivte d'Arsene a Scet6; or, selon Alph, Agathon 28 (PG
65, 116), les seniors de Daniel 6taient disciples d'Agathon avant l'etablis-
sement d'Arsene & Scdt6, ce qui implique que, quelque quarante ans avant
ca. 400, Agathon etait un ancien. Agathon est d^ce'de lorsqu' Abraham
parle a Isai'e—; ce pourrait Stre depuis pas mal d'anndes, si Ton pouvait
mettre en relation avec la mort d'Agathon le passage de ses disciples a
Arsfene. Prises ensemble, ces donn^es mettraient, une fois encore, aux
environs de 400 les entretiens d'lsai'e avec les seniors de VI.

On p. 42, n. 3, he writes, 'Poimen a survecu a Arsene, mort ca. 430

(Bousset, Apophthegmata, p. 63)'. We will deal with the last point first,
then with G Arsenius 42 (the main source for the chronology of
Arsenius), and finally with G Agathon 28.
Bousset, pp. 63-4, reads the Vita Euthymii, of which he had access
only to an unsatisfactory text, to mean that Arsenius was already dead
when pilgrims from Egypt told Euthymius about him some time
between the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. In view of the fifteen
years given in G Arsenius 42 as the period between Arsenius' leaving
Scetis and his death, he finds that this brings us back to somewhere
near 410 (near the date for the first devastation of Scetis), and remembers
 ABBA ISAIAH 57
1
Arsenius saying (G Arsenius 21), 'The world has lost Rome, and the
monks Scetis.' He does not mention either Tillemont's dating of 395,
or the 407 implied in Augustine. He seems to make no mention of the
earlier chronology of G Arsenius 42, except to record its statement that
Arsenius had been at the court of Theodosius as tutor to Arcadius and
Honorius. As Honorius was born in 384, and Arcadius in 377-8, this
generally accepted tradition means that Arsenius can hardly have fled
to Scetis before 394—we note that neither Cassian nor Palladius men-

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tion him; and if Arsenius died in or before 430, the chronology of G
Arsenius 42 would be quite impossible. Draguet's strange date of about
360-5 for Arsenius' arrival in Scetis is coupled with complete silence
about the period at the court of Theodosius—though this tradition is far
less likely to be in error than the period of forty years attributed to his
stay in Scetis. But actually Bousset has misled both himself and Draguet
as to the evidence of the Vita Euthytnii. In Schwartz's text, Kyrillos von
Skythopolis, p. 34, 10-15, it is stated that "TO. K<XT' CUITOV TOV fieyav
Apaeviov TOV . . . iv rfj KCLT' Atyxmrov iprjn.w Kara TOV avrov ypovov Tats
dpeTals aTTaoTpdnTovTO. r/Seuis rjKovev 6 fieyas EvBvfuos"—in other words,
Arsenius was still alive andflourishingwhen pilgrims from Egypt brought
Euthymius news about him in the 430s. The dating in G Arsenius 42
becomes at least possible, as Evelyn White takes it—forty years, 354-94,
until his leaving the court of Theodosius; forty in Scetis, 394-434, end-
ing in the second devastation; ten in Troe opposite Memphis, 434-44;
three at Canopus, 444-7; and a final two back at Troe, 447-9- The
only difficulty about this dating is that G Arsenius 42 omits any mention
of an earlier leaving of Scetis after the first devastation, or of an earlier
time in Canopus under Theophilus (clearly after the first devastation),
when the Roman senatorial lady paid him her disastrous visit (G Arsenius
28). But if he returned quite soon to Scetis, the omission in a summary
chapter is perfectly intelligible. Poemen survived Arsenius (G Arsenius
41). But we have already seen other evidence suggesting that Poemen
did in fact survive until the 450s.
There remains the question of G Agathon 28, which has been assumed
by both Bousset (p. 64) and Draguet (p. 48, n. 2) to mean that Agathon
already had disciples who left him for Arsenius on Arsenius' first arrival
in Scetis. ""EXeyev 6 afipas AavirjX, OTI nplv eXOt] 6 dj8/3as Apaevios npos
roils naTepas ftou, /cat avrol efj.ei.vav fieTO. TOV afifia AyaQiovos." What
they have not noticed is the next sentence but one—"Ewe^-q 8e oXovs
TOVS yi.a.6r)Tas avrov •nXvveiv TO. Opva els TOV TroTafwv." There was certainly
no river within twenty miles of Scetis. So we learn that Daniel's 'fathers',
Alexander and Zoilus the Pharanites (cf. G Arsenius 32 and 43: Daniel
also was a Pharanite—G Daniel 7) were disciples first of Agathon, then
58 DERWAS J. CHITTY
of Arsenius, somewhere close to the Nile, and not in Scetis. We have
already seen evidence of Agathon's moving from Scetis to 'Egypt'
(G Elias 2) and the Thebaid (the present chapter, 5 VI 5A. b). If
Agathon settled with Alexander and Zoilus at the Rock of Troe some
time after the first devastation of Scetis, and Arsenius came there in
434 after the second devastation, all our evidence seems to fall into
place. We do not know the date of Agathon's death. But the KCLI avrol of
G Agathon 28 might mean that Arsenius also was with Agathon for a

