Studia Patristica - Papers Presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford 2019: Hagiographica, Ascetica, Martyria (21) (Studia Patristica, 124) 9789042947764, 9789042947771, 9042947764

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STUDIA PATRISTICA VOL. CXXIV

Papers presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2019 Edited by MARKUS VINZENT Volume 21:

Hagiographica Ascetica Martyria

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2021

STUDIA PATRISTICA VOL. CXXIV

STUDIA PATRISTICA Editor: Markus VINZENT, King’s College London, UK and Max Weber Centre, University of Erfurt, Germany

Board of Directors (2019): Carol HARRISON, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, UK Mark EDWARDS, Professor of Early Christian Studies, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, UK Neil MCLYNN, University Lecturer in Later Roman History, Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford, UK Philip BOOTH, A.G. Leventis Associate Professor in Eastern Christianity, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, UK Sophie LUNN-ROCKLIFFE, Lecturer in Patristics, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, UK Morwenna LUDLOW, Professor, Theology and Religion, University of Exeter, UK Ioannis PAPADOGIANNAKIS, Senior Lecturer in Patristics, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London, UK Markus VINZENT, Professor of the History of Theology, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London, UK Josef LÖSSL, Professor of Historical Theology and Intellectual History, School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University, UK Lewis AYRES, Professor of Catholic and Historical Theology, Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, UK John BEHR, Regius Chair in Humanity, The School of Divinity, History, Philosophy & Art History, University of Aberdeen, UK Anthony DUPONT, Research Professor in Christian Antiquity, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium Patricia CINER (as president of AIEP), Professor, Universidad de San Juan-Universidad Católica de Cuyo, Argentina Clayton JEFFORD (as president of NAPS), Professor of Scripture, Seminary and School of Theology, Saint Meinrad, IN, USA

STUDIA PATRISTICA VOL. CXXIV

Papers presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2019 Edited by MARKUS VINZENT Volume 21:

Hagiographica Ascetica Martyria

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2021

© Peeters Publishers — Louvain — Belgium 2021 All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form. D/2021/0602/158 ISBN: 978-90-429-4776-4 eISBN: 978-90-429-4777-1 A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Printed in Belgium by Peeters, Leuven

Table of Contents

HAGIOGRAPHICA Maria Munkholt CHRISTENSEN Holy Women and Exegesis: Approaching Female Voices in Hagiographical Literature .............................................................................

3

Young Richard KIM Mediterranean Connectivity in the Lives of Two Saints of Cyprus ...

11

Christopher SPRECHER From Noregur to Nea Rhōmē: The Cult of Saint Olaf in Byzantium and Metropolitanism............................................................................

21

Luis SALÉS Systems Intelligence and Byzantine Domestic Violence: The Life of Matrona of Perge as a Case Study .....................................................

29

Andreas WESTERGREN Wandering Legends: A Dialogue between a Syrian Saint and the City of Antioch in the Fifth Century AD ...........................................

43

ASCETICA Andrew GUFFEY On the Existence of ‘the Encratites’ ...................................................

55

Elizabeth AGAIBY Copto-Arabic Sayings Attributed to St Antony the Great..................

67

Elisabet GÖRANSSON Studying the ‘Pelagius and Johannes’ Collection of Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Steps towards a New Edition of the Latin Reception .

75

Daniel BECERRA Wild Monks and Rational Animals: The Subversion of Human Exceptionalism in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers ...................................

89

Hellen DAYTON Slapping of a Monk, Evil Possession and ταπεινοφροσύνη: (Humility of the Mind) According to the Desert Fathers.................................... 101

VI

Table of Contents

Przemysław PIWOWARCZYK Modes of Knowing among Coptic Monks of Western Thebes.......... 111 Deborah CASEWELL The Joy of the Saints: Exploring the Role of Joy in Desert Monasticism ...................................................................................................... 125 David BRAKKE Cursing Monks: The Early Monastic Context of Two Christian Prayers for Justice from Egypt ......................................................................... 139 Andrew CAIN The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto and the Origenist Controversy ................................................................................................ 157 Iskandar BCHEIRY Swaying between Monasticism and Laity: Re-shaping the Character of Severus of Antioch in his Biography Written by Patriarch Cyriacus of Tikrit (d. 817).................................................................................. 167 Rahel SCHÄR Consultationes Zacchei christiani et Apollonii philosophi: A Literary Dialogue Arguing for Monasticism .................................................... 181 MARTYRIA Katherine E. MILCO Pity and the Family: The Inversion of Forensic Protocol in Early Christian Martyrdom Narratives ......................................................... 193 Hiroaki ADACHI ‘I Baptize Myself in the Name of Jesus Christ’: The Female Apostle Thecla and her Self-Decision before God .......................................... 203 Mauricio SAAVEDRA La Tradición Juánica en el Asia Menor y el Martirio de Policarpo .. 217

Abbreviations AA.SS AAWG.PH AB AC ACL ACO ACW AHDLMA AJAH AJP AKK AKPAW ALMA ALW AnalBoll ANCL ANF ANRW AnSt AnThA APOT AR ARW ASS AThANT Aug AugSt AW AZ BA BAC BASOR BDAG BEHE BETL BGL BHG BHL

see ASS. Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen Philologisch-historische Klasse, Göttingen. Analecta Bollandiana, Brussels. Antike und Christentum, ed. F.J. Dölger, Münster. Antiquité classique, Louvain. Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum, ed. E. Schwartz, Berlin. Ancient Christian Writers, ed. J. Quasten and J.C. Plumpe, Westminster (Md.)/London. Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge, Paris. American Journal of Ancient History, Cambridge, Mass. American Journal of Philology, Baltimore. Archiv für katholisches Kirchenrecht, Mainz. Abhandlungen der königlichen Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin. Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi (Bulletin du Cange), Paris/Brussels. Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft, Regensburg. Analecta Bollandiana, Brussels. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Edinburgh. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Buffalo/New York. Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, ed H. Temporini et al., Berlin. Anatolian Studies, London. Année théologique augustinienne, Paris. Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, ed. R.E. Charles, Oxford. Archivum Romanicum, Florence. Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, Berlin/Leipzig. Acta Sanctorum, ed. the Bollandists, Brussels. Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments, Zürich. Augustinianum, Rome. Augustinian Studies, Villanova (USA). Athanasius Werke, ed. H.-G. Opitz et al., Berlin. Archäologische Zeitung, Berlin. Bibliothèque augustinienne, Paris. Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, Madrid. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, New Haven, Conn. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edn F.W. Danker, Chicago. Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études, Paris. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, Louvain. Benediktinisches Geistesleben, St. Ottilien. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca, Brussels. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Antiquae et Mediae Aetatis, Brussels.

VIII BHO BHTh BJ BJRULM BKV BKV2 BKV3 BLE BoJ BS BSL BWAT Byz BZ BZNW CAr CBQ CChr.CM CChr.SA CChr.SG CChr.SL CH CIL CP(h) CPG CPL CQ CR CSCO

CSEL CSHB CTh CUF CW DAC

Abbreviations

Bibliotheca Hagiographica Orientalis, Brussels. Beiträge zur historischen Theologie, Tübingen. Bursians Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, Leipzig. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester. Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, ed. F.X. Reithmayr and V. Thalhofer, Kempten. Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, ed. O. Bardenhewer, Th. Schermann, and C. Weyman, Kempten/Munich. Bibliothek der Kirchenväter. Zweite Reihe, ed. O. Bardenhewer, J. Zellinger, and J. Martin, Munich. Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique, Toulouse. Bonner Jahrbücher, Bonn. Bibliotheca sacra, London. Bolletino di studi latini, Naples. Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten Testament, Leipzig/Stuttgart. Byzantion, Leuven. Byzantinische Zeitschrift, Leipzig. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, Berlin. Cahiers Archéologique, Paris. Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Washington. Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, Turnhout/Paris. Corpus Christianorum, Series Apocryphorum, Turnhout/Paris. Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca, Turnhout/Paris. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, Turnhout/Paris. Church History, Chicago. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Berlin. Classical Philology, Chicago. Clavis Patrum Graecorum, ed. M. Geerard, vols. I-VI, Turnhout. Clavis Patrum Latinorum (SE 3), ed. E. Dekkers and A. Gaar, Turnhout. Classical Quarterly, London/Oxford. The Classical Review, London/Oxford. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Louvain. Aeth = Scriptores Aethiopici Ar = Scriptores Arabici Arm = Scriptores Armeniaci Copt = Scriptores Coptici Iber = Scriptores Iberici Syr = Scriptores Syri Subs = Subsidia Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna. Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, Bonn. Collectanea Theologica, Lvov. Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l’Association Guillaume Budé, Paris. Catholic World, New York. Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, ed. J. Hastings, Edinburgh.

Abbreviations

DACL DAL DB DBS DCB DHGE Did DOP DOS DR DS DSp DTC EA ECatt ECQ EE EECh EKK EH EO EtByz ETL EWNT ExpT FC FGH FKDG FRL FS FThSt FTS FZThPh GCS GDV GLNT GNO GRBS

IX

see DAL Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, ed. F. Cabrol, H. Leclercq, Paris. Dictionnaire de la Bible, Paris. Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplément, Paris. Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines, ed. W. Smith and H. Wace, 4 vols, London. Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique, ed. A. Baudrillart, Paris. Didaskalia, Lisbon. Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Cambridge, Mass., subsequently Washington, D.C. Dumbarton Oaks Studies, Cambridge, Mass., subsequently Washington, D.C. Downside Review, Stratton on the Fosse, Bath. H.J. Denzinger and A. Schönmetzer, ed., Enchiridion Symbolorum, Barcelona/Freiburg i.B./Rome. Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, ed. M. Viller, S.J., and others, Paris. Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. A. Vacant, E. Mangenot, and E. Amann, Paris. Études augustiniennes, Paris. Enciclopedia Cattolica, Rome. Eastern Churches Quarterly, Ramsgate. Estudios eclesiasticos, Madrid. Encyclopedia of the Early Church, ed. A. Di Berardino, Cambridge. Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, Neukirchen. Enchiridion Fontium Historiae Ecclesiasticae Antiquae, ed. Ueding-Kirch, 6th ed., Barcelona. Échos d’Orient, Paris. Études Byzantines, Paris. Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, Louvain. Exegetisches Wörterbuch zum NT, ed. H.R. Balz et al., Stuttgart. The Expository Times, Edinburgh. The Fathers of the Church, New York. Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, Berlin. Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, Göttingen. Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments, Göttingen. Festschrift. Freiburger theologische Studien, Freiburg i.B. Frankfurter theologische Studien, Frankfurt a.M. Freiburger Zeitschrift für Theologie und Philosophie, Freiburg/Switzerland. Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller, Leipzig/Berlin. Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit, Stuttgart. Grande Lessico del Nuovo Testamento, Genoa. Gregorii Nysseni Opera, Leiden. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Cambridge, Mass.

X GWV HbNT HDR HJG HKG HNT HO HSCP HTR HTS HZ ICC ILCV ILS J(b)AC JBL JdI JECS JEH JJS JLH JPTh JQR JRS JSJ JSOR JTS KAV KeTh KJ(b) LCL LNPF L(O)F LSJ LThK LXX MA MAMA Mansi MBTh

Abbreviations

Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, Offenburg. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament. Tübingen. Harvard Dissertations in Religion, Missoula. Historisches Jahrbuch der Görresgesellschaft, successively Munich, Cologne and Munich/Freiburg i.B. Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, Tübingen. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, Tübingen. Handbuch der Orientalistik, Leiden. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Cambridge, Mass. Harvard Theological Review, Cambridge, Mass. Harvard Theological Studies, Cambridge, Mass. Historische Zeitschrift, Munich/Berlin. The International Critical Commentary of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, Edinburgh. Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres, ed. E. Diehl, Berlin. Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, ed. H. Dessau, Berlin. Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Münster. Journal of Biblical Literature, Philadelphia, Pa., then various places. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Berlin. Journal of Early Christian Studies, Baltimore. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, London. Journal of Jewish Studies, London. Jahrbuch für Liturgik und Hymnologie, Kassel. Jahrbücher für protestantische Theologie, Leipzig/Freiburg i.B. Jewish Quarterly Review, Philadelphia. Journal of Roman Studies, London. Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period, Leiden. Journal of the Society of Oriental Research, Chicago. Journal of Theological Studies, Oxford. Kommentar zu den apostolischen Vätern, Göttingen. Kerk en Theologie, ’s Gravenhage. Kirchliches Jahrbuch für die evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, Gütersloh. The Loeb Classical Library, London/Cambridge, Mass. A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace, Buffalo/New York. Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Oxford. H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, new (9th) edn H.S. Jones, Oxford. Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Freiburg i.B. Septuagint. Moyen-Âge, Brussels. Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, London. J.D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, Florence, 1759-1798. Reprint and continuation: Paris/Leipzig, 1901-1927. Münsterische Beiträge zur Theologie, Münster.

Abbreviations

MCom MGH ML MPG MSR MThZ Mus NA28 NGWG NH(M)S NIV NKJV NovTest NPNF NRSV NRTh NTA NT.S NTS NTTSD OBO OCA OCP OECS OLA OLP Or OrChr OrSyr PG PGL PL PLRE PLS PO PRE PS PTA PThR PTS PW QLP QuLi RAC RACh

XI

Miscelanea Comillas, Comillas/Santander. Monumenta germaniae historica. Hanover/Berlin. Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Louvain. See PG. Mélanges de science religieuse, Lille. Münchener theologische Zeitschrift, Munich. Le Muséon, Louvain. Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th edition, Stuttgart. Nachrichten der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Nag Hammadi (and Manichaean) Studies, Leiden. New International Version. New King James Version. Novum Testamentum, Leiden. See LNPF. New Revised Standard Version. Nouvelle Revue Théologique, Tournai/Louvain/Paris. Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen, Münster. Novum Testamentum Supplements, Leiden. New Testament Studies, Cambridge/Washington. New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents, Leiden/Boston. Orbis biblicus et orientalis, Freiburg, Switz., then Louvain. Orientalia Christiana Analecta, Rome. Orientalia Christiana Periodica, Rome. Oxford Early Christian Studies, Oxford. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, Louvain. Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, Louvain. Orientalia. Commentarii editi a Pontificio Instituto Biblico, Rome. Oriens Christianus, Leipzig, then Wiesbaden. L’Orient Syrien, Paris. Migne, Patrologia, series graeca. A Patristic Greek Lexicon, ed. G.L. Lampe, Oxford. Migne, Patrologia, series latina. The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, ed. A.H.M. Jones et al., Cambridge. Migne, Patrologia, series latina. Supplementum ed. A. Hamman. Patrologia Orientalis, Paris. Paulys Realenzyklopädie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft, Stuttgart. Patrologia Syriaca, Paris. Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen, Bonn. Princeton Theological Review, Princeton. Patristische Texte und Studien, Berlin. Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. G. Wissowa, Stuttgart. Questions liturgiques et paroissiales, Louvain. Questions liturgiques, Louvain. Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, Rome. Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, Stuttgart.

XII RAM RAug RBen RB(ibl) RE

Abbreviations

Revue d’ascétique et de mystique, Paris. Recherches Augustiniennes, Paris. Revue Bénédictine, Maredsous. Revue biblique, Paris. Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, founded by J.J. Herzog, 3e ed. A. Hauck, Leipzig. REA(ug) Revue des études Augustiniennes, Paris. REB Revue des études byzantines, Paris. RED Rerum ecclesiasticarum documenta, Rome. RÉL Revue des études latines, Paris. REG Revue des études grecques, Paris. RevSR Revue des sciences religieuses, Strasbourg. RevThom Revue thomiste, Toulouse. RFIC Rivista di filologia e d’istruzione classica, Turin. RGG Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Gunkel-Zscharnack, Tübingen RHE Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Louvain. RhMus Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Bonn. RHR Revue de l’histoire des religions, Paris. RHT Revue d’Histoire des Textes, Paris. RMAL Revue du Moyen-Âge Latin, Paris. ROC Revue de l’Orient chrétien, Paris. RPh Revue de philologie, Paris. RQ Römische Quartalschrift, Freiburg i.B. RQH Revue des questions historiques, Paris. RSLR Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa, Florence. RSPT, RSPh Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, Paris. RSR Recherches de science religieuse, Paris. RTAM Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, Louvain. RthL Revue théologique de Louvain, Louvain. RTM Rivista di teologia morale, Bologna. Sal Salesianum, Roma. SBA Schweizerische Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft, Basel. SBS Stuttgarter Bibelstudien, Stuttgart. ScEc Sciences ecclésiastiques, Bruges. SCh, SC Sources chrétiennes, Paris. SD Studies and Documents, ed. K. Lake and S. Lake. London/Philadelphia. SE Sacris Erudiri, Bruges. SDHI Studia et documenta historiae et iuris, Roma. SH Subsidia Hagiographica, Brussels. SHA Scriptores Historiae Augustae. SJMS Speculum. Journal of Mediaeval Studies, Cambridge, Mass. SM Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens und seiner Zweige, Munich. SO Symbolae Osloenses, Oslo. SP Studia Patristica, successively Berlin, Kalamazoo, Leuven. SPM Stromata Patristica et Mediaevalia, ed. C. Mohrmann and J. Quasten, Utrecht.

Abbreviations

SQ SQAW SSL StudMed SVigChr SVF TDNT TE ThGl ThJ ThLZ ThPh ThQ ThR ThWAT ThWNT ThZ TLG TP TRE TS TThZ TU USQR VC VetChr VT WBC WUNT WZKM YUP ZAC ZAM ZAW ZDPV ZKG ZKTh ZNW ZRG ZThK

XIII

Sammlung ausgewählter Quellenschriften zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, Tübingen. Schriften und Quellen der Alten Welt, Berlin. Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, Louvain. Studi Medievali, Turin. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, Leiden. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ed. J. von Arnim, Leipzig. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Grand Rapids, Mich. Teologia espiritual, Valencia. Theologie und Glaube, Paderborn. Theologische Jahrbücher, Leipzig. Theologische Literaturzeitung, Leipzig. Theologie und Philosophie, Freiburg i.B. Theologische Quartalschrift, Tübingen. Theologische Rundschau, Tübingen. Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament, Stuttgart. Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, Stuttgart. Theologische Zeitschrift, Basel. Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Lancaster, Pa. Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Berlin. Theological Studies, New York and various places; now Washington, DC. Trierer theologische Zeitschrift, Trier. Texte und Untersuchungen, Leipzig/Berlin. Union Seminary Quarterly Review, New York. Vigiliae Christianae, Amsterdam. Vetera Christianorum, Bari (Italy). Vetus Testamentum, Leiden. Word Biblical Commentary, Waco. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, Tübingen. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Vienna. Yale University Press, New Haven. Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum, Berlin. Zeitschrift für Aszese und Mystik, Innsbruck, then Würzburg. Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, Giessen, then Berlin. Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins, Leipzig. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, Gotha, then Stuttgart. Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, Vienna. Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche, Giessen, then Berlin. Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte, Weimar. Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, Tübingen.

HAGIOGRAPHICA

Holy Women and Exegesis: Approaching Female Voices in Hagiographical Literature Maria Munkholt CHRISTENSEN, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany

ABSTRACT Several hagiographical texts from Late Antiquity feature female saints that teach, e.g. Macrina, Melania and Syncletica. With a comparative analysis, this article explores how the women and their voices are presented, and how these women are given authority in different ways, for instance by speaking with words of the Scripture or even by speaking against certain biblical interpretations. One example is the teaching of Olympias. In the Life of Olympias from the fifth century, Scripture is the essence of her teaching. Her hagiographer lets Olympias’ voice blend completely with Paul’s when recounting Olympias’ teaching. However, it is made very explicit that Scriptures are not always read at face value, but according to a principle that further ascetic and monastic ways of life. In the hagiographical discourse, holy women are used literarily as agents to promote ascetic teachings that rethink exegesis and rhetoric.

Introduction With this article1 I wish to draw attention to the exegetical creativity that can be found in late antique hagiographical literature about holy women. In vitaliterature, holy women – like holy men – advocate new ascetic ways of life by quoting Scripture sometimes in innovative and counterintuitive ways. I shall present instances where holy women speak against certain societal norms regarding marriage and dress code by creatively using the Bible. As previous scholarship has already shown, Scripture in its entirety does not always provide an unproblematic fit to Christian ascetical norms, as they developed in late antiquity, and Christian authors occasionally had to be creative and selective in their use of biblical texts.2 Elizabeth Clark has underlined 1

This article has been written in connection with my work as part of the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre 1136 ‘Education and Religion in Cultures of the Mediterranean and Its Environment from Ancient to Medieval Times and to the Classical Islam’, at the University of Göttingen, sub-project C04 ‘Communication of Education in Late Antique Christianity: Teachers’ Roles in Parish, Family and Ascetical Community’. 2 Elizabeth A. Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton, 1999), 82: ‘If “sacred literature” could not be rejected, only interpreted, hermeneutical strategies must be devised to accommodate biblical texts to an ascetic agenda […]’.

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 3-10. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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M.M. CHRISTENSEN

the peculiarity of ascetic exegesis in her book Reading Renunciation. The ascetical way of doing exegesis is part of a particular discourse that defends a certain way of life, and here it is of course not coincidental which Biblical verses are introduced. In the ascetical discourse we can trace a selection of biblical verses that informs a new way of life. Douglas Burton-Christie notes that in this process of dealing with Scripture, a ‘new paideia of the desert’ was developed.3 Since we do not have many late antique texts which display women doing exegesis (neither as narrated figures in a text nor as authors), every instance is significant in judging how the female voice and the biblical message were connected in Late Antiquity. In the following I shall focus on three Greek vitae from the fifth century, the Life of Olympias, the Life of Syncletica and the Life of Melania. This literature is obviously heavily stylized, and my focus here is not to discern its historicity, but to understand how and why women were presented in relation to Scripture. According to these sources, the female saints contribute with productive readings of Scripture. Indisputably, the late antique Christian authors of the vitae investigated here produced new content by having female saints provide new teachings. In the following, I give examples of the exegetical strategies which we encounter in these texts, and finally I consider why women are presented as promoting such readings of Scripture. Why are women given a voice in these instances when Christian antiquity is often notoriously preoccupied with promoting male clerical voices and keeping women silent?

Olympias: ‘If my King, the Lord Jesus Christ, wanted me to…’ In the anonymous Life of Olympias, dating to the fifth century, we encounter the deaconess Olympias from Constantinople.4 Olympias is presented as an extremely wealthy, young widow with access to the imperial court. She had chosen the ascetic road ‘leading to heaven’, and she ‘followed the intent (γνώμη) of the divine Scriptures in everything and was perfected through these things’.5 Olympias is lauded throughout the vita for her life style and her generosity towards the church, its clergy and the poor; she is serving the bishops in Constantinople and has much contact with John Chrysostom.6 She founds a 3 Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert, Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (Oxford, 1993). 4 Elizabeth Clark, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Friends: Essays and Translations (Lewiston, 1982); Anne-Marie Malingrey, Jean Chrysostome, Lettres à Olympias. Vie anonyme d’Olympias, SC 13 (Paris, 1968). 5 V. Olymp. 1. 6 Peter Gemeinhardt, ‘Bishops as Religious Mentors: Spiritual Education and Pastoral Care’, in Carmen A. Cvetković and Peter Gemeinhardt (eds), Episcopal Networks in Late Antiquity. Connection and Communication Across Boundaries (Berlin, 2019), 117-48.

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monastery and is always active and steadfast. Nonetheless, she is not often quoted by her anonymous hagiographer. This only happens a few times, which of course means that these instances then have an even stronger emphasis. In chapter 17 she is teaching, and her teaching consists of a patchwork of Biblical verses. In fact, the hagiographer lets Olympias’ voice blend completely with Paul’s when recounting Olympias’ teaching. The hagiographer writes: ‘[Olympias] teaches us in Christ Jesus by the voice of St Paul (ἐκ τῆς φωνῆς τοῦ ἁγíου Παύλου), the chorus leader of the apostles’.7 Olympias thereafter lends voice to a longer passage from Galatians 6. Throughout her vita, Olympias’ hagiographer describes her as perfect and as a vessel of the Holy Spirit. Her knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures are so huge, that in her teaching – as we have just seen – she is being merged with it. She speaks not with her own voice, but teaches with the voice of Paul. This way of presenting Olympias might seem ambiguous for a modern reader in that it simultaneously underlines Olympias’ authority and hides her behind the male apostle. The procedure of diminishing women’s voices is classic in Christian texts, beginning with the Pauline prohibition for women to teach and admonition for women to remain silent (1Timothy 2:12 and 1Corinthians 14:34). With this backdrop in mind, the more peculiar passages are those where the women are speaking with authority and interpreting or commenting on Scripture. In one instance, Olympias’ reasoning is not immediately aligned with Scripture. This instance occurs near the beginning of the vita, as we are told that Olympias is widowed at a very young age. Her husband dies after only a few days of marriage. Everyone around her wants her to remarry, even the emperor, but Olympias did not want to marry and is said to have forsaken a certain Bible-verse – an apostolic rule – i.e. 1Timothy 5:14: ‘I wish young widows to marry [and] run a household’. Olympias is explicitly said not to have agreed with this, because she said instead: ‘If my King, the Lord Jesus Christ, wanted me to be joined with a man, he would not have taken away my first husband immediately’.8 Olympias’ rejection of marriage reflects a hermeneutical conflict: should her life be lived according to the apostolic rule that wish widows to marry or according to Olympias’ understanding of Jesus Christ as author of the occurrences in her life? The issue is being resolved by a strong woman’s voice, even though the voice probably is the construction of a male hagiographer. Olympias counters a direct reading of 1Timothy and effectively closes the discussing whether 1Timothy should always be understood as an ideal – surely not if a woman has decided to life an ascetic life as a virgin. However, according to her hagiographer, Olympias is aware that not everyone can live a life like hers and dispense with literal advice from Scripture, for she says – quoting 1Timothy 7 8

V. Olymp. 17. V. Olymp. 3.

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again, this time verse 9: ‘For the law was not given for the righteous man, but for the unruly, the impure and the insatiable’. Thus Olympias both dismisses and recalls 1Timothy in one passage. On the one hand, with her interpretation Olympias allows for a break with societal norms, when she dismisses marriage. On the other hand, with a scriptural verse, she softens her dismissal in acknowledging the worth of the prescription for some. Syncletica: ‘… this view is that of the enemy’ Whereas Olympias for a part of her life lived and worked in a monastic setting in Constantinople, the Life of Syncletica recounts a different life story of a holy woman.9 This vita, too, is anonymous and from the fifth century. It describes the life and teachings of the anchorite Syncletica who lived alone in a cave outside Alexandria. Here she was sought out by many people, who asked her how they were to reach salvation. Whereas Olympias’ vita contains few of her own utterances, the literary figure Syncletica gives a full lecture in her vita. Unsurprisingly, Syncletica also continuously builds on Biblical teachings and formulations. From the beginning, she tries to hide behind Scripture to avoid teaching, and thus she initially aligns well with the Pauline restrictions on the female voice. When addressing people, who have gathered around her, she tells them – in order to direct them to the Bible: ‘We have in common the Lord as teacher; from the same source we draw out the spiritual stream. From his breasts we are fed with milk, the Old and the New Testaments’.10 For a while Syncletica tries to hide behind Christ as the true teacher, but is eventually convinced that she has a privileged understanding of Scriptures and must teach the intellectually ‘young’. In Syncletica’s teaching, we find one instance – as in the Life of Olympias – where the holy woman Syncletica, the centre of attention, speaks against a reading of Scripture that supports marriage and childbearing. It occurs in a passage, where she categorizes different ways of life from higher to lesser forms – the higher life style being the anchorite life, followed by life in a monastic setting; the lesser, but still orderly form of life, is married life – lived in moderation. Syncletica criticizes a certain way of interpreting the Old Testament; she even calls it folly (ἀφρόνως). Folly is when someone says ‘that all the Old Testament supported the procreation of children. […] let it be known 9 Pseudo-Athanasius, Vita Syncleticae 8 (ed. Lamprine G. Ampelarga, The Life of Saint Syncletica. Introduction, Critical Text, Commentary, Byzantina Keimena kai Meletai 31 [Thessaloniki, 2002]). Translation by Elizabeth A. Castelli, ‘Pseudo-Athanasius: The Life and Activity of the Holy and Blessed Teacher Syncletica’, in Vincent L. Wimbush (ed.), Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity. A Sourcebook, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (Minneapolis, 1990), 265-311. 10 V. Syn. 21.

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that this view is that of the enemy’.11 In other words, Syncletica does not agree that the Old Testament furthers a life of childbearing. For the reader with knowledge of the Old Testament and its recurrent blessings of Israel’s offspring this could be a somewhat surprising statement from the holy woman. However, she does not give further explanation, does not refer to different levels of the text and its interpretation, she is herself the authority and criterion for her statement. This particular re-interpretation of the Old Testament is not unheard of in ascetic literature. Jerome, too, in his Letter to Eustochium from the late fourth century encourages his reader not to understand the Old Testament literally in regard to its blessings of childbearing. He explains this statement by pointing to the fact that times have changed since the Old Testament was written and Israel needed children. For Jerome, the meaning of the Old Testament is no longer the same as in its original context. No ascetic should think of him- or herself as barren, he states: ‘Say not, behold I am a dry tree (Isaiah 56:3), for instead of sons and daughters you have a place forever in heaven … Now he who is weak is counted strong’.12 Apparently in the inner-Christian discourse, such statements were necessary to defend and promote the childless life of ascetics. In order to promote ascetic life, we see that a literal reading of Scripture is occasionally completely dismissed in favor of the ascetic choice constructive for monastic life. Nonetheless the value of Scripture is of course not questioned, and Syncletica says: ‘There are innumerable good things such as these to contemplate from holy Scripture for profiting the soul’.13 The question is not if Holy Scripture should form the basis of one’s life, but how one contemplates the Holy Scripture. Like Olympias, also Syncletica finds that not everyone can live a perfect ascetic life, and Scripture must be used differently by different people. She says: ‘The same word is not useful to all human beings’.14 As such the Life of Syncletica sanctions different forms of Christian life. However, beside different valid interpretations of Scripture, there are other invalid interpretations, the heretical wrongful interpretations. Syncletica criticizes heretics and their Bible reading: ‘They mutilate the Scriptures, being blind … First trying to vomit forth from the gospel their own poison’.15 In the Vita Syncleticae, we thus see both a widening of appropriate readings and Christian life styles, as well as an exclusion of so-called heretical readings. The two mentioned instances in the Lives of Olympias and Syncletica, testify to a discourse, where the proper ascetic conduct was not only extrapolated from 11 12 13 14 15

V. Syn. 23. Hier., Ep. 22, CSEL 54, 143-211. V. Syn. 39. V. Syn. 43. V. Syn. 84.

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Scripture, but also read into biblical passages where different ideals were expressed. It was found necessary to counter direct and literal utterances about marriage and childbearing in order to promote ascetic ideals of chastity and renunciation.

Melania: ‘It is preferable to me not to neglect one jot of Scripture’ In the Life of Melania,16 a vita from the fifth century attributed to Gerontius, there is no interpretation against the literal understanding of Scripture similar to the occurrences in the Lives of Olympias and Syncletica. In the Life of Melania an opposite strategy is chosen. Different ascetic sayings and biblical interpretations are put into the mouth of Melania, and in a few cases, the vita is using Scripture in an overly literal way against certain practices in upper-class Constantinople. Melania is described as extremely learned and eager in relation to the Bible. Her hagiographer, Gerontius mentions these qualities of hers numerable times, for instance how she reads and copies the holy Scriptures until she knows them by heart, and how ‘she herself was so trained in Scriptural interpretation that the Bible never left her holy hands’.17 The empress Serena wished to see the ascetic Melania, because Serena had heard about Melania’s ‘great deeds of virtue and of her transformation from worldly frivolity to piety (ἐκ τοῦ κοσμικοῦ τύφου αὐτῆς μεταβολὴν περὶ τὴν θεοσέβειαν)’.18 In order not to be impolite, Melania went to see the empress in the royal court, although she otherwise scorned fame and luxury. In this encounter with the Roman power and senatorial upper class, Gerontius describes Melania as being occupied with living up to biblical prescriptions: When many people said that she ought to uncover her head during the visit, according to the custom of those Romans of senatorial rank, she affirmed with noble resolution that she would not change her garments, for it is written, ‘I have put on my clothes. How shall I take them off?’ Nor would she uncover her head, because of the apostolic saying, ‘A woman should not pray with uncovered head’. She said, ‘No, even if I am likely to lose all my goods, for it is preferable to me not to neglect one jot of Scripture, 16 The vita exists in a Greek version (Gerontius, Vita Melaniae [SC 90, Gorce]) and in a Latin version (Gerontius, Vita sanctae Melaniae Senatricis Romae, ed. Patrick Laurence, La Vie Latine de Sainte Mélanie, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Collectio minor 41 [Jerusalem, 2002]). The two versions depict the same story, but with some differences. It is assumed that both the Greek and the Latin versions are based on a now lost original, and it is hypothesized that this original version was Greek, see Elizabeth A. Clark, The Life of Melania the Younger, Studies in Women and Religion 14 (New York, 1984), 5-24. Translations are provided in Clark, The Life of Melania the Younger, 25-82 (Greek version) and Carolinne White, Lives of Roman Christian Women (London, 2010), 182-230 (Latin version). 17 Gerontius, Vita sanctae Melaniae 21. 18 Gerontius, Vita sanctae Melaniae 11.

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nor to violate my conscience before God, than to gain the whole world’. For those clothes were garments of her salvation, and all her life was considered to be prayer.19

Here the exegetical strategy is completely reversed in comparison with the previous examples. In the Life of Melania, the focus is the concrete prescription in 1Corinthians 1:5 for women to cover their heads while praying and prophesizing. Melania is almost exaggerating her literal reading. The Pauline text does not say that women must cover their head in the royal court, but Melania finds that her whole life is a prayer and wishes to signalize this in her encounter with the worldly power by covering her head. The context makes her read Scripture with a certain emphasis – or, at least, makes her hagiographer present her in this way. In the context of worldly power, Melania is sure not to change ‘one jot of Scripture’. It could seem that there is a strong cue in the formulation that she represented a ‘transformation from worldly frivolity to piety’. This transformation is reflected in her exegesis and even in her clothing. Conclusion When looking more closely at the contents of the scriptural interpretations and teaching of these holy women, we can easily conclude that Scripture is being used in a particular way in these texts, namely specifically to promote an ascetic life that supersedes normal norms. The holy women are not merely repeating Scripture at random, but present the reader with a way of interpretation that can help guide both men and woman when reading the Bible and when leading an ascetic life. Living an ascetic life means choosing a radically different life in comparison with societal standards according to which women must be wives and mothers, receivers, listeners, homemakers. These holy women are not following norms, they are setting norms. The intention of the texts is idealistic, and the authors express an awareness that a chaste, ascetic life is only manageable for some, whereas others need marriage and concrete regulations. However, the ascetic ideal is incarnated in the holy woman, and it is ideally to be followed to the degree possible. Every person listening to or reading any of these vitae are challenged to follow these examples of transformation and thus to listen to the exegetical remarks coming from the holy women. As such every reader must take a cue from these holy women who are presented as skillfully interpreting Scripture in different situations and contexts. This means that the readers of these texts are learning a particular way of life and a particular way of interpreting Scripture: an ascetic interpretation. Gerontius, Vita sanctae Melaniae 11. The quotation by Melania is: Οὐδὲ εἰ μέλλω ἄπαντά μου ἀπολλύειν τὰ πράγματα· συμφέρει γάρ μοι, φησίν, μίαν κεραίαν μὴ παρελθεῖν τῆς γραφῆς καὶ καταπατῆσαί μου τὴν κατὰ Θεὸν συνείδησιν ἢ κερδῆσαι ὅλον τὸν κόσμον. 19

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The holy women have authority to give guidance, because – as the texts in their entirety show – they have already succeeded in living an ascetic life, even though they are women and in their cultural context thus belong to the weaker sex. As such holy women represent humans’ utmost possibilities of transformation. They are the weak becoming strong; they are women said to behave like men or even angels. They have, as empress Serena thought of Melania, successfully transformed from the frivolous and worldly to the pious. This transformation enables them to interpret Scripture. In summary, these instances of holy women quoting Scripture tell us both something about the existence of a certain exegetical flexibility and creativity in ascetic milieus of late antiquity, and something about the role of woman as literary agents illustrating new and surprising possibilities for a Christian life.

Mediterranean Connectivity in the Lives of Two Saints of Cyprus Young Richard KIM, Chicago, IL, USA

ABSTRACT The fourth-century world imagined in the Life of Saint Epiphanius is one in which the free movement of people, goods, and ideas – both within and beyond imperial ‘borders’ – still very much reflected an interconnected Mediterranean, with the relatively stable structures of empire intact and perhaps even flourishing. Cyprus, always coveted and ever occupied by various regional powers, was a node of exchange, functioning as a commercial hub, to and from, in every direction. The extent to which the hagiographer(s), writing in the fifth or sixth centuries, could unfold the narrative of Epiphanius’ life in this setting offers hints of Greco-Roman continuity. In the Life of Saint John the Almsgiver, a Cypriot who became the patriarch of Alexandria in 610, we see yet another imagined world, but one which saw the increasing disruption of the interconnected Mediterranean. And yet the hagiographer, Leontius of Neapolis, could still envisage a world of long-distance exchange, with ships laden with goods and grain moving from Alexandria to other parts of the empire, even as far as Britain. Nevertheless, the pressures of imperial conflict and regional disorder witnessed a flood of refugees, first from Syria and Palestine to Egypt, and then from there to Cyprus, where John ultimately returned, having fled his bishopric. Now, in the seventh century, the island which had once been a center of exchange, has become a refuge, a borderland.

Introduction Hagiographies describe imagined worlds, fashioned by their authors to set the stage for their subjects to demonstrate holiness and miraculous power.1 While it would be easy simply to dismiss such works as lacking historical value, we ought not forget that they were written by real people, living in a real world. They offer clues about what they thought was possible. In addition to the subject saint, the other typical dramatis personae of late antique hagiography are deeply familiar to us: monks and clerics, imperial officials and local elites, family members, heretics, pagans, good Christians, bad Christians. The noble 1 For a general introduction, see Stephanos Efthymiadis, The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography, 2 vol. (London, 2011, 2014), especially I 35-94.

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 11-19. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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or ignoble behaviors of one or more of these often drive the hagiographical narrative forward, providing opportunities for the holy protagonist to exhibit godly virtues, in word and deed. At the same time, inanimate but nevertheless ‘living’ things – cities and their structures, rural landscapes, even the objects of daily life – also play a crucial part in the story of a saint’s life. This essay examines the Mediterranean world portrayed in two vitae that are intimately connected to the island of Cyprus. In the envisaged fourth-century Roman world of the vita of Epiphanius, the free movement of people, goods, and ideas – both within and beyond imperial ‘borders’ – exemplified an interconnected Mediterranean, with the relatively stable structures of empire intact.2 In this hagiography, Cyprus functions as a hub of polyvalent exchange, and the authors, writing in the fifth/sixth century, narrate the story of Epiphanius’ saintly life in a setting that reveals the infrastructure of late antique continuity. In the vita tradition of Saint John the Almsgiver, a Cypriot who became the patriarch of Alexandria in 610, we traverse through yet another imagined world, but one that saw increasing entropy in the late Roman Mediterranean. And yet Leontius of Neapolis, whose supplement to the vita of John we have intact, describes several Johannine miracles occurring in the context of long-distance exchange, with ships laden with goods and grain moving to and from Alexandria, even as far away as Britain.3 But ultimately the pressures of imperial conflict result in instability and structural collapse, which in turn generated a flood of refugees. John himself is ultimately forced to take flight, back home to Cyprus, which in the seventh century, had become a safe haven and a borderland. Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean at 9251 km2. Its fortuitous geographic position, tucked into the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean, with Anatolia less than 70, the city of Antioch 110, and Alexandria 420 km away, ensured its lasting value as an important hub of maritime traffic, and the cities of Salamis and Paphos in particular were important harbors for ships crisscrossing eastern shipping lanes. Cyprus was an important stop on the sea routes that brought grain from Egypt to Constantinople, and for much of its history the island was also a production center and distribution point for pottery.4 In the grand scheme of the Roman world, it was a fairly unremarkable 2 For the Vita of Epiphanius, first see Claudia Rapp, The Vita of Epiphanius of Salamis: An Historical and Literary Study, 2 vol. (DPhil. diss., Worcester College, Oxford University, 1991). For further discussion, see Andrew S. Jacobs, Epiphanius of Cyprus: A Cultural Biography of Late Antiquity, Christianity in Late Antiquity 2 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 2016), 221-62. 3 On Leontius, see A.J. Festugière and Lennart Rydén (eds), Léontios de Néapolis: Vie de Syméon le Fou et Vie de Jean de Chypre, Bibliothèque Archéologique et Historique 95 (Paris, 1974); Vincent Déroche, Études sur Léontios de Néapolis, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Byzantina Upsaliensia 3 (Uppsala, 1995); and Derek Krueger, Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius’s Life and the Late Antique City, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 25 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1996). 4 Charalambos Bakirtzis, ‘The Role of Cyprus in the Grain Supply of Constantinople in the Early Christian Period’, in Vassos Karageorghis and Demetrios Michaelides (eds), Proceedings

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place, and even in the high empire, Cyprus was a minor provincial assignment, an early step in the career of an aspiring Roman politician or an easy placement for a senator of middling talent. T.B. Mitford once described Cyprus in the period of Roman rule as one of ‘tranquil obscurity’.5 Still, Cyprus was no less than the mythological birthplace of Aphrodite with a flourishing cult, a testament to the island’s ancient allure, and it was a desirable locale, rich with valuable materials like its namesake copper, as well as timber, gypsum, and good soil yielding a variety of agricultural products.6 Inhabited since at least the Paleolithic, Cyprus has been possessed by many hands including those of the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Persians, Egyptians, Macedonians, and Romans. In more recent times the island has been ruled by the Lusignans, Venetians, Ottomans, and British, until its independence in 1960. Unfortunately, following the invasion of 1974, the island remains divided, with about one third occupied by the Turkish Army. The Life and Life of Epiphanius Epiphanius was the leader of the church in Cyprus from 367 until his death in 403.7 He is, of course, well known as the author of the Panarion, a massive heresiology that describes the origins, beliefs, practices, and corresponding refutations of eighty heresies. As a renowned heresy-hunter and hardliner, he spent the last years of his life battling against what he thought was the most dangerous heresy of all, Origenism. We can reconstruct much of what we know about his life from his own writings, with additional information provided by Basil, Jerome, Palladius, and the fifth-century ecclesiastical historians. He was born around 315 in a small village named Besandoukē in the environs of Eleutheropolis in Palestine. At a young age, he traveled in Egypt, where he lived and learned in a monastic setting. Sometime after 335, he returned to his native land and established there a monastery, over which he served as abbot for at least two decades. During this time, he forged for himself a reputation as a defender of pro-Nicene Christianity and as a monastic exemplar, such that in of the International Symposium Cyprus and the Sea (Nicosia, 1995), 247-53; Mark L. Lawall and John Lund (eds), The Transport Amphorae and Trade of Cyprus (Aarhus, 2013). 5 Terence B. Mitford, ‘Roman Cyprus’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 7.2 (1980), 1285-384, 1295. 6 See for example, Strabo 14.6.5; Expositio totius mundi et gentium 63; Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae 14.8.14. See Bernard A. Knapp, The Archaeology of Cyprus: From Earliest Prehistory through the Bronze Age (Cambridge, 2013), 1-19. On the cult of Aphrodite, see Jacqueline Karageorghis, Kypris: The Aphrodite of Cyprus, Ancient Sources and Archaeological Evidence (Nicosia, 2005). 7 Two recent studies on Epiphanius: Young Richard Kim, Epiphanius of Cyprus: Imagining an Orthodox Word (Ann Arbor, 2015) and A. Jacobs, Epiphanius of Cyprus (2016).

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367 he was invited by the bishops of Cyprus to become their leader. From this point, we are told that Epiphanius administered the island well, purging it of remaining heretics and attracting many who desired to live the monastic life.8 While the end of his life was marked by controversy, especially in light of his clash with John Chrysostom, admiration for his asceticism and defense of orthodoxy remained strong, and he was revered in the Byzantine church after a period of what we might call spiritual rehabilitation.9 Even today he is celebrated on 2 May in western and eastern Christian traditions. One of the most important steps in the process of reputational burnishing was the composition of the Life of Epiphanius, a composite work, attributed to John and Polybios, two of Epiphanius’ disciples.10 The constituent parts were written sometime in the fifth and/or sixth century. The Life is perhaps most famous for introducing the tradition that Epiphanius was born a Jew, and the early part of the narrative focuses on his conversion.11 Once a Christian, Epiphanius dedicated himself to a monastic lifestyle, first under the tutelage of Hilarion, but then in solitude, during which time he performed a series of miracles, thus establishing his saintly bona fides. The Life reproduces the usual hagiographic tropes, but there are also elements echoing the ancient novel.12 Epiphanius’ travel adventures took him first to the Persian empire, where he miraculously healed the daughter of the Persian king. His bold refusal to indulge in the luxuries of the royal court impressed the king so much that he invited Epiphanius to remain and serve as his royal advisor. The saint declined the offer and furthermore exhorted the king not to engage in hostilities against the Romans. Epiphanius sternly exhorts the king: ‘Do not rise up against the Romans, for if you are an enemy to the Romans, you will be an enemy to the one who was crucified’.13 While this narrative is certainly apocryphal, that the hagiographers could imagine Epiphanius travelling freely to the Persian empire, let alone interacting with the king and exhorting him to respect Roman sovereignty, speaks to a cultural and political setting in which these empires maintained an interconnectedness, as does the notion that he could move eastward and back across a permeable ‘border’ without much difficulty. The narrative continues with more miracles, conversion stories, travels to and an extended stay in Egypt, acts of charity, and refutations of pagans and heretics. Next, we read how his monastic mentor Hilarion left Palestine for Cyprus, and sometime thereafter Epiphanius decided to visit him there. He discovered 8

Jerome, Epistulae 108.7; Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 6.3.2-4. See Young Richard Kim, ‘An Iconic Odd Couple: The Hagiographic Rehabilitation of Epiphanius and John Chrysostom’, Church History 87 (2018), 981-1002. 10 Again, see C. Rapp, The Vita of Epiphanius (1991), for a full discussion of the text and its tradition. 11 Vita Epiphanii 1-11. 12 For example, his abduction by Saracens, v. Epiph. 15-7. 13 The Persian story arc is found in v. Epiph. 18-29. 9

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that Hilarion was dwelling in a cave in the environs of Paphos; and sailing from Caesarea with his disciples John and Polybius, Epiphanius arrived in Cyprus and stayed with Hilarion for two months. When Epiphanius finally decided to leave, we are told that he decided to travel first for Askalon and then Gaza. Hilarion, however, encouraged Epiphanius to ‘make way for Salamis, child, and you will find a place to settle there’.14 Epiphanius resisted. At the harbor of Paphos, Epiphanius and his disciples found two ships, one bound for Askalon and another to Salamis. Taking the former, they encountered a terrible storm and struggled at sea for three days. Only on the fourth day did the waves drive the ship to Salamis. After the vessel received repairs over the next three days, Epiphanius immediately expressed his desire to leave. However, providentially, the bishops of the island were gathered in Salamis to decide upon the successor to the see there and thus leadership of the Christian community on the island. Among those gathered was a venerable confessor bishop named Pappos. Before Epiphanius was to depart for Palestine, he went to the market in Salamis where he was spotted by Pappos and his associates, who invited him to pray with them in the church. Epiphanius demurred that as a monk he was unqualified to lead prayers at church, at which point Pappos ordained Epiphanius against his will as deacon, presbyter, then bishop. Pappos explained that God had revealed to him that he would find the next bishop of Salamis in the marketplace.15 The hagiographical elements from this story are not unfamiliar, but we can also think about them in more economic, imperial, and geographic terms, how the writers imagined that Epiphanius traveled freely from his Palestinian homeland to the Persian empire, and back, and then to Egypt. Furthermore, they conceived that he could easily choose to follow his master Hilarion to Cyprus, departing from the well-known harbor at Caesarea, and that at Paphos he had the choice between ships bound for Salamis and for Askalon. In Salamis, while his ship was being repaired, he was wandering in the marketplace, where his destiny was realized. We know that the historical Epiphanius traveled widely, including to Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, and Constantinople, surely among other locales, and the primary purpose for each of these journeys was to defend orthodoxy and orthodox Christians and to confront heresy.16 The hagiographical Epiphanius mirrors these journeys, with the addition, of course, of an excursion to the Persian empire, but the reasons for these travels are different. For example, the Life includes an extended story about how Epiphanius traveled to Rome to heal the ailing sister of the emperors Honorius and Arcadius, and spent over a year there, instructing and even baptizing the emperors

14 15 16

V. Epiph. 56. V. Epiph. 57-62. For his travels, see Y. Kim, Epiphanius of Cyprus (2015), 159-72, 204-36.

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and performing miracles.17 In a similar way, he traveled to Constantinople for the emperor Theodosius, who was suffering in pain because of his feet, and the miraculous healing became yet another occasion for Epiphanius to exhort the emperor to rule with mercy.18 Thus in this sixth-century account of a fourthcentury saint’s life, we find Epiphanius moving about in an interconnected late antique Mediterranean world. While the motivations for such travels may have differed between the historical and hagiographical Epiphanius, the movements themselves point to the same possibilities. John the Almsgiver The story of John the Almsgiver takes us to the seventh century.19 Our hagiographer was Leontius of Neapolis, modern-day Limassol, located on the southern coast of Cyprus. While he was not the first to write on the life of John (this distinction belongs to the collective efforts of John Moschus and Sophronius, whose Life only survives in a summarized form), Leontius’ supplement is the fullest we have intact, which he composed sometime after 641.20 His subject, John the Almsgiver, was originally from the city of Amathous, also on the south shore of Cyprus, and born to a noble family. We are told that John was raised as a Christian, received an excellent education, married, and had children, all of whom tragically died early on. During the reign of the emperor Heraclius, he was chosen to become Patriarch of Alexandria, a position he held from 610-619.21 He was firmly pro-Chalcedonian, and he forged a reputation for generosity, charity, and care for the poor. In Leontius’ account, the Alexandrian setting of the story provided a backdrop full of commercial and cultural exchange, local and long-distance. 22 Because John’s holy reputation and virtue were so rooted in his boundless charity, economic concerns remain a central theme, and in fact they often function as a source of conflict between John and others in his community. 17

V. Epiph. 83-92. V. Epiph. 99-103. The vita (113-23) also includes a version of what would have been Epiphanius’ second visit to Constantinople, the confrontation with John Chrysostom, commissioned by Theophilus of Alexandria. See Y. Kim, ‘An Iconic Odd Couple’ (2018), 991-4. 19 See Claudia Rapp, ‘Cypriot Hagiography in the Seventh Century: Patrons and Purpose’, in Theodoros Giagkou and Chrysostomos Nasses (eds), ΚΥΠΡΙΑΚΗ ΑΓΙΟΛΟΓΙΑ. ΠΡΑΚΤΙΚΑ Α’ ΔΙΕΘΝΟΥΣ ΣΥΝΕΔΡΙΟΥ. Παραλίμνι, 9-12 Φεβρουαρίου 2012 (Agia Napa, Paralimni, 2015), 397-411. 20 On John and Sophronius, see Henry Chadwick, ‘John Moschus and His Friend Sophronius the Sophist’, Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 25 (1974), 41-74. 21 Claudia Rapp, ‘All in the Family: John the Almsgiver, Nicetas and Heraclius’, Νέα Ῥώμη 1 (2004), 121-34. 22 Translations are my own, using the edition and numbering of A.J. Festugière and L. Rydén, Léontios de Néapolis (1974). 18

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He clashed on a number of occasions with, Nicetas, the prefect of Egypt, and in one instance, the official was dismayed that John was giving so much money to the needy and instead insisted that the Patriarch redirect the funds to the imperial treasury.23 John pointed out to Nicetas the chest under his bed where the money was stored, and the latter had it hauled away. Meanwhile, a shipment arrived from Africa full of jars with labels marked ‘first-quality honey’, ‘second-quality honey’, and ‘unsmoked honey’. Nicetas, knowing the generosity of John, requested some honey for his home, and John sent a single pot of the first-quality honey and a tablet with some choice words. Perturbed that he was sent only one jar, his servants found that it was miraculously full of money. Nicetas, recalling some of the words John had written, ‘a corrupt man cannot constrain God’, was convicted for his avarice and humbled by this divine intervention. He returned all of the money he had taken and added more from his personal wealth. The Mediterranean interconnectedness examined earlier in the Life of Epiphanius persists in the Life of John. In one story arc, we read about a captain of a ship who had hit hard times.24 He went to John asking for mercy, whereupon John gave him five pounds gold. With the funds, the captain secured cargo to haul but upon departure was immediately shipwrecked, although the ship itself was not lost. The captain again entreated John, who rebuked the captain for mixing his own ill-gotten funds with those that the Patriarch had given. Still, John provided him an additional ten pounds of gold, with which the captain purchased more cargo and set sail, only to lose the ship after a day at sea. In desperate straits, the captain decided to hang himself but was saved only through the miraculous intervention of John, who rebuked the captain once again, this time because the latter had acquired his ship by some unjust means. But surprisingly, John ordered that ‘one ship be given to him, laden with twenty thousand [modii] of grain’.25 The captain reported how he and his crew struggled for twenty days and nights, completely lost and disoriented on the sea. It was only by the miraculous guidance of John, whose apparition stood by the helmsman and affirmed the ship was sailing in the right direction, that they finally arrived in Britain, which was suffering from a terrible famine, to deliver their cargo. The grateful inhabitants offered ‘for each modius a solidus or a return-freight of tin’ to the ship’s captain, who happily brought half stores of each back to Alexandria.26 It turned out, however, that the tin had miraculously turned into pure silver, as the incredulous captain compared this miracle to that at Cana. In the world envisioned by Leontius, we still find the possibility that grain ships could travel from Alexandria to Britain and back again. 23 24 25 26

Leontius of Neapolis, vita Joannis Eleemosynarii 10, but see also 12-3. Leont. N., v. Jo. Eleem. 8. Leont. N., v. Jo. Eleem. 8.31-2. Leont. N., v. Jo. Eleem. 8.45-6.

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In another story, Leontius wrote how God had decided to take everything away from John, as once had happened to Job.27 God accomplished this by bringing a violent storm on the Adriatic Sea, where all thirteen of the Church’s ships were hauling their massive cargoes back to Alexandria. To survive, the ships’ crews dumped everything on board, including garments, silver, and other precious goods and returned to Egypt with nothing. News reached John, who blamed only himself, saying: ‘But since I was high-minded with regard to what is God’s and was thinking that I was doing great things, distributing the things of men, this has happened to me. Thus, God, wishing to chasten me, allowed this’.28 Redistribution and commercial exchange, so it appears, were subject to divine chastisement. In due time, of course, as we would expect in a hagiography, God doubled what John had lost. Still, we see here in this imagined world the movement of ships and goods across long distances in an interconnected web of distribution, exchange, and in this case, loss. Leontius’ narrative also underscored just how serious and unsettling the Persian invasions in the Near East were; and rather than leaving the results only for the end of the narrative, Leontius peppered throughout the Life mentions of the Persian threat, each of which served as a set up to John’s virtuous generosity.29 The Persian invasion of Syria and Palestine resulted in waves of refugees coming to Egypt, and Leontius described their arrival in Alexandria to the Patriarch as if they were coming to a ‘wave-less harbor’.30 We read how John, ‘at once was giving orders that the wounded and the sick be given rest in the hostels and hospitals, which he had established, and that they should be taken care of and treated medically, free of charge, and then that each should leave when they individually chose’.31 The crisis of empire caused by the Persians became the opportunity for John to demonstrate his virtuous charity. In another anecdote, Leontius tells us that the churches in Jerusalem had been ransacked by the Persians, and in response John sent thousands of pounds of money and supplies to support the patriarch of Jerusalem.32 Finally, near the end of Leontius’ hagiography, the fall of Alexandria at the hands of the Persians led John to recall the words of Christ: ‘When they drive you out of this city, flee into the next’ (Matthew 10:23), and so he had no choice but to escape to Cyprus, where he spent the rest of his days doing God’s work and receiving refugees.33

27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Leont. N., v. Jo. Eleem. 28. Leont. N., v. Jo. Eleem. 28.26-30. For example, Leont. N., v. Jo. Eleem. 6, 11, 18, 24, 52. Leont. N., v. Jo. Eleem. 6.4-5. Leont. N., v. Jo. Eleem. 6.9-14. Leont. N., v. Jo. Eleem. 18. Leont. N., v. Jo. Eleem. 52.

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Conclusion Hagiography is at its heart a literary, rhetorical, theological, and pedagogical genre, not historical. Of course, as scholars what we can do with hagiography and how much we can find of the historical within remains an open debate; but nevertheless, its authors were writing in a particular time and place and drew on familiar cultural, socio-political, and economic idioms. By examining these in the backdrop of the hagiographical narrative, this essay has attempted to tease out glimpses of the late antique Roman empire at its chronological bookends. The lives of two saints with deep ties to Cyprus reveal how the island was part of a larger network of exchange, which saw the free movement of people, goods, and ideas. In the Life of Epiphanius, we found our eponymous saint moving about easily in the interconnected Mediterranean world and freely across the ‘border’ between the Romans and the Persians. But in the Life of John the Almsgiver, while we can still discern the structures of empire intact, we also find that they are slowly but surely falling apart. Cyprus, which was once a hub of this connectivity, had by the seventh century become a haven, a refuge, a borderland.

From Noregur to Nea Rhōmē: The Cult of Saint Olaf in Byzantium and Metropolitanism Christopher SPRECHER, Universität Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

ABSTRACT This article will briefly examine the contradictory impulses of inclusion and exclusion within a metropolitan setting by means of the example of the cult of St Olaf as well as the ceremonial surrounding the Varangian Guard and other Germanic warriors in Constantinople in the late eleventh century. The spread of this cult from the fringes of Norway to the courts of Byzantium is a remarkable instance of intercultural and metropolitan networks functioning to funnel information, worship, and ecclesiastical legitimacy to the heart of the Byzantine Empire. Yet the evidence we have in Old Norse, Latin, and Greek texts in terms of cult and ceremonial – as well as what does not exist – points to clear limits in Byzantium for the incorporation and adoption of non-Hellenic elements into court and culture.

A defining feature of metropolitan centres, whether pre-modern or modern, is the ability to draw and attract to such regional or national hubs elements from far beyond the cultural, religious, and ethnic boundaries of the dominant culture.1 By virtue of this centripetal force exerted by metropolises, the exotic can become the everyday, and in time, even the established new native norm. Yet the existence of foreign elements in metropolitan centres, and precisely the foreignness or exotic nature of the former, can be preserved despite an abiding presence for various political, religious, or social reasons. This paper will briefly examine one such incident of non-native cultural elements being incorporated into, and demarcated from, the dominant cultural sphere of a medieval metropolis: namely, the importation of the cult of Saint Olaf of Norway to Constantinople, and the ways in which Nordic/Germanic cultural elements were highlighted and consequently othered in the predominant Byzantine culture of the imperial capital.

1 Definitions of the term ‘metropolis’, as well as remarks on such cities’ ability to draw talent, ideas, and migration to themselves, can be found in Jörg Oberste (ed.), Metropolität in der Vormoderne. Konstruktionen urbaner Zentralität im Wandel, Forum Mittelalter Studien 7 (Regensburg, 2012), 76.

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According to the extant hagiographical and skaldic sources,2 Óláfr II Haraldsson, the king of Norway, fell at the Battle of Stiklarstaðir (Norwegian: Stiklestad) on 29 July 1030, and the body of the ruler was carried away and buried at Nidaros (present-day Trondheim). The death of Olaf coincided with the initial attempts at Christianising western Scandinavia,3 and miracles were soon reported to have occurred at his shrine, leading to a rapid propagation of the cult of the saintly ruler, with the Anglo-Saxon Bishop Grimcetel (Grimkell or Grimkjell in the Old Norse sources) proclaiming the fallen king to be a saint the next year.4 The cult of Saint Olaf spread quickly and developed over the next two centuries throughout the Germanic lands of Northern Europe. Old Norse skaldic poetry, such as the Glælognskviða by Þórarinn loftunga, extolled the miracles of Olaf already in the early years after his death in the 1030s.5 An early liturgical service possibly dating from before 1050 survives in the so-called Leofric Collectar, named after the mid-eleventh century bishop of Exeter.6 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that a church dedicated to Saint Olaf had been built in York and that its founder, Earl Syhward of Northumbria, was buried there in 1055,7 2 One such full account is in the Old Norse collection of historical texts called the Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson. A complete translation in English is now available in Alison Finlay and Anthony Faulkes (trans.), Snorri Sturluson. Heimskringla. Vols. 1–3 (London, 2014-2016). A survey of Saint Olaf’s life, as taken from these sources, and a relevant bibliography precede the translation of the Óláfs saga heilags, which forms the bulk of the series’ second volume. 3 Recent scholarly work has begun to reappraise many facets of the Christianisation of Scandinavia in terms of timing, duration, and impetus on a local rather than pan-ethnic level. Helpful here is Anders Winroth, The Conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, Merchants, and Missionaries in the Remaking of Northern Europe (New Haven, CT, 2014). Additional work on the cult of Olaf, those of other Scandinavian saints, and the process of Christianisation in Northern Europe can also be read in many of the chapters in the volume edited by Haki Antonsson and Ildar H. Garipzanov, Saints and Their Lives on the Periphery: Veneration of Saints in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (c. 1000–1200) (Turnhout, 2010). 4 Heimskringla 2:270. 5 Several stanzas of this poem that speak of Olaf are included in ibid., 271-3. 6 A date range of 1046-72 is posited, based on codicological and palaeographical analysis, by Inge B. Milfull, The Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church. A Study and Edition of the ‘Durham Hymnal’ (Cambridge, UK, 1996), 48. Also known as Harley MS 2961 and nowadays in the holdings of the British Library, the Leofric Collectar contains the liturgical office for Saint Olaf on folios 123r-126v, visible online at: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_ MS_2961. The peculiarity of this office in light of medieval Western Christian liturgy more generally speaking is highlighted by Gunilla Iversen, ‘Transforming a Viking into a Saint: The Divine Office of St. Olav’, in Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer (eds), The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography (Oxford, 2000), 401-29 (Modern English translations of many of the office hymns are also provided in this work). On the connections between Olaf and Exeter via Bishop Leofric, see Richard W. Pfaff, The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History (Cambridge, UK, 2009), 129-35. 7 J.A. Giles (ed.), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Edited, from the Translation in Monumenta Historica Britannica and Other Versions (London, 1914), 134. The entry for the year 1055 from MS Cotton Tiberius B iv (so-called Manuscript D of the extant versions of the Chronicle), held at the British Library, reads: On þisan gere forðferde Syhward eorl on Eoferwic, 7 he ligeð æt

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while on the Continent, the chronicler Adam of Bremen notes in his account of the deeds of the bishops of Hamburg (ca. 1070) that pilgrimage routes were already established and in use from the Saxon lands to Olaf’s shrine on the West Norwegian coast.8 Given the then geographical and cultural distance of the shores of Norway on the North Sea from the harbours of New Rome on the Bosporus in the eleventh century, one would expect the veneration of such a distant saint to arrive in Constantinople decades after the king’s decease, if not later or, indeed, at all. Yet evidence exists showing how the magnetism of Mikligarðr (‘the great rampart’, as the Norse called Constantinople) was able to swiftly draw elements of the Olaf cult to the heart of the Byzantine Empire. Pre-dating the reign of Óláfr II Haraldsson, the Varangian Guard9 consisted of fierce warriors recruited from the Germanic peoples of Western Europe. Norsemen, Anglo-Saxons, and tribesmen from the areas of present-day Germany and the Netherlands served in this élite cohort which acted as a special tactical unit in times of battle and otherwise as the personal bodyguard of the emperor.10 The Varangian Guard was an integral and keenly visible part of court life in Constantinople, and the warriors were also integrated into the religious life of the imperial palace, having their own chapel dedicated to the Most-Holy Lady of the Varangians (Panagia Varangiotissa11), which housed the famous icon of the Theotokos Nikopoia (‘maker of victory’) when war was not being waged.12 Galmanho on þam mynstre þe he sylf let timbrian 7 halgian on Godes 7 Olafes naman (‘In this year died Syhward the earl at York, and he lies at Galmanho, in the minster which he himself caused to be built and consecrated in God’s and Olave’s name’). A transcription of the Old English text of this and the other extant manuscripts can be found online at: http://asc.jebbo.co.uk/; the manuscript itself can be viewed digitally at: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx? ref=Cotton_MS_Tiberius_B_IV. 8 Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum IV.32: Metropolis civitas Nortmannorum est Trondemnis, quae nunc decorata ecclesiis, magna populorum frequentia celebratur. In qua iacet corpus beatissimi Olaph regis et martyris. Ad cuius tumbam usque in hodiernum diem maxima Dominus operatur sanitatum miracula, ita ut a longinquis illic regionibus confluant hii qui se meritis sancti non desperant iuvari. Est vero iter eiusmodi, ut ab Alaburg vel Wendila Danorum ingredientibus navim per diem mare transeatur ad Wig, civitatem Nortmannorum; inde vela torquentur in laevam, circa littora Norvegiae; quinta die pervenitur ad ipsam civitatem quae Trondempnem dicitur. Potest autem iri et alia via, quae ducit a Sconia Danorum terrestri itinere usque ad Trondempnem, sed haec tardior in montanis, et quoniam plena est periculo, declinatur a viatoribus. Edition in Bernhard Schmeidler (ed.), Magistri Adam Bremensis. Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, editio tertia / Adam von Bremen. Hamburgische Kirchengeschichte, dritte Auflage, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum 2 (Hannover, 1917). 9 Full treatment of this élite cohort and its history in Constantinople is provided by Sigfús Blöndal (with Benedikt S. Benedikz), The Varangians of Byzantium (Cambridge, UK, 1978). 10 Outlined in ibid. 178-80. 11 Ibid. 186. 12 This famous icon was looted from Constantinople in the course of the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) and brought to Venice, where it has been kept and revered ever since in a side chapel at the head of the left side aisle in Saint Mark’s Basilica. For more information on the icon and

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A mere two years after Olaf’s death, however, Haraldr Sigurðarson, Olaf’s half-brother (who bore the sobriquet harðráði [‘of stern counsel, resolute, severe’]), travelled to Constantinople and joined the ranks of the Varangian Guard, as related by the Old Norse Heimskringla and Flateyjarbók chronicles.13 While in the service of Emperor Michael IV the Paphlagonian, Haraldr had a church built and dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saint Olaf following the occurrence of a miracle attributed to the Norwegian sovereign,14 which in turn is said to have become the primary chapel of worship for the Scandinavian warriors. The importation of the cult of Olaf to Constantinople was also accompanied by the arrival of material objects associated with the saint. A lengthy Norse poem using the dróttkvætt or ‘lordly’ stanza form and incorporating typical kenning metaphors (as a type of skaldic poetry termed drápa), composed by the Icelandic priest and poet Einarr Skúlason in the first half of the twelfth century and entitled Geisli or ‘Ray of Light’, notes that Hneitir, the sword of Saint Olaf, was kept as a relic and hung above the altar in the newly built church: Yfirskjöldungr lét jöfra / oddhríðar þar síðan / garðs of golli vörðu / grand altári standa (‘The Lord-of-Kings [sc. the Emperor] let the Maker-ofDanger-in-the-Storm-of-Points [sc. the sword] stand above the altar’).15 Beyond this, other evidence shows that this cult and chapel were in no wise rejected or dismissed by the local Byzantine populace or patrician élite as being inappropriate. While the stories and accounts of churches become muddled, with some sources claiming the new church built was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saint Olaf, and Greek sources simply making mention of the dedication to the Virgin Varangiotissa,16 the endurance of a place of worship and cultic practice associated with Scandinavia is attested into the second half of the fourteenth its post-Crusade history, see the article by Henry Maguire, ‘The Aniketos Icon and the Display of Relics in the Decoration of San Marco’, in Henry Maguire and Robert S. Nelson (eds), San Marco, Byzantium, and the Myths of Venice, Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposia and Colloquia (Washington, DC, 2010), 91-112. 13 A full treatment of this figure, the sources referring to him, and his colourful sojourn in the Byzantine capital is provided by Blöndal in the chapter entitled ‘Haraldr Sigurðarson and his period as a Varangian in Constantinople, 1034–1043’, in S. Blöndal, The Varangians of Byzantium (1978), 54-102. 14 Noted in chapter 14 of the Old Norse text Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar in Heimskringla 3:51. 15 Taken from stanza no. 50 of the poem and cited in S. Blöndal, The Varangians of Byzantium (1978), 186. For background on Einarr Skúlason as well as a critical edition of the entirety of the Geisli text, see Martin Chase (ed.), Einarr Skúlason’s Geisli: A Critical Edition (Toronto, 2005). 16 The paucity of remaining material evidence, however, has led some scholars to debate the veracity of this event. On this, see Raymond Janin, La géographie ecclésiastique de l’Empire byzantin. Première partie. Le siège de Constantinople et le patriarcat œcuménique. Tome III: Les églises et monastères, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1969), in which no mention is made of Scandinavian churches, as noted by Andrea van Arkel-de Leeuw and Krijnie N. Ciggaar in their article, ‘St. Thorlac’s in Constantinople, built by a Flemish emperor’, Byzantion 49 (1979), 428-46, 428. Ciggaar examines this point again later in her book, Western Travellers to Constantinople: The West and Byzantium, 962–1204, The Medieval Mediterranean 10 (Leiden, 1996), 126.

