History II / Christianity, the Church and Spirituality, East and West
Practice question · Match the pairs

Match each figure to what they are principally responsible for.

  • Anthony of Egypt
  • Pachomius
  • Benedict of Nursia
  • Gregory the Great
  • A moderate written rule with stability and obedience
  • Governing Rome and sending the mission to England
  • Withdrawal into the desert as a solitary
  • Organising hermits into a common life
Hints
  1. Two of these built forms of monastic life and two did something else.
  2. The move from solitary to communal life happens between the first two.
Show the answer
  • Anthony of Egypt → Withdrawal into the desert as a solitary
  • Pachomius → Organising hermits into a common life
  • Benedict of Nursia → A moderate written rule with stability and obedience
  • Gregory the Great → Governing Rome and sending the mission to England
Why

The sequence from Anthony to Benedict is a domestication. Solitary asceticism is spectacular and unrepeatable; Benedict’s rule is deliberately unspectacular, explicitly aimed at beginners, and that is why it scaled, a form of life that ordinary people can sustain is the one that ends up owning the libraries.

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