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time at Troe. In any case, we may suppose that Agathon either died or
went away to the Thebaid some time before Arsenius' move to Lower
Egypt about 444. He was probably younger than Arsenius. There is no
proof that Alexander and Zoilus were ever in Scetis: G Arsenius 26,
travellers visiting Arsenius on their way from Alexandria to the Thebaid,
clearly belongs to the Troe period. G Arsenius 34 shows Arsenius leaving
Troe on the occasion of a barbarian raid, probably in 444 (the Timothy,
Archbishop of Alexandria, whose uncle visited Arsenius before and
after the move, must surely be Timothy 'the Cat', not the fourth-
century Archbishop), and staying iv rots KOTW fiepeai. G Arsenius 32
shows him troubled there, and sending his disciples back to Troe,
while he himself went down by ship to the region of Alexandria (prob-
ably Canopus); then finally returning to the Rock of Troe, probably
in 447.
Agathon, then, probably did not die before 434. His disciple Abraham,
who had already been with him in Scetis, would count as an old man
in the 450s or later—not before.1
F (Draguet 6: G 'Pistos').' ''Ehri not. aSeXcftos maros on ATrr/XOo/jLev eVrd
avaxwprjTal irpos TOV afifiav Siawyjv oiKovvra iv rfj vqcrai TOV KKvo^xaros,
Kal ftrre, Uvy^uip'qaaTe /lot, ISiwrrjs dvdpWTros elfif dAAa TrapefiaXXov
npos TOV aPP&v "Qp Kal TOV a/3[3av ABpi.... Tavra efrre fioi 6 aKovaas
dSeX<f>6s irapa TOV d/?/Sa Eiawov." Draguet on pp. 73-5, using a number
of arguments including the absence of 6A (the story about Or and
Athre) from Sa, would treat 6A as intruded from another source, and
reduce the original chapter to a minimum. I do not propose to answer
him now in detail, but will content myself with pointing out the con-
sistency of this section with the rest of S VI. But it is worth noticing
the 'a faithful brother' of G, with no definite article. Some but not all
1
Draguet is, by the way, probably wrong (pp. 71-2, $F. q, n. 1) in making
Agathon and not Zeno the subject of N 509 (Guy, p. 68), on the basis of Wake
67 (Christ Church, Oxford) alone among the known manuscripts. The stories
immediately following all concern Zeno, and the first of them, N 510, appears in
Wake 67 at least as definitely a commentary on N 509—Ttvl yovv ruiv vapatrXTjoiov
nori neivdvTiav TOV ayiov Zrjvtovos.
 ABBA ISAIAH 59
the manuscripts of the Alphabetical Collection have o dj3|3a? IIIOTOS
(hence its appearance under the heading Pistus as a proper name), and
the S text implies a Greek "OSTOS 6 moros (or dX-qBivos)". The last sen-
tence of the preceding section, 5 c b, reads rather like a conclusion. So
Draguet argues that the definite article here is original, and evidence
that 6A has been brought in from some other source in which another
brother had just been mentioned; and that the Greek, realizing its im-
propriety here, has removed it. But in fact, 5G. b is not necessarily final,

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and is so short that 'This faithful one' might still refer back to the
Abraham of 5G. a. This is no doubt what the Syriac intended, perhaps
wishing to identify Agathon's disciple with Abraham the disciple of
Sisoes who figures prominently in G Sisoes 12, 16, 25, 27, 46, 50.
G is more likely to be correct here, and S tendentious.
Or and Athre do indeed take us back at last to the earlier generations
—though outside the Sisoes Apophthegmata they seem to belong to
Nitria rather than to Scetis (and we must remember that Sozomen, and
perhaps Evagrius, seem to use Scetis in a wider geographical sense, to
include Nitria and Cellia). Of Sisoes we read in G Sisoes 28, 'A brother
asked Abba Sisoes, "How is it that you left Scetis, when you were with
Abba Or, and came and settled here?" ' He explained that when Scetis
began to be too crowded, and he heard that Abba Antony had fallen
asleep, he withdrew to St. Antony's Interior Mountain, and found
things quiet there, and settled for a little time. How long? Seventy-two
years. That would mean from about 357 to 429. Subsequently in the
infirmity of old age he grudgingly consented to move down to Clysma
(Suez), where he was always longing to be back in the desert. Here
Amoun of Rhaithou and others came to visit him (G Sisoes 17, 21, 26,
50), and here too came Isaiah's informant with his fellow anchorites,
no doubt some time in the 430s. As we know from Cyril of Scythopolis,
centenarians were not a rare phenomenon among the ascetic saints.
To sum up—all Isaiah's informants, John, Paphnutius, Amoun, Peter,
Abraham, and the 'faithful brother' of the last section, appear to be
speaking from a time well on into the fifth century, after the deaths of
the fathers of whom they speak (Poemen in the 450s, Agathon and Sisoes
not before the 430s): Lot is the most elusive, but we have seen evidence
which would suggest a date in the 430s for him also. Apart from mention
of Poemen's moving from Scetis, the only story explicitly placed in
Scetis is that of Agathon and Martyrius and the piece of nitre—a story
which shows accurate knowledge of the topography and conditions of
Scetis (Sa emasculates the story by leaving out all these crisp details—
and yet Draguet, p. 53, 5B. b, nn. 1 and 2, suggests that Sa is here
the original, and these details have come from some second source!).
60 DERWAS J. CHITTY
The faithful brother who tells about Sisoes places his interview with
him at Clysma—in the 430s (see above).
Sa is, as I have said, a witness to be respected, and may often in detail
retain the best text—and sometimes may indicate to us the probable
original construction of the works. But its omissions and alterations, and
even its anonymity, are consistent with its character as part of a selective
collection of Ascetica—not primarily a corpus of the works of a parti-
cular author. Even so, it is committed in this chapter to a date not only