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century. MS Anastaseōs 11, a Gospel manuscript dating to the thirteenth century in the holdings of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, includes a gloss noting that the donors dedicated the manuscript originally and specifically for use in the church of the Panagia Varangiotissa in Constantinople,17 and a document from the Permanent Synod of Constantinople dating to February 1361 notes that the chapel of the Varangian Guard was no longer being used as such, but was given over to the use of a community of nuns while continuing to bear the same dedication.18 The transportation of this cult and a concomitant object of cultic veneration from Western Norway to Byzantium – and the acceptance and long-term survival of these familiarly Christian yet culturally foreign figures and objects in the metropolitan and palatial religious landscape of Constantinople – permit us to see the immense power of Constantinople-as-metropolis in action, drawing to itself figures and practices from far abroad so as to incorporate them into its own urban cultural matrix and further enhance its status as a cultural epicentre. Yet while the metropolitan character of Constantinople could make itself visible and audible in the attraction and establishment of a saint’s cult from the furthest edges of the known world, this same status as metropolis could be underscored by stressing the difference and foreignness of non-native elements in the midst of the city so as to emphasise the essential character of the Byzantine capital. One such way in way in which Nordic/Germanic elements were stressed in terms of difference can be seen in some of the instructions in the Book of Ceremonies commissioned by Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennētos around 960 AD. In book I, chapter 83, we find the description of members of the court (ostensibly Germanic warriors) who perform what is called a ‘Gothic’ dance replete with masks in the imperial triclinium: ‘On the ninth day of the twelve days [sc. of Christmas], once the emperor has sat at table, the vintage wine is brought out, and in the two entrances of the great Triclinium of the Nineteen Couches stand those who are about to perform the Gothic dance (παῖξαι τὸ Γοτθικόν)’. This dance is also marked by songs in a kind of nonsensical language other than Greek (it appears to be a mix of Latinate and Germanic elements), and this audible signal, combined with the visual stimulus of non-native Greek dancing tropes and masks, would serve to highlight in the midst of the palace the otherness of the trusted imperial bodyguard. Here, what is incorporated is also thus excluded from the true, Roman/Greek/Byzantine sphere of Constantinople. Another instance of this simultaneous presence/exclusion of Germanic (i.e., foreign) elements is found in the ceremonial instructions for the imperial 17 The bibliographical information collected by Dumbarton Oaks on this manuscript notes the gloss as being on folio 252r; a microfilm copy of the manuscript is in their holdings: https://www. doaks.org/resources/mmdb/manuscripts/1357. 18 S. Blöndal, The Varangians of Byzantium (1978), 186.

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banquet on Christmas Day following the celebration of the Divine Liturgy.19 Before the dinner, the various ranks of imperial servants and delegations of foreigners in the capital – including the Varangians and other Germanic peoples, such as Anglo-Saxon warriors – wished the emperor many years (the verb used is πολυχρονίζω).20 What is of note here, however, is the language used: ‘The great hetairiarchēs or the primicerius aulae says to [those present]: “Your ruler and emperor ordains ‘many years’ (εἰς πολλὰ ἔτη)”.’ A series of palatial officials comes before the emperor, wishing him many years, and departs forthwith; then comes the leader of the Genoese in Galata (ὁ δέ γε ποτεστάτος τῶν ἐν Γαλατᾷ Γενουϊτῶν) with his entourage, wishing the emperor many years in Latin (ἐλθόντες δὲ καὶ οὗτοι πολυχρονίζουσι Λατινικῶς). The delegation of the Pisans then comes and are commanded ‘through an interpreter’ (διὰ ἑρμηνέως) to do the same, implying that their good wishes are also expressed in their own vernacular. Finally, the Germanic peoples come forward, and are marked out by both language and practice: ‘Then the Varangians also come and wish many years in their native tongue, namely, in English [i.e., AngloSaxon or Norse], and conclude by loudly beating their shields’ (Ἔπειτα ἔρχονται καὶ πολυχρονίζουσιν καὶ οἱ Βάραγγοι, κατὰ τὴν πάτριον καὶ οὗτοι γλῶσσαν αὐτῶν, ἤγουν Ἰγκλινιστί, τὰς πελέκεις αὐτῶν συγκρούοντες κτύπον ἀποτελοῦνται).21 Here, we see that foreigners at the court participated in the ritual wishing of many years to the emperor, but did so specifically in their own tongues, and not in Greek, highlighting their otherness in the heart of the empire. A final example of othering and exclusion can be seen perhaps beyond the scope of the court and capital in the lack of any discernible expansion of the cult of Saint Olaf beyond the Varangian Guard chapel. Whilst it is always a risky endeavour to draw conclusions from silence and/or a lack of sources or evidence, to my knowledge there is no record of any other chapels or churches dedicated solely or jointly to Saint Olaf besides the dedication in the Imperial Palace. In fact, the only other evidence we have of this cult in the East, itself pointing to the mobility yet restriction of the veneration of foreign saints in distant lands, is the iconographic depiction of Saint Olaf on one of the pillars in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. This image was painted in the twelfth century when the basilica was under Latin Crusader control, and thus 19 This and other such events are treated in the article by R.M. Dawkins, ‘The later history of the Varangian Guard: some notes’, Journal of Roman Studies 37 (1947), 39-46, 39. 20 The importance of such ritual acclamations in a banquet setting for making the legitimacy and power of the emperor heard and felt is discussed in the article by Simon Malmberg, ‘Dazzling dining: banquets as an expression of imperial legitimacy’, in Leslie Brubaker and Kallirroe Linardou (eds), Eat, Drink, and Be Merry (Luke 12:19): Food and Wine in Byzantium. Papers of the 37th Annual Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, in Honour of Professor A.A.M. Bryer, Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies publ. 13 (Aldershot, 2007), 75-92, 86. 21 Geōrgios Kōdinos, De officiis, ed. Immanuel Bekker (Bonn, 1839), 7, here: 55-7.

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is the exception proving the point: the cult image of Olaf reached the Holy Land, but was felt in the long term to be ‘other’, and continued to be ‘othered’ by connection with the repairs and renovations undertaken by Latin Western occupiers of the Church, further establishing Olaf (and other saints added to the basilica’s décor at the time, such as the seventh-century Irish monk Cathal and the eleventh-century Danish king Canute IV) as being wholly other and foreign to the local Palestinian setting.22 From this narrow selection of source texts from Scandinavia and Byzantium, we have seen the Janus-like nature of a metropolis come to the fore via the example of Constantinople. Metropolises function as magnets, able to draw to themselves cultural elements across great distances, and yet simultaneously display and give voice to these foreign elements precisely to demonstrate their otherness and heighten a sense of self-identity in the face of the Other. In the case of the cult of Saint Olaf and the court practices involving Varangians and Anglo-Saxon warriors, the ‘great rampart’ of Constantinople with its ‘Lord of kings’ deftly manifests both sides of the metropolitan coin, integration and demarcation.

22 On these depictions of Western saints in the Church of the Nativity, see Jaroslav Folda, ‘Twelfth-century pilgrimage art in Bethlehem and Jerusalem: points of contact between Europe and the Crusader kingdom’, in Rosa Maria Bacile and John McNeill (eds), Romanesque and the Mediterranean: Patterns of Exchange Across the Latin, Greek and Islamic Words c. 1000–c. 1250 (London, 2015), 1-14.

Systems Intelligence and Byzantine Domestic Violence: The Life of Matrona of Perge as a Case Study Luis SALÉS, Scripps College, Claremont, CA, USA

ABSTRACT This article introduces the concept of Systems Intelligence (SI) to religious historiography generally and to premodern Christian studies specifically to draw out in greater detail the existential complexities and social resources available to abused women in the late ancient and medieval Roman empire as instantiated in The Life of Matrona of Perge. SI is a concept introduced in 2004 by two Finnish researchers, Esa Saarinen, a philosopher, and Raimo Hämäläinen, an applied mathematician and systems analyst, to explain, understand, and enhance intelligent human behavior within systems relative to the socio-cultural parameters that form the matrices of their complexity. I suggest that both the concept of SI and its theoretical components offer a helpful resource for probing Roman social relations and what systemic expectations must have hung over women’s heads, especially when confronted with domestic violence. This article merely suggests a possible methodological direction with specific examples rather than offering a comprehensive methodology as such.

Introduction Late ancient and medieval Roman Christian responses to domestic violence varied considerably, and a number of legislative changes, especially following the Justinianic reforms in the sixth century, gradually expanded the possibilities available to women suffering from these tragically common abuses of their dignity.1 While we can obtain considerable information about Roman Christian attitudes to domestic violence from a range of sources that includes epistles, hagiographies, novels, and homilies, to name a few, I want to focus specifically 1

For example, neither the hagiographies of Maria the Younger and Thomaïs of Lesbos seem to encourage women to leave abusive husbands, even if they acknowledge their suffering in martyrological language. John Chrysostom, for his part, unambiguously condemned men for beating their wives and insisted there was no excuse to do so, but he also did not encourage battered women to leave their abusers (see Homily 26 on 1 Corinthians 7, in Anthony Kaldellis, A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities [Oxford, 2017], 7). Certain laws and canons also allowed for women to divorce their husbands if they harmed them physically or threatened to kill them; see A. Kaldellis, Cabinet (2017), 1-2.

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on The Life of Matrona of Perge, a sixth-century hagiography, because, as a hagiography, it is concerned with intimating a normative way of thinking about acceptable responses to domestic abuse through literary representation.2 I do not pretend that all hagiographies offer a similar response – in fact, some, such as The Life of Thomaïs of Lesbos and The Life of Maria the Younger, tacitly disagree – as I am not attempting to demonstrate any kind of ethical homogeneity here; rather, I make the case that a critical space for creativity, queering, and resistance was systemically available to Christian Roman women within their native milieux. To draw out the contours of these milieux, I propose a new historiographical and interpretative method that has not yet been tried out in religious history: Systems Intelligence. I believe this approach supplements, but does not replace, current methodologies of the field and is perhaps especially helpful in explaining the systemically-embedded nature of human life and its attendant variables in order to facilitate a more dynamic engagement with the sources that will bring social complexities, as well as interpersonal and inter-systemic conflicts, into sharper focus.

Systems Intelligence and Historiography: A New Approach In the wake of poststructuralist epistemological shifts, historiographical methods have been substantially recalibrated to reflect a range of diversities in past social relations that earlier methods – such as the historical-critical method or linguistic analysis – had not been designed to address.3 And while such methods were not rendered entirely irrelevant, considerable theoretical reconsiderations have become increasingly necessary to access aspects of the past that were at times inconsequential or marginal to the cadre of western European and Anglo-American scholars that produced most works of religious historiography in the first three quarters of the twentieth century. I do not intend to render any method, structuralist or poststructuralist, obsolete here (as if I could); rather, I would like to propose the analytical lens and methodological resources of ‘Systems Intelligence’ (SI) to the study of early Christianity and to the historiography of religion more broadly.

2 See further Marina Detoraki, ‘Récits édifiants et hagiographie, à propos du Pré spirituel’, in Antonio Rigo, Michele Trizio and Eleftherios Despotakis (eds), Byzantine Hagiography: Texts, Themes, and Projects (Turnhout, 2018), 167-77 and Katerina Nikolaou, ‘The Depiction of Byzantine Woman in Hagiographical Texts (Eighth to Eleventh Centuries)’, in ibid. (2018), 247-63. 3 This general shift must be familiar to the reader, but a convenient overview of these shifts in paradigms can be found in Elizabeth Clark, History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Cambridge, MA, 2004).

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Systems Intelligence: A Preliminary Outline Systems Intelligence is an interdisciplinary concept and mode of analysis introduced in 2002 by two Finnish scholars, Esa Saarinen, a philosopher, and Raimo Hämäläinen, a systems engineer and applied mathematician, at the laboratory of systems analysis at the Helsinki University of Technology. The founders of this approach originally defined SI as ‘intelligent behaviour in the context of complex systems involving interaction and feedback. A subject acting with Systems Intelligence engages successfully and productively with the holistic feedback mechanisms of her environment. She perceives herself as part of the whole, the influence of the whole upon herself as well as her own influence upon the whole. By observing her own interdependence in the feedback intensive environment, she is able to act intelligently’.4 Saarinen and Hämäläinen arrived at this definition and concept from their integration of systems scholarship and seminal studies on intelligences. The result was a convincing new approach, in the words of Saarinen and Hämäläinen: ‘The contribution we offer here is conceptual but with a strong empirical footing. We offer a framework and a terminological platform from which to integrate phenomena that relate to intelligence, human adaptability, [and] the systemically embedded nature of human life…’5 Thus, they make a new concept for social analysis available that is inextricably linked to the experiential dimensions of human life as situated in systems. SI is especially compelling because it rejects earlier versions of systems analysis, such as Systems Thinking (ST), that runs the risk of assuming a model of analytical exteriority from which a system can presumably be examined. Saarinen, Hämäläinen, and other promoters of SI reject the possibility of this externality because: ‘We feel there is an objectifying bias in systems thinking, a bias for cognitive rationality and external viewpoint. Systems thinking highlights a domain of objects it believes is neglected – systems. But systems remain objects nonetheless, entities to be identified and reflected on from the outside. The systems intelligence approach avoids this externalist trap’.6 That is because SI proposes a model that presupposes the subject’s interiority to the system as a constitutive dimension of everyday life that determines and defines human agency. Thus, Saarinen and Hämäläinen explain that because ‘all human life is embedded and located in what is going on systemically, locally and globally’ it therefore ‘takes place in the systemic process contexts of something-larger4 Esa Saarinen and Raimo Hämäläinen, ‘Systems Intelligence: Connecting Engineering Thinking with Human Sensitivity’, in Systems Intelligence: Discovering a Hidden Competence in Human Action and Organizational Life (Helsinki, 2004), 1-29, here 9. 5 Esa Saarinen and Raimo Hämäläinen, ‘The Originality of Systems Intelligence’, in Essays on Systems Intelligence, ed. E. Saarinen and R. Hämäläinen (Espoo, 2010), 9-26, 14. 6 Esa Saarinen and Raimo Hämäläinen, ‘Systems Intelligence: A Key Competence for Organizational Life’, Reflections 7.4 (2006), 191-201, 191-2.

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than-self. That something requires a constant and lively relating to. The success and survival of a human individual, for any significant length of time, calls for systems intelligence’.7 And while that can be particularly difficult, because, as Jones and Hämäläinen have maintained, ‘we always belong to many systems simultaneously’, nonetheless ‘somehow, without ever overtly conceptualizing our world in systems terms, we work out how to live in those systems … on a daily basis throughout our lives, we navigate and nurture, participate in and rely on, and even create, a variety of systems … We act intelligently within the systems within which we live our lives … We make decisions, we learn, we adapt, we cope. But we can do more than just cope – we can actually flourish, succeed, and excel’.8 If SI theorists are right, they have rendered a constitutive dimension of human life intelligible through a sophisticated method that promises fresh insights into systems dynamics. Accordingly, SI can be a useful resource for historiography because it has the potential of rendering the complexities of the past intelligible as an inescapable present that was experienced by ancient figures as their present. At the same time, that is not to say that we must retroactively apply modern categories anachronistically to the past, but rather that we can use contemporary modes of analysis to render the ancient logics of behavior intelligible for modern audiences. Needless to say, SI proponents are convinced that SI was a function of ancient and modern societies, but that hardly means that anyone in either past or present societies went about conceptualizing reality in precisely such terms. Rather, SI theorists maintain ‘that intelligence must have demonstrated itself in action, as humans reacted to, adjusted to, and made use of sometimes rapidly changing circumstances. Insight, knowledge acquisition, judgment, and analysis must have had prominent roles in the success story of the human race, of course, but before them came action – action that must have been intelligent before being acknowledged by a rational subject as intelligent’.9 The traces of such actions are everywhere to be seen in the record of the human species, including learning how to survive winters and natural disasters, how to avoid predators and heal diseases, how to elect capable leaders who demonstrated systems intelligence and how to negotiate diplomatic relations when confronted with other peoples, tribes, civilizations. In due course, these intelligent actions became further complicated by the multiplication and complexification of overlapping systems, while systems intelligent actions and acquired dispositions became socially sedimented in cultures that valued them because of their ability to improve the human condition (at least for some).

7

E. Saarinen and R. Hämäläinen, ‘Originality’ (2010), 11. R. Jones and R. Hämäläinen, ‘Esa Saarinen and Systems Intelligence’, Elämän filosofi (2013), 163-71, here 166. 9 E. Saarinen and R. Hämäläinen, ‘Key Competence’ (2006), 191. 8

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However, SI is not simply about tracing a fixed path of action that must be slavishly adhered to for others to do well – such prescriptions, though by no means rare, were not all there was in ancient societies. Rather, these actions point to an underlying disposition, a certain skill or ability that is prized by a society because it responds effectively to the unknown, to the systemic variables that are an unavoidable part of life. And these acquired dispositions were commonly designated by the ancients as virtues. Indeed, SI scholars (especially Saarinen, a philosopher) have already drawn this connection unambiguously: Systems Intelligence links with the ancient promise of philosophy that challenged people to ask: How to live a good life? Systems Intelligence aims to enhance the prospects of good life and in doing so it relates to what Aristotle called practical reason rather than theoretical reason. The theme of Systems Intelligence is a ‘know how’ rather than a ‘know that’ … Traditionally, virtues were perceived as excellencies of life. Virtues such as wisdom, courage, prudence, justice, politeness or mercy related people to other people around them as well as to the bigger picture of life. When people strive to be virtuous, they produce a better city together – a better whole, community, a better system to live in. Virtues are Systems Intelligence.10

The terminological identification of SI with virtues does not make SI theory disposable, however. Rather, SI furnishes us with new resources to appreciate the complexity of what virtues were in ancient societies, as well as what assumptions societies may have presupposed for an action to count as virtuous – and this sheds light on multiple layers of ancient human interactions and largely anisomorphic relations that are perhaps otherwise hard to access. In this sense, SI can identify the culturally-coded intelligence of an action while simultaneously relativizing it by drawing out the contours of the system or overlap of systems that renders it contextually intelligent but therefore necessarily also contingent and non-absolute. In other words, SI makes cultural preconditions visible without foreclosing the possibility of critique within their own logic. A Systems Intelligence Framework and Two Dimensions of Systems Intelligence SI as a field of study in its own right has developed at an alarmingly quick pace; it is thus impossible to draw here on the full range of resources that SI makes available. Rather, I probe how a framework of SI and some of its analytical dimensions shed new light on the complexity of surviving as a victimized woman in the late ancient Roman Empire (though not exclusively). To do so, I foreground one of the guiding frameworks of SI theory and draw on two of the eight SI dimensions originally proposed by Saarinen and Hämäläinen. Together, these provide the systems-intelligent analytical lens through which I explore the social complexity of domestic violence and women’s possibilities in late ancient Rome as exemplified in The Life of Matrona of Perge. 10

E. Saarinen and R. Hamalainen, ‘Systems Intelligence’ (2004), 14-5.

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SI theorists describe the SI framework I use in this article this way: ‘The systems intelligent perspective emphasizes the fundamentally contextual and relational nature of intelligence. An action that is intelligent works because it finds a fit with a host of relevant other factors supplied by the context. In another situation, perhaps only slightly different, the same action might not be successful at all. Intelligence depends on the environment, and systems intelligence refers to the human capability of making a virtue out of the inescapability of life as an embedded affair’.11 That is, every action is assessed for its intelligence (or virtue) in relation to specific systemic variables and the implied relations that render that action intelligent (or not). So, while it is possible to conceptualize different systemic variables or to critique a specific decision, that is ultimately only possible from within the particularity of that situated course of action, which demands a hard and long look at an agent’s interiority and the limits of her epistemological horizon that are defined by a network of relations. That is because an agent’s response is always to a unique confluence of highly specific particularities that frame that agent’s possibilities and accordingly constrain the options of what passes as ‘intelligent’ in that conditioned scenario. SI scholars have proposed a list of eight dimensions of systems intelligence that work together in complex ways. For our purposes, I highlight two of these dimensions because they are the most salient for explaining the authorial representation of Matrona’s systems intelligent behavior. The first dimension is ‘systems perception’, which refers to our ability to notice how and that ‘every system is connected to other systems. Parts of systems perception is not only seeing the obvious systems around us, but also being mindful of the presence of multiple, overlapping and interconnected systems. Living in and adjusting to multiple systems is what we do every day’.12 The difficulty of systems perception, however, is that ‘problems arise when we fail to consider that everybody can see systems differently’ because ‘one consequence of the presence of multiple systems is that it is possible to be highly perceptive in a specific setting and yet systems blind in another’.13 Thus, SI theorists compare our systems perception to viewing a room through a keyhole – certainly, we can perceive part of the room, but not the whole. Nonetheless, we act with limited knowledge while being aware, precisely, that we are acting with limited knowledge and thus adjust our behavior to incorporate that epistemological limitation. The seventh SI dimension is ‘wise action’. The founding SI theorists elucidate this dimension: ‘Typically, acting with systems intelligence means doing something. The challenge is to know what to do, to figure out the wise action. But what is wise action? Neuroscience equates wisdom with an increased capacity 11 Raimo Hämäläinen, Rachel Jones and Esa Saarinen, Being Better, Better: Living with Systems Intelligence (Aalto, 2014), 16. 12 Ibid. 33. 13 Ibid. 34.

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“to recognize patterns and anticipate situations, to predict a likely future, and to act appropriately”’. The challenge, however, is that ‘systems rarely function in linear ways’ and thus wise action must sometimes seek ‘indirect routes’ that are able to navigate multiple systems and their demands simultaneously in ways that might not be obvious from a single-variable or single-system perspective.14 The promoters of SI are especially emphatic about the intricate link between systems perception and wise action, which is partially why I employ these two dimensions to examine The Life of Matrona. The Life of Matrona of Perge: A Loose Codification of Early Christian Systems Intelligence The Life of Matrona of Perge (born ca. 430) was in all likelihood penned soon after Matrona’s death between 510-515 by a monk of the monastery of Basianos in Constantinople, and the author based this hagiography on notes jotted down by one of Matrona’s teachers, Eulogia.15 There is good evidence that Matrona was a historical figure; she may have defied emperor Anastasios I by upholding Chalcedonian orthodoxy.16 In outline, Matrona’s hagiography begins with her birth and sound education in Pamphylia and proceeds to her grudging marriage to a mid-rank man, Dometianos, whom she flees soon after their arrival in Constantinople by entering, as the eunuch Babylas, a men’s monastery headed by Basianos. She spends three years there before Basianos and other brethren are told in a vision that Babylas is a woman. Although not allowed to remain in the monastery, Matrona is helped by the monks to elude her husband and she spends time traveling around the Mediterranean avoiding her abuser while converting the countryside to Christianity through her impressive ascetic feats. Later on, she founds a cloister that is unique in that its nuns wear male habits and observe the same rule as Basianos’ monastery. The text of this hagiography is lengthy, so I only focus on the first quarter, from the prologue through Matrona’s departure from Basianos’ monastery. Exhortation to Systems Intelligence: A Hagiographical Prologue As most Roman hagiographies, The Life of Matrona (hereafter LM)17 begins with an exhortation to the reader because ‘as a woman, as we will say a little 14

Ibid. 179. Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation, ed. Alice Mary Talbot (Cambridge, MA, 1996), 16. 16 Holy Women, ed. A. Talbot (1996), 15. 17 All translations are mine, though I am grateful for the trailblazing work of previous translators of this Life, especially that by Jeffrey Featherstone in Holy Women, ed. A. Talbot (1996). My references are to the paragraph divisions of the Greek critical edition from the Acta 15

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later, she demonstrated the features of holy men while among celibate men (τὰ ἀνδρῶν ἁγίων μεταξὺ ἀνδρῶν ἐγκρατῶν … ἐπιδεξαμένης) and was accomplished in the feats accomplished among desert ascetics’ (LM 1, 790BC) with the result that ‘she has not been separated from those here even if she has departed from life, but rather is present to and stands by each philosophizing soul that is eager for her life and reasoning (ἑκάστῃ φιλοσοφούσῃ ψυχῇ καὶ τὸν ἑαυτῆς ζηλούσῃ βίον καὶ λόγον’, (LM 1, 790D). For these reasons, the author insists that a detailed account of her life is necessary because ‘one must, I repeat, one must, justly marvel at her on account of each of the things that are said [about her] and reap no incidental benefit through them’ (LM 1, 790DE). There is little unusual about this prologue in comparison with other hagiographical overtures besides her beginning her ascetic career in a male monastery. Rather, what I want to highlight here from an SI perspective is the focus in the prologue on two distinctive features: first, that her performance of virtuous deeds is contextually situated in this unusual monastic dynamic and, second, that her ‘life and reasoning’ (βίον καὶ λόγον) – her systems-intelligent mode of existence, so to speak – is rendered accessible to the reader through her hagiography. In other words, the author situates Matrona’s virtuous actions, but is also confident that they can signify and inspire virtuous conduct beyond the contextual limitations of their specificity. It is apparent that Matrona’s systems intelligence does not here remain constrained to her limited historicity, but that it inspires virtue even – or better, especially – after her passing. The upshot is that the author raises two interrelated aspects in the prologue that constitute a binomial dimension of systems intelligence: on the one hand, Matrona’s virtue was virtuous precisely because of her successful response to a challenging confluence of irreplicable systemic variables; on the other hand, the uniqueness of her systems-intelligent response to her circumstances does not foreclose emulation of her systems intelligence understood as her βίος and λόγος, where λόγος especially refers to more than her bald capacity of reasoning – it refers to the distinct way in which she used that capacity under challenging circumstances to overcome adversity. Accordingly, the hagiography may not so much be encouraging uncritical imitation of what Matrona did as such, but rather of the way in which she transformed and transcended difficult circumstances through systems-intelligent behavior. In brief, this prologue may be understood as an outline of a systems intelligent heuristic that exemplifies virtue in real-life scenarios that encourage the reader to acquire a systems intelligent way of thinking modeled on Matrona’s λόγος.18 Sanctorum, ed. Victor Palmé (Brussels, 1910) to facilitate cross-referencing with the English translation by Jeffrey Featherstone, who follows these paragraphs closely, followed by the page number and section letter of the critical edition. 18 On this point see especially Alice Mary Talbot, ‘Hagiography’, in Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies, ed. Robin Cormack and John Haldon (Oxford, 2008), 862-9 and M. Detoraki, ‘Récits édifiants’ (2018).

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Systems Perception, Wise Action, and the Creative Limits of Roman Gender After the prologue, the narrative fast-forwards to Matrona’s marriage, the birth of her daughter Theodote, and the family’s move to Constantinople, where Matrona plots her escape. While in Constantinople, Matrona attends services zealously, to the degree that her husband came to the ‘absurd suspicions (ἀτόπους ἐννοίας)’ that ‘the blessed one was sleeping around (ἑταιρίζεσθαι) due to her persistent attendance to all-night vigils’ (LM 3, 791D). This moment proves the pivoting point in the narrative due to a confluence of conflicting systems perceptions. For her part, Matrona is committed to a Christian life of piety, while her husband’s inability to conceptualize her adherence to the system of Christian piety leads to the only alternative that makes sense in his limited (and highly problematic) horizons: that she is betraying their marriage. Of course, the hagiographer castigates his very thought of this possibility as his failure to perceive or even think of the system of Christian piety, presumably because he himself is a terrible person who would think things along these lines (as some monks specifically tell him later in the narrative). Dometianos’ systems ignorance, predictably, leads to a number of further conflicts among systems, but especially between the system of the heteronormative family, the system of an abusive relationship, and the system of Christian asceticism, which Matrona prefers. As these systems collide, Matrona is confronted with a set of systemic variables to which she must answer from within the limitations of her epistemological and socio-cultural horizons by reconfiguring to her advantage the scarce resources that her intensely patriarchal context offers her.19 The result is that she must find what SI theorists earlier called an ‘indirect route’ of non-linear action that emerges from this systemic cross-roads intelligently, which depends, in turn, on her correct or largely correct perception of the multiple overlapping systems at play. The hagiography represents her as doing precisely that: Matrona decides to leave her daughter to a widow, Susanna, and after much discussion with Eugenia, her teacher, she decides to enter a monastery to avoid her husband. In this way, she ensures the ongoing care of her daughter and gets Theodote out of Dometianos’ toxic sphere, while freeing herself to enter a monastery. The fact that this solution is described without fanfare suggests that little about it would have struck contemporaries as outlandish; it also intimates Christian ascetic valorization of monastic life over heteronormative relations. But Matrona cannot simply enter a women’s monastery. She is anxious, lest ‘things come to this, that Dometianos afflicts the monastery that receives me and hinders me from the goal of my salvation’ (LM 4, 792A). At play here once more is Matrona’s systems perception; she perceives that this abusive system and the role her husband plays in it is such that simply entering a women’s monastery will not suffice to elude him – he is a complete sociopath. Rather, 19

See further Ioli Kalavrezou, Byzantine Women and Their World (Cambridge, MA, 2003).

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she must find an indirect route through her intelligent perception of the multiple systems that envelop her. This indirect route is given to her, after much prayer, in a vision where monks rescue her from her husband. Being intelligent, it would seem, in the system of divine-human communication, she interprets the vision to mean that she must enter a men’s monastery to avoid her husband. Accordingly, Matrona cuts her hair, dresses as a eunuch, and enters Basianos’ monastery, where she ‘was fully transformed into a man, and bearing the name of a man was being called Babylas’ (εἰς ἄνδρα μετασχηματισθεῖσαν ὅλην καὶ ἀνδρὸς φέρουσαν ὄνομα Βαβυλᾶς ἐκαλεῖτο, LM 4, 792D). This course of action, though not entirely unprecedented in women’s hagiographies (e.g., Mary/Marinos, Eugenia/Eugenios of Rome), indicates Matrona’s ability to perceive yet another system and bend its rules to her advantage: the system of Roman gender. Her decision to enter a male monastery is systems intelligent because it simultaneously enables her to pursue her ascetic goals while avoiding her abuser – an option not available at a women’s monastery. Matrona perceives how the system of Roman gender differentials works and uses it to her advantage.20 As a eunuch she is able to inhabit a liminal space that makes her a woman, a eunuch, and a man beholden (we soon find out) to the demands of each of these systems all at the same time.21 This indirect route hinges entirely on her perception of how the systems’ limitations may serve her provided she acts wisely by adhering to the parameters of all of these systems simultaneously. The result is that she can have her cake and eat it: she eludes her husband, pursues the ascetic life, and as a woman/eunuch in a men’s monastery avoids suspicion. Systems Intelligence: Being a Woman, as a Eunuch, in a Men’s Monastery However, Matrona’s innovative actions create unexpected systemic overlaps that obey new logics that require constant adaptations. Matrona must simultaneously be a man, a eunuch, and a woman while meeting the gendered demands of each of these gendered systems in relation to rapidly changing systemic variables within the broader system of Christian asceticism and liturgy. Certainly, as a eunuch she is now able to indwell a gendered borderland that gives her, as a woman, access to a male sphere though remaining other even 20 On this point see Wayne Meeks, ‘The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest Christianity’, History of Religions 13.3 (1974), 165-208; see Benjamin Dunning, Specters of Paul: Sexual Difference in Early Christian Thought (Philadelphia, 2011), 7-10; Dale Martin, Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation (Louisville, 2006), 77-90; Questions of Gender in Byzantine Society, ed. Bronwen Neil and Lynda Garland (Farnham, 2013); and especially Leonora Neville, Byzantine Gender (Leeds, 2019), 1-4, 33-58. 21 See further Liz James, Women, Men, and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium (London, 1997); Charis Messis, Les eunuques à Byzance, entre réalité et imaginaire (Paris, 2014); and Kathryn Ringrose, The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium (Chicago, 2003).

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while within it. Therefore, in the system of Roman sexual difference, it was conceivable that when she ‘shaved her head and was transformed into a eunuch (εἰς εὐνοῦχον μετασχηματισθεῖσα, LM 4, 792B)’, she crossed without much trouble a boundary otherwise off limits to her. Thereafter, her identification as a eunuch justifies the absence of secondary male characteristics, such as facial hair and a deep voice, and thereby allows her to remain in Basianos’ monastery. But she must also act wisely to remain socially legible as a eunuch by perceiving how the system of Roman gender codes an identity that is otherwise foreign to her. In effect, she nearly blows her cover by her ascetic feats because ‘the multitude of the brethren marveled, reasoning – as is right – that a eunuch man (εὐνοῦχος ἀνήρ), though weak in nature (τὴν φύσιν ἀσθενής), did not only endeavor to rival them in ascetic labors, but also strove to attain more, fasting patiently while consuming little nourishment, and constraining his temper and not being carried away by desire… (LM 4, 792DE)’. The danger here is that her zeal in the system of asceticism seems incongruous with the system of gender that codes her, as a eunuch, as naturally incapable of such feats. Thus, she must be man enough, both to be in a male monastery and to reach higher echelons of ascetic excellence (usually) presumed attainable by men alone given the profoundly androprimal assumptions of Roman gender, but not too much of a man, lest her eunuch-ness be questioned. The hagiographer states the problem clearly: ‘But this very great zeal of the blessed one for the Lord quite nearly made her surreptitiousness manifest to her co-contenders’ (LM 4, 792E) precisely because s/he was presumed to be ‘weak in nature’. Ever the systems intelligent one, Matrona, ‘however, by the wisdom of her spirit, quickly dissolved suspicion, devising how to pass unnoticed by all’ (LM 4, 792E). Here Matrona quickly (ταχέως) and by the ‘wisdom of her spirit’ (τῇ τοῦ πνεῦματος σοφίᾳ) adjusts to changing systemic variables (i.e., rising suspicions about her identity) to meet the demands of all three systems – androprimal asceticism, the system of manhood, and the system of eunuch-hood – by perceiving the earliest indications of systemic trouble and reacting accordingly. But that is not all. Matrona was culturally expected to perform by the system of Christian womanhood even while juggling the system of androprimal asceticism, manhood, and eunuch-hood. This tacit expectation emerges when Basianos and her spiritual director are told in visions and dreams that ‘the eunuch you have in your monastery is not a eunuch, but a female (θηλεία)’ (LM 6, 793D). As Basianos sternly tells Matrona that he knows her secret, immediately ‘she concealed her head with her cloak’ (LM 7, 794B) to accord with the systemic expectations of Roman gendered customs. She apologizes, but underlines that she did not come to the monastery to bring temptation, but to flee from the world. Basianos accepts this answer, but remains bothered by two liturgical chips on his shoulder: ‘Fine, although you are a woman, you have avoided notice up to this moment and this has done us no harm, given that we were ignorant (ἀνγοοῦντας). How, with a bear head, were you approaching the

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divine mysteries? And how also did you offer your mouth to the brethren for [the kiss of] peace?’ (πῶς δὲ καὶ τὸ σὸν πρὸς εἰρήνην ἐπεδίδους στόμα τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς; LM 7, 794B)’ With these questions, Basianos points to a different intersection not yet raised by the hagiographer, that of the system of the liturgy and of the system of the female sex, to ascertain how she might have negotiated what to him appears an impossible dilemma to resolve – his phrasing does not invite an answer. That is why Matrona’s answer stuns the abbot all the more when she says: ‘At the time of the divine mysteries, I pulled my habit halfway up my head (ἔσυρον τὸ πάλλίον μου ἕως ἡμίσους τῆς κεφαλῆς μου) pretending to have a headache, whereas concerning the symbol of peace, I also did not flee from the seal of love (τῆς ἀγάπης τὴν σφραγῖδα οὐκ ἔφευγον), for I supposed that I was not giving myself to a human mouth but to the angels of God and to dispassionate humans (ἀπαθέσιν ἀνθρώποις οἰόμην προσάγειν ἐμαυτή)’ (LM 7, 794B). The author continues: ‘At this wondrous response, the holy and blessed Basianos was astonished’ (LM 8, 794C). Her answer astonishes because it demonstrates her ability to find an indirect route to satisfy the demands of every system simultaneously while even managing to put Basianos himself in a bit of a bind about the kiss of peace. By referring to the brethren as ‘humans’ rather than as ‘men’, she deemphasizes their sexual difference (which Basianos has implied) and drives the point home by analogizing them to dispassionate celestial beings, imputing to them one of the supreme virtues of the ascetic system that renders the kiss of peace an Edenic innocuity. On a different level, Matrona’s response is also effective because it implicitly praises the abbot for his spiritual guidance in transforming men into dispassionate angelic beings. What harm, then, in exchanging a kiss irrespective of the sex of those involved (as if the sexual homogeneity of the monastery somehow categorically foreclosed any ‘sketchy’ business between men)? Here Matrona effectively desexualizes the kiss of peace that Basianos sexualized by reminding him of the ascetic system in which it takes place, while deflecting further sexualization of the kiss by tacitly complimenting him for his spiritual direction skills that have led his monks to the heights of dispassion. And this is not the last time in the conversation that Matrona astonishes the abbot. Once she explains her plight and course of action ‘and having listened to this wise and great ploy’, we are told that ‘the most holy Basianos wondered at her intelligence (σύνεσιν)’ (LM 9, 794F). It is especially significant in the context of this paper that the author would refer to Matrona’s intelligence, understood as a know-how that empowered her to respond to extremely difficult circumstances by using the fluidity of certain systems to her advantage. It is also significant that, though she is not allowed to remain in the monastery, she is not otherwise punished for her clever actions; in fact, the monks help her escape her husband and even lie to him to cover for her (LM 10). At the same time, the fact that Matrona must still act in highly gendered ways even as she

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negotiates a nearly absurd range of socio-cultural demands to avoid reproach is itself sufficient evidence for hinting at the unimaginable difficulties a Roman Christian woman would have to face to elude domestic violence and censorship from her contemporaries. Conclusion Even so, and to conclude, the upshot of the analysis I have offered is that a certain space existed, was thinkable, already in the late ancient Roman literary imagination – even if we must grudgingly admit its rarity and myriad limitations – that not only allowed, but even valorized, women’s creative transgression and even queering of normative systems that routinely violated their human dignity. By taking the systems approach I have introduced here we can gain greater appreciation for the dynamics at play when many moving parts created innumerable limiting factors in the realm of women’s possibilities, as well as not a small degree of admiration for their courage, resilience, and systems intelligence in surviving, and at times perhaps even thriving, within a brazenly unapologetic network of systems that in nearly every regard was created by and for men at their expense. I would like to suggest, then, that a systems intelligence approach to sources such as this increases the visibility of the multiple systems and variables that women (and marginalized others) had to engage and overcome to obtain a small measure of a freedom long denied them – even when that meant trailblazing the most outlandish paths across a dense and hostile jungle of social networks that are all the more disturbing for their unsettling familiarity with systems of the present.

Wandering Legends: A Dialogue between a Syrian Saint and the City of Antioch in the Fifth Century AD Andreas WESTERGREN, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

ABSTRACT Not long ago the rise of monasticism was taken to be the creation of a Sonderwelt – an idea which also seemed to be reflected in the ancient literary material: the desert became a city of its own. However, a contradiction between city and monastery is often bridged by the very literature that created the rift, because texts travelled both ways – just as people did. In the context of this short contribution, we shall observe how one of the key sources about the monastic movement, Theodoret of Cyrrhus’ History of the Monks of Syria (Philotheos Historia), to a high degree concerns the fate of one of the largest metropoleis of the ancient world, Antioch. In the end, I will suggest a relatively simple but bold hypothesis, namely that Theodoret of Cyrrhus (393-466 AD), in his portrayal of an otherwise unknown ascetic, Macedonius, is actually playing around with civic legends related to Antioch, a city of Macedonian origin.

1. Introduction Not long ago, the rise of monasticism was taken to be the creation of a Sonderwelt – an idea which also seemed to be reflected in the ancient literary material: the desert became a city of its own.1 As is becoming increasingly clear, a separation between city and cell was part of creating an ideal, whereas in reality, the social, cultural and political role of the monasteries would increase. A contradiction between city and monastery is often bridged by the very literature that created the rift, because texts travelled both ways – just as people did.2 At the same time, it is clear that civic identity in many ways was renegotiated in Christian terms in Late antiquity, a time in which ktisis poems celebrating the foundation of a city still were written.3 The monastic tradition 1

Athanasius, Vita Antonii 14, ed. G.J.M. Bartelink, SC 400 (Paris, 1994). See also Samuel Rubenson, ‘Asceticism and Monasticism, I: Eastern’, in Augustine Casiday and Frederick W. Norris (eds), The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 2007), 637-68, 638. 2 A recent reinterpretation of ancient monastic sources is Lillian I. Larsen and Samuel Rubenson (eds), Monastic Education in Late Antiquity: The Transformation of Classical Paideia (Cambridge, 2018). See also Andreas Westergren, ‘The Monastic Paradox: Desert Ascetics as Founders, Fathers, and Benefactors in Early Christian Historiography’, VC 72 (2018), 283-317. 3 BNP, ‘Ktisis poems’.

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 43-52. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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was part of this arrangement because apophthegmata served as a school material,4 and the relics of holy ascetics created a new cultic focus which was not altogether different from the cult of heroes or gods.5 In the context of this short contribution, we shall observe how one of the key sources about the monastic movement to a high degree concerns the fate of one of the largest metropoleis of the ancient world, Antioch. In the end, I will suggest a relatively simple but bold hypothesis, namely that Theodoret of Cyrrhus (393-466 AD), in his portrayal of an otherwise unknown ascetic, Macedonius, is actually playing around with civic legends related to Antioch, a city of Macedonian origin.6 The History of the Monks of Syria (Philotheos Historia),7 a work presumably written in 444 AD,8 is one of the most read source texts about the rise of monasticism – not least due to its portrayal of a pillar saint. Although Theodoret claims that these are simple stories, diēgēseis, and not panegyric, Cristian Gaşpar has convincingly argued that this is nothing less than panegyric, written by an author staging himself as a civic orator.9 There is a fascinating tension between showing and telling in Theodoret’s work. Depicting simple saints, Theodoret employs few words ‘unknown to Plato and Demosthenes’.10 Speaking about himself, Theodoret only takes care to mention his Christian teachers in Antioch, Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia,11 but his learned manners and contacts with both sophists and philosophers give evidence of a traditional education and a broad network. Recently, Adam Schor, Arthur Urbano and Christine Shepardson have contextualized Theodoret as a native of Antioch who knew well to draw connections with both the civic elite, the monks, and 4 Lillian I. Larsen has long argued along these lines, see e.g. L.I. Larsen, Pedagogical Parallels: Re-Reading the Apophthegmata Patrum (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2006); ‘On Learning a New Alphabet: The Sayings of the Desert Fathers and the Monostichs of Menander’, SP 55 (2013), 59-77; and ‘Re-Drawing the Interpretative Map: Monastic Education as Civic Formation in the Apophthegmata Patrum’, Coptica 12 (2013), 1-34. 5 A small contribution to this large topic, related directly to this article’s source material, is Andreas Westergren, ‘A Relic In Spe: Theodoret’s Depiction of a Philosopher Saint’, SP 68 (2013), 25-9. 6 This chapter builds on an idea from my dissertation, Andreas Westergren, ‘Sketching the Invisible: Patterns of Church and City in Theodoret of Cyrrhus’ Philotheos Historia’ (PhD Diss., Lund University, 2012), ch. 3.4. 7 Pierre Canivet and Alice Leroy-Molinghen (eds), Théodoret de Cyr, Histoire des moines de Syrie, 2 vol., SC 234 and 257 (Paris, 1977 and 1979). 8 Ibid. 1:30-1. R.M. Price has argued for 440 AD as the most likely date in Richard M. Price (ed.), Theodoret of Cyrhus, A History of the Monks of Syria (Kalamazoo, 1985), xiii-xv. 9 See Cristian Gaşpar, ‘An Oriental in Greek Dress: The Making of a Perfect Philosopher in the Philotheos Historia of Theodoret of Cyrrhus’, AMSCEU 14 (2008), 193-229, and CristianNicolae Gaşpar, ‘In Praise of Unlikely Holy Men: Elite Hagiography, Monastic Panegyric, and Cultural Translation in the Philotheos Historia of Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus’ (PhD diss., Central European University, 2006). 10 R.M. Price, Theodoret (1985), xv. 11 Theodoret, Epistulae (Collectio Sirmondiana) 16, ed. Yvan Azéma, CS 98 (Paris, 1964).

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ancient philosophers.12 The ideal bishop was someone like Theodoret himself, a traveler between worlds who returned to the city after having reached the heights of philosophy in a monastic setting. On my part, I have argued that Theodoret models the rise of monasticism in the History of the Monks of Syria on the legendary evolution of society as it is told by Plato, Strabo and Libanius.13 In the end, one of the most recent monasteries looks exactly like a polis with an industry, a sea port, and commercial trade. But in rear-view mirror of the same stories, another city also becomes visible, namely Antioch. 2. The Life of Macedonius The centre of the first half of the History of the Monks of Syria is undoubtedly Theodoret’s hometown, Antioch. Out of thirty chapters, at least a third treats ascetics from around Antioch.14 As one of the greatest metropoleis of the Roman Empire and lying strategically close to the Empire’s eastern border, Antioch was a city extending into the empire and the relative chronology of Theodoret’s narratives follows not only the saints, but also a succession of emperors, who are part of the storyline.15 Around the lives of these monks, the history of the empire revolves, and the monks’ importance is thereby cast in a global context as protectors of an orthodox faith, and their city. On a couple of occasions, therefore, monks save their city, beginning with the first saint, the famous James of Nisibis, who singlehandedly defends his own city against the Persians,16 and continuing with the second saint, Julian Saba, who goes to Antioch in a time of crisis.17 12 See Adam M. Schor, Theodoret’s People: Social Networks and Religious Conflict in Late Roman Syria (Berkeley, 2011); A.P. Urbano, The Philosophical Life: Biography and the Crafting of Intellectual Identity in Late Antiquity (Washington, DC, 2013), 273-93; and Christine Shepardson, Controlling Contested Places: Late Antique Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversy (Berkeley, 2014), 171-90, and ‘Bodies on Display: Deploying the Saints in the Religious Competitions of Late Antique Antioch’, in Silke-Petra Bergjan and Susanna Elm (eds), Antioch II, The Many Faces of Antioch: Intellectual Exchange and Religious Diversity, CE 350-450 (Tübingen, 2018), 235-53. 13 Andreas Westergren, ‘Monastic Space: The Ascetic Between Sacred and Civil Spheres in Theodoret of Cyrrhus’, in Juliette Day, Raimo Hakola, Maijastina Kahlos and Ulla Tervahauta (eds), Spaces in Late Antiquity: Cultural, Theological and Archaeological Perspectives (London, 2016), 48-65. 14 For a comprehensive view, see R.M. Price, Theodoret (1985), xvi-xvii. In addition to the ascetics in chapters IV to XIII, a few others, notably Julian Saba, are in a direct relation with Antioch. 15 The following emperors appear or are thematized in Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Philotheos historia I 10, 11 (Constantine), I 11 (Constantine’s sons), II 14, VIII 5,8-12 (Julian), V 5 (Jovian), II 15, III 16, VIII 5 (Valens), XIII 7 (Theodosius I), XVII 9,10 (Theodosius II), ed. Pierre Canivet and Alice Leroy-Molinghen, SC 234 and 257 (Paris, 1977 and 1979). 16 For the life of James, see David Bundy, ‘Jacob of Nisibis as a Model for the Episcopacy’, Le Muséon 104 (1991), 235-49. 17 Theodoret, Phil. hist. II 16-21. See also ibid. VIII 6-12.

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The last of the Antiochene narratives, and perhaps the most developed one, concerns a certain Macedonius, an ascetic otherwise unknown. Unlike most other Syrian ascetics, who stay in specific locations, Macedonius shares an important trait with James of Nisibis: he is a wanderer, roaming around the mountains without a cell or even a place to sleep. To a high degree, Theodoret’s stories follow the logic Daniel Caner has described: wandering is not an ideal, but a trait that is projected back in time, only possible for the first, legendary saints.18 Also in Theodoret this seems to be the case. As time goes by, monastic life is fixed to specific places, and even the newer, wilder Syrian saints who climb mountains and pillars share this characteristic. But Macedonius is an exception. The fact that Theodoret points out the resemblance between James of Nisibis and Macedonius is a sign of the careful composition of Theodoret, and the emphasis put on this particular narrative.19 The story develops in a typical manner, first depicting Macedonius’ life on the mountain, then his involvement in the city. The wandering Macedonius has two nicknames: ‘Pit’ because he has nothing but a hole in the ground to stay in, and ‘Barley-Eater’ because he does not eat cooked food, only grains. As a nobody, there is no explanation of his background at the outset, except for a short remark in the course of one story saying that he was ‘fully uninitiated (ἀμύητος) in paideia, and had a rustic upbringing’.20 He is more a wild beast than a human and his lifestyle resembles human life as it was before becoming civilized. On the other hand, the mountain-tops also serve to underline a transcendent way of living.21 As Theodoret explains, Macedonius does not live in a fixed place (οὐκ … χωρίου), and in this regard, the ascetic is reminiscent of God, who is also not bound by place (ἀχώρητος).22 In this regard, Macedonius has a kind of apophatic identity: a pure soul and simple thoughts, but to the point of appearing downright naïve.23 Once, he is tricked down the mountain by the bishop and ordained without approval or awareness of what is happening. As he finds out, he is 18 See Daniel Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 2002), 19-49. 19 The narrator’s praise of Macedonius is framed by the fame that he has already earned on earth (§§1, 19) in Theodoret, Phil. hist. XIII. The stories in between are demonstrations of Macedonius’ êthos and praxeis The first paragraphs describe both his politeia and his character (§§2-5). Subsequently, the working of grace is depicted by his parrhêsia (§§6-8), his miracles (§§9-14) and gift of prophecy (§15), before Macedonius’ stories are brought to an end with the family memoirs of the narrator (§§16-8). 20 Theodoret, Phil. hist. XIII 8. For later attributions regarding Macedonius’ origin, see P. Canivet and A. Leroy-Molinghen, Théodoret (1977), 474-5, n. 1. 21 Theodoret, Phil. hist. XIII 14. 22 See e.g. Paul Crosby Finney, ‘TOPOS HIEROS und christlicher Sakralbau in vorkonstantinischer Überlieferung’, Boreas 7 (1984), 210-7. 23 Even his virtues are spelled out negatively as a lack of complexity and fullness, as ‘innocence’ (ἀκεραιότητα) and ‘simplicity’ (ἁπλότητα). Theodoret, Phil. hist. XIII 5.

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furious and chases the bishop with a stick in a rather condescending image of the saint.24 Although his ordination is never again mentioned, the scene should be born in mind, as an authorization for what is going to happen. From now on, the ascetic is not only a representative of God, but also of the bishop in the city. It is against this background that Macedonius’ involvement in Antioch, which is not even mentioned initially, is depicted. Having glimpsed Macedonius’ simple life and character first, the reader now faces the fact that civilized life in the city might be even less enlightened.25 In chaotic situations, different public spheres are presented in due order: the agora (§§7-8), the court (§§10-2) and the household (§§9, 13), and in all of them, the saint enters the scene as a representative of a higher order, and takes control. The most famous scene in the Life of Macedonius takes place during a wellknown incident in the history of Antioch, the so-called Riot of the Statues in 387.26 Since statues of the imperial family had been destroyed, the emperor sends ‘the supreme generals … with a verdict of total destruction against the city’ (πανωλεθρία).27 But then Macedonius enters the scene: καταβὰς δὲ οὗτος ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄρους ἄμφω κατέσχε κατὰ τὴν ἀγορὰν παριόντας τοὺς στρατηγούς. Οἱ δὲ τίς εἴη μεμαθηκότες κατεπήδησάν τε ἀπὸ τῶν ἵππων καὶ χειρῶν ἥπτοντο καὶ γονάτων καὶ σωτηρίαν ἐπήγγελον.28 He descended from the mountain and stopped the two generals as they were crossing the square; on learning who it was, they leapt down from their horses, clasped his hands and knees, and asked for his well-being.

In the most public space, the agora, Macedonius faces the high generals, and for a moment the world is turned upside down, as they jump off their high horses to bow down to an old rustic, dressed in rags. Through the continual use of kata in different senses, a collision between two worlds is underlined. Macedonius appears as a hero entering the scene of contest, but with a particular idea of how society can be better ruled, thereby also making the philosophical 24

Theodoret, Phil. hist. XIII 4. What takes a saint from a to b also has a theological rationale, because virtue attracts grace, see Theodoret, Phil. hist. I 3. 26 For a ‘reconstruction of the historical events’, see Frans van de Paverd, St. John Chrysostom, The Homilies on the Statues: An Introduction (Rome, 1991), 15-160. For an older narrative account of the riot, with references primarily to Libanius, but also to Chrysostom, Zosimus and Sozomen, see Glanville Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria: From Seleucus to the Arab Conquest (Princeton, 1961), 425-33. See also J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz, Antioch: City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford, 1972), 104-5. 27 Theodoret, Phil. hist. XIII 7: οἱ ἄριστοι τῶν στρατηγῶν πανωλεθρίας ψῆφον κατὰ τῆς πόλεως. According to the Church History, one general was magister militum per Orientem, situated in Antioch, and the other was magister officiorum. Theodoret, Hist. eccl. V 20 [NPNF2 3, V 19]. See also J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz, Antioch (1972), 114-8. 28 Theodoret, Phil. hist. XIII 7. 25

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descent a possible connotation. As a representative of another world, the saint descends into the world of humans. The eloquent argument that Macedonius puts forth is reasoned with the help of a matter at the heart of Christian theology, humankind as created in the image of God. One Antiochene interpretation of this image even proposed that the human being was like the royal statue in a foreign city, an active symbol of the power of its sovereign.29 The saint says: Καὶ ἡμῖν μέν, ἔφη, τὰς χαλκᾶς ἀναπλάσαι τε καὶ ἀναμορφῶσαι ῥᾴδιόν τε καὶ εὐπετές· σοὶ δὲ καὶ βασιλεῖ ὄντι ἀδύνατον τὰ κατασφαγέντα σώματα ἐπαναγαγεῖν εἰς ζωήν.30 It is easy and simple for us’, he continued, ‘to remould and refashion bronze figures, but it is impossible for you, even though you are emperor, to bring back to life bodies you have slaughtered.

The saint charges the generals to remind the emperor that he is only a man, and paradoxically, he now represents a more merciful rule than that represented by the worldly authorities. As such, the scene is a power performance in which the emperor, as a human being, is criticized for lack of self-control, and almost, of attempted murder. If parrhesia sometimes is a matter of speaking freely to God, here it is a matter of courage in the face of the utmost terrestrial power, the emperor, whose supremacy is disarmed by the least likely candidate. By means of a political and cultural clash that is evoked by an uneducated monk who does not even speak Greek, a divine influence is spelled out as the only possible reason for his powerful action. Again, we should note the tension between showing and telling. At the same time as his rusticity is underlined, Macedonius carries himself like the representatives of power. The eloquence of the saint’s speech is a mirror of the narrator’s education, and as such, Macedonius speaks a familiar language. Now, here, on the agora, at this highly dramatic moment, let us temporarily pause the Life of Macedonius, and reconsider the same stories in light of the life of Antioch. 3. The Life of Antioch The Riot of the Statues is an event resonating in a couple of other texts, notably John Chrysostom’s Homilies on the Statues and several orations by Libanius. To no surprise, Theodoret clearly builds on Chrysostom, and therefore it is important to see to which degree this event concerns civic identity in Chrysostom: 29 See Frederick G. McLeod, The Image of God in the Antiochene Tradition (Washington, DC, 1999), 68, for Theodore of Mopsuestia comparing the human being as an image of God and the emperor’s image, and 78-80, esp. 79, for Theodoret interpreting ‘image as the power entrusted to males to rule over the material world’. 30 Theodoret, Phil. hist. XIII 7. See also John Chrysostom, Ad populum Antiochenum de statuis XVII (PG 49, 172).

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Βούλει μαθεῖν σου τῆς πόλεως τὸ ἀξίωμα; βούλει τὰ πάτρια αὐτῆς εἰδέναι; Ἐγὼ ταῦτα μετὰ ἀκριβείας ἐρῶ, οὐχ ἵνα μάθῃς μόνον, ἀλλ᾿ ἵνα καὶ ζηλώσῃς.31 Do you want to know the status of your city? Do you want to know its ancestry? I’ll tell you exactly what they are, not only so you may learn, but so that you may emulate too.

The honour (τὸ ἀξίωμα) of the city, and its ancestry (τὰ πάτρια) is now its Christian origins, Chrysostom says. Antioch is a city that can trace its history back to Paul and Barnabas – but this dignity is also displayed right now by ‘the virtue and piety’ of the monks who intervened during the Riot.32 Speaking in such terms, Chrysostom takes part in what Naoíse Mac Sweeney has termed a ‘foundation discourse’, involving both debate and dialogue with other civic birth stories.33 Although Theodoret is not as transparent, perhaps, in his interpretation of the same events, one may still wonder whether his account of Macedonius does not reflect the same discourse. The fact that Theodoret focuses a story which involves many ascetics in Chrysostom on one specific person, which he, in addition, gives the name Macedonius, is no mere coincidence, I think, but a signal worth taking notice of, since Antioch was a city of Macedonian origin.34 Like many ancient authors, Theodoret took names seriously, and he often remarks when a name has a special meaning, or a person a more famous, or infamous, namesake.35 Given his education Theodoret obviously had a profound knowledge about Antioch’s main myths, as we know them from Strabo in the first, Libanius in the fourth and John Malalas in the sixth century AD. The city was built by Seleucus in honour of his father, Antiochus, although Libanius even argues for Alexander the Great himself as a co-founder of the city.36 Recently, Benjamin Garstad has pointed to Theodoret’s awareness of the traditions concerning Alexander and his successors, and perhaps even the Alexander Romance.37 In the Commentary on Daniel, Theodoret discusses them in order to point out the passing character of the Macedonian empire, just as that of any other human empire.38 In another work, the Cure of Hellenic Maladies, Theodoret addresses the fate of Alexander in the context of famous generals (stratēgoi), whose graves are forgotten; again to underline the emptiness of earthly things over against

31

John Chrysostom, Stat. XVII (PG 49, 176). John Chrysostom, Stat. XVII (PG 49, 176): ἡ τῶν ἐνοικούντων ἀρετὴ καὶ εὐσέβεια. 33 Naoíse Mac Sweeney, ‘Introduction’, in Naoíse Mac Sweeney, Foundation Myths in Ancient Societies: Dialogues and Discourses (Philadelphia, 2015), 7-10. 34 For Antioch as Macedonian, see e.g. Libanius, Orationes, ed. R. Foerster, Libanii opera, vol. 1-4 (Leipzig, 1906), XI 64. 35 See Theodoret, Phil. hist. II 14 and XXI 2. 36 Libanius, Or. XI 74. 37 Benjamin Garstad, ‘The Goat from the Southwest in Theodotion’s Daniel Translation, Theodoret’s Commentary, and the Alexander Romance’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 160 (2017), 152-60. 38 See e.g. Theodoret, Interpretatio in Danielem, PG 81, 1304-8. 32

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that of the eternal glory of the martyrs.39 Although well informed, Theodoret keeps a critical distance to these imperial traditions. However, building on this familiarity, there are a few striking resemblances between the Life of Macedonius and the Macedonian traditions of Antioch that create an intriguing ‘dialogue’ between the two, not least with regard to the role that legendary wanderers play in both accounts.40 Much of the dramatic effect in the Life of Macedonius is a result of the clash of civilizations that is initiated when the rustic walks downhill, into the city. But looking upwards instead, one will notice that Macedonius is not the first wanderer in a mountain milieu such as this one. In fact, like him, the Macedonians are famous for coming from a mountainous region. Already Herodotus tells us that they were originally ‘highland dwellers’.41 And in a speech to the Macedonians, recounted by Arrian of Nicomedia (87-15 CE), Alexander depicts them as having been a nomadic people originally, roaming about the mountains in simple clothing, until his father picked them up.42 Like Macedonius, the Macedonians were therefore remembered as a kind of high hill barbarians. Even Alexander’s strong temper, for which he is famous,43 might be compared to the surprising, sudden anger that the saint showed as he walked downhill. However appealing, these resemblances would not suffice to build a case, unless there was a connection between these traditions and the Antiochian milieu as well. Therefore, it is intriguing that the story about Macedonian migration from Greece to the region of Antioch also concerns wanderers, and the very same mountain that Macedonius walked upon, Mt Silpius. The legend about princess Io, the daughter of Zeus, who was transformed into a cow and roamed around the world, chased by a gadfly, is a well-known tale. In the same story, her father, Inachos, sent out his Argives to find her, but as they gave up, they settled on Mt Silpius, establishing Iopolis.44 In a later phase, they were called down from the mountain, by Seleucus 39

Theodoret, Graecarum affectionum curatio VIII 61, ed. Pierre Canivet, SC 57 (Paris, 1957). For this term, see N. Mac Sweeney, ‘Introduction’ (2015), 7-10. For some of the following suggestions I am profoundly grateful to an Alexander scholar, Christian Djurslev. For Christian responses to Alexander, see Christian Thrue Djurslev, Alexander the Great in the Early Christian Tradition: Classical Reception and Patristic Literature (London, 2020). A sourcebook containing some of the texts below is Waldemar Heckel and J.C. Yardley (eds), Alexander the Great: Historical Sources in Translation (Oxford, 2004). 41 Herodotus, Historiae VII 128, ed. N.G. Wilson (Oxford, 2015): τῶν κατύπερθε οἰκημένων. For the historical Macedonians as highlanders, and even the name signifying a mountainous region, see Eugene N. Bozra, In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon (Princeton, 1990), 69-70. 42 Arrian, Alexandri anabasis VII 9.2, ed. A.G. Roos and G. Wirth (Leipzig, 1967). 43 For different accounts of Alexander’s temper see Plutarch, Alexander IV 7, ed. K. Ziegler in Plutarchi vitae parallelae 2.2 (Leipzig, 1968), and also W. Heckel and J.C. Yardley (eds), Alexander the Great (Oxford, 2004), 45, 223, 243-50. 44 See Libanius, Or. XI 44-55 and John Malalas, Chronographia II 7 (28-30), VIII 12-6 (199202). See also Daniel Ogden, The Legend of Seleucus: Kingship, Narrative and Mythmaking in the Ancient World (Cambridge, 2017), e.g. 52-3, 152-3. 40

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himself, to become the new city’s priestly caste. Since Macedonius is a wanderer from the same mountain the comparison is telling, and creates an echo effect to Antioch’s most well-known legends, especially since also Macedonius was called down from his highland habitat to be ordained. In many of the foundation stories about Antioch, Seleucus plays the main role.45 More than anything, he is remembered for his ‘city-foundations’, and there is a rich material concerning these.46 Not surprisingly, he is Antioch’s most famous general, but in addition he is also a hunter in some of the civic birth stories.47 Against this background, there is one story in particular in the Life of Macedonius, which resonates. On one occasion, a hunting general, i.e. someone like Seleucus, stumbles upon the saint in the mountains, and wonders what on earth he is doing there. Macedonius’ freedom of speech is demonstrated again by his eloquent response: ‘I too am hunting my God’, he says, ‘I yearn to catch him, I long to behold him, and I shall not give up this noble hunt’.48 The blending of a classic scene and the language of desire for God, so central to the History of the Monks of Syria, juxtaposes the ascetic’s spiritual journey with the general’s elite lifestyle in a way that brings Macedonius close to a certain readership. On one level, Macedonius is still in his appropriate milieu here, the mountains. On another level, though, he is laid out like a mosaic figure on the floor of an Antiochene villa, alongside the other creatures of a hunting expedition, which was the latest fashion in the fifth century.49 If Seleucus, in addition, is added to the picture and seen as participating in the scene, there is a real dialogue between the two and between their different civic traditions. The founder of Antioch is both a contrast and a companion to the saint.

4. Conclusion Throughout this short essay, a tension between showing and telling has been observed. Although Theodoret portrays the solitary saint as someone very different from the human habitat, both the narrator and the ascetic speak in a language strangely familiar to an urban community. The stories about the wanderer, whom 45

For the traditions related to Seleucus, see ibid. D. Ogden, Legend of Seleucus (2017), 99, and the rest of the same chapter. 47 See Libanius, Or. XI 95, and D. Ogden, Legend of Seleucus (2017), 104, quoting John Malalas. 48 Theodoret, Phil. hist. XIII 6: Κἀγώ, ἔφη, τὸν ἐμὸν θηρεύω θεὸν καὶ λαβεῖν ἐφίεμαι καὶ θεωρῆσαι ποθῶ καὶ τῆς καλῆς ταύτης οὐκ ἀφέξομαι θήρας. 49 Christine Kondoleon, ‘Mosaics of Antioch’, in Christine Kondoleon (ed.), Antioch: The Lost Ancient City (Princeton, 2000), 63-77, esp. 65 and 66, with the sixth century hunt mosaic from Daphne. See the so-called Mosaic of Worchester Hunt in Lawrence Becker and Christine Kondoleon (eds), The Arts of Antioch: Art Historical and Scientific Approaches to Roman Mosaics and a Catalogue of the Worcester Art Museum Antioch Collection (Princeton, 2005), 228-37. 46

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someone even might have met, or heard of while he still was alive, even make sense in light of legends about the city, Antioch. In some ways, the narrative is a straightforward story about a Christian saint, but in other ways, the tale is not that simple. According to Naoíse Mac Sweeney, ‘intertextuality is a crucial element in the dialogue between myths – individual stories may corroborate, nuance, or contradict one another, but they would not have been told in a vacuum’.50 Along these lines, I have tried to corroborate myths that are not often considered together, searching for ‘typologies’ in a material outside the canon, between a hunting general and a saint chasing God.51 Of course, once you have started searching for allusions, it is impossible to stop. Could Macedonius’ nick-names also be signals, the ‘pit’ being a reference to the Amuk plain of Antioch, Amyke meaning hollow, and the ‘Barley-eater’ alluding to the Tychê of Antioch, who is holding grains in her hand? Perhaps – but then again – probably not. ‘The test for allusion is’ according to Earl Miner, ‘that it is a phenomenon that some reader or readers may fail to observe’.52 Since Theodoret distinguishes between real images and false appearances,53 he would probably call these allusions illusions, but exactly in the case of an author as Theodoret, who writes in an atticist prose, I think it is crucial to watch past explicit comparisons to parallel lives. Even without these comparisons, the Life of Macedonius is an example of how important a topic the city is in a specific monastic text. In contrast to Alexander the Great, Macedonius eventually found a grave together with the martyrs of Antioch, and so his Life could be read as a foundation story at that particular cult place.54 But if these allusions are accepted in addition, the Life of Macedonius is part of the ‘foundation discourse’ of Antioch, in which the past is present also in its Christian reinterpretation.

50

N. Mac Sweeney, ‘Introduction’ (2015), 7-8. For the ‘concept of typology’ with regard to mythopoesis, see D. Ogden, Legend of Seleucus (2017), 9. 52 Earl Miner, ‘Allusion’, NPEPP 39. 53 See Theodoret, Phil. hist. I 1-3. 54 Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen, The Churches of Syrian Antioch (300-638 CE) (Leuven, 2012), 83-5. 51

ASCETICA

On the Existence of ‘the Encratites’ Andrew GUFFEY, Bloomfield Hills, MI, USA

ABSTRACT This article establishes a starting point for understanding early Christian Encratites. Did ‘the Encratites’, as a defined social group in early Christianity, exist, or were they merely an invention of the early Christian heresiologists? Skepticism is warranted, since the works of the early Christian heresiologists who advert to the existence of the Encratites are crafted to their own socio-rhetorical aims. This article sets out the evidence for the existence of a group or network within early Christianity who were identified and/or identified themselves as ‘Encratites’. Instead of beginning with Irenaeus, whose report leaves us with little coherent tradition to trace in later centuries, this article builds a case beginning in the fourth century with evidence from Basil and contemporary epigraphy. The evidence for Encratite practices and discourse is then traced backward toward Irenaeus. The rationale of this procedure does not entail an identification between the findings of the fourth century and the second, but rather encourages a new procedure in inquiry into the Encratites: tracing the tradition from the clearer and more distinctive evidence of the fourth century back toward the more suspect evidence of the second, with references to the Refutation of All Heresies, the account of Irenaeus, and that of Epiphanius. The article concludes that a group of ascetical rigorist Christians who called themselves Encratites did exist by the fourth century, and that they were building on a tradition of ascetical rigorism that favored the name Encratite, a tradition that first comes into evidence in the second century.

Did the Encratites exist? Do we have any real confidence that there was a group in antiquity that called themselves Encratites and who ran afoul of other Christians, most notoriously Irenaeus, the author of the Refutation of All Heresies, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Epiphanius of Salamis? Or, were the Encratites the product of the heresiological imagination without much grounding in social reality? This set of questions is fundamental for understanding ancient encratism. In this essay, I wish to reset the discussion on the existence of the Encratites, on the way to a thicker description of the character of their habits of thought and practice. If there were Encratites, as posited by the heresiological tradition, to what extent did their thought systems differ from emerging catholic Christianity? Was it as great as Irenaeus and Epiphanius, nearly two centuries apart, assert? In other words, what did encratism look like in Early Christianity? We could content ourselves with an analysis of ‘encratic discourse’,

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 55-66. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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but the historical question of the very existence of such a group persists: Did the Encratites exist?1 The question is deceptively simple. Once raised, one must decide how to proceed. Previous scholarship has begun in the second century, with Irenaeus. In Adv. Haer. 1.28.1, Irenaeus is the first extant work to advert to a group of Christians called Encratites. According to Irenaeus these Encratites, who had ‘sprung from Saturninus and Marcion’, ‘preached against marriage’ and encouraged ‘abstinence from so-called en-souled things’. And there was more: They denied the salvation of Adam, a doctrine introduced by Tatian, who also devised a system of Aeons and considered procreation corruption and fornication. Irenaeus’ account remains influential. Not only did the other heresiological treatments of the Refutation of All Heresies, Eusebius, and Epiphanius draw on Irenaeus, but the most recent scholarly treatments of Encratites and encratism, ably summarized by Robert Cecire and Gilles Quispel, attempt to reconstruct a particular ascetical-theological tradition that resembles Irenaeus’ account: a sect or movement marked by rigorous asceticism, especially extreme sexual renunciation, wed to intense, quasi-Gnostic theological-anthropological speculation.2 That is not to say that study of the Encratites and encratism has 1 It might be objected that the analytic category ‘encratite’ need not depend on any such social reality. An Encratite social reality, however, is one way to arrive at a more specific Encratite designation. Emily Hunt raises just this question in her monograph on Tatian (Emily Hunt, Christianity in the Second Century: The Case of Tatian [London, 2003]). In her discussion of the relationship of Tatian to Syriac Christianity Hunt points to a circularity of argumentation, in which ‘Encratite’ passages are used to demonstrate Tatian’s encratism, but the Encratite cast of those passages is identified based on the ‘accusations of the heresiologists’ (150). Hunt asks, ‘what makes these variants specifically “Encratite” rather than generally ascetic?’ It is an astute question, and the answer would be better grounded if we were able to identify a distinctive Encratite social milieu out of which certain dispositions and practices arose. 2 Previous studies of note include Paola Pisi, Genesis e phthorá. Le motivazioni protologiche della verginità in Gregorio di Nissa e nella tradizione dell’enkrateia (Rome, 1981); Giulia Sfameni Gasparro, Enkrateia e Anthropologia: Le motivazioni protologicha della continenza e della verginatà nel christianesimo dei primi seculi e nello gnosticismo, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 20 (Rome, 1984); Franco Bolgiani, La tradizione eresiologica sull’encratismo, I. La notizie de Ireneo, and II. La confutazione di Clemente di Alessandria, Atti della Accademia delle Scienze di Torino 91 and 96 (1956/57; 1961/62); and Ugo Bianchi (ed.), La Tradizione dell’Enkrateia. Atti del Colloquia Internazionale – Milano, 20-23 aprile 1982 (Rome, 1985). In this latter volume, Gilles Quispel’s 1982 review of the study of Encratism (‘The Study of Encratism: A Historical Survey’, ibid., 35-81) gave shape to a particular school of inquiry on Encratism, unconcerned with an uncritical acceptance of the basic lines of Irenaeus’ account of the Encratites, and Robert Cecire’s 1985 Kansas University dissertation (Robert Cecire, ‘Encratism: Early Christian Ascetic Extremism’, unpublished dissertation [Lawrence, KS, 1985]) summarized the state of the questions at that time, but did not stake out new ground. These previous studies continue to hold some influence, especially when paired with Gnostic traditions, in the work of April DeConick and others: e.g. April D. DeConick, ‘Fasting from the World: Encratite Soteriology in the Gospel of Thomas’, in Ugo Bianchi (ed.), The Notion of “Religion” in Comparative Research (Rome, 1990), 425-40; April D. DeConick, Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas, Vigiliae Christianae Supplements 33 (Leiden, Boston, 1996).

