Pambo

Last updated

Saint

Pambo
Pambo of Nitria.jpeg
Desert Father
Founder of Nitria
Bornc. 305–315
Roman Egypt
Diedc. 375–390
Nitria, Roman Egypt
Venerated in Oriental Orthodox Church
Eastern Orthodox Church
Roman Catholic Church
Feast July 18

Pambo [note 1] (died c. 390) was a Coptic Desert Father of the fourth century and disciple of Anthony the Great. His feast day is July 18 among the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, and Catholic churches.

Contents

Pambo was a disciple of Anthony the Great. He lived in the Nitrian Desert where he founded many monasteries. He was renowned for his wisdom, and was consulted by many, including Athanasius, Melania the Elder, and Ammonas of Egypt. He was the spiritual father of several other canonized saints, including Pishoy and John the Dwarf.

Biography

Much of the biographical information about Pambo is related through Palladius' Lausiac History and briefer mentions by Jerome and Tyrannius Rufinus. [1]

Early monastic life

Little is known of Pambo's life prior to his becoming a monk and disciple of Anthony.

His most striking penance was silence. [2] This began early in his monastic life after receiving the opening of Psalm 39 from his spiritual father: "I said, I will watch my ways so as to be unable to sin with my tongue.'" [3] He did not say a word to his master for six months but worked to internalize this passage, and he humbly told other monks that he had scarcely internalized it even eighteen years later. [4]

Spiritual father and abbot

He is known for having founded monasteries in the Nitrian Desert. [5] [6]

Pambo and his monastery received many gifts of support from Melania the Elder and had a close relationship with her. Pambo was either banished or simply went on pilgrimage to Palestine with Isidore, Pisimius, Adelphius, Paphnutius and a dozen other clergy, and Melania came with them. [7] It is also related that he did not accept all of the gifts graciously, instead seeing an opportunity to invert her "haughty attitude about money." [8] A particular account relates Melania gifting Pambo several hundred pounds of silver, which he promptly distributed to poor monasteries without acknowledging her. [2]

During the early Christian debates over Arianism, Athanasius brought Pambo from Nitria to support him in the Alexandrian courts. [9] Later, Athanasius wrote highly of Pambo as "well pleasing to God." [10]

It is related that his face "shone like lightning," a mark of his high degree of holiness. [11]

After two brothers received a large inheritance from their father, one gave it all away directly while another built a monastery and cared for those in need. When asked which was holier, Pambo stated that they were equals and reportedly had a vision of the brothers standing before God. [12] This teaching has shed light on how early Christian monastics understood their own communities and purposes. [13]

He personally knew Bessarion, Isaiah, Paësios, Arsisius, Serapion the Great—fellow monks of the Egyptian deserts—and is quoted speaking with several of them in collections of sayings. [14]

The historian and theologian Rufinus visited Pambo in 374. [15]

Death

Narrative

He was weaving a basket as he died, making this the first of his relics. Melania the Elder, who collected relics from many holy men, was at Nitria when he died and received that very basket. [16] At the hour of his death, he reportedly said, "From the time that I came into this place of solitude and built my cell and dwelt in it I do not call to mind that I have eaten save what my hands have toiled for, nor repented of any word that I spoke... And so I go to the Lord as one that has not yet made a beginning of serving God." [17]

Date of death

There is some ambiguity about when Pambo died. Some refer to the "historical Pambo" dying between 373–374. [18] The Lausiac History itself relates only that he died prior to Palladius entering the desert, which would mean before 385. [19] A Catholic daily martyrology maintains his death to have been "about 390," [20] and others hold to the year 393. [1] [2]

Alban Butler's Lives of Saints offers the year of death as "c. A.D. 390." [15]

Veneration

Pambo is venerated among the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, and Catholic churches. His feast day is July 18. [21] [20]

Legacy

Alleged Origenism

Pambo and other Nitrian monks have been branded by scholars as "Origenists." However, Graham Gould argues that there is little historical basis for believing that Pambo was either a highly educated figure or that he was contemporaneously associated with Origenism. [22] This accusation arose due to controversy around some of his pupils and fellow monks, the Tall Brothers of Kellia.