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after the first devastation of Scetis in 407 (VI. 2A), but after the death of
Agathon (5c)—which we have shown to have been not earlier than the
430s—and almost certainly after the death of Poemen (2G, 3A) in the 450s.
If, then, we can rely upon this chapter, the Abba Isaiah gathered his
information not earlier than the 450s, as we should expect if he was in
fact that Egyptian Abba Isaiah who also had a disciple Peter, and who
died in Palestine probably in 491.
3. Before describing and discussing the Life of Isaiah ('of Gaza'), it
will be well to summarize what we know of him from other sources.
He was an Egyptian {Life of Peter the Iberian, ed. Raabe, 101. 23). He
visited an aged monk, Paul, in the Thebaid, about twenty years before
Chalcedon—therefore about 431 {Plerophories, xii). He had moved up
to Palestine by 452-3, when he set out at dawn from his cell to come
down to Maiouma to report a vision to Peter the Iberian at that time
installed there as bishop (Pier. lxv). By the autumn of 485, when Peter
the Iberian settled for three years at Thavatha (V. Petr. Ib., ed. Raabe,
100-4), Isaiah was installed at Beit Daltha, four miles away, as a recluse
controlling a coenobium (Pier, xlviii) through his second and disciple,
the priest Peter, whom he made his sole channel of communication
with the world (V. Petr. Ib., loc. cit.: P.O. viii, pp. 164-5). Through the
next three years Isaiah and Peter the Iberian continued in the closest
contact with daily exchange of food, etc., and it was probably in the
autumn of 488 (12th Indiction, Pier, xii—but this might also mean
473-4) that Isaiah told Peter of his interview with Paul of the Thebaid
long ago. The writer of the Plerophories and of the Life of Peter the
Iberian claims to have been in contact with the great ascetic Abba
Isaiah from the time of his own flight to Palestine from Antioch in 479
(Pier, xxii; cf. V.Petr. Ib. 81-2). During the early years of the Henotikon,
the more extreme opponents of Chalcedon in Egypt, led by Theodore,
Bishop of Antinoe, and John, Bishop of Sebennytis, seem constantly
to have looked to Isaiah and Bishop Peter for counsel and direction
(Zacharias, Chronicle, v. 9, vi. 1; Vita Severi, p. 78: Severus, P.O. xii. 2,
Ep. xxxviii, speaks of the very few who checked Chalcedon at this time
—Peter the Iberian, Theodore of Antinoe, and Isaiah 'the very famous,
 ABBA ISAIAH 6l
the statue of philosophy and of life in God'). In the autumn of 488,
Cosmas the spatharius, after an unsuccessful mission to secure unity
in Egypt, returned by way of Palestine with orders to bring Isaiah and
Bishop Peter to the capital. But Isaiah excused himself on the ground
of sickness, while Peter, forewarned, escaped to Phoenicia (Zach. Chr.
vi. 3; V. Petr. Ib., 103; cf. Pier, xxvii)—in the following year, the
Prefect Arsenius did send a party of the dissident Egyptian monks to

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discussions in Constantinople; but Theodore of Antinoe managed to
withdraw from it (Zach. Chr. vi. 4). After Pentecost, 489, Peter received
news that he was excused attendance at Constantinople, and made a
somewhat leisurely return to Palestine, finally settling in the autumn of
490 on the seaside near Jamnia, where he received news, confirmed a few
days later by the arrival of Isaiah's disciple Peter, of Isaiah's death on
11 August 491 (V. Petr. Ib. 124-6). His own death followed on the night
leading to Sunday 4 December (ibid. 145).
Zacharias the Scholasticus of Gaza was the probable author of an
Ecclesiastical History of the years 450-91, which is summarized in
books 3-6 of the Chronicle which survives in Syriac under his name, and
from which we have quoted. He also wrote somewhat later—during
Severus' tenure of the Patriarchate of Antioch—a Life of Severus, from
which also we have quoted, and in which he speaks of having written an
account of the virtues of Peter the Iberian and of Isaiah the great
Egyptian ascetic (P.O. ii. 83). Plerophories lxxiii gives his account of his
vision, while a student at Beirut, of Isaiah whom he knew, having often
seen him.
The Life of Isaiah (published by Brooks in C.S.C.O. Scriptores Syri,
ser. 3, xxv) opens, 'I have joined, as third to the histories before told,
Isaiah the second prophet of this our generation, who in faith and in
orthodoxy and in polity was partner in everything to Peter and Theodore
those famous high-priests.' But of this trilogy the first two works are
lost, except for the last few words of a Life of Peter the Iberian (quite
distinct from that published by Raabe) which precede the Life of Isaiah
in the oldest and best of the two manuscripts. The Life of Theodore of
Antinoe must have been lost very early. For the next paragraph in the
Life of Isaiah is a gloss compensating for the loss with a summary account
of Theodore. It concludes, 'But this Abba Isaiah is he whose is that
Book of admonition. For these three blessed ones were at one time, this
blessed Peter, and this Theodore, and the Abba Isaiah. And this history
also was written by Zacharias the Scholasticus, who wrote the Eccle-
siasticum.' Though these words do not come from the pen of the
original Greek writer, their meaning at first sight at least seems
unmistakable—that this Abba Isaiah was in fact the author of our
62 DERWAS J. CHITTY
ascetic corpus, and that his biographer was the ecclesiastical historian of
450-91 from whose work we have quoted, and the writer of the Life of
Severus in which he seems to refer to his having written these two short
lives of Peter and Isaiah. The plan of the trilogy would occur naturally
to one who was a close friend and follower of Severus (cf. the quotation
from his letters above): his omission to mention the more distant
Theodore in a chance reference to the other two in the Life of Severus
need not be treated as of great significance.