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accepted Irenaeus uncritically. Even so, these previous studies share a willingness to fuse Encratite practice (by which Encratites were most distinguishable from other Christians) with a specific set of theological speculations.3 In this, current treatments of encratism continue to be indebted to Irenaeus and the heresiological tradition he invigorated. In his effort to link all the haereses together under the tradition of Simon Magus, and to connect them by way of genealogy (here, via Saturninus and Marcion), Irenaeus lumps together Tatian and his supposed Valentinian-esque aeons, rejection of the salvation of the first-formed (πρωτοπλάστος), and denigration of marriage as corruption (φθορά) and sexual immorality (πορνεία), with ‘people called Encratites’ (οἱ καλούμενοι ἐγκρατεῖς) who preached non-marriage (ἀγαμίαν ἐκήρυξαν), and who abstained from what they called en-souled food (i.e. meat). The notice about the Encratites preaching nonmarriage and abstinence (ἀποχή) from en-souled food is much more neutral than the notice of Tatian’s teaching, to which it is conjoined. Preaching nonmarriage or abstinence is not simply equivocal with condemnation of marriage as corruption, nor does abstinence from food necessarily imply some sort of rejection of creation, as the rejection of Adam’s salvation might suggest. The only real connection between Tatian and the Encratites seems to be avoidance of marriage, complete continence, but it is not at all clear that the motivations for continence are the same for Tatian as for the Encratites. Irenaeus (and/or his source) has clearly tried to synthesize Tatian and the Encratites here.4 His terse treatment, when he is otherwise so prolix (e.g. with the Valentinians), reflects his lack of personal knowledge of Encratites, apart from the fact that there are some who are so called, and who had some connection to continence and avoidance of meat. Indeed, if Geoffrey Smith is right, Irenaeus may be repeating a source, the Syntagma, or Catalogue Against All The Heresies, to which Justin refers in his first Apology.5 It may be that the 3 The venerable account of Peter Brown, The Body and Society (New York, 1988), 92-102, similarly over-reaches. Brown’s chapter on the Encratites includes discussions also of Tatian and Marcion, continuing in a new mode Irenaeus’ genealogical project, by placing them all under the heading ‘To Undo the Works of Women’, a reference to a passage from the Gospel According to the Egyptians as cited by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 3.63.1). I will shortly take up the question of whether Tatian ought to be considered along with the Encratites. While Julius Cassianus, Clement’s interlocutor, might have accepted that ἐγκράτεια was indeed necessary to undo the works of women, it is not clear that all who held to ἐγκράτεια as an ideal would have understood the motivation for their practices in this way. The practical significant of linking ἐγκράτεια with abstention from marriage/sexual intercourse, meat, and wine can just as easily be tied to the theme of Brown’s previous chapter: ‘Martyrdom, Prophecy and Continence’, as it is in, for instance, the Acts of Paul and Thecla. For a variety of motivations for Encratite practice, see Andrew R. Guffey, ‘Motivations for Encratite Practices in Early Christian Literature’, JTS n.s. 65 (2014), 515-49. 4 So also Andrew McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists (New York, 1999), 160. 5 Geoffrey Smith, Guilt by Association: Heresy Catalogues in Early Christianity (New York, 2017), allows for the reasonable notion that Irenaeus is here drawing on a source, the so-called

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Encratites and Tatian were already fused in that work, though the genealogical compulsion is strong with Irenaeus, so it is not unthinkable that Irenaeus might have combined the two. What Irenaeus (or the Syntagma) gains by linking the Encratites to Tatian is a neat rationale for rejecting Encratite practice based on the supposed defective theology of Tatian. It is unlikely, though, that Encratite prohibitions of sex/marriage and meat (and/or wine) were funded by a single theological system or ideological content, as though such groups made up their minds before they made up their practice; practice, rather, is primary. The relative ignorance of Irenaeus with respect to actual Encratites, is no reason to doubt that a group of Encratites existed, only that we should not rely on Irenaeus for a very reliable description, or that we should immediately link Encratite practice with Tatianic speculations on aeons or denial of the salvation of Adam. That Irenaeus mentions ‘so-called Encratites’ at all, possibly from another source, still suggests that some Christians were called ‘Encratites’, at least by the end of the second century. The name itself is a flattering one, and it is unlikely that anyone would have used it as an epithet or title of opprobrium, or even of censure in the second century CE. It is the sort of name, in other words, with which a group of Christians may have flattered themselves. Considering that ἐγκράτεια was a widely touted goal of philosophical praxis, and that Paul lists it among the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:23), it should come as no surprise that some early Christians would have prided themselves on exactly this: their ἐγκράτεια. The Sentences of Sextus (86a, 239, 253b, 294, and 438) already touted the ideal of ἐγκράτεια, though without any obvious mandate of sexual continence in which marriage was forbidden, and certainly without any elaborate system of aeons as a theological foundation.6 And yet, the evidence of ἐγκράτεια as a Christian ideal in the second century does not lead to an Irenaean conclusion of a group whose practices derive from distinctive and defective theological speculations, even if we remove the connection to Tatian. In other words, although the evidence from Irenaeus might suggest a group that defined itself by its abstentions from sex and meat connected to the key term ἐγκράτεια, such a judgment still depends on Irenaeus’ rather confused account. It is possible to argue, on this evidence, that Irenaeus is actually giving a name to a broad movement of ascetic valor that adherents would not have given themselves, but with which they might readily identify. That is, it is possible to argue that Irenaeus is actually giving an identity to a much looser movement. What the historian craves is firmer evidence of selfidentified Encratites. Rather than beginning with the earliest evidence, then, Syntagma against all the Heresies Justin mentions in 1Apol. 26.8. In Smith’s view, the passage on Tatian and the Encratites was added to the Syntagma after Justin’s death. The notion of a rolling text like this as Irenaeus’ source provides a useful, or at least convenient, explanation for why the report is so confused. 6 For the ascetical teachings in the Sentences of Sextus, especially with respect to sex, see Henry Chadwick, The Sentences of Sextus (Cambridge, 1959), 98-101.

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perhaps it would be better to begin with the most compelling evidence for the existence of self-identified Encratites. And indeed, there is clear epigraphic evidence that some Christians did pride themselves on their ἐγκράτεια enough to label themselves as Encratites, though that evidence comes not from the second century, but the fourth. The first two inscriptions to consider come as two panels of a funerary monument.7 The left-hand panel adverts to being erected by Aurelios Antonios and his aunt, Elaphia, ‘deaconess of the Encratites’ (διακόνισσα τῶν Ἐνκρατῶν). The second was erected by the same Elaphia, here called deaconess of the Encratite religion or sect (διακόνισσα τῆς Ἐνκρατῶν θρισκίας).8 These inscriptions come from third-century, or more probably fourth-century Lycaonia, and they confirm that at least some Christians in Central Asia Minor in the fourth century considered themselves ‘Encratites’, even part of a distinct Encratite group. Another inscription, from the same area, mentions one Μεῖρος Ἀεντίνου τῶν Ἐνκρατῶν, who erected the memorial for himself and other named members of his family.9 For Meiros, at least, Encratites like him were 7 MAMA 7.69a and 69b. Online: ICG 439: C. Breytenbach, K. Hallof, U. Huttner, J. Krumm, S. Mitchell, J. Ogereau, E. Sironen, M. Veksina and C. Zimmermann (eds), Inscriptiones Christianae Graecae (Berlin, 2016), online at http://repository.edition-topoi.org/collection/ICG/object/439 (doi: 10.17171/1-8-3001). Discussion of these inscriptions has been limited. The most important discussion remains that of William M. Calder, ‘Epigraphy of the Anatolian Heresies’, in W.H. Buckler and W.M. Calder (eds), Anatolian Studies Presented to Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (Manchester, 1923), 59-92, esp. 67-70. But see also G. Blond, ‘L’hérésie encratite vers la fin du IVe siècle’, Recherches de Science Religieuse 32 (1944), 202-5, and Stephen Mitchell, Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor, vol. 2: The Rise of the Church (Oxford, 1993), 103. 8 MAMA 7.69a: Αὐρ. Ἀντώ̳ν̳ιος Μίρου ἅμα τῇ ἑαυτοῦ θίᾳ Ἐλα[φ]ίῃ διακονίσσῃ 5 [τῶν Ἐ]νκρατῶν [ἀνεστήσ]αμεν [ — — — ].

MAMA 7.69b 1 Ἐλαφία διακόνισσα τῆς Ἐνκρατῶν θρισκίας ἀνέστησα τῷ πρ(εσ)β(ύτερῳ) Πέτρῳ 5 ἅμα τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτῶ Πολυχρονίἠ ῳ μνήμης χάριν. 9 MAMA 7.96. Online: ICG 240: Breytenbach et al. (eds), Inscriptiones, online at http:// repository.edition-topoi.org/collection/ICG/object/240 (doi: 10.17171/1-8-1531). See previous note for secondary discussion. Text: Μεῖρος Ἀεντίνου τῶ[ν] Ἐνκ[ρ]α[τ]ῶν ζῶν κὲ φρονῶν ἀνέστ[η]σεν ἑαυτ-

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special, and the boundaries between them and others perdured even in death. Meiros warns that should any of the ‘wine drinkers’ (οἰνοποτῶν) enter (that is, be interred or inter others with) the Encratites, they will have to answer ‘to God and to Jesus Christ’.10 Unlike Irenaeus and scholarly treatments that follow Irenaeus, Meiros’ warning does not highlight sexual renunciation, but rather the rejection of wine. Scholars have long focused only, or at least primarily, on the sexual mores described as Encratite, and they have, in my view, generally ignored what we might call the broader ascetical ecology of Encratite society, of which abstinence from meat from ensouled animals and abstinence from wine were also integral. It is striking that Meiros does not caution the married or the breeders, but the wine drinkers.11 At the same time, Meiros does seem to think the οἰνοποτῶν and the Encratites shared a belief in God’s eschatological judgment. The brief impression left by these inscriptions is that in them we have Encratites in fourth century Asia Minor who identify themselves precisely by their practices (in this case not drinking wine), who maintain separate burial quarters, and who invoke the judgment of God and Jesus Christ to enforce the boundary between Encratites and non-Encratites. This picture of Encratites does not seem to indicate a sect driven by complex protological speculation or extreme polemical vituperation against the ‘works of women’.12 In an otherwise fine study, Peter Thonemann has argued, somewhat strangely, that these inscriptions do not actually contain notices of self-identified Encratites, and thus ‘the polemical characterization of one particular group of non-orthodox Lycaonian ascetics as “Encratites” with, so to speak, a capital “E” is likely to be profoundly misleading.’13 Having drawn attention to these inscriptions (and others relating to the so-called Apotactites), Thonemann ῷ τε κὲ τῇ ἀνεψιᾷ Τατι [κ]ὲ τῷ ἀδε[λ]φῷ Παύλῳ κὲ ἀδελφῇ Πρ[ι]βι μνήμ5 ης χάριν. εἰ δέ τις τῶν οἰν[ο]ποτῶν ἐπενβάλῃ, εἴσχι πρὸς τὸν θ(εὸ)ν καὶ Ἰη(σο)ῦ Χ(ριστό)ν. 10 Of interest in this connection is Q 7:34 (Matt. 11:19), where Jesus says he came “eating” and “wine-drinking” (οἰνοπότης). 11 Recall that Irenaeus’ report does not mention wine. In Irenaeus, the principled rejection of marriage is to the fore, which may reflect Tatian’s views, and may have been more muted among other Encratites. The Sentences of Sextus, insofar as we ought to consider them as part of the development of encratism in the second century, even suggest that married partners might vie with one another in a contest (ἄγων) of displaying ἐγκράτεια (239). What we find in the fourth-century inscriptions from Asia Minor is that Encratites need not have defined themselves just by their abstinence from marriage, but also by their rejection of wine and/or meat. Even if Irenaeus was correct that Tatian considered marriage πορνεία and φθορά, it is not clear that the Encratites were motivated by Tatianic or Marcionitic metaphysical speculations or protology. 12 See note 3 above. 13 Peter Thonemann, ‘Amphilochius of Iconium and Lycaonian Asceticism’, Journal of Roman Studies 101 (2011), 185-205, 204.

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concludes that, unlike Novatian inscriptions, those relating to encratite or apotactite matters ‘are far less explicitly sectarian in character’.14 He goes on to assert that ‘in not one instance do we find an individual actually applying the term “encratite” (ἐγκρατίτης) to him- or herself.’15 While technically correct regarding that particular Greek form, it is hard to escape the idea that Thonemann is being overly picky here. He similarly reports that the only heresiological text he is aware of that refers to a heretical group of Ἐγκρατεῖς is Eusebius!16 Thonemann argues that Amphilochius essentially defines Encratites and Apotactites, which then influences the Theodosian legislation of the early 380s outlawing these sects: ‘The primary aim of Amphilochius’ project was not persuasion or conversion, but terminological capture.’17 But surely the same could be said of Irenaeus, the Refutation of All Heresies, and Epiphanius, not to mention Basil himself, especially in his second canonical letter (Letter 199, ca. 375). The genealogical project common to the heresiologists promotes just this sort of concretizing of social opposition.18 Thonemann’s analysis is binary: either the Encratites represent a ‘fully determinate and consciously exclusive’ sect like the Novatians, or their social reality is essentially non-existent apart from the pressure of heresiological discourse.19 For Thonemann it is insignificant that ‘the Lycaonian “encratites” shared [a] sense of collective identity or doctrinal affiliation – Amphilochius and Basil were evidently talking about a well-known and readily identifiable group.’ What Thonemann is trying to avoid is ‘that in identifying them as a sharply distinct and organized sect we may be making a simple category-error’.20 But there is no need to identify Encratites ‘as a sharply distinct and organized sect’ for them to be an identifiable group. For our purposes, Thonemann actually demonstrates that Amphilochius is eager to contest or correct a certain group of Christians in Lycaonia whom he calls Encratites and whose ascetic prohibitions are consistent with what we know of Encratites from elsewhere. In spite of the fact that the inscriptions are few in number and only give us solid evidence of Encratites in fourth-century Lycaonia (not, say, second-century Syria), they do give us concrete evidence of self-identified Encratites. They lend a bare minimum of credibility to Epiphanius’ report that the Encratites can be found spreading especially in Pisidia and ‘Scorched Phrygia’.21 W.M. Calder persuasively argued that this ‘Scorched Phrygia’ (Phrygia Katakekaumene) probably refers to Laodicea Combusta, 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Ibid. 195, cf. 204. Ibid. 204, italics original, cf. 195, 197. Ibid. 204, n. 74. Ibid. 204. As Thonemann rightly acknowledges: P. Thonemann, ‘Amphilochius’ (2011), 189. Ibid. 204. Ibid. 204. Pan. 2.47.1.2.

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‘Burnt Laodicea’, in Lycaonia.22 These inscriptions also lead us to acknowledge that the correspondence of Basil and Amphilochius, Amphilochius’ Against False Asceticism, and the Theodosian legislation against the Encratites were addressing a real social group. Basil’s canonical letters address problems related to Encratites, along with other heretical groups: the Sakkophori, the Kathari, the Novatians, and the Apotaktitai.23 Basil counsels Amphilochius in Iconium to rebaptize any Encratites, Sakkophori, or Apotaktitai wishing to gain entrance to the Eucharist. In Letter 199, Basil identifies their practices as ‘abominating marriage, refusing wine, and calling God’s creature polluted’. In good heresiological polemical fashion, Basil trades in hyperbole here, but he clearly identifies abstinence from marriage, wine, and meat as the key characteristics of Encratite practice. When Basil says they need to be re-baptized he also reveals that the Encratites considered themselves to have been baptized into ‘the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’, though Basil denies the validity of that formula for their baptism since their practice, again in his view, denies the goodness of the Creator.24 In Letter 188 Basil had already singled out the Encratites as having devised their own form of baptism to compensate for being denied baptism in Basil’s churches. Their baptism cannot be accepted, according to Basil, even if the Encratites accept the validity of the baptismal rites of Basil and his churches. It is Basil who rejects the Encratites, rather than vice versa. None of this identifies the Encratites as a sectarian group with an altogether distinct theological system, only with a distinctive practice, from which Basil will infer the theological ‘error’ of denigrating the Creator. It is their exclusion from Basil’s churches that seems to have given rise to alternative baptismal rites, or, more likely, alternative baptizing agents not authorized by Basil. At any rate, Basil is clearly addressing a situation regarding a real group of ascetic Christians called Encratites. Thonemann’s analysis of Amphilochius’ Against False Asceticism similarly reflects knowledge of a social group with a distinctive set of identifying ascetic practices. Thonemann turns up a portrait of Encratite and Apotactite communities that rejected marriage, but were not segregated by gender, that used water for Eucharist instead of wine, that were vegetarian, and that laid stress on selfrestraint, renunciation, and holiness. Thonemann also concludes on the basis of Amphilochius’ text that these groups were more rural than urban, used an 22

W.M. Calder, ‘Epigraphy’ (1923), 67-70. Early notices of inscriptions relating to these groups can be found in W.M. Calder, ‘Epigraphy’ (1923), and David Moore Robinson, ‘Greek and Latin Inscriptions from Asia Minor’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 57 (1926), 195-237. 24 Basil, Letter 199.47: … οὐ δεχόμεθα αὐτοὺς εἰς τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν, ἐὰν μὴ βαπτισθῶσιν εἰς τὸ ἡμέτερον βάπτισμα. μὴ γὰρ λεγέτωσαν ὅτι Εἰς Πατέρα καὶ Υἱὸν καὶ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα ἐβαπτίσθημεν, οἵ γε κακῶν ποιητὴν ὑποτιθέμενοι τὸν Θεόν… 23

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orthodox baptismal formula (presumably until Basil and Amphilochius refused to admit them to the Eucharist), and yet who were not entirely distinguishable from one another.25 That is quite a lot to go on to establish the existence of a distinguishable social group, even if not an exclusive sect. The epigraphic and literary evidence of Lycaonia, then, does allow the conclusion that a group of self-identified Encratites existed, at least in fourth-century Asia Minor, though nothing in any of these fourth-century sources leads us to believe the Encratites indulged in the sorts of speculations on aeons Irenaeus or Epiphanius reports. Basil and Amphilochius do not object to their theological eccentricities so much as their distinctive prohibitions and their recent ritual independence. Indeed, the principle means of distinguishing Encratites from non-Encratites is in their distinctive practice: they did not drink wine, they did not marry, and they did not eat meat. There is a possibility that all of this simply reflects fourth-century developments, and so our next question must be whether we can trace an Encratite tradition back to the second century. Here we come up against a problem of evidence: while Encratite themes are prominent in a number of the Apocryphal Acts (especially the Acts of Paul, the Acts of Andrew, the Acts of Thomas, and the Acts of John), which would imply Encratite communities from which these works arose, groups identified as Encratite are described primarily by other heresiologists. A full review would include Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Jerome, and others. For now, the key question is whether there is an earlier heresiological report that resembles the sort of movement in evidence in fourthcentury Lycaonia. There is such a report, clearer than Irenaeus’ muddled account and cleaner than Epiphanius’ over-zealous polemic. The Refutation of All Heresies, formerly attributed to Hippolytus, written or completed shortly after 222 CE, presents an account of the Encratites considerably more tempered than Irenaeus’ report.26 Although the Refutator’s treatment of Tatian is just a rewrite of Irenaeus, in the Refutation Tatian and the Encratites are disambiguated (they are separated by three other entries: Hermogenes, Quartodecimans, and Phrygians). Indeed, the first thing the Refutator reports of those calling themselves Encratites (ἑαυτοὺς ἀποκαλοῦντες Ἐγκρατίτας) is that ‘they confess the same things about God and Christ as the church’ (περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὁμοίως [καὶ] τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ὁμολογοῦσι). The language of ‘God and Christ’ resembles the warning on the tombstone of Meiros that those ‘winedrinkers’ buried with the Encratites would have to answer ‘to God and Christ’. Some aspects of the Refutation’s account do correspond to Irenaeus: namely, that the Encratites forbid marriage (γαμεῖν κωλύοντες). But even on this point 25

P. Thonemann, ‘Amphilochius’ (2011), 194. Ref. 8.20. I concur with David Litwa’s assessment of the authorship and dating of the Refutation. When I refer to the author of the work I will call him simply the Refutator. See Refutation of All Heresies, trans. M. David Litwa (Atlanta, 2016), xxxii-xl. 26

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the Refutator does not say the Encratites considered marriage to be πορνεία or φθορά. In fact, the Refutation identifies the Encratites’ relationship to food as their most distinctive error: ‘Thinking to glorify themselves through foods, they keep away from the meat of ensouled animals and drink only water’. To this is appended, almost as an afterthought, the fact that they ‘forbid marriage and dedicate the rest of their lives to harsh austerity’.27 Where the Refutator deems the Encratites to err is not in their faith, but in their practice, in turning around the accustomed way of behaving (πολιτεία πεφυσιωμένως). The Refutation reflects what we found in the Lycaonian inscriptions, Amphilochius’ writing, and Basil’s letters: a self-identified group of Christians, who seem to be basically in agreement with ‘orthodox’ Christian theology, but who are especially fastidious in their prohibitions against marriage, meat, and wine and call themselves Encratites. The Refutation still feels he must refute the Encratites, of course. And he does so by quoting 1Timothy 4:1-5, where the author similarly rebuts those who deviate from sound teaching, forbidding marriage and abstaining from certain foods, probably meat (κωλυόντων γαμεῖν, ἀπέχεσθαι βρωμάτων). The author of 1Timothy goes on to argue that every creature of God is good and ought to be received with thanksgiving. From this Deutero-Pauline text, and not from some Marcionite dualism, comes the charge that Encratites denigrate Creation by rejecting meat. Certainly, there may have been some who called themselves Encratites and did consider the Creator to have been in error. But from the Refutation we learn that we need not posit such a crude theological speculation to identify Encratites, and that the inference of theological error is really a polemical trope. In the middle of the third century Novatian used the same polemical logic against Jewish dietary practices: because they reject the meat of unclean animals, they reject the good creation of God and imply God has created something that is impure.28 Even in Irenaeus, the allegation is that ‘Those who are called Encratites preached against marriage, thus setting aside the original creation of God, and indirectly (ἠρέμα) blaming Him who made the male and female for the propagation of the human race’.29 Just as the Refutator follows the author of 1Timothy in inferring a theological error from ascetic practice, and Novatian posits theological error in Jewish dietary observance, so too Irenaeus extrapolates a theological motivation for preaching non-marriage presumably not voiced by the Encratites themselves, since he admits they only indirectly (ἠρέμα) blame the Creator. This is no Marcionite theology.

27 28 29

Ref. 8.20.1, trans. Litwa. Novatian, De cibis Iudaicis, esp. chs. 2-4. Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 1.28.1.

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Conclusion In this article, I have not been able to examine issues in fluctuations of Encratite discourse between the second and fourth centuries, the Nachleben of Encratites past the fourth century, or the geographical dispersion of Encratites. In the interest of space, for instance, I have had to avoid any real discussion of Clement of Alexandria’s shaping of ascetic rhetoric in book 3 of his Stromateis.30 The goal of this essay was to answer a simple question: Did the Encratites exist? En route to a satisfactory answer, the question has given rise to further questions that cannot all be answered here. In asking the question of whether Encratites existed, we must also ask how they existed, what their relationship was to other Christian communities, how a tradition of Encratite practice may have invited theological diversity, all while being sensitive to possible diachronic and geographical diversity in manifestations of Encratite practice. The answer to the initial question, then, is: yes, the Encratites did exist. (For those inclined to accept the presentation of Irenaeus, this will be no revelation.) But what we must primarily mean in acknowledging the existence of Encratites is that our evidence points to the existence of a group of Christians who selfidentified, though not necessarily exclusively, as Encratites in fourth century Lycaonia. That is where our clearest evidence for Encratites is to be found. From that evidence we gain a template for tracing possible Encratite traditions forward and backward in time, and across diverse geographical settings: Encratites were rigorists in ascetic practice who did not marry, drink wine, or eat meat, and may have been reasonably at home with the theology and ritual of emerging catholic orthodoxy. They were, nevertheless, a self-identified class of Christians, who perhaps considered themselves more Christian or more pure than others who drank wine, ate meat, and married. From this template we can trace the existence of Encratites deeper into antiquity, alighting on the Refutation of All Heresies in the early third century. From the vantage point of these sources we are better able to evaluate Irenaeus’ report late in the second century. The stable element throughout is not protological speculation or Encratite theology, and certainly not the theological errors with which Irenaeus charges them, but rather a consistent emphasis on ἐγκράτεια, marked by abstinence from meat and wine, and avoidance of marriage. Groups of Christians who adopted this combination of ascetic habits (though their theologies might have widely diverged) called themselves (and probably recognized one another as) Encratites. Tracing the existence of Encratites in this way is not meant as an anachronistic exercise of positing a fourth century phenomenon in the second century. The point of this procedure is rather to move from the more concrete evidence 30 For which, a good starting point is David G. Hunter, ‘The Language of Desire: Clement of Alexandria’s Transformation of Ascetic Discourse’, Semeia 57 (1992), 95-111.

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to the less certain and less concrete. This requires a change in perspective: instead of conceiving of Encratites as a second century sect that can be traced into the fourth century, we ought to understand them as a fourth century phenomenon whose tradition can be traced back to the second century. Instead of considering the fourth-century Encratites as some later extension or failing appendage of a second-century sect or movement (which may or may not have existed), the much more certain existence of Encratites in the fourth century sheds light on possible motivations and characteristics of their predecessors and especially the polemical developments that led to a group of self-identified Encratites and their distinctive practices. The center of gravity for inquiry into the Encratites, I propose, is not in the second century with Irenaeus, but in fourth-century Lycaonia. Still, this paper does not map the whole terrain of the Encratites; it only proposes a point of departure.

Copto-Arabic Sayings Attributed to St Antony the Great Elizabeth AGAIBY, St Athanasius College, University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT The sayings in the Apophthegmata Patrum (Sayings of the Desert Fathers) attributed to St Antony the Great exist in various textual traditions, recensions, and linguistic manifestations and, together with the Life of Antony, are authoritative texts for understanding Antony and his community. The sayings have been spoken, read, transcribed, and practiced as part of monastic discipline for generations; thus, testifying to the influence Antony’s sayings have had across both chronological and cultural divides. The sayings attributed to Antony in Arabic, in particular in the Copto-Arabic tradition, exist in a vast number of manuscripts, most of which are still untapped in monastic libraries. Interestingly, a surprising number of sayings attributed to Antony in Arabic are unattested in either the Greek or Coptic recensions and, based on the dating of the Arabic manuscripts, it appears the unattested ‘additional’ sayings were gradually incorporated into the Arabic Apophthegmata from around the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, with the majority of additional sayings incorporated in the eighteenth century. These additional sayings, together with the embellishment of some of the attested sayings, affirm how the tradition introduced, reinvented, or simply excluded stories and instructions for the collection to be relevant to the taste and mentality of the time and place. The sayings attributed to Antony in Arabic are contained in the Bustān al-Ruhbān (in English, Paradise of the Fathers) which is the collection of sayings and stories of the early Desert Fathers. The reading and recital of Antony’s sayings from the Bustān are still very much a living tradition practiced in Coptic monasteries today. This article provides an overview on the background to the Copto-Arabic tradition on Antony’s unattested sayings.

Introduction1 ‘Coptic religious memory is primarily textual’.2 It relies on the place of memory, whether it is stories, written words, images, landscapes, buildings, or 1

This article presents an overview on the background to the unattested sayings attributed to St Antony the Great in Copto-Arabic tradition. A first English translation of the complete collection of unpublished Copto-Arabic sayings of Antony will appear in a forthcoming volume with Tim Vivian, on The Greek, Coptic, and Copto-Arabic Sayings of Antony of Egypt, by Cistercian Publications/ Liturgical Press, 2021. 2 Saphinaz-Amal Naguib, ‘The Era of Martyrs: Texts and Contexts of Religious Memory’, in Nelly Van Doorn-Harder and Kari Vogt (eds), Between Desert and City: The Coptic Orthodox Church Today (Oslo, 1997), 121-41, 133.

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 67-74. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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a person. These places of memory are often preserved by the ‘environment of memory’, that is, by those who remember and pass on their knowledge.3 Religious memory actively searches for meaning and its transmission involves foregoing what is not meaningful and inserting what seems more appropriate to the requirements of the moment.4 The sayings in the Apophthegmata Patrum attributed to Antony exist in various textual traditions, recensions, and linguistic manifestations and, together with the Life of Antony, are authoritative texts for understanding Antony and his community. Monastics have spoken, read, transcribed, and practiced Antony’s sayings on monastic discipline for generations; thus, they testify to the influence his sayings have had across both chronological and cultural divides. The sayings attributed to Antony in Arabic exist in a vast number of manuscripts, most of which are still untapped in monastic libraries, and thus have hitherto remained unedited and unpublished.5 Interestingly, a surprising number of sayings attributed to Antony in Arabic are unattested in either the Greek or Coptic recensions and, based on the dating of the Arabic manuscripts, it appears the additional sayings were gradually incorporated into the Arabic Apophthegmata from around the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, with the majority of additional sayings incorporated in the eighteenth century. Interesting to note is that the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries was a time during which the patriarchs of the Coptic Church were all monks from the Monastery of St Antony the Great6 – the site where according to tradition Antony lived and died and over time became the core of a monastic community that has existed continuously for the last sixteen hundred years.7 Accordingly, one cannot 3

S.A. Naguib, ‘Martyrs’ (1997), 134. Mondher Kilani, La Construction de la Mémoire (Geneva, 1992), 45, 297. 5 See footnote 1. Except for Jean Mansour’s unpublished doctoral thesis of Manuscript Strasbourg 422. See Jean Mansour, Homélies et légendes religieuses: Un florilège arabe chrétien du Xe siècle (Ms. Strasbourg 4225). Introduction et édition critique (thèse dactylographiée inédite) (Strasbourg, 1972). The study shows that the Arabic version of the Apophthegmata contained in the manuscript from Mt Sinai, being within a Melkite context, closely parallels the Greek. See J. Oestrup, ‘Über zwei arabische Codices sinaitici der Strassburger Universitätsund Landesbibliothek’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 51 (1897), 453-71; and Joseph-Marie Sauget, ‘La Collection d’Apophthegmes du manuscrit 4225 de la Bibliothèque de Strasbourg’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 30 (1964), 485-509. The only previous work on a Copto-Arabic version is the brief analysis of an Arabic version of the Apophthegmata written in Coptic script. See O.H.E. KHS-Burmester, ‘Further Leaves from the Arabic MS. in Coptic Script of the Apophthegmata Patrum’, Bulletin de la société d’archéologie copte 18 (1965-1966), 51-3. 6 O.F.A. Meinardus, Monks and Monasteries of the Egyptian Desert (Cairo, 1961), 21. 7 Apart from a period of about nineteen years in the late fifteenth century when the monastery was destroyed by Bedouins. See Otto F.A. Meinardus, Monks and Monasteries (1961), 44-5; Gawdat Gabra, Coptic Monasteries: Egypt’s Monastic Art and Architecture (Cairo, 2002), 74; and Mark N. Swanson, ‘The Monastery of St. Paul in Historical Context’, in William Lyster (ed.), 4

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underestimate the powerful role ecclesiastical politics could have played in commissioning and promulgating copies of the Bustān. These additional sayings, together with the embellishment of some of the attested sayings, affirm how the tradition introduced, reinvented, or simply excluded stories and instructions for the collection to be relevant to the taste and mentality of the time and place. The Bustān continued to be transcribed up until the early twentieth century,8 after which the first printed version appeared in 1951 by Dār al-Naskh publishers in Cairo,9 and the most recent version was published by the Monastery of St Macarius in the Wādī al-Naṭrūn in 2014.10 The sayings attributed to Antony in Arabic are in the Bustān al-Ruhbān (Paradise of the Fathers),11 which is the collection of sayings and stories of the early Desert Fathers. The Bustān exists in ‘a bewildering complexity of versions, recensions and compositions’12 and in a great number of manuscripts. The reading and recital of Antony’s sayings from the Bustān are still very much a living tradition practiced in Coptic monasteries today. An Antonian monk explains: Sunday is the day of community. This is the only day of the week when all the monks and the abbot come together for a communal liturgy and afterwards, we share an agape13 meal. During the meal one of the monks will read from the Bustān al-Ruhbān and we listen to the stories while we eat our meal in silence. This is a tradition that all Coptic monasteries have kept for hundreds of years…

These words remind us that in studying the sayings, we are not dealing with ‘dusty relics of a distant past’ but, rather, with a living tradition that is central for monastic communities today.14

The Cave Church of Paul the Hermit at the Monastery of St Paul, Egypt (New Haven, 2008), 43-59, 52-3. 8 The last manuscript of the Bustān transcribed at St Antony’s Monastery is dated 1923/4. 9 Anonymous (ed.), Bustān al-Ruhbān ῾An Abā᾿ al-Kanīsa al-Qibṭyya al-᾿Urthudhūksyya (Cairo, 1951; repr. 1952, 1953). 10 Bishop Epiphanius (ed.), Bustān al-Ruhbān (Wādī al-Naṭrūn, 2014). 11 Paradise of the Fathers: literally ‘Garden of Monks’. The title ‘Paradise of the Fathers’ was first used by the Syrian monk Anan-Isho for his seventh-century Syriac collection of the Apophthegmata. See Peter Toth, ‘Lost in Translation: An Evagrian Term in the Different Versions of the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto’, in György Heidl and Róbert Somos (eds), Origeniana Nona: Origen and the Religious Practice of His Time (Leuven, 2009), 613-21. 12 Samuel Rubenson, ‘The Apophthegmata Patrum in Syriac, Arabic and Ethiopic. Status Questionis’, Parole de l’Orient 36 (2011), 319-28, 306. The variations in language (Greek, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Latin, Georgian, Ethiopic, and Arabic), as well as content, and style, testify that the sayings were part of a living tradition and transmission. 13 Agape, ‘love’, here designates a common meal shared by all the monks. 14 Mark N. Swanson, ‘Arabic Hagiography’, in Stephanos Efthymiadis (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography, Volume 1: Periods and Places (Farnham, 2011), 345-68, 346.

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Antony of ‘Elevated Rank’15 The prologue to the Arabic Life of Antony attributed to Serapion of Thmuis, describes Antony as: The great saint, the star of the wilderness and father of all monks … the revered, and the dignified one, who began to teach asceticism and taught the way of solitude, and was the first one to be worthy of wearing the crown of angels, and was clothed with the heavenly garment16 from the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ after he endured great struggle, increased warfare, and continual fighting with the enemy demons … This chosen saint was the first to begin the struggle in the monastic life, and he took the way of solitude and opened the door of the wilderness, and made it a dwelling for monks …17 he is the one who started this way of life … until he reached this esteemed rank and received this great elevation that no one is able to describe its honour…18

Other than the Virgin Mary, no saint in Coptic tradition has received the ‘elevated rank and honorable stature’ of St Antony the Great. This prologue to his Life, attributed to Serapion, the bishop of Thmuis, introduces Antony not only with his usual titles of ‘the star of the wilderness and father of all monks’,19 but presents a series of programmatic statements announcing Antony’s primacy in the monastic life, in virtues, spiritual struggles, and conquests. In so doing, the author establishes Antony’s superiority in being the first one who not only taught monasticism,20 but was completely self-taught in the ways of ascetic discipline21 and the first one to be clothed in the garb of a monk. The extent of Antony’s magnitude is propagated in the statements that he was the first to experience monastic life22 and made the desert a place of habitation for monks.23 And because of his perseverance and triumph in 15 Pseudo-Serapionic, Life of Antony 1.1, in Elizabeth Agaiby, The Arabic Life of Antony Attributed to Serapion of Thmuis: Cultural Memory Reinterpreted, TSEC 14 (Leiden, 2018), 127. 16 Referring to the monastic garb. 17 Cf. Coptic Life of Antony 14 and Greek Life of Antony 14.7, in Tim Vivian and Apostolos Athanassakis (trans.), Athanasius of Alexandria, The Life of Antony: The Coptic Life and the Greek Life, Cistercian Series 202 (Kalamazoo, 2003), 91-3. 18 Pseudo-Serapionic Life of Antony 1.1, in E. Agaiby, Arabic Life (2018), 125. 19 These titles pre-date the Pseudo-Serapionic Life because already in the early twelfth century, Abū al-Makārim writes of Antony that he is ‘the Star of the Desert and Father of Monks’ and continues that Antony was the first monk who clothed himself in wool and exhibited the monastic habit. See Abu al-Makarim in B.T.A. Evetts and A.J. Butler (ed. and trans.), The Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and some Neighbouring Countries, attributed to Abū Ṡāliḣ al-Armāni (Oxford, 1895), 160-1. Evelyn White concurs that ‘it was Antony who first revealed the possibilities of the desert and therefore became the originator of monasticism’. See Hugh G. Evelyn White, The Monasteries of the Wadi ‘n Natrun Part 2: The History of the Monasteries of Nitria and of Scetis (New York, 1932-1933), 12. 20 See Life of Antony 14.6, in T. Vivian and A. Apostolos, Life (2003), 93. 21 See Life of Antony 3.3-4.3, in T. Vivian and A. Apostolos, Life (2003), 63, 65. 22 See Life of Antony 11.1, in T. Vivian and A. Apostolos, Life (2003), 85. 23 See Life of Antony 44.2-4, in T. Vivian and A. Apostolos, Life (2003), 153.

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spiritual warfare, he attains unspeakable glory and honour, thus elevating him to his rightful place above his monastic peers as the authority on monastic life. Thus, it is no wonder that so many Copto-Arabic sayings on monastic discipline are attributed to Antony; far beyond those contained in the Greek Alphabetical Apophthegmata Patrum. Circumstantial, as well as internal, textual evidence suggests that the Life of Antony attributed to Serapion originated in Arabic within a Coptic monastic milieu sometime in the thirteenth century,24 and by the fourteenth century was incorporated into liturgical texts of the Coptic and Ethiopian Churches.25 In fact, for the last six hundred years this version of the Life has won not only widespread acceptance and popularity within the Coptic Church, but the authority of Coptic liturgical texts up to the present day. Although the image of Antony in the prologue to the Arabic Life differs little from the ‘traditional’ image in the Greek Life of Antony attributed to Athanasius, the Life attributed to Serapion differs considerably from the Greek Life due to numerous pious elaborations and fantastical elements. For example, Antony heeding the words of a woman bathing in the Nile who instructs him to move into the inner wilderness; Antony performing healing miracles for people and animals alike; and Antony travelling to Frankish countries on a cloud – all accounts of which the various monastic communities (or the copyists) considered relevant and hence incorporated them into liturgical texts, such as the Bustān, and in the Exposition on Antony read out aloud each Sunday evening in the Monastery of St Antony, as well as on Antony’s feast day26 (celebrated in the Coptic Church on 22 Ṭūbah = 30 January). Perhaps it was because ‘one of the permanent features of the Egyptian mind was its taste and talent for romantic story-telling’27 that these accounts in Antony’s Life have enjoyed popularity and continue to this day to be propagated within monastic circles and ‘dismembered into individual stories and sayings’28 in publications of the Bustān read during agape.

24

Pseudo-Serapionic Life of Antony, in E. Agaiby, Arabic Life (2018), 68-77. For example, the entry on Antony in the Ethiopian Synaxarium closely follows the PseudoSerapionic Life. Based on British Museum manuscript Oriental 660 and 661, dated 1654-1655; see E.A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Saints of the Ethiopian Church: A translation of the Ethiopic Synaxarium made from the manuscripts Oriental 660 and 661 in the British Museum, 4 vol. (London, 1928; repr. 1976), 305-8. 26 Pseudo-Serapionic Life of Antony, in E. Agaiby, Arabic Life (2018), 23. 27 E.A.E. Reymond and J.W.B. Barns (eds), Four Martyrdoms from the Pierpont Morgan Coptic Codices (Oxford, 1973), 1. 28 Claudia Rapp, ‘The Origins of Hagiography and the Literature of Early Monasticism: between Invention and Tradition’, in Christopher Kelly, Richard Flower and Michael Williams (eds), Unclassical Traditions: Volume I, Alternatives to the Classical Past in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2010), 119-30, 124-9. 25

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72 A Chain of Transmission

The Arabic sayings display a combination of both oral and written chains of transmission, for example: ‘It was said that’, and ‘It is also written that’. The Alphabetical Apophthegmata Patrum present the sayings with Antony as the source: ‘Abba Antony said’ or ‘He said’, whereas quite often the Arabic sayings shift to a secondary source: ‘The brothers said that our father Abba Antony said’ and ‘The brothers said that Abba NN went to Abba Antony and said to him…’ This ‘successive chain of transmission’29 is what Derwas Chitty calls ‘pedigree stories’30 and attests to how oral tradition in effect passes on recollections of earlier people and events. Recording each link in the chain of transmission served as a touchstone of the authenticity and antiquity of the saying and linked one generation to the ‘precious wisdom of a bygone golden age’.31 This chain of transmission attests to the living, oral tradition of the sayings and how its recounting was crucial to the enduring spiritual life of the desert, motivated by the desire to maintain living contact with the founding father of monasticism and to preserve his lifegiving words for posterity for the benefit of others.32 Sayings Attributed to Antony in the Copto-Arabic Bustān Behind the various manuscripts containing a version of the Copto-Arabic sayings of Antony, there are orally transmitted stories as well as written accounts, and the incipits to the sayings make this clear: ‘The brothers said that Abba Antony said…’ and ‘It is also written that…’ The collection of sayings is the result of a long development during which sayings were progressively incorporated into the corpus, thus reflecting the various stages of the transmission. Somewhat surprisingly, the Antony of the Copto-Arabic sayings does not come across as a fearless ‘Wonder-Worker’33 who engages in face to face combat with demons but, rather, he is more human, and is fully aware and understanding of human strivings and failures. The sayings attributed to Antony evolved over time; having started with a collection of eight sayings at the turn of the fourteenth century, translated from the Greek Alphabetical Apophthegmata Patrum, to a collection of seventy-four by the early twentieth century. 29

Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (New York, 1993), 79. 30 Derwas J. Chitty, ‘The Books of the Old Men’, Eastern Churches Review 6 (1974), 15-21, 18. 31 William Harmless, Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism (New York, 2004), 249-50. 32 According to Jean-Claude Guy, the sayings developed in three main stages, moving from simple pronouncements to longer speeches, narratives, or discussions. See Jean-Claude Guy, ‘Remarques sur le texte des Apophthegmata Patrum’, Recherches de science religieuse 63 (1955), 252-8. 33 E. Agaiby, Arabic Life (2018), 163.

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Placing the seventy-four Arabic sayings attributed to Antony into groups based on their respective support in the other linguistic traditions, we arrive at the following: ● ● ● ● ●

Thirty-five sayings have parallels in the Greek collection Twenty sayings have parallels in the Greek and Coptic collections One saying occurs only in the Coptic Eight sayings have parallels in the Syriac collection Thirty-one sayings are unattested in any of the Greek, Syriac or Coptic collections

We may consider that the collection of the Arabic sayings was based mainly on a primary text – that being the Greek Alphabetical sayings of Antony, and was complemented by additions from secondary sources, being Antony’s Letters, Ammonas’ Letters, the Rules of Pachomius, Athanasius’s Life of Antony, the Arabic Pseudo-Serapionic Life of Antony, the Praktikos of Evagrius Ponticus, Jerome’s Life of Hilarion, and John Cassian’s Institutes and Conferences. This textual dependence results in a collection that is ‘a mosaic composed of allusions to other texts that enrich and expand the sense of the text at hand’.34 By incorporating other texts, the compiler in fact creates ‘a genealogy of texts’ that provides evidence of a long chain of manuscript transmission where the authenticity of age commands authority.35 The first of the unattested sayings – ten in fact – appear in the sixteenth century, and a further unattested saying was added in the seventeenth century. But it was the eighteenth century that saw an additional twenty sayings that are unattested in any version of the Apophthegmata Patrum. These twenty unattested sayings deal mainly with appropriate conduct within the monastic community and take the form of Antony giving commandments of what to do and what not to do, whether in regard to how to behave in church or how to interact with fellow monks. Quite a few of the sayings depend on Pachomian Rules, which may indicate a shift from previous centuries in there being a more substantial presence of a community of monks,36 rather than the anchoritic or semianchoritic lifestyle that became characteristic of earlier Antonian monasticism. Thus, it would not be unreasonable to assume that leaders faced challenges in controlling their monastic communities, much in the same way as the early pioneer Pachomius, judging by his rules. A recurring theme in the Arabic sayings 34 Elizabeth A. Clark, ‘Constraining the Body, Expanding the Text’, in W.E. Klingshirn and Mark Vessey (eds), The Limits of Ancient Christianity. Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R.A. Markus (Ann Arbor, 2002), 153-71, 154. 35 S.A. Naguib, ‘Martyrs’ (1997), 130. 36 Claude Sicard and J.S. Assemani visited the Monastery of St Antony in 1716 and record that they met sixteen monks but that the Monastery contained thirty cells. Then around the mid-eighteenth century, Richard Pococke records the presence of thirty-one monks in total. See O.F.A. Meinardus, Monks and Monasteries (1961), 17-8.

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of this period is tensions and conflicts within monastic communities and between the monks;37 so many of the sayings deal with behavioural issues within the monastery among the brothers. There are repeated warnings against bullying, slander, and gossip. What the selection of sayings reveals is that they were not chosen based on some theoretical speculation of what spiritual life is, but based, rather, on actual experience, revealing basic human vulnerability and weaknesses and the search for something greater. The selection also affirms how monks and ecclesiastical authorities continued to use Antony’s name, and witness, even centuries after his death, to authorise important principles of monastic life. Research on narrative psychology suggests that, based on how well the audience responded to stories, storytellers dropped certain stories and refined the plots of others.38 And so, over generations, what was not meaningful or no longer relevant in the collective memories was foregone,39 accounts that were significant were retained, and what seemed appropriate at that point in time were inserted. Seen from this perspective, we can understand that any of the original sayings that were included, excluded, or modified were done so deliberately, not only to produce a new and improved collection of sayings attributed to Antony, but to make the collection suitable for the current social and liturgical needs of the monastic community, and thereby to promote the spiritual advancement of those listening or reading, and ‘to form new saints through the examples given’.40

37

Even within early Egyptian monasticism, tensions and competition between monks are well documented. See James E. Goehring, ‘Monastic Diversity and Ideological Boundaries in FourthCentury Christian Egypt’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 5 (1997), 61-84. 38 Donald E. Polkinghorne, ‘Narrative Psychology and Historical Consciousness: Relations and Perspectives’, in Jürgen Straub (ed.), Narration, Identity, and Historical Consciousness (New York, 2005), 3-23, 12. 39 M. Kilani, La Construction de la Mémoire (1992), 45, 297. 40 Claudia Rapp, ‘Origins of Hagiography’ (2010), 124-9.

Studying the ‘Pelagius and Johannes’ Collection of Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Steps towards a New Edition of the Latin Reception Elisabet GÖRANSSON, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

ABSTRACT The sayings of the Desert Fathers had an important role in monastic education. Originally written down in Greek, they were soon translated into all the main languages in medieval Europe, and underwent transformations as they were copied. The sayings were organized in different ways, mainly alphabetically after the father they were attributed to, or according to themes, and as they were copied the repertoire was also changed in some way. In Latin, mainly the systematically organized type of collections were translated from Greek. To this day, we lack a modern critical edition of the most widespread and important of the translated collections: the big systematical collection first translated into Latin by two Roman clerics, Pelagius and Johannes, in the middle of the sixth century. How should a scholar best proceed when deciding upon the best way to edit this collection, extant in hundreds of manuscripts? What options are there? In the present article, the results from a preliminary investigation of ten manuscripts containing the PJ collection are discussed. The manuscripts were chosen from the groups of manuscripts suggested by Columba M. Batlle who published a catalogue of the contents of all manuscripts known to him containing this collection. A method for establishing the text to be edited is presented based on the collations made of four chapters of the PJ collection in the selected manuscripts.

Introduction The sayings of the desert fathers, also known as the Apophthegmata Patrum (henceforth AP), were first written down and organized in collections in Greek during the early fifth century AD.1 It has been suggested that the first stages in this process took place not in Egypt, but in Palestine.2 There have been different ways of organizing the material in the manuscripts: thematically, in alphabetical 1 Chiara Faraggiana, ‘Apophthegmata Patrum: Some Crucial Points of Their Textual Transmission and the Problem of a Critical Edition’, SP 30 (1997), 455-67; Samuel Rubenson, The Letters of St. Antony. Monasticism and Making of a Saint (Minneapolis, 1995), 152-7. 2 Lucien Regnault, ‘Les Apophtegmes des Pères en Palestine aux Ve-VIe siècles’, Irénikon 54 (1981), 320-30. Reprinted in id., Les Pères du désert à travers leurs Apophthegmes (Sablé-sur-Sarthe, 1987), 73-83.

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 75-88. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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order after the father the saying was associated with, or in a mix of the thematical and alphabetical type, but there are also manuscripts giving witness to unorganized collections.3 It is still not clear how the collections were organized when they were first written down and translated into different languages. The earliest extant text witnesses (early 6th century) are written in Syriac; these collections are rather unorganized. Translations of the Greek systematical AP collection were made early on into Syriac, Latin, Coptic and Palestinian Aramaic. The Latin manuscripts contain only the systematical and the more or less unorganized collections. The earliest ones have been dated to ca. 650. Apart from a few early Greek fragments from the 5th to the 7th centuries, the earliest preserved Greek manuscripts are from the 9th century, that is, later than the Syriac and Latin manuscripts.4 However, all the different types of collections are represented in the later Greek manuscripts. In Coptic there is also evidence of the systematical collection dated to the 9th century that can be paralleled with the Latin collections.5 Probably already during the late 8th century, collections of sayings were translated into Armenian, Arabic (and via Arabic into Ethiopic), Old Slavonic, Georgian and Sogdian.6 The oldest preserved manuscripts in Armenian and Ethiopic are from the 12th century and onwards. From the beginning of the 13th century, the AP texts were translated into vernacular languages all over Europe. A prerequisite for studying and comparing relations between the textual traditions is that larger amounts of relevant data are assembled and compared. This is being done in an ongoing collaborative database project at Lund University, Sweden, which will result in an online database. A pilot version is already available online and can be used as a search tool. The texts are comparable through the established reference system of the smallest text units identified via a relational MySQL database.7 The standard 3

On the AP traditions, see Samuel Rubenson, ‘Monasticism and the philosophical heritage’, in Scott Fitzgerald Johnson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2012), 486512. 4 A Cairo fragment of a long saying in Greek (ca. 5th century AD), preserved both in the alphabetical collection under Makarios no. 3, and as no. 9 in the systematical collection, ed. by Claudio Gallazzi in ‘P. Cair. SR 3726: Frammento degli Apophthegmata Patrum’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 84 (1990), 53-6; another fragment of the systematical collection, MS Oxon. Bodl. Gr. th. g. 8 (ca. 8th century AD), was edited by Roger S. Bagnall and Nikolaos Gonis, in ‘An Early Fragment of the Greek Apophthegmata Patrum’, Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 5/1 (2003), 258-78. 5 See Paul E. Kahle, Bala’izah. Coptic Texts from Deir el-Bala’izah in Upper Egypt (London, 1954), I 416-23. The only preserved Coptic manuscript that has preserved the AP traditions in full has been dated to the 9th century. 6 According to Bernard Outtier, the translation to Georgian would be from the end of the 8th century: Bernard Outtier, ‘La plus ancienne traduction géorgienne des apophtegmes: son étendue et son origine’, Mravaltavi 7 (1980), 7. 7 A complex MySQL database, Apophthegmata Patrum Database (APDB), was developed by Kenneth Berg as a side project to the previous project ‘Early monasticism and classical Paideia’, led

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Image 1: Monastica: https://www.monastica.ht.lu.se

editions in seven different languages have been used as a basis for the references.8 Once the texts in the editions have been entered, they facilitate the addition of the structural data and annotated transcriptions of the manuscripts.9 This method of assembling both the text versions in the individual manuscripts in different languages as well as earlier editions in a database is an important research tool for this vast text tradition. Still, the textual traditions of the AP remain associated with the collections as they were defined in the early standard editions.10 In this article I will therefore discuss a possible way of preparing a new critical edition of the Latin translation that according to the tradition was made by Pelagius and Johannes the Subdeacon around the year 540 AD. by Prof. Samuel Rubenson, Lund University. The present online platform Monastica is a further development of the earlier APDB database. Prof. Samuel Rubenson and IT-engineer Mats Svensson, Lund, are currently developing and refining the functions and features of the online platform. 8 The variant readings in the critical apparatuses have however not been added. – Not only complete editions and/or translations of collections are included in the online database but also smaller parts that have been published as part of, for example, an article. This explains the large number of editions and translations listed in Monastica: no less than 134 editions and 51 modern translations. 9 Newly added text witnesses can be compared straight away with the entire textual tradition in different languages. By choosing different manuscripts for comparison, it is possible to see the relationships in the same language, over time and across language borders. 10 See Samuel Rubenson, ‘The Apophthegmata Patrum in Syriac, Arabic and Ethiopic. Status questions’, in Parole de l’Orient 36 (2011), 305-13; Britt Dahlman, ‘The Collectio Scorialensis Parva: An Alphabetical Collection of Old Apophthegmatic and Hagiographic Material’, in Samuel Rubenson (ed.), Early Monasticism and Classical Paideia, Studia Patristica 55 (Leuven, 2013), 23-34; Samuel Rubenson, ‘The Formation and Re-formations of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers’, in ibid., 5-22.

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The Latin reception of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, and the modern editions Different Latin collections were compiled ca. 540-560 AD by bishops and clerks translating the sayings from Greek into Latin. The main translation from Greek to Latin was made around 540 by Pelagius (later Pope Pelagius) and Johannes the Subdeacon. Out of the 21 chapters that according to the tradition were translated and redacted by them, the first 18 chapters were translated by Pelagius and the remaining ones by Johannes. This collection was edited in 1615 by Heribert Rosweyde, and has not been edited since; Columba M. Batlle made extensive preparations, but never published a modern, critical edition. Two other Latin collections were made in Spain in ca. 555, one by Martin of Braga and another by his disciple, Paschasius of Dumium. Both redactions are known in two versions, one longer and one shorter.11 These collections have been presented in modern editions. In 1950, Claude W. Barlow edited the collection of sayings by Martin of Braga entitled Sententiae Patrum Aegyptiorum.12 This is different in part from the other collection made by his disciple Paschasius, and does not include the exact same sayings. Even so, Barlow makes the comment that the two collections are ‘just different enough to suggest separate translations by two people from the same original’.13 Barlow brought together a concordance of texts in these two collections (the longer of the two versions by Paschasius extant in the manuscripts), compared with Pelagius and Johannes, Pseudo-Rufinus and the Greek alphabetical collection edited by JeanBaptiste Cotelier and reprinted in Patrologia Graeca. The table of concordance showed that eight of the 110 sayings are unique for Martin of Braga’s collection. Moreover, two sayings are unique for only Martin of Braga’s and Paschasius’ collections. No more than 67 out of the 110 sayings in Martin of Braga appear in the Greek preserved collections.14 Barlow based his edition on all the six extant manuscripts he found containing the redaction by Martin of Braga.15 For each saying, Barlow first added a traditio textus list giving the sigla of the manuscripts containing this particular text. Barlow showed that the manuscripts fall into two groups, PLMV, and BR, 11 Another interesting, presumably very old collection is extant in a manuscript dated to 1150, preserved in Darmstadt, Hs. 153. The manuscript has been transcribed by René Draguet. The transcription is preserved in Göttingen; a revision of this text was made by Claes Dahlman and has been published in Monastica. 12 Claude W. Barlow, Martini Episcopi Bracarensis Opera Omnia, Papers and Monographs of the American Academy in Rome XII (New Haven, 1950). 13 C.W. Barlow, Martini Bracarensis Opera Omnia (1950), 12. 14 Ibid. 14-6. 15 Barlow also assumed that the parts not existing in any of these manuscripts had been supplied by Rosweyde in his edition from a manuscript that seems to be lost today, the manuscript T, from Toledo.

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respectively (identified by both structural and textual variation). The same manuscripts also contain Paschasius’ redaction in the two forms: the long form is to be found in PLMV, and the short form in BR. Barlow’s theory is that the group of four manuscripts (PLMV) represent a more original form of Martin of Braga’s redaction, and the other group (BR) is a revised version of this. The Brussels manuscript Br. 8216-18 (=B) is one of the text witnesses for the second group. This manuscript occasionally includes ‘additions’ to Martin of Braga’s original redaction. Therefore, Barlow printed these segments in brackets in the edition. To sum up, Barlow established a full set of what would have been the original version by Martin of Braga by reproducing all the sayings found in the manuscript witnesses. The congruent readings in the manuscripts PLMV were favoured, but Barlow still included the additional text in the manuscript B within brackets. Therefore, Barlow aimed at giving a full set of the existing sayings in the manuscripts, an inclusive edition, even if the added parts from the B manuscript were given within brackets since he considered them to be witnesses of deliberate editorial changes in the translated text. The later redacted version thus witnessed the genetic development of the text tradition. A modern edition of the redaction made by Paschasius was published in 1971 by José Geraldes Freire.16 This edition is based primarily on six manuscripts, but Freire noted variant readings of another nine manuscripts in the edition. Like Barlow, for each saying Freire first added a traditio textus list for the benefit of the reader. Freire also chose to give a full comparative apparatus in which all variant readings in the group of manuscripts he identified as the basis for his edition were given, enabling the reader to see exactly which manuscripts contain the saying in question. If the majority of manuscripts in this group were in accord on a reading, Freire established that reading. Moreover, in 1974, Freire also edited the collection Commonitiones sanctorum patrum collection in some manuscripts, applying basically the same method.17 The collection made by Pelagius and Johannes (the ‘PJ collection’) In general, it can be said that the collections of the Desert Fathers represent a fluid text genre, since the sets of sayings included in the collections and their order of appearance vary. Still, there are differences between the types of collections, and also between the languages. The Latin redactions are in fact all rather stable. Rosweyde’s edition published in 1615 and known to us today through the reprint in Migne’s Patrologia Latina included the lives and sayings of the Desert Fathers. Rosweyde stated that he established the text primarily 16

José Geraldes Freire, Liber Geronticon de octo principalibus vitiis (Coimbra, 1971). José Geraldes Freire, Commonitiones sanctorum patrum: uma nova colecção de apotegmas: estudo filológico, texto crítico (Coimbra, 1974). 17

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upon the manuscripts, and emended the text only when necessary.18 Some of the 25 manuscripts listed in his Prolegomena can be identified.19 The first two are identified as Brussels 9850-52 (by Rosweyde labeled as Ms. Vedastinus), dated to the 7th century, and Brussels 8216-18 (Ms. S. Floriani in Rosweyde’s edition), from the 9th century. According to Rosweyde the oldest manuscripts were given priority in the edition; he did however not give any more specific information. No less than twenty editions preceded Rosweyde’s edition; however, only three were separate editions.20 According to Rosweyde, the first edition was based on only one manuscript while the second edition, published in Nürnberg in 1478, was based on several manuscripts, not further specified.21 Since Rosweyde was well aware that the compilation of sayings from the Desert Fathers occurred in different ways, his aim was to give the reader as much material as possible. He commented upon concordances between the different collections as he edited them in ten books so as to be as inclusive as possible. Only the first eight books in Rosweyde’s edition correspond more or less to the contents in the previous editions, in which, however, the material had been divided in another way. Rosweyde edited the PJ collection as books V and VI in his Vitae Patrum. When comparing only a selection of the material in Rosweyde’s edition of the PJ collection (chapters I-X of book V) with the two oldest manuscripts, Br. 9850-52 and Br. 8216-18, it is clear that even though the appearance and order of appearance of the sayings in the two manuscripts are similar to his edition, the sets are still diverging. The structure in Rosweyde is closer to Br. 9850-52 than to Br. 8216-18, but sayings were also included that do not occur at all in these two old manuscripts. Accordingly, Rosweyde collected his set of sayings from several manuscripts. Whether he based his edition primarily directly on manuscripts, as he states himself, or from previous editions, is unclear. Rosweyde’s aim was obviously to present what he understood to be an allinclusive compilation. Even so, a number of sayings that are extant in quite a few of the old manuscripts do not appear in his edition. In chapter X, nine sayings in Br. 9850-52, two of which are also extant in Br. 8216-18, are not 18

Heribert Rosweyde, Vitae Patrum (Antwerp, 1615), Prolegomenon XXIV: Prima mihi cura fuit, ne quid temerè in textu mutarem: nihil magnopere ingenio, nihil blandientibus in speciem coniecturis dedi. 19 Eva Schulz-Flügel presents a list with possible identifications in Eva Schulz-Flügel (ed.), Tyrannus Rufinus Historia Monachorum sive De Vita Sanctorum Patrum, Patristische Texte und Studien 34 (Berlin, New York, 1990), 230-1. 20 The remaining ones were reprints. Here, no attempt has been made to verify Rosweyde’s account for the contents of the previous editions. See Rosweyde’s Prolegomena XVII-XXII for more details on the previous editions as compared with his own edition, and Prolegomena XXIVXXVI on the manuscripts on which he based his edition, and on his editorial principles. See also Eva Schulz-Flügel, Tyrannus Rufinus Historia Monachorum (1990), 230-1. 21 H. Rosweyde, Vitae Patrum (1615), Prolegomenon XVII: Opus /…/ à quamplurimis excerptum codicibus.

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found in Rosweyde’s edition. The sayings that do not appear in his edition have been discussed and presented in the form of separate editions in articles published by P.V. Nikitin, Columba M. Batlle, and A. Wilmart.22 During the 1950s and 1960s Columba M. Batlle undertook the highly complex task of collecting all the manuscripts in order to finally prepare a modern, critical edition of the PJ collection. His work did not result in a critical edition, even though he edited the missing sayings in an article. Instead, in 1971, he published a monograph listing all manuscripts he had found, an extensive bibliography of the manuscripts of the PJ tradition.23 Batlle’s book contains much valuable information indeed; his lists of the structure of the prominent manuscripts of the PJ collection have been added to the APDB/Monastica database. Since his task was so overwhelming, the structure and sets of sayings that he reports on in this monograph are not always correct. Even so, his work is truly invaluable.

Towards a modern edition of the Pelagius & Johannes collection So what would be the best way to make a modern edition of the collection that was translated from Greek into Latin by Pelagius and Johannes? Columba M. Batlle collected information about the structure, the sets of sayings and their order in his extensive book, dividing the sources into two main groups: 1) Manuscripts containing entire collections, and 2) Manuscripts containing only parts of collections. He then divided the manuscripts including ‘complete’ collections into seven groups according to the sets of sayings they contain, and also according to other material intertwined with the sayings (the placement of the pseudo-Macarius and the Marina vitas is significant). Batlle did not consider manuscripts from the 12th century and younger to be interesting for a reconstruction of an original PJ redaction, neither for the sake of the set of sayings, nor for the reconstruction of the text as translated by Pelagius and Johannes. As can be seen from Table 1, only three of these seven groups identified by Batlle (groups C, D and E) contain the ‘full set’ of 21 chapters and parts of chapter 22, while three of the other groups contain 15 chapters (A, B and F), and the last group, G, includes only the first 10 chapters plus a few other sayings from later chapters.24 22

See further below. Columba M. Batlle, Die ‘Adhortationes sanctorum patrum’ (‘Verba seniorum’) im Lateinischen Mittelalter. Überlieferung, Fortleben und Wirkung (Münster, 1971). 24 In fact, this would indicate that the manuscripts both in this group and in the other groups also copied a ‘shortened’ version, if we agree with Wilmart and other scholars that there was only one translation made by Pelagius and Johannes as a team, and that this collection included all in all 23 chapters. See further in footnote 27. 23

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Table 1. Batlle’s suggested groups Group in Batlle

Group definition

Date of manuscripts

A

Chapters 1-15.39

Mainly s. 7-9

B

Chapters 1-15.16

Mainly s. 9

C

Chapters 1-21.37; 22.1.12; 23.§-34

End of s. 9 to second half s. 12

D

Short Paschasius; Chapters 1-21.37

s. 11-4

E

Chapters 1-21.37; ps. Macarius & Marina vita

s. 10-4

F

Chapters 1-15.27; Marina vita in between 7.11-12

s. 13-4

G

Chapters 1-10.19; 15.88; 20.16; Marina vita; 20.13

s. 14-5

Batlle never compared readings in these tentative groups, but he did suggest that Rosweyde chose readings from the manuscript ‘Rotomagensis’, that is, Rouen, Bibl. Munic. A.120 (Kat. 1375) from the middle of the 11th century.25 The division of the manuscripts in main groups characterized by the contents and sets of sayings is sensible. The best way to prove that the groups are correctly associated is of course to compare readings in selected parts as well, that is, to make a traditional textual analysis of the manuscripts. Even though the sets of sayings differ to some extent in individual manuscripts so that there would always be some small discrepancies, the text of the sayings themselves is quite stable, which makes it easier to see when readings do in fact belong to different textual traditions. A collation of readings in selected manuscripts can corroborate or falsify Batlle’s suggested groups. The groups tentatively identified by Batlle mainly contain manuscripts from the traditions before the 14th century. As mentioned before, Batlle did not think that later manuscripts could help in reconstructing the original set of sayings in the PJ collection. It is true; later manuscripts do show an even greater variation in the set of sayings. A new, critical, edition of the PJ collection should try to reconstruct both the set of sayings and the text that was translated by Pelagius and Johannes in the 540s. Quite a few manuscript witnesses in Latin are rather old: the oldest manuscripts we have preserved today were copied not more than one to two 25 Columba M. Batlle, ‘De suscepta editione Latinae versionis “Verba seniorum” communiter adpellatae’, Studia Monastica 1 (1959), 115-20, 119. However, Batlle did not substantiate this further. The manuscript has been given the number 24 in C. M. Batlle, Adhortationes (1971), 29-30. ‒ Rosweyde did not give any information in his Prolegomena about any priority given to this particular manuscript.

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centuries after the collection was first translated, and thus would not be too far away from the first translation. Even so, it is clear from a comparison of the text witnesses that the text tradition already from the beginning was widely spread: we find a good deal of textual variation in the manuscripts, even if the narrative in the individual sayings remains the same. How to select the set of sayings to be edited Sayings that were not included in Rosweyde’s 1615 edition but that are extant in the manuscript tradition have been identifed, discussed and also edited previously. In 1915, Nikitin published fifteen of the missing sayings (five sayings after IV 31 in Rosweyde’s edition; furthermore, one each after V 2 and IX 13, two after X 71, three after X 103, one each after XI 14, 24 and 31), whereas Batlle in his article ‘Vetera Nova’, published in 1971, edited the same sayings and another five sayings: four after saying 42 and a fifth one after ch. XV 82.26 Batlle was not aware of Nikitin’s previous publication. Moreover, in 1922 Wilmart in an article in Revue Bénédictine published the 36 sayings in what according to him would have been the last chapter, XXIII in the ‘original’ collection that Pelagius and Johannes translated.27 This chapter was not included at all by Rosweyde in the 1615 edition. In some of the manuscripts there are lacunae; quires have not been included in later rebindings, and so on. For some manuscripts this means that entire chapters have been left out. Leaving the lacunae aside, the set of sayings that is preserved is in general rather stable, and this set normally includes the missing sayings that have been observed and edited separately. The scholars who have worked with the missing sayings in the 1615 edition already showed that these sayings can be found in manuscripts in the groups A to D: that is, in most of the oldest preserved manuscripts. The method for selecting the set of sayings is not particularly hard to decide upon since the set seems to have been firmly adhered to in most manuscripts 26

P.V. Nikitin, ‘Grečeskij Skitksij Paterik i ego drevnij latinskij perevod’, Vizantijskij vremennik 22 (1915-1916), 127-71. Columba M. Batlle, ‘Vetera Nova. Vorläufige kritische Ausgabe bei Rosweyde fehlender Vätersprüche’, in Festschrift für Bernhard Bischoff (Stuttgart, 1971), 32-42. 27 A. Wilmart, ‘Le recueil latin des Apophtegmes’, Revue Benedictine 34 (1922), 185-98. In his article, Wilmart recapitulates what he considers to be the ‘original’ ‘alphabetical-systematical’ collection, with which he identifies the translations by Pelagius and Johannes. According to him, the oldest structure was not kept in the oldest manuscripts. Instead, he identified what he considered to be the original structure by comparing the ‘Bobbio’ manuscript, that is, Ambrosiana, F. 84, with Greek manuscripts and three other Latin manuscripts (Paris, B.N. 5387, B.N. 5564, and B.N. Acq.1491). According to this reconstruction, after the 21 chapters including the translations of Pelagius and Johannes, this collection contained two supplements: first chapter 22: ‘Correctiones partum’, published by Rosweyde in book number VII, chapter 44, and then, the last chapter, 23, containing the set of 36 sayings, ‘Sententiae patrum’, that Rosweyde did not edit.

