Supplement to the General Index

There is a "type" story which recurrs in the tales-tradition in which a person supposing himself to be of advanced piety, poses the question: to what degree [of holiness] has he attained ? [ε_ς πo_α μέτρα, ε_ς πo_ov μέτρov, _φθασε] In response to the question, he is sent to a person of less distinguished, usually very humble and non-monastic rank who, in the event, turns out to be well ahead of the questioner in holiness.

The best-known of these stories is probably: Antony the Great and the leather-worker of Alexandria (W638); followed by a closely related and similar story: Macarius is sent to two married ladies of the same city (W637).

The list continues: Two fathers sent to the shepherd-couple Eucharistos and Maria (W035); Paphnutios sent to a flute-player, a village chieftain and a merchant (W165 W166 W167); A naked elder comes to the Theodosios II (W512); An elder sent to a seller of vegetables (W538); A brother is sent to a "mad" [?] gardener (W631); The ascetic Pyrrhus sent to the δημότης of Alexandria (W716); And a monk sent to a simple shepherd (W858)

[See also E.A. Wallis Budge, The Paradise of the Holy Fathers (London, 1907) 1.104 and the general note in Festugière, Moines d'Orient p.90, note 1. n.b.: it is usually a case of a desert- dweller (or dwellers) being sent to the city. The moral of the story is loud and clear: monks have no monopoly on holiness.]

Older however than all the tales mentioned above, and possibly the inspiration of them, is a slightly different one. It is to be found in Jerome's Life of Saint Paul of Thebes (ed. K.T. Corey in Oldfather and Corey, Studies in the Text-Tradition of Saint Jerome's Vitae Patrum, [Urbana, 1943] pp.158-172,) a sort of appendix to Athanasius' Life of Saint Antony.

The passage in question tells how, being already ninety years old, Anthony was living in the desert when "the idea came into his mind that there was no monk living in the desert more righteous than him" [haec in mentem eius cogitatio incidit nulum ultra se {perfectum} monachum in eremo consedisse, c.7.] Therefore he prayed that he might know whether this was true. That, at least, is what the text which was translated into Greek said.

The critical edition of the Latin text, however, shows -- as indicated above -- that the word perfectum is an interpolation. Hence, far from falling victim to any invidious pride, all Anthony was wanting to know was whether any monk was living any further into the desert than was he, i.e. in yet remoter zones. (It was thus that he was allegedly led to encouter Paul of Thebes.) It would appear that by the time the Greek translation was made, the change of meaning brought about by the insertion of the word perfectum had already taken root, and thus it was disseminated throughout the hellenophone world, where it gave rise to the progeny mentioned above.