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After the conventional comparison with Antony and Paul, and con-
trast of the bodily and spiritual nationality (Egypt and Jerusalem), the
author describes summarily Isaiah's Egyptian upbringing and coenobitic
training, and his withdrawal, in obedience to the command, 'Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with
all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself, into the solitude of the in-
terior desert (Scetis may be implied, but is not named: and we remember
that Plerophories xii shows him present in the Thebaid in 431). Even
there he finds himself too popular, and moves up to Palestine in search
of {jevirela. After visiting the Holy Places, he settles in the desert near
Eleutheropolis—and the Life becomes less impersonal, as we should
expect if Zacharias of Gaza is indeed the author. We may suppose that
it is to this period that belongs his visit (Pier, lxv) to Peter the Iberian
at Maiouma in 452-3. The visits of two scholastid, Nestorius the
PovXevT-qs (a Nestorius is known as a disciple of Procopius of Gaza: it
is not a name that would have been selected by a later 'hagiographer'!),
and Dionysius (known to us also from V. Petr. lb. 100-1, the bio-
grapher of Isaiah claims to be recounting what Dionysius himself told
him), show us Isaiah still in unrestricted converse with his visitors. It is
only after this, when he moved down to build a monastery in the region
of Gaza (no doubt at Beit Daltha), that he enclosed himself in one of its
cells, and would hold direct converse with none save Peter, the chief
of his disciples (himself also Egyptian in body, Jerusalemite in Spirit),
and with him 'after the nightly canon and service of God and the morn-
ing lauds, until the ninth hour only'. When some people came to him
later than this, he had foreseen it, and left with his disciple gifts equal
to their numbers, so that his disciple should not need to trouble him
after the ninth hour. So spudaei of a church on the Gaza sea-coast told
the biographer how, when they arrived after the ninth hour to question
him (as they also questioned Peter the Iberian) about the fear of a pagan
revival with the revolt of Illus and Pamprepius (c. A.D. 484), they found
the disciple waiting for them with the Saint's answer, and a basket
containing gifts for each of them. The spiritual unity between Isaiah
and Bishop Peter is described in terms which remind us of the passage in
 ABBA ISAIAH 63
the Life of Peter the Iberian describing their intercourse between 485 and
488. When the question was raised among Palestinian monks about the
consubstantiality of Our Lord's Body with ours, the same unequivocal
answer was received from them both.1
A further example is given in the case of a dispute over canons
(surely not here musical or liturgical canons) dividing the party in
Alexandria, which was submitted to their decision. This involved a visit

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to Isaiah of an Egyptian monastic group headed by John, Archimandrite
and Bishop of Sebennytis. Isaiah must surely receive such a party to
direct colloquy. So rather than appear as a respecter of persons, for the
days of their visit only he opened his door to all and sundry.
There follows an account from Aeneas the sophist of Gaza, reported
to the biographer by one of Aeneas' pupils, how though Isaiah was quite
unversed in pagan teaching, Aeneas would often consult him on prob-
lems of Plato, Aristotle, or Plotinus, and get from him the interpretation
and the Christian answer: he was a man who had learned all from God,
about the creation of things, and the naturalium theoria, and the theoria
of divine theology, so that his knowledge did not come second to that of
any learned philosopher: 'and many writings were made by him con-
cerning instruction and the rest of the monastic polity'. Even Draguet
agrees that this refers to the ascetic corpus that he has edited; so that if
the Life is genuine, the corpus is the work of 'Isaiah of Gaza'.
Bosporius, who was later Bishop of Sinope, but was then scrinarius of
the prefects' office, told the biographer how he had wanted to ask Isaiah
whether he ought to get married, and whether it was 'the last times',
but had received the answers by message through Peter before asking.
In conclusion we return to the three heroes, 'whose polities I have
written to the best of my power, partly from what I have heard from
other reliable witnesses, and partly from experiences which I myself
shared'. There follows an account, bearing out, with some details added,
what we have already found in Zacharias' Chronicle and in the Life of
Peter the Iberian, of how each of the three avoided obeying Zeno's sum-
mons to the capital. There is a summary statement of Isaiah's death,
leaving his disciple Peter his heir and second. Then 'thou hast the his-
tories of these three illustrious who have been in our time, which we
have written to the glory of the holy and consubstantial Trinity'—and
a dedication to Misael the chamberlain, whom we know from the Letters
1
We know from Zacharias, Chron. iii. 10, that this question was raised very
quickly after Chalcedon, by John the Rhetorician, and received the same answer
from Peter the Iberian. Draguet errs in suggesting an echo here of the later
controversy between Severus and Julian. Cf. Timothy Aelurus, J.T.S. Oct. 1970,
P- 3Si-
64 DERWAS J. CHITTY
of Severus and other sources to have occupied that office some time
between 492 and 518.
How different subjective impressions can be! To me this work bears
as clearly as any the stamp of genuineness. For Draguet (p. 107*), 'la
Vih n'est pas l'oeuvre historique d'un biographe sur laquelle l'histoire
elle-meme pourrait faire fond, mais une composition qui ressortit de
bout en bout au genre hagiographique'. But what has been obvious
throughout his argument is that he has treated this from the beginning

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as a foregone conclusion. For instance, in all the parallels where Vih
and the other documents we have quoted (V. Petr. Ib., Plerophories,
Zach. Ckron., V. Sev.) cover the same ground and, as I should say,
confirm each other, as documents of equal value, Draguet takes it
for granted that the other documents must be sources employed by
Vih (pp. io2*-iO5*).' The 'hagiographicaP character of the Life is