Attributed liturgical views

He reportedly opposed women's involvement in liturgical singing and is said to have told a younger monk that troparia and echoi have a corrupting influence. [23] [24] Johannes Quasten himself used this story to demonstrate that early monastics opposed complex liturgical music. [25] More recent scholarship, however, generally accepts that this account does not predate the 6th century. It is also worth noting that the particular collection in which the story is found—Gerbert's Scriptores ecclesiastici—is from the 18th century. So, the reliability of these narratives representing the historical Pambo's views is rather weak. [26] James McKinnon says bluntly, "The story...of how Abba Pambo reproaches a young monk for being impressed with the 'canons' and 'troparia' of the Alexandrian churches, is apocryphal...and has the appearance of being from the sixth century." [25]

Later references

A fictional version of Pambo appears in the 6th-century work, Legend of Hilaria , variously transliterated as "Bamu" or "Bamfu." [27]

The 19th century writer, Robert Browning wrote a poem titled "Pambo" based on the saint's first lesson from Psalm 39. [28]

Notes

  1. ↑ Greek: Παμβώ, Pambó; Latin: Pambus

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moses the Black</span> Monk, priest and martyr in Egypt

Moses the Black, also known as Moses the Strong, Moses the Abyssinian, Moses the Robber, and Moses the Ethiopian, was an ascetic monk and priest in Egypt in the fourth century AD, and a Desert Father. He is highly venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Church. According to stories about him, he converted from a life of crime to one of asceticism. He is mentioned in Sozomen's Ecclesiastical History, written about 70 years after Moses's death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lavra</span> Type of monastery consisting of a cluster of cells or caves

A lavra or laura is a type of monastery consisting of a cluster of cells or caves for hermits, with a church and sometimes a refectory at the center. Lavra monasteries operate within the Orthodox and other Eastern Christian traditions; the name is also used by some Catholic communities. The term in Greek initially meant a narrow lane or an alley in a city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Macarius of Egypt</span> Egyptian Christian monk and hermit

Macarius of Egypt was a Christian monk and hermit. He is also known as Macarius the Elder or Macarius the Great.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cenobitic monasticism</span> Monastic tradition that stresses community life

Cenobiticmonasticism is a monastic tradition that stresses community life. Often in the West the community belongs to a religious order, and the life of the cenobitic monk is regulated by a religious rule, a collection of precepts. The older style of monasticism, to live as a hermit, is called eremitic. A third form of monasticism, found primarily in Eastern Christianity, is the skete.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Desert Fathers</span> Early Christian hermits, ascetics, and monks, third century AD

The Desert Fathers or Desert Monks were early Christian hermits and ascetics, who lived primarily in the Scetes desert of the Roman province of Egypt, beginning around the third century AD. The Apophthegmata Patrum is a collection of the wisdom of some of the early desert monks and nuns, in print as Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The first Desert Father was Paul of Thebes, and the most well known was Anthony the Great, who moved to the desert in AD 270–271 and became known as both the father and founder of desert monasticism. By the time Anthony had died in AD 356, thousands of monks and nuns had been drawn to living in the desert following Anthony's example, leading his biographer, Athanasius of Alexandria, to write that "the desert had become a city." The Desert Fathers had a major influence on the development of Christianity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint Amun</span> 4th-century Egyptian monastic founder

Ammon, Amun, Ammonas, Amoun (Ἀμοῦν), or Ammonius the Hermit was a 4th-century Christian ascetic and the founder of one of the most celebrated monastic communities in Egypt. He was subsequently declared a saint. He was one of the most venerated ascetics of the Nitrian Desert, and Athanasius of Alexandria mentions him in his life of Anthony the Great.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melania the Elder</span>

Melania the Elder, Latin Melania Maior was a Desert Mother who was an influential figure in the Christian ascetic movement that sprang up in the generation after the Emperor Constantine made Christianity a legal religion of the Roman Empire. She was a contemporary of, and well known to, Abba Macarius and other Desert Fathers in Egypt, Jerome, Augustine of Hippo, Paulinus of Nola, and Evagrius of Pontus, and she founded two religious communities on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. She stands out for the convent she founded for herself and the monastery she established in honour of Rufinus of Aquileia, which belongs to the earliest Christian communities, and because she promoted the asceticism which she, as a follower of Origen, considered indispensable for salvation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evagrius Ponticus</span> Christian monk

Evagrius Ponticus, also called Evagrius the Solitary, was a Christian monk and ascetic from Heraclea, a city on the coast of Bithynia in Asia Minor. One of the most influential theologians in the late fourth-century church, he was well known as a thinker, polished speaker, and gifted writer. He left a promising ecclesiastical career in Constantinople and traveled to Jerusalem, where in 383 AD he became a monk at the monastery of Rufinus and Melania the Elder. He then went to Egypt and spent the remaining years of his life in Nitria and Kellia, marked by years of asceticism and writing. He was a disciple of several influential contemporary church leaders, including Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Macarius of Egypt. He was a teacher of others, including John Cassian and Palladius of Galatia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melania the Younger</span> Christian saint and ascetic