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that are extant, at least the ones copied before the 14th century. Therefore, in a new edition, the set of sayings to be included should be an ‘inclusive’ one for the tradition that Batlle identified in his tentative groups, that is, manuscripts that contain the shared set of sayings in all the selected text witnesses. They would be representative of the entire earlier tradition stemming from the original translation performed by Pelagius and Johannes. A traditio textus apparatus should give the explicit information about the manuscripts selected for the edition that contain the sayings. How to establish the text to be edited in the sayings A group of manuscripts has been selected for collation of readings representing the tentative groups that Batlle suggested. As mentioned before, the groups were based only on a general study of the contents, and the organisation of the sayings in the manuscripts; Batlle did not attempt to group manuscripts after the texts themselves and the readings in manuscripts. Even so, if his groups are vaild, meaning that there indeed are groups of manuscripts copying the same sets of sayings with some minor differences, it is probable that the readings within each group correspond with the main ‘set up’ seen in the manuscripts belonging to the different groups, and that there are some differences in readings in between the groups. Table 2. Selected manuscripts for the collation Group in Batlle

Selected manuscript (s)

Date of manuscripts

A

Brussels, KB, 9850-52 Paris, BnF 13756

s. 7 s. 10

B

Stuttgart, Landesbibl. Theol. et Philos. Fol. 303 Brussels, KB, 8216-18

s. 9 s. 9

C

Paris, BnF, 5387 Florence, Bibl. Med. Laurenz, Ashburnham 56

s. 9 s. 13

D

Novara LXI

s. 10

E

Vienna, ÖNB 729

second half s. 11

F

Rome, BAV, Bibl. Apost. Lat. 600

s. 14

G

Munich, BSB, Clm 21544

1401

The manuscripts represent the seven groups suggested by Batlle according to the following: group A: Brussels 9850-52 and BnF 13756; group B: Stutt F303 and Brussels 8216-18; group C: BnF 5387 and Florence Ashburnham 56;

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group D: Novara LXI; group E: ÖNB 729; group F: BAV 600 and group G: BSB 21544. The collation was made of the text comprising four full chapters: I, II, III and V. Results of the collation 185 instances were found with variant readings in the ten manuscripts. Most of them are insignificant readings (however, the most insignificant readings of varying modi, tempora, singular or plural forms, different pronouns and prepositions, and ortographical variation were not included). First of all, it is clear that Rosweyde’s text is not particularly representative for the text tradition. In 26 out of 185 instances of textual variation Rosweyde’s edited text has a unique reading that is not attested in any of the ten manuscripts in this study. Most of the selected manuscripts, on the other hand, do not have unique readings that often, with one big exception: the relatively late Vatican manuscript BAV 600. Furthermore, four of the manuscripts have more than a few unique readings, but they only have half as many unique readings as Rosweyde’s edition displays. Quantitative analysis The readings range from two to maximum five in each case. Looking at the schematics of the textual variation displayed among the selected ten manuscripts, we can conclude that Rosweyde’s suggested groups can be validated: the two manuscripts ab, chosen from Batlle’s group A indeed show great similarities; in all the instances except for 15, they agree in reading (excluding the instances in which one of them has a lacune). Similarly, the two manuscripts cd taken from group B are close to one another: they agree in all cases except for 26 (and they do not have any lacunae in the selected chapters). Moreover, even if the two groups A and B do not concur in most of the cases, in 71 out of the 185 cases they actually share the same reading; however, only in a few cases they share the same reading against all the other manuscripts. The third group, C, to which the manuscripts ef in the collation belong according to Batlle, is harder to confirm, first of all, since both manuscripts have large lacunae: they both lack the first chapter and the beginning of the second. Secondly, calculating only the instances in which neither of the two manuscripts has a lacuna, they mostly share readings, but not exclusively against other manuscripts. In only 11 cases they share a unique reading; on the other hand, in 14 cases they do not share the reading. The manuscripts g, h, i, j representing the last four groups D, E, F, G, are more different, which also is consistent with the groupings. However, gh on the one hand, and ij on the other also share readings indicating that they are

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more closely related. Even so, the manuscript that shares most readings with Rosweyde’s edition is the youngest manuscript j (BSB 21544), dated in 1401. It shares no less than 18 readings with Rosweyde alone, and 123 readings together with other manuscripts all in all. Apart from that manuscript, the other ones either do not share unique readings with Rosweyde’s edition at all, or only share occasional readings, with one exception: in 9 instances, Rosweyde and Brussels 9850-52 share a unique reading. This confirms Rosweyde’s own statement that he chose variants from the oldest manuscripts, mentioning in particular this manuscript. Still, the main impression is that Rosweyde indeed relied mainly on manuscripts that do not seem to be so close to the original PJ translation. Qualitative analysis Most of the 185 cases of textual variation in the chosen four chapters as displayed in the ten manuscripts is insignificant. In 43 cases, however, the variation can be defined as more significant. This clearly groups the manuscripts ab and cd together, even though they also have significant dividing textual variants in between the two groups. Moreover, it also groups ef on the one hand, and h together in another branch. Only occasionally we find manifest errors. The most obvious error is found in the variation (saying 41) between the correct claudens ostium celle (f, i) and the erroneous damnans ostium celle (R, ab, cd, e), and dampnans ostium celle (g, j). Another error is the variation between the erroneous lectum (R, ij), lectulum (g) and the correct tectulum (ab cd ef h). Here, as in no less than ten other cases, it is quite clear that the manuscript g (Nov LXI) draws on both the main branches (abcd and efh, respectively). In a tentative stemma, the manuscript g is a bridge, and in the centre of the manuscript tradition, but still, it seems to be secondary, since it draws on both the main branches. Moreover, the readings in the manuscript j seem to be secondary. A comparison of the more significant readings found in this study and seven Greek manuscripts,28 will be guiding for establishing a critical text. Earlier scholars have shown that manuscripts in Greek that represent what is acknowledged to be the first generation of both the alphabetical and systematical type of organisation are not older than other ones; there are in fact Greek manuscripts that are older but nevertheless contain what is generally assumed to be later versions of the alphabetical and systematical type of organisation.29 The 28 Vat. gr. 2592 (alph vet), Par. gr. 2474 (syst vet), Athos. Prot. 86, Par. gr. 914, Athens 500, Mosc. Syn. gr. 163, Par. Coisl. 127. 29 For the old Greek alphabetical-anonymous AP collection, see Chiara Faraggiana di Sarzana, ‘Il paterikon Vat. gr. 2592, già di Mezzoiuso, e il suo rapporto testuale con lo Hieros. S. Sepulchri

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‘first’ generation representing the stage ‘alphabetical vetus’ and ‘systematical vetus’, witnessed by the Vatican manuscript BAV gr. 2592 and the Paris manuscript BnF gr. 2474, is therefore particularly interesting to compare with the witnesses of the groups suggested by Batlle. A first analysis of the readings found in the collation compared with the Greek manuscripts shows that one of the readings in one of the clusters of Latin manuscripts is almost always consistent with all the chosen Greek manuscripts.30 The group of Latin manuscripts sharing the reading with the Greek manuscripts is not entirely consistent even though it is clear that the manuscripts j and g are not close to the Greek tradition. However, in two cases, two readings are distributed across both the Greek and the Latin manuscripts. In the first case, the Latin manuscripts cd and f, and the Greek manuscript Par. gr. 2474 representing the ‘systematical vetus’ collection share the same reading against another Greek manuscript, Par. Coisl. 127, together with the Latin manuscripts ab h and ij. In the second case, both the Greek manuscript BAV gr. 2592 representing the ‘alphabetical vetus’ collection, and Par. gr. 2474 share the reading with the Latin manuscripts ab ef h ij against the Greek manuscript Par. Coisl. 127 together with the Latin manuscripts cd. The only Latin manuscript that seems to clearly share all the readings with Greek manuscripts (save one case, and excluding the cases where this manuscript has a lacuna) is the manuscript Ashburnham 56 with the siglum f. This manuscript from the 13th century is later than all the other selected Latin manuscripts except for the manuscripts i and j, but it is closer in time with the Greek manuscripts mentioned above. Conclusion Based on the collation undertaken we can conclude that a new critical edition aiming at reconstructing the collection by Pelagius and Johannes who translated the sayings from Greek to Latin will certainly present a collection of sayings and a text that is different from Rosweyde’s edition both structurally and textually. The readings Rosweyde mainly chose are most similar to the manuscript gr. 113’, Bollettino della Badia greca di Grottaferrata 47 (1993), 79-96, and ead., ‘Apophthegmata Patrum: Some Crucial Points of Their Textual Transmission and the Problem of a Critical Edition’ (1997), 460. For the old Greek systematical AP collection in Par. gr. 2474, see Jean-Claude Guy, Recherches sur la tradition grecque des Apophthegmata Patrum, 2e édition avec des compléments, Subsidia hagiographica 36 (Bruxelles, 1984), 188-90. However, also later collections of the AP are of importance; they can contain apophthegmata transmitted in very old textual traditions; see Britt Dahlman, ‘The Sabaitic Collection of the Apophthegmata Patrum’, in D. Searby, E. Balicka Witakowska and J. Heldt (eds), ΔΩΡΟΝ ΡΟΔΟΠΟΙΚΙΛΟΝ: Studies in Honour of Jan Olof Rosenqvist, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Byzantina Upsaliensia 12 (Uppsala, 2012), 133-46, and B. Dahlman, ‘The Collectio Scorialensis Parva’ (2013), 23-34. 30 I am indepted to my colleague Dr. Britt Dahlman, who thoroughly investigated the textual evidence in the Greek manuscripts.

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representative of the last of Batlle’s identifed groups, G, which is also the youngest manuscript, and the collection of sayings he presented did not give the set as it appears in manuscripts that seem to be closest to the original collection. A tentative stemma could be proposed based on the collation of the ten manuscripts, but the edition would not be strictly genealogical anyway since the errors and/or conjunctive or separative readings do not give us a clear genealogy, which the comparison with the Greek manuscript further proves. Except for the manuscript j, which seems to be eliminandus, the other manuscripts belong to different groups containing three main branches – abcd; efh; and i – with the manuscript g presenting readings from both branch 1 and 2. Instead, the Greek text tradition will be consulted, and the readings in the manuscripts that are in accordance with the homogenous Greek tradition will be selected. Since the manuscripts do group in a pattern similar to the one that Batlle suggested and the readings give us relations between manuscripts both within larger and in smaller groups of manuscripts, the selection of readings can for the rest actually be based upon the tentative stemma, after the Greek text tradition has been consulted. The apparatus would be a comparative apparatus of the clearly defined groups. The PJ collection is much more complex than the smaller collections that have been edited by Freire and Barlow, but with the help of the identified groups, a critical edition is possible to conceive. In one way the method would not be too dissimilar from the other modern editions by Freire and Barlow, that is, the inclusive approach to the ‘full set’ of sayings, but only of the sayings that were included in Batlle’s groups. A traditio textus list over the sayings in each chapter should be given for the selected representative manuscripts, and the text should be established after the principles presented above.

Wild Monks and Rational Animals: The Subversion of Human Exceptionalism in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers Daniel BECERRA, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA

ABSTRACT The study of Christian asceticism in late antiquity has traditionally been anthropocentric, meaning there is a pervasive focus on ascetic practice as undertaken by humans in pursuit of a more holy self. More recent scholarly efforts have begun to examine the role of nonhuman agents in this process, a methodological turn consonant with larger ‘Post-humanist’ trends in scholarship which seek to redefine humanity’s place in the world as merely one life form among many. This paper further situates non-humans within scholarly narratives of ancient Christian asceticism by examining the portrayal of animals and their relationship to humans in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. I demonstrate that while the rhetoric of human exceptionalism – i.e. the assumption of humanity’s supremacy over other animals – pervades the Sayings, the text simultaneously undermines the strict human/animal binary in a way that elevates the status of animals in the world of the text and implicates them as important actors in the lives of monks.

Introduction Post-humanist trends in the field of Early Christian Studies have led to increased attentiveness to the presence of non-human animals in ancient Christian literature.1 In a recent work, for example, Patricia Cox Miller examines the ways in which animals and humans were understood to ‘reflect each other’ 1

For several representative examples see Blake Leyerle, ‘Monks and Other Animals’, in Dale Martin and Patricia Cox Miller (eds), The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies: Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography (Durham, NC, 2005), 150-71; Patricia Cox Miller, In the Eye of the Animal: Zoological Imagination in Ancient Christianity (Philadelphia, 2018); ead., ‘Adam, Eve, and the Elephants: Asceticism and Animality’, in Blake Leyerle and Robin Darling Young (eds), Ascetic Culture: Essays in Honor of Philip Rousseau (Notre Dame, 2013), 253-68; ead., ‘Jerome’s Centaur: A Hyper-Icon of the Desert’, JECS 4 (1996), 209-33; Maureen Tilley, ‘Martyrs, Monks, Insects, and Animals’, in Joyce Salisbury (ed.), The Medieval World of Nature: A Book of Essays (New York, 1993), 93-107; Janet Spittler, Animals in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (Tubingen, 2008); Tim Vivian, ‘The Peaceable Kingdom: Animals as Parables in the Virtues of Saint Macarius’, ATR 85 (2003), 477-91. On the tradition of anthropocentric historiography see Gary Steiner, Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy (Pittsburgh, 2005).

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 89-100. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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ethically, emotionally, psychologically, and behaviorally.2 She demonstrates that such interspecies mirroring frequently occurs in literature which promotes ascetic ideals, and that these portrayals subvert the pervasive notion that humans are both fundamentally distinct from and superior to other creatures.3 The present study examines three ways in which this subversion of human exceptionalism also occurs in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers (hereafter Sayings), a late ancient literary work mentioned relatively infrequently in both Miller’s impressive treatment and in scholarship on this topic. While its utility for providing historical evidence for the life or teachings of any single monk is debated, the Sayings remains a valuable resource for reconstructing the ideology and spirituality of later monks who saw themselves as heirs of the Egyptian ascetic tradition.4 I will argue that while the assumption of humanity’s supremacy over other animals is discernable in the Sayings, its compilers simultaneously undermine the strict human/animal binary through the anthropomorphic depiction of animals, positive zoomorphic depiction of monks, and the approbation of an irenic interspecies ethic. What emerges is a robust portrait of ascetic life in which humans are neither the sole participants nor beneficiaries. The Rhetoric of Human Exceptionalism Compiled in Palestine over the course of the fifth and sixth centuries, the Sayings comprises multiple collections of aphorisms and vignettes of monks living in lower Egypt around the fourth century CE.5 As John Wortley has 2

P.C. Miller, Eye of the Animal (2018), 4, 8. Ibid. 119-54. See also J. Spittler, Animals in the Apocryphal Acts (2008), 43. 4 David Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk (Cambridge, 2006), 145-6; Philip Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority, and the Church in the Age of Jerome and Cassian (Notre Dame, 2010), 12; Samuel Rubensen, ‘Varieties of Eastern Monasticism’, in Augustine Cassiday and Frederick Norris (eds), Cambridge History of Christianity II (Cambridge, 2007), 649; Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint (Minneapolis, 1995), 145-62. 5 The Sayings exists in three collections: the alphabetical, the systematic, and the anonymous. Hereafter the Alphabetical collection will be cited by the name of the monk and the saying number (e.g. Moses 4). The Anonymous collection will be cited by N, followed by the saying’s number found in the Greek Anonymous collection published in a series by François Nau (ed.), ‘Histoire des solitaires égyptiens’, Revue d’Orient Chrétien 10 (1905), 409-14; 12 (1907), 48-68, 171-81, 393-404; 13 (1908), 47-57, 266-83; 14 (1909), 357-79; 17 (1912), 204-11, 294-301; 18 (1913), 137-46. When I cite them, I also cite the page number for the most recent Greek edition: John Wortley (ed. and trans.), The Anonymous Sayings of the Desert Fathers: A Select Edition and Complete English Translation (Cambridge, 2013). All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. The major studies of the text and versions of the Sayings are Wilhelm Bousset, Apothegmata: Studien zur Geschichte des ältesten Mönchtums (Tübingen, 1923), 1-208; and Jean Claud Guy, Recherches sur la tradition grecque des Apophthegmata Patrum (Brussels, 1962; reprinted with additional comments, 1984). 3

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observed, the Sayings’ purpose is ‘formative not informative’, it is ‘to preserve an understanding of how an ideal life (or rather, the true life), can be formed through spiritual and mental training; how virtues can be cultivated and vices uprooted’.6 Accordingly, the modern reader of the Sayings is immediately confronted with the question of why there are so many animals in a text dedicated to portraying the ideal human life.7 Snakes, scorpions, donkeys, hyenas, horses, mosquitoes, dogs, and chickens all appear, and in literarily and theologically significant ways. These animals are not depicted as peripheral to the ideal life but frequently as integral aspects of it. The presence of animals, for example, frequently contributes to monks’ temporal and spiritual flourishing in the Sayings. Animals are shown to provide sustenance, clothing, transport, and a means of income for monks.8 They also contribute to monks’ spiritual development in various ways. In some cases, they serve a pedagogical function, appearing in the text as models of virtue to be imitated by humans, a phenomenon I will discuss in more detail below.9 Elsewhere, they function as antagonists which molest, attack, distract, or deceive the monks.10 According to the logic of the Sayings, this opposition is productive for monks because it creates circumstances in which they may be tested, made aware of their spiritual inadequacies, and practice virtues like patience and forbearance. As one anonymous monk wrote, such trials provide the ‘nourishment (νομή)’ necessary to fortify the soul against future, more severe temptations.11 6 John Wortley, More Sayings of the Desert Fathers: An English Translation and Notes (Cambridge, 2019), xiv. 7 Animals are referred to by a variety of names in the Sayings, although most often by the term θήριον. 8 E.g. Antony 14 (PG 65, 80); Silvanus 8; Gelasius 2; N.207/7.48 (Wortley, 146). In addition to their literary portrayal, archaeological remains confirm that some monastic communities in Egypt housed animals, which would have provided monks with milk, meat, clothing, dung for fuel, and the transportation of people and goods. See Roger Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 1995), 38-40. Papyri and ostraca similarly attest to the monastic use of animals, recording, for example, the sale of animals and animal products between monks and the inhabitants of neighboring village. See P.Bal. 119, 332. Paul E. Kahle (ed.), Balah’izah in Upper Egypt, 2 vol. (London, 1954), 525-6, 768. 9 E.g. Poemen 41 (PG 65, 332); Syncletica 18 (PG 65, 428); Hyperechios 1, 5 (PG 65, 429). Patricia Cox Miller has argued that ‘in some early Christian texts, animals were active mirrors and models for human behavior (both negative and positive) and not simply passive metaphors of it’. See, ‘Adam, Eve, and the Elephants’ (2013), 261. For animals who served as models for humans in Greek literature, see Sherwood Dickerman, ‘Some Stock Illustrations of Animal Intelligence in Greek Psychology’, TAPA 42 (1911), 123-30. 10 E.g. Nicetas 1; Poemen 106. 11 N.338/16.23 (Wortley, 220). Echoing this sentiment, David Brakke has observed that combat with hostile forces helped to preserve a monk’s ascetic integrity as well as to demonstrate his worthiness of divine aid to God. D. Brakke, Demons (2006), 146-8. For more on the utility of opposition for moral growth, see Sean Moberg, ‘The Use of Illness in the Apophthegmata Patrum’, JECS 26 (2018), 591-9.

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The assumption that humans are superior to animals clearly informs some of the interspecies relations depicted in the Sayings. In this sense, the work participates in a larger tradition of philosophical discourse regarding the nature and purpose of animals in the cosmos. Broadly speaking, the two main positions in the philosophical debate were those of the Stoics and Platonists. Whereas both schools viewed humans as superior to animals, the Stoics advocated a much more pronounced distinction between the two species. The Stoics believed that unlike gods and humans,12 animals lacked λόγος, and thus the capacity for speech, emotion, judgment, memory, foresight, virtue, and the freedom to act contrary to instinct.13 A significant consequence of this view was that the Stoics understood animals to exist solely for the use of humans,14 and that humans may do whatever they want to them without comprising virtue.15 The Platonic position, on the other hand, granted animals access to a degree of reason and virtue and advocated a more irenic interspecies dynamic. Plutarch, for example, argues that animals possess ‘reason (λόγος)’ and ‘understanding (σύνεσις)’, and that humans should thus show ‘kind-heartedness (φιλανθρωπία)’ and ‘compassion (φιλοικτίρμων)’ toward them, making use of them only insofar as it does not hurt them.16 He explains, ‘it is not those who make use of animals who do them wrong, but those who use them harmfully and heedlessly in cruel ways’.17 Within the context of this relationship, animals and humans may mutually profit one another and animals may learn superior qualities from humans through imitation.18 As Gilhus observes, the Platonic position assumes that ‘the world is made for humans as well as animals, and animals 12

On the ‘kinship (συγγένεια)’ shared between humans and gods, see Epictetus, Discourses 2.8.7-8; 10-1; Plutarch’s characterization of Stoic view in Soll. An. 964f-964a, LCL 12 (London, 1968); Seneca, Ep. 121.23. 13 See Plutarch’s description of Stoic position in De Sollertia Animalum 961d; Epictetus, Discourses 2.8.7-8. See also R. Sorabji, Animal Minds & Human Morals. The Origins of the Western Debate, Cornell Studies in Classical Philology (Chicago, 1993), 51-5, 58-61. As Spittler notes, ‘the Stoics did not discount the appearance of rationality in the animal kingdom; it was the attribution of this rationality to the individual animal (as opposed to Nature more broadly) that they denied’. J. Spittler, Animals in the Apocryphal Acts (2008), 20. See also Ingvild Gilhus, Animals, Gods, and Humans: Changing Attitudes to Animals in Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Ideas (New York, 2006), 39. 14 E.g. Epictetus, Discourses 1.6.18-20; 1.16.4-5. For more on Stoic anthropocentrism and its implications for human-animal relations, see Urs Dierauer, Tier und Mensch im Denken der Antike (Amsterdam, 1977), 238-45. 15 Chryssipus cited by Cicero, De finibus 3.67. See also Plutarch’s characterization of Stoic view in Soll. An. 963f-64a. 16 Plutarch, Soll. An. 960a, 985c; Stephen Newmeyer, Animals, Rights, and Reason in Plutarch and Modern Ethics (Oxford, New York, 2006). 17 Plutarch, Soll. An. 965b. 18 Plutarch, Soll. An. 975f. Following Plutarch, Porphyry argues that animals possess the capacity for rational deliberation and speech. See Porphyry, de Abstinentia, 3.3.1-3. In a similar manner, Porphyry stated that the rational capacity of humans and animals differed in degree but not in kind. See Porphyry, De abs. 3.7.2.

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are ends in themselves, and not, as the Stoics taught, made solely for the sake of humans’.19 Elements of both the Stoic and Platonic positions, as well as the influence of biblical intertexts, are discernible in the Sayings. For instance, animals are sometimes described as ‘non-rational (ἄλογα)’20 and interspecies dynamics periodically promote an ethic of hostile dominance. The assumption in such passages is that animals are inferior to humans and that notions of justice do not apply to human-animal relations. A saying about Paul of Thebes, for example, relates the following story: One of the fathers told the story of a certain Abba Paul, hailing from lower Egypt but living in the Theibad, that he would hold asps, serpents, and scorpions in his hands and tear them in half. The brothers threw themselves down before him in the spirit of repentance saying: ‘Tell us what you did to acquire this spiritual gift (χάριν)’. And he said, ‘Forgive me, fathers, if one cultivates purity (καθαρότητα), all things are subject (ὑποτάσσεται) to him as they were to Adam in paradise before he disobeyed the commandment’.21

In addition to its Stoic overtones, this passage invokes the creation story in Gen. 1:26-8 to justify human exceptionalism. The ontological hierarchy established by God in Eden, according to which ‘all things are subject’ to Adam, provides the template for ideal interspecies relations in the present. As Abba Paul regains his Edenic-like state of purity through ascetic practice, so his relationship with the created world comes to resemble that of Adam. Moreover, that Abba Paul considers the ability to kill snakes and scorpions without being harmed a ‘spiritual gift’, reflects the assumption that human dominion over the animal kingdom need not be peaceable. Rather, humans may rip an animal apart without transgressing any ethical standard. The author’s allusion to Luke 10:19 (see also Mark. 16:17-8), in which Jesus grants the seventy power ‘to tread on serpents and scorpions (NRSV)’ further establishes this point and provides one example of how biblical texts inform the Sayings’ portrayal of some animals as inherently malevolent, symbols for vice, or as agents of evil.22 Significantly, however, this saying of Paul is the only instance in which the taking of animal life is correlated to the prelapsarian state of humanity. The Sayings do not frequently promote an ethic of hostile dominance over animals. 19 I. Gilhus, Animals, Gods, and Humans (2006), 61. See also Gillian Clark, Body and Gender, Soul and Reason in Late Antiquity (Farnham, Surrey, Burlington, VT, 2011), 318. 20 N. 528/15.132; 596; 708/16.7 (Wortley, 360, 448, 548). 21 Paul of Thebes 1 (PG 65, 380-1). 22 See for example, Hyperechios 5 (PG 65, 429); Poemen 21 (PG 65, 328); N.487; 592.50; 764 (Wortley, 314, 420, 630). The symbolic valence of snakes and scorpions notwithstanding, Abba Paul in the above cited passage appears to be interacting with literal animals. The Sayings’ bestiary of ‘bad’ animals, however, also extends beyond those creatures typically maligned in the biblical text to include animals such as doves. See Nicetas 1.

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Other passages in the text are more consistent with Platonic thought in that they adopt the rhetoric of human exceptionalism, but in a way that does not explicitly endorse interspecies hostility. Antony is said to have made a similar statement to Abba Paul regarding the relation of moral purity and the subordination of animals to humans. The saying reads: ‘Obedience (ὑποταγή) with self-mastery (ἐγκρατείας) gives one power over wild animals (ὑποτάσσει θηρία)’.23 Here again spiritual maturation restores an Edenic sociality in which humans have dominion over ‘the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and every beast of the earth’ (Gen. 1:26 LXX). Unlike Paul, however, Antony sees this new Eden reflected in a young monk who enlists the help of wild assess to assist some elders in their travels. The author records that this monk ‘commanded (ἐπιτάξαντος)’ the animals to come and carry the elders until they reached Antony.24 Human dominion over of the animal kingdom in this case, is manifested in the form of the subordination of the creatures and not in their destruction. The Subversion of Human Exceptionalism While the assumption of humankind’s supremacy over other animals is clearly present in the Sayings, the text more often subverts this ontological hierarchy. This is accomplished in three interrelated ways: 1) the positive zoomorphic depiction of monks, 2) the anthropomorphic depiction of animals, and 3) the approbation of an irenic interspecies ethic. By undermining the rigid human/animal binary, such portrayals elevate the status of animals within the world of the text and present animals and animality as integral to successful ascetic life. Animal-like Humans ‘Zoomorphism’, or ascribing animal attributes to humans, is common in early Christian literature25 and humans are portrayed as animal-like in both positive and negative ways. When construed negatively, animal-like humans lack reason; they are bestial, undisciplined, sensual, vicious, and impulsive.26 When construed positively, however, animality may be correlated to holiness. For example, in a saying of Macarius the Egyptian, Macarius encounters two especially virtuous monks who share a watering hole with the ‘creatures 23

Antony 36 (PG 65, 88). Antony 14 (PG 65, 80). 25 On zoomorphism in early Christian literature, see P.C. Miller, Eye of the Animal (2018), 42-78. 26 P.C. Miller, ‘Adam, Eve, and the Elephants’ (2013), 253-68; I. Gilhus, Animals, Gods and Humans (2006), 213. For a representative example in the Sayings, see N. 488 (Wortley, 324). 24

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(κτήνη) of the desert’.27 Not at first being recognized as humans, the monks introduce themselves to Macarius saying, ‘do not be afraid, for we are human beings’.28 Right away the reader of this story is intended to see the similarities between these monks and the wild animals with whom they associate. Macarius further explains that like their animal neighbors, these monks were naked and yet still able to endure the harsh life of the desert. The monks boast: ‘God has arranged things for us such that we are not cold in winter nor does the summer heat injure us’.29 Macarius responds by extolling their animal-like qualities, saying, ‘I have not yet become a monk but I have seen monks; pardon me brothers’.30 His praise of these true monks’ ability to live as animals challenges the assumption that humans are different from animals in a way that serves the former’s benefit. Rather, God endows these monks to be more animal-like in order to succeed at desert ascetic life. Unlike the city, the desert in the Sayings is the dwelling place of the non-human.31 It is place where monks can escape society to live ‘among wild creatures (εἰς μέσον θηρίων)’, far from worldly disturbances, and without concern for ‘human things (μηδέν ἔχοντα ἀνθρώπινον)’.32 By virtue of occupying this geographical space, monks must be other than human to flourish. In this sense, the zoomorphic depiction of monks in the Sayings functions similar to the angelomorphic depiction of monks.33 In other words, in the same way that late ancient authors compare Egyptian desert ascetics to angels as a means of ‘creating and maintaining the boundaries between ascetic communities and the rest of the world’,34 so these monks’ profound likeness to animals similarly sets them apart from their less morally-developed, city-dwelling contemporaries. Elsewhere in the Sayings, animals are presented as models for imitation. In these cases, humans are not so much depicted as animal-like as they are encouraged 27

Macarius the Egyptian 2 (PG 65, 260). See also N 132.5/20.13 in which a naked monk is described as ‘grazing like the wild animals do’. 28 Macarius the Egyptian 2 (PG 65, 260). 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. Other sayings similarly idealize living among animals: N.627; cf. N.764 (Wortley, 506, 630). 31 On the significance of the desert in ascetic literature, see James Goehring, ‘The Dark Side of Landscape: Ideology and Power in the Christian Myth of the Desert’, in D. Martin and P.C. Miller (eds), The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies (2005), 137-49; id., ‘The Encroaching Desert: Literary Production and Ascetic Space in Early Christian Egypt’, JECS 1 (1993), 281-96. 32 N.627; cf. N.764 (Wortley, 506, 630); Joseph of Thebes 1 (PG 65, 241); I. Gilhus, Animals, Gods, and Humans (2006), 221. 33 E.g. N.186/5.39, 596 (Wortley, 130, 458). 34 Ellen Muehlberger, Angels in Late Ancient Christianity (New York, 2013), 148-75; ead., ‘Ambivalence about the Angelic Life: The Promise and Perils of an Early Christian Discourse of Asceticism’, JECS 16 (2008), 447-78. Muehlberger also notes that periodically monastic leaders and authors would try to disabuse individual ascetics of this notion, most often for the purpose of keeping them humble. See Angels in Late Ancient Christianity (2013), 174-5.

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to become like animals. Animality, in other words, is prescriptive and not descriptive, something towards which monks are to strive in the process of moral development.35 Here again, zoomorphic literary tropes in the Sayings mirror angelomorphic tropes, in which monks are encouraged to live like angels. For example, Poemen exhorts monks to be blameless before God by imitating animals, whom God considers ‘innocent (ἀκατάκριτα)’.36 Exegeting Matt. 10:17, Syncletica teaches that one must be ‘wise (φρόνιμοι) as serpents’ in order to resist the devil, and ‘harmless (ἀκέραιοι) as doves’, to purify one’s conduct.37 Xanthias simultaneously expresses humility and extols the virtues of an animal when he says that ‘the dog is better than I am for it has love (ἀγάπην) and does not come to judgement (κρίσιν)’.38 The implication here is that one should be both loving and blameless like a dog. In these passages, animals provide an aspirational vision of what humans may achieve through ascetic life. Human-like Animals In addition to the zoomorphic depiction of humans, the anthropomorphic depiction of some animals in the Sayings also subverts the assumption of human exceptionalism.39 In such portrayals, animals are never explicitly attributed λόγος, but their actions reflect a kind pseudo-rationality, emotional sensitivity, and volitional autonomy that is not proper to their assumed nature. In a saying about Macarius the Egyptian, a man attempts to rob Macarius while he is away from his cell. The story continues: When he returned to his cell he found the robber loading his things onto a camel. Entering the cell, he took some of his things and joined him in loading up the camel. Then, after they finished, the robber started hitting the camel to get it up but it didn’t stand up. When Abba Macarius saw that it wasn’t standing up, he entered the cell and found a small hoe. And bringing it out, he placed it on the camel, saying, ‘Brother, the camel is looking for this’. And kicking the camel, the elder said: ‘Get up’, and it immediately stood up, and went off a little way according to his command (διὰ τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ). But then it sat down again and wouldn’t get up until they unloaded everything; then it left.40 35

Porphyry makes a similar argument in De abs. 3.10.4-5. Poemen 41 (PG 65, 332). See also N.403 (Wortley, 256). 37 Syncletica 18 (PG 65, 428). 38 Xanthias 3 (PG 65, 313); N.573, 580 (Wortley, 386, 390). 39 Kate Rigby defines anthropomorphism as a ‘recognition of shared creatureliness’. K. Rigby, ‘Animal Calls’, in Stephen D. Moore (ed.), Divinimality: Animal Theory, Creaturely Theology (New York, 2014), 124. Wendy Doniger adds: ‘Anthropomorphism and zoomorphism are two different attempts to reduce the otherness between humans and animals, to see the sameness beneath the difference’. W. Doniger, ‘Epilogue: Making Animals Vanish’, in Aaron Gross and Anne Valley (eds), Animals and the Human Imagination: A Comparison to Animal Studies (New York, 2012), 350-1. 40 Macarius the Egyptian 40 (PG 65, 281). 36

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This passage is significant because the camel is not acting like camels normally do. Camels in the Sayings are typically portrayed as obedient and subservient to humans. One saying even exhorts readers to ‘be like a camel … following the one to whom you are bound, who knows the path to God’.41 In the story of Macarius, however, the camel’s behavior is informed by something more than its natural inclinations, the monk’s commands, or the ontological hierarchy presumed to exist in Eden. Possessing humanlike logos and pathos, the animal seems to care for the monk and act in his best interest, even after being abused by him. Not only does it understand that Macarius is being robbed, but it defies both him and the robber until the monk’s goods are restored. It is acting independently rather than being acted upon. In another saying, a crocodile uncharacteristically assists a monk in his journey. The monk in this story is commanded by his Abba to report to a coenobium across the river in order to fulfill a task. The anonymous author records that when the monk arrives at the riverbank and is unable to cross, ‘a crocodile came and gave him a ride, bringing him to the other side. When he had completed his work, he came to the river and crocodile again carried him to the other side’.42 It is noteworthy that the monk here does not command the crocodile to carry him across; this is not a relationship of domination. Showing a humanlike understanding of the monk’s predicament, the crocodile recognizes that the monk is on a noble errand and offers to aid him. In a similar saying, several crocodiles allow a monk to safely cross the river out of ‘respect’ for the holy man.43 Another saying records a story of a monk who wades into crocodile infested waters. Then, rather than eating him, the crocodiles in the river ‘came and licked his body but did not hinder him’.44 Here again the animals in the story are not portrayed as doing what comes natural to them or what they are told to do. They do what they want, and their behavior betrays human-like cognitive and emotional capacities, subverting the animal/human binary within the world of the text. Irenic Interspecies Ethic The final way the Sayings subverts human exceptionalism through its approbation of an irenic interspecies ethic. Irenic relations with animals are periodically framed not merely as a byproduct of monks’ growth in virtue (as in the case of the crocodiles), but as constitutive of the ideal life itself. In a saying of James, James recounts story of a young man at the beginning stages of his 41 42 43 44

N.436 (Wortley, 276). N.46/14.32. (Wortley, 42). Saying C30 in Wortley, More Sayings (2019), 129. N.294/14.27 (Wortley, 198).

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monastic life. An anonymous elder speaks of the novice in the following way: ‘Coming by for a paternal visit, I [the elder] observed him praying, entreating God that he might be at peace (εἰρηνεύσῃ) with the wild animals. After the prayer a hyena that was suckling her babies approached. The young [monk] bent down under her and started suckling with them’.45 In this passage the monk asks God not for purity of soul, or forgiveness, or for any other common monastic petition. Rather he desires to at peace with the creatures of the desert.46 This is a goal sought out for its own sake; it is not incidental. As in other passages, the theme of Edenic restoration is also discernable here. In this case, the author appears to allude to Job 5:23, ‘the wild animals will be at peace (εἰρηνεύσουσιν) with you’ (LXX). Remarking on the recurrent theme of Edenic restoration in early monastic literature, Tim Vivian observes that animals in ascetic literature frequently experience a transformation from wild to tame when interacting with holy persons. As he puts it, the animals smell ‘the scent that Adam exhaled before the fall, when they were gathered together before him and he gave them names in Paradise’.47 Blake Leyerle similarly argues that animals in ascetic contexts often undergo a ‘behavior modification’ which corresponds to their participation in the new ‘peaceable kingdom’.48 The hyena who gives the milk intended for her babies to a monk embodies this kind of change and demonstrates that animals in the Sayings, like humans, were often understood to be a journey toward a more Edenic state. A Coptic saying about Abba Agathon provides an even more stark example of irenic interspecies relations. The passage is worth citing in full. It was said concerning Abba Agathon that he once dwelled in a cave in the desert in which there was a large snake. But the snake decided to move out and leave. Abba Agathon said to it, ‘If you move out, I will not remain therein’. And the snake remained and did not leave. And since there was a mulberry tree in that desert, they would come out together, and Abba Agathon marked off the mulberry tree and divided it between them (himself and it), so that the snake might gnaw at one side of the tree and the elder, on his part, gnaw at the other side, until they would stop eating and return together to the cave.49

45

N.440 bis (Wortley, 271). In the same passage, the monk also desires to be a ‘friend of fire’. 47 T. Vivian, ‘The Peaceable Kingdom’ (2003), 490-1. Catherine Osborne similarly remarks: ‘The desert, unlike the human city, is a society in which justice is respected and nature’s proper order is restored, as before the Fall. Thus the desert becomes a model for heaven’. See Dumb Beasts and Dead Philosophers: Humanity and the Humane in Ancient Philosophy and Literature (Oxford, 2007), 160. 48 B. Leyerle, ‘Monks and Other Animals’ (2005), 161. See also Alison Elliot, Roads to Paradise: Reading the Lives of the Early Saints (Hanover, NH, 1987), 161. 49 Marius Chaine, Le manuscrit de la version copte en dialecte sahidique des ‘Apophthegmata Patrum’, Bibliothèque d’études Coptes 6 (Cairo, 1960), 235. 46

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Here again, peace with the animal kingdom is framed primarily as a goal sought out for its own sake. The amicable relation between Agathon and the snake is especially significant given the way in which snakes are portrayed elsewhere in the Sayings, as well as in Egyptian ascetic literature more broadly.50 Typically snakes are antagonists to monks, attacking them, being maligned and killed by them, or are portrayed as symbols of Satan and vice.51 As previously intimated, one likely reason for this is their negative portrayal in the books of Genesis and Luke.52 In this saying, however, Agathon appears to care for the snake and desires its company to the degree that he is ready to abandon his cave to remain with it. He is also unwilling to contravene the snake’s agency by forcing it stay with him, thus demonstrating his aversion toward exercising hostile dominance over the animal. It is abundantly clear that he understands their relationship to consist in more than shared real estate or mutual toleration. Their partnership was essential to Agathon’s aspirational vision of ascetic life and necessary for his flourishing. Additionally, like the hyena, the snake is not a passive, non-rational participant in this exchange, but displays numerous humanlike qualities. It refrains from harming Agathon, something it likely would have been inclined to do were it acting according to its true nature. It comprehends and is persuaded by the monk’s ultimatum. It possesses the understanding necessary to eat only the mulberries allotted to it. And it seems to care for Agathon. It decides to stay not because of the food but merely because Agathon said, ‘If you move out, I will not remain therein’.53 In a manner of speaking the snake’s decision was not instinctual, but a charitable accommodation to the monk’s desires. The interspecies dynamic imagined in this and similar stories is remarkably consistent with the Sayings’ depiction of idealized human relations. As Graham Gould and others have persuasively argued, the Sayings is deeply concerned with the question of personal relationships as both a means to and end of ascetic formation.54 In fact, it would not be an overstatement to say that the ascetic program represented in this text deals primarily with governing interactions among selves – e.g. a monk and his neighbor or a master and his disciple – in a way that is beneficial to all parties involved.

50 On positive depictions of snakes in ancient literature, see I. Gilhus, Animals, Gods, and Humans (2006), 108-13. 51 E.g. Paul of Thebes 1 (PG 65, 380-1); Theodore of Pherme 23 (PG 65, 192); Ammonas 2 (PG 65, 120); Hyperechios 5 (PG 65, 429); N.487; 592.50; 764 (Wortley, 314, 420, 630). 52 On the portrayal of snakes in early Christian literature more broadly, see Robert M. Grant, Early Christians and Animals (New York, 1999), 1-5. 53 M. Chaine, Le manuscrit (1960), 235. 54 Graham Gould, The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community (Oxford, 1993); Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (New York, 1993), 261-96.

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I contend, however, that the ascetic ideals prescribed in the Sayings, such as patience, love, hospitality, etc., may also be understood to inform the interspecies relationships in which monks participated. Practicing hospitality and generosity, for instance, Agathon allots a portion of mulberries for the snake to eat. The snake’s willingness to remain with Agathon despite its inclination to leave displays an ethic of deference and hospitality that is perhaps best articulated in sayings like, ‘I have never prioritized my own need before the benefit of my brother’ and ‘My suffering is if I perform my own will’.55 Similar arguments may be made regarding the hyena and crocodiles who privileged what was helpful and prudent over what was instinctual. Within the context of human-animal relationships in the Sayings, both monk and animal embody the values espoused in the text. Moreover, if, as Wortley has suggested, the Sayings’ goal was ‘to preserve an understanding of how an ideal life’ is lived, then the Sayings may also be seen to advocate for the kind of interspecies ethic represented in the text.56 Conclusion The purpose of this article has been to more fully situate non-humans within scholarly narratives of Egyptian asceticism by tracing the Sayings’ subversion of human exceptionalism. I have argued that this subversion is accomplished through the text’s anthropomorphic depiction of animals, positive zoomorphic depiction of monks, and the approbation of an irenic interspecies ethic. It may be helpful at this point to briefly suggest an important implication of these findings. Scholarly reconstructions of ascetic life in the Sayings would do well to consider the interspecies networks of relations in which monks participated. Animals are shown to be important aspects of ascetic life, serving as companions, providers, exemplars, and friends. They also function as part of the monk’s monastic community in that they are beneficiaries of the monk’s practice of virtue, as well as practitioners of ‘virtue’ toward the monk. Correspondingly, ascetic life appears to have provided a setting in which both humans and animals could enjoy a more ideal state of being. In the same way that monks regained Eden through growth in virtue, so animals are portrayed as curtailing their bestial inclinations and becoming more rational and peaceful as they participate in the ‘peaceable kingdom’ prefigured in ascetic contexts. In this sense, humans were not the only beings in the early Christian imagination with a divinely designed telos and the potential for progress toward it. 55 John the Eunuch 2 (PG 65, 233); N 284 (Wortley, 190). Gould argues that the desert fathers sought to push themselves ‘to the limit of self-sacrifice and endurance in the service of someone else’. See G. Gould, The Desert Fathers (1993), 96. 56 J. Wortley, More Sayings (2019), xiv.

Slapping of a Monk, Evil Possession and ταπεινοφροσύνη: (Humility of the Mind) According to the Desert Fathers Hellen DAYTON, Dubai, UAE

ABSTRACT Chapter 14 of Libellus 15, De humilitate (Vitae Patrum Book V, PL 73, 953-69) contains a story about an ‘important person’s’ daughter, who slapped a monk. The priests could treat such a story of laic female slapping a priest as infamous and could defame such a woman and help to make her to be forgotten. The Early Christian monks had the same pattern of feelings regarding such a daughter, but their tools were different in those times. First, if the story revealed the name of the monastic storyteller Daniel, it hid the name of ‘the daughter of an important person’, which can shed light on why this woman might act in such a way regarding a disciple. Chapter 14 hid the prehistory of this event. Second, the anachorites hid the name of their disciple, who interacted with the woman. ‘Daniel’ may even have changed the place of this event, moving it to faraway Babylon because the same story happened in Alexandria with ‘one of St Macarius’ disciples’ according to Orthodox Christian Prologue from Orchid (November 18, http:// www.stjohngoc-pueblo.org/slap-in-the-face.html). Thirdly, while taking the controversial event out of the historical context, monks wrote it mimicking the Gospels and framed it inside of the ‘demonic possession’ case of the striking woman, in which they believed but which may not convince many today. One may probably question whether the rich nobleman’s ‘great affection’ for a monk could explain the behavior of his daughter? What exactly does it have to do with ταπεινοφροσύνη?

Desert hermits would be the proper people to whom to address the question: what is ταπεινοφροσύνη? They had to learn it for the sake of survival in their harsh living conditions in the burning sun and arid climate, where it was barely possible to find the means to eat, drink and wear clothing by the labour of their own hands. They are also more exposed to any attack of people or weather and, being accustomed to live apart from secular people, monastic hermits can easily get into difficulties or incidents with the surrounding society, and with women as well, unless genuine ταπεινοφροσύνη (in its good sense) prevails. The absence of such true ταπεινοφροσύνη too easily can result in conflict for both lay people and monks, as people from differing backgrounds, and the following is an example. The text under examination is from the Desert Fathers and contains a story about a young daughter of a ‘first’ among distinguished Babylonian men. She became healed from evil possession after giving a slap on the ear to a monk,

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 101-110. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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who turned the other cheek for her, according to Abba Daniel. There is no Coptic version of this story, at least not published so far. The passage in Greek was first published in vol. 65 of Patrologia Graeca (Paris, 1864), in col. 153BC156A, then much later under title Apophtegmes des Pères, volume 2 (Paris, 2003), as paragraph 15 of Ch. 15 Περὶ ταπεινοφροσύνης, in vol. 474 of Sources Chrètiennes, on p. 298. The same story appeared in Latin even earlier as Ch. 14 of ‘Libellus 15, De humilitate’ (Vitae Patrum, book five, Patrologia Latina, vol. 73 [Paris, 1849], on col. 956CD-957A from the thematic Apophthegmata Patrum on col. 855-1022). The text narrates the following: Εἶπεν ἀββᾶ Δανιὴλ ὅτι ἐν Βαβυλῶνι ἦν θυγάτηρ τινὸς πρωτεύοντος ἔχουσα δαιμόνιον. Εἶχε δὲ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτῆς ἀγαπητόν τινα μοναχόν · καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ · Οὐδεὶς δύναται θεραπεῦσαι τὴν θυγατέρα σου εἰ μὴ οὓς οἶδα ἀναχωρητάς. Καὶ ἐὰν αὐτοὺς παρακαλέσῃς, οὐκ ἀνέχονται τοῦτο ποιῆσαι διὰ ταπεινοφροσύνην. Ἀλλὰ τοῦτο ποιήσωμεν · ὅταν ἔλθωσιν εἱς τὴν ἀγοράν, ποιήσατε ἑαυτοὺς ὡς θέλοντάς τι ἀγοράσαι ἐξ αὐτῶν. Καὶ ὅταν ἔλθωσιν λαβεῖν τὴν τιμὴν τῶν σκευῶν, λέγομεν αὐτοῖς ἵνα ποιήσωσιν εὐχήν, καὶ πιστεύω ὅτι θεραπεύεται. Καὶ ἐξελθόντες ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ, εὗρον ἕνα μαθητὴν τῶν γερόντων καθήμενον ἵνα πωλήσῃ τὰ σκεύη αὐτῶν. Καὶ ἔλαβον αὐτὸν μετὰ τῶν σπυρίδων ὡς ὀφείλοτα λαβεῖν τὸ τίμημα αὐτῶν. Καὶ ὅτε εἰσῆλθεν ὁ μοναχὸς εἰς τὸν οἶκον ἦλθεν ἡ δαιμονιζομένη καὶ ἔδωκε ῥάπιζμα τῷ μοναχῷ. Ὁ δὲ ἔστρεψε καὶ τὴν ἄλλην σιαγόνα κατὰ τὴν ἐντολήν. Καὶ βασανισθεὶς ὁ δαίμων ἔκραζε λέγων · Ὦ βία, ἡ ἐντολὴ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐκβάλλει με. Καὶ εὐθέως ὁ δαίμων καὶ ἐκαθαρίσθη ἡ κόρη. Καὶ ὡς ἦλθον οἱ γέροντες ἀνήγγειλαν αὐτοῖς τὸ γενόμενον. Καὶ ἐδόξασαν τὸν Θεόν καὶ εἶπον · Ἔθος ἐστὶ τῇ ὑπερηφανείᾳ τοῦ διαβόλου πίπτειν ἐκ τῆς ταπεινώσεως τοῦ Χριστοῦ. Abba Daniel said that there was a daughter of a distinguished man in Babylon who had a ‘genius’ (‘pagan god/daemon/[some kind of] spirit’). Her father esteemed a certain monk. The monk said to him: ‘No one can cure your daughter except some hermits whom I know, but if you go to them, they will not agree to do this on account of their humility of mind. But let us do this: when they come to sell the wares which they have made, say that you wish to buy what they are selling. And when they have come into your house to receive their price, we shall tell them that they should offer a prayer, and I believe that your daughter will be restored’. Therefore, going out to the market square, they found one of the disciples of the elders sitting to sell his baskets, and they took him home with them as though he would receive the price for his baskets. When the monk had entered the house, there came she who was vexed by the demon, and gave the monk a cuff on the ear. But he turned to her the other cheek also, in accordance with the commandment. The demon was constrained and began to shout: ‘O violence! The command of Jesus Christ expels me from hence’; and at once the girl was cleansed. When they came to the elders, they reported to them what had happened; they gave glory to God and said: ‘It is the habit of the devil’s haughtiness to be overthrown by the humiliation/humility of Christ’.1 1

Translation from Greek by John C. Dayton. The English translation by Benedicta Ward, follows Patrologiae’s Latin versions in meaning. See Benedicta Ward, The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks (London, 2003), 15, 153.

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No Western Christian scholar has touched on this fragment so far, but there was definite interest in this issue in Eastern medieval monastic literature. I could not find any publication precisely on this story, and the secondary literature most closely approaching similar themes is by David Brakke and Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe. D. Brake refers to the incident in Demons and The Making of the Monk.2 Jewish Quarterly published a very recent article by Sophie LunnRockliffe about demons between desert monks and rabbis.3 D. Brakke interprets turning another cheek, in response to one already slapped cheek, according to Matthew 5:39: ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν μὴ ἀντιστῆναι τῷ πονηρῷ· ἀλλ’ ὅστις σε ῥαπίζει εἰς τὴν δεξιὰν σιαγόνα, στρέψον αὐτῷ καὶ τὴν ἄλλην· The scholar interprets it as a means of exhorting the demons, giving a traditional explanation.4 S. Lunn-Rockliffe approaches the theme of demons related to the visionary experience in Desert Fathers, saying that the Desert Fathers comprehended the phenomenon of visions of demons as ‘the gift from God, whether as a reward for extreme personal holiness or not’.5 These are themes which can be related to this story narrated by Abba Daniel because ‘δαιμόνιον’ (‘semi-divine being’, ‘a divinity’, ‘pagan god’/ ‘daemon’/ ‘[some kind of] spirit’)6 who happened to be exorcised ‘δαίμων’ (‘demon’, ‘evil spirit’)7 appears here, according to the monastic text. Both authors mentioned above treat demons as a given, even though, there will be always some kind of polemic among the traditional (both Eastern and Western) Churches that claim exorcism, and many Protestant Churches and psychiatrists about the origins of such phenomena. It would probably make an interesting study, but monastic scribes and interpreters preferred 2

David Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity (Cambridge, MA, 2006). 3 Sophie Lunn-Rocliffe, ‘Demons between the Desert Fathers and the Rabbis’, Jewish Studies Quarterly 25 (2019), 269-96. 4 D. Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk (2006), 9, 237. 5 S. Lunn-Rockliffe, ‘Demons’ (2019), 276-7. 6 First the nature of the δαιμόνιον appears as uncertain in the beginning of the narration. ‘1) transcendent incorporeal being w. status between humans and deities, daemon (as distinguished from demon, which in Eng. generally connotes inimical aspect), semi-divine being, a divinity, spirit, (higher) power’; 2) a hostile transcendent being w. status between humans and deities, spirit, power, hostile divinity, evil spirit’: Walter Bauer and Frederick W. Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition (BDAG) (Chicago, London, 2000), 210. ‘Divine power’ or ‘genius’ is also in Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, Revised and Augmented Throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the Assistance of Roderick McKenzie (Oxford, 1996), 365. Also, it means ‘a god’, Barclay M. Newman, A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament (Stuttgart, 1993), 39. 7 This word clearly denotes a being inferior to the God of Christians. “I. 1. ‘god or goddess, of individual gods or goddesses’, ‘but more often of Divine power or Deity’, 2. ‘the power controlling the destiny of individuals; hence one’s lot of fortune’, II. 1. ‘later, of departed souls’, 2. ‘generally of spiritual or semi-divine beings, inferior to the Gods’, ‘evil spirit, demon’”, H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, Greek-English Lexicon (1996), 365-6. It may mean ‘evil spirit/demon’, W. Bauer and F.W. Danker, BDAG (2000), 210.

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not to ‘go off the deep end’ and rather concentrated on the clearer and more practical things related to everyday asceticism. Slavic East Orthodox Christian monks re-thought the narrative critically by making deliberate changes during the re-writing of the manuscripts. The anonymous monks would bluntly and silently add and change the details of the initial story and pretend that it was written in the initial narrative. Such versions can reflect implicit critique based on insiders’ knowledge of monastic life, or guesswork, or sometimes reveal some details which were hidden in the original written version but preserved in the oral tradition. It is difficult to say in general what inspired such modifications, but some tentative hypotheses can be offered. Those Slavic monks directed their guesswork and possibly their veiled criticism at the originally ‘positive’ or ‘neutral’ male personages of the story such as the father of the girl and the disciple of the hermits. The monastic scribes probably tried to understand the reason for the demonic possession of the daughter and the cause of the successful exorcism, but it is difficult or impossible to prove for sure. One of them gives to the daughter’s father the position of ‘законникъ’8 (in Church Slavonic, a man who deals with the law), implying the judgment that the daughter simply follows the pattern of behavior of her father. Another Church Slavonic manuscript brings this event from Babylon to Alexandria, and even names the young novice as a disciple of Saint Macarius,9 leaving one to guess: ‘Is it possible to identify the well-known man, the father of the possessed?’ If the authors of two previous Church Slavonic versions of the text expressed interest in the personality of a lay father, it is probably because children pay for the sins of their parents according to traditional Eastern Christian beliefs (Exod. 34:7). The monks may have been simply curious what happened to the girl and why, trying to re-establish historical connections – they also tried to identify the hermits’ community, to which the disciple belonged. It is difficult to say. The third version also targets the disciple but treats him as a separate monk, who has sinned. This passage presents a variation of the story or a similar story and treats theological and pastoral issues in the shape of typically Eastern narration. The third version10 re-tells the story with extreme verisimilitude. Firstly, it brings the mother of the girl into narration, and moves the meeting of the family with the young monk into the desert right outside the city. It ‘exposes’ that the disciple of elders … has stolen a book from them. The family begged him to heal his daughter as a ‘holy father’ but he denied it openly because he had concealed his sin of theft. When he manifests his humility at last by 8 [No Title], ‘Слово 15. О смереней моудрости’, Скитский Патерик и Лимонис (15th cent.) Church Slavonic Manuscript 37, 76-76r (Russian State Library, Fund 304.I). 9 Orthodox Christian Prologue from Orchid (November 18), http://www.stjohngoc-pueblo.org/ slap-in-the-face.html. 10 [No Author], Скитский Патерик с прибавлениями (15th cent.), Church Slavonic Manuscript 704, 108-108r (Russian State Library, Department of Manuscripts, Fund 304.I).

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confessing his sin openly to prove that he is not ‘holy’ and did not wish to take the responsibility, … the demon runs away from the daughter, being unable to stand the humility of the anchorite’s disciple. Please notice that here … no smiting or prayers are needed when the young monk honestly and humbly confesses aloud his own fault at last. This version sounds as the afterthought and the settlement of the problem, and the texts accentuates the true value of genuine humility and not inaction or inertness, as one might guess while reading the original text in Greek. The Greek text under examination is included in Chapter Περὶ ταπεινοφροσύνης,11 which Patrologia Latina translated as ‘De humilitate’12 (‘On Humility’) by ‘Pelagio S.R.E. [c.e. Sanctae Romanae Ecclessiae] Diacono’; the Catholic authorities censored the translation. This deacon and interpreter, who spent seven years in Constantinople and knew Greek well, was imprisoned there for a few days by Emperor Justinian, then had influence over the Emperor, and with his help became Pope Pelagius I (556-561). This deacon is a figure of no little importance in the Catholic Church. While translating ταπεινοφροσύνη as ‘humilitas’, he followed the Vulgate that already translated this Greek noun seven times (Act. 20:19; Eph. 4:2; Phil. 2:3; Col. 2:18; 2:23; 3:12; 1Pet. 5:5) as ‘humilitas’ – the same translation as ταπείνωσιϛ, which appears four times there (Lc. 1:48; Acts 8:33; Phil. 3:21; Jac. 1:10). The translation of ταπεινοφροσύνη as ‘humilitas’ reflects quite an old Latin tradition of translation. It appears in the manuscript Vita Antonii 30,12, which is dated to the second part of the fourth century. One may resume that in Latin there was absolutely no effort to make the nuance in translation between ταπείνωσιϛ and ταπεινοφροσύνη. For Western Christians it perhaps did not matter, perhaps because ταπεινοφροσύνη is of more recent origin; it is not found for example in the Septuagint. The first known authors who used ταπεινοφροσύνη (with negative connotation) outside the New Testament were the Romano-Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus (37-ca.100 AD)13 and the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus (ca. 50135 AD).14 The apparent absence of effort to make any distinction in translation of ταπείνωσιϛ and ταπεινοφροσύνη from Greek into Latin influenced their translation into Western European languages, in the countries that shared Catholic tradition. It gave the possibility to Benedicta Ward to translate the title of Chapter 15 of Systematic Collection of Apophthegmata Patrum as ‘Humility’, for example. However, the Western Christian is not the only tradition interpreting ταπείνωσιϛ and ταπεινοφροσύνη. Περὶ ταπεινοφροσύνης, SC 474 (Paris, 2003), 285-389. ‘Libellus decimus quintus: De humiliate’, ‘De vitis partum liber quintus, sive verba seniorum, auctore graeco incerto, interpretere Pelagio S.R.E. diacono.” PL 73, 953AB. 13 H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (1996), 1756. 14 Ibid. I am very thankful to Philippe Luisier SJ, who helped me with the peculiarities of historical exposition in the translation of ταπείνωσιϛ and ταπεινοφροσύνη into Latin on short notice. 11 12

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The Orthodox Church Slavonic tradition makes apparent distinction between translations of ταπείνωσιϛ and ταπεινοφροσύνη, for example. While Church Slavonic commonly translates ταπείνωσιϛ as ‘с-мір-ен-їє’ or – another major spelling variant – ‘с-мѣр-ен-їє’ (‘humility’), it interprets ταπεινοφροσύνη as ‘с-мѣр-енаѧ моудрость’15 or ‘с-мір-еннаѧ мудрость’16 (‘humble wisdom’ in both cases) or other later variants spelling ‘с-мір-енн-о-моудр-їє’ or ‘с-мѣр-ен-о-моудр-їє’ (approximately ‘humble way/state of thinking’ in both cases). These are not only differences in spelling, but these words differ in meaning also. While the part ‘-мѣр-’ (‘measure’) together with prefix ‘с-’ gives the meaning ‘adjusting to a measure’ or ‘reaching a measure’, the part ‘-мір-’ (‘peace’) together with ‘с-’ means ‘achieving peace’ or ‘reconciliation’. The root ‘моудр-’ means ‘thinking-’ or ‘wisdom-’ in Old Church Slavonic while in the contemporary Russian variant of Church Slavonic it means only wisdom. The ending ‘-їє’ denotes the noun pointing to some action. The Greek word and its interpretation are poly-semantic. Only one popular article (strangely) by a Ph.D. in Philosophy Yury Vasiljevich Bespechansky has attempted to examine more deeply the comparative etymology of ταπεινοφροσύνη and its contemporary Russian translation ‘смиренномудрие’. While Y. Bespechansky (Ph.D. in Philosophy from St Petersburg) thinks that ‘с-мір-енн-о-моудр-їє’ is a calque translation from ταπεινοφροσύνη,17 it is not quite that simple, but his idea about the initially pejorative and negative meaning of ταπεινοφροσύνη is interesting. It is necessary to take a close look at the derivation of the words. ‘Humility’ is ταπείν-ω-σιϛ in Greek. Two Greek words – ταπείνωσιϛ and ταπεινοφροσύνη – come from ταπεινο- and differ in the choice of the derivation. While ταπεινο-φρο-σύνη ends in -σύνη from adjective ταπεινός (‘humble’, ‘unable to cope’),18 ταπείν-ω-σιϛ ends in -σις (gen. -σεως) and formed from the verb ταπεινόω (‘to cause one to lose one’s prestige or status’, ‘to humble’, ‘to abase’, ‘to constrain’, ‘to mortify’).19 On the one hand, in late Church-Slavonic, some Russian dictionaries such as that by archpriest Gregory Djachenko,20 with a Ukrainian family name, translate the Church Slavonic equivalent as ‘humility’ but it is an attribute of the 18th21st-century Russian to Latin tradition. It was not like that – Old Church Slavonic manuscripts interpreted it differently. Ch.S. Manuscript 37. Скитский Патерик и Лимонис (15th cent.), 73r, 9. Church Slavonic Manuscript 160. Скитский Патерик (end of the 15th cent.), Department of Manuscripts, Russian State Library (Moscow), Fund 89, Egor Egorovich Egorov Collection of the Manuscripts, 146r, 10. 17 Юрий Беспечанский, ‘Что такое ‘смиренномудрие’?” Please see the repost on-line at https://nenadoada.ru/kak_byt_khristianinom/chto_takoe_smirennomudrie/. 18 F.W. Bauer and W. Danker, BDAG (2000), 989. 19 Ibid. 990. 20 Григорій Міхайловічъ Дьяченко, Полный церковно-славѧнскій словарь (Москва, 1900), 622. 15

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To translate ταπεινοφροσύνη as ‘humility’ does seem quite precise because not only is the root ταπείν- present in this noun but also the root φρ-, which denotes an additional meaning of ταπειν-ο-φρ-ο-σύνη. It is to be translated more precisely not as ‘humility’ but ‘humility of the mind’. The noun φρ-όνημα – containing the part φρ-, which is present in ταπειν-ο-φρ-ο-σύνη – can be translated into English as ‘the faculty of fixing one’s mind on something, way of thinking, mind(-set)’21 and the ‘mind’ is more fitting for this translation. Y. Bespechansky links this root also justly with φρήν (‘the process of careful consideration, thinking, understanding’)22 but his translation ‘понимание’ matches the meaning of this word only partly or tangentially as ‘understanding’. The noun φρήν initially means ‘diaphragm as a set of the soul and intellect’ according to old Greek beliefs so it can indicate metaphorically the ‘soul’, ‘heart’, ‘intellect’, ‘thinking’ and ‘mind’23 – something inner or inward. However, he is probably right in his general evaluation of the polysemantic noun ταπεινοφροσύνη as having a negative sense for non-Christians in Late Antiquity. He wrote that this word can also denote people of ‘низкие умственные способности’ (‘low mental abilities’), ‘раболепствующие’ (‘obsequious’).24 This seems only partly right again. While Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon translates ταπεινοφροσύνη as ‘lowliness of the mind’.25 This expression means that the mind is miserable, defeated, and can be in a state of ‘crush’, and it reflects attitude rather than abilities of the mind. Y. Bespechansky concludes: ‘И только в христианстве это стало добродетелью’ (This [ταπεινοφροσύνη] became a virtue only in Christianity’).26 This is not so unambiguous either. Greek language is very ironic and often the same word can receive inverted significations, and the same is true with ταπεινοφροσύνη, which may mean hypocritical ‘self-deprecating demeanor’ in order to receive some laudation or obtain something. But let’s return to the positive meaning of the noun ταπεινοφροσύνη. Eastern Slavic Christians embellished the translation of this multifaceted word, treating it as a jewel and naming it ‘the wisdom of humility’. The circumstances of translation also matter. The Byzantine missionary Methodius and/or his Bulgarian disciples translated the Apophthegmata Patrum into Church Slavonic27 and had the possibility to control and explain the meaning 21

F.W. Bauer and W. Danker, BDAG (2000), 1066. Ю. Беспечанский, ‘Смиренномудрие’, ibid. 23 Иосиф Хананович Дворецкий, Древнегреческо-русский словарь (Москва, 1958), 2.1746. 24 Ю. Беспечанский, ‘Смиренномудрие’ [see n. 17]. 25 A Lexicon Abridged from Liddell & Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford, 1891), 691. 26 Ю. Беспечанский, ‘Смиренномудрие’ [see n. 17]. 27 Антон Анатольевич Войтенко, М. Р. Двали, Алексей Иванович Сидоров, Анатолий Аркадьевич Турилов, ‘Apopthegmata Patrum’, Православная Энциклопедия, том третий (Москва, 2000), 140-2. 22

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of the words during the translation. The sense of meaning in Church Slavonic translation became more precise and positive, while even Deacon Pelagius I was more independent in his translation due to his prominent position and wealth, and none could control him during his translation. Who knows – probably exactly these possibilities of pejorative meanings made Western Christians ‘to put any effort to make the nuance in translation of ταπεινοφροσύνη … Greek-English Lexicon gives one of such translations from the Stoic Epictetus and Josephus Flavius: “mean-spiritedness”.’28 Maybe Latin Early-Christians uncovered – too abruptly and shockingly – the most unattractive meaning of this noun while Christians had to exist, struggle and survive among a multi-faith population? The meaning of ταπεινοφροσύνη (‘humility of the mind’) is distinct from ταπείνωσιϛ (humility) in this story by Daniel from Apophthegmata Patrum because this Greek text contraposes concepts of ταπεινοφροσύνη and ταπείνωσιϛ to each other. While ταπεινοφροσύνη (as ‘wisdom of humility’) is the reason or excuse for the anchorite’s refusal to exorcize the δαιμόνιον from the daughter, and therefore presents an obstacle to the outcome, the ταπείνωσιϛ (as ‘humiliation’) of Christ by contrast operates to cast away this δαιμόνιον. The Patrologia’s Graeca and Latina translation into Latin has shown absolutely no effort to make the nuance in interpretation between ταπείνωσιϛ and ταπεινοφροσύνη, on which the ‘dramaturgy’ of the Greek passage greatly relies. Will it be necessary to provide some insight on the usage and significance of ταπείνωσιϛ and ταπεινοφροσύνη in all of Chapter 15?29 This depends on whether the collection belongs to one author or many because the meaning of Spirituality terms in Greek differ from one Christian author and writing to another, so it would be even ‘debatable’ to speak about any mystical-ascetical school or group as the authors are too individual, as John Chryssavgis wrote.30 It would be difficult to disagree with him. The author or authors are uncertain here. There is no other story by Abba Daniel within the Chapter 15 or any other chapter, in which ταπεινοφροσύνη appears. What can be tried in any case is to create a summa of collective hermitic knowledge about the phenomenon of ταπεινοφροσύνη from Chapter 15, if it will be any help at all. While ταπείνωσιϛ involves interaction with discontent, according to Chapter 15, this chapter informs us that ταπεινοφροσύνη frees a monastic hermit from an interaction causing a grudge. In such a way the shrewd monk exactly explained to the father of the ‘demonized’ why mature hermits will not even try to conjure 28 Ταπεινοφροσύνη is employed in this sense in Flavius Josephus, Bellum Judaicum 4.9.2, Arrianus Historicus, Epicteti Dissertationes (Leipig, 1894), 3.24-56; quoted in H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (1996), 1756. 29 Περὶ ταπεινοφροσύνης, SC 474 (Paris, 2003), 283-389. 30 John Chryssavgis, ‘Introduction’, “‘Joyful Sorrow’: The Double Gift of Tears”, in John Climacus: From the Egyptian Desert to the Sinaite Mountain (Aldershot, Burlington, 2004), 132.