1
Draguet can make some strange mistakes: on p. 104*, Pseudo-Zacharie, he
writes, 'A son tour, la Vils ench^rit sur la chronique. Ainsi, elle fait ecrire par
Isaie des lettres de communion a l'empereur (Vils, p. 19, 9 ss).' Actually, the
correct reference is p. 10, 9 ss. But in any case, neither the Syriac nor Brooks's
Latin translation speak of letters of communion. They speak of Isaiah's con-
senting to honour the king 'communione litterarum' (Brooks)—exchange of
letters or perhaps more simply and accurately, 'an answer by letter'—a very
different matter.
It will be as well to list here some other mistakes and oversights which need
to be pointed out, without obtruding them into our main argument:
(a) In this story of Cosmas' mission, Draguet treats the introduction of
Theodore of Antinoe as gratuitous, without noticing its confirmation in Zach.
Chron. vi. 4.
(b) Draguet repeatedly (pp. 93* and 103*) calls Isaiah's monastery near Gaza a
lavra, whereas in Plerophories xlviii it is definitely called a coenobium (the word
is transliterated into Syriac). This need not surprise us in view of the relation
in the next century between Varsanuphius and John and their coenobium at
Thavatha. But in the present case, while it is nowhere stated whether Isaiah was
a priest, the fact that the priest Peter would not exert his priesthood until
Isaiah's death may suggest that Isaiah was in fact a priest, and led the liturgical
life of his community, though otherwise withdrawn into his cell. This convic-
tion that we are dealing with a lavra, where the solitaries would only meet at the
week-end, has led Draguet into a further error in translation and comment on
S VIII. 11 (p. 112), n. i, ' 'avant le moment'] c.-a-d. avant le samedi, jour ou les
solitaires se rencontrent; cette precision, omise en f comme en y, y change la
ported du prtcepte'. Actually y does here give -npo T^J aipas—of which the Syriac
phrase here used is an exact translation; on its two other occurrences, <S XII,
2 and 42, Draguet himself renders it 'avant X'heure'. Incidentally, Draguet has
not noticed, as Avgoustinos did, that 5 VIII. 10, -npos iiiav 8e ipSofidSa Troi-qaare
tls TO fiayeipeiov, provides in itself a strong argument against placing Isaiah
in Egypt. Cassian, Inst. iv. 19-21, describes this weekly rotation for the kitchen
in the coenobia of 'Mesopotamia, Palestine and Cappadocia and all the East',
but goes on in c. 22 to say expressly that this did not apply to Egypt, where one
brother was appointed as whole-time chef.
(c) p. 104*. Draguet has misconstrued the time at which, according to Vils,
 ABBA ISAIAH 65
constantly asserted, but such proof as is offered always seems to involve
a petitio principii: and this supposed 'hagiographical' character is itself
given as a ground for rejecting the Zacharian authorship (cf. p. io8 # ,
'L'authenticite zacharienne est pourtant incompatible—avec le fait Iitt6-
raire qui vient d'etre itabli: le caractere hagiographique du document';
p. 112*, 3. 'Exclusion de l'authenticite zacharienne par le genre hagio-
graphique' ; especially n. 5 'L'element [6] de la section Gaza, qui attribue
formellement a Isaie des ecrits ascetiques, partage eminemment le

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caractere hagiographique de l'ensemble de la Vils'; p. 118*, 3. 'Cadre
suspect d'un document hagiographique. Notre analyse generate de la
Vils a etabli...'). In attempting to counter the argument from the
dedication to Misael (which he suggests may have been borrowed from
some source) he adds (p. 113*), 'le traitement tres libre que la Vils fait
de ses sources suffit a nous mettre en garde'. But of course, if the Misael
ascription is genuine, the 'sources' are not sources, but contemporary
corroborative documents. Incidentally, the reference on p. (9) 19 to
'Zeno qui religiose vitam finivit' suggests a date for the writing not very
long after that emperor's death. The evidence of the apparent ascription
of the Vils to Zacharias on p. (3) 19 is hardly lessened in value by its
coming in a gloss (we should not expect it to be the author's own state-
ment), and Draguet's attempt on p. 109* to argue that it need not mean
what it seems obviously to say, is surely special pleading too blatant to
need an answer. This ascription, confirmed by the reference in the
Life of Severus, and supported, as we believe, by the whole character
of the work, leads us to the conviction that the Vils is indeed a genuine
early work of Zacharias the Scholasticus of Gaza, and confirms us in
our belief that its hero is indeed the author of the Isaian ascetic corpus.
Isaiah had his converse with his disciple. As we have seen above, it was not after
but before the ninth hour. Incidentally, what was the hour before which the
brethren must not hold converse? Was it after Lauds (Vils v, p. (7), 9)? Or the
sixth hour, as in Nitria (H.L., ed. Butler, 26.2)?
(d) p. 104*. 'La Vils corse la donn^e en disant qu'Isaie ne parle absolument
avec personne sinon avec Pierre—Ce qui ne 1'empSche pas de dire explicitement
le contraire par apres: Isaie, dit-elle, converse avec Nestorius, avec Denys, avec
fin6e de Gaza—; elle declare m6me qu'il tenait porte ouverte a tous—.' Draguet
omits to mention that the conversations with Nestorius and Denys were at
Eleutheropolis, before Isaiah's moving to the Gaza region and shutting himself
up; and that the opening his doors to all for a few days when already a recluse
is given definitely as a very exceptional case. It is never stated in Vils that he
held direct converse with Aeneas: and one has only to glance at the Erotapocrises
of Varsanuphius and John to see how full a correspondence could be carried on
through an intermediary.
(c) p. 107*. It is not true that the author never names his sources. Both
Dionysius (6. 21) and Bosporius (9. 1) are said to have told him their stories
themselves.
621.1 F
66 DERWAS J. CHITTY
The silence of the Life of Peter the Iberian about any writings of this
Isaiah may not be quite so complete as is supposed. The reference on
V. Petr. Ib. 102 to 'mimre' (\6yoi) in connection with him is at least
suggestive of the Aoyoi which constitute our Corpus. But in any case,
the absence of reference need cause no surprise in a work produced not
long after the death of the two saints. The final compiling of the Corpus
was, after all, the work of the disciple Peter, not of his master.
But can this Isaiah 'of Gaza' still rightly be called 'Isaiah the Sce-

