Life of Pachomius (Latin version of Dionysius Exiguus)

Anonymous Greek author; Latin translation by Dionysius ExiguusGreek original late fourth century; this Latin version early sixth century

The life of the founder of the monasteries of Tabennisi, written in Greek by an unknown admirer and put into Latin at Rome by the monk Dionysius Exiguus. It is the main narrative of his conversion, his call and the growth of his community.

Lives of Pachomius survive in Greek and in Coptic as well as in Latin. The version cited here is the one that circulated in the Latin West: a translation made at Rome in the early sixth century by the monk Dionysius Exiguus from a Greek Life, and later printed among the Lives of the Fathers. The edition’s heading describes the Greek author as unknown. He writes as one of a community that honours its founders, and says at the close that he has set down a little out of much (54).

The Life is the work of admirers, written at an uncertain distance from its subject. It gives no calendar years. It tells of visions, voices and the angel’s tablet as plain fact, and it is concerned to show Pachomius as orthodox and loyal to Athanasius. For the outline of his career, the names of his first companions and the customs of the houses, there is no earlier source.

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