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away the demon from his daughter: because of ταπεινοφροσύνη (15,15).31 Ταπεινοφροσύνη is related to motionless avoidance of demonic snares (15,3),32 which protects hermits from the trouble of conquering demons in case monks have sins, because obtaining ταπεινοφροσύνη makes one to see one’s own sins (15.24).33 In the liturgy, which has as the centrepiece the partaking in the body and blood of Jesus and forgiveness of sins, Christ becomes vain, if the priest performing it does not have ταπεινοφροσύνη, according to the Desert Fathers (15,22).34 It is impossible to be saved without ταπεινοφροσύνη – it is like nails without which is impossible to build a ship (15,66).35 Ταπεινοφροσύνη shuts up the outer senses of a person’s soul and does not permit the person to see the sins of others but allows one to grieve about one’s own sins (15,23),36 which is as necessary as breathing through the nostrils (15,49).37 Tαπεινοφροσύνη together with the fear of God is higher than all virtues (15,35),38 and ταπεινοφροσύνη is poverty of Spirit, which leads to the Heavenly Kingdom, according to the Desert elders (15,36)39 – it brings calm (15,37).40 But how exactly? There is an explanation (15,25):41 Τὸ παραρρίψαι ἐαυτὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν γνώσει καὶ τὸ ὑπακοῦσαι τῶν ἐντολῶν ἐν ταπεινοφροσύνῃ φέρουσιν τὴν ἀγάπην καὶ ἡ ἀγάπη φέρει τὴν ἀπάθειαν (‘The throwing oneself to God in knowledge and obedience to commandments in ταπεινοφροσύνη brings love, and love brings dispassionateness’).42 If one attempts to summarize the significance of ταπεινοφροσύνη, it seems to be the outcome of long practical experiencing of humility, which imparts wisdom for acting safely in regard to God, powers difficult to understand, people and circumstances. Genuine ταπεινοφροσύνη that is understood as ‘humble wisdom’ can be easily switched to the ‘wisdom of humility’ and one can use it as a tool and mask. In this case it may ironically turn into ‘self-deprecatory style of personal reference used by bishops’43 and ‘pretended self-deprecating demeanour’44 as in Col. 2:18: μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβραβευέτω θέλων ἐν ταπεινοφροσύνῃ καὶ θρησκείᾳ τῶν ἀγγέλων, ἃ ἑόρακεν ἐμβατεύων, εἰκῇ φυσιούμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ νοὸς τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ.45 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

Περὶ ταπεινοφροσύνης, SC 474 (Paris, 2003), 299. Ibid. 284. Ibid. 302, 304. Ibid. 302. Ibid. 328. Ibid. 302. Ibid. 320. Ibid. 308. Ibid. 308, 310. Ibid. 310. Ibid. 304. My translation (HD). G.W.H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek-English Lexicon (2004), 1374. «Притворное уничиженiе» - Дьяченко, Полный церковнo-славѧнскій словарь, 622. Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (Stuttgart, 1993), 527.

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Let no one, at his pleasure, bear rule over you by his humbleness of mind and his worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he has never seen, being rashly puffed up with his fleshly mind.46

Whether the disciple of hermits had humility or not, and whether the girl really cuffed him, and whether the people truly saw a demon emerging and speaking – is it only an amusing story? The event happened supposedly centuries previously and one can doubt in everything. One may refute almost everything in this story akin to the fairy-tale, except the phenomenon of ταπεινοφροσύνη, if it is not lost in translation and not overlooked like a blind spot, and not forgotten as not rightly understood and therefore unimportant. The more ridiculous seems the verbal context in which the word-meaning is embedded, the more quickly context evaporates, but the word-meaning will be imprinted in memory as wisdom.

46 Col. 2:18, Revised Geneva Translation, Bible Gateway: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/ ?search=Colossians+2%3A18&version=RG.

Modes of Knowing among Coptic Monks of Western Thebes Przemysław PIWOWARCZYK, University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland

ABSTRACT Thanks to excavations conducted in Western Thebes, researchers have gained access to one of the broadest source corpora which allows them to investigate the functioning of the late ancient society on a microscale, often on the individual level. It provides a rare opportunity to observe local modes of knowing, while literary sources often send us to more universal (Panhellenic, imperial) knowledge systems. The Theban dossier, consisting of thousands of letters and documents preserved on ostraca (and more rarely on papyri), records the daily life of monks who lived in numerous hermitages and a few larger monasteries in a very limited area. It is further supplemented with The Life of Saint Pisentius, a vast hagiographical work preserved in several versions and describing the life of the monk, and later bishop, who was active in that area. His correspondence is also partly preserved in the papyri. The article describes modes of collecting, ordering and accessing knowledge in a local monastic community. Undoubtedly, it was the memorised Bible which constituted the fundamental repository of knowledge and mode of thinking for all Theban Christians. It was quoted both in daily correspondence and in documents as a set of norms for religious and community life, ready to be directly implemented. We are not dealing with sheer textual knowledge in this case. Although Biblical texts were in use, we know that their memorisation was expected. The adaptations of biblical phrases present in those texts not only provide evidence for being quoted from memory, but also for the Scriptures being understood elastically, and altered in line with the demands of the current situation (numerous examples in O. Frange). Specific knowledge about the life of monks was contained within their rules, which – regardless of not being written down (written rules were an exception in Egyptian monasticism) – were a constant point of reference and are occasionally quoted in the Theban dossier. The rules predominantly referred to ritual knowledge, which enabled monastic socialisation and strengthened monastic identity through set behaviour patterns. Whenever it was impossible to refer to the abovementioned commonly shared primary repositories of knowledge, there was still the possibility of seeking advice from an elder and more experienced monk, who had exceptional access to God’s will (‘is it God’s will … or not?’ as in a letter to the monk O. Monastery of Cyriacus 15) and was familiar with its appropriate remedies for spiritual and worldly problems. The three modes of knowledge briefly discussed above have in common a performative or even ritualistic (and not text-based) character of knowledge, ultimate rooting in supernatural authority, oral transfer, and the capability of highly localised or even individual actualisations in specific situations.

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 111-124. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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Introduction1 In late antiquity, Pharaonic mortuary complexes in Western Thebes not only hosted the bustling town of Jeme, located in the temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu, but numerous monasteries scattered through temples and clusters of tombs as well. Among them were not only coenobitic establishments, such as the Monastery of St Phoebammon (Deir el-Bahari) and the Monastery of Paul (Deir el-Bachît), but also smaller communities of the type of laura (the Monastery of Epiphanius and the Monastery of Cyriacus, which are both located on the Šayḫ ‘Abd al-Qurnah hill) and single hermitages of loose or unclear affiliation (Frange’s hermitage in TT29, the Hermitage of Djôr and Ezekiel in MMA 1152).2 The antiquities market and – since 1912 – an increasing number of scientific excavations have brought an enormous amount of literary material to light, mainly preserved on papyrus and ostraca, making Western Thebes probably the best-documented monastic site of the late antique Mediterranean. Among this large body of evidence, documentary letters exchanged between monks or between monks and people from the world constitute a significant part. Since archaeologists continue to carry out excavations at certain Theban sites, the influx of new materials is significant and will not cease in the near future.3 The total number of monastic letters can already be reported in the thousands. The main disadvantage of the letters is their fragmentary character and the lack of a wider context. What was obvious for the parties involved in the correspondence is far from clear to us. However, this fault in our evidence could be in part supplemented by a hagiographical narrative focused on the monk and Bishop Pesynthios of Coptos (Keft). The tradition of this work is complicated, but the earliest Sahidic witness to the text dates to the turn of the 7th and 8th centuries,4 so three generations after the death of the Bishop in 632 AD at most. Although 1 The article has been written as part of the project No. 2015/18/A/HS3/00485 funded by the National Science Centre (Poland). 2 For an overview of monastic habitation in Western Thebes, see Terry G. Wilfong, ‘Western Thebes in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries. A Bibliographic Survey of Jême and Its Surroundings’, Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 26 (1989), 89-145. The most recent plans of this area are to be found in Alban-Brice Pimpaud and Guy Lecuyot, ‘Cartes pour l’étude de la rive gauche de Thèbes aux époques romaines et byzantines’, Memnonia 24 (2013), 147-54. 3 A significant number of texts could also be recovered from museum storage rooms. Museum archaeology, tracing down the provenance of given pieces and lots through the meticulous scrutiny of filed diaries, cargo documentation and inventories, enjoys successes relevant to the Theban area as well, see Elisabeth R. O’Connell, ‘Ostraca from Western Thebes. Provenance and History of the Collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at Columbia University’, Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 43 (2006), 113-37. 4 The stemma was reconstructed by Renate Dekker, ‘The Encomium on Bishop Pesynthios: An evaluation of the Biographical Data in the Arabic version’, in Mariam F. Ayad (ed.), Studies in Coptic Culture: Transmission and Interaction (Cairo, 2016), 77-91.

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Pesynthios was not ordained bishop of Hermonthis (which was the episcopal see of Western Thebes) but of Coptos which neighboured the Theban area downstream on the east bank of the Nile, he resided for some time in Western Thebes during his early monastic years and also for some time after his episcopal ordination.5 Because of these facts, we may safely assume that the traditions recounted in his life bear witness to Theban customs. Some pieces of information about Theban traditions are also scattered across the lives of local saints in the Upper Egyptian recension of Synaxarium, compiled in Arabic.6 This unique body of sources enables us to investigate the functioning of the late ancient monastic society on a microscale, often at the individual level. The letters we have at our disposal are original pieces of correspondence which were not designed to be disseminated. The data they give makes it possible to verify the well-known picture of monastic life given in apophtegmata which are literary pieces, or even in the correspondence of Barsanuphius and John which underwent a redactional process. For research on social structures and institutions, the discussion on knowledge-ordering is one of the central issues, as ‘those who have access to the knowledge that holds a social and political system together necessarily control the distribution of power within that system’ – which is clear when we look at the Theban social networks.7 Theban evidence provides a rare opportunity to observe local modes of knowing, while literary sources often direct us to more universal knowledge systems.8 The milieu of Theban monastics was not 5 On Pesynthius’ biography, see C. Detlef G. Müller and Gawdat Gabra, ‘Pisentius, Saint’, in Aziz S. Atiya (ed.), Coptic Encyclopedia, Vol. 6 (New York, 1991), 1978-80; Renate Dekker, Episcopal Networks and Authority in Late Antique Egypt: Bishops of the Theban Region at Work, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 264 (Leuven, 2018), 92-8; The information on Pesynthios’s early years in the Monastery of Phoebammon (the so-called Small Phoebammon, not the one in Deir elBahari) is included only in The Life of S. Pisentius, ed. De Lacy O’Leary, ‘The Arabic Life of S. Pisentius, According to the Text of the Two Manuscripts Paris Bib. Nat. Arabe 4785 and Arabe 4795’, PO 22 (Paris, 1930), 323 [11]. Pesynthios’ stay in the Monastery of Epiphanius is confirmed by the discovery of some pieces of his official correspondence at this site, see Jacques van der Vliet, ‘Pisenthios de Coptos (569-632): moine, évêque et saint. Autour d’une nouvelle édition de ses archives’, in Marie-Françoise Boussac (ed.), Autour de Coptos. Actes du colloque organisé au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Topoi orient-occident. Supplément 3 (Paris, Lyon, 2002), 61-72. 6 On saints associated with the region of Hermonthis, see Jean Doresse, ‘Monastères coptes aux environs d’Assiout en Thébaide’, AB 67 (1949), 327-49. There is no analogical work done on the saints associated with Jeme and Western Thebes, but see relevant entries in Stephen Timm, Das christlich-koptische Ägypten in arabischer Zeit. Eine Sammlung christlicher Stätten in Ägypten in arabischer Zeit, unter Ausschluß von Alexandria, Kairo, des Apa-Mena-Klosters, der Sketis und der Sinai-Region, 7 vol. (Wiesbaden, 1984-2007). However, combing through the Synaxarion remains indispensable. 7 J. König and T. Whitmarsh, ‘Introduction’, in eid. (eds), Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire (Cambridge, 2007), 6. 8 On imperial systems of knowledge in the classical world, see J. König and T. Whitmarsh, ‘Introduction’ (2007), 3-39. In the late antiquity period, the universalistic claim might be seen behind the Roman imperial ideology or Hellenic cultural identity.

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a marketplace in knowledge, the social and intellectual formation typical of the Hellenic world, which was in the process of disappearing along with the decline of the world of poleis and homogenisation of Christianity on large areas of Egyptian chora.9 Thus, Western Thebes of the late ancient period gives us a glimpse into post-classical modes and hierarchies of knowledge. At this point, I would like to briefly discuss three repositories of knowledge which are clearly recognisable in the source material I presented: the Bible, the canons and the authority of the holy monks.

The Bible as an ultimate repository of knowledge To say that the Bible constituted the very heart of monastic spirituality is nothing more than a plain truism, although, except for desert fathers10 and Pachomian koinonia,11 the role which the Bible played in Egyptian monasticism remains underinvestigated.12 It is an easy task to prove that the Bible was the foundation of the monastic praxis from the very beginnings of monasticism. In a saying attributed to Antony, we can read: ‘Whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the holy Scriptures’.13 Knowledge of God’s words was a warrant of correct monastic discipline, which resulted in the monastic variant of moral intellectualism according to which mastery in the Bible results in moral excellency. Besa, abbot of the White Monastery, compares sinners with the blind who ‘fell at noonday like those at midnight, which means like those 9 Not only is evidence for the pagans and Jews lacking, but also the presence of Pro-Chalcedonian Christians is never explicitly mentioned and could only be deduced from vague remarks and some ex silentio arguments (see O.CrumVC 6); more generally Ewa Wipszycka, The Alexandrian Church. People and Institutions (Warsaw, 2015), 141-2. After the Arab conquest, Muslims loomed only as distant authorities and not as neighbours. 10 Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert. Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (New York, Oxford, 1993). 11 Armand Veilleux, La liturgie dans le cénobitisme pachômien au quatrième siècle, Studia Anselmiana 67 (Romae, 1968), 262-75. 12 For the role of the Bible in Egyptian monasticism, see Heike Behlmer, ‘Die Bibel im koptischen Mönchtum der Spätantike’, in Peter Gemeinhardt (ed.), Zwischen Exegese und religiöser Praxis. Heilige Texte von der Spätantike bis zum klassischen Islam (Tübingen, 2016), 143-75. 13 Antonius 3, trans. Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The Alphabetical Collection, Cistercian Studies Series 59 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1984), 2; In Coptic, the saying is preserved in Bohairic (No 44), Tim Vivian, ‘Bohairic Coptic Sayings Attributed to Saint Antony the Great: A New Transcription and First English Translation’, Coptica 17 (2018), 43-78, 71. See Shenoute Canon 9, God who alone is True, MONB.FM 188, ed. Johannes Leipoldt, Sinuthii archimandritae vita et opera omnia, CSCO 73, Copt. 5 (Paris, 1913), 163, ll. 10-2; trans. Janet A. Timbie, ‘Writing Rules and Quoting Scripture in Early Coptic Monastic Texts’, in Blake Leyerle and Robin D. Young (eds), Ascetic Culture. Essays in Honor of Philip Rousseau (Notre Dame, IN, 2013), 29-49, 30: ‘The work for which each one came here [i.e. to the monastery], the scriptures and the books written for us tell us about it’.

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who did not hear scripture and were never taught’.14 Unsurprisingly, the Bible was regarded as a perfect compendium in Western Thebes as well. In a letter sent to Apa Elias, replete with scriptural quotations and allusions, an unknown monastic author tried to gain an elder’s benevolence by referring to the scriptural models that the elder should follow, while ‘examining continually all that has been written for our teaching’.15 In a piece of his life preserved on an ostracon, Elias of Mount Pshooueb, after recalling the Biblical models, calls the regulations concerning fasting ‘the ordinances of knowledge (ⲛⲧⲟϣ Ⲛⲧⲉⲡⲓⲥⲧⲏⲙⲏ)’.16 The words of the Bible were available to the Theban monks in many ways. 26 out of 110 books listed by Elisabeth O’Connell as originating from Thebes contain parts of the Scriptures, even if only tiny scraps are preserved.17 A catalogue of 80 books from ‘the topos of Elias on the Rock’ contains 29 books with biblical content. 18 There are many Theban ostraca with shorter or longer Biblical passages that could have served various purposes. Some of them are recognised as school texts, other pieces as writing exercises, aide-mémoires, liturgical scripts, meditation aids, substitutes of books, texts of ritual power etc. Several letters on ostraca bear witness to the exchange of Biblical books.19 Textual and archaeological sources provide evidence of book production in larger monasteries as well as in hermitages.20 This abundance of easily portable 14 Besa, fragment 3, On the Punishment of Sinners 1.3, ed. Karl H. Kuhn, Letters and Sermons of Besa, CSCO 157, Copt. 21 (Louvain 1956), 5, trans. CSCO 158, Copt. 22 (Louvain 1956), 5 ⲁⲩϩⲉ Ⲙ[ⲙⲉⲉ]ⲣⲉ ⲛⲑⲉ [Ⲛ]ⲛⲉⲧϩⲚⲧⲡⲁϣⲉ Ⲛⲧⲉⲩϣⲏ · ⲉⲧⲉⲡⲁⲓ ⲡⲉ ϫⲉ Ⲛⲑⲉ ⲚⲛⲉⲧⲉⲘⲡⲟⲩⲥⲱⲧⲘ ⲉⲅⲣⲁⲫⲏ ⲁⲩⲱ Ⲙⲡⲟⲩϯⲥⲃⲱ ⲛⲁⲩ ⲉⲛⲉϩ; See Athanasius, Vita Antonii 16.1. 15 P.Mon.Epiph. 434, ll. 5-7: ϩⲱⲱⲥ ⲉⲕⲙⲟϣⲧ ⲛⲛⲁⲩ ⲛⲓⲙ ⲉⲛⲉⲛⲧⲁⲩⲥϩⲁⲓⲥⲟⲩ ⲧⲏⲣⲟⲩ ⲉⲧⲉⲛⲥⲃⲱ. P. Mon.Epiph, 264, translates ⲙⲟϣⲧ as ‘meditate.’ 16 P.Mon.Epiph. 78. This is the same saint known from the Synaxarium under the name Elias of Bishwāw. 17 Elisabeth R. O’Connell, ‘Theban Books in Context’, Adamantius 24 (2018), 75-105, catalogue on pp. 98-105. O’Connell gives ca. 200 books (p. 94) corroborated by either physical manuscripts or documentary attestations on papyri, but there are more books than entries in O’Connell’s catalogue. From the Monastery of Paul, which has one entry, the rests of six codices have been recovered, see Ina Eichner, ‘Bücher und Bucheinbände des Paulosklosters (Deir el-Bachît) in Theben-West / Oberägypten’, in Christian Gastgeber and Falko Daim (eds), Byzantium as Bridge between West and East. Proceedings of the International Conference, Vienna, 3rd–5th May 2012 (Wien, 2013), 241-50, 245. 18 SB Kopt. I 12, ed. René-George Coquin, ‘Le catalogue de la bibliothèque du couvent de Saint-Élie « du rocher » (ostracon IFAO 13315)’, Bulletin de l’Institut français d’Archéologie Orientale 75 (1975), 207-39, esp. 223 (on Biblical books in the catalogue). 19 See Elodie Mazy, ‘Livres chrétiens et bibliothèques en Égypte pendant l’Antiquité tardive: le témoignage des papyrus et ostraca documentaires’, Journal of Coptic Studies 21 (2019), 115-62, esp. 131. Many pieces included in her catalogue stem from Western Thebes. 20 For book production in Western Thebes in general, see Herbert E. Winlock and Walter E. Crum, The Monastery of Epiphanius at Thebes, Part I (New York, 1926), 186-95; Anne Boud’hors, ‘Copie et circulation des livres dans la région thebaine (VIIe-VIIIe siècles)’, in Alain Delattre and Paul Heilporn (eds), Et maintenant ce ne sont plus que des villages: Thèbes et sa région aux

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material may explain why the Biblical verses inscribed on the walls are exceptional.21 The essential way of accessing the Bible was not individual reading, but rather Church liturgy and subsequent repetitions of what was read. Pesynthios admonished his flock, ‘Do not leave them [i.e. the words of Scripture: P.P.] in the church where they were read to you (…) let us say them at all times in our homes and on the streets and while we are walking on the road, even while we are eating (or) drinking, even when we are doing work with our hands’.22 The homily quoted above was addressed to a lay audience, but the monastics were expected to have much deeper familiarity with the Scriptures. All the monks learnt biblical passages by heart, although the extent of passages differed. The memorised Bible was essential in the daily practice of melete, a loud recitation of scriptural passages.23 Some monks memorised significant parts of the Scriptures. Elias of Bishwāw, active in Western Thebes but known only from the Upper Egyptian Synaxarium, was said to have mastered 30 books by heart.24 The Sahidic version of Pesynthios’ biography mentions that he was reciting Jeremiah and Ezekiel while he was still a monk.25 The Bohairic version recounts that the future bishop memorised Psalter, the Gospel of John and Minor Prophets, which seems to be a quite reasonable list.26 The Arabic version époques hellénistique, romaine et byzantine : actes du colloque tenu à Bruxelles les 2 et 3 décembre 2005 (Bruxelles, 2008), 149-61; for book production in coenobia, see I. Eichner, ‘Bücher’ (2013), see also O.Frange, 19-20. 21 P.Mon.Epiph. 697. An inscription in Greek referring to Ps. 120:8 (LXX). Biblia Epigraphica gives it as the only Greek inscription containing Biblical material from Western Thebes, see Antonio E. Felle, Biblia epigraphica: la sacra scrittura nella documentazione epigrafica dell’orbis christianus antiquus (III-VIII secolo) (Bari, 2006), 63-4 (No 43). Biblia Epigraphica contains only 72 inscriptions from Egypt (together with Cyranaica and Nubia). Monastic locations are altogether scarcely represented: Kellia (Nos 1-2), White Monastery (No 36). The lack of scriptural material does not mean the scarcity of the inscriptions in general. They abound in certain locations, see Włodzimierz Godlewski, Deir el-Bahari V: Le monastère de St Phoibammon (Warsaw, 1986), 141-52 (Catalogue des graffiti coptes sur les murs du temple de Hatchepsout à Deir el-Bahari). For the bibliography of the editions of the Theban inscriptions up to the year 2000, see Alain Delattre, ‘Graffitis de la montagne thébaine. I’, Chronique d’Égypte 76 (2001), 333-9, 333 n. 1. 22 Pesynthios of Coptos, A Discourse on Saint Onnophrius, ed. Walter E. Crum, ‘Discours de Pisenthius sur Saint Onnophrius’, Revue de l’Orient Chrétien 20 (1915-1917), 38-67, 55-6, trans. Tim Vivian, in Histories of the Monks of Upper Egypt and The Life of Onnophrius by Paphnutius with A Discourse on Saint Onnophrius by Pisentius of Coptos, Cistercian Studies Series 140 (Kalamazoo, MI, 2000), 186. 23 On meletē, see Lucien Regnault, The Day-to-Day Life of the Desert Fathers in Fourth-Century Egypt (Petersham, MA, 1999), 102-3; John Wortley, ‘How the Desert Fathers “Meditated”’, GRBS 46 (2006), 315-28. 24 Le Synaxaire arabe jacobite, 17 Kihak, ed. René Basset, PO 3 (Paris, 1909), 476 [400]. 25 The Arabic Life of Bishop Pisentius, by John the Elder, f. 23b-24a, in E.A. Wallis Budge (ed. and trans.), Coptic Apocrypha in the Dialect of Upper Egypt (London, 1913), 78 (text), 261-2 (trans.); the Arabic Life mentions Isaiah as well, see De Lacy O’Leary, The Life of S. Pisentius (1930), 336 [24]. 26 Éloge de Pisentios évêque de Keft, in Émile Amélineau (ed. and trans.), Étude sur le christianisme en Égypte au septième siècle (Paris, 1887), 75, 83-4.

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gives 12 and, in another place, 30 books without naming them.27 Because the monk’s cells in Western Thebes stick to one another, the Bible was not only present in textual form but also dominated the audiosphere of the area through the recitation.28 However, the performative aspect of mastering the Bible went far beyond verbal reproduction of only the words. The Scripture was regarded as an ultimate guide through life for every single person, despite ecclesiastic status. Each act of piety has its root in the words of the Bible which contains the paradigmatic acts to follow, as Pesynthios exemplifies with regard to the commemorations of the saints, ‘the holy apostle, the teacher Paul, the tongue of incense, established a law for us that we should remember our forefathers…’29 The perfect monk was believed to be able to actualise the Bible even in a more tangible way – when Pesynthios was reciting Minor Prophets, each of them appeared before him.30 Knowledge organised in the canons Although the Bible became an ultimate point of reference for the monks, it was not originally created as a compendium but reinvented as such.31 Its complexity and internal heterogeneity made it difficult to use the Scriptures directly as a guide through monastic discipline. For practical purposes, more or less fixed collections of canons were much more convenient. Setting an organised catalogue of rules is a step in the direction of listing, a very effective and popular mode of organising knowledge. Lists of various kinds are well represented in Theban material,32 and are usually interpreted as school-exercises, although the biblical content of some of them also indicates the spiritual value.33 In the Theban texts, the word ‘canon’ refers to at least three different categories, or levels, of precepts – ecclesiastical canons recognized across Egypt, 27

De Lacy O’Leary, The Arabic Life of S. Pisentius (1930), 330, 462 [18, 150]. See Palladius, Historia Lausiaca 7.5, but see Historia monachorum in Aegypto 20.7. In Kellia, the monks built their dwellings of sun-dried brick. In Western Thebes oratories were usually located in stone-cut pharaonic tombs, but the voice of monks reciting the Scriptures aloud must have been easily heard. The story of Pesynthios, when still a solitary monk, justifies such conviction: ‘when they had come to him [i.e. Pesynthios], they heard him reciting the words of Saint Jeremiah with great calmness and clearness, and they sat down outside his place of abode for a little time’, The Life of Bishop Pisentius, by John the Elder, f. 23v, in E.A.W. Budge, Coptic Apocrypha (1913), 78 (text), 262 (trans.). 29 Pesynthios of Coptos, A Discourse on Saint Onnophrius, ed. W.E. Crum (1916), 43, trans. T. Vivian, Histories (2000), 175. 30 Éloge de Pisentios évêque de Keft, ed. É. Amélineau (1887), 90. 31 For the underlying role of the Scriptures in the Pachomian koinonia, see A. Veilleux, La liturgie (1968), 263-6. 32 See P.Unterricht.Kopt. 226-67. 33 E.g. O.Crum 436, O.Brit.Mus.Copt. II 52, O.Uppsala.Univ. inv. 1087 (the list of Apostles); P.Unterricht.Kopt. 248 (includes the list of Greek words from Acts and names of Martyrs from Sebaste). 28

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supra-regional monastic canons, and the local or individual canons specific to the Theban region. The Egyptian church recognised the collections of canons attributed to the great fathers of the past: Hippolytus, Athanasius, and Basil of Caesarea. From Western Thebes we have the late 7th to early 8th c. manuscript of the Canons of Pseudo-Basil.34 In addition, a MS of Canons of Pseudo-Athanasius was said to have been purchased in Thebes.35 There was also at least one set of canons originating from the Theban region. O.Crum 73, found in the Monastery of Phoebammon, mentions ‘the Canons of our holy father apa Ananias, Bishop of Hermonthis, the man who [truly] bears [the Christ] who bears the Spirit, the son of Apostles and the man much beloved [as Da]niel, who gave them (i.e. the canons) to the Churches so that they keep them’.36 Probably, this type of church canons looms in P.Mon.Epiph.133. The bishops mentioned in this letter are to judge a certain case ‘according to the authority of the canons’.37 Church canons of this kind are also referred to in the dossier of Abraham of Hermonthis.38 This category of canons was, however, of less interest for monastics,39 as they might be imposed on them only from the outside by means of episcopal authority. Besides ecclesiastical canon collections, there were specific monastic canons composed by the ancient pioneering figures of Egyptian monasticism such as Pachomius and Shenoute. Monastic regulations, which were originally simple in form, gradually drew more and more from the Bible in their wording and sometimes in the rhetoric of legitimisation as well.40 Most prominent are a few sets of rules which originated in Pachomian koinonia, followed by the canons of the Shenoutean congregation. Like the portions of the Bible, they were 34 Cairo, Coptic Museum, inv. 13448 (CLM ID: 713); Alberto Camplani and Federico Contardi, ‘The Canons Attributed to Basil of Caesarea in the Context of the Canonical Literature Preserved in Coptic’, Adamantius 24 (2018), 150-64. 35 P. Lond. Copt. 167 (LDAB 108620); Wilhelm Riedel and Walter E. Crum, The Canons of Athanasius of Alexandria. The Arabic and Coptic Versions Edited and Translated with Introductions, Notes and Appendices (London, Oxford, 1904); on provenance E. O’Connell, ‘Theban Books’ (2018), 88. The Canons of Athanasius also appear in catalogue SBKopt. I 12, l. 9. See also E. Mazy, ‘Livres chrétiens’ (2019), 115-62, esp. 122-9. 36 O.Crum 85. I took into account conjectures given by Crum in O.Crum, 8. Own translation. I thank R. Dekker for the linguistic suggestions. Ananias was a bishop of Hermonthis around 510 AD, see Klaas Worp, ‘A Checklist of Bishops in Byzantine Egypt (A.D. 325- c. 750)’, ZPE 100 (1994), 283-318, 299. 37 See also P.Mon.Epiph. 467 (synodal or apostolic canons?) and P.Mon.Epiph. 560 – an ostracon with the list of bishop, signatories of the early councils. 38 R. Dekker, Episcopal Networks (2018), 196. Abraham never refers to any particular collection of canons and never quotes them. Canon 38 of Ps.-Athanasius requires the copy of the canons to be kept in every village. 39 Canons of Athanasius 92, 102 refer to monks and (esp. the latter) urban-ascetics, Canons of Ps.-Basil 32 to urban ascetics; Canons of Ps.-Hippolytus are focused on liturgical matters. 40 J. Timbie ‘Writing Rules’ (2013), 29-49.

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expected to be read aloud to the congregation.41 These renowned collections of canons were known, and also to some degree respected, in the Theban area. The authority of the fathers of monasticism was something that could not be disregarded.42 The ostracon SBKopt. I 13, among many other books, also lists the Canon of apa Pachomius, which means his rules.43 A ban on spitting before an altar, attributed to Shenoute, is explicitly mentioned in the Life of Pesynthios.44 There were, however, local and even personal sets of monastic rules as well. Some major monasteries, like those of Phoebammon or Paul, might even have had a written rule. Three tiny scraps from a papyrus codex, labelled by their editor Walter E. Crum as ‘monastic rules’, may bear witness to such a local tradition.45 Canon was also a term for an agenda of prayers which the hermits recited in their cells. Every single solitary monk may have followed a slightly different set of prayers and other ascetic practices.46 A personal rule might be perceived as a duty imposed by monastic authorities47 or even via direct contact with the divine, as in the story of Anba Ezekiel of Hermonthis, who was visited by an angel who chose a dwelling for him.48 There were also some commonly shared rules of behaviour which formed a platform of communication between monks residing in different Theban monasteries. The Life of Pesynthios discloses two such rules to us in passing: 41 Bentley Layton, The Canons of Our Fathers. Monastic Rules of Shenoute (Oxford, 2014), 194-5 (No 252). 42 See Shenoute, Canon 1, MS Strasbourg P. Copte 25, ll. 23-6 : ‘We are not wiser than those who established the rules for us (ⲁⲛⲟⲛ ϩⲉⲛⲥⲁⲃⲉⲉⲩ Ⲁ[ⲛ] ⲚϩⲟⲩⲞ ⲉⲛⲉⲛⲧⲁⲩ ⲥⲙⲓⲛⲉ ⲛⲁⲛ Ⲛϩⲉ[ⲛ]ⲛⲟⲙⲟⲥ)’, ed. Dwight W. Young, Coptic Manuscripts from the White Monastery: Works of Shenoute (Wien, 1993), 63 (text), 65 (trans.). Especially Shenoute was in high esteem among Theban monks, which could be proven by the mere number of references made to him in Theban letters, particularly in comparison with Pachomius, see Esther Garel, ‘Lire Chénouté dans la région thébaine aux VIIe-VIIIe siécles’, in Anne Boud’hors and Catherine Louis (eds), Études coptes XIV. Seizième journée d’études, Genève 19–21 juin 2013 (Paris, 2016), 183-92. 43 SBKopt. I 12r, l. 39 ⲕⲁⲛⲟⲛ Ⲛⲁⲡⲁ ⲡⲁϩⲱ[ⲙⲱ], ed. René-Georges Coquin, ‘Le catalogue de la bibliothèque du couvent de Saint-Élie « du rocher » (ostracon IFAO 13315)’ (1975), 207-39; on the identification of this book, see Herwig Maehler, ‘Bücher in den frühen Klöstern Ägyptens’, in Harald Froschauer and Cornelia Römer (eds), Spätantike Bibliotheken: Leben und Lesen in den frühen Klöstern Ägyptens, Nilus 14 (Wien, 2008), 43. 44 The Arabic Life of S. Pisentius, ed. De Lacy O’Leary (1930), 414 [102]. There is no such ban among the references to the rules extracted and compiled by B. Layton, The Canons of Our Fathers (2014). However, such a ban appears in Canons of Ps.-Basil 96. 45 P.Lond.Copt. I 170. The badly preserved content of these scraps has not been recognised as any of the known monastic canons. 46 P.Mon.Epiph., I 167-8 (extra liturgical prayers). 47 See P.Mon.Epiph. 162, ll. 20-1, ‘appoint for me prayers (ⲚⲄϩⲟⲣⲓⲍⲉ ⲛⲁⲓ ⲛϩⲉⲛϣⲗⲏⲗ) and a [?fasting ordinance]’; see also P.Mon.Epiph. 220; Le Synaxaire arabe jacobite, 14 Kihak, ed. R. Basset (1909), 461 [385]: ‘Il [i.e. Ezekiel] y trouva de nombreux ascètes qui le guidèrent, lui donnèrent la règle de la demeure dans les déserts, et le revêtirent du froc angélique’. For more examples and a wider context, see P.Mon.Epiph., I 137-8. 48 Le Synaxaire arabe jacobite, 14 Kihak, ed. R. Basset (1909), 462 [386].

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Now when the brother went to him [i.e. Pesynthios], he found the door of the little cell wherein he lived open (…). As soon as he pulled the thong (or, latch-cord) of the door, he cried out (to the dweller) inside, according to the canon of the brethren (ⲡⲕⲁⲛⲟⲛ Ⲛⲛⲉⲥⲛⲏⲩ), ‘bless me’.49

And in Pesynthios’ last words to his disciple John: Lay fast hold upon the things which I have commanded thee, and do thou summon the brethren regularly each hour in order that they may recite their offices according to the rules of the brethren (ⲕⲁⲧⲁ Ⲛⲕⲱⲧ Ⲛⲛⲉⲥⲛⲏⲩ), and do good to their souls through thee.50

Another canon is mentioned in a papyrus letter: I John the monk, he that dwelleth in the Mount of Jeme, under obedience to our father, Apa Kere and Apa Theodore, since at this time (i.e. recently) I fell from […] of the ordinances according to the canon of our fathers (ⲛⲉⲓⲏⲛⲧⲟⲗⲏ ⲡⲣⲟⲥ ⲡⲕⲁⲛⲟⲛ Ⲛⲛⲉⲛⲉⲓⲱⲧⲉ), having brought a man in to my dwelling without asking (leave) of the elders according to the canon.51

Holy monks as mediators of divine knowledge Throughout the vicissitudes of life, it was often difficult to find a ready solution in the Bible or canons of whatever sort. A holy elder was the ultimate resort to whom a monk (but also a layman) could turn. We have examples of written requests for highly practical guidelines. A laywoman Esther, afflicted by tribulations that she recognised as the probable results of her sin, asks an unknown elder to instruct her52 and send her a rule (ἐντολή) on how to walk.53 Such prominent figures were regarded as possessors of direct access to God and may ‘ask’ Him about the given question. It is much more than spiritual 49 The Life of Bishop Pisentius 25b, ed. E.A.W. Budge, Coptic Apocrypha (1913), 80 (text), 265 (trans.); See The Arabic Life of S. Pisentius, ed. De Lacy O’Leary (1930), 340 [28]: ‘according to the rule of the monastic brethren’. 50 The Life of Bishop Pisentius 78b-79a, ed. E.A.W. Budge, Coptic Apocrypha (1913), 123 (text), 318 (trans.); See The Arabic Life of S. Pisentius, ed. De Lacy O’Leary (1930), 471 [159]. 51 O.CrumVC 6v, ll. 1-5, trans. ibid. 9. 52 P.Mon.Epiph. 194, ll. 6-7:[ⲛⲅⲧⲥⲁ]ⲃⲉ ⲉⲓⲁⲧ ⲉⲃⲟⲗ; in another request for instruction, not from Western Thebes but Monastery of Thomas in Wadi Sarga, a certain Theone asks ⲧⲉⲧⲛⲧⲓⲧⲁⲥⲕⲉ ⲛⲁⲓ ⲉⲡⲉⲧⲉϣϣⲉ ϩⲛⲛⲉⲧⲚⲥⲃⲟⲟⲩⲉ ⲉⲧϩⲟⲗϭ – ‘instruct me what is fitting by your sweet teaching’ (P.Sarga 109, ll. 11-2, trans. W.E. Crum). 53 P.Mon.Epiph. 194, ll. 11-3: ⲚⲄⲧⲛⲛⲟⲟⲩ ⲟⲩⲉⲛⲧⲟⲗⲏ ⲛⲁⲓ ⲛⲧⲁⲙⲟⲟϣⲉ. See P.Mon. Epiph. 220, a request for receiving ἐντολή. The word ἐντολή in Coptic documentary texts mainly refers to monastic rules, see Hans Förster, Wörterbuch der griechischen Wörter in den koptischen dokumentarischen Texten, TU 148 (Berlin, New York, 2002), 264-5. In the dossier of Abraham of Hermonthis ἐντολή often means ecclesiastical canons which the clergymen should follow. I thank Renate Dekker for this remark.

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direction rooted in the tradition of elders and canons,54 even more than knowledge accessible by the spiritual gifts of diakrisis55 and dioratikon.56 What we have here is a kind of direct knowledge resulting from special intimacy with God. A letter of uncertain date but perhaps from the first half of the 7th century57 gives us a glimpse into such a case. O.Monastery of Cyriacus 15 I am asking your holy fatherly lordship concerning my brother who fell ill (?) that your holiness explain to me whether it is God’s will that he became ill, or not, and whether my brother comes (back) from the strange places (?)58 and whether if I go to Apa I (will) see the affair, and whether it is God who brings all these tests upon us, or not. I have promised that I do not go (with/to?) the barbarians again. They mocked me and I went […] sick […] Ask God concerning me also that he gives bread to me and I can eat it. I greet with respect your (pl.) lordship (which is) fatherly (and) [holy]. Pray for me.59

The unknown author was most probably a monk who recognised the authority of the elder but was not his personal disciple. The mention of a brother suggests that he lived in a double-cell. Maybe the community was organised as a laura, with relatively independent hermits respecting the supreme authority of one among them, however. The author of the letter acknowledges that the elder could know God’s will and hidden things, that he has the gift of clairvoyance and is a powerful mediator before God on behalf of other people. The elder perfectly fits a type of holy man which Claudia Rapp called an ‘intercessor’. His power is contingent on ‘the perceived efficacy of his prayer’. He is not only a patron who restores social order and justice,60 or an exemplar emulated by his disciples, or a spiritual guide who directs his pupils, but he stays at the centre of a prayer community that conceptualises itself as a ‘spiritual family’ (note the family language).61

54

See John Cassian, Coll. 2.10. Irénée Hausherr, La direction spirituelle en Orient autrefois, OCA 144 (Roma, 1955), 82-97; Joseph T. Lienhard, ‘On “Discernment of Spirits” in the Early Church’, Theological Studies 41 (1980), 505-29. 56 I. Hausherr, La direction spirituelle (1955), 97-102. 57 O.Monastery of Cyriacus, 21-2, 62-3. Dating relies on the identification of the ‘barbarians’ with the Persians who were occupying Egypt in 619-629. 58 Euphemism for ‘Is he dying’ (I thank Renate Dekker for this suggestion). 59 Trans. O.Monastery of Cyriacus, 61-2 (slightly modified). 60 This function of a holy monk (or monk-bishop) is clearly visible in other Theban letters O.Lips.Copt. I 18, P.Mon.Epiph. 300, and, of course, in The Life of Bishop Pisentius 80a, ed. E.A.W. Budge, Coptic Apocrypha (1913), 124 (text), 319 (trans.). 61 Claudia Rapp, ‘“For Next to God, You Are my Salvation”: Reflections on the Rise of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity’, in James Howard-Johnston and Paul A. Hayward (eds), The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown (Oxford, 1999), 63-81, 66. 55

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In the Theban material from the so-called Monastery of Epiphanius, we find many pieces which express unquestioned belief in the power of Epiphanius’ prayer.62 The same idea recurs continually in Frange’s dossier.63 Less prominent, however, are remarks on spiritual knowledge possessed by the monk. In P.Mon.Epiph. 162 archdeacon Joseph writes to Epiphanius, ‘God’s temple’ and ‘the prophet and an anchorite’, extolling the power of his prayer and his foreknowledge, the proof of which he had already experienced, when he came on purpose to dwell with Epiphanius. Joseph revokes that ‘the things determined to happen to me, you reported them beforehand [to me]’64 and asks ‘what God will reveal to you, report it to [me…]’.65 It is clear that Joseph relies on the spiritual direction of Epiphanius who prescribed prayers and fasts for him and even steered his way of life to some extent. Pesynthios of Coptos is a perfect example of such a holy man. Although hagiographic narratives certainly extol his spiritual abilities beyond that which he enjoyed during his life, the letters preserved in his dossier confirm that he was thought to be a person of exceptional power.66 His intercession was effective, not just in particular cases of illnesses affecting his petitioners, but he used to pray for the whole world.67 His hagiographer ascribed to him the gift of dioratikon: The blessed man Apa Pisentius was endowed with the gift of the Spirit for whenever any man went into his presence, as soon as he had looked into his face he knew for what purpose he had come to him.68

He was also said to have the gift of clairvoyance, ‘for thou didst know the things which were hidden before they took place’.69 As in the case of Cyriacus, his knowledge of hidden things was given to him by God: ‘One day also a man stole a cup of silver from the church and took it away. But God revealed to our father the saint about that cup and made clear to him its secret’.70 All those abilities made Pesynthios a prophet in the eyes of future 62

Ibid. 72. E.g. O.Frange 265, 354, 358. 64 P.Mon.Epiph. 162, ll. 11-2 ⲛⲉⲧⲧⲏϣ ⲉϣⲱⲡⲉ Ⲙⲙⲟⲓ ⲁⲕϢⲢⲠ ⲥⲩⲙⲁⲛⲉ ⲙ[ⲙⲟⲟ]ⲩ [ⲛⲁⲓ]. 65 P.Mon.Epiph. 162, ll. 18-9 ⲡⲓϩⲱⲃ ⲡⲉⲧⲉⲣⲉⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲛⲁϭⲟⲗⲠϤ ⲛⲁⲕ ⲉⲃⲟⲗ ⲥⲏⲙⲁⲛⲉ Ⲙⲙⲟϥ ⲛ[ⲁⲓ...]. 66 R. Dekker, Episcopal Networks (2018), 244. Note especially the epithets such as ‘the light of the world’ (P.Pisentius 44) or ‘thirteenth apostle’ (P.Pisentius 54). 67 The Life of Bishop Pisentius 52b, ed. E.A.W. Budge, Coptic Apocrypha (1913), 102 (text), 294 (trans.): ⲛⲉⲕϣⲗⲏⲗ ϩⲓϫⲘ ⲡⲕⲟⲥⲙⲟⲥ ⲧⲏⲣϤ ϩⲚ ⲟⲩⲙⲚ⳰Ⲧⲁⲅⲁⲑⲟⲥ. 68 The Life of Bishop Pisentius 76b-77a, ed. E.A.W. Budge, Coptic Apocrypha (1913), 121 (text), 316 (trans.). 69 The Life of Bishop Pisentius 37a, ed. E.A.W. Budge, Coptic Apocrypha (1913), 89 (text), 277 (trans.): ϣⲁⲕⲉⲓⲙⲉ ⲅⲁⲣ ⲉⲛⲉⲑⲏⲡ ϩⲁⲑⲏ Ⲙⲡⲁⲧ ⲟⲩϣⲱⲡⲉ. 70 The Arabic Life of S. Pisentius, ed. De Lacy O’Leary (1930), 447 [135]. 63

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generations, but maybe such an opinion was already circulating among his contemporaries.71 Conclusions We may assume that all the monks from Western Thebes known to us strived after the same ultimate goal, recognising the value of the same kinds of knowledge obtained by the same means. Innovation and variations were not welcomed and a competitive attitude was accepted only with regard to the extent to which a given individual conformed to the paragons of holiness. The modes of accessing, organising and reproducing knowledge based on the three repositories briefly discussed above – the Bible, canons and holy monks – also have a lot in common, but they are not identical. We may stress their ultimate rooting in supernatural authority, an oral transfer, a performative or even ritualistic (and not text-based) character, and a capability for very local or even individual actualisations in specific situations. Whatever mode of accessing knowledge, its original source was always perceived to be God. The Bible was God’s word. The holy monk does not access knowledge on hidden things or the future by his own power but only through God. Similarly, the canons are based on the spiritual authority of an individual with unique access to God and are permeated with Biblical language and images. The elder was recognised as a person of authority by whom to impose a canon on a disciple or petitioner. The Bible was regarded as an ultimate repository of knowledge, but – despite the direct and multidimensional evidence for a flourishing book culture among Theban monks – textualisation (reading and writing) was not the main way of daily contact with Biblical knowledge. The wisdom deposited in the Scriptures should be memorised and internalised by constant repetition. As a result, a monk could obtain direct access to the divine. We know that, in Shenoute’s monasteries, the rules were transmitted in the framework of a collective ritual. Whether it resembles the practice in the Theban monasteries remains uncertain. All the essential knowledge was orally reproduced. Paradoxically, we can only follow the traces of the communication process left written down in the documentary material or in narratives. But we have to keep in mind that the written text was always only a supplement to the oral message and the hagiographic narrative composed as a homily to be delivered orally in a liturgical context. The prologues to various versions of Pesynthios’s biography clearly point to this fact. We read: ‘Some encomiastic words, which our saintly father, Apa Moses, the bishop, delivered about the most blessed Apa Pesynthios, the 71 For ‘prophet’, see The Life of Bishop Pisentius 64a, 78a, ed. E.A.W. Budge, Coptic Apocrypha (1913), 111, 122 (text), 305, 318 (trans.).

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bishop of the town of Keft, after John, his [i.e. Pesynthios’] disciple, who is called ‘Matoi’, had come to agree with him [i.e. Moses] concerning the praise’,72 or ‘the life and conduct of our holy and glorious father, Apa Pisentius, bishop and anchorite in the mountain of Tsenti, which John the presbyter narrated on the day of his [i.e. Pesynthios’] holy commemoration’,73 or ‘Some from the praises that abba Moses, Bishop of Keft, said about holy abba Pisentios, bishop of the same city Keft on the day of his honoured commemoration’.74 The last point which I would like to draw attention to is a tendency to personalise knowledge stored in the repositories described above. The words from the Bible which serve to describe daily situations, express emotions and persuade others are very often isolated from their scriptural context.75 The wording of Biblical quotations is only rarely the same as in Biblical manuscripts, as the monks freely modified the passages and combined them together, creating completely new para-scriptural units. The spiritually advanced elder did not use his gifts in a systematic and generalising way, but aimed to help a particular individual in a troublesome situation; even the canon could have been individually imposed.

72 Cairo, Coptic Museum, inv. 13447, p. 1, ll. 1-10. Provisional reading of the text and trans.: Wincenty Myszor, ‘Enkomion of St. Pisenthios from Sheikh Abd el-Gurna’, Polish Archaeology in Mediterranean 17, Reports 2005 (2007), 273-4, 273. Unpublished text and translation courtesy of Renate Dekker: [ϩⲉ]ⲛⲕⲟⲩⲓ Ⲛϣⲁϫⲉ Ⲛⲉⲅⲕⲱ[ⲙⲓⲟⲛ ⲛ]ⲛⲧⲁϥϫⲟⲟⲩ Ⲛϭⲓ ⲡⲉⲛⲡⲉⲧ[ⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ Ⲛ]ⲉⲓⲱⲧ ⲁⲡⲁ ⲙⲱⲩⲥⲏⲥ ⲡⲉⲡⲓⲥ[ⲕⲟ]ⲡⲟⲥ ⲉⲡⲙⲁⲕⲁⲣⲓⲱⲧⲁⲧⲟⲥ ⲁⲡⲁ ⲡⲉⲥⲩⲛⲑⲓⲟⲥ ⲡⲉⲡⲓⲥⲕⲟⲡⲟⲥ Ⲛⲧⲡⲟⲗⲓⲥ ⲕⲂⲦ ⲉⲁϥϣⲱⲡⲉ ⲇⲉ ⲉϥⲥⲩⲙⲫⲱⲛⲉⲓ ⲚⲘⲙⲁϥ ⲉⲡⲉϥⲉⲅⲕⲱⲙⲓⲟⲛ Ⲛϭⲓ ⲓⲱϩⲁⲛⲛⲏⲥ ⲡⲉϥⲙⲁⲑⲏⲧⲏⲥ ⲡⲉⲧⲟⲩⲙⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲉⲣⲟϥ ϫⲉ ⲙⲁⲧⲟⲓ. The codex remains unedited but has been entrusted to Renate Dekker, and the editorial work is in progress, see Renate Dekker, ‘The Early Sahidic Version of the Encomium on Bishop Pesynthius of Koptos from Shaykh Abd al-Qurna: On the Progress of Its Edition’, Adamantius 24 (2018), 133-42. 73 The Life of Bishop Pisentius 20a, ed. E.A.W. Budge, Coptic Apocrypha (1913), 75 (text), 258 (trans.): ⲡⲃⲓⲟⲥ ⲁⲩⲱ ⲧⲡⲟⲗⲩϯⲁ Ⲙⲡⲉⲛⲡⲉⲧⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ Ⲛⲉⲓⲱⲧ ⲉⲧⲧⲁⲓⲏⲩ ⲁⲡⲁ ⲡⲉⲥⲉⲛⲑⲓⲟⲥ ⲡⲉⲡⲓⲥⲕⲟⲡⲟⲥ ⲁⲩⲱ ⲡⲁⲛⲁⲭⲱⲣⲓⲧⲏⲥ Ⲙⲡⲧⲟⲟⲩ ⲛⲧⲥⲉⲛϯ ⲉⲁϥϩⲓⲥⲧⲟⲣⲓⲍⲉ Ⲙⲙⲟϥ Ⲛϭⲓ ⲒⲰⲤ ⲡⲉⲡⲣⲉⲥⲃⲩⲧⲉⲣⲟⲥ Ⲙⲡⲉϩⲟⲟⲩ ⲘⲡⲉϥⲢ ⲡⲙⲉⲉⲩⲉ ⲉⲧⲟⲟⲩⲁⲃ. Budge translates πολιτεία as ‘administration’. In this context, I prefer ‘conduct’. The word ‘holy’ (ⲉⲧⲟⲟⲩⲁⲃ) added according to the reading of Dekker. 74 Éloge de Pisentios évêque de Keft, ed. É. Amélineau (1887), 73, English trans. my own: ϩⲁⲛⲕⲟⲩϫⲓ ⲉⲃⲟⲗ ϧⲉⲛ ⲛⲓⲉⲅⲕⲱⲙⲓⲟⲛ ⲉⲧⲁϥϫⲟⲧⲟⲩ ⲛϫⲉ ⲁⲃⲃⲁ ⲙⲱⲩⲥⲏⲥ ⲡⲓⲉⲡⲓⲥⲕⲟⲡⲟⲥ ⲛⲧⲉⲕⲉϥⲧ ⲉⲫⲏ ⲉⲑⲟⲩⲁⲃ ⲁⲃⲃⲁ ⲡⲓⲥⲉⲛⲧⲓⲟⲥ ⲡⲓⲉⲡⲓⲥⲕⲟⲡⲟⲥ ⲛⲧⲉⲧⲁⲓⲡⲟⲗⲓⲥ ⲛⲟⲩⲱⲧ ⲕⲉϥⲧ ϧⲉⲛ ⲡⲉϩⲟⲟⲩ ⲙⲡⲉϥⲉⲣⲫⲙⲉⲩⲓ ⲉⲧⲧⲁⲓⲏⲟⲩⲧ. 75 Przemysław Piwowarczyk, ‘Social functions of the Biblical quotations in the letters of Frange’ (forthcoming); see, e.g., O.Frange 120, 652 for daring decontextualisations of John 1:1.

The Joy of the Saints: Exploring the Role of Joy in Desert Monasticism Deborah CASEWELL, Liverpool, UK

ABSTRACT The lives of the desert monastics are famous for their accounts of self-renunciation and asceticism. This asceticism has often been characterised as by nature deeply privative, negative, and self-destructive. However the writings of Christian ascetics are replete with accounts of joy, both in the community and as the end of ascetic practice itself. Within early Christian asceticism the goal and aim of the discipline is joy in union with God through renunciation of the self, in contrast to the Graeco-Roman tradition of askesis, the training that an athlete would undergo. In order to explore and set out the vision of joy that the Desert Fathers and Mothers both live and seek, this article explores how joy is reported and theorised within desert asceticism in the sources for their sayings and lives as well as through Evagrius Ponticus’s theorisation of ascetic practice. Finally, the article will explore whether this account of joy as the goal of asceticism can provide a counter to the criticism of Michel Foucault regarding Christian asceticism in comparison to Graeco-Roman askesis.

Introduction Accounts of desert monasticism focus, not unreasonably and certainly understandable, on the austerity of life there. The texts that detail desert monasticism, namely the Life of Anthony, the Apophthegmata Patrum, and Palladius’s Lausiac History, seek to showcase the ideal ascetic life.1 Marilyn Dunn relates that the Life of Anthony created ‘a picture of early monasticism in which the ideals of dispossession, solitude, and personal austerity were paramount and in which the desert became the locus of true religion’.2 The ascetic life is thus idealised as one of constant struggle with a certain privileging of the immaterial over the material and a stress on transformation of the self.3 1 This is detailed in the chapter on the Lausiac History in Demetrios M. Katos, Palladius of Helenopolis: The Origenist Advocate (Oxford, 2011). 2 Marilyn Dunn, The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 2000), 3. 3 Asceticism, she notes, is a ‘discipline or collectivity of disciplines which aim at the transformation of the self and the construction of a new one’, ibid. 6.

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 125-138. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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This transformation occurred on both the physical and the mental level. Peter Brown notes that the physicality and demands of ascetic discipline entailed this transformation from the earthly to the heavenly.4 He writes that ‘the ascetics imposed severe restraints on their bodies because they were convinced that they could sweep the body into a desperate venture … the imagined transfiguration of the few great ascetics, on earth, spoke to them of the eventual transformation of their own bodies on the day of Resurrection’.5 Thus the goal of the ascetic life was to be transformed by and into holiness, and in the desert holiness was defined, Burton-Christie argues ‘by how deeply a person allowed himself or herself to be transformed by the words of Scripture’.6 Desert asceticism was a kind of Christian theology in action, akin to how in Greek thought philosophy was to be a way of life, a religious practice and spiritual exercise.7 The quest for holiness in desert asceticism shared, he argues many things in common with that of the pagan philosophers. Both sought detachment through an ascetical form of life. Both gave great attention to the search for self-knowledge through an experiential exploration of the inner world. Both achieved some freedom from the social bonds weighing down their contemporaries and expressed this freedom in their attitudes and actions.8

The differences are pertinent, however. Firstly, there is the aforementioned bodily nature of this transformation. Brown notes that ‘in the desert tradition, the body was allowed to become the discreet mentor of the proud soul. No longer was the ascetic formed, as had been the case in pagan circles, by the unceasing vigilance of his mind alone’.9 Furthermore, the place of the monk marks another difference as they were separated and apart from society, unlike the philosopher. Finally, the education that took place was one that was not formed through the teachings of philosophical schools; instead ‘there was a new paideia, born of the silence and solitude of the desert and of the Word of God’.10 It is a particular command in the Word of God that is the focus here. In the Apophthegmata Patrum, it is related that ‘as he was dying, Abba Benjamin said 4

‘We can sense the huge weight that the myth of Paradise regained placed on the frail bodies of the ascetics. It is precisely the bleak and insistent physicality of ascetic anecdotes that shocks the modern reader’. Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, 1988), 222. 5 Ibid. 222. 6 Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (Oxford, 1993), 23. 7 See Pierre Hadot’s Philosophy as a Way of Life (Stanford, 1981) and E.R. Dodd, ‘The Parmenides of Plato and the Origin of the Neoplatonic “One”’, The Classical Quarterly 22 (1928), 129-42. 8 D. Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert (1993), 54. 9 P. Brown, The Body and Society (1988), 237. 10 D. Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert (1993), 54.

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to his sons, “If you observe the following, you can be saved, ‘Be joyful at all times, pray without ceasing and give thanks for all things’”’ (Πάντοτε χαίρετε, ἀδιαλείπτως προσεύχεσθε, ἐν παντὶ εὐχαριστεῖτε).11 Thus Burton-Christie writes that ‘their continuous rumination upon Scripture, their desire to embody the texts in their lives, was a primary source of the compelling spirituality that emerged from the desert’.12 Considering the above stresses on self-control, deprivation, austerity, and denial, this command to be joyful at all times seems to be at odds with the other stresses and accounts of their lifestyles. Indeed, in the literature on the lives and works of the Desert Fathers and Mothers whilst there is some mention of the role of joy and happiness in their own lives and in their teachings, there persists an, at times warranted, acceptance of the wretchedness of such an existence. This is found most vehemently in William Lecky’s judgement of the Life of Anthony, often attributed to Gibbons,13 where he writes that there is perhaps no phase in the moral history of mankind of a deeper or more painful interest than this ascetic epidemic. A hideous, distorted and emaciated maniac, without knowledge, without patriotism, without natural affection, spending his life in a long routine of useless and atrocious self-torture, and quailing before the ghastly phantoms of his delirious brain, had become the ideal of the nations which had known the writings of Plato and Cicero and the lives of Socrates and Cato.14

This analysis of the experience of joy and the use of joy in the lives of the Desert Fathers and Mothers seeks to provide an alternative account to that. This is not just to counter an account of their lives as hideous, manic, and fanatical by noting examples of joy in their lives but to further note that aspects of the teachings of the eremitics detail joy as the end of practice. The practice of asceticism is not just a physical transformation of the body but a transformation of the self through the pursuit of knowledge of God: both are needed to achieve the end of holiness and its attendant emotions.15 The body in the ascetic vision is malleable and transformative, and the change effected in the body impacts on the mind and the soul. This malleability, the Fathers see ‘gives humanity 11

Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (Oxford, 1975), 44. 12 D. Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert (1993), 297. 13 Edward Gibbons argues instead with regards to the ascetics that ‘the freedom of the mind, the source of every generous and rational sentiment, was destroyed by the habits of credulity and submission; and the monk, contracting the vices of a slave, devoutly followed the faith and passions of his ecclesiastical tyrant. The peace of the Eastern church was invaded by a swarm of fanatics, incapable of fear, or reason, or humanity’. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London, 1776-1789), chapter 37. 14 William Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe (London, 1865). 15 Potkay notes that ‘joy involves sloughing off the self, in some sense.’ The Story of Joy: From the Bible to Late Romanticism (Cambridge, 2007), 30.

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the potential for positive as well as negative change, for transformation into something altogether better, rather than being doomed to extirpation. This places the apparently contradictory character of flesh and spirit not in a hierarchy or opposition to each other but in a dialogue, which can work co-operatively to conquer sin’.16 It is in this conquering of sin through discipline that joy is found, and coheres with analyses of joy in antiquity as concerned with but not reduced to the ethical, alongside the affective.17 Accounts of joy (the Greek term is χαρᾶς and encompasses both joy and happiness, but it usually translated as joy) are, whilst not replete, certainly suffused throughout the texts that detail their lives and consolidate their teachings. Joy is shown in their comportment and it is presented in their teachings as one of the key ends of ascetic practice, alongside apatheia, love for others, and union with God in the diminution of the self. So an understanding of joy, both in the earthly life and with regards to God, is present in the texts, and both accounts will be exposited. It will be argued that engagement with the desert ascetics should take note of this focus on joy. It can help correct overly hostile readings and accounts of ascetic practice, and show that even in the extreme conditions of the desert, the experience of joy remained a key aspect of Christian discipleship and life, leading as it does from the aforementioned Biblical mandate to be joyful at all times. Furthermore, the examples of joy show both the communal aspect of the ascetic life and the individual aims of the practice. Joy is found not only as the result of the individual work of prayer, fasting, and discipline, but in their lives with others. The writing on joy and the desert ascetics has tended to focus on this communal aspect of it, with John Chryssavgis noting that the desert ascetics can be joyful because they know they are human and accept their failings.18 Using examples from the Apophthegmata Patrum, the Lausiac History and the Life of Anthony, two main categories of joy shall be delineated. First, there is joy as present in community and as a gift that the fathers can give to others, either those who seek them out or in relation to their fellow monastics. Second, joy comes as union with God brought about through ascetic practice. This understanding, concerned as it is with the role of habit and practice, can 16 Helen Hunt, Clothed in the Body: Asceticism, the Body and the Spiritual in the Late Antique Era (London, 2012), 53. 17 Adam Potkay writes that ‘joy has served more clearly than any other emotion term…as a linchpin between emotions and ethics.’ The Story of Joy (2007), vii. It is thus distinct from how happiness is seen in Late Antiquity as an ‘ethical, not an affective state’, and whilst joy has some ethical register it has ‘rarely been mistaken for anything but an emotion, an emotion and flood of feeling more concentrated and intense than happiness, and hence generally of shorter duration.’ Darrin M. McMahon, ‘Finding Joy in the History of Emotions’, in Doing Emotions History (Champaign, IL, 2014), 103-19, 109, 111. 18 John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (Bloomington, 2008), 105. See also Rowan Williams’ descriptions of desert spirituality and its relational aspects in Silence and Honey Cakes (Oxford, 2003).

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be a link between askesis in Greek philosophy and the practice of the desert ascetics. Any joy that comes from the practice itself is usurped and transcended by the joy in union with God through the process of divesting oneself of passions and distractions. This account of joy is developed more fully in the works of Evagrius Ponticus, and his Praktikos which is the theoretical consolidation of this practice.19 Joy, peace, and thus apatheia are linked in his writings, but there is a sense in which joy goes beyond it: peace is found in the release and renunciation of the will, and that leads to joy found in union with God. Drawing from these writings it will be argued that the end of asceticism is not just apatheia but joy, as apatheia is that which opens one up to the possibility of joy as union with God. Joy is thus a reward of asceticism, but one that cannot be desired for its own sake, but only as it is found in God. I am thus not denying that, as William Harmless notes in his introduction to the literature of the desert Christians, that the practice of asceticism, with its attendant goal of hesychasm, did not search for that ‘graced depth of inner stillness’. Instead, it is that the goals of asceticism should be conceived more broadly and widely. The end of asceticism is directed towards a particular experience of union with God, and joy is a part of that. The reasons for joy as a particular end of asceticism, and the particular kind of joy achieved, can allow us to further differentiate Christian asceticism from pagan asceticism. Kallistos Ware notes that in Greco-Roman antiquity, ascetic practice was regarded equally as the pathway to happiness and joy. The Cynics saw rigorous self-denial as ‘part of askesis (training) for happiness’. Philo’s Therapeutai assembled at great festivals ‘clad in snow white raiment, joyous but with the height of solemnity’, and celebrated the feast by dancing together.20

The desert ascetics’ particularly Christian account of joy put forward, as noted above, comes from its designation as a reward for suffering as found in the Scriptures. 19

The choice of Evagrius, with his somewhat contested place in the literature, rather than John Cassian, is largely that it is through Cassian that Evagrius’s thought, shorn of its author, passed into patristic writings. See Columba Stewart, ‘Evagrius Ponticus and the Eastern Monastic Tradition on the Intellect and the Passions’, Modern Theology 27 (2011), 263-75; as well as William Harmless and Raymond Fitzgerald, ‘The Sapphire Light of the Mind: The Skemmata of Evagrius Ponticus’, Theological Studies 62 (2001), 498-529, 501. Secondly, as a 4th century ascetic himself, as noted (not always positively) in the literature, his theorising of the discipline is particularly immediate and sophisticated. 20 Kallistos Ware, ‘The Way of the Ascetics: Negative or Affirmative?’, in Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (eds), Asceticism (Oxford, 2002), 3-15, 4. The quotation about the Therapeutai is found in Philo’s ‘On the Contemplative Life or Suppliants’, 8:66, which can be found in Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush (Minneapolis, 1990).

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Joy in the Community The at times positive relationship between the individual and the community comes out in accounts of joy. Benedicta Ward writes that there is ‘a certain joy inherent in the picture of the early days of desert monasticism’.21 In one saying it is the joy and hospitality that the desert fathers show that leads a Manicheaist to convert to that particular lifestyle and doctrine.22 This account of joy as a worldly thing evinced in the community is also present in the sayings. A prominent example is that of a hunter who comes across Anthony and his brethren enjoying (χαριεντιζόμενον) themselves. Anthony shows him the necessity of this relaxation from stricture by asking him to fire his bow constantly, and the hunter says ‘“if I bend my bow so much I will break it”. Then the old man [Anthony] said to him “It is the same with the work of God. If we stretch the brethren beyond measure they will soon break’.23 The joyfulness of the brethren in hospitality and community also reveals itself in a saying about Abba Arsenius, who was not given some dried figs by the others, and on rebuking them for that, that night ‘the priest went to take him the small dried figs and brought him to the synaxis with joy’(μετὰ χαρᾶς).24 Further to this, Abba Moses is seen joyfully receiving visitors,25 and Abba Daniel, when encountering an ascetic who did not believe in the real presence of Christ in the bread, prayed for his enlightenment, which came in the form of a vision. In this the bread appeared as a child and when the priest put out his hand to break the bread ‘an angel descended from heaven with a sword and poured the child’s blood into the chalice. When the priest cut the bread into small pieces, the angel also cut the child into pieces’,26 and when the errant father was convinced the ascetics praying for the convincing ‘returned with joy (μετὰ χαρᾶς) to their own cells’.27 Whilst a brief account, this section notes that joy was found in the community in fellowship, hospitality, and in correction. This shows that the lives of the desert Christians were not nasty, short, and brutish but diffused with community and joy, and it was not, as the saying of Anthony notes, purely a life of constant physical punishment and discipline. However, this is not to undervalue the importance of practice in the ascetic life, and the next section explores how 21 She continues ‘one saying describes the monks as building a cell, presumably for newcomers, in terms of unity and enthusiasm: “They went joyfully to build the foundations and did not stop till it was finished”’, Benedicta Ward, Wisdom of the Desert Fathers (Oxford, 1975), xii, 62. 22 Ibid. 44. 23 B. Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (1975), 3. 24 Ibid. 11. 25 ‘When they arrived the Abba welcomed them joyfully (ἐδέξατο αὐτοὺς μετὰ χαρᾶς) and then took leave of them with delight,’ ibid. 17-8. 26 Ibid. 53. 27 Ibid. 54.

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joy is more often found as a result of this disciplining of the body and thus the mind and soul.

Joy in Ascetic Practice Whilst the above account of joy looks at the shared aspect of joy, there are commands in the literature to be joyful in the practice of asceticism as well. Examples of this kind of joy are found across the three sources used here. The Lausiac History shows a state of cheerfulness and transcendence as part of the ascetic process, as a result of union with God and ascendance into the heavens. Three examples are pertinent here: that of Alexandra, who whilst shut up in a tomb prays from morning to night, spins flax, meditates and does this all with ‘cheerful hope’;28 Palladius reports that the monks of Nitria’s practice was so refined that ‘at the ninth hour it is possible to stand and hear how the strains of psalmody rise from each habitation so that one believes that one is high above the world in Paradise’;29 and his account of Macarius of Egypt is that ‘concerning the rest of his asceticism I do speak, for he was said to be in a continual ecstasy and to spend a far longer time with God than with things sublunary’.30 Here union of God leads to this continual ecstasy, which entails that it is not just stillness and peace that are the end or aim of ascetic practice. So whilst in the Wisdom there is a stress on gaining stillness through ascetic practice, where ‘the monk must purchase his stillness by being despised whenever the opportunity presents itself, and by bodily labour’,31 there are also accounts of joy is present in the Wisdom. Here, as ecstasy is above, joy is explicitly linked with the prospect of union with God in the hereafter, with one saying showing 28

‘He told me also of a maidservant named Alexandra, who having left the city and shut herself up in a tomb, received the necessaries of life through an opening, seeing neither women nor men face to face for ten years. And in the tenth year she fell asleep, baring arrayed herself (for death): and so the woman who went as usual to see her and got no answer informed use So we broke down the door and entering in found her fallen Asleep. Concerning her also the thriceblessed Melania, about whom I shall speak later, used to say: “I never saw her face to face, but standing by the opening I urged her to say the reason why she shut herself up in a tomb. And she called out to me through the opening: ‘A man was distressed in mind because of me and, lest I should seem to afflict or disparage him, I chose to betake myself alive into the tomb rather than cause a soul made in the image of God to stumble’. When I said, she continued, ‘How then do you endure never meeting any one, but struggling with accidie?’ she replied: ‘From early morn to the ninth hour I pray hour by hour, spinning flax the while. During the remaining hours I meditate on the holy patriarchs and prophets and apostles and martyrs. And having eaten my bread I remain in patience for the other hours, waiting for my end with cheerful hope”’, The Lausiac History of Palladius, trans. W.K. Lowther-Clarke (London, 1918), 53-4. 29 Ibid. 58. 30 Ibid. 74. 31 B. Ward, Wisdom (1975), 1.