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tiote' ? Here we would refer to A. Guillaumont's article, 'Une notice
syriaque inedite sur la vie de l'abbe Isai'e', in Analecta Bollandiana,
67 (1949), pp. 350-60. I must confess to a further carelessness on my
part in The Desert a City, pp. 73 and 80, n. 103, where I speak of 'his
Syriac description as "Esaias of Scetis'Y I was misled by Wright's cata-
logue of the B.M. Syriac manuscripts, which consistently refers to him
as 'Isaiah of Scete'—as Land had done before, and Baumstark does after
him (Syrische Literatur, p. 165). The Syriac manuscripts themselves
appear never so to describe him. Nowhere in the corpus of his works
does he claim himself to have witnessed events in Scetis—not even in the
collection of Apophthegmata in S VI. Where he names Sarapion (S
XXV. 42) or Nestherous (S XXV. 45b), we do not know whether he is
speaking at first or second hand: nor do we know the date or location
of these two fathers. It appears that the earliest identification of him as
Isaiah of Scetis is found in the Life of Isaiah with which DadiSo of Beth
Qatraya, a Nestorian of the end of the seventh century, prefaces his
commentary on the corpus (cf. Guillaumont, op. cit.: Draguet promises
an edition of this work). This Life, as all agree, is manifestly a compila-
tion from references in the Apophthegmata, the Historia Monachorum
in Aegypto, etc. It is bent on showing Isaiah as an Egyptian father
who spent all his monastic life in Scetis, where he became hegumen.
A Nestorian writer would naturally wish to cover up any suggestion that
the revered father whose work he was annotating had monophysite
connections.
But our Isaiah was certainly Egyptian. The Vils speaks of him
(p. (4), 31) as withdrawn into the interior desert before he moved up
to Palestine. This need not mean Scetis, and our only other definite
evidence for his time in Egypt (Pier, xii) links him with the Thebaid.
But Scetis is certainly the 'interior desert' which would come first to
our mind. And the father who died in Palestine in 491 could very well
have been in Scetis in the 420s or 430s—and even need not have been
too young at the end of that time to have a disciple. So it is worth while
our examining to see whether any of the Isaiahs mentioned in other
monastic sources could be identical with our father.
 ABBA ISAIAH 67
The Isaiah of H.L. xiv, and he of H.M. xi (ed. Festugiere) can be
put out of court at once—incidentally, neither of these was Scetiote.
The Isaiah of the long recension of G Pambo n , coupled with Pambo,
Bessarion and Athre, appears to be Scetiote, but of an earlier generation.
The two Macarian Apophthegmata (G Mac. Aeg. 27, and Guy N(J)
764—the latter quoted by Draguet, p. 90*) cannot well be referring to
a fifth-century father Isaiah—unless, as is by no means impossible, the
second of these is referring to a different Macarius. G Poemen 20 (Isaiah

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questioning Poemen) brings us to the right generation, but has no
reference to Scetis. Of the Isaiah apophthegmata in the Alphabetikon,
8, 9, and 10 at least belong to our Isaiah, being derived from the chapter
on 'The Branches of Vice'. The others have no clear indication of time
or place, save for the story of the priest of Pelusium—if this means
Isidore, it again confirms our dating for Isaiah who tells the story. In
G Achillas 3, we find an Abba Isaiah in Scetis admonished by Achillas
who is clearly older. G Achillas 5 shows us Bitimius and Ammoes coming
to Achillas (in Scetis) and afraid to tell him they come from Cellia—which
suggests a date when Cellia was under suspicion, probably for Origenism.
G Daniel 5 shows Ammoes as a younger contemporary of Daniel, the
disciple of Arsenius. G Ammoes 2 shows Isaiah as younger than
Ammoes—but here some manuscripts make the questioner Saio, not
Isaiah. But as G Achillas 3 has already placed the Scetiote Isaiah in the
generation of Ammoes and Daniel, there would at least be no anachron-
ism in identifying him with 'Isaiah of Gaza'. The strongest argument
for Isaiah's having been in Scetis, already advanced enough to have
a disciple, Peter, is certainly the story published in Avgoustinos's intro-
duction, p. tS' (Cod. Hieros. Patr. 113 ?) and again by Draguet (90*, and
at length in Byzantion, xxxv (1965), pp. 44-61). Here Peter tells what
happened when he, clearly as a young disciple, laughed when he was
dining with Isaiah and other old men in the company of Abba Isaac
the hegumen of Scetis. No hegumen Isaac of Scetis is otherwise known:
so a date fitting in with our other evidence—say in the 430s—is per-
fectly acceptable. But the context suggests that Isaiah and Peter were
on a visit to Scetis, rather than settled there. Peter must, of course, have
been himself of a good age by the time of Isaiah's death.
Other material published in Avgoustinos's introduction deserves
close study—but also puts us on our guard. One long story (pp. ie-Ky)
of Isaiah and Peter and another disciple Elisha in Scetis proves to belong
to the late sixth century, and the time of the Pope Eulogius of Alexandria
(580-607).
The Isaian corpus appears, then, to be the product of two Egyptian
monks, 'old man' and disciple, whose migration from Egypt to the Gaza
68 DERWAS J. CHITTY
region has brought them into yeasty contact with one of the most famous
philosophical and literary schools of the period—a period overclouded
with a sense of present or impending disaster in Church and state. So
we can suppose Peter, under Isaiah's inspiration, collecting and record-
ing, whether from the old man's words or writings, or from other
sources, all that he could of the inherited authentic teaching of the
deserts, without presuming to impose on the material his own inter-

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pretation either by extensive rewriting or even by systematic ordering of
the collected works. The corpus consists of a great variety of works with
no apparent unity of plan in any of the various orders in which they
survive. It may well include pre-Isaian material. We have already
noted that the Sa recension in its earliest manuscripts does not mention
Isaiah or Peter in text or headings, attributing the works to fathers of
the Egyptian desert, while a number of these works and at least two
others are found in some Greek manuscripts and other sources attri-
buted to Moses, Macarius, or Ammonas. Moreover, as Dom Lucien
Regnault has already pointed out (R.A.M. 46 (1970), p. 40), the Abba
Zosimas, writing in the early part of the sixth century, attributes to
Ammonas G 27 = S XXIV. 13 (in its rrjpei aeavTov axpifiws form), and
to Moses G 16 — S XV. 51 and G 7 = S XIII. 19 and 22 (in each case
Zosimas gives some support to the Ga reading against that of G). Dom
Regnault has pointed out (ibid.) that Dorotheus, though he frequently
quotes or echoes the Isaian corpus, never mentions Isaiah's name. But
I believe all Dorotheus' quotations are from this earlier (5a Ga) layer.
But in Varsanuphius & John, while in V ( = Volos edition, i960) 308
John tells the same Dorotheus axovoai ov ol Trarepes elvov, and proceeds
to quote G 3 = S X. 33 (a passage attributed to Macarius in Ga) in a
form suggestive of the Sa Ga text, in V 311 Dorotheus as questioner
attributes another passage from the same work (G 3 = <S X. 46) to the
Abba Isaiah, who is also named in quotations in V. 528 (G 5 = S XII.
7) and V 240 (G 8 = S XXV. 61a ? The language of the quotation seems
typical of Isaiah, but is only loosely represented in the text of GS).
A further story in V 252 (the first answer to Dorotheus) of thousands of
nomismata given to Abba Isaiah to dispense does not appear in our
corpus.
The anonymity of Sa is no reason for doubting the Isaian-Petrine
authorship of some at least of its contents. Its text and order in spite of
its early date, are by no means always superior to that of SG—in the
Apophthegmata collection at least, it is inferior. The anonymity of Sa 11
is probably secondary, and S XIV, where Peter speaks in the first person
of his questions to Isaiah, nearest the original. If, as the Zosimas quota-
tions and some of our manuscript evidence would suggest, several of
 ABBA ISAIAH 69
the works are in fact derived from earlier ascetics, this would be entirely
in keeping with the character of our corpus. Within the normal corpus
one work, G 23, begins in Greek and Coptic, though not in Syriac,
"Eliri TIS TU>V naripujv". When the compiler of S added 'Macarian' and
Evagrian works at the beginning and end of the corpus, and G appended
a Pseudo-Basilian, they were acting in harmony with the intention of
the original compilers. Whatever its original form, the corpus is certainly
not the systematic exposition of the mind of a single author. It is a collec-