Melania the Younger is a Christian saint, Desert Mother, and ascetic who lived during the reign of Emperor Honorius, son of Theodosius I. She is the paternal granddaughter of Melania the Elder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John the Dwarf</span> Egyptian Desert Father

John the Dwarf, also called John Colobus,John Kolobos or Abba John the Dwarf, was a Coptic Desert Father of the early Christian church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wadi El Natrun</span> Geographic depression in Beheira, Egypt

Wadi El Natrun is a depression in northern Egypt that is located 23 m (75 ft) below sea level and 38 m (125 ft) below the Nile River level. The valley contains several alkaline lakes, natron-rich salt deposits, salt marshes and freshwater marshes.

<i>Lausiac History</i>

The Lausiac History is a seminal work archiving the Desert Fathers written in 419-420 AD by Palladius of Galatia, at the request of Lausus, chamberlain at the court of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II.

Palladius of Galatia or Palladius of Helenopolis was a Christian chronicler and the bishop of Helenopolis in Bithynia. He was a devoted disciple of Saint John Chrysostom. He is best remembered for his work, the Lausiac History. He was also the author of the Dialogue on the Life of Chrysostom. Palladius is a saint in the Coptic Orthodox Church and in the Syrian Orthodox Church, wherein he is given the honorific title, The Solitary. His feast day is November 29.

Monasticism is a way of life where a person lives outside of society, under religious vows.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Desert Mothers</span> Early Christian ascetics, 3rd–5th centuries AD

Desert Mothers is a neologism, coined in feminist theology as an analogy to Desert Fathers, for the ammas or female Christian ascetics living in the desert of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria in the 4th and 5th centuries AD. They typically lived in the monastic communities that began forming during that time, though sometimes they lived as hermits. Monastic communities acted collectively with limited outside relations with lay people. Some ascetics chose to venture into isolated locations to restrict relations with others, deepen spiritual connection, and other ascetic purposes. Other women from that era who influenced the early ascetic or monastic tradition while living outside the desert are also described as Desert Mothers.

Nitria is one of the earliest Christian monastic sites in Egypt and is located in the Nitrian Desert. It was the first of the three major centers of Christian monastic activity in the Lower Egypt, the other two being Kellia and Scetis.

Or of Nitria was an Egyptian Orthodox Christian ascetic who lived around the 4th century AD in Egypt in Dalga, Nitria, the Thebaid, and in the deserts around Shaina. He is one of the lesser-known Desert Fathers, but is nevertheless regarded as one of the "chief among monks", being "a man who stood out among many of the fathers". He is associated with Theodore and Sisoes the Great. According to Jerome, at one point during his life, Or was the father of "one thousand [cenobitic] monks" in the Egyptian Desert. Or died c. 390.

Ammonas of Egypt was an eastern Christian anchorite, monastic, and Desert Father who was born around the early 4th century. He is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Ammonas was a disciple of Anthony the Great and Pambo. Many of his known sayings and quotations exist in eleven sections of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

Christian monasticism first appeared in Egypt and Syria. This is a partial chronology of early Christian monasticism with its notable events listed. It covers 343 years.

Serapion of Nitria, Serapion of Thmuis, also spelled Sarapion, or Serapion the Scholastic was an early Christian monk and bishop of Thmuis in Lower Egypt, born in the 4th century. He is notable for fighting alongside Athanasius of Alexandria against Arianism.