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a monk laughing joyfully before his death because it means he is ‘leaving labour for rest’.32 This account of joy as coming towards the end both of practice and life is also present in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Abba Poemen’s mother is able to depart from him ‘full of joy’, knowing that she would prefer to see him in the age to come rather than in the here and now, which was just as well as he refused to see her.33 Abba Agathon dies with joy after having a vision of being before the judgement seat, which affirms that through his ascetic practice he fulfilled all the commandments.34 This theme of joy after the judgement continues in the sayings of Theophilus, who says that at the hour of judgement that if you are deemed virtuous after the affliction ‘then your liberated soul will go on to that joy and ineffable glory (τὴν ἀνεκλάλητον χαρὰν καὶ δόξαν) in which it will be established’.35 This underscores how joy is the reward, that the reward is union with God. Joy comes, as it is said in the Scriptures, through suffering and thus John the Dwarf instructs his followers to endure insults and affliction in order to ‘enter joyfully into the city of God’36, and Cronius, like Abba Benjamin, refers to the passage where Christ ‘for the joy which was set before him endured the cross’ (ὃς ἀντὶ τῆς προκειμένης αὐτῷ χαρᾶς ὑπέμεινε σταυρόν)37 as the example which the ascetic is to follow in their own practice and life. This is best expressed in the saying of Amma Synclectica, that in the beginning there are a great many battles and good deal of suffering for those who are advancing towards God and afterwards, ineffable joy (χαρὰ ἀνεκλάλητος). It is like those who wish to light a fire; at first they are choked by the smoke and cry, and by this means obtain what they seek (as it is said: ‘Our God is a consuming fire’ [Heb. 12:24]): so we also must kindle the divine fire in ourselves through tears and hard work.38

Finally, joy comes as contact with God, noted in this saying of Anthony’s, where on asking how he could be saved, Anthony saw an angel of the Lord praying and plaiting a rope, saying ‘‘do this and you will be saved’. At these words, Anthony was filled with joy and courage (πολλὴν χαρὰν ἔσχε καὶ θάρσος). He did this, and he was saved’.39 This is found more fully in the Life 32

Ibid. 41. ‘The old man said to her, “Would you rather see us here or in the age which is to come?” She said to him “If I do not see you here, shall I see you in the age to come?” He said to her, “If you refrain from seeing us now, you will see us yonder.” So she departed full of joy (Ἀπῆλθε οὖν χαίρουσα) and said, “If I shall see you perfectly yonder, I do not want to see you here”’, B. Ward, Sayings (1975), 178. 34 Ibid. 25. 35 Ibid. 82. 36 Ibid. 95. 37 Ibid. 116. 38 Ibid. 231. 39 Ibid. 2. 33

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of Anthony where the presence of God is associated with joy, and joy becomes how you distinguish the presence of God and discern good visions from ill. A vision of the holy ones ‘comes so quietly and gently that immediately joy (χαράν), gladness and courage arise in the soul. For the Lord who is our joy is with them, and the power of God the Father’.40 Joy is thus a marker of holiness in the visions, and thus ‘whenever, therefore, ye have seen ought and are afraid, if your fear is immediately taken away and in place of it comes joy unspeakable (χαρὰ ἀνεκλάλητος), cheerfulness, courage, renewed strength, calmness of thought and all those I named before boldness and love toward God, – take courage and pray. For joy and a settled state (γὰρ χαρὰ καὶ ἡ κατάστασις) of soul show the holiness of him who is present.’41 If joy is felt and known in the presence of holiness then joy also becomes a marker of the successful ascetic. Therefore part of the purpose of the ascetic life is to attain this joy. In the Life of Anthony his aim is to live virtuously and to become holy, and in doing so he impacted those around him and his words and presence lead to rejoicing.42 The purpose of leading a life of virtue was union with God, which was evinced in the joy given to Anthony. The life notes that for as his soul was free from disturbances, his outward appearance was calm; so from the joy of his soul he possessed a cheerful countenance, and from his bodily movements could be perceived the condition of his soul… Thus Antony was recognised, for he was never disturbed, for his soul was at peace; he was never downcast, for his mind was joyous.43

Theorising Joy It is thus not surprising that in the works of those who sought to systematise and lay out the practice of asceticism, joy makes an appearance. The focus here will be on the writings of Evagrius Ponticus, because as David Linge writes, ‘Evagrius’s writings constitute the first and most profound effort made by any 40 Retrieved 08/2019 from https://stjohnmiami.org/sites/all/libraries/pdf.js/web/viewer.html? file=https%3A%2F%2Fstjohnmiami.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fbook%2F55%2Flife-stanthony-st-athanasius.pdf, 37. 41 Ibid. 38. 42 ‘While Antony was thus speaking all rejoiced; in some the love of virtue increased, in others carelessness was thrown aside, the self-conceit of others was stopped; and all were persuaded to despise the assaults of the Evil One, and marvelled at the grace given to Antony from the Lord for the discerning of spirits. So their cells were in the mountains, like filled with holy bands of men who sang psalms, loved reading, fasted, prayed, rejoiced in the hope of things to come, laboured in alms-giving, and preserved love and harmony one with another. And truly it was possible, as it were, to behold a land set by itself, filled with piety and justice. For then there was neither the evil-doer, nor the injured, nor the reproaches of the tax-gatherer: but instead a multitude of ascetics; and the one purpose of them all was to aim at virtue’, ibid. 45. 43 Ibid. 65.

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of the Desert Fathers to correlate the techniques and fruits of Christian ascetic practice – as it had been developed in the Egyptian desert – with a kind of metaphysical map of the monk’s journey back to God’.44 In Evagrius ascetic practice encompasses both the practical life (πρακτικός) and the contemplative life (θεωρία). The guidance about the practical life seeks to reform our thoughts, bodies, passions, and actions through ascetic discipline to get to a state of ἀπάθεια, or non-attachment to our desires.45 The contemplative life seeks to be aware of God’s presence in the world and lead to union with God where we understand our absorption in and experience of the reality of God beyond form and images. This requires a total dependence on God and an openness to the will of God so that we act in union with God’s will. Thus it is apatheia that leads to this union with God, where ‘like the theois aner of the pagan world, the ascetic therefore configures the illuminated man as having achieved his final “destiny”, by returning to an original state of purity and incorruptibility created by God’.46 Renunciation of the desires and passions was not the end, but the means to an ‘existence at once “care-free” (ἀμέριμνος) and “dispassionate” (ἀπαθής). The monk, therefore, traded worldly sustenance for divine, secular conversation for spiritual, and, ultimately, passions for dispassion’.47 Jonathan Zecher thus notes that the goal of Evagrius’s account of prayer is ‘the contemplation (θεωρία) of God beyond human or even angelic modes of thought. To put it simply, for Evagrius angelic imitation in prayer is the fruit of practical virtue (πρακτική) and its successor, knowledge (γνῶσις), and, ultimately, the monk seeks to transcend angelic modes of thought in favor of pure contemplation’.48 As Columba Stewart notes, Evagrius’s understanding of ascetic practice owes much to a Platonic anthropology.49 Evagrius’s account of being is such 44 David E. Linge, ‘Leading the Life of Angels: Ascetic Practice and Reflection in the Writings of Evagrius of Pontus’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 68 (2000), 537-68, 538. 45 ‘Understanding the connection between ascetic praxis and reflection in Evagrius’s teachings will enable us, secondly, to clarify the nature and function of apatheia, the goal of the ascetic life,’ ibid. 538. 46 Helen Hunt, Clothed in the Body (2013), 55. 47 Jonathan L. Zecher, ‘The Angelic Life in Desert and Ladder: John Climacus’s Re-Formulation of Ascetic Spirituality’, JECS 21 (2013), 111-36, 117. 48 Ibid. 121. 49 ‘Evagrius adapted a Late Antique version with wide circulation in manuals designed for teaching and self-help. Following this tradition, Evagrius divided the soul into two irrational parts, desire (epithumia) and repulsion/resistance (thumos), and a rational part (logistikon meros), also termed the intellect or mind (nous). All three were essential and original to human nature as created by God, and each had a necessary use. The nous was meant to guide the effective operation of the whole self (Plato’s charioteer stands in the distant background here); epithumia was to fuel love for God and neighbor; thumos was the capacity to resist evil and injustice. Each could also be misused. The irrational parts were the realm of the “passions”, a term Evagrius uses to describe desire and repulsion when they are engaged destructively, and also employs as a synonym for logismoi when a thought has become engaged with desire or repulsion. These irrational energies

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that sufficient practice and asceticism means that one can liberate oneself, that ‘this structure is eschatologically oriented towards its own disappearance as nous gains the ascendency over body and soul and liberates itself from their influence’.50 Linge argues that ‘in its perfection apatheia becomes a permanent condition – a katastasis – in which the virtues are so established that the self is no longer distracted by the emotions. In effect, it becomes a state of being’,51 and it is this inner peace and serenity that is what is meant by the Desert Fathers when they speak of being saved.52 The thesis that joy is the end of asceticism is bolstered by the appearance of joy as a goal and end of practice and prayer in the work of Evagrius, largely deemed to be the theoretical outworking of the ascetic practice of the desert. This focus on joy is picked up in Evagrius’s Praktikos and also appears in the Chapters on Prayer. Whilst here ‘the Kingdom of Heaven is apatheia of the soul along with true knowledge of existing things’ and ‘knowledge of the Holy Trinity’,53 there is in the discussion of acedia an account of the importance of joy in asceticism. In the description of the struggle with the noonday demon of acedia, if one is victorious then ‘no demon follows close upon the heel of this one (when he is defeated) but only a state of deep peace and inexpressible joy (χαρὰ ἀνεκλάλητος) arise out of this struggle’.54 Importantly, Evagrius details that this ability to drive away demons is ‘a most profound proof of apatheia’.55 Although he writes that ‘the goal of the ascetic life is charity; the goal of contemplative knowledge is theology’,56 this knowledge of God in all things is, as the final sentence of the Praktikos states, that ‘the sheaves of grain are the fruit of seeds; the virtues have knowledge as their fruit. As surely as tears go with the labour of sowing, joy attends the reaping (οὕτω τοῖς δράγμασιν ἡ χαρά)’.57 This emphasis is present in the chapters on prayer where joy is associated clearly with union with God. Firstly, true prayer itself ‘is the fruit of joy and thanksgiving’ (χαρᾶς καὶ εὐχαριστίας),58 and the experience of true prayer is a turning away from the world that is accompanied by joy, for required particular care in their management. Easily aroused, enmeshed in bodily activities in complicated ways, they readily seized control from the intellect. Evagrius describes it most simply when he notes that the intellect is meant to be dominant in all rational creatures, but only angels get it right.’ C. Stewart, ‘Evagrius Ponticus and the Eastern Monastic Tradition’ (2011), 286. 50 D. Linge, ‘Leading the Life of Angels’ (2000), 545. 51 Ibid. 563. 52 John Wortley, ‘What the Desert Fathers meant by “being saved”’, ZAC 12 (2008), 322-43. 53 Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos: Chapters on Prayer, trans. John Eudes Bamberger (Kalamazoo, MI, 1980), 15-6. 54 Ibid. 19. 55 Ibid. 32 (58). 56 Ibid. 37 (84). 57 Ibid. 38-9 (90). 58 Ibid. 58.

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when your spirit withdraws, as it were, little by little from the flesh because of your ardent longing for God, and turns away from every thought that derives from sensibility or memory or temperament and filled with reverence and joy (καὶ χαρᾶς ἐμπλεως γενόμενος) at the same time, then you can be sure that you are drawing near that country whose name is prayer.59

This relation between joy, joys, and prayers continues with his command that ‘when you give yourself to prayer, rise above every other joy – then you will find true prayer’,60 and thus true prayer can only be found where joy is found in nothing less than God. This sentiment reappears in the Foundations of Monastic Life, where he writes that ‘the good things in store for the just – intimacy with God the Father and his Christ, the angels, archangels, powers, and all the people, the kingdom and its gifts, the joy and the gladness … at the good things in store of the just rejoice and be glad and happy’.61 However, this practice is not purely for the benefit of the ascetic, as Stewart notes, ‘the freedom of apatheia was not selfish. It meant the opening of the self to others and to God, the unclenching of the hand grasping what it desires or fending off those who are a threat’.62 It is also not a distaste or hatred of the world, instead, ‘the desire for eternal beatitude is a desire to please God and to find happiness in him. Yet, it seems, in order to please God, a person must learn not only to hate what one leaves behind, but to love it without striving to possess, and without becoming unduly attached’.63 Joy and Holiness If joy, as is detailed in the Life of Anthony, the sayings, the wisdom, and the Lausiac History is this union with and knowledge of God, then ascetic practice involves joy.64 Dunn’s analysis of the Life of Anthony is that the end of asceticism 59

Ibid. 65, 61. Ibid. 80, 153. Ὄταν ἱστάμενος εἰς προσευχὴν ὑπὲρ πᾶσαν ἄλλην χαρὰν γένῃ, τότε ἀληθῶς εὕρηκας προσευχήν. 61 Sentence 9, ‘Foundations of Monastic Life: A Presentation of the Practice of Stillness’, in Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Oxford, 2003), 10. 62 C. Stewart, ‘Evagrius Ponticus and the Eastern Monastic Tradition’ (2001), 271. 63 Jonathan L. Zecher, The Role of Death in the Ladder of Divine Ascent and the Greek Ascetic Tradition (Oxford, 2015), 119. 64 Harmless notes this in his account of Evagrius’s meeting with the ascetic Macarius, writing that ‘Evagrius records an interesting anecdote that highlights both Macarius’s sense of quiet joy and his fierce asceticism. Once Evagrius went over to visit him at the hottest part of the day. Evagrius was thirsty and asked Macarius for some water. But Macarius advised him to count his blessings: “Be content with the shade, for many there are who are making a journey on land or on sea who are deprived of this.” Evagrius found himself unable to bask in gratitude and struggled with his thoughts. So Macarius told him about his own ascetic regimen: “Take courage, my son. For twenty full years I have not taken my fill of bread or water or sleep. I have eaten my bread 60

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is the soul’s unity with God, ‘in whose image it was created. According to Anthony, true knowledge – gnosis – is a return to one’s original state and once this is achieved the individual may aspire eventually to union with God’.65 Burton-Christie notes the joy that is present in Anthony, where joy comes in the freedom that desert life offers, not just a freedom from anxiety, the past, the ego that stands between the self and others, including God, but a positive freedom, ‘freedom to love others; freedom to enjoy the presence of God; freedom to live in the innocence of a new paradise’.66 There is thus a clear connection between joy and the ends of asceticism: apatheia and holiness. The joy comes partly as the result of the biblical mandate, where if, as Burton-Christie notes, that ‘holiness for the desert fathers was expressed as personal transformation arising from the realization of Scripture within oneself’, and that it is ‘clear from the Sayings that the desert fathers exemplified in their own lives qualities that they absorbed from Scripture’67 then joy should be an important consideration in accounts of asceticism. The accounts of joy that I have detailed: ones that explore joy in the community and joy in the practice itself, can counter hostile accounts of self-renunciation or accounts that see self-renunciation negatively. This has import for any critique of asceticism, such as Foucault’s understanding of Christian asceticism as significantly worse than Graeco-Roman asceticism.68 His objection to specifically Christian asceticism is that ‘salvation is attained through the renunciation of self’.69 He sees this as evident in Gregory of Nyssa, in his Treatise on Virginity, which defines asceticism and care of the self as a renunciation, in this case a renunciation of all earthly attachments. In contrast to this vision, he seeks the prior instantiation of askesis, where ‘in Greek and Roman thought the care of the self cannot in itself tend toward so exaggerated a form of self-love as to neglect others Of, worse still, to abuse one’s power over them’.70 This by scant weight, and drunk my water by measure, and snatched a few winks of sleep while leaning against a wall”’, William Harmless S.J., Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism (Oxford, 2004), 315. 65 M. Dunn, The Emergence of Monasticism (2000), 4. 66 D. Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert (1993), 222. 67 Ibid. 300. 68 ‘In the Greco-Roman world, the care of the self was the mode in which individual freedomor civic liberty, up to a point-was reflected as an ethics … the theme of the care of the self thoroughly permeated moral reflection. It is interesting to see that, in our societies on the other hand, at a time that is very difficult to pinpoint, the care of the self became somewhat suspect. Starting at a certain point, being concerned with oneself was readily denounced as a form of self-love, a form of selfishness or self-interest in contradiction with the interest to be shown in others or the self-sacrifice required. All this happened during Christianity; however, I am not simply saying that Christianity is responsible for it’, Michel Foucault, ‘The Ethics of the Concern of the Self as a Practice of Freedom’, in Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth (New York, 1997), 281-301, 284. 69 Ibid. 285. 70 Ibid. 288.

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thus means that there can be shift away from, as in modern revivals of asceticism, seeing it purely as ethical practice or a practice of the self and instead refocus it on union with God and as having a different end. Finally, this account of joy should inform the way in which we understand apatheia and the end of asceticism. In this account closer attention is paid to what exactly union with God entails, as apatheia thus becomes a step on the way to other experiences in that union. Whilst we cannot deliberately attain joy, we can attain apatheia. It is thus not something we can necessarily attain through practice, but something that we have to see as a gift given from outwith.71

71 ‘Joy is freely given, it is a gift, the source of flourishing and life’. D. McMahon ‘Finding Joy in the History of Emotions’ (2014), 111.

Cursing Monks: The Early Monastic Context of Two Christian Prayers for Justice from Egypt David BRAKKE, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

ABSTRACT Two curses preserved on papyri from late ancient Egypt were composed and/or pronounced by monks. Although it may seem strange for monks to curse other people, evidence from the White Monastery reveals a culture of monastic cursing that included rules that cursed bad monks as well as curses against Satan and sinful lay people. Monks did debate the ethics of cursing, but cursing cohered with monasticism’s biblically based ritualization of as many aspects of life as possible. Monks, like other Christians, composed prayers for justice that, drawing on the Bible, asked God, angels, and other powerful beings to bring disease, suffering, and social disrepute to alleged evildoers.

In a late ancient papyrus from Egypt, a certain Apa Victor adjures Saōt Sabaōt, among other things, to ‘bring loss and grief’ to Alō, the daughter of Aēse: I write. I adjure you, Saōt Sabaōt, that you receive this incense from me (?) and speak what satisfies me over Alō daughter of Aēse. Ha[..]ouēl, you must bring loss and grief. Let the oath reach heaven until you perform my ϩⲁⲓ (= ϩⲟⲓ?) with Alō daughter of Aēse. (The) curse (of) god shall come upon Alō. May the darkness take her, Alō daughter of Aēse. From afar (?) you must beg this one (?) to receive this incense from me (?). The curses (of) the Law and Deuteronomy (ⲛⲥⲁϩⲟⲩ ⲡⲛⲟⲙⲟⲥ ⲙⲉ ⲡⲧⲉⲩⲧⲣⲁⲛⲟⲙⲟⲥ) will descend upon Alō daughter of Aēse. May hunger and misery rule the body of Alō and Phibamōn. May their eyes (?) … May furnace flame(s) come from the mouth of Alō daughter of Aēse. May (the) curse (ⲥⲁϩⲟⲩ) (of) god descend upon Alō and her entire household. May the fear of death be in Alō’s house. May you make them bedridden. Amen, Amen, Sabaō[t]! Apa Victor son of Thib[am]ōn.1

David Frankfurter suggests that the modern person may be ‘struck by the paradox of a Christian monk issuing a curse’ – for the title ‘Apa’ most often denotes a monastic identity. As Frankfurter rightly says, however, the charisma 1 Coptic text and English translation: William H. Worrell, ‘Coptic Magical and Medical Texts’, Or 4 (1935), 1-37, 184-94, 13-6; more recent translation by Stephen H. Skiles, in Marvin Meyer and Richard Smith, Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (San Francisco, 1994), 211-2 (no. 104), altered.

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 139-156. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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that fueled the ability to bless and heal implied also the ability to curse. 2 Spiritual power was spiritual power, and blessing and cursing are both, as Frankfurter puts it, ‘effective speech’, which depends on the speaker’s ‘status as one who knows how to utter words of power’.3 Another scholar comments: ‘Resort to ritual revenge was not precluded by office in the church’.4 In fact, it is arguable that cursing was part of a monk’s job description, so to speak. What may have been problematic about Victor’s curse for his fellow monks is not that a monk cursed, but that he may have done so for personal vengeance. It is equally remarkable that Victor’s curse is, as far as I can tell, the single example in the so-called magical papyri of a curser who can be identified as a monk. Early Egyptian monasticism consisted of persons who chose to live and to practice asceticism in settings outside the traditional household, whether they did so alone, in loose confederation with others, or in highly organized communities, and whether they did so in cities, in villages and their outskirts, or in remote desert locations. It was often characterized by the maximal ritualization of as many aspects of life as possible.5 While ordinary Christians engaged in ritualized activities at particular times of the day, week, or year, or for certain specific ends, monks ritualized even such quotidian activities as dress, food consumption, sleep, and labor so that they would embody communal values, set boundaries between the monastic environment and what was called ‘the world’, and establish internal hierarchies of authority and spiritual achievement. Cursing, however defined, may be understood as ritualized engagement in conflict, in which people invoke supramundane beings to harm, subdue, or control another person or group. Conflict characterizes all human activities, including monasticism, and thus cursing can be found among monks as a ritualized means of conflict at every level – from the individual to the institutional. Evidence for monastic cursing from late ancient Egypt ranges from ‘magical spells’ like that of Victor, to references in monastic literature, to the writings of Shenoute. As ritualized aggression, cursing suited monasticism’s maximal ritualization and had biblical precedent, but monks could raise questions about its use. I address here only instances in which we can be certain that a monk performed the curse. As for cursing spells that do not explicitly identify the curser 2 David Frankfurter, Christianizing Egypt: Syncretism and Local Worlds in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 2018), 98 3 David Frankfurter, ‘Curses, Blessings, and Ritual Authority: Egyptian Magic in Comparative Perspective’, JANER 5 (2005), 157-85, 158. 4 S. Skiles, in M. Meyer and R. Smith, Ancient Christian Magic (1994), 211. 5 My understanding of ‘ritualization’ depends on that of Catherine Bell: ‘[R]itualization is a matter of various culturally specific strategies for setting some activities off from others, for creating and privileging a qualitative distinction between the “sacred” and the “profane,” and for ascribing such distinctions to realities thought to transcend the powers of human actors’ (Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice [New York, Oxford, 1992], 74). For an application of the concept to monastic life, see Caroline T. Schroeder, Monastic Bodies: Discipline and Salvation in Shenoute of Atripe, Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion (Philadelphia, 2007), 54-89.

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as a monk – that is, all such spells known to me other than Apa Victor’s curse against Alō – Michael Beshay suggests that we can imagine at least three scenarios: (1) the curser was a monk but did not identify himself as such in the curse; (2) a monk composed the curse for use by someone else; or (3) no monk was involved at all.6 We cannot easily identify examples of the first and third cases. As for the second, it has become scholarly consensus that persons either who would have identified themselves as monks or whom modern historians would classify as monks were important and possibly the primary ritual experts who produced the texts traditionally called ‘magical spells’, including curses. Monks, so it is argued, possessed the required literacy, access to sacred writings of diverse traditions (biblical, apocryphal, ‘gnostic’, etc.), and familiarity with ritual and liturgical language to compose such texts, as well as the charismatic authority to make clients confident that they would work.7 Evidence in support of this hypothesis includes magical texts discovered in monastic sites, such as the Monastery of Epiphanius.8 More relevant for us is that, among three magical texts discovered in the late fifth-century hermitage of Phibamō at Naqlun, one qualifies as a curse, for it calls upon three angels to bring ‘shame, degradation, and disgrace’ upon a certain ‘Victor, the one belonging to Zōē’: I call upon you, Atrakh, great angel to the right of the sun! I call upon you, Moutrakh, great angel to the left of the sun! I call upon you, Semeōn, great angel, the one of the 210 treasure houses (?) at his right hand! By (the) power) of Sixsix-Ouriham-Ourihmrō-Ourikh-Marikh, give him shame, degradation (ϩⲏ = ϩⲉ?), and disgrace! … Victor the (?) of Zōē9

It seems likely either that the monk Phibamō composed this curse for someone else to use or that it was Phibamō himself who cursed Victor. That is, it may be an instance of our first or second scenarios. To contextualize these curses, which Egyptian monks either composed, pronounced, or both, we should turn first to the Greek works having to do with early Egyptian monasticism, but we 6 I am grateful to Michael Beshay for this personal communication and for discussing the Naqlun curse and improving this article in general. 7 D. Frankfurter, Christianizing Egypt (2018), 189-97; see also Theodore de Bruyn, Making Amulets Christian: Artefacts, Scribes, and Contexts, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford, 2017), 243-4. 8 D. Frankfurter, Christianizing Egypt (2018), 193 n. 38. 9 I translate from the text edited by Jacques van der Vliet, ‘Les anges du soleil: à propos d’un texte magique copte récemment découvert à Deir en-Naqloun (N. 45/95)’, in Nathalie Bosson (ed.), Études coptes VII, Cahiers de la bibliothèque copte 12 (Leuven, 2000), 319-37, 322-4. For context see Wlodzimierz Godlewski, ‘Naqlun: The Hermitage of Phibamo’, in Krzysztof M. Ciałowicz and Janusz A. Ost (eds), Les civilization du basin méditerranéen: Hommages à Joachim Sliwa (Krakow, 2000), 91-8.

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will find more fruitful the Coptic literature that emanated from an actual monastic community. The few references to cursing in authoritative monastic literature in Greek encouraged monks to curse Satan and the demons, but not other people. In the Life of Antony, for example, the hero exclaims about the demons, ‘How many times have they blessed me, and I have cursed them (κατηρασάμην αὐτούς) in the Lord’s name!’10 Satan himself complains, ‘Why do the monks and all the other Christians blame me for no reasons? Why do they curse me (με καταρῶνται) every hour?’11 Athanasius seems to place cursing in the Lord’s name within a repertoire of anti-demonic speech acts and gestures, which include singing the Psalms, reciting biblical verses, speaking in the name of Christ, making the sign of the cross, and even throwing a punch.12 On the other hand, Athanasius does not depict Antony saying something that might represent cursing in the Lord’s name – for example, ‘I curse you in the name of Christ!’ Possibly cursing the demons in the Lord’s name refers to all the anti-demonic expressions and gestures performed in imitation of or under the aegis of Christ. Evagrius of Pontus systematized and rationalized anti-demonic speech as antirrhēsis (‘talking back’) and provided a handbook for the monk seeking precisely the most effective biblical words to refute and repel demons and their evil suggestions.13 A passage in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers commends the monk Ōr for not cursing human beings: ‘They used to say of Abba Ōr that he neither lied nor swore nor cursed a human being (οὔτε κατηράσατο ἄνθρωπον) nor spoke unnecessarily.’14 The specification of not cursing a human being implies the acceptability of cursing non-human beings, certainly demons. In general the Sayings characterize Ōr as exceptionally controlled in his speech and thoughts, which one saying refers to as speech to one’s heart.15 He reportedly said to his disciple, ‘See that you never bring a foreign word (ἀλλότριος λόγος) into this cell.’16 Restraint in cursing other people is one virtuous facet of Ōr’s remarkable reticence. Shenoute of Atripe was no Abba Ōr. No one would describe him as reticent, and he certainly did curse human beings, as well as Satan and his demons. 10 Athanasius, Life of Antony 39.2, in Athanase d’Alexandrie. Vie d’Antoine, ed. G.J.M. Bartelink, SC 400 (Paris, 1994), 240. 11 Ibid. 41.2 (SC 400, 246). 12 E.g., ibid. 6.4-5, 40 (SC 400, 148, 242-4). 13 David Brakke, Evagrius of Pontus: Talking Back: A Monastic Handbook for Combating Demons, Cistercian Studies 229 (Collegeville, MN, 2009). 14 Apophthegmata Patrum 20.8 (= Ōr 2); Les apophtegmes des pères. Collection systèmatique, chapitres XVII-XXI, ed. Jean-Claude Guy, SC 498 (Paris, 2005), 170. 15 Ibid. 15.73 (= Ōr 13); Les apophtegmes des pères. Collection systèmatique, chapitres X-XVI, ed. Jean-Claude Guy, SC 474 (Paris, 2003), 170. 16 Ibid. 20.9 (= Ōr 3) (SC 498, 170).

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Literature associated with the White Monastery reveals a veritable culture of monastic cursing that one cannot see either in the classic Greek monastic literature or in the so-called magical papyri. The Life of Shenoute depicts the saint as engaging in several actions that we might characterize as curses. For example, the pagan owners of a vineyard on an island just off the eastern bank of the Nile are said to have forced bad wine on local farmers; when Shenoute strikes the ground of the island with a palm branch and orders it to go into the middle of the river and sink, the island does so.17 But we need not resort to later hagiography: Shenoute’s own works provide plenty of materials that not only fit a scholarly definition of cursing, but also use various forms of the word ‘curse’ (ⲥⲁϩⲟⲩ). Shenoute’s practice of cursing other people appears to have been an expected part of monastic practice in his community, but certain instances of it became the object of criticism, and he had to defend his frequent cursing. He did, of course, curse Satan and the demons. ‘You have been accursed before God since he made you’, Shenoute told Satan near the end of Because of You Too, O Prince of Evil.18 This may just be a statement of fact, but the entire work insults, reproaches, and condemns Satan in the second person (‘you’); it can be understood as an extended curse against Satan, which Shenoute performed in the wake of a physical encounter with the devil that he described in yet another speech.19 On the one hand, Shenoute details Satan’s crimes and stresses the extent of Satan’s powers: he tells the devil that, although he is like a snake, ‘your venom reaches those who are in the entire inhabited world. You bite and wound persons in the entire universe from the beginning until now.’20 On the other hand, the aim of Shenoute’s words is to render the devil weak: ‘You are truly exposed as having power that is not eternal. … You have no power, demon, except destruction’. That Satan does nothing to harm 17 (Pseudo-)Besa, The Life of Shenoute 85-6, trans. David N. Bell (Kalamazoo, MI, 1983), 66-7; see D. Frankfurter, Christianizing Egypt (2018), 79. Doubtless Shenoute did not cause an island to sink, but foul wine appears in several of Shenoute’s works as a means by which the rich exploit the poor; see Hans-Joachim Cristea, ‘Verdorbener Wein für die Armen: Edition von Paris BNF Copte 1302 F. 109 + P. Vind. K 9066–9069’, JCoptS 13 (2011), 1-57; Ariel G. López, Shenoute of Atripe and the Uses of Poverty: Rural Patronage, Religious Conflict, and Monasticism in Late Antique Egypt, The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 50 (Berkeley, CA, 2013), 90-4. 18 Shenoute, Because of You Too, O Prince of Evil, in David Brakke and Andrew Crislip, Selected Discourses of Shenoute the Great: Community, Theology, and Social Conflict in Late Antique Egypt (Cambridge, 2015), 171. See Jacques van der Vliet, ‘Chenouté et les demons’, in M. Rassert-DeBergh and J. Ries (eds), Actes du IVe congrès copte (Leuven, 1992), II 41-9; David Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity (Cambridge, MA, 2006), 97-124. 19 In the Night, in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 163-5. 20 Because of You Too, O Prince of Evil, in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 169.

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Shenoute despite what the monk says proves the devil’s powerlessness: ‘I say these things against you and those who abound in doing these things during the day and at night and every day. You have not figured out what to do to me.’21 Like a conventional curse, Because of You Too, O Prince of Evil is a speech act, in which words condemn the opponent, neutralize his power, and render him weak.22 In one medieval manuscript a marginal note appears to direct that this discourse should be read to the monks on the anniversary of Shenoute’s meeting with Satan.23 Annually, then, later monks of the White Monastery would hear their authoritative saint curse Satan at length. Also annually the monks listened to the recitation of rules that cursed sinful monks, for Shenoute commanded that they should hear at a yearly meeting the first volume of his Canons, in which he quoted a set of rules that took the form of curses.24 For example: ‘Cursed be any male who spreads himself under a male in any sort of sleeping quarters.’ Or: ‘Whoever sells a thing unbeknownst to the father superior and the siblings shall be under a curse in the presence of God.’25 Rules with the curse form appear in other volumes of the Canons as well. The curse form of monastic regulation appears to have been an innovation within the White Monastery, which inherited the literary genre of rules from the Pachomian federation. For the most part the Pachomian rules take the form of legislative commands: The monk or the housemaster or the superior or whoever ‘shall’ (ⲉϥⲛⲁ-) or ‘shall not’ (ⲛⲛⲉϥ-) do something. Frequently a particular situation is presupposed with a conditional clause: ‘If anyone does’ this, ‘he shall’ do that. The language of cursing is not entirely absent from the Pachomian rule material. At the conclusion of Precepts and Institutes, the leader who neglects the rules will receive a number of biblical penalties (e.g. the mark of Cain), including ‘the curse of David called down by Doeg’ (cf. Ps. 51:17[52:1-5]), and the Regulations of Horsiesios invokes ‘the curse that is found in the Scriptures against the slothful’ (cf. Prov. 6:11; Sir. 22:1-2).26 For the most part, however, Pachomian rules follow the legislative command (“shall/shall not”) form, and they are never phrased as curses. 21

Ibid., in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 172-3. See David Frankfurter, ‘Spell and Speech Act: The Magic of the Spoken Word’, in David Frankfurter (ed.), Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic, RGRW 189 (Leiden, Boston, 2019), 608-25. 23 The manuscript is known as DU; see Stephen Emmel, Shenoute’s Literary Corpus, CSCO 599-600 (Leuven, 2004), 251; J. van der Vliet, ‘Chenouté et les demons’ (1992), 44-7. 24 For all that follows see Bentley Layton, ‘The Monastic Rules of Shenoute’, in Anne Boud’hors et al. (eds), Monastic Estates in Late Antique and Early Islamic Egypt: Ostraca, Papyri, and Essays in Memory of Sarah Clackson, American Studies in Papyrology 46 (Cincinnati, 2009), 170-7. 25 Rules 2 and 88 in Bentley Layton, The Canons of Our Fathers: Monastic Rules of Shenoute, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford, 2014), 93, 123. 26 Armand Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia, Cistercian Studies 45-7 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1980-2), II 174, 202. 22

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Rules of the legislative command form appear also in Shenoute’s writings, and there too such rules are often limited to particular situations or conditions (“if…”). The White Monastery curse rule, on the other hand, ‘forbids a particular action by laying a general curse upon any who performs the action’.27 There are two forms, as our examples illustrated: ‘Cursed be anyone (ϥⲥϩⲟⲩⲟⲣⲧ ⲛϭⲓ-) who does X’ and ‘Anyone who does X shall be under a curse (ⲉϥⲉϣⲱⲡⲉ ⲉϥⲥϩⲟⲩoⲣⲧ)’. The curse rules are surely modeled on the legislation found in Deuteronomy 27:11-26: And Moyses commanded the people in that day, saying: When you have crossed over the Jordan, these shall stand to bless the people on Mount Garizin: Symeon, Leui, Ioudas, Issachar, Iospeh, and Beniamin. And these shall stand upon the curse on Mount Gaibal: Rouben, Gad and Aser, Zaboulon, Dan and Nephthali. And the Leuites, in reply, shall say in a loud voice to all Israel: ‘Cursed be the person who shall make a carved and a cast image, an abomination to the Lord, a work of the hands of an artisan and shall set it up in secret.’ And all the people, in reply, shall say, ‘May it be!’ ‘Cursed be he (ϥⲥϩⲟⲩⲟⲣⲧ ⲛϭⲓ-) who dishonors his father and his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘May it be!’ (Deut. 27:11-6)28

Ten more similar curses appear in the following verses (Deut. 27:17-26). Note the juxtaposition of ‘bless’ and ‘curse,’ which features prominently in Shenoute’s rhetoric. In this and other ways the monastic community is conformed to the model of ancient Israel; it is, in the language of the Septuagint, God’s ‘synagogue’.29 The Pachomian rules appear in their own texts, with titles like Precepts and Institutes and in manuscripts copied at the White Monastery,30 but no such independent rule books that may have originated within the White Monastery itself survive. Instead, Shenoute appears to have integrated quotations of the rules into works of different genres, which he then collected into his Canons. For this reason, it is impossible to identify who introduced the curse rule form, but the most likely candidates are Pcol, the founder and first leader of the White Monastery – Shenoute was its third leader – and Pshoi, the founder of the Red Monastery, which was incorporated into the White Monastery federation under 27

B. Layton, Canons of Our Fathers (2014), 42. I use the translation in Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright (eds), A New English Translation of the Septuagint (New York, Oxford, 2007), 165. 29 ‘Synagogue’ or ‘congregation’ (συναγωγή) is Shenoute’s preferred term for the monastic community; on the complex effects of this terminology, see, among other studies, Caroline T. Schroeder, ‘Prophecy and Porneia: The Rhetoric of Sexuality in a Late Antique Egyptian Monastery’, JNES 65 (2006), 81-97. 30 See James E. Goehring, ‘Pachomius and his Successors in the Library of Deir Anba Shenouda’, in David Brakke, Stephen J. Davis and Stephen Emmel (eds), From Gnostics to Monastics: Studies in Coptic and Early Christianity in Honor of Bentley Layton, OLA 263 (Leuven, 2017), 409-27, 416. 28

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Pcol. Three manuscripts of the Canons (YD, GI, and YA) number the curse rules in their margins, but rules of other forms are never numbered: these numbers may indicate that Shenoute quoted the curse rules from a book in which they were numbered. That is, there may have been a book that consisted solely of rules in the curse form.31 The topics covered by the curse rules span the full gamut of monastic transgressions, from sex to stealing to lying to showing favoritism. The content of a few of the curse rules parallels that of legislative commands among the Pachomian rules;32 perhaps someone revised into the curse form some rules that were inherited in the legislative form. One curse rule is quite emphatic in its cursing: ‘And as for whoever eat or drink stealthily in these congregations (συναγωγή) at any time after all these ordinances, as we have said often and in many places that are written for us – cursed be they, and again cursed and greatly cursed (ⲥⲉⲣϩⲟⲩⲉⲥϩⲟⲩⲟⲣⲧ) and again greatly cursed in the eyes of God and of people who understand what I am saying’.33 Placing wayward monks under a Deuteronomistic curse was a distinctive feature of the White Monastery. Shenoute’s Canons, in which he quotes these rules, provides additional evidence that cursing was a regular and expected feature of the White Monastery’s culture. The Canons is a nine-volume collection of works, compiled by Shenoute himself over the course of his long tenure as abbot (ca. 386-465), which address the monks and concern the monastery’s internal affairs. It includes speeches addressed to gatherings of monks and letters from Shenoute to other leaders in the federation and to the entire community. A privately published and doubtless incomplete concordance of the Canons created by Wolf-Peter Funk counts at least 178 instances of ⲥⲁϩⲟⲩ (‘curse’) and its related forms, a total that includes the curse rules. But the curse rules hardly account for even most of the cursing in the Canons. Complaining of ‘thefts and deceits’ and other sins within the community, Shenoute pronounces that ‘the Lord Jesus Christ shall curse the man and the woman through whom there happens in these congregations the disorder of these deeds that I fear’.34 As for monks who steal, ‘God will curse them, just as they are accursed, whether male or female.’35 When the monks praise Jesus by keeping ‘the words of the Scriptures’, he will bless them, but Jesus will ‘curse those who show contempt for him by transgressing’ 31 B. Layton, ‘Monastic Rules’ (2009), 173-5. Caroline Schroeder doubts this hypothesis because manuscript XC does not give the curse rules it contains such marginal numbers; see her ‘An Early Monastic Rule Fragment from the Monastery of Shenoute’, Le Muséon 127 (2014), 19-39, 21. On the other hand, three different scribes wrote YD, GI, and YA; the numbering system is well attested. 32 C. Schroeder, ‘Early Monastic Rule Fragment’ (2014), 26-9. 33 Rule 144 in B. Layton, Canons of Our Fathers (2014), 280-1. 34 Shenoute, Canons 8, in Dwight Wayne Young, Coptic Manuscripts from the White Monastery: Works of Shenoute, Mitteilungen aus der Papyrussammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, n.s. 22 (Vienna, 1993), 34. 35 Id., Canons 9, in D. Young, Coptic Manuscripts (1993), 51.

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the biblical words.36 If monks fail to rebuke a sinful colleague, then they may ‘refrain from despising our brother’, but they deliver themselves to ‘the curse of the Scriptures’.37 Being condemned for sins, large or small, was the equivalent of being cursed. The divine sources of curses may have been God, Jesus, and the Bible, but human monks like Shenoute actually pronounced them. In the heat of a conflict with the women in the affiliated female monastery, Shenoute referred to his earlier correspondence with them: ‘For I wrote to you in the letter, entreating you to reveal everything truthfully to the father superior when he was coming to you. And then you did not say one true thing to him, for you were not ashamed nor were you afraid of all the words written in the letters with curses and blessings.’38 Curses (as well as blessings) were a normal part of White Monastery discourse. So normal, it seems, that ordinary monks thought that they could do it to each other, but Shenoute did not approve of unauthorized, non-disciplinary cursing. A female monk whose name is lost in a lacuna deserved punishment because she ‘cursed her sister with her bragging tongue’.39 One of Shenoute’s more oblique references to cursing occurs in a passage where he is wrestling with the problem of whether to fulfill requests for special food or drink from monks who claim to be sick but who one suspects may not be really sick. He suggests that each person is responsible for his or her own moral condition, but then muses: If I frequently curse myself rather than those who deserve the curse in these abodes, and if I resolve not to eat bread (taken) from them and not to wear their garment, is it not obvious that it’s the magnitude of the grievous reproach that makes me do this? And how am I not innocent of the judgment and blood of a man and woman about whom it is said that they stole something in these congregations, especially from their neighbor’s portion, so that Jesus pours out his wrath upon those who are doing or will do these things?40

Blaming oneself (i.e. cursing oneself) for, say, giving special food to a fellow monk who is not really sick rather than blaming the dissembling monk is motivated by the same grief and shame that motivates one’s resolution not to steal. The emotional pain of the curses by which Jesus poured out his wrath on sinful monks encouraged obedience in the White Monastery. Spiritually formed by the White Monastery’s culture of cursing, Shenoute cursed sinners outside the monastery as well, as we find in his Discourses, an 36

Id., Canons 4, in D. Young, Coptic Manuscripts (1993), 99-100. Id., Canons 8, in D. Young, Coptic Manuscripts (1993), 39. 38 Id., Canons 4, in Bentley Layton, ‘Punishing the Nuns: A Reading of Shenoute’s Letters to the Nuns in Canons Book Four’, in Paola Buzi and Alberto Camplani (eds), Christianity in Egypt: Literary Production and Intellectual Trends; Studies in Honor of Tito Orlandi, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 125 (Rome, 2011), 325-45, 330. 39 Ibid., in B. Layton, ‘Punishing the Nuns’ (2011), 342. 40 Id., Canons 9, in D. Young, Coptic Manuscripts (1993), 54-5. 37

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eight-volume collection of letters and sermons most of which are addressed to diverse audiences that consisted of lay visitors as well as monks. Drawing on Jesus’ address to the goats at his left hand in Matthew 25:41 (‘You that are accursed, depart from me…’), Shenoute simply refers to damned people as ‘cursed ones’. Sinners bring a curse upon themselves and are subject to the curse of God’s wrath. Being cursed is the opposite of being blessed.41 Origenist heretics who claim that the souls of John the Baptist, Gabriel, or any angel sinned in an existence before this world will not ‘escape the curse’.42 Just as the monastic curse rules are modeled after curses in Deuteronomy, the curse or curses under which non-monastic sinners fall are found in the Bible: ‘The curses that are written in the Scriptures (ⲛⲥⲁϩⲟⲩ ⲉⲧⲥⲏϩ ϩⲛⲛⲉⲅⲣⲁⲫⲏ) are upon all people (ϩⲓϫⲛⲣⲱⲙⲉ ⲛⲓⲙ) who sin and only when we withdraw from our evils does he (God) remove those curses from us’.43 And just as the biblical precedent authorized the composition of new curse rules, so too it authorized Shenoute to pronounce his own curses. He directed many of these at Gesios, the prominent landowner and former provincial governor with whom he conducted a long and well-known feud.44 After condemning Gesios in a sermon, Shenoute said to the gathered crowd: ‘Obviously I’m not saying these things secretly; rather, I really want, if some of you are familiar with him, that he be informed that I often pronounce multitudes of curses upon him (ϯϫⲱ ⲛϩⲁϩ ⲛⲥⲟⲡ ⲛϩⲉⲛⲙⲏⲏϣⲉ ⲛⲥⲁϩⲟⲩ ⲉϩⲣⲁⲓ ⲉϫⲱϥ), along with many words from the anger of the wrath of the God Jesus.’45 I suggest that Not Because a Fox Barks, which scholars have understood as an ‘open letter’ to Gesios, is one of those ‘multitudes of curses’ that Shenoute pronounced against his nemesis.46 Mostly an extended heated denunciation of its antagonist in the second person, similar to Because of You Too, O Prince of 41 Id., I See Your Eagerness, A26, God is Blessed, in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 98, 222, 236, 291. 42 Id., I Am Amazed, in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 71. 43 Id., A26, in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 215; Coptic text: Heike Behlmer, Schenute von Atripe: “De iudicio” (Torino, Museo Egizio, Cat. 63000, Cod. IV) (Turin, 1996), 14. 44 The essential studies are Stephen Emmel, ‘From the Other Side of the Nile: Shenute and Panopolis’, in A. Egberts, B.P. Muhs and J. van der Vliet (eds), Perspectives on Panopolis: An Egyptian Town from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest. Acts of an International Symposium Held in Leiden on 16, 17, and 18 December 1998 (Leiden, 2002), 95-113; id., ‘Shenoute of Atripe and the Christian Destruction of Temples in Egypt’, in J. Hahn, S. Emmel and U. Gotter (eds), From Temple to Church: Destruction and Renewal of Local Cultic Topography in Late Antiquity, RGRW 163 (Leiden, 2008), 161-201; and A. López, Shenoute of Atripe and the Uses of Poverty (2013). A dossier of the primary sources can be found in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 193-297. 45 Shenoute, A26, in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 239; Coptic text: H. Behlmer, De iudicio (1996), 92. 46 On ‘open letter’ as the ‘somewhat puzzling’ genre of Not Because a Fox Barks, see the remarks of S. Emmel, ‘From the Other Side’ (2002), 107-8 n. 60, who suggests that the concluding

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Evil, Not Because a Fox Barks is a performative speech act. It resembles the Greek and Latin ‘prayers for justice’ that Henk Versnel, building on the earlier work of Gudmund Björck, relates to and distinguishes from defixiones and which I consider a subset within the larger category of ‘curse’. Such prayers are ‘pleas addressed to a god or gods to punish a (mostly unknown) person who has wronged the author (by theft, slander, false accusations or magical actions), often with the additional request to redress the harm suffered by the author (e.g. by forcing a thief to return a stolen object, or to publicly confess guilt)’.47 In most Christian examples in Coptic, however, the guilty person is named, and the author seeks physical and emotional harm in vengeance or punishment for the accused’s evil actions. The Christian prayers for justice are, as Björck puts it, ‘much shriller and more bombastic’ than their non-Christian counterparts.48 Such is the case with Not Because a Fox Barks. The work consists of three parts, which can be distinguished formally by the three referents of the second-person pronouns (‘you’): (1) Gesios alone (masculine singular); (2) Gesios and other oppressive rich persons (plural); (3) God (masculine singular). The first section provides a brief account of Shenoute’s conflict with Gesios thus far: the monk claims that Gesios has indeed wronged him personally by falsely accusing him of robbery – Shenoute had removed some statues of pagan gods and other items from Gesios’s house – but Shenoute famously replies: ‘There is no “robbery” for those who have Christ’. Shenoute highlights his written condemnations of the landowner. He refers cryptically to having written Gesios’s ‘disgrace (ⲥⲱϣ) and shame (ϣⲓⲡⲉ)’ on ‘sheets of papyrus’ (ϩⲉⲛⲭⲁⲣⲧⲏⲥ), which he ‘attached to the doorposts of your [Gesios’s] house’ – an action that Frankfurter persuasively construes as ‘reifying and directing a curse’.49 Indeed, as we shall see, the vocabulary of ‘disgrace (ⲥⲱϣ) and shame (ϣⲓⲡⲉ)’ appears in other Coptic curses. But prayer could have been added to the open letter when Shenoute read it aloud in church. Viewed in light of prayers for justice, the concluding prayer is an integral part of the work. 47 Henk S. Versnel, ‘Prayers for Justice, East and West: Recent Finds and Publications since 1990’, in R. Gordon and F.M. Simón (eds), Magical Practice in the Latin West (Boston, 2010), 275-354, 278-9; see also id., ‘Beyond Cursing: The Appeal to Justice in Judicial Prayers’, in Christopher A. Faraone and Dirk Obbink (eds), Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (New York, Oxford, 1991), 60-106; Gudmund Björck, Der Fluch des Christen Sabinus: Papyrus Upsaliensis 8 (Uppsala, 1938). On Christian amulets that contain prayers for justice, see T. de Bruyn, Making Amulets Christian (2017), 124-35. For a study of Paul’s curse of a sinful man in 1Cor 5:1-5 in terms of prayers for justice, see Laura Nasrallah, ‘A Theology of Defixiones? Roman Corinth, the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, and Christ-Followers’, paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, Marburg, August 2019. 48 See the examples that G. Björck gathers and discusses in Fluch des Christen Sabinus (1938), 49-60, quotation at 54; his six Coptic curses appear in English in M. Meyer and R. Smith, Ancient Christian Magic (1994), as nos. 88-91, 93, and 108. 49 Shenoute, Not Because a Fox Barks, in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 201; Coptic text: Johannes Leipoldt, Sinuthii Archimandritae Vita et Opera Omnia, CSCO 41, 42, 73 (Paris, 1906-1913), 3,79; D. Frankfurter, Christianizing Egypt (2018), 83.

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Shenoute had sent Gesios additional written attacks, which the landowner had destroyed: ‘There are the letters that you tore up. Don’t I know before I send them that you’re going to tear them up, you co-worker of those who cut with the scribe’s penknife and cast onto burning coals the columns of the scroll (ⲡϫⲱⲱⲙⲉ) containing the words that the prophets sent to them in God’s name?’50 Here Shenoute casts himself as the biblical prophet Jeremiah and Gesios as the sinful King Jehoiakim (Jer. 36:20-6), but we should note that Shenoute and Gesios both treated the written materials that Shenoute sent as powerful: Gesios had to tear them up to neutralize their danger. So too several Coptic prayers for justice on papyri refer to the papyrus itself as powerful. ‘God of heaven and earth! Whoever shall open this papyrus (ⲡⲓⲭⲁⲣⲧⲏⲥ) and read what is written in , may all those things written in it descend upon him’, begins one such text.51 Another concludes similarly: ‘Whoever opens this papyrus (ⲡⲓⲭⲁⲣⲧⲏⲥ) and reads it, what is written on it will come upon him, by order of the Lord God.’52 An oppressed widow had the papyrus of her curse buried with a mummy.53 Shenoute’s condemnations of Gesios also came in words inscribed on highly charged pieces of papyrus.54 Apa Victor began his curse with ominous words: ‘I write’. The second and third sections of Not Because a Fox Barks recite the crimes of Gesios and his fellow rich people and call for God’s justice. Shenoute signals a turn from his personal feud with Gesios to the crimes that Gesios and men like him commit against weaker people: ‘For just as you are godless, so you afflict the poor with your abusive acts.’ He then begins to speak in the secondpersonal plural, including not only Gesios but also other rich people.55 What follows resembles a litany: a liturgical recitation of abusive acts that takes the formal, repetitive, even incantatory character that suits a prayer: ‘Who can tell of your evils? How you slaughter your calf when it’s about to die… How you also assign to them calves and oxen, field by field… How you also muster them to stand guard for you in the boats… How you also extort from them…’ The 50 Ibid., in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 201-2; Coptic text: J. Leipoldt, Vita et Opera Omnia (1906-1913), 3,79-80. 51 M. Meyer and R. Smith, Ancient Christian Magic (1994), 187 (no. 88); Coptic text: Walter E. Crum, Catalogue of the Coptic Manuscripts in the British Library (London, 1905), 506-7 (no. 1224). 52 M. Meyer and R. Smith, Ancient Christian Magic (1994), 191 (no. 90); Coptic text: Oscar von Lemm, ‘Koptische Miscellen L: Zu einigen von Turajev edierten Texten 2-5’, Bulletin de l’Académie impériale des sciences de Saint-Pétersbourg, Classe de sciences sociales, 6th ser., 2 (1908), 1076-89, 1086. 53 M. Meyer and R. Smith, Ancient Christian Magic (1994), 190 (no. 89). 54 See David Frankfurter, ‘Charismatic Textuality and the Mediation of Christianity in Late Antique Egypt’, in Laura Feldt and Jan N. Bremmer (eds), Marginality, Media, and Mutations of Religious Authority in the History of Christianity (Leuven, 2019), 47-67; id., ‘Magic and the Forces of Materiality’, in id., Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic (2019), 659-77. 55 Shenoute, Not Because a Fox Barks, in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 203.

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litany culminates in an invocation of wrath upon the offenders that derives from Paul’s Letter to the Romans; it is, as Shenoute would call it, ‘a curse from the Scriptures’: ‘As for the contentious ones who disobey the truth but who obey unrighteousness – wrath, anger, affliction, and oppression be upon every human soul that works for evil!’56 In the final section, Shenoute addresses God: ‘Now I will speak in your presence, O God of the Powers, the Almighty!’ Shenoute asks for justice for the oppressed by narrating short historiolae that recall God’s rescue of his people from oppression in Egypt and his deliverance of them from ‘the lawless Nebuchadnezzer’. He asks God not only to rescue the oppressed poor from their rich abusers, but also to ‘close off every lawless deed and every injustice in every place’.57 So too the oppressed widow who curses a different Shenoute (‘son of Pamin’) reminds God that he saved Noah from the flood, brought Lot out of Sodom, freed Daniel from the lions’ den, and so on as she calls upon him to ‘bring judgment on our behalf’.58 As a curse Not Because a Fox Barks differs from prayers of justice like this widow’s primarily in its length, literary sophistication, likely performance in an official worship setting, and preservation on parchment rather than the original papyri. Shenoute’s cursing of the wider public appears most fully in a sermon entitled God Says Through Those Who are His. According to the headline in one of the manuscripts, Shenoute delivered this ‘instruction’ on a ‘day when he saw [among the congregation] the adherents of the man deserving to be cursed’ – that is, Gesios.59 Shenoute found himself on the defensive on two fronts as he responded to criticism from local elites, whom he depicted as non-Christians, and from Christians who objected to his aggressive cursing. The former charged that Shenoute has alienated the working poor from them, broken into their homes with impunity, and assembled a seditious mob. Citing the example of Jesus and his command in Matthew 5:44 (‘Love your enemies and pray for 56 Ibid., in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 205; see Rom. 2:8-9. My use of the adjective ‘liturgical’ follows Frankfurter, who includes in this category not only officially authorized scripts for worship but also ‘prayers and incantations composed to approximate such an official language of devotion through the use of traditional cadences, mythological figures, and strophic structures’ (Christianizing Egypt [2018], 202 n.72). The liturgical character of the work would have had particular resonance if, as seems likely, Shenoute performed it in the monastery’s church. 57 Shenoute, Not Because a Fox Barks, in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 205. The classic discussion of the historiola is David Frankfruter, ‘Narrating Power: The Theory and Practice of the Magical Historiola in Ritual Spells’, in Marvin Meyer and Paul Mirecki (eds), Ancient Magic and Ritual Power, RGRW 129 (Leiden, 1995), 457-76. 58 M. Meyer and R. Smith, Ancient Christian Magic (1994), 189 (no. 89). 59 Shenoute, God Says Through Those Who are His, in D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses (2015), 266. Subsequent page numbers are given parenthetically in this paragraph and the following. I use a Coptic text that I am editing from manuscripts GF, GL, and WY, but most of it can be found in Émile Amélineau, Œuvres de Schenoudi: texte copte et traduction française (Paris, 1907-1914) I 262-83.

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those who persecute you’), Shenoute claims to bless – not curse – those who curse him. Christians are at fault if they curse people who curse them, but they are at fault also if they fail to curse people who speak abominations against God by, for example, denying the divinity of Jesus. In that case, one’s failure to curse makes one a participant in these blasphemies (p. 268). Therefore, Shenoute pronounces a series of curses: Cursed are those who (ⲥⲉⲥϩⲟⲩⲟⲣⲧ ⲛϭⲓ-) say that divinity was crucified or divinity dies. Cursed are those who say, ‘If God is divine, why didn’t he know where the devil went?’ … Cursed are those who say, ‘If he’s divine, why didn’t he know where Adam was?’ … Cursed are those who say, ‘If Jesus is divine, why didn’t he know where Lazarus had been laid?’ (p. 269-70)

These execrations take the first of the two curse forms in the monastery’s rules, which corresponds to those in Deuteronomy 27: ⲥⲉⲥϩⲟⲩⲟⲣⲧ ⲛϭⲓ-. By portraying his opponents as blasphemers of God and Jesus, Shenoute could curse them without violating the command to pray for those who persecute him (Matt. 5:44). Some Christians, almost certainly fellow monks, did not find Shenoute’s distinction persuasive; they criticized Shenoute’s cursing ‘because one hears words that certain good fathers said, “You shall not curse any human being” (ⲛⲛⲉⲕⲥϩⲟⲩⲣⲗⲁⲁⲩ ⲛⲣⲱⲙⲉ)’ (p. 272). ‘Words that certain good fathers said’ is monastic talk, and it may refer to some monastic rule we do not know or to a generally known monastic principle, a reminiscence of which may be found in the saying about Ōr that I discussed above. Or it could be a reference to Numbers 22:12: ‘And God said to Balaam, “You shall not go with them, nor shall you curse the people (οὐδὲ καταράσῃ τὸν λαόν), for it is blessed”.’ Whichever was the case, Shenoute accepted the existence of the injunction but claimed not to violate it because those whom he cursed were ‘not human beings’ or, if they were, they deserved cursing because of their cursing of God. Whether the injunction derived from Scripture or from authoritative Christians, Shenoute argued that it prohibited Christians from cursing only people who curse them; people who have insulted God and Christ have already bound themselves to the curse and so are appropriately cursed (p. 273). Similarly, if Jude 9 reports that the archangel Michael demurred from bringing a charge of blasphemy against the devil but instead simply said, ‘The Lord shall rebuke you’, that too does not indicate that one should not curse an impious person: rather, the statement ‘The Lord shall rebuke you’ ‘indicates the curse that is coming upon him’ (p. 273-5). Shenoute extended the monastery’s practice of cursing wayward monks with Deuteronomistic execrations to the cursing of non-Christians and heretics. To be sure, Shenoute’s personal charisma likely authorized his cursing, but so too did the Bible, which provided the form for cursing and served as the basis for Christian debate over the ethics of cursing. Scripture furnished the script by which the monastery became a ‘synagogue’,

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where God’s curses descended upon people from the Scriptures, the books of ‘our fathers’, and from God’s prophet, Shenoute.60 Was the White Monastery unique in the importance of cursing to monastic culture? Probably not, but without similarly extensive documentation from any late ancient monastic community in Egypt other than the Pachomian and White Monastery federations, it is impossible to know. Our literary evidence for monastic communities in late ancient Egypt resulted from processes of selection at a few scriptoria: medieval scribes in the White Monastery decided what to copy.61 To be sure, the Pachomians appear not to have cursed much: in addition to the two instances of curse language in the rule material that I mentioned above, Horsiesios exclaims, ‘O cursed may you be, friendship of which I speak and which will be pursued by the wrath of God!’ in his instruction against ‘evil friendship’.62 I suspect, however, that the Pachomians are the anomalies and that Shenoute and the White Monastery allow us to see a practice that normative Greek literature – with the important exception of Evagrius of Pontus – suppresses and that documentary texts just fail to preserve or make explicit. The resonances of our two monastic curses in papyri with the materials from the White Monastery support this conclusion. Both can be understood, like Shenoute’s extended curse against Gesios in Not Because a Fox Barks, as prayers for justice. Let us return to Apa Victor, whose curse its original editor Worrell dated to the ‘sixth century or earlier’ and declared ‘possibly Fayumic’.63 As Theodore de Bruyn states, it features the characteristics of a prayer for justice.64 The curse is typical in the vehemence with which the curser seeks the misery of its victims, who are Alō the daughter of Aese, as well as Phibamōn (her husband?) and her entire household. Similarly, a Christian involved in a lawsuit with Joor and his wife ask that God’s wrath consume not only them but also ‘all that is his’ and ‘his house and his wife’.65 On the one hand, some of the punishments that Victor calls for could be understood as eschatological, having to do with consignment to hell instead of heavenly reward: ‘curse of god’, ‘darkness’, ‘the Law and Deuteronomy’, ‘furnace flames’. On the other hand, Victor 60

Bentley Layton, ‘Some Observations on Shenoute’s Sources: Who are Our Fathers?’, JCoptS 11 (2009), 45-59; David Brakke, ‘Shenoute, Weber, and the Monastic Prophet: Ancient and Modern Articulations of Ascetic Authority’, in Alberto Camplani and Giovanni Filoramo (eds), Foundations of Power and Conflicts of Authority in Late-Antique Monasticism: Proceedings of the International Seminar, Turin, December 2-4, 2004, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 157 (Leuven, 2007), 47-73. 61 On the importance of the White Monastery for transmitting Pachomian literature and thus fashioning how the Pachomian federation was remembered, see J. Goehring, ‘Pachomius and his Successors in the Library of Deir Anba Shenouda’ (2017). 62 A. Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia (1980-2), 3,146. 63 W.H. Worrell, ‘Coptic Magical and Medical Texts’ (1935), 13. 64 T. de Bruyn, Making Amulets Christian (2017), 133. 65 M. Meyer and R. Smith, Ancient Christian Magic (1994), 218 (no. 108).

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undeniably seeks his victims’ immediate physical suffering: ‘hunger and misery’ that ‘rule the body’, being ‘bedridden’, ‘fear of death’. Björck and Versnel note that requests for revenge in the form of disease and death characterize several ancient Christian ‘revenge prayers’.66 ‘May their body wither in their beds’, prays Sabinus against his foes (in Greek).67 In Coptic our anonymous widow wishes ‘fever and chill and jaundice’ on the wicked Shenoute; ‘miserable, wretched’ Jacob calls for Tatore, Andreas, and Maria to suffer ‘great pain and jaundice disease and burning fever’; a seemingly neglected mother prays that her daughter-in-law will fall into ‘troublesome illness and great affliction’, including fever, chill, and itching.68 Similarly, within the White Monastery physical suffering for sinful monks was not postponed until the afterlife: corporal punishment – that is, beatings – was a regular, if sometimes controversial, feature of its disciplinary program.69 The combination of eschatological judgment and immediate corporal punishment is foreign neither to Christian requests for justice nor to specifically monastic understandings of divinely authorized punishment. Victor never says what Alō has done to deserve this curse, but some of the language might suggest personal injury to him. The Coptic is obscure, but Victor seems to request that Saōt Sabaōt receive incense from him and ‘speak what satisfies me against Alō’. ‘Let the oath reach heaven until you perform my ϩⲁⲓ (ϣⲁⲧⲉⲕⲉⲓⲣⲉ ⲡⲁϩⲁⲓ) with Alō daughter of Aese’, he writes. What is Victor’s ϩⲁⲓ? Possibly the word means ϩⲟⲓ, ‘trouble, zeal, effort’,70 and thus perhaps ‘will’ or ‘intention’, as in ‘what I want’. The litigious curser of Joor and his wife likewise asks ‘the holy martyrs’ to ‘perform my ϩⲁⲓ’ with them, which is to ‘beat them and obliterate them’.71 These requests resemble the petitions in other prayers for justice that ask God or other beings to ‘perform my judgment’ (ⲉⲓⲣⲡⲁϩⲉⲡ, ⲣⲡⲁϩⲁⲡ).72 The possibility of a personal grievance increases if we accept Worrell’s suggestion that Victor was the son, not of Thibamōn, as the text reads, but of Phibamōn: maybe Victor was an aggrieved stepson of Alō.73 Modern historians might likewise characterize Shenoute’s conflict with Gesios as personal – as, for example, a competition between rival patrons – 66

G. Björck, Fluch des Christen Sabinus (1938), 59; H.S. Versnel, ‘Beyond Cursing’ (1991),

71. 67

G. Björck, Fluch des Christen Sabinus (1938), 6. M. Meyer and R. Smith, Ancient Christian Magic (1994), 189, 192, 197 (nos. 89, 91, 93). 69 Rebecca Krawiec, Shenoute and Women of the White Monastery: Egyptian Monasticism in Late Antiquity (New York, Oxford, 2002), 40-6, 61-2, 141-3; C. Schroeder, Monastic Bodies (2007), 74-81; B. Layton, ‘Punishing the Nuns’ (2011). 70 W.E. Crum, A Coptic Dictionary (Oxford, 1939), §651a, itself qualified by a question mark. 71 W.H. Worrell, ‘Coptic Magical and Medical Texts’ (1935), 3; see M. Meyer and R. Smith, Ancient Christian Magic (1994), 218 (no. 108). 72 W.E. Crum, Catalogue (1905), 506 (no. 1224); id., ‘Eine Verfluchtung’, ZÄS 34 (1896), 85-9, 85, 87; see M. Meyer and R. Smith, Ancient Christian Magic (1994), 187, 192, 194 (nos. 88, 91). 73 W.H. Worrell, ‘Coptic Magical and Medical Texts’ (1935), 16. 68

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although, as we have seen, Shenoute denied that and, in Not Because a Fox Barks, shifted from attacking Gesios alone to attacking Gesios and other rich landowners. However that may be, Victor, like Shenoute, acted as a monk. He identified himself as ‘Apa Victor’, decorated the text with crosses, and called for ‘the curses of the Law and Deuteronomy’ to descend upon Alō. He could have learned to curse at the White Monastery, where Deuteronomy provided one of the models for monastic cursing, but he surely did not. This mode of monastic cursing was not limited to that single community. In this light the curse against Victor found in Phibamo’s hermitage at Naqlun becomes even more intriguing. It shares with Victor’s curse against Alō the name Victor (here as the curse’s victim), a monastic connection, and the general region and time period. Shenoute cursed Gesios by attaching Gesios’s ‘disgrace (ⲥⲱϣ) and shame (ϣⲓⲡⲉ)’ to his doorposts; the Naqlun curse brings ‘shame (ϣⲓⲡⲉ), degradation, and disgrace (ⲥⲱⲥ = ⲥⲱϣ)’ upon Victor.74 This language also may be biblical: consider, for example, the Sahidic version of Psalm 82(83):16-7: ‘Fill their faces with disgrace (ⲥⲱϣ), and they will seek your name, Lord; let them be put to shame (ϫⲓϣⲓⲡⲉ) and disturbed forever, and let them be humiliated and perish’.75 Or such curses may draw on Psalm 34(35), in which the speaker twice asks that his oppressors ‘be shamed and embarrassed’ (verses 4 and 26).76 The Naqlun curser does not say what his target, Victor, has done that deserves such humiliation, and the desired outcome appears to be the loss of social and religious reputation rather than physical suffering. Van der Vliet rightly characterizes the imprecation as a prayer for justice, and to his mind its vague character suggests not ‘the domain of love or of commerce’ but ‘the social life of a community (neighborhood, village, even monastery)’. He finds a parallel in a ‘prayer of Elias’, who asks that ‘every living being with whom is the breath of God be put to shame (ϣⲓⲡⲉ) before my face and have fear before my honor (τιμή)’.77 Social status or reputation was at stake in such spells. The Naqlun curse against Victor might be a monk’s condemnation of a wayward monk, in the fashion of the White Monastery curse rules; or a monk’s denunciation of non-monastic sinners, in the fashion of 74 As van der Vliet suggests, I interpret the text’s ⲏ as ϩⲉ (‘fall’), which in this context I translate as ‘degradation’ and van der Vliet translates as ‘déchéance’ (J. van der Vliet, ‘Les anges du soleil’ [2000], 322-4). 75 E.A. Wallis Budge, The Earliest Known Coptic Psalter (London, 1898), 90. 76 See the Bohairic version of Psalm 34(35):4, 26: ⲙⲁⲣⲟⲩϭⲓϣⲓⲡⲓ ⲟⲩⲟϩ ⲛⲥⲉϭⲓϣⲱϣ; I.L. Ideler, Psalterium Coptice (Berlin, 1837), 52, 55. Evagrius suggested the use of Ps. 34(35):4 to refute ‘the thought that says to me, “The demon of fornication will put you to shame if you stand up to in battle”’; Antirrhētikos 2.28, in D. Brakke, Talking Back (2009), 75. 77 J. van der Vliet, ‘Les anges du soleil’ (2000), 325-6; Viktor Stegemann, Die koptischen Zaubertexte der Sammlung Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer in Wien, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, 1933-4, no. 1 (Heidelberg, 1934), 73-4.

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Shenoute’s curses against Gesios and other ‘blasphemers’; or something else entirely. Modern scholars sometimes make a distinction between imprecations or execrations, on the one hand, and curses or binding spells, on the other: the former are public and formal, imposed by institutions and their authorities, while the latter are private and ad-hoc, imposed by individuals acting on their own.78 The former appears more ‘religious’; the latter, more ‘magical’. From this perspective we might place the White Monastery’s curse rules and Shenoute’s formal denunciations of Gesios and other sinners in one category and our two curse spells in another. This distinction does not make sense, however: the formal features of prayers for justice cross literary boundaries and characterize effective speech at multiple social levels. Moreover, in the world of early Egyptian monasticism, biblical ritualization ideally characterized every facet of life. The Bible – and the lore about demons, angels, and saints that it generated – provided the script by which monks cursed and were cursed: monks cursed demons, each other, idolaters, heretics, and just other people in their pursuit of righteousness and justice. Rather than be surprised that we have a curse from a Christian monk, instead we should be surprised that it is so rare. Perhaps cursing was so monastic that monks saw no need to identify themselves as monks when they did it.

78 For example, Fritz Graf, Magic in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 128-9. The basic distinction seems to go back to Augustus Audollent, Defixionum Tabellae (Paris, 1904).

The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto and the Origenist Controversy Andrew CAIN, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

ABSTRACT In 394-5, seven monks from Rufinus’ monastery on the Mount of Olives made a monthslong expedition to Egypt to visit with the celebrated miracle-working monks who inhabited its desert. Within months of their return to Jerusalem, one of them composed anonymously, in Greek, an engaging account of their travels; this writing is best known to us today as the Historia monachorum in Aegypto. In this paper I suggest one consideration that may have prompted the anonymous author to produce this work: the recent series of conflicts, rooted ultimately in a dispute over Origen’s theology, between his own monastery and Jerome’s monastery in nearby Bethlehem. In particular, I argue that in typologically casting the Egyptian monks as prophets and apostles like those in the Bible, and in highlighting the personal connection to them that his monastery enjoyed, the author used his hagiography to claim a certain spiritual authority by association with them and thereby sought to gain symbolic leverage over his anti-Origenist opponents in Bethlehem.