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tion, initiated no doubt in a time of stress, and expanded later, of a
variety of occasional pieces—apophthegmata, monastic rule, homiletic
—to ensure the recording for future generations of the authentic teach-
ing of the desert fathers (I have already suggested, The Desert a City,
p. 74, that 'this was the milieu responsible for amassing the main
primary corpus of Apophtkegmata'). Thrown together perhaps rather
haphazard in the first instance, it was sorted out and put in order
in various ways later, without the elimination of all evidence of the
occasional character of particular pieces. Whether as witness, writei
or speaker, the personality of the Abba Isaiah pervades the corpus.
The relation to the 'Macarian' homilies, particularly of the long letter
(G 25 = £ VII) to Peter on his approach to the monastic life,1 awaits
further study. There is much that is reminiscent of Evagrius in thought
and in language; but direct dependence seems precluded by the fact
that the list of 'Seven Branches of Vice' in G 28 = S XXII is by no
means identical with the list of the eight Xoyiafxol in Evagrius (and
Cassian). The work is highly intellectual, and contains much creative
thought, but is in no way 'scholastic'. There is neither cosmic specula-
tion nor dogmatic elaboration. We remember that Zachariah in his
Chronicle twice (v. 9 and vi. 3) describes the Abba Isaiah as npaKTiKos.
And this describes well the character of our Corpus—a practical guide
for the monk on the way, in prayer and work, towards the one un-
changing goal—to attain to accordance with the Nature of Jesus—
TO Kara <f>v<jiv TOV 'Irjoov (or TOV Ylov TOV ©eov—G 18 = S XXVI. 13).
Is there anything in the Corpus to confirm the character given else-
where to the Abba Isaiah as the spiritual leader of the more intran-
sigent opponents of Chalcedon ? On the face of it—on the polemical
side—nothing. Here is no theological controversy, nor a word in which
the Chalcedonian could scent heresy. The Vils account of Isaiah's
1
Draguet's arguments against the unity of this letter do not appear to hold
water. Even if S is right in varying the address between singular and plural (G
supports the plural only once, c. 26, "dSeA^oi"), the alternation is not unnatural
when we remember that Peter is shown in the G(() form of G 1 = S VIII to
have been the leader of three brothers.
70 DERWAS J. CHITTY
answers on the 'Image of God', and the consubstantiality of our Lord's
Body with ours, is unexceptionable and in complete harmony with the
teaching of the corpus—though here the only theological occurrence of
of the word ovola is in connection with the Rebirth—those who become
his brides eK i-fjs ovolas avrov eloi 8ia rrjs dvayewrjoews (G 25 = >S VII.
25—but the Syriac implies </>voeois for ovalas). Here as ever the mind is
set on the goal—the incorporation into the Body of Christ, and the
attainment and contemplation of the glory and sweetness and light and

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fire of the Godhead. Of all the theological terms involved in the con-
troversy, apart from this one occurrence of ovola, <j>vois alone is used
in the corpus, and that constantly—Kara. </>vcnv TOV .MSa/x, napa <j>voiv,
Kara,fyvoivTOV 'I-qaov. Never is the word used of the 'Divine Nature'.
In the background we feel the Cyrilline phrase—jxla <f>vois TOV @eov
Aoyov oeoapKwuevT). And surely 'the beloved Jesus' cannot be divided,
and to attain his Nature is somehow to attain to his Godhead—without
the distinctions being obscured.1 But here 'monophysite' spiritually is
seen all on its positive side, stripped of its negations and anathemas by
the humility of the monk, and the simple love of the Lord Jesus.2 Those
like Varsanuphius and John and Dorotheus, who in the next century
accepted Chalcedon, would not be ashamed of their inheritance from
the Abba Isaiah. And in the times that followed, Chalcedonian and
Monophysite and Nestorian alike preserved his works and profited
from them.
Isaiah's friend Peter the Iberian called down anathemas on himself if
he should ever say there was nothing wrong with the Synod of Chalce-
don (V. Per. Ib. 134. 20). Was he ever told of Isaiah's answer conveyed
to two Chalcedonian monks by his embarrassed disciple—'There is no
harm in the Council of the Catholic Church: you are well as you are: you
believe well' ?3

APPENDIX 1
In his list of 'formules propres a SC, Draguet gives, p. 42*,
20.C. Peut-etre Dieu aura-t-il pitid.
Cette reserve (cfr. Jr 43, 7), d'ailleurs toute litteraire, sur la certitude
du secours divin ou la possibilit6 d'atteindre l'ideal ascetique, est line
1
Just as in a later age the 'Palamites' were to insist that the Light of Mount
Tabor is indeed uncreated—God in his energies though not in his essence.
2
See Dom Hermann Keller, L'abbe haie-le-Jeune, in Irdnikon, 16 (1939), pp.
113—26. This valuable but neglected work, indicating much as I have done the
'monophysite' character of Isaiah, was pointed out to me by Dom Regnault after
I had completed my article.
3
Cod. Paris, gr. 1596, s. xi, f. 610, printed by Nau, P.O. viii. 164.
 ABBA ISAIAH 71
touche de style propre a 5C. Elle y figure en effet en trois passages oil
le correspondant Sa Pomet (V, 32; XIV, 38; XV, 7) et elle revient en
XXII, 28 et XXIV, 3.

