Sophia Scriptura

Letter to Monks

Epistola ad monachos · Ἐπιστολὴ πρὸς μονάζοντας

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Contents

  1. 1Serapion praises the monks for renouncing all to please God, with Christ as their leader and companion.
  2. 2Nothing has turned the monks from their purpose; living righteously, they need not fear earthly rulers.
  3. 3The monks' prayers are the world's light and bring rain and the Nile's flood, as Elijah's prayer did.
  4. 4Like Abraham for Sodom, Job for his friends, and Moses for Israel, the monks intercede for Alexandria.
  5. 5Like Abraham the monks left home; free of family and wealth, they enjoy plain bread in peace.
  6. 6Married life in the city brings endless anxieties, from childbirth and dowries to a son's sudden death.
  7. 7The monks live like angels, free of civic burdens, taxes, courts, debts, and trade.
  8. 8The monastic profession is angelic and saving; each monk is a garden of Christ, enclosed by the law.
  9. 9Unlike the divided married man, the monks cling to God, having sold all and sought the kingdom first.
  10. 10The monks have disciplined every sense, eyes, hands, feet, smell, taste, toward God.
  11. 11The monks are soldiers of the consubstantial Trinity; their prayers sustain the world, and they will see the saints and Christ.
  12. 12At the judgment the monks will be welcomed into the kingdom, while the enemy and his followers are cast out.
  13. 13The fame of the Egyptian monks, Antony, Amoun, John, and Macarius, reached cities and kings.
  14. 14Serapion lists the monks' many virtues, crowned by humility, which the devil lacked.
  15. 15Serapion urges the monks to persevere to the end, so as to say with Paul that they have kept the faith.

About this work

Author
Serapion of Thmuis
Attribution
authentic · A letter to the monks of Alexandria, accepted as Serapion's; it names Amun, John and Macarius among the monks, so it was written around the time of Antony's death (356).
Standing
Honoured by the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Honoured as a saint or in a church calendar by: Catholic, Orthodox.
Date
ca. 340-362 (approximate) · Serapion was bishop of Thmuis in the Nile Delta from about 339 and died after 360; the works cannot be dated more closely.
Written at
Thmuis, Egypt (probable)
Language
Greek
Genre
letter
Reference system
Chapter, as numbered in Migne's Greek text (Α΄-ΙΕ΄, 1-15); the OCR confused some numerals, which are fitted to the sequence (see flags).
SBL abbreviation
Mon.Not yet checked
Clavis
CPG 2487 (not yet checked)
Text from
J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus, series Graeca, vol. 40 (Paris, 1858), Serapion of Thmuis (cols. 899-941 here); Greek text separated from the Greek-Latin two-column page in the OCR of the Bavarian State Library copy (the page for cols. 915-916, missing there, read from the page image by Tesseract); Migne's Latin version and notes not reproduced (Printed edition in the public domain; text transcribed from library OCR)
Critical editions
Serapion of Thmuis, Against the Manichees, ed. R. P. Casey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931) (cited only; not used) (cited, not reproduced)