In early September of 394, seven monks set out from their monastery in Jerusalem and made their way to Egypt, where they would end up spending the next four or so months visiting an array of individual monks and monastic communities from the Thebaid in the south to the delta town of Diolcos in the north. After their return to Jerusalem, one of them composed a lively account of their experiences. He entitled the work Ἡ κατ’ Αἴγυπτον τῶν μοναχῶν ἱστορία,1 which may be translated into English as Inquiry about the Monks in Egypt, though modern scholars typically refer to it as Historia monachorum in Aegypto, the title of Rufinus of Aquileia’s Latin translation of the Greek original (ca. 403).2 I accordingly adopt this scholarly convention herein and refer to the work by the abbreviation HM. 1 The critical edition is A.-J. Festugière (ed.), Historia monachorum in Aegypto. Édition critique du texte grec (Brussels, 1961). For an English translation, see N. Russell (trans.), The Lives of the Desert Fathers: The Historia monachorum in Aegypto (Kalamazoo, 1980). 2 The critical edition is E. Schulz-Flügel (ed.), Tyrannius Rufinus, Historia monachorum sive De vita sanctorum patrum (Berlin, 1990). For an annotated translation of Rufinus’ Latin HM, see A. Cain (trans.), Rufinus of Aquileia, Inquiry about the Monks in Egypt, Fathers of the Church 139 (Washington, 2019). There is an Italian translation as well: G. Trettel (ed.), Rufino di Concordia,

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 157-165. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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The identity of the author of the HM remains a mystery to this day, and this appears to have been his intention, for he evidently released his writing anonymously;3 for the sake of convenience we may refer to him simply as ‘Anonymous’, or ‘Anon.’ for short. Even though we do not know who he was, we nonetheless are able to reconstruct certain vital components of his personal profile. As a case in point, from the volume and variety of rhetorical figures and stylistic conceits scattered throughout his prose we may deduce that he had received an advanced education by the standards of the day.4 Furthermore, we know from the text itself not only that he was a practicing monk but also where he practiced his monasticism. In the body of the work he states that he and his fellow travelers made up a band of seven ‘brothers’ (ἀδελϕοί) who had come from Jerusalem.5 All seven monks lived in the same monastery in Jerusalem. In the preface to the HM Anon. identifies himself as belonging to ‘the pious brotherhood living on the holy Mount of Olives’ (ἡ εὐλαβὴς ἀδελφότης ἐν τῷ ἁγίῳ ὄρει τῶν ἐλαιῶν πολιτευομένη).6 His usage of the qualitative adjective ἅγιος for the Mount of Olives is an allusion to its contemporary status as a revered Christian holy site. This area, part of a ridge of hills which lay to the east of Jerusalem across the Kidron Valley, has rich significance for biblical history.7 For instance, there was a cave near the summit which as early as the second century was being identified as the place where Jesus had delivered his Olivet discourse;8 Constantine (via Helena) constructed over this grotto a somewhat large (30.5 × 19 m) church known as the ‘Eleona’.9 Some fifty yards away the Church of the Ascension was built, perhaps in 384/5, on the reputed site of Christ’s ascension into heaven; late fourth-century visitors claimed that his footprints were still Storia di monaci. Traduzione, introduzione e note (Rome, 1991), though it frequently gives little more than an infelicitous paraphrase of the Latin. 3 The possible reasons for his self-elected anonymity are discussed in A. Cain, The Greek Historia Monachorum in Aegypto: Monastic Hagiography in the Late Fourth Century, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford, 2016), 49-57. 4 A. Cain, ‘The Style of the Greek Historia Monachorum in Aegypto’, REAug 58 (2012), 57-96; id., The Greek Historia Monachorum (2016), 92-124. 5 HM 1.13, 19. In contemporary Christian idiom the word ἀδελφός, when used in monastic contexts, had the specialized connotation of ‘monk’; see Y. Meimaris, Sacred Names, Saints, Martyrs and Church Officials in the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri pertaining to the Christian Church of Palestine (Athens, 1986), 227-34; E. Wipszycka, Moines et communautés monastiques en Égypte (IVe-VIIIe siècles) (Warsaw, 2009), 292. 6 HM Prol. 2. 7 O. Limor, Christian Traditions on the Mount of Olives in the Byzantine and Arab Periods (Jerusalem, 1978); P.W.L. Walker, Holy City, Holy Places? Christian Attitudes to Jerusalem and the Holy Land in the Fourth Century (Oxford, 1990), 199-229. 8 Matt. 24:1-26:2. 9 L.H. Vincent, ‘L’Église de l’Eléona’, RB 8 (1911), 219-65; id., ‘L’Eléona, sanctuaire primitif de l’Ascension’, RB 64 (1957), 48-71; cf. J.E. Taylor, Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins (Oxford, 1993), 143-56.

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visible there.10 On the eastern slope of the Mount lay the village of Bethany, where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and Lazarus’ alleged sepulchral tomb was a major Christian pilgrimage attraction during the fourth century.11 It was also at Bethany that Lazarus’ sisters Martha and Mary showed Jesus hospitality at their home,12 and by the late fourth century a grotto known as the Cave of Bethany had come to be identified as the house of Mary and Martha, but prior to the fourth century it was not venerated as a Christian site.13 The Mount of Olives (and the Jerusalem area in general, for that matter14) became a popular destination for devout Christian pilgrims in the post-Constantinian period,15 and it also attracted its fair share of monastic settlers.16 Most famous of them all, to judge by the surviving historical record, were Rufinus of Aquileia and the wealthy senatorial widow Melania the Elder, who in the early 380s co-founded on the Mount of Olives a multi-edifice complex consisting of a monastery, a convent, and a hostel for Christian pilgrims. By the mid-390s this establishment had become renowned both in the Jerusalem area as well as throughout the eastern and western Roman empire, owing in no small part to Melania’s patronage of clergy and fellow monastics and to the hospitality that she and Rufinus showed to the scores of Christian pilgrims who passed through Jerusalem on a yearly basis. In some respects their monastic complex even became synonymous, in the Christian imagination at least, with the sacred topography of the Mount of Olives itself, and indeed Rufinus’ monastery almost certainly is the one from which Anon. originated.17 Near the end of his preface Anon. explains that he wrote the HM in order ‘to provide the perfect with a stimulus to emulation and a reminder, and beginners 10

R. Desjardins, ‘Les vestiges du Seigneur au mont des Oliviers’, BLE 73 (1972), 51-72. See Egeria, itin. 29.3; Jerome, epist. 108.12.2; Palladius, hist. Laus. 44.5. Sometime during this same century a three-naved church, known as the Lazarium, had been built up around the grotto (see Jerome, onom. 59.17-8). It was destroyed by an earthquake after the fourth century and replaced by a second church in the sixth century. 12 Lk. 10:38-42; Jn. 11:1-12:11. 13 J.E. Taylor, Christians and the Holy Places (1993), 180-92. 14 In the fourth century Jerusalem was widely regarded as the most venerable place in the Christian world because it had witnessed the Lord’s passion, death, and resurrection, and as such it was the most popular destination for Christian pilgrims due to its perceived intrinsic holiness. On its pre-eminence in post-Constantinian sacred topography, see J. Elsner, ‘The Itinerarium Burdigalense: Politics and Salvation in the Geography of Constantine’s Empire’, JRS 90 (2000), 181-95 (194-5). 15 F. Cardini, ‘La Gerusalemme di Egeria e il pellegrinaggio dei cristiani d’Occidente in Terra Santa fra IV e V secolo’, in Atti del Convegno internazionale sulla Peregrinatio Egeriae (Arezzo, 1990), 333-41. 16 On the tendency of fourth-century monks to found communities and settle in close proximity to recognized holy sites in Palestine, see C. Saulnier, ‘La vie monastique en Terre Sainte auprès des lieux de pèlerinage (IVe s.)’, in Miscellanea Historiae Ecclesiasticae VI, Section I: Les transformations dans la société chrétienne au IVe siècle (Brussels, 1983), 223-48. 17 A. Cain, The Greek Historia Monachorum (2016), 37-8. 11

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in the ascetic life with edification and spiritual profit.’18 In the body of the work he takes a two-pronged approach to edifying his readers. He sets up the Egyptian monks as Christ-like exemplars who are to be imitated by his readership, and he presents them as divinely inspired sages whose teachings he preserves in the form of aphorisms, anecdotes, and discourses, all of which are relayed ostensibly in the voices of the monks themselves.19 This pedagogical plan seems straightforward enough, yet there is more here than meets the eye. The teachings attributed to the Egyptian monks in the HM in fact have striking affinities with the ascetic mysticism of Evagrius of Pontus, who not coincidentally was the longtime spiritual mentor of Rufinus, the abbot of Anon.’s monastery. This being the case, the anonymous author appears to have conceived his work in part as a sophisticated piece of veiled propaganda for Evagrian asceticism,20 an inference supported by the fact that Rufinus used his monastery on the Mount of Olives as something of a publicity office for popularizing Evagrius’ teachings through the copying and dissemination of his writings.21 This, I shall propose in this paper, was not the only item on Anon.’s authorial agenda. The HM was composed most likely in the spring of 395, within a few months of the party of seven’s return to Jerusalem from their Egyptian expedition.22 As is well known to students of early Christian history, the mid-390s mark an eventful period that saw the outbreak of the first so-called Origenist controversy.23 The theater of war in which its initial phase played out was Palestine, with the conflict being concentrated essentially between two rival monastic communities – Rufinus’ monastery in Jerusalem, and Jerome’s monastery just down the road in the village of Bethlehem.24 Relations between these two communities seem to have been cordial for the first few years, but in 393 they began rapidly to devolve. The reasons for this downward spiral are many and complex, but the main underlying one 18 Ὅθεν πολλὴν ὠφέλειαν ἐξ αὐτῶν πορισάμενος ἐπὶ τὴν ἐξήγησιν ταύτην ἐχώρησα, πρὸς ζῆλον μὲν καὶ ὑπόμνησιν τῶν τελείων, πρὸς οἰκοδομὴν δὲ καὶ ὠφέλειαν τῶν ἀρχομένων ἀσκεῖν (HM Prol. 12). 19 A. Cain, The Greek Historia Monachorum (2016), 214-44. 20 Ibid. 245-59. 21 F.X. Murphy, Rufinus of Aquileia (345–410): His Life and Works (Washington, 1945), 227; A. Guillaumont, Un philosophe au désert: Évagre le Pontique (Paris, 2004), 171. 22 A. Cain, The Greek Historia Monachorum (2016), 39-40. 23 For an account of the controversy and its main actors, see E. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, 1992). 24 Jerome’s monastery in Bethlehem formed part of a multi-structure establishment that he co-founded with his Roman patron Paula in the late 380s. This establishment was patterned selfconsciously after Rufinus’ and Melania’s in Jerusalem, consisting as it did of a monastery, convent, and pilgrim hostel. See A. Cain, Jerome’s Epitaph on Paula: A Commentary on the Epitaphium Sanctae Paulae, with an Introduction, Text, and Translation, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford, 2013).

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concerned a fundamental difference of opinion about how to negotiate Origen’s theological legacy. On one side of the debate stood Epiphanius of Salamis,25 Jerome, and their partisans who condemned Origen as a heretic, and on the other side stood Rufinus, his diocesan bishop John of Jerusalem, and their allies who did not agree that Origen should retroactively be pronounced a heretic and his writings censured wholesale.26 Reading the HM against the backdrop of this conflict raises some interesting interpretive possibilities for the work. In this connection let us first consider Anon.’s structural plan for his writing: it is divided into twenty-six chapters that profile the who’s who of fourth-century Egyptian monasticism, a total of thirty-five distinguished monks both dead and living. This is a robust and diverse portrait-gallery, to be sure, yet the author indicates at the very beginning of his epilogue that his narrative only scratches the surface: We also saw many other monks and fathers throughout all of Egypt who performed many miracles and wonders which we did not mention on account of their great number, but we narrated a few to represent the many.27

This statement is significant for the simple reason that while Anon. calls attention to the scores of monks he omitted from his narrative, he simultaneously accentuates the monks he did elect to include. For our purposes this point deserves to be paused over because a conspicuous number of the monks profiled in the HM – including John of Lycopolis, to whom the first and also the very longest chapter in the work is devoted28 – were reputed to be sympathetic to Origenian theology,29 and in particular to the Evagrian-Origenian tradition in which many of the teachings attributed to them in the HM squarely fall.30 So, on that score, at least in terms of how they are represented in this text, they are people who neatly line up ideologically with Rufinus and his party. 25

For recent treatments of this controversial bishop, see Y.R. Kim, Epiphanius of Cyprus: Imagining an Orthodox World (Ann Arbor, 2015); A. Jacobs, Epiphanius of Cyprus: A Cultural Biography of Late Antiquity (Oakland, 2016). 26 For a summary of the controversy, see J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (London, 1975), 195-209; cf. E. Clark, The Origenist Controversy (1992). 27 Εἴδομεν δὲ καὶ ἄλλους μοναχοὺς πολλοὺς καὶ πατέρας κατὰ πᾶσαν τὴν Αἴγυπτον πολλὰς δυνάμεις καὶ σημεῖα ἐπιτελοῦντας, ὧν διὰ τὸ πλῆθος οὐκ ἐμνημονεύσαμεν, ἀλλ’ ὀλίγα ἀντὶ πολλῶν διηγησάμεθα (HM Epil. 1). 28 On John’s Origenist leanings, see E. Clark, The Origenist Controversy (1992), 68-70. 29 For the lively debate about the actual extent of Origen’s influence on fourth-century Egyptian monasticism, see for example J. Dechow, Dogma and Mysticism in Early Christianity: Epiphanius of Cyprus and the Legacy of Origen, Patristic Monograph Series 13 (Leuven, 1988), with a cautionary review by G. Gould in JThS n.s. 41 (1990), 673-82; G. Gould, ‘Recent Work on Monastic Origins: A Consideration of the Questions Raised by Samuel Rubenson’s The Letters of St. Antony’, SP 25 (1993), 405-16; S. Rubenson, ‘Origen in the Egyptian Monastic Tradition of the Fourth Century’, in W. Bienert (ed.), Origeniana Septima: Origenes in den Auseinandersetzungen des 4. Jahrhunderts (Leuven, 1999), 319-37. 30 A. Cain, The Greek Historia Monachorum (2016), 245-59.

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That a discriminating contemporary reader was able to pick up on this Origenist slant is confirmed by a disparaging comment that Jerome drops in a letter written around 414: [Rufinus] wrote (scripsit) a book also about supposed monks. In it he enumerates many – those who never existed, and those whom he declares to have been Origenists and who certainly have been condemned by the bishops. I mean Ammonius, Eusebius, Euthymius, Evagrius himself, Or, Isidore, and many others whom it would be tedious to list… He put at the front of the book itself one John, who is undoubtedly Catholic and a saint, so that by using John in this way he might introduce into the church the rest of the heretics he had put in there.31

Jerome is referring here to Rufinus’ Latin translation of the Greek HM, and from this passage it seems clear that he regarded it as an original composition rather than as a mere translation; this, at any rate, is the natural sense of scribere.32 Nevertheless, his negative assessment applies equally to the Greek HM, for all of the monks he lists above (except the Tall Brother Euthymius) appear in the Greek original.33 Moreover, Jerome is roundly critical of the HM and is convinced that its author, whom he assumes to be Rufinus, abused his authorial license to manipulate the internal order of the chapters by placing the one on John of Lycopolis at the very beginning in a bid to use this work as a literary Trojan Horse for sneaking Origenist monks into the church’s fold undetected. Furthermore, although the HM presents to readers ostensibly as a travelogue,34 in reality it reads more like a digest of miracles, something akin to the kinds of libri miraculorum that proliferated during Late Antiquity.35 We encounter monks who raise the dead,36 walk on water,37 make the sun stand still in its course,38 31 Qui librum quoque scripsit quasi de monachis multosque in eo enumerat, qui numquam fuerunt et quos fuisse describit Origenistas et ab episcopis damnatos esse non dubium est, Ammonium videlicet et Eusebium et Euthymium et ipsum Evagrium, Or quoque et Isidorum et multos alios, quos enumerare taedium est … ille unum Iohannem in ipsius libri posuit principio, quem et catholicum et sanctum fuisse non dubium est, ut per illius occasionem ceteros, quos posuerat hereticos, ecclesiae introduceret (Jerome, epist. 133.3). 32 See OLD sv scribo 12a. On the relationship between the Greek and Latin versions of the HM, see C.P. Bammel, ‘Problems of the Historia Monachorum’, JThS n.s. 47 (1996), 92-104. 33 Rufinus’ translation is largely faithful to the Greek HM, though he does add some elements of his own, such as numerous pro-Evagrian touches. See A. Cain, ‘Rufinus’ Historia monachorum in Aegypto and the Promulgation of Evagrian Ascetic Teaching’, VC 71 (2017), 285-314. 34 A. Cain, The Greek Historia Monachorum (2016), 58-62. See also G. Frank, The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 2000), 35-49. 35 For an overview of this genre of hagiographic literature, see H. Delehaye, ‘Les recueils antiques de miracles des saints’, AB 43 (1925), 5-85, 305-25; R. Aigrain, L’hagiographie: ses sources, ses méthodes, son histoire (Brussels, 2000), 132-85; cf. A. Cain, ‘Miracles, Martyrs, and Arians: Gregory of Tours’ Sources for his Account of the Vandal Kingdom’, VC 59 (2005), 412-37, 425. 36 HM 10.11; Epil. 2. 37 HM Prol. 9; 10.20; 14.16; Epil. 2. 38 HM 10.12-4.

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teleport themselves,39 multiply loaves of bread for hungry crowds,40 heal all sorts of physical ailments,41 and cast out demons.42 These miracles would have had a familiar ring to them for contemporary Christian readers because they are some of the very miracles recorded in the Bible. This is no coincidence. Anon. systematically configures the Egyptian monks as the latter-day successors to the prophets and apostles of the Old and New Testaments. He does so both explicitly, such as when he calls Apollo of Bawit ‘a new prophet and apostle’ (νέος τις προφήτης καὶ ἀπόστολος),43 and implicitly, such as when he recounts a given monk’s miracles in words allusively evoking aretalogical stories from Scripture.44 His typological equation of these monks with the miracle-working greats of the Bible lies at the heart of his broader strategy to romanticize them as the holiest living Christians on earth, and the Egyptian desert they call home as the world’s epicenter of monasticism.45 These monks’ unrivalled holiness and close communion with God imply that their teaching authority, which is on prolific display throughout the narrative, comes with a de facto seal of divine approval. This in turn implies that their orthodoxy is beyond question, a point Anon. also emphasizes in various ways and on numerous occasions. For example, he notes that Abba Or, during their visit with him, instructed them in ‘the orthodox faith’ (τὴν ὀρθόδοξον πίστιν).46 The phrase ἡ ὀρθόδοξος πίστις would have evoked for contemporary readers, especially those who were au courant on the doctrinal debates of the day, the emperor Theodosius’ ratification of Nicene Christianity as the state religion. Anon.’s underlying message, then, is that Or was a proponent of state-sponsored orthodoxy and thus he was diametrically opposed to heresy.47 39

HM 10.21; 22.7. HM 8.44-6. 41 HM Prol. 9; 1.12; 1.16; 6.1; 7.2; 9.11; 10.1; 22.3-4; 26.1. 42 HM 10.1; 15.1; 24.10. 43 HM 8.8. 44 For a detailed analysis of his deployment of typological figuration, see Cain, The Greek Historia Monachorum (2016), 146-81. For the use of typological reference from the Bible in early Christian hagiography more generally, cf. L. Coon, Sacred Fictions: Holy Women and Hagiography in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia, 1997), 1-27; D.M. Deliyannis, ‘A Biblical Model for Serial Biography: The Book of Kings and the Roman Liber Pontificalis’, RBén 107 (1997), 15-23; J.W. Earl, ‘Typology and Iconographic Style in Early Medieval Hagiography’, Studies in the Literary Imagination 8 (1975), 15-46; D. Krueger, Writing and Holiness: The Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East (Philadelphia, 2004), 15-32; J.M. Petersen, The Dialogues of Gregory the Great in their Late Antique Cultural Background (Toronto, 1984), 25-55; M. van Uytfanghe, ‘L’empreinte biblique sur la plus ancienne hagiographie occidentale’, in J. Fontaine and C. Pietri (eds), Le monde latin antique et la Bible (Paris, 1985), 565-611. 45 John Cassian, too, fixes the Egyptian desert as the world’s monastic center of gravity; see coll. 11.1. 46 HM 2.7. 47 This literary representation of him, needless to say, is ironic in view of Jerome’s labelling of Abba Or as an Origenist heretic in the above-quoted passage. 40

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As highly as he elevates the Egyptian desert monks, Anon. does not admire them impersonally from afar. He instead vividly recreates scenes in which his party are welcomed by them with warm hospitality and even doting.48 In fact, the overall impression conveyed to readers, as we vicariously follow the party from one stop to the next, is that they bonded with their hosts on a meaningful level, rather than interacted with them as the kind of casual, curiosity-seeking pilgrims who notoriously would flock to famous monks in order to receive some blessing from them or simply to gaze upon them as other-worldly spectacles or oddities.49 Above and beyond the camaraderie suggested by his literary recreation of his meetings with individual Egyptian monks, Anon. lays claim to and indeed asserts a certain proprietorship over these monks and their legacies by his very gesture of assuming the mantle of authorship in the first place. After all, it is through the transcription of his eyewitness testimony that he positions himself as the intermediary through whom Greek-speaking readers gain exclusive access to elusive Coptic-speaking desert monks who under normal circumstances are inaccessible to them both geographically and linguistically. Every story he relays about them, every word of wisdom he claims to have heard from their lips, he refracts through his own narratival lens, deciding precisely what and whom to narrate. In other words, he oversees the script and dictates the terms on which the Egyptian monks are to be received by his broader readership. Other Christian hagiographers in Late Antiquity also seized upon the possibilities that this authorial dynamic opens up, placing controls on their narrated subjects for the sake of some larger, extra-textual cause. For instance, Athanasius crafted the protagonist of his Life of Antony into the quintessential monk, and this ‘holy man’ construct in turn enabled him to champion Antony as an authoritative mouthpiece of his own rendition of Nicene orthodoxy.50 To take another example, Jerome, in his letters and other works, tried to legitimize his own controversial ascetic and scholarly special interests by panegyrizing various women in his social circle as saints who – to believe his portrayal of things – applauded his pursuits and made his teachings a cornerstone for their own spirituality.51 The anonymous author of the Greek HM likewise marshalled the latent power of the hagiographic text to achieve his own apologetic goal. He was writing at a time when tensions between his own monastery and Jerome’s monastery 48

For a review of these episodes in the broader context of ancient monastic hospitality, see Cain, The Greek Historia Monachorum (2016), 39-40. 49 For discussion of this well-documented phenomenon, see Frank, The Memory of the Eyes (2000), 69-70, 85-87. 50 D. Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (Oxford, 1995), 201-65. 51 A. Cain, ‘Rethinking Jerome’s Portraits of Holy Women’, in A. Cain and J. Lössl (eds), Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings and Legacy (Aldershot, 2009), 47-57; A. Cain, ‘Jerome’s Epitaphium Paulae: Hagiography, Pilgrimage, and the Cult of Saint Paula’, JECS 18 (2010), 105-39.

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in Bethlehem were at a fever pitch. His own abbot, Rufinus, as well as his bishop, John of Jerusalem, had been accused of defending Origen, and consequently their own theological orthodoxy was called into question. Our author, realistically speaking, could not have been unaware of or even unaffected by this bitter conflict which was embroiling his monastic community during the mid-390s. As a result, I have argued, he hoped to give his monastery a certain symbolic leverage in this conflict by using the HM to document its allegedly close ties to the monks of the Egyptian desert. These monks, as he circumscribes them in his narrative, are the ideal agents to recruit as his metaphorical allies and spiritual patrons. They are the holiest Christians on earth who trace their spiritual lineage back to the prophets and apostles of the Bible. Not only that, but also their orthodoxy is unimpeachable, guaranteed as it is by their uniquely intimate connection to God. This means in effect that the Origenian-Evagrian teachings ascribed to them in the text are themselves the pedagogical product of divinely inspired teachers. Such outstanding holy men, then, would not associate themselves with any Christians having the whiff of heresy, much less with pious monastic pilgrims from a monastery located in one of fourth-century Christianity’s most sacred precincts of perhaps its holiest city, Jerusalem.

Swaying between Monasticism and Laity: Re-shaping the Character of Severus of Antioch in his Biography Written by Patriarch Cyriacus of Tikrit (d. 817) Iskandar BCHEIRY, American Theological Library Association and Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, IL, USA

ABSTRACT The Biography of Severus by Patriarch Cyriacus is a relatively brief narration of Severus’ achievements and virtues. The main structure and the literary narration of the text show that Cyriacus used the Biography of Severus attributed to John Beth Aphtonia as the framework for his own discourse, also with noticeable similarity with the structure and literary narration of Severus’ Biography by George, bishop of the Arabs. The dependency of the text of Patriarch Cyriacus on John of Beth Aphtonia and George, bishop of the Arabs represents an opportunity for a textual comparison between the three Biographies of Severus not so much perceiving the similarities between them but rather the differences. Among the major differences, Patriarch Cyriacus of Tikrit emphasized the connection between Severus of Antioch and laypeople, and sometimes on the account of his monastic image.

Introduction Only recently, the Biography of Severus of Antioch written by the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Cyriacus of Tikrit at the beginning of the ninth century was added to the list of other already published biographies of Severus.1 The purpose 1

Severus’ life and deeds were narrated in a collection of Biographies composed by different authors. The first was composed by Zachariah Rhetor around 515. A second, was composed by an anonymous writer and attributed to John, abbot of the monastery of Beth Aphtonia in north Syria, who died ca. 558. Another biography is attributed to the anti-Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch, Athanasius I Gamolō (594-631). George, bishop of the Arabs, who died around 727 wrote a biography of Severus in metrical homiletic relying on the Anonymous Biography of Severus attributed to John of Beth Aphtonia. A fifth biography of Severus, which also is dependent on the Anonymous Biography of Severus attributed to John of Beth Aphtonia was written by Patriarch Cyriacus of Tikrit who died in 817. A sixth biography was composed in Arabic by a certain bishop of Assyūṭ in the fifteenth century. About the bibliographical materials for the life of Severus see Sebastian P. Brock and Brian Fitzgerald, Two Early Lives of Severos, Patriarch of Antioch, Translated Texts for Historians 59 (Liverpool, 2013), 11-5. Also, Iskandar Bcheiry, Hagiography, History, and Manuscript Culture: Studies in Syriac Christianity (Kaslik, 2018), 5-6.

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 167-180. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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of my presentation is to shed light on an interesting aspect in the Biography of Severus that was not discussed or highlighted previously. In his Biography of Severus, Patriarch, Cyriacus of Tikrit emphasized the connection between Severus of Antioch and laypeople, and sometimes on the account of his monastic career. Another purpose for this article is to understand the circumstances behind the emphasis of Patriarch Cyriacus in connecting Severus with laity. An emphasis, that according to my opinion mirrors a dynamical relationship between church authority, monasticism and laypeople during the eighth and ninth centuries. However, before proceeding with this, I would like first to introduce briefly the author, his audience, and the point of comparison. Cyriacus of Tikrit, the Biography of Severus and his audience Patriarch Cyriacus (793-817), was born in the city of Tikrit in the middle of the eighth century. He studied and became a monk in the Monastery of Pillar near al-Raqqah (Callinicos). He was elected patriarch in 793 at a Synod that took place at the city of Harran. Patriarch Cyriacus held five Synods and ordained eighty-six metropolitans and bishops. He died in Mosul in 817 and was buried in his hometown Tikrit. Among the writings of Patriarch Cyriacus is a theological book named The Divine Providence. Three discourses: on the Sunday of the priests, on the ‘vineyard of the beloved’, mentioned by Isaiah (5:1-7) and on Severus of Antioch.2 The discourse on Severus of Antioch by Patriarch Cyriacus of Tikrit is included among many homilies by different authors in a Syriac manuscript from the twelfth century with registration number A 12008 in the Oriental Institute Museum-Chicago. The discourse on Severus is written in Syriac Estrangelo in two columns and titled in red ink ÿÚÃà{ ¿þÙËùâïx¿ćäō{u{ †ÎúٍÎù €üäà üÚãsx üÙüÓ¾ò ÁüÙ{¾é €üã ÀÍà¾ćà ‘Also a discourse on the Saint and God-clad, patriarch Mor Severus which was composed by patriarch Cyriacus’. The Biography of Severus meant something personal to Cyriacus. Severus as a patriarch was a father of his church an image that Cyriacus as a patriarch would certainly assume for himself.3 The audience to whom Cyriacus delivered his discourse on Severus of Antioch mainly were lay people and not a monastic community. This discourse was delivered explicitly on the anniversary day of the death of Severus.4 Cyriacus invited the congregation to remember Severus’ faith and good works, he says: 2 See Ignatius Afram Barsoum, The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences, trans. Matti Moosa, 2nd ed. (Piscataway, NJ, 2003), 376. 3 See Witold Witakowski, ‘Quryaqos’, in Sebastian P. Brock et al. (eds), The Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (Piscataway, NJ, 2011), 347-8; William Wright, A Short History of Syriac Literature (London, 1894), 165-6. 4 The feast of Severus of Antioch occurs on the day of his death February 8th.

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‘O my priestly children of the Church, let us honor our father in a pure commemoration, let us come in the day of the commemoration of his death with divine services and chanting’.5 Also he adds: ‘With commitment and zeal for the sake of the truth of our faith, and through these and like these (zeal and faith), we honor our father in the day of his memorial’.6 Cyriacus addressed his audience also as ‘distinguished listeners’,7 ‘the true faithful people’,8 and again ‘priestly children of the Church’.9 Point of comparison The Biography of Severus by Patriarch Cyriacus is a relatively brief narration of Severus’ achievements and virtues. The main structure and the literary narration of the text show that Cyriacus used the Biography of Severus attributed to John Beth Aphtonia as the framework for his own discourse, also with noticeable similarity with the structure and literary narration of Severus’ Biography by George, bishop of the Arabs.10 The dependency of the text of Patriarch Cyriacus on the Biography of Severus attributed to John of Beth Aphtonia and on Biography of Severus written by George, bishop of the Arabs represents an opportunity for a textual comparison between the three Biographies of Severus not so much perceiving the similarities between them but rather the differences. The alterations that were made by Patriarch Cyriacus in his writing of Severus’ Biography reflect an interest in Cyriacus’ pastoral activity and his ecclesiastic policy as a patriarch. Therefore, and as a point of comparison, I would explore the Biography of Severus written by Patriarch Cyriacus in assessment with John of Beth Aphtonia, and George, bishop of the Arabs. Severus and his connection to Laity In the following, several accounts, statements, and incidents regarding the Biography of Severus by Cyriacus of Tikrit will be presented and discussed and often in comparison with Severus’ other biographies. 5 Cyriacus, Biography of Severus, 51, ed. and trans. Iskandar Bcheiry, Hagiography, History, and Manuscript Culture (2018), 45. A few comments regarding footnote references. After giving the full bibliographic reference of each one of Severus’ biographies, then, we will only refer to the source and the intended paragraph or line numbers. Sometimes, I use the title ‘the Biography of Severus by John of Beth Aphtonia’, although that this biography was written by an unidentified author and attributed to John. 6 Ibid. 52. 7 Ibid. 2. 8 Ibid. 3. 9 Ibid. 4. 10 I. Bcheiry, Hagiography, History, and Manuscript Culture (2018), 9.

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1. The turning point in Severus’ life: baptism versus monasticism Patriarch Cyriacus emphasized Severus’ baptism as the turning point in the saint life. This is different from what was mentioned in the Biographies of Severus attributed to John of Beth Aphtonia or George, bishop of the Arabs which both emphasized Severus desire and vow for monasticism as the central point in Severus’ life. For example, in Severus’ Biographies by John and Bishop George, the influence of the writings of Saints Basil and Gregory on Severus’ desire for monastic life is well attested.11 Also, both Biographies highlighted the psychological emotions such as a ‘profound sadness and distress’ that seized Severus after his baptism because ‘he was still clothing himself with the garment of laymen and not with the garment of monasticism’.12 And both Biographies described Severus’ radical promise that he made in Jerusalem to follow completely Christ by turning his back totally on the world, ‘stripping off the garment of worldliness, and putting on the attire of monasticism’, and by ‘crucifying the world and crucifying himself to the world’.13 In contrary to this monastic emphasis, Patriarch Cyriacus highlighted the influence of the writings of Basil and Gregory on Severus’ desire for ‘the glorious mysteries of Baptism and of what baptism would grant to those who were born from it’. Because of these writings, Severus ran to the city of Tripoli where he received baptism and ‘his sonship (to God) was completed’: While he was still living there (in Beirut) and meditating on these (books of philosophy), the writings of the two holy and universal fathers Basil and Gregory on Baptism came into his hands. When he (Severus) read them, he learned of the glorious mysteries of priestly Baptism and of what this washing would grant to those who were born from it. He also learned to what glorious and celestial things it (baptism) would elevate them. Thus, he immediately rejected the delights of the world and all it contains with the intention of seeking baptism. He ran to the city of Tripoli and was baptized there in the sanctuary of the great martyr Leontius, and his adoption was made complete.14

It is true, that later and after his baptism, Severus went to Palestine where he joined the monastery of Peter the Iberian becoming a monk, however, in Cyriacus’ Biography of Severus there is no mention of sadness, remorse, distress, or even a monastic want that seized Severus before, during or right after his baptism in Tripoli. And in contrary to John of Beth Aphtonia or George, bishop of the Arabs, Patriarch Cyriacus did not mention anything about Severus’ visit to Jerusalem and other holy places, where according to the biographies of John 11 Anon. Biography of Severus, 16, trans. S.P. Brock and B. Fitzgerald, Two Early Lives of Severos, Patriarch of Antioch (2013), 106-7. 12 Anon. Biography of Severus, 18; George, Biography of Severus, 238-70, ed. and trans. Kathleen E. McVey, George, Bishop of the Arabs: A Homily on Blessed Mar Severus, Patriarch of Antioch, CSCO 530-1, Syr. 216-7 (Louvain, 1993), 8-9. 13 Anon. Biography of Severus, 24; George, Biography of Severus, 238-70. 14 Cyriacus, Biography of Severus, 8.

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and George, Severus embraced monasticism. Cyriacus only mentioned that Severus joined the monastery of Peter the Iberian in Gaza: From there he departed to the land of Palestine, to the monastery of Saint Peter the Iberian, where many great and wondrous men are found: perfect mystics and humble elders who were the (spiritual) children and disciples of the great Peter.15

Cyriacus totally omitted the section that strongly describe Severus’ monastic vow in Jerusalem found in both Biographies by John and George. 2. Baptismal vow versus monastic vow The importance of Severus’ baptism as the turning point in his life is again highlighted in the narration of Patriarch Cyriacus by mentioning Severus’ vow to never wash his body with water after his baptism: Since the time of his baptism until his departure from this life he never washed his body with water.16 The smell of the priestly chrism wafted from his pure body to such a degree that when he was walking in the market people would think that he had oiled his body carefully with fragrant.17

And when one-time Severus was severely ill and his comrades took him by force to lay him down on a marble stone in the bathhouse with his clothes on, ‘yet the water never touched his priestly body’. So, Severus’ baptismal vow was preserved: One time he was severely ill and a strong cold fell upon him to such a degree that he collapsed because of it on the floor as if he was a dead man. Those with Severus took him by force in order to lay him down on a marble stone in the public bath with his clothes on, yet the water never touched his priestly body. When this was done, and after 15

Cyriacus, Biography of Severus, 9. The Ethiopic biography of Severus mentions that after his baptism, Severus did not wash his body with water for seven days. See Edgar Johnson Goodspeed (ed. and trans.), The Conflict of Severus, Patriarch of Antioch by Athanasius, PO 4 (Turnhout, 1909), 599-600. This custom is attested also by Dionysius Bar Ṣalībī in his discourse on Baptism: ‘Those who are baptized do not wash for seven days, indicating that the hidden power they have received from baptism cannot be washed off, is invincible, for all the cycle of the time of their sojourn in the world. The baptized do not wash or bathe for seven days because the number seven is sacred for the Hebrews. The world moves about in the number seven and (the number) eight represents the coming (age). In the world, we should keep the baptism in purity. When we reach the world of (the number) eight, we will be seen pure and without blemish. As the Israelites were separated with circumcision, by baptism that symbolizes circumcision, we are separated from the gentiles, as Paul had said. You have been circumcised with a circumcision without hands, by the stripping off of the flesh of sins (Col. 2:11). Just as the Hebrew priests who were anointed, remained for seven days, adorned with the anointing, so too bodily bridegrooms also remain in nuptial robes for seven days’, Baby Vargese, Dionysius Bar Salibi. Commentary on Myron and Baptism (Kottayyam, 2006), 174-6. 17 Cyriacus, Biography of Severus, 45. 16

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he had recovered, he left power from his holy body on the table of marble, so that all those who were gravely ill recovered easily with health as soon as they touched the stone. And this continued for many years.18

In the Biographies of Severus by John of Beth Aphtonia and Bishop George, this event is narrated quite differently. Both Biographies mentioned that right before his death, Severus fell ill and his comrades together with the physicians persuaded him to take bath, he agreed in condition that he would not take off his cloths because of his vow that he would not see his body bare of the monastic habit all his life. His disciples promised him that they would not enter him the bath without his monastic garment upon him.19 In this event, both Biographies of John and Bishop George, stressed the monastic virtue and vow of Severus.20 Meanwhile, Patriarch Cyriacus underlined Severus’ baptismal vow. Highlighting the importance of baptism in the Biography of Severus as the turning point of his life it connects the listeners of this discourse which mainly were lay people to the life of Severus. Baptism is a common ground among all Christians, while monasticism is limited to minority in the church. The emphasis on baptism has more appeal to the ears of the lay people and meaning to their lives than monasticism. 3. The cult of Severus: miracle-performer Furthermore, the outcomes of laying Severus down on a marble stone in the bathhouse are different. In the Biographies of John of Beth Aphtonia and George, Bishop of the Arabs, Severus consented to the will of his companions to carry him to the bathhouse ‘although he knew that he would not be healed’.21 His disciples carried his body according to their wish, and they had him enter and set him upon a slab in the bathhouse so that he might be warmed. Severus was not healed at all in the bathhouse, however he left on the stone a great power from his limbs, so that everyone who comes will receive from it all remedies’.22 According to John of Beth Aphtonia and Bishop George, only one miracle occurred int that occasion. However, in the narration of Patriarch Cyriacus, three miracles occurred in bathhouse: first, the water did not touch the body of Severus, second, Severus was recovered from his illness, and third, 18

Cyriacus, Biography of Severus, 46. Anon. Biography of Severus, 78; George, Biography of Severus, 830-62. 20 The Anonymous Biography of Severus attributed to John of Beth Aphtonia mentions Severus’ refraining from bathing as part of his monastic vow ‘he (Severus) kept up the hard life, as was indeed his monastic habit, i.e., in reclining on the ground, refraining from bathing…’, Anon. Biography of Severus, 58. Also, Bishop George mentions that among the monastic acts that Severus took hold of was his absence of bathing: ‘He took hold of monastic way of life in which he had been educated, with its food and drink and garment and the absence of bathing…’, George, Biography of Severus, 587-8. 21 George, Biography of Severus, 845-6. 22 Anon. Biography of Severus, 78; George, Biography of Severus, 851-4. 19

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the power that was left from him on the stone. Furthermore, the account of Cyriacus contains additional dynamical details which according to my opinion support the cult of Severus as Patriarch-miracles maker.23 A cult, that Cyriacus would refer to at the end of his discourse stating that although Severus left his priestly body on earth for the honor and help of the faithful, he remained a ‘physician to the sick and a healer of the afflicted, a persecutor of demons and expeller of bad spirits and a rebuker of vicious heretics’.24 4. Severus’ virtues in connection to laity Further incidents in the Biography of Severus by patriarch Cyriacus show the regular interaction of Severus with ordinary laypeople. According to his biographies, Severus’ body wafted sweet aroma, which did not depart from his body until his death. And those who encountered this aroma they thought he perfumed himself with myrrh. Patriarch Cyriacus mentioned the same fact however with an additional information: ‘The smell of the priestly chrism wafted from his pure body to such a degree that when he was walking in the marketplace people would think that he had oiled his body carefully with fragrant’.25 Here, we have an image from a daily life reality and in connection with laity – Severus walking in the marketplace – where usually people gather and carry their business.26 In fact, connecting lay people with the sweet aroma of Severus was also mentioned by Cyriacus at the beginning of his discourse, when he stated that ‘All the true faithful people truly delight in the benefit of the merits of the great Severus. His celestial and pleasant scent pleases their sense of smell more than the good scent of Holy Chrism’.27 5. Severus pastoral care toward laity The Biography of Severus by Cyriacus of Tikrit differs from other biographies in its way of highlighting Severus’ pastoral care toward a much wider range of

23 In a style of contrast and similarity, Patriarch Cyriacus presented this event according to rich opposing images: Severus falling like a dead on the floor followed by Severus rising healthy from a stone that he was laid on. Severus’ holy/priestly body due to the ‘washing’ baptism was untouched or unspoiled by the worldly water in the bathhouse. The garment that Severus refused to take off in the bathhouse mirrors ‘the garment of glory’ and the ‘sweet aroma’ that he received during his baptism which did not depart from his body all his life on earth. The supplications for a cure by Severus’ companions are rewarded by God’s response and healing. 24 Cyriacus, Biography of Severus, 50. 25 Ibid. 47. 26 Bishop George emphasizes the miracle of the sweet aroma which wafted from Severus’ body in the context of placing Severus’ body after his death in the middle of the church before his burial taking place: ‘The body of this pious man was put in the middle of the church, and the sweet fragrance of baptism wafts from it’, George, Biography of Severus, 953-4. 27 Cyriacus, Biography of Severus, 3.

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people.28 Patriarch Cyriacus mentioned Severus’ ‘love for all people’.29 Severus distributed his inheritance ‘in a saintly and wise way to the poor, and the needy, the orphan and the widow’.30 When he became a patriarch, Severus ‘removed the kitchen that was found in the patriarchal residency and he bought bread from the marketplace each day for himself and for those who were with him’.31 In the city of Antioch, Severus ‘distributed food to the poor, distressed, orphans, and widows’.32 Severus was described by Patriarch Cyriacus as a ‘father for the orphans, a husband for the widows, an eye on the poor and afflicted and a guardian for all those who were in distress. He was kind to everybody and an advocate for the people involved in all kinds of trades and professions. He constantly sought peace for the kings and political tranquility in their kingdoms, honor to the priest and the excellent administration by the bishops and that the entire world in all its limits would be abundant in the fear of God’.33 6. Severus and common priesthood of the people In the Biography of Severus by Cyriacus, the term priestly is mentioned many times: for example, he described the people of his church as ‘priestly children of the Church’,34 the family of Severus as ‘a priestly family that was both wealthy and well-known’,35 the baptism as ‘the glorious mysteries of priestly baptism’,36 the Church as ‘the priestly Church’,37 Chrism ‘the priestly Chrism’,38 Severus’ body ‘his priestly body’,39 and again he calls the people of his church as ‘my priestly children of the Church’.40 The term priestly, indicates a sacramental and baptismal meaning to which the lay people also share. Theologically, through the priesthood of Christ and his baptism each anointed and baptized Christian shares in his priestly, prophetic and kingly office.41 Cyriacus 28 There is no much description about Severus’ pastoral activity and compassion toward people in the Anonymous Biography of Severus attributed to John of Beth Aphtonia. The only place he was described with such quality it says: ‘he gave to the poor the greater part of the portion that came to him’ also that Severus ‘addressed the needs of the poor and strangers’, Anon. Biography of Severus, 37. 29 Cyriacus, Biography of Severus, 11. 30 Ibid. 15. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 48. 34 Ibid. 4. 35 Ibid. 6. 36 Ibid. 8. 37 Ibid. 22. 38 Ibid. 45. 39 Ibid. 46. 40 Ibid. 51. 41 The Syriac fathers saw the Old Testament allusions to the olive, oil or anointing of priests, kings and prophets as types of Christ’s anointing and consequently that of baptismal anointing.

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emphasized a common ground that includes all the baptized Christians in the priesthood of Christ. Cyriacus connect the Saint with the people on the same theological ground.42 7. An occasion to honor an exceptional lay woman: Queen Theodora The Biography of Severus by Patriarch Cyriacus is distinguished from all other biographies by dedicating a special chapter about Severus’ secret visits and activity in Constantinople to support and encourage Queen Theodora and the anti-Chalcedonian party of the city. In this biography Theodora plays a major role beside Severus. She is portrayed as a fierce advocate of the Cyrillic Christology, as a holy woman and a model of purity and sanctity. In this account, Theodora defends the faith fiercely against the Chalcedonians in the Capital and against her husband, Emperor Justinian I. Theodora’s actions in defending the anti-Chalcedonian Christology were described using strong language: ‘The faithful Theodora fought fiercely with her husband King Justinian and with all the advocates of the wicked heresies of Chalcedon’, also ‘she beat them strongly on their heads with the clear words of St Cyril’, and ‘Theodora loathed the teaching of Chalcedon as if it was utterly filthy’. The name of Theodora is mentioned in religious form of honorific for the dead after living a righteous and holy life: Á{x{sÀÎÚêÐx¿æüÝ{ËàĀÙÎýÀĀÞáã Queen Theodora, worthy of blessed memory. In the context of a plot against Theodora and Severus that was planned by the Chalcedonians of the capital with the support of Justinian, Theodora’s role and personal character are presented at their climax. Theodora counterattacked her husband, exposing his Therefore, one can find a striking resemblance between the Old Testament royal and priestly anointing and the early Syriac baptismal anointing. See Baby Varghese, ‘Spirituality of Baptism: West Syrian Perspectives’, in Aikya Samiksha III/2 (2006), 47-60; also, Baby Varghese, Baptism and Chrismation in the Syriac Tradition, Seeri Correspondence Course on the Syriac Christian Heritage 8 (Kottayam, 1989), 21-5. 42 Jacob of Edessa in his commentary on the Myron writes: ‘Formerly a single horn used to anoint prophets, designates priests and proclaim kings, but here we have an anointing from the Holy One which perfects us all as priests and he did disciples of the Apostles, to stand before the Lord God of Israel as a holy people, a redeemed assembly, a royal priesthood, a choice and sweet-scented nation, and one resplendent in an invisible garment’. Sebastian Brock, ‘Jacob of Edessa’s Discourse on the Myron’, Oriens Christianus 63 (1979), 20-36, the quotation here is from paragraph number 4. George, bishop of Arabs writes: ‘He who has received the sign of the Lord in the baptism, can truly reign over all the passions. By the oil, the Kings received the crown and they reigned. It is by the oil that the priests received priesthood. The prophets also were anointed, and they prophesied. The mystery is astonishing, hidden and veiled and is not subject to examination. When the time came (for the oil) to manifest itself to the nations, The Church ran with her children and received it’. Victor Ryssel, ‘Poemi siriaci di Giorgio Vescovo degli arabi (VIII sec.)’, Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche IV, 9 (1892), 46-93. The English translation of Bishop George’s homily on the Myron (from where we quoted) was made by from B. Varghese, Baptism and Chrismation in the Syriac Tradition (1989), 62-3.

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actions. Here, the author uses the actions of the empress to highlight the virtues of Severus and the actions of Severus to highlight the virtue of Theodora. For example, Cyriacus stresses Severus’ strict monastic conduct when he forbade the empress herself (who came to warn him about the plot), to enter his dwelling. However, and even though Severus was respectfully refusing to open the door of his room to Queen Theodora, in the end, the empress was able to overcome his refusal by zeal and persistence, to the point that the door of his room finally opened to her. The zeal and persistence of a lay woman overcame the zeal and persistence of a prominent monk-patriarch.43 8. Severus and the public wellbeing The narration of Patriarch Cyriacus is the only biography of Severus that mentions and cites from Severus’ letter to Emperor Justinian I around in 531, in which he defended himself from accusations of stirring up sedition by distributing large amounts of money in Alexandria. Cyriacus cited this letter to highlight Severus’ commitment for the common good of the people and respect toward the worldly authority.44 Actually, and as we saw before, Cyriacus’ narration is the only biography that mentions Severus’ constant efforts and wishes for peace to the kings and political tranquility in their kingdoms. Patriarch Cyriacus through his Biography of Severus shows consideration to public security and order which are important to the life of the entire community. Analysis and discussion: An instructive means to teach all Christians why and how to be faithful The above-mentioned observations show that Patriarch Cyriacus intended to present Severus close to the lay people and for some degree on the account of his monastic career which make us wonder why? Patriarch Cyriacus gave his discourse on Severus for everyone and like all hagiographical narratives he offered an instructive example to edify his listeners on how to be a good Christian. At the same time Cyriacus connected the memory of Severus with the interest of lay people in venerating saints and seek their help. In order to strengthen the connection between the saint and the people, Cyriacus infused his narration with sacramental theology such as ‘highlighting Baptism as second rebirth and the perfection in the sonship of God’,45 underlining Chrism as is the source of the ‘Sweet odor of Christ’.46 Accentuating the ‘garment of glory’ that the saint did not want to take off or wash it off, underscoring the notion of the 43 44 45 46

Cyriacus, Biography of Severus, 34-41. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 45.

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priestly anointment that every Christian receives through baptism and the ‘growth in baptism mysteries’.47 Infusing the life of Severus with sacramental theology offered a common theological ground that lay people can also share and be part of. However, there is another aspect that we must consider. It is the desire of Patriarch Cyriacus to rewrite the events of the Christological controversy of Chalcedon that Severus was involved with. Cyriacus gave the impression that the ecclesiastic and political leadership before exiling Severus were ‘Orthodox’ in the sense of ‘Miaphysites’. In order to give that impression, Cyriacus omitted the name and the memory of the Chalcedonian patriarchs before Severus’ exile. The name of Macedonius, the Chalcedonian Patriarch of Constantinople (495-511),48 and Flavian II,49 the moderate Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch, both were omitted in Cyriacus’ narration of Severus.50 Cyriacus downplayed the role of the Chalcedonians prior to the exile of Severus by presenting them only as advocates of heresy, ‘wolves that lay in wait for the blood of the faithful’s soul’, or ‘small foxes that ravage the vineyards’,51 ‘the disciples of Satan’ who ‘appointed themselves advocates of the wicked synod of Chalcedon’. 52 In the meantime, in his account of the election and installation of Severus as patriarch of Antioch, Cyriacus stressed the full support of the ecclesiastic and politic authorities that Severus had in Constantinople (the heart of the empire) as a rightful patriarch of Antioch. It was in Constantinople that Severus was chosen, summoned, elected, invested and sent to Antioch. In re-writing the history of Severus and what was going on during his time, Patriarch Cyriacus was persuading his listeners with an orthodox image of Constantinople (in the sense of anti-Chalcedonian) politically and ecclesiastically backing Severus of Antioch.53 According to my opinion, Cyriacus took advantage of the memorial celebration of Severus to inflame the emotion of the people with popular pride toward his church as the true representative of ‘Orthodoxy’. Generating popular pride among the members of the West Syriac church occurred in a period when its ecclesiastic authority was setting the boundaries clear regarding liturgical, theological and monastic practices, between its members and the members of ‘heretical’ churches.54 Patriarch Cyriacus lived in a period when the divisions 47

Ibid. 8. Macedonius, the Chalcedonian Patriarch of Constantinople (495-511). 49 Flavian II of Antioch was the Patriarch of Antioch from 498 to 513. He attempted to maintain a moderate course among the anti-Chalcedonians and Chalcedonians without satisfying either of the two parties. 50 I. Bcheiry, Hagiography, History and Manuscript Culture (2018), 12. 51 Cyriacus, Biography of Severus, 33. 52 Ibid. 19. 53 Ibid. 21-5. 54 See Robert Kitchen, ‘Trying to Fix What is Broken in a Broken Age: Syrian Orthodox Synodical Canons (628–896)’, Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 9 (2009), 3-20. 48

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between Chalcedonians, Nestorians, and Miaphysites were not clear. The canons of the local west-Syriac synods between the eighth and ninth centuries reveal that the lives of the members of rival Christian communities were closely tangled, as were the lives of their clergy. For example, there are cases that antiChalcedonian and Chalcedonian monks were living together; ‘Chalcedonian’ children celebrating memorials for their ‘anti-Chalcedonian’ parents; anti-Chalcedonians parents sending their children to ‘Chalcedonian’ monasteries; antiChalcedonians priests giving the Eucharist to Chalcedonians; or administering the Eucharist of the Chalcedonians to Chalcedonians when there were no Chalcedonian priests to be found; or leading funeral processions for Chalcedonians and burying them. All of these created an environment in which people were moving around quite freely between the churches.55 In order to avoid such ‘unacceptable practices’, Patriarch Cyriacus sought to generate a religious identity, popular pride, justifying the past, lifting the moral during pressure and time of anxiety (Muslims) by using also the memory of Severus and Theodora. Conclusion Patriarch Cyriacus projected his thoughts through the images of Severus and Theodora. He re-shaped the virtues of Severus however, with consideration to the lay community. Cyriacus wrote the Biography of Severus of Antioch in form of discourse to preach about the life of a saint as a model of commitment and zeal in a format that would provide the laity with understandable and practical Christian life that also made sense to them and were able to be part of. Cyriacus’ narration gives us an opportunity to compare the ways in which the life of a saint was manipulated in hagiographical genre by decreasing the intensified monastic tone found in other biographies. The relationship between monasticism and laity is a dynamical one, and under certain circumstances their relationship could be shifted, remodeled, intensified, or laid back.

55 See Jack Tannous, The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society and Simple Believers (Princeton, NJ, 2018), 105.

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APPENDIX Comparative table no. 1: the baptism of Severus and his monastic vow. Anon. Biography of Severus, 18, 24

George, Biography of Severus, 253-70

Cyriacus, Biography of Severus, 8-9

After he departed thence, he was seized by profound sadness and distress since, after putting on the divine raiment [of baptism], he would continue still to cloth himself with the garment of a layman and not with garment of monasticism, namely that which is sacred, genuinely equivalent to the garment of baptism and a sign of the death of Jesus. Such sorrow and remorse seized him as well as both knowledge and precipitation of the divine and mystical pain that immediately he went as he was and even bade his friends Farwell by letter. He hastened to Jerusalem, to the veneration of the precious cross and to the holy tomb of God our savior. There he took his Cross and promised to follow him who was crucified. … When he had thus finished with prayer and had been sufficiently endued with the precious Cross, the tomb and the resurrection he did not return gain to Byrutus since he recalled that the savior did not allow the disciple to bury his father and that he called those living in the world dead since they were not partaking in true life but instead were living the life of fish … … [thereby] imitating Elisha who bowled the Oxen by means of the ploughshare, fed those who had been tilling [his land with them], and [who] did not again return to his house but followed after Elijah the Tishbite.

He knew immediately what is true wealth and what is esteem and changeless power. Love of his Lord entered and filled the man’s soul to the point that he hated the world and its affairs. He planned to renounce the world completely and immediately to take up the cross of the Son [and] to follow Him. He was burning with the ardor of love of his Lord to take his cross from the very place of the crucifixion. Therefore, very hastily, without delay, he came to Jerusalem and to the places of the mysteries of the Son. When by each of them, one by one, he had been blessed, he received his cross from Golgotha as he desired. He stripped off and shed the garment of worldliness, and there he put on the honorable one of monasticism. He was changed in both his private and his public [concerns], and he became a dead man to desires privately and in public. He crucified the world, and crucified to the world was he too, just as was also that great apostle Paul.

When he (Severus) read them, he learned of the glorious mysteries of priestly Baptism and of what this washing would grant to those who were born from it. He also learned to what glorious and celestial things it (the baptism) would elevate them. Thus, he immediately rejected the delights of the world and all it contains with the intention of seeking baptism. He ran to the city of Tripoli and was baptized there in the sanctuary of the great martyr Leontius and his adoption was made complete. From there (Tripoli), he departed to the land of Palestine, to the monastery of Saint Peter the Iberian.

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A comparative table no. 2: Severus’ sickness and the miracle in the bathhouse. Anon. Biography of Severus. 78

George, Biography of Severus, 835-54

Cyriacus, Biography of Severus, 45-6

Shortly before his departure, while he was lain out on his bed and his strength enfeebled, his own [comrades] together with the Physicians tried repeatedly to persuade him to take a bath. He refused, however, saying that never yet had he viewed his [own] body since he had promised Christ to bear the yoke of monasticism. Yet they pressed him more and more, saying, ‘For our sake, [by] resting [in a bath], do not rend soul from body prematurely and inflict so great a harm on the Church. We will not force you to see your body. We will carry you [into the bath] in your clothing.’ They persuaded him with words like these and many more. After they had borne Severos into his bath with his clothes on, they placed him on a slab of marble after having stretched him out on the ground – I know not whether this was to warm his body which already was dead, or because he could no longer sit. When they lifted him off the slab, he left power upon that stone, which could not be taken away so that until today, everyone who is seized by cold, fever, or by some other cause of bodily sickness, by but touching this stone is set free from the illness which had seized him.

The saint listened, and with sighs he spoke to them [his disciples]: ‘Do not trouble me because the time is drawing near when I am to depart. Behold, ever since I made a covenant with the Lord to travel in His way, I have not seen my body bare of the habit. How should I now loose the vestment of abstinence and let go [and] abandon the pure yoke that I have put upon myself? They answered mournfully and urged him: ‘For the sake of the Church entrust yourself to us and do not leave us. In your modest garments and tunic, we will have you enter, and we will not break your modest vow with God’. Thereupon the chat man consented to them according to their will to care for him although he knew that he would not be healed. They carried his blessed body according to their wish, and they had him enter and set him in the midst of the bathhouse so that he might be warmed. They stretched him out, who by his toils was all dried up, and they extended him and put him upon a slab in the bathhouse. Although the pious man was not healed at all by it, he left on the stone a great power from his limbs. A fount of life issued forth from him [and] flowed onto the marble, so that everyone who comes will receive from it all remedies.

Since the time of his (Severus) baptism until his departure from this life he never washed his body with water. The smell of the priestly chrism wafted from his pure body to such a degree that when he was walking in the market people would think that he had oiled his body carefully with fragrant. One-time he was severely ill and a strong cold fell upon him to such a degree that he collapsed because of it on the floor as if he was a dead man. Those with Severus took him by force in order to lay him down on a marble stone in the public bath with his clothes on, yet the water never touched his priestly body. When this was done, and after he had recovered, he left power from his holy body on the table of marble, so that all those who were gravely ill recovered easily with health as soon as they touched the stone. And this continued for many years.

Consultationes Zacchei christiani et Apollonii philosophi: A Literary Dialogue Arguing for Monasticism Rahel SCHÄR, Bern, Switzerland

ABSTRACT Written as a dialogue between a Christian and a philosopher discussing the content and legitimacy of proper Christian doctrine, the Consultationes Zacchei christiani et Apollonii philosophi has often been considered an apologetic work against Judaism, paganism, and heretical beliefs. However, in the third book, in which the dialogue partners discuss different Christian lifestyles, the anonymous author not only argues for Christianity in comparison to other faiths but also for certain monastic ways of living in comparison to other Christian lifestyles. The present article clarifies how the author promotes these lifestyles and it analyses the lifestyles the dialogue approves. This perspective on the Consultationes generates new insights about their author and audience as well as about their place of composition.

1. Introduction ‘Please reveal, advisor, the form of life which is most accurate for us to begin with’.1 This plea of Apollonius to his teacher Zacchaeus stands at the beginning of the third book of the Consultationes Zacchei christiani et Apollonii philosophi, an anonymous work which was written between the end of the fourth and the end of the fifth century.2 After the first and the second book, in 1 CZA III, chap. 1.4, ll. 30-1: quam nos potissimum uiuendi formam inire conueniat, consultus exprome. The Consultationes Zacchei christiani et Apollonii philosophi are cited according to the edition of Jean Louis Feiertag, SC 401-402 (Paris, 1994) as following: CZA and book number, chapter and subchapter, line (e.g. CZA I, chap. 2.2, l. 5). The use of the letters ‘u’ and ‘v’ corresponds with this edition. 2 The Consultationes’ date of composition is usually set between the end of the 4th and the end of the 5th century. See e.g. Eduard Bratke, ‘Epilegomena zur Wiener Ausgabe der Altercatio legis inter Simonem Judaeum et Theophilum Christianum: Die gallischen Consultationes Zacchei Christiani et Apollonii philosophi. Vorgelegt in der Sitzung am 14. Oktober 1903’, Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 148 (1904), 149-53, 149; Ferdinand Cavallera, ‘Un exposé sur la vie spirituelle et monastique au IVe siècle’, Revue d’ascétique et de mystique 16 (1935), 132-46, 132; id., ‘Consultationes Zacchei et Apollonii’, in Marcel Viller et al. (eds), Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, vol. 2.2 (Paris, 1953), 1641-3, 1641; Pierre Courcelle, ‘Date, source et genèse des “Consultationes Zacchei et Apollonii”’, Revue de l’histoire des religions 146 (1954), 174-93; Germanus Morin, ‘Die

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 181-190. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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which Zacchaeus instructed Apollonius in the main issues of the proper Christian doctrine, Apollonius is eager to learn more about how to live an accurate Christian lifestyle. Zacchaeus’ subsequent development of adequate forms of Christian living as well as his teaching about higher lifestyles reveals one central aim of the Consultationes. This brings me to my article’s main thesis: I am arguing that the anonymous author of the Consultationes not only intends firstly to teach people in the proper Christian doctrine, and secondly to convert them. Both of these intentions are declared by him right at the beginning of his work.3 He also has a third intention which he does not mention explicitly, but which is very important for understanding the inner logic of the writing as a whole. This intention is: to promote specific monastic ways of living. Previous research has mostly focused on identifying the author4 of the Consultationes as well as on analysing their theological content.5 However, all „Consultationes Zacchei et Apollonii“: ein zweites christliches Werk des Firmicus Maternus’, Historisches Jahrbuch 37 (1916), 229-66, 231; Jean Louis Feiertag, Les Consultationes Zacchei et Apollonii: Étude d’histoire et de sotériologie (Fribourg, 1990), 38-64; id. (ed.), Consultationes, vol. 1 (1994), 16-22. Feiertag assumes as terminus post quem the years 375-380 and bases his assumption on the fact that in CZA II, chap. 14 in his refutation of the Sabellians’ assumption that the Holy Spirit is not God, Zacchaeus applies a way of reasoning similar to the one used in the pneumatological dispute at the end of the 4th century. See J.L. Feiertag, Étude (1990), 38-52. According to Pierre Courcelle and Jean Louis Feiertag, the terminus ante quem is the year 484, because in this year the Catholic bishops of Carthage, in their creed which they presented to the Arian Vandals, included sections from CZA II, chap. 2, 3 and 5. See P. Courcelle, ‘Date, source et genèse’ (1954), 174; J.L. Feiertag, Étude (1990), 57-64; id. (ed.), Consultationes, vol. 1 (1994), 16. However, Courcelle and Feiertag do not consider the possibility that the author of the Consultationes, vice-versa, could also have known and used the creed of the bishops of Carthage. 3 See CZA I, Praef.1, ll. 7-10: in informatione autem duplex bonum sit: quod et religio nostra, sicut est, sancta et simplex, omnibus intimatur, et solent edocti credere quod spreuerint nescientes. 4 Between the 18th and early 20th century scholars such as Edmond Martène and Ursin Durand, Remy Ceillier, Eduard Bratke, Germanus Morin, August Reatz, Pierre Batiffol, and Pierre Courcelle tried to identify the author of the Consultationes and to disprove such attempts of others. See Edmond Martène and Ursin Durand, ‘Altercatio inter Theophilum christianum et Simonem judaeum. Auctore Evagrio qui initio Saeculi V. floruit’, in iid. (eds), Thesaurus novum anecdotorum, vol. 5 (Paris, 1717), 1-18; Remy Ceillier, Histoire générale des auteurs sacrés et ecclesiastiques, vol. 8 (Paris, 1861), 424-32; E. Bratke, ‘Epilegomena’ (1904); G. Morin, ‘Die „Consultationes Zacchei et Apollonii“’ (1916); August Reatz, Das theologische System der Consultationes Zacchei et Apollonii: Mit Berücksichtigung ihrer angeblichen Beziehung zu J. Firmicus Maternus (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1920), 16-22; Pierre Batiffol, ‘Le canon de la messe romaine a-t-il Firmicus Maternus comme auteur?’, Revue des Sciences Religieuses 2 (1922), 113-26; Germanus Morin (ed.), I. Firmici Materni consultationes Zacchei et Apollonii, ad norman codicum recognitas adiectis adodationibus criticis et indicibus, Florilegium Patristicum 39 (Bonn, 1935); P. Courcelle, ‘Date, source et genèse’ (1954). 5 In the 1920s, August Reatz was the first to examine the writing regarding various points of its theology. Towards the end of the last century Jean Louis Feiertag wrote a dissertation on the history of research and the soteriology of the Consultationes. See A. Reatz, Das theologische System (1920); J.L. Feiertag, Étude (1990).

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attempts to identify both the author and the place of composition have been refuted. In the 1990s, Jean Luis Feiertag published a critical edition of the Consultationes where he suggested to locate them in a monastic milieu. This article agrees with Feiertag and goes further: It shows that the Consultationes were not only composed in a monastic context but were also written to promote specific monastic lifestyles. This new perspective leads to new conclusions about who the author was, who the audience was, as well as the place where the Consultationes may have been composed. In this article, I am first going to point out the argumentative strategies the author uses to promote monasticism, before I explain the specific monastic lifestyles he approves of. In a third step, I am going to present some implications of focussing on the Consultationes’ argumentation for monastic lifestyles: I will present new insights about locating their author and audience as well as their place of composition. 2. Strategies of Promoting Certain Monastic Lifestyles One strategy the author uses in his argumentation concerns the composition of the work. In the first and second books, he establishes a basic knowledge about Christianity which is important for being able to understand his instructions about Christian lifestyles. Also, in the course of the three books, there is a shift from an apologetical to an instructive conversation. Zacchaeus defends his position less and less, and at the same time, Apollonius becomes more and more interested in learning about Christian doctrine as well as about Christian lifestyles. A second strategy involves the literary conception of the Consultationes. Their formation as a literary dialogue enables confrontations with different positions. These confrontations foster processes of developing an opinion about which basic components an ideal Christian belief and lifestyle contain. They foster such processes not only on the side of the protagonists, but also on the side of the author and the audience. Thirdly, the Consultationes pursue an argumentation strategy, which in particular has an opinion-building and opinion-founding function.6 In the first two books, an ideal Christian doctrine is developed that contrasts with paganism, Judaism, and heretical movements. At the end of the second book, the author expresses this doctrine in a creed. The third book builds on this ideal Christian doctrine and uses the same method of argumentation: in contrast to deviant, supposedly monastic practices, three actually monastic ways of life are described. The work is thus characterised by a two- or threefold process of developing 6

In the process of writing the Consultationes, the author not only developed his own opinion, but he also aimed to have an influence on his audience and to found an opinion which others can identify with.

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Christian ideals; with each book, the ‘true’ Christian or monastic ideal is more narrowly defined. A fourth strategy concerns the conditions of being able to understand the Christian doctrine, and thus the conditions for converting to Christianity and for practicing an accurate or higher Christian lifestyle. The author of the Consultationes advocates that one cannot only conceive the content of the Christian doctrine rationally but must also believe it. This is because Christian truths of faith can only be understood through a subordination of reason (ratio) to faith (fides).7 At the end of the first book, Apollonius meets this requirement and converts. After this point, ratio is not completely switched off, but comes into close contact with scriptural argumentation and is almost replaced by it. Reasoning with Scripture is another strategy the author uses. Apollonius attaches great importance to scriptural authorities in general, and after his conversion, to the authority of the Bible in particular. In the course of the three books, references to pagan authorities like Plato and the Sibylline Oracles8 get replaced by biblical references.9 The author of the Consultationes thus conveys the attitude that a doctrine that is not based on any scripture – and especially not on the Bible – is less valid. However, scriptural evidence from the Bible is indisputable. 3. Promoted Christian Lifestyles At the beginning of the third book, Apollonius asks his teacher to tell him more about which lifestyle is most accurate. Zacchaeus lists three aspects that constitute such a way of life: One should believe firmly in God, and if God is truly believed, one should fear him even more. Also, the one who is feared should be loved with all heart.10 The good which follows is the purity of a simple life as well as a desire to love one’s neighbour.11 Zacchaeus teaches Apollonius that marital life does not displease God,12 however, practicing celibacy is more honourable.13 This is because an elevated Christian lifestyle consists in forgetting and rejecting earthly things, and in desiring heavenly ones.14 7 In the words of the anonymous author, reason is spiritually committed to faith. CZA I, Praef.5, ll. 26-8: rationem […] fidei spiritualiter commissam. 8 See CZA I, chap. 4.4-6. 9 Biblical references are mostly made to the Psalms or the Book of Isaiah as well as to the Gospels. 10 See CZA III, chap. 1.7, ll. 53-5: Itaque prima ac sine discrimine uia est deum firmiter credere, et, cum bene credideris, plus timere; toto insuper, ut saepe iam diximus, formidatum corde diligere. 11 CZA III, chap. 1.7, ll. 58-60: Consequens bonum est uitae simplicis puritas, et […] in proximos studium caritatis. 12 See CZA III, chap. 1.13, ll. 99-100: Coniugia autem honesta deo non displicent, et in procreationibus liberorum sollemnis tori modesta dilectio. 13 This opinion corresponds with Paul’s one about marriage and celibate life (see 1Cor. 7:1-8). 14 See CZA III, chap. 2.3, ll. 31-2: oblitus respuensque terrena, caelestia concupisce.