As a matter of fact, in XV. 7 the phrase is found in Sa, except only that
Sa has 'jusqu'a ce q u ' ' (Ico?) where S has 'afin que peut-etre' (LOWS)—
which may be due either to a different reading in the Greek or to an
inexpert translation. But it will be good to look at all the occurrences

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of LOWS in the corpus, remembering that itacism makes it often impossible
to tell whether the verb should be in the subjunctive or the future
indicative:
1. G 8 = S XXV. 5 5 - rj eyOptx SiafieveifiXaocfrrjpiovoa. . . LOCUS 6 vovs
XavvtuBels aTToarfj TOV KOTTOV KOL emoTpeiprj TrdXiv els TTJV dpeXeiav.
2. Ibid, 6 els cbveiSi^ev avTov, 'Cows dnoOTrjoT] aiiTov TTJS eAm'809.
3. G 9 = >S V. 32 Ava.yica.oov aeavTov ev noXXais TTpooev)(ais fiera.
K\av6(iov, I'ocos eXetfaei oe—Sa omits the phrase.
4. G 16 = S XV. 5—epya^ofxevoi KOXWS . . . lotos (Ga: iva GS)
Svvr]9u>fji.ev oaidrjvai—Sa omits the paragraph.
5. G 16 = S XV. 7—TTOi-qocoftev T-qv 8vvaft.iv r/fuuv ev Sdxpvoiv evwmov
TOV @eov, LOCUS (G, Ga, S, Amm. 1 : lojy Sa) iXe-qar/ rjp,ds (GK, S, Sa:
e<f>' rjuds Ga: om. G£, Amm. 1 ) 77 dya6oTT)S avrov Kal
rjfj.iv Svvafuv.
6. G 16 = 5 X V . 117—OTeXXovaiv eavrovs ev Travovpylq rrpos xaipov,
LOCUS (G, Ga, S: ecus ov Amm: iva Sa}) 6 dvdpcunos dnoXvor) rrjv eavrov
Kapolav . . .
7. Ed. D r a g u e t ' S X V . 136'—G£j8 Amm.: om. SGyic—My e/c/ca/c^ajjs
ovv dSeA^e . . . LOCUS (Amm.: iva £) yevrjrai Kal r/fiiv ekeos—
8. G 21 = S XIV. 38 TTonjocufiev ovv TTJV Svva/uv •qficuv , .. LOCOS eXe^or/
fjixas rj dyadoTfjs avrov, KOL dnooTei'Xri ijp.LV Suva/xiv—GS: om. Sa
9. G 27 = S XXIV. 3—oXws KaTa£iovp.ai Tradelv TL 01a. TOV Kvpiov Kal
jSa<TTa|ai, LOWS {rd^a ydp Amm.) . . . KOV poTrrjv Tiva fxtp.r]Trjs yevwp.ai TOV
nddovs TOV @eov px>v (SG).

While in five cases the mood of the verb is ambiguous, in the other
four it is definitely a subjunctive, so that LOWS must be not an adverb, but
a conjunction introducing a subordinate clause. It happens that in the
case of 'S XV. 136' the Coptic version survives, confirming the locos
of Amm. with xieus&K.—'thou knowest not', and so 'perhaps'—see Crum,
p. 102a: it is used to represent the Greek pvfjTrws,'lows,or Ta\a. Like
it is often used to introduce a subordinate clause; and LOWS in

1
Amm. Coisl. 282, ed. Nau, Ammonas, P.O. xi. 4.
72 DERWAS J. CHITTY
Isaiah has taken over the same use. Here surely is a Copticism—and
one which seems after all to be found in both layers of the Corpus.

APPENDIX II
Draguet, V, p . 66—Logos VI. 5F. i "Orav Be rjyopa&v eavrio KoXofliv 7)
TTaXXlv rj OKevos els Xoyov rov KeXXiov ev rrj dreXela TrepieflXineTO, Kal el
etSe XVPav P^erplav e^ovaav TO OKevos o e^rei dyopdoai. . .

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5F. n El exprj^e TO KeXXlov TIVOS OKevovs r)yopat,ev avro, Kal el eXeyev
avrcp d8eXcf>6s aadevqs' anrrjXdes ev rfj dreXecq. Ayddwv Kal OVK e/juadov
•rjOeXov yap Iva dyopdorjs /not oKevos . . . . AreXeia clearly means market:
but why? Draguet virtually despairs of an explanation. As constantly
in such circumstances, I wrote to consult Professor A. H. M. Jones, and
received the usual prompt reply, along lines that I was already rather
expecting—I think it was the last letter that I was to receive from him.
I offer it here in his memory. 'I have never met dreXeia used to mean
•navjqyvpls dreXrjs, but I think it must mean that. See OGI 262, where
Baetocaeca has a market free from dues on the 15th and 30th of each
month. There were also duty-free fairs on a big scale e.g. at Aegae in
Cilicia {Itin. Hierosol. Theodosius 32) for 40 days p.a., at Edessa (Greg.
Tur. Glor. Mart. 32) for 30 days p.a.'
So a vivid detail is added to our picture: the monk and the widow
taking advantage of the duty-free market. |DERWAS J. CHITTY