Ammonas
Ἀμμώνας
(Ἀμμώνας) or AMOUN (Ἀμοῦν), founder of one of the most celebrated monastic communities in Egypt. Obliged by his relations to marry, he persuaded his bride to perpetual continence (Sozom. Hist. Eccl. 1.14) by the authority of St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians. (Socr. Hist. Eccl. 4.23.) They lived together thus for 18 years, when at her wish, for greater perfection, they parted, and he retired to Scetis and Mt. Nitria, to the south of Lake Mareotis, where he lived 22 years, visiting his sister-wife twice in the year. (Ibid. and Pallad. Hist. Laus. 100.7; Ruffin. Vit. Patr. 100.29.) He died before St. Antony (from whom there is an epistle to him, S. Athan. Opp. vol. i. pt. 2, p. 959, ed. Bened.), i. e. before A. D. 365, for the latter asserted that he beheld the soul of Amoun borne by angels to heaven (Vit. S. Antonii à S. Athanas. § 60), and as St. Athanasius's history of St. Antony preserves the order of time, he died perhaps about A. D. 320.
Works
Rules of Asceticism
There are seventeen or nineteen Rules of Asceticism (κεφάλαια) ascribed to him; the Greek original exists in MS. (Lambecius, Biblioth. Vindol. lib. iv. cod. 156, No. 6).
Editions
They are published in the Latin version of Gerhard Vossius in the Biblioth. PP. Ascetica, vol. ii. p. 484, Paris. 1661.
Twenty-two Ascetic Institutions
Twenty-two Ascetic Institutions of the same Amoun, or one bearing the same name, exist also in MS.
Further Information
Lambec. l.c. Cod. 155, No. 2.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.