References

  1. 1 2 Smith, Sir William (1887). A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines: Being a Continuation of 'The Dictionary of the Bible'. Little, Brown & Company. p. 177.
  2. 1 2 3 Felicity, Sister (1962). "St Pambo". Life of the Spirit (1946-1964). 16 (188): 398. ISSN   0269-3593. JSTOR   43706011.
  3. ↑ Poteet, Ellen (2019). "Review of Christianizing Egypt: Syncretism and Local Worlds in Late Antiquity". The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists. 56: 355. ISSN   0003-1186. JSTOR   45215060.
  4. ↑ Christie, Douglas E. (2013). "The Eternal Present: Slow Knowledge and the Renewal of Time". Buddhist-Christian Studies. 33: 17–18. ISSN   0882-0945. JSTOR   43185104.
  5. ↑ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Palladius"  . Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  6. ↑ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Thebaid"  . Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  7. ↑ Women in Early Christianity: Translations from Greek Texts. Catholic University of America Press. 2005. pp. 207–208. doi:10.2307/j.ctt3fgq5h. ISBN   978-0-8132-1417-7. JSTOR   j.ctt3fgq5h.
  8. ↑ Melania: Early Christianity through the Life of One Family (1 ed.). University of California Press. 2017. JSTOR   10.1525/j.ctt1ggjhp4.
  9. ↑ Haas, Christopher (1993). "The Arians of Alexandria". Vigiliae Christianae. 47 (3): 238. doi:10.2307/1583805. ISSN   0042-6032. JSTOR   1583805.
  10. ↑ Barnard, Leslie W. (1993). "Did Athanasius Know Antony?". Ancient Society. 24: 144. ISSN   0066-1619. JSTOR   44079526.
  11. ↑ Hendel, Ronald (2013). "Chapter 4. Platonic Worlds". The Book of "Genesis": A Biography. Princeton University Press. pp. 105–108. ISBN   978-0-691-14012-4. JSTOR   j.cttq9587.
  12. ↑ Late Ancient Christianity. 1517 Media. 2010. p. 34. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1hqdhkc. ISBN   978-0-8006-9720-4. JSTOR   j.ctv1hqdhkc.
  13. ↑ Rousseau, Philip (1974). "The Formation of Early Ascetic Communities: Some Further Reflections". The Journal of Theological Studies. 25 (1): 113–117. ISSN   0022-5185. JSTOR   23962237.
  14. ↑ Wortley, John (2013). "How a Monk Ought to Relate to his Neighbor". Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies. 53: 726–741.
  15. 1 2 Butler, Alban. Butler's Lives Of The Saints Complete Edition. pp. 137 (p.1620 in PDF).
  16. ↑ Melania: Early Christianity through the Life of One Family (1 ed.). University of California Press. 2017. p. 135. JSTOR   10.1525/j.ctt1ggjhp4.
  17. ↑ Ladner, Gerhart B. (1964). "Greatness in Mediaeval History". The Catholic Historical Review. 50 (1): 6. ISSN   0008-8080. JSTOR   25017401.
  18. ↑ "Review of Un preteso Scritto di San Pietro, Vescovo d'Alessandria e martire, sulla Bestemmia e Filone l'istoriografo. (Estratto dalla Rivista Storico-Critica delle Scienze Teologiche, Anno I, Fasc. iii)". The Journal of Theological Studies. 7 (25): 150. 1905. ISSN   0022-5185. JSTOR   23947181.
  19. ↑ Hunt, E. D. (1973). "Palladius of Helenopolis: A Party and Its Supporters in the Church of the Late Fourth Century". The Journal of Theological Studies. 24 (2): 464. ISSN   0022-5185. JSTOR   23962129.
  20. 1 2 "Daily Martyrology". Benedictine Abbey of Christ in the Desert. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
  21. ↑ "Venerable Pambo the Hermit of Egypt". www.oca.org. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
  22. ↑ Gould, Graham (1990). "Review of Dogma and Mysticism in Early Christianity. Epiphanius of Cyprus and the Legacy of Origen. (Patristic Monograph Series, 13.)". The Journal of Theological Studies. 41 (2): 675, 681. ISSN   0022-5185. JSTOR   23965650.
  23. ↑ Quasten, Johannes (1941). "The Liturgical Singing of Women in Christian Antiquity". The Catholic Historical Review. 27 (2): 149–165. ISSN   0008-8080. JSTOR   25014016.
  24. ↑ Pritula, Anton (2015). The Wardā: An East Syriac Hymnological Collection: Study and Critical Edition (1 ed.). Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 85. doi:10.2307/j.ctvc5pgcs. ISBN   978-3-447-10475-3. JSTOR   j.ctvc5pgcs.
  25. 1 2 McKinnon, James W. (1994). "Desert Monasticism and the Later Fourth-Century Psalmodic Movement". Music & Letters. 75 (4): 508. ISSN   0027-4224. JSTOR   737286.
  26. ↑ Louth, Andrew. "St. John Damascene and Tradition". Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. 95.
  27. ↑ "The Legend of Hilaria (1913) pp. xiii-xxxiv. Introduction". www.tertullian.org. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
  28. ↑ Browning, Robert (1961). The poems and plays of Robert Browning. Internet Archive. New York, Modern Library. p. 1113.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.