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Asceticism is thus the foundation of every virtuous practice of Christian faith. The higher the degree of observance, the more praiseworthy and salutary the lifestyle. However, in chapter three, it becomes clear that the author of the Consultationes does not promote monasticism in general but focusses on specific monastic ways of life. Zacchaeus differentiates between several types of monks who have different purposes.15 Some actually only pretend to be monks, but do not deserve to be called monks. One group of these deviants consists of monks who are obsessed by avarice, who desire gifts from weak women and dissuade them from their devotional chastity.16 The second group of deuiantes consists of monks who begin earnestly and make efforts by burning for the purpose of serving justice.17 However, very soon they give up on their project and move away from their strict custom. They stop practising this lifestyle because they have been softened by those who envy them or who refuse to live this way.18 Zacchaeus criticises these monks for falling back and giving in to all the temptations of the body, for invalidating their first fidelity as well as for approving the communal life and accusing the proposition of tougher action.19 The lowest category of true monks, however, includes all who live celibately, who participate in normal life and do not demand seclusion. Their clothing is neither neglected nor humble, and their food and drink is either what they all share, or rarely reduced and cut down on few things. They do not burn with vigour for psalmodies, and they do not interrupt their rest by any night vigils.20 15 See CZA III, chap. 3.4, ll. 23-6: diuersa genera monachorum […] sit etiam diuersitas uoluntatum. 16 See CZA III, chap. 3.6, ll. 32-6: captasque mulierculas uanis opinionibus illudentes, in usum miserae cupiditatis illiciunt, dum aut muneribus inhiant, et foeda auaritiae lucra conquirunt, aut dolo subditas uincunt, et a proposito deuotae castitatis abducunt. J.L. Feiertag (ed.), Consultationes, vol. 2 (1994), 180 notes that Codex Theodosianus XVI, 2, 20 responds precisely to such a situation. This law, addressed to Pope Damasus by Valentinian, Valens and Gratian, accuses clerics and monks of receiving the heritage of widows and young women and forbids them to do so. Hieronymus’ Epistula 52.6 to Nepotian reflects the same situation. 17 See CZA III, chap. 3.7, ll. 36-8: Alii autem fideliter inchoant, ardentique proposito iustitiae seruire contendunt. The motive of putting one’s life in the service of justice is biblical (see Rom. 6:19). 18 See CZA III, chap. 3.7, ll. 39-41: Deinde inconsideratius arrepta non perferunt atque a coeptis desistunt, uel certe inuidentium aut adgredi detrectantium persuasionibus molliuntur, atque ab instituti rigore discedunt. 19 See CZA III, chap. 3.7, ll. 41-4: Tum remissioribus adsuefacti in omnem illecebram corporis redeunt, ac primam fidem irritam facientes, communis uitae ordinem laudant ut actum propositi durioris accusent. 20 CZA III, chap. 3.10, l. 58-chap. 3.12, l. 74: gradu parua obseruatione contenti tantum caelibes uiuunt […] communis conuersationis intersunt, et secreta non expetunt […]. Habitus his nec inhonorabilis, nec abiectus est, et aut idem qui omnibus cibus potusque communis, aut raro abstinens et in paucis recisus. Psallendi perinde uigore non feruent, nullisque uigiliis nocturnam rumpunt quietem. Garcia M. Colombas wrongly identified this lowest category of true monks with the remnuoth mentioned by Hieronymus in his Epistula 22 to Eustochium. See Garcia M. Colombas, ‘Sobre el autor de las Consultationes Zacchei et Apollonii’, Studia Monastica 14 (1972),

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The second group consists of those monks who have a better habit. They live at more remote places, and they all gather at one place, but live separately. Their clothing is humble, and their food is not pleasant. Their devotion to the praise of God is divided into fixed turns of hours. They are persistent with fasting until the evening, and if they have not worked through the day, they feel that food is undeserved.21 However, the highest level of observance is practiced by those monks who live alone in the wilderness as well as at rough places of the desert. They only eat old bread without adding any other food. They take a pure beverage from springs. They wear clothes which are either made of fur or goat hair, and their entire life consists of a competition between mind and body. Furthermore, they really constantly give prayers to God. There is a diverse crowd of demons in them and their victorious persistence fights often against the fraud of impure spirits. Their continuance of fasting is persistent, and their nights are passed in vigils.22 Overall, the celibate way of life is placed at the centre of asceticism. Its strict observance is the criterion for distinguishing true from hypocritical monks.23 Also, according to Zacchaeus, all truly monastic lifestyles are characterized by a desire to die for the name of God as well as by a longing for the glory of a holy death.24 The Consultationes repeatedly mention this ideal of devoting 7-15, 14. However, the caelibes in the Consultationes and Hieronymus’ remnuoth have little in common. While the author of the Consultationes does not mention that the caelibes live in communities, Hieronymus specifies that the remnuoth are organized in smaller groups. And while the remnuoth do not seem to care much about celibacy, from time to time they fast strictly. The caelibes, however, shine only with their celibate way of life – and not with fasting. The only thing the Consultationes’ caelibes and Hieronymus’ remnuoth have in common is that they follow almost no strict rules – with the exception of the caelibes’ celibate lifestyle. 21 Literally: ‘and nourishment which does not come from work seems not accurate’. See CZA III, chap. 3.13, l. 78-chap. 3.15, l. 92: Huiusmodi autem consuetudo potiorum est. Locis primum remotioribus habitant […]. His conueniendi unus omnibus locus est, sed dispar manendi. Vestitus humilis, cibusque non blandus […], certisque horarum uicibus laudandi deum deuotio distributa. Iugis ieiunii usque ad uesperum […], et uictus nisi ex labore non congruens. 22 CZA III, chap. 3.17, l. 99-chap. 3.19, l. 113: Hi autem, quibus primus obseruantiae gradus est, soli heremum ac squalentia deserti loca habitant […], pane uetere et sine ciborum adiectione uescuntur, sumentes purum e fontibus potum. Vestitus talibus aut pellicius aut cilicinus est, et totius uitae usus in agone mentis et corporis. Iam uero ad deum incessabiles preces […]. Inest praeterea multifaria daemonum turba, et dolis immundorum spirituum uictrix constantia saepe congreditur. Continuatio adsidua ieiunandi, noctesque peruigiles. 23 Even if it is not mentioned that the two superior monastic lifestyles require a decision for celibacy, one can assume that this is the case. Because in the logic of Zacchaeus, a higher way of life cannot include fewer ascetic virtues than a lower one. 24 See CZA III, chap. 3.20, ll. 117-9: Pro dei autem nomine uotiua mors omnibus, atque optabilis sancti exitus pompa. Zacchaeus does not express his opinion on the question of whether the desire to become a martyr is what makes a person a monk, or whether this intention rather emerges from the practice of a truly monastic lifestyle. He only notes that the ability for martyrdom is kindly bestowed by God (CZA III, chap. 9.16, l. 113: Opemque martyrii benignus impertiet). It also remains uncertain whether the practice of an ascetic way of life is only achieved

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blood25 and dying for the name of God.26 Because they were written at a time when martyrdom in the sense of sacrificial death was not common any more,27 it can be assumed that they allude to daily martyrdom in faith.28 4. Author, Audience and Place of Composition As already mentioned, many attempts have been made to identify the author of the Consultationes, but all suggestions have been refuted.29 However, even if the author cannot be identified precisely, it is still possible to describe the milieu he comes from. His linguistic and rhetorical skills, as well as his knowledge of Christian dogmatics, allow us to locate him in an educated Christian environment in the Latin West. Already Jean Luis Feiertag suggested to situate him in a monastic context. According to him, the defence of monastic lifestyles in chapter three of the third book can only be explained by assuming that the author himself lived monastically.30 However, also the fact that with the Consultationes the author intends to promote certain monastic lifestyles speaks for his monastic background. Furthermore, at the beginning of Zacchaeus’ doctrine about the highest Christian way of life, he indicates that he teaches what he himself has not rejected.31 If at this point the author is talking about himself through Zacchaeus, one can assume that the author may come from a monastic milieu, and may even practice the ideal monastic lifestyle. However, because the whole dialogue – and not only Zacchaeus’ statements – functions as a mouthpiece of the author, it is not clear which statements and thoughts can be attributed to the author and with which he only dares to engage. It can only be assumed that the teachings and ideals, which both protagonists finally accept, correspond to those of the author. In most cases, they correspond with the through people’s own efforts, or whether a gracious God supports believers in their efforts. In this regard, a certain ambivalence – or rather: a cognitive flexibility – can be noticed. While in one passage God is described as an uninvolved, watching judge of merits (CZA I, chap. 33.8, l. 30: meritorum arbiter), in another one he is mentioned as being gentle and protecting and directing his servant (CZA II, chap. 20.3, l. 23: famulum placidus tueatur et dirigat). And even if it is emphasized that believers should follow the example of Christ (CZA III, chap. 2.3, ll. 26-7: exemplum […] sequamini), they still need to be protected against all ambushes of an infesting enemy through participation in the spiritual sacrifice (see CZA II, chap. 7.13, ll. 80-1: contra omnes insidias infestantis inimici spiritalis sacrificii admixtione munimur). 25 See e.g. CZA III, chap. 10.5, l. 37: deuotio sanguinis. 26 See e.g. CZA III, Praef.5, ll. 27-8: mori quoque pro eius nomine. 27 Since Galerius’ edict of tolerance 311 blood martyrdom barely occurred anymore, and with Constantine it definitely found to an end. 28 Since Athanasius’ Vita Antonii this idea has been quite popular in monastic circles. Athanasius, Vita Antonii 47 calls it μαρτυρῶν τῆ συνειδήσει, martyrdom of consciousness. 29 See page 182, note 4. 30 See J.L. Feiertag (ed.), Consultationes, vol. 1 (1994), 23. 31 CZA III, chap. 2.3, l. 28: doceo, quae ipse non renui.

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views of Zacchaeus. That is why it seems reasonable to assume his statements as the main source of the author’s teaching.32 In some aspects, the author of the Consultationes differs from the official doctrine of the councils. This becomes particularly obvious in the creed which Zacchaeus formulates and teaches towards the end of the second book.33 Its division into three parts reminds of established ecumenical creeds, such as the Nicene Creed and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. In comparison with these two creeds, the Consultationes do not attribute omnipotence to God the Father, and do not call Jesus Christ by his name; they only speak of the ‘Son’ (filius).34 Also, great importance is given to the Holy Spirit; his functions are described far more extensively than in the two established creeds. Finally, one statement stands out: natus ex uirgine non credatur.35 The Consultationes explicitly deny the virgin birth and thus clearly disagree with the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. The Consultationes’ intended audience is probably part of a higher social class. The high Latin in which the Consultationes were written may have appealed especially to aristocrats. Also, it is very likely that the Consultationes address people who are already familiar with Christianity and monasticism. A basic knowledge of the Christian doctrine as well as a certain familiarity with monastic ideas is essential for being able to follow the argumentation of the Consultationes. For example, Zacchaeus and Apollonius do not begin with the principles of the Christian doctrine, and first of all talk about the fact that Jesus Christ was God and man, and that the Christian God is triune. Rather, they already debate to what extent the humanity and divinity of Christ is possible, and how the Holy Trinity functions. Furthermore, the motive of martyrdom which is introduced in the last chapter of the Consultationes can only be understood by readers who are familiar with the idea of the monastic way of living as a daily martyrdom in faith. This assessment corresponds with Maijastina Kahlos’ and Richard Lim’s observations on late antique dialogues in general. While Lim states that ‘early Christian texts were principally addressed to an internal Christian audience’,36 Kahlos focusses in particular on apologetic and polemical writings which ‘should be seen as maintaining discipline and reinforcing group identity among Christians themselves, insiders, rather than as

32 However, this interpretation opposes August Reatz, who supposes that the anonymous author only expresses himself through Zacchaeus. See A. Reatz, Das theologische System (1920), 7. 33 See CZA II, chap. 19.4-7. 34 Throughout the work Jesus Christ is never called with his name; he is always referred to as ‘Son’ (filius) or ‘Lord’ (dominus). 35 CZA II, chap. 19.5, l. 30. 36 Richard Lim, ‘Christians, dialogues and patterns of sociability in late antiquity’, in Simon Goldhill (ed.), The End of Dialogue in Antiquity (Cambridge, 2008), 151-72, 157.

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communication with pagans, outsiders’.37 Also, the composition of the dialogue sections as teacher-student conversations, as well as the declared intention of the Consultationes to instruct, indicate that they were probably written in an educational context. It is reasonable to assume that the Consultationes address people who are interested in getting instructed and who will possibly spread what they have learned to others. Even if it is unclear whether the people who are mentioned to be present38 can be identified with the audience, this cannot be completely excluded. Both groups are in the role of observers who witness the dialogue from an external perspective. However, one particular aspect distinguishes the two groups: The readers of the Consultationes have a certain additional knowledge – mediated in the frame sections – which is not accessible for the fictitious audience. In previous research, Italy, Gaul and North Africa have been considered possible places of composition.39 Arguments have mostly focused on linguistic characteristics and parallels to works of other authors, while up to now the context of the Consultationes has not often been considered.40 However, the above-mentioned reflection on the author and the audience indicates that it is very likely that the Consultationes were written in a well-educated Christian monastic context. There are good reasons for locating them in Late Antique Gaul. In the course of a mass conversion of the aristocracy to Christianity,41 an educated Christian upper class emerged. These aristocrats were interested in learning more about the proper Christian doctrine as well as about accurate and elevated Christian lifestyles. The ascetic ideal promoted in the Consultationes is compatible with the ideal of the contemporary Gallic monks, and also of the Gallic upper class. Martin Krön mentions three further characteristics which are typical for Late 37 Maijastina Kahlos, Debate and Dialogue: Christian and Pagan Cultures c.360-430 (Aldershot, 2007), 56. However, it cannot be excluded that the Consultationes also address people who were not familiar with the motive of daily martyrdom in faith. Through reading the Consultationes, they may have become curious and eager to learn more about it. 38 CZA I, chap. 1.1, l. 3: His qui adsunt. 39 While Jean Paul Migne and Pierre Courcelle locate the Consultationes in North Africa, Germanus Morin and Garcia M. Colombas assume Italy as their place of composition. Eduard Bratke locates them in Gaul. See P. Courcelle, ‘Date, source et genèse’ (1954); Jean Paul Migne (ed.), Consultationum Zacchaei Christiani et Apollonii Philosophi: Libri Tres, PL 20 (Paris, 1845), 1067B; G. Morin, ‘Die „Consultationes Zacchei et Apollonii“’ (1916); G.M. Colombas, ‘Sobre el autor’ (1972); E. Bratke, ‘Epilegomena’ (1904). 40 Only Jean Louis Feiertag mentions some considerations concerning the context of the Conultationes. See J.L. Feiertag (ed.), Consultationes, vol. 1 (1994), 22-31. 41 Richard Bartlett points out that in fifth-century Gaul, there was a shift of the aristocracy towards the church. Many aristocrats committed themselves to the monastic way of life and more than a few, usually in a second step, took on a spiritual office. See Richard Bartlett, ‘Aristocracy and Asceticism. The letters of Ennodius and the Gallic and Italian Churches’, in Ralph W. Mathisen and Danuta Shanzer (eds), Society and Culture in Late Antique Gaul. Revisiting the Sources (Aldershot, Burlington, Singapore, Sydney, 2001), 201-16.

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Antique Gaul. First, there is the conviction that one can achieve a much greater perfection by living as a monk than as a lay person. Second, this perfection is reflected in a better understanding of the Scripture.42 Third, it is characteristic that people who practise a lower way of life were warmly invited to strive towards a higher one.43 All three of these aspects are found in the Consultationes. As Steffen Diefenbach points out, in fifth-century Gaul, there was a conflict between different views on the connection between asceticism and power. On the one hand, there were ascetic aristocrats living without a close connection to an ecclesiastical office, and on the other hand, there were Senate aristocrats for whom an ascetic life was connected to an integration into the clergy and culminated in becoming a bishop.44 Because the Consultationes advocate for an ascetic way of life as preparation for life after death, and because they do not consider an ascetic lifestyle as a means to obtain a bishop’s office, and thus power, they are clearly to be located in the circle of the first group of ascetics.45 Also, there is evidence that all of the conveyed manuscripts originate from Gaul. Because they were written between the 10th and the 12th century, they at least indicate that the Consultationes were especially widespread in Gaul at that time. However, it is difficult to determine the exact place of composition, especially because many of the developments mentioned are typical for Gaul but may have taken place in a similar way in either Italy or North Africa. Also, through people like Jerome and Paulinus of Nola it is known that ecclesiastics from Gaul, Italy and North Africa were in frequent exchange with each other. This interchange of information certainly enabled them to develop a similar language as well as similar – or also contrary – opinions, e.g. on the ideal Christian lifestyle. 5. Conclusion In conclusion, my analysis suggests that we can locate the Consultationes in an intellectual, educational and monastic context – maybe in fifth-century Gaul. While the author probably lived a monastic lifestyle himself, the intended audience is most likely already familiar with monasticism. 42

This aspect is illustrated by Zacchaeus’ scriptural fluency. See Martin Krön, Das Mönchtum und die kulturelle Tradition des lateinischen Westens: Formen der Askese, Autorität und Organisation im frühen westlichen Zönobitentum (München, 1997), 100, 105. While the second aspect runs through the whole work, the first and third one are especially expressed in the third book. 44 See Steffen Diefenbach, ‘„Bischoffsherrschaft”. Zur Transformation der politischen Kultur im spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Gallien’, in id. and Gernot Michael Müller (eds), Gallien in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter. Kulturgeschichte einer Region (Berlin, Boston, 2013), 91-149, 120. 45 The Consultationes show a certain closeness to John Cassian who also sees ascetism as a means to obtain greater perfection and appreciates a communal lifestyle as a pre-stage to the fully ascetic, hermitic one. 43

MARTYRIA

Pity and the Family: The Inversion of Forensic Protocol in Early Christian Martyrdom Narratives Katherine E. MILCO, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA

ABSTRACT In this article, we argue that appeals to pity, as represented in early Christian martyrdom narratives, initiate an inversion of forensic protocol. Specifically, non-Christians are represented utilizing the commonplaces of the Roman courtroom to beg the martyr, who is legally a defendant, for pity. We draw on classical rhetorical manuals, the speeches of Cicero, and ancient controversiae as sources exemplifying those forensic devices that non-Christians utilize to inspire the pity of the martyr. The purpose of these appeals is to persuade the martyr to apostatize for the sake of the family, which would be ruptured by the martyr’s premature death. The martyrs, however, are represented rejecting these appeals and asserting their allegiance to God, whom they envision as the Father of their real family.

Introduction In his work on the history of oratory, Cicero invokes the second-century Roman praetor, Servius Sulpicius Galba, whose successful defense against an accusation of misconduct rested on his ability to elicit the emotion of pity.1 According to Cicero: Galba, refusing to defend himself, invoked with tears the trustworthiness of the Roman people. He wept as he commended [to them] his own children and also [his ward] the child of C. Galius, whose orphan status and cries were exceedingly pitiful because of the recent death of his most illustrious father; and thus, Galba escaped from danger on account of the children, because he had moved the pity of the people.2 1 I drew inspiration for this article from David Konstan’s instructive and engaging work, Pity Transformed (London, 2001). 2 Cicero, Brut. 90: tum igitur recusans Galba pro sese et populi Romani fidem implorans cum suos pueros tum C. Gali etiam filium flens commendebat, cuius orbitas et fletus mire miserabilis fuit propter recentem memoriam clarissimi patris; isque se tum eripuit flamma, propter pueros misericordia populi commota; Henrica Malcovati, M. Tulli Ciceronis: Scripta quae manserunt omnia, Fasc. 4, Brutus, Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (Leipzig, 1970), 27; all Latin and Greek translations are my own; see also Cicero, Orat. 1.227228.

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In this brief account, Cicero describes three devices that successfully excited pity in the Roman courtroom: tears, verbal supplication, and the appearance of young and visibly distraught children.3 Since ancient testimony agrees that Galba secured a favorable verdict on account of this performance, these devices display a remarkable ability to persuade an audience.4 In this article, we examine the representation of early Christian martyrs, who like Galba, stand accused of committing serious crimes against the state. What emerges is a curious inversion of forensic protocol that turns the story of Galba on its head: we observe that the refusal of the Christian martyr to apostatize inspires judges, family members, and even bystanders to employ the devices of the Roman courtroom to beg the martyr for pity. The purpose of their appeals is to persuade the martyr to prioritize the integrity of the family, which was a common prerogative of defendants. As we will see, the martyrs, for their part, justify their rejection of appeals to pity by asserting a model of the family compatible with martyrdom that recognizes God as their powerful and benevolent Father. Roman Pity Before we turn our attention to the martyrdom narratives themselves, however, let us briefly examine the nature and purpose of pity from a Roman perspective. Cicero, drawing on Aristotelian rhetorical theory and Stoic philosophy, defines pity as ‘grief at the misery of another who suffers wrongly’.5 He explains that pity motivates the individual to assist those who are thus afflicted.6 Pity also receives treatment by classical rhetoricians interested in the practical role of emotions in forensic oratory. Appeals to pity, such as the one issued by Galba, had a legitimate place in the Roman courtroom, if they were pertinent and proportionate. In fact, Quintilian, writing in the first century AD, characterizes well-known devices for generating pity as a ‘custom’.7 He commends the judicious use of such devices on the grounds that pity is persuasive enough to move even a strict judge.8 It is important to note, however, that the ancients conceived of appeals to pity neither as ploys at manipulation nor as pleas for 3 Cicero made effective use of these devices in his speeches; see Jon Hall, Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater (Ann Arbor, 2014), 64-128. 4 Livy, Per. 49.19; Valerius Maximus 8.1.2; Quintilian, Inst. Orat. 2.15.8. 5 Tusc. Disp. 4.8.18: Misericordia est aegritudo ex miseria alterius iniuria laborantis; Georges Fohlen, Cicéron: Tusculanes, Tome II (Paris, 1960), 62; see also Aristotle, Rhet. 2.8.2; Seneca, Clem. 2.5.4. 6 Tusc. Disp. 4.20.46; see also Seneca, Clem. 2.6.2. 7 Inst. Orat. 6.1.30. 8 Inst. Orat. 4.1.14.

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indulgence. Although they acknowledged occasional abuses, the ancients regarded appeals to pity as a formal means by which litigants could maintain their innocence to avoid the misery of suffering wrongly at the hands of the judge.9 In this respect, the ancient conception of pity differs noticeably from its contemporary counterpart.10 Pity and the Christian Martyrs We now begin our examination of pity with the Christian martyr, Agathonice, whose final moments in Pergamum appear in two extant accounts from the second or third-century.11 Although the two accounts disagree on the particulars of her trial and death, they agree that her enthusiasm for martyrdom triggers appeals to pity from spectators. In the Greek account, her sudden decision to die for Christ provokes the crowd to exclaim: ‘Take pity on your son!’12 In the Latin account, her confession of Christian identity during the interrogation inspires the crowd to cry: ‘Take pity on yourself and on your children’, while the proconsul said: ‘Look to yourself; take pity on yourself and on your children, as the crowd cries’.13 The imperative forms of the verb ‘to pity’ frequently appear in Roman forensic literature in the mouths of litigants (or their advocates) who plead for those most likely to suffer as a consequence of an unjust verdict; usually, these were the litigants themselves and their children.14 As we have already noted in the case of Galba, children were regarded as especially worthy of pity owing to their natural vulnerability.15 Although neither the Greek nor the Latin account hints at the age of Agathonice’s offspring, their probable youth lends the appeals on their behalf a heightened pathos, since Roman society regarded children bereft of either parent as pitiable.16 9

D. Konstan, Pity Transformed (2001), 27-48. Ibid. 11 The story of Agathonice has received short notice in the following works: Candida R. Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Practices, Theologies, and Traditions (New Haven, 2012), 154; Candida R. Moss, The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom (Oxford, 2010), 181-2; Jan den Boeft and Jan Bremmer, ‘Notiunculae Martyrologicae II’, VigChr 36 (1982), 383-7; Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford, 1972), xv-xvi; T.D. Barnes, ‘Pre-Decian Acta Martyrum’, JThS 19 (1968), 509-31, 514-5. 12 43: Ἐλέησόν σου τὸν υἱου; A.A.R. Bastiaensen et al., Atti e Passioni dei Martiri (Milano, 1987), 42. 13 6.2: Miserere tibi et filiis tuis, proconsul dixit: Respice in te, et miserere tibi et filiis tuis, secundum quod clamat turba; H. Musurillo, Acts (1972), 34. 14 J. Hall, Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater (2014), 64-98; Douglas Walton, Appeal to Pity: Argumentum ad Misericordiam (New York, 1997), 41-51; Seneca, Con. 1.2.3; 1.6.5; 2.3.6; 2.3.9; 9.3.1; 9.6.6; 10.1.11; 10.4.6, 9, 18; Quintilian, Dec. Min. 280.15; 305.14; 338.26; 377.15; Dec. Mai. 4.22; 6.8; 10.13, 19; 16.4, 9, 10; 17.20; 18.15; 19.6, 15. 15 D. Konstan, Pity Transformed (2001), 17. 16 A few examples: Seneca, Con. 9.5.1; Josephus, Bel. Iud. 1.556, 560. 10

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Agathonice, however, articulates a different understanding of parental obligation. According to the Greek account, she says: ‘My son has God who is capable of taking pity on him; for he (God) is the administrator of all’.17 Although Agathonice concedes that her son does not deserve to suffer abandonment, she entrusts him to God on the grounds that he is δυνάμενον, a Greek participle meaning ‘capable’ or ‘powerful’.18 Her characterization of God finds support from the Old and New Testaments, in which God regularly displays pity toward his people.19 Although the biblical conception of pity is not identical to its Greco-Roman counterpart, it encompasses ideas that are not radically dissimilar, such as generous benevolence, compassion, and parental love.20 Agathonice further justifies her confidence in God with the claim that he is πάντων προνοητής, which literally means ‘administrator of all’.21 Interestingly enough, this epithet appears in an inscription from Egypt in the first century AD to describe a certain P. Iunventus Rufus in his position as the administrator of all the affairs of his patron.22 In the Greek account of Agathonice, this epithet depicts God as the able administrator of all human affairs, which includes the children of martyrs. In the Latin account, Agathonice expresses similar confidence in God, claiming that: ‘My children have God who protects them’.23 Agathonice here transfers the responsibility for her offspring to God whom she envisages as a paternal figure by using a form of the Latin verb custodire, which means to ‘watch, protect, keep, defend, guard’.24 We direct our attention now to the third-century martyrdom narrative of Perpetua, which describes the attempts of her father to discourage her Christian confession.25 Despite its non-forensic context, his speech during their second interview anticipates and parallels her official interrogation at the forum.26 17 44: Θεὸν ἔχει τὸν δυνάμενον αὐτὸν ἐλεῆσαι, ὅτι αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ πάντων προνοητής; A. Bastiaensen, Atti (1987), 42, 44. 18 Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford, 1996), 451-2. 19 D. Konstan, Pity Transformed (2001), 120. 20 Ibid. 21 H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (1996), 1491. 22 It appears as προνοητὴς πάντων in para. 660: Wilhelmus Dittenberger, Orientis graeci inscriptiones selectae: supplementum sylloges inscriptionum graecarum, Volumen Alterum (Lipsiae, 1905), 369-70. 23 6.3: Filii mei deum habent qui eos custodit; H. Musurillo, Acts (1972), 34. 24 Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, E.A. Andrews and William Freund, A Latin Dictionary Founded on Andrews’ Edition of Freund’s Latin Dictionary: Revised, Enlarged, and in Great Part Rewritten (Oxford, 2002), 505. 25 The bibliography for this narrative is vast, so here is a small sample that also contains useful bibliographic information for other relevant sources; Thomas J. Heffernan, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (Oxford, 2012); Marco Formisano, La Passione di Perpetua e Felicita (Milan, 2008); Jacqueline Amat, Passion de Perpétue et de Félicité suivi des Actes, Sources Chrétiennes 417 (Paris, 1996). 26 In fact, the two episodes are conflated in her fourth or fifth-century Acta; see J. Amat, Passion de Perpétue (1996), 284, 286, 298, 300.

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‘Take pity (miserere), daughter, on my grey hairs; take pity (miserere) on your father – if I am worthy to be called your father, if I have reared you with these hands to this springtime of your life, if I have favored you over all your brothers: do not hand me over to the reproach of men. Think (aspice) of your brothers, think of your mother and aunt, think of your son who will not be able to live after you are gone. Give up your pride: do not destroy us all. For no one of us will speak freely if you suffer anything’. These things he spoke as a father would out of pietas, kissing my hands and throwing himself at my feet; as he wept, he addressed me not as his daughter but as domina.27

In this passage, Perpetua’s father employs several devices characteristic of litigants attempting to incite pity at a trial. His first miserere reminds Perpetua of his advanced age, a recognized foundation for pity in the ancient world.28 His second miserere brings into focus his identity as her father, who has loved and cherished her throughout her life. The recitation of his spotless track record fosters his credibility, which was an important element of persuasive speech. It also calls attention to his blameless character that has done nothing to merit his current misfortune.29 The threefold repetition of aspice, which is a verb of sight, gives his speech an ekphrastic quality, as he forces her to visualize each family member who will unjustly suffer societal reproach thanks to her actions. Cicero, aware of the expediency of ekphrastic descriptions to generate pity, incorporated them into his own speeches.30 Perpetua’s father supplements his verbal argument by kissing her hands, weeping, and groveling at her feet. Both Quintilian and Seneca mention that gestures of self-abasement regularly accompanied the appeals of litigants in the courtroom.31 According to Cicero and Quintilian, weeping, too, was a conventional tactic of persuasion used by advocates who wished to make a strong impression on the judge.32 In addition to these physical manifestations of humility, Perpetua’s father repeatedly utters the word domina to acknowledge her more powerful position.33 While this 27

5.2-5: « Miserere, filia, canis meis; miserere patri, si dignus sum a te pater vocari, si his te manibus ad hunc florem aetatis provexi, si te praeposui omnibus fratribus tuis: ne me dederis in dedecus hominum. Aspice fratres tuos, aspice matrem tuam et materteram, aspice filium tuum, qui post te vivere non poterit. Depone animos; ne universos nos extermines: nemo enim nostrum libere loquetur, si tu aliquid passa fueris. » Haec dicebat quasi pater pro sua pietate, basians mihi manus, et se ad pedes meos iactans et lacrimans me iam non filiam nominabat, sed dominam; J. Amat, Passion de Perpétue (1996), 118, 120. 28 Quintilian, Inst. Orat. 4.1.13; Tim G. Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World: A Cultural and Social History (Baltimore, 2003), 57-89; in 6.5 of Perpetua’s Passion, the verb dolere describes Perpetua’s pain over her father’s old age; my thanks to James Corke-Webster for this insight. 29 Cicero, Inv. 1.109. 30 Mur. 88-9; Inv. 1.107; see also Quintilian, Inst. Orat. 6.2.31; Rhet. Her. 4.39.51. 31 Quintilian, Inst. Orat. 6.1.34, 42; Seneca, Con. 7.8.2; Valerius Maximus 8.1 abs. 6; Leanne Bablitz, Actors and Audience in the Roman Courtroom (London, 2007), 87. 32 Quintilian, Inst. Orat. 6.2.27; J. Hall, Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater (2014), 99-128, 151-2; L. Bablitz, Actors and Audience (2007), 83, 87. 33 See 4.1; see also J.N. Vorster, ‘From the Domus to the Spectaculum: Family and Martyrship in Early Christianity’, Scriptura 104 (2010), 388-405, 402.

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admission is inconsistent with his position as the dominus of the family, a protestation of helplessness was a common tactic of litigants seeking to arouse the pity of a judge.34 With this sophisticated array of rhetorical devices designed to reintegrate her into the family, Perpetua’s father expresses his pietas, which, in a familial context, encompasses both his paternal love and duty.35 During her interrogation, he reprises this leitmotif succinctly yet forcefully when he urges her to pity her baby; the judge, following suit, adds a similar appeal for both father and son.36 The physical presence of both her father and her young son would have intensified the pathos of these appeals, just as the presence of Galba’s children during his trial intensified his. According to the martyrdom narrative, however, Perpetua responds to the appeals of her father by reframing his discussion of fatherhood. She says: ‘It will happen on that prisoner’s dock as God wills. Know that we are not in our own power but in God’s’.37 Refusing to engage his claims directly, Perpetua focuses on the subject that grips her father the most: her interrogation. She reminds him that her trial will take place on a structure known as a prisoner’s dock, which also served as a venue from which slaves were sold.38 This reminder would have been an uncomfortable one, since her public appearance on this platform would constitute a degradation for a person of her social class. Nevertheless, Perpetua links her presence on the prisoner’s dock to God’s will, in effect arguing that unlike her earthly father, her heavenly father does not value social status. Perpetua then seizes on the real issue at hand, namely, the question of power. Her attribution of potestas to God evokes the well-established Roman legal concept of patria potestas, according to which a Roman father had juridical control over the members of his household.39 Rather than acquiescing to the potestas of her earthly father, or appropriating power for herself as domina, Perpetua affirms that all power belongs to God, who is her true paterfamilias.40 Having made this terse declaration of allegiance to the head of her new family, Perpetua abstains from further elaboration during her official interrogation except to refuse the sacrifice and to confess her Christian identity.41

34

Eleanor Dickey, Latin Forms of Address from Plautus to Apuleius (Oxford, 2002), 85-8; Cicero, Inv. 1.109; Rhet. Her. 4.29.39. 35 C.T. Lewis et al., A Latin Dictionary (2002), 1374-5. 36 6.2-3. 37 5.6: « Hoc fiet in illa catasta quod Deus voluerit; scito enim nos non in nostra esse potestate constitutos, sed in Dei »; J. Amat, Passion de Perpétue (1996), 120, 122. 38 T.J. Heffernan, The Passion (2012), 191-2. 39 This concept is famously articulated by Gaius, Inst. 1.55. 40 That Perpetua here announces her subordination to the patria potestas of God rather than to that of her earthly father has been noted by David E. Wilhite, Tertullian the African: An Anthropological Reading of Tertullian’s Context and Identities, Millennium Studies 14 (Berlin, 2007), 90. 41 6.4; See Acta 6.6 in which Perpetua rejects her family much more forcefully; see J. Amat, Passion de Perpétue (1996), 298, 300.

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Finally, we consider the representation of the bishop, Irenaeus of Sirmium, whose fourth-century martyrdom narrative describes the desperate attempts of his family and friends to avert his death with appeals to pity.42 His relatives arrived and seeing him being tortured they pleaded with him. Then his children embraced his feet with tears and said: ‘Take pity (miserere) on yourself and on us, father’. Then his wife, weeping for his age, pleaded with him. Indeed, the mourning and weeping of all his relatives were upon him: the sighs of those in his household, the wailing of the neighbors and the lamentation of his friends, who were all crying to him saying: ‘Take pity (miserere) on your tender youth’.43

Here the presence of sundry relations expressing their grief at the sight of Irenaeus’ torture creates a pitiful tableau. Of special note is the doleful supplication of Irenaeus’ children who call attention to their unjust suffering. The ancients, conscious of the force of such displays, endorsed the introduction of family members, including children, into the courtroom to inspire pity.44 The physical manifestations of grief that the hagiographer describes, such as physical abasement, tears, sighs, and wails, are also characteristic of litigants desirous of pity, as we also observed in the martyrdom narrative of Perpetua. The verbal supplication is also apt, specifically the Latin imperative miserere, although the injunction that Irenaeus pity his tender youth is more curious. In forensic literature, however, the youth of a defendant could be cited as a justification for pity.45 Irenaeus’ youth is characterized with the adjective ‘tender’ (tenerae), which connotes fragility and softness, qualities that amplify his pitiful position as a victim of torture.46 Irenaeus, however, reveals his unusual perspective on family with a response that occurs belatedly during his interrogation. ‘Do you have children?’ Probus asked. ‘No’, responded Irenaeus. ‘Do you have relations?’ Probus asked. ‘No’, said Irenaeus. ‘Then who were those people who were weeping at the last session?’ Probus asked. Irenaeus responded: ‘There is a precept of my Lord Jesus Christ who said: “He who loves his father or mother, wife or sons or brothers or parents more than me is not worthy of me”’. And lifting his eyes to God in heaven, bearing in mind his promises, and despising everything else, he confessed that 42 The bibliography for this narrative is modest: C.R. Moss, The Other Christs (2010), 187; François Dolbeau, ‘Le dossier hagiographique d’Irénée, évêque de Sirmium’, AntTard 7 (1999), 205-14; H. Musurillo, Acts (1972), xliii-xliv. 43 3.1-2: Advenientes vero parentes eius videntes eum torqueri precabantur eum. Hinc pueri pedes eius cum lacrymis amplectentes dicebant: Miserere tui et nostri, pater. Inde uxoris lugentis vultus aetatem eius precabantur. Parentum vero omnium luctus et fletus erat super eum, domesticorum gemitus, vicinorum ululatus et lamentatio amicorum, qui omnes clamantes ad eum dicebant: Tenerae adulescentiae tuae miserere; F. Dolbeau, ‘Le dossier’ (1999), 211; See Acts of Phileas 6.4 (Latin recension). 44 Inst. Orat. 6.1.30, 42; see also J. Hall, Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater (2014), 80-6, 150-1. 45 Quintilian, Dec. Min. 279.2, 17; Josephus, Ant. Iud. 2.148. 46 C.T. Lewis et al., A Latin Dictionary (2002), 1854-5.

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he did not know or have anyone apart from him. Probus said: ‘I know that you have children – at least, sacrifice for them!’ Irenaeus responded: ‘My children have the same God that I do – he is powerful (potens) enough to save (salvare) them’.47

In this passage, Irenaeus ostensibly commits perjury when he denies the reality of his family relationships. He invokes the words of Christ to justify his denial, in effect, equating the acknowledgement of family with the repudiation of Christ himself. Irenaeus’ apparent perjury becomes more comprehensible, however, when he excludes categorically any relationship without God as its point of reference. When Probus challenges this idiosyncratic conception of the family, Irenaeus’ response evokes the words of Agathonice: he transfers the responsibility of his children to God. Even his justification is in the same vein as hers: he characterizes God with potens, the Latin adjective meaning ‘powerful’ or ‘capable’.48 Specifically, Irenaeus claims that God has the power ‘to save’ his children. The Latin verb, salvare, has two relevant meanings here: ‘to save’ in the literal sense, that is, to preserve or deliver and ‘to save’ in the spiritual sense, that is, to obtain eternal salvation through Christ.49 It is worth noting that Irenaeus’ children are probably apostate Christians rather than pagans, since Irenaeus professes elsewhere in the narrative to be a life-long Christian, and it was the right of the paterfamilias to determine the cult of his family.50 In this passage, therefore, Irenaeus expresses confidence that God is amply capable of providing for his children both materially and spiritually as a true father; this paternal care even admits the possibility that Irenaeus’ children will eventually return to the family of their heavenly father to which their earthly father belongs. Conclusion In this article, we have sought to demonstrate that in certain early martyrdom narratives, non-Christians, motivated by a desire to preserve the family, utilize Roman forensic commonplaces to beg the martyr for pity. We have also argued that the martyrs are represented suggesting an alternative conception of family 47 4.5-8: Probus dixit: Filios habes? Irenaeus respondit: Non habeo. Probus dixit: Parentes habes? Irenaeus respondit: Non habeo. Probus dixit: Et qui fuerunt illi qui praeterita flebant sessione? Irenaeus respondit: Praeceptum est Domini mei Iesu Christi dicentis: Qui diligit patrem aut matrem aut uxorem aut filios aut fratres aut parentes super me, non est me dignus. Atque ad Deum in caelis aspiciens et ad eius promissiones intendens omniaque despiciens nullum absque eum se nosse atque habere fatebatur. Probus dixit: Scio te filios habere, vel propter illos sacrifica. Irenaeus respondit: Filii mei Deum habent quem et ego, qui potens est illos salvare; F. Dolbeau, ‘Le dossier’ (1999), 211. 48 C.T. Lewis et al., A Latin Dictionary (2002), 1403-4. 49 Albert Blaise, Dictionnaire latin-français des auteurs chrétiens (Turnhout, 1954), 734. 50 4.3.

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that upholds God as a powerful Father who governs the world according to his providence. What becomes particularly evident from this analysis is the importance of parenthood, since Agathonice, Perpetua, and Irenaeus are all represented as parents of dependent children. Regardless of the historicity of these narratives, the representation of these martyrs addresses the unique pressures likely faced by Christian parents during periods of persecution.51 Since parents are attached to their children by strong bonds of affection and responsibility, Christian parents probably regarded the prospect of martyrdom with confusion and fear. We propose that these narratives sought to alleviate their anxiety by providing a model of behavior to emulate should persecutors ever seek to overwhelm them with pity for their children and other relations. At the same time, these narratives reminded Christian parents of their definitive membership in the family of God whose bonds could only be strengthened by martyrdom. By encouraging Christian parents to embrace martyrdom with zeal and confidence, these narratives taught all Christians that God may call anyone to heroic holiness.

51 For an alternative perspective on parenthood in early martyrdom narratives, see Keith Bradley, ‘Sacrificing the Family: Christian Martyrs and their Kin’, Ancient Narrative 3 (2003), 150-81.

‘I Baptize Myself in the Name of Jesus Christ’: The Female Apostle Thecla and her Self-Decision before God Hiroaki ADACHI, Nara University, Japan

ABSTRACT In the arena, she realized the time of her baptism has come. However, it should not be done by the Apostle Paul but by herself before God. She proclaimed, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, I baptize myself on the last day’. Her name was Thecla, the heroine of the Acts of Paul and Thecla (ATh). Her selfbaptism scene is its climax and it would be encouraging women in Late Antiquity. In the scene, I will seek a possibility of a woman’s self-decision and self-discovery before God. Since the 1980s, Thecla has always been a focus of controversies. Feminist scholars considered ATh to be a testimony of struggle for women’s independence. However, it might have been created by male authors to emphasize the moral superiority. Recently, S. Hylen (2015) thought Thecla was a successor of the ancient female leaders and J.D. McLarty (2018) sought Christian identity in ATh. Every study has its own merit but the most important factor in the story has been forgotten. It is Jesus Christ. Although many scholars thought Thecla obeyed to Paul, he himself didn’t think so, for Paul knows ‘she is thine’. She found herself facing Jesus, so she can be free from the patriarchy, so her story can be used for the claim of Christian supremacy, and the reader can find Christian identity. Late Antiquity was an age of spirituality. Augustine and the desert Fathers struggled to find themselves before God. However, what about women? ATh may provide one possible answer.

Introduction Thecla is the famous heroine of The Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla.1 She overcame many crises and became a female evangelist. She was condemned to be killed by wild beasts in the arena. There, she realized that the time of her baptism as been predicted by the apostle Paul. However, it was not to be administered by him but by herself, without any intercessor. She found a pit full of water where the man-eating seals were swimming and threw herself into it, proclaiming: ‘I baptize myself in the name of Jesus Christ!’2 1

ATh = R.A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet, Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha (Leipzig, 1891), 235-73. ATh. 34, line 4-5; Ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ὑστέρᾳ ἡμέρᾳ βαπτίζομαι. I quote from A Thesaurus Linguae Graecae Library of Greek Literature (TLG): http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu/ index.php. 2

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At that moment, she abandoned her past and chose a new life in Christ. Here, we witness a historic moment that can be compared to the conversion of Paul. In fact, she grew from being a loyal follower of Paul to a female apostle, and his equal. Her self-baptism offers a glimpse into the changing process of ancient women’s identity and of their self-awareness before God in an age of transformation. Self-awareness before God is a fundamental concept of the individual in Western culture. Paul declared that he no longer lived but that Jesus Christ lived in him.3 Augustine inherited this belief and further developed the idea of human free will that would be passed on to Luther and Erasmus. However, they were all men. What about women? Thecla’s self-baptism in ATh may provide us with one of the answers. ATh was likely written by a male author, using the female image to promote Christian virtues. Even so, existing female images also reflect female images in society. Moreover, Thecla was accepted as the female apostle by women and became a prominent example to them. That is why Thecla, and particularly her self-baptism scene in ATh, is worth investigating. I will do so in the following chapters. 1. History of scholarship: ATh and the Thecla Cults ATh was the first detailed story of Thecla, supposedly written in the second century.4 According to the story, Thecla was born in Iconium (now Konya) in Asia Minor. As arranged by Theocleia, her mother, Thecla was betrothed to a man named Thamyris. Yet, after hearing the word of God through Paul, she ceased talking with her mother and fiancé. Paul was arrested but Thecla snuck into the prison where he was being held. Paul was beaten and expelled from the city, and Thecla was to be burned alive. However, a miraculous cloud appeared causing heavy rain, and thus saving her. That is the first part. The stage then moves to (Pisidian) Antioch. When Thecla and Paul escaped from Iconium to the city, a violent new suitor named Alexander found her. Oddly enough, Paul would not defend her, but rather left her in the hands of Alexander I have read all of the original Greek text of the Lipsius version and translated it into Japanese. For the English translation, I have used the following two versions: Edgar Hennecke (Engl. tr. by R.McL. Wilson), New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 2 (Philadelphia, 1965), 353-64; and Richard I. Pervo, The Acts of Paul: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Eugene, OR, 2014), 3-14. I have given priority to the new translation but sometimes refer to the Hennecke/ Wilson version because of its literal style. I sometimes added a literal translation to insure a better understanding of the original words. 3 Gal. 2:26. 4 Every study comments on the origin. See the newest summary: J.D. McLarty, Thecla’s Devotion: Narrative, Emotion and Identity in the Acts of Paul and Thecla (Cambridge, 2018), 5-7.

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and disappeared. Thecla had to fight alone. She defeated him but was sent to the arena to be killed by the beasts. Instead of Paul, female forces defended her: a women crowd appeared and criticized the judgement, so called ‘queen’ Tryphaina protected her until the execution day, and a lioness fought for her. Thecla declared her baptism in public and was released to the women. Following that incident, she sought out Paul to report her baptism and went on a missionary journey alone. She met her mother again and died near the city of Seleucia. Studies on the Thecla cults, especially ATh, have a long history. New Testament scholars, especially Carl Schmid, made it clear that ATh is part of the wider Apocryphal Acts of Paul.5 Some scholars of ancient literature also took great interest in ATh, for its literary form can be interpreted as a Christianized Hellenistic romance. Others sought its origin in folklore. Thus, from the 19th to the 20th centuries, Thecla was the focus of research by such scholars as Erwin Rode, Ernst von Dobschütz, Richard Reitzenstein, Ludwig Rademacher, Rosa Söder, and others.6 These studies are now classics, but are largely philological and fail to consider gender. For that we had to wait until the 1980s and the rise of researchers influenced by the new tide of feminism. Thecla seemed to be very different from the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, or Eve, the partner of Adam. She renounced any relationship with men, eventually even Paul. Her autonomy is so remarkable that many scholars, including Stevan Davies, Dennis R. Macdonald, and Virginia Burrus, sought the origin of ATh in the oral tradition of women who struggled against the patriarchal norms.7 Feminist theologians like Elizabeth Shüssler Fiorenza and Ross S. Kraemer also recognized the authority of female prophets in early Christianity in ATh.8 Elizabeth A. Clark believed that the ascetic celibate women acquired ‘paradoxical freedom’ from the gender role in the secular world.9 5

Carl Schmidt, Acta Pauli aus der Heidelberger koptischen Papyrushandschrift Nr. 1 (Leipzig, 1905); Carl Schmidt und Wilhelm Schubart, Praxeis Paulou: Acta Pauli nach dem Papyrus der Hamburger Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek (Glückstadt, Hamburg, 1936). 6 Ernst von Dobschütz, ‘Der Roman in der alt-christlichen Literatur’, Deutsche Rundschau 111 (1902), 87-106; Richard Reitzenstein, Hellenistische Wundererzählungen (Leipzig, 1906); Ludwig Rademacher, ‘Hipplytos und Thekla: Studien zur Geschichte von Legende und Kultus’, Sitzungsberichte, Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Philosophisch-historische Klasse 183.3 (Wien, 1916); Rosa Söder, Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und die romanhafte Literatur der Antike (Stuttgart, 1932). 7 Stevan Davies, The Revolt of the Widows: The Social World of the Apocryphal Acts (Carbondale, 1980) : Dennis R. MacDonald, The Legend and the Apostle: the Battle for Paul in Story and Canon (Philadelphia, 1983); Virginia Burrus, Chastity as Autonomy: Women in the Stories of Apocryphal Acts (Lewiston, 1987). 8 Elizabeth S. Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York, 1983), 172-4; Ross S. Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings: Women’s Religions among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World (New York, 1992), 150-5. 9 Elizabeth A. Clark, ‘Ascetic Renunciation and Feminine Advancement: A Paradox of Late Ancient Christianity’, Anglican Theological Review 63 (1981), 240-57.

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These ‘optimistic’ views were, however, criticized after the 1990s. Kate Cooper speculated that ATh was created by a male author who emphasized the superiority of the ascetic virtue of the Christian Church over ‘pagan’ virtues and the prosperity of this world.10 If that were the case, the main character of the story was not Thecla but Paul, who robbed her of her fiancé, and the story was in fact written for male readers. In addition to Cooper, Elizabeth Clark, influenced by the new linguistic turn theory, dramatically changed her stance from her previous ‘paradoxical freedom’ theory to an extreme skepticism about any social realities of women in the ancient texts.11 The tide had changed, and scholars nowadays are in general more skeptical than before.12 Those studies contributed to insights into the function of rhetorical texts and the power negotiations among men. However, they are not decisive but rather problematic. Even if we should accept that ATh was produced from male negotiations, various aspects of the story may be traced back to the past. Furthermore, no author can prevent readers from interpreting the text in their own way. In her account of ATh, Cooper never mentioned the second part, which consists of successive climax scenes, including Thecla’s self-baptism. Even if Thecla seems to be subordinate to Paul in the first part, she became totally independent in the second part, which interested ancient contemporaries. In the beginning of the third century, Tertullian condemned ATh and issued a warning to women who believed Thecla’s example as a license for women’s teaching and baptizing in Paul’s name.13 Moreover, Thecla was already independent in the first part. It was not Paul but Thecla who moved aggressively. She snuck into the jail while Paul was just waiting. Thecla had to endure the fire alone, while Paul was flogged and exiled. Additionally, there were a wide variety of testimonies about Thecla in late antiquity. John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, and the other church fathers testified that Thecla was admired by ordinary women. 14 In The Symposion, written by Methodius in the fourth century, Thecla was nominated as the winner of ten virtuous women.15 Gregory of Nyssa reported that his elder sister Macrina had another name, Thecla.16 Later, Egeria the female pilgrim 10 Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride; Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1996), 50-67. 11 Elizabeth A. Clark, ‘The Lady Vanishes: Dilemmas of a Feminist Historian after the “Linguistic Turn”’, Church History 67 (1998), 1-31; ead., History, Theory, Text: Historians and Linguistic Turn (Cambridge, MA, 2009). 12 Ross S. Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses: Religion, Gender, and History in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean (Oxford, 2011). 13 Tertullianus, De baptismo 17,4, ed. J.D. Lupton (Cambridge, 1908), 46-8. 14 E.g., Johannes Chrysostomus, De sancta Thecla martyre, PG 50, 745-8. 15 Methodius, Symposion 8,12. 16 Gregorius Nyssenus, Vita sanctae Macrinae 2,26.

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visited Thecla’s sanctuary and listened as the entire Acts of Thecla was read through.17 Stephen J. Davis therefore remained faithful to the folkloric interpretation. He pondered that, ‘while it is not possible to read ancient narrative as direct evidence … it may be possible to infer from this literature something of the social context of ancient women’s experience’.18 He looked over previous scholarship, then put forward the results of his investigations on Thecla cults among women in late antique Egypt. Nevertheless, we can no longer simply maintain the viewpoints shown by the scholars of the 1980s. MacDonald believed that ATh reflects women’s oral tradition, whereas 1Timothy was written to restrain the tradition.19 It warned young widows about walking around and chatting about silly things and recommended that they remarry at once.20 However, this dichotomy between celibate women and married women was rather stereotyped and has now become outdated. Riet van Bremen investigated the Greek inscriptions thoroughly and revealed the fact that women in Greece and Asia Minor, married or not, wielded unquestionable authority in society.21 They were priestesses and patronesses who funded many public buildings and also offered the public entertainment. The Thecla cult developed in this area. Encouraged by van Bremen’s work, Emily A. Hemelrijk carried out research on the vast number of inscriptions in the Latin West and also ascertained the authority of local wealthy women.22 Once we accept the facts indicated by these recent studies, we can no longer support the dualism between the independent virgins and the oppressed secular women. Based on these investigations, Susan Hylen challenged the earlier interpretations.23 According to her, Thecla was not so much a resistance fighter against patriarchy as an heir to the traditional female leaders or patronesses who already held considerable authority, both in the public and private spheres.24 In ATh, both Thecla’s mother Theocleia and Thecla’s guardian Tryphaena were really influential. Hylen did not feel that they were strange for the readers of 17

Égérie, Journal de voyage, ed. P. Maraval (Paris, 1982), 226-31. Stephen J. Davis, The Cult of St. Thecla: A Tradition of Women’s Tradition in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2001), 19. 19 D.R. MacDonald, The Legend and the Apostle (1983), 54-77. 20 1Tim. 5:11-2. 21 Riet van Bremen, The Limits of Participation: Women and Civic Life in the Greek East in the Hellenistic Period (Amsterdam, 1996). 22 Emily A. Hemelrijk, Hidden Lives: Women and Civic Life in the Roman West (Oxford, 2015). Rosalinde Kearsley, ‘Women and Public Life in Imperial Asia Minor: Hellenistic Tradition and Augustan Ideology’, Ancient West and East 4 (2005), 98-121; also, ead., ‘Asiarchs, Archiereis, and the Archiereiai of Asia’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 27 (1986), 183-92. 23 Susan Hylen, A Modest Apostle: Thecla and the History of Women in the Early Church (Oxford, 2015). 24 Ibid. 4, 71-90, 118-20. 18

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that time, because there had been many female patronesses like them, and Thecla herself may have become one if she had not converted.25 Hylen considered Thecla and ATh far more positively than previous scholars. She managed to do so using the recent agency theories from Pierre Bourdieu to Saba Mahmood. Instead of the free, independent individual concept of modern times, agency theories assume the individual as the stage where numerous cultural elements coexist. Each person can choose them to change his or her life. If we accept this line of thinking, we can understand that people living in traditional societies are not only categorized by their rules but can choose them for their own lives. Roman women were also living in a traditional society. Modesty (sophrosune or pudicitia) seems to be a very conservative moral to our modern eyes but ancient women acquired authority in public through adopting a modest attitude. Hylen felt that 1Timothy did not exclude women but rather, instructed the women who were already leaders in the Christian community to follow rules of modesty. Thecla also retained modest attitudes and shared many moral values with 1Timothy. Hylen believed that this was why Thecla was widely accepted by women. Hylen’s insight is truly persuasive. As she stated, it can be applied to the other fields of ancient Christian women. However, she does not explain the difference between Thecla and the traditional female leaders, even going so far as to equate Thecla with them. If there were already many outstanding female leaders to be imitated, why was the new story of Thecla necessary? There was in fact a sharp discontinuity between the traditional female leaders and Thecla. She had to fight at risk of her life to attain her new Christian identity in place of her old civic identity. J.D. McLarty tried to explain this new Christian identity in ATh which was very different from the traditional civic moral. 26 She compared ATh to Chaireas and Callirhoe, a Hellenistic romance written by Chariton most likely in the same century that ATh was written. Chaireas and Callirhoe were a wealthy couple in Syracuse. They confronted many crises in their adventure but ultimately returned home and gained back their happy married life. Kate Cooper had also compared this story to ATh, but McLarty’s analysis is more detailed. Both stories share a similar plot but are different in some important points. Whereas Challirhoe managed to return home and recover her happy married life with her husband, Thecla renounced her fiancé Thamyris and left home to wander and teach people. Like Cooper, McLarty also believed that the main character of ATh was Paul rather than Thecla. However, she suggested that 25

Ibid. 83. J.D. McLarty, Thecla’s Devotion: Narrative, Emotion and Identity in the Acts of Paul and Thecla (Cambridge, 2018). 26

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Thecla must have had an important role for the reader who settled permanently in the city. According to McLarty, Thecla’s function was showing the subversive Pauline way of life in a more acceptable form to the city dwellers. McLarty’s consideration is highly suggestive. Yet, she did not offer a clear conclusion, only noting some possibilities. To summarize, the scholars mentioned thus far seemed to dismiss a simple but crucially important factor in ATh: God, invocated in the name of Jesus Christ. Thecla realized who she was when she swore her baptism before God. She never devoted herself to Paul, but only to God and, as I will examine later, Paul himself was well aware of that fact. Modern scholars, overly obsessed with the most highly competitive controversies, seem to have left behind the simple fact which ordinary believers inherited through many generations. Thecla chose her new identity before God and her devotion made it possible to form a new Christian community of women. I will analyze the text and show that process in the following sections. 2. Thecla the female apostle: devotion not to Paul but to God Is she Paul’s follower or an independent virgin? I feel that both assumptions accepted by previous scholars are misleading, for both fail to consider the existence of God. Thecla seemed to obey Paul at first but became totally independent later. She became independent but she was also a female servant of God. Both sides assumed Thecla was initially subordinate to Paul, but was that correct? Let us consider the beginning of Chapter 7, where Thecla first appears. While Paul was delivering this message to the church in Onesiphorus’ house, one Thecla, the virgin daughter of Theocleia, who was engaged to Thamyris, was seated at the window of her house that was closest to Onesiphorus’, listening without respite to Paul’s message about chastity.27

The newest English translation is more natural than the earlier ones for English readers, but the italicised part is a bit problematic. Thecla did not in fact listen to ‘Paul’s message’. The older literal translation by Hennecke and Schneemelcher seems preferable in this case, where the underlined part can be translated as follows: Thecla ‘listened night and day to the word about chastity spoken by Paul (ἤκουεν νυκτὸς καὶ ἡμέρας τὸν περὶ ἁγνείας λόγον λεγόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ Παύλου)’.28 She listened to the words as spoken by Paul, but not to Paul himself. We should not overlook this subtle difference. 27 ATh. 7. Καὶ ταῦτα τοῦ Παύλου λέγοντος ἐν μέσῳ τῆς ἐκκλησίας ἐν τῷ Ὀνησιφόρου οἴκῳ, Θέκλα τις παρθένος Θεοκλείας μητρὸς εμνηστευμένη ἀνδρὶ Θαμύριδι, καθεσθεῖσα ἐπὶ τῆς σύνεγγυς θυρίδος τοῦ οἴκου ἤκουεν νυκτὸς καὶ ἡμέρας τὸν περὶ ἁγνείας λόγον λεγόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ Παύλου· 28 Ibid.

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Thecla again heard Paul speaking. This time, the stage was the jail where he was captured. At night, Thecla gave her bracelets to the porter of the prison and, according to Pervo, ‘went to Paul, sat at his feet to hear (him speak of) God’s great deeds’.29 I have added parentheses because there is no mention of ‘him speak of’in the original Greek text. It simply says she ‘heard the great things of God’ (ἤκουσεν τὰ μεγαλεῖα τοῦ θεοῦ).30 The words were surely spoken by Paul, but who actually uttered them was not important and was not mentioned in the text. It is the greatness of God that Thecla and her author thought to be important. Thecla did not go into the jail to meet her lover. She went there to hear God’s deeds. Thecla was then condemned to be burnt alive at the stake and she sought Paul as a lamb. Here, you can be sure that Thecla is obedient to Paul. However, Paul had already been exiled from the city and it was impossible to find him. At that moment, Christ appeared in the form of Paul. Thecla was gazing at him, believing that ‘Paul has come to watch over me’.31 However, he immediately departed into heaven. This is strange. If Christ had transformed into Paul to reassure her, why didn’t he remain there with her? He might have been teaching her that the true savoir is not Paul but only God himself. In fact, she endured her first trial at the stake alone and was saved by the miracle of God. It is noteworthy that this was the first appearance of Jesus in the story. Paul robbed Thecla of her fiancé but now, Jesus robbed her of Paul. Escaping from the stake, Thecla sought out Paul. He was praying for her, saying, ‘Father of Christ, let not the fire touch her, but be merciful to her, for she is yours (ὅτι σή ἐστιν)’.32 Apparently, Paul knew that he was no more than a mediator and that Thecla belonged to God. Thecla then asked Paul to baptize her but he refused, saying: ‘Be patient, Thecla. You will receive the water’.33 Why didn’t he baptize her? It is hard to understand unless we assume that he knew it could only be God who would give her the water. This point becomes much clearer in the second part. In Antioch, Alexander, a new suitor, approached Thecla. At that moment, Paul surprisingly denied her, saying: ‘I don’t know the woman about whom you speak; she is definitely not mine’.34 It is again odd, but it can be partly understood if he had known that only God could save her. Or perhaps, he simply revealed his human weakness just as Peter did when Jesus was arrested. In either case, he would not appear again until the epilogue. Thecla had to fight alone again and God saved her this time, also. 29 30 31 32 33 34

R.I. Pervo, The Acts of Paul (2014), 7. ATh. 18. Ibid. 24. Ibid. Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26.

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She repelled Alexander’s attack, crying; Don’t assault a visitor; don’t assault God’s slave. I am a prominent citizen of Iconium, from which I was expelled because I was unwilling to marry Thamyris.35

In this case as well, the newest translation is also a bit problematic. The word ‘slave’ in the underlined part is originally δούλη, the feminine form of δούλος, and ‘prominent’ is πρώτη, the feminine form of the adjective πρώτος. It can therefore be literally translated as ‘God’s female servant (τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ δούλην) and I am a first ranked female citizen among (the people of) Iconium (Ἰκονιέων εἰμὶ πρώτη)’. This sentence is important firstly because it testifies to the fact that women could be first ranked citizens with authority and that Thecla must have been one of them. Secondly, it is more important because it reflects Thecla’s changing self-recognition. This is the first time she uses the words of ‘God’s female servant’ while she still recognizes herself as ‘I am a first ranked female citizen among (the people of) Iconium’. In any case, Thecla could no longer rely on Paul and had to fight alone. She tore Alexander’s cloak and removed his crown from his head. Due to his accusation, the Governor condemned her to the beasts. During the battle, she said: ‘Now, the time of baptizing me’ (Νῦν καιρὸς λούσασθαί με) and, as quoted above, threw herself into the water, saying, ‘I baptize myself in the name of Jesus Christ!’36 Man-eating seals were swimming there but a miraculous lightning bolt killed them and a fiery cloud surrounded and protected Thecla. After the baptism, released from the beast trial, her attitude became full of confidence. She convincingly replied to the governor’s question when he asked her, ‘Who are you? What is surrounding you? Because of it, no beast can get close to you’. She replied: ‘I am a female servant of the living God’ and ‘what is surrounding me is the son of God, in whom God is well pleased and I believed in him. Because of him, none of the beasts touched me’.37

Now, Thecla is completely sure that she is under the protection of the son of God, Jesus Christ. Again, she recognizes herself as ‘a female servant of the living God (θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος δούλη)’38 and there is no mention of the first ranked citizen. Her self-consciousness has been changed through the trial of the wild beasts and her baptism before God. 35 Ibid. Μὴ βιάσῃ τὴν ξένην, μὴ βιάσῃ τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ δούλην. Ἰκονιέων εἰμὶ πρώτη, καὶ διὰ τὸ μὴ θέλειν με γαμηθῆναι Θαμύριδι, ἐκβέβλημαι τῆς πόλεως. 36 Ibid. 34 37 Ibid. 37. Τίς εἶ σύ; καὶ τίνα τὰ περὶ σέ, ὅτι οὐδὲ ἓν τῶν θηρίων ἥψατό σου; ἡ δὲ εἶπεν Ἐγὼ μέν εἰμι θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος δούλη· τὰ δὲ περὶ ἐμέ, εἰς ὃν εὐδόκησεν ὁ θεὸς υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐπίστευσα· δι’ ὃν οὐδὲ ἓν τῶν θηρίων ἥψατό μου. English translations here are all my own. 38 Ibid.

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After the battle in the arena, she traveled to Myra to meet Paul again. It might seem that she visited Paul in order to get permission for her self-baptism but that is not correct. She had already been baptized by Jesus himself. Why would anyone else need to give permission? She came to him to report that she had been baptized, saying to Paul: ‘For the one who worked with you for the Gospel has also worked with me for my washing.’39 She had become a person living together with God, protected by Christ and being equal to Paul. He had no choice but to accept the claim, saying: ‘Go and teach God’s message!’ Ancient people treated the scene in the same way. In the relevant parts of The Life and Miracles of Saint Thecla, written in the 5th century, she was repeatedly admired as the ‘female Apostle’ and the ‘female Protomartyr’.40 It shows how she was accepted in Late Antiquity. 3. Thecla and the formation of women’s identities in Late Antiquity The ascetic wandering lifestyle was not only subversive as McLarty believed, but rather creative and formative for the Christian community. As the solitary ascetic holy men like St Antony and St Symeon the Stylite managed to do, religious outsiders can be good mediators for societies with anomalies.41 In the case of Thecla in ATh, she abandoned her family and hometown Iconium and formed a new Christian community of women in Antioch. She set forth on a wandering missionary journey to expand this community. In the previous sections, I dared not mention the formation of the women’s community in ATh but it is a requisite to understanding the making of Thecla’s new Christian identity. She baptized herself alone. However, it was witnessed by the audience, including the many female supporters to whom the governor released her. The execution of Thecla was stopped because of the fainting of her new spiritual mother, Tryphaena. She had been ‘pagan’ but became a Christian after she recovered consciousness and heard the words of Thecla. She is an unpretentious but indispensable character in ATh. Finally, we should analyze the community of women in ATh. First of all, we meet the crowd of women. They first appeared in the 27th section, just after Thecla was condemned to the wild beasts. They were astonished by the condemnation and shouted at the court: ‘Wicked judgment! Impious judgement!’42 39

Ibid. 40. Vie et Miracles de Sainte Thècle, ed. G. Dagron (Bruxelles, 1978), 274, see Vie, prol. 26, p. 170; 28. 36, p. 280; Miracles, 4. 11, p. 294; 15. 32, p. 332; epil., 1, p. 408. 41 E.g., P. Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA, 1978), esp. ch. 4 ‘From the Heavens to the Desert: Anthony and Pachomius’, 81-101; id., ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,’ JRS 61 (1971), 80-101. 42 ATh. 27, lines 3-5. αἱ δὲ γυναῖκες ἐξεπλάγησαν καὶ ἀνέκραξαν παρὰ τὸ βῆμα Κακὴ κρίσις, ἀνοσία κρίσις. 40

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They would repeatedly appear after that and criticize the judgement. At the opening parade of the execution, they cried out with their children: ‘O God, impious judgement is being carried out in this city’.43 When the execution was about to start, they shouted again.44 They cheered a lioness that fought against the other beasts to defend Thecla and lamented when it died.45 They shouted to stop Thecla from jumping into the water46 and they threw flowers and scents to put the beasts to sleep.47 Who were they? Where were they from? Those remain very difficult questions to investigate but we can say they were not mere suppressed women but rather, asserted the authority that they already had in society. Thecla was a first ranked woman in the city of Iconium. She should not be treated poorly, much less being subject to arbitrary execution. Women sometimes appeared in public spaces and expressed their opinions, which was not prohibited. We can compare the women in ATh to the women who drove the Appian law to be abolished after the second Punic War. They occupied all the streets and the forum in Rome. Cato blamed them but they were vindicated by Lucius Valelius and were not punished after all.48 Tryphaena played a more important role. She was depicted as a ‘queen (βασίλισσα)’49 and, in fact, the patroness and the spiritual mother of Thecla. She first appeared soon after the female crowd opposed the judgment and protected her until the day of the execution.50 Her own daughter had already died but she found comfort in Thecla. One night, her dead daughter Falconilla spoke to her in a dream, saying: ‘Mother, take this abandoned stranger Thecla in place of me, so that she may pray for me and I may be transported to the place of the righteous’. Tryphaena asked Thecla: ‘My second child Thecla, please pray for my child, so that she might live forever. For I saw this in my dream’. Immediately, Thecla prayed for Falconilla, saying: ‘Heavenly God, son of the highest, give her what she wants: that her daughter Falconilla live forever’.51 This section is noteworthy because Thecla unconsciously took an important step forward. Before the self-baptism, she had already spoken directly to the ‘heavenly God’, an elevated title for the ‘son of the highest’, but without the intercession of Paul. At the end of the first part, Paul prayed for Thecla but this

43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

Ibid. 28; R.I. Pervo, The Acts of Paul (2014), 10. ATh. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Livy, Ab urbe condita XXXIV I-II; see S. Hylen, A Modest Apostle (2015), 46-9, 52-3. ATh. 28. 27 is problematic. Ibid. 27-8. Ibid. 29. Here, I follow the R.I. Pervo, The Acts of Paul (2014).

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time, Thecla prayed for another person. This is her first step in making a new Christian community of women. At that point, Tryphaena was still ‘pagan’, for she said, ‘God of Thecla, my child, help her’.52 She declared her conversion in public after recovering from fainting and hearing that Thecla was released. She met Thecla with her large entourage and said: ‘Now I believe that the dead arise! Now I believe that my child lives!’53 Needless to say, ‘child’ means both Falconilla and Thecla. She realized Falconilla arises and now lives in heaven because Thecla who prayed for her is miraculously saved. Not only Thecla but also Tryphaena totally changed her identity through the beast trial. Thecla was welcomed at Tryphaena’s house and stayed there for eight days. During those days, she instructed Tryphaena in the word of God and her female followers converted. Tryphaena offered her property for Thecla’s use. It ensured Thecla her missionary travel, in practice. Thus, although Thecla abandoned her family and hometown, she created a new spiritual family in the city where she moved. The scene in which Thecla prayed for Falconilla reminds us of Perpetua praying for her younger brother’s healing in heaven. However, Perpetua’s case was within her original family. Thecla prayed for a person whom she had never met and would never meet in this world and they became sisters through the love of a mother and of God. As Hylen thought, she may have become a patroness in Iconium if she had not converted. Instead, she would have much broader fame throughout the Mediterranean after her conversion. Furthermore, she never abandoned her hometown. After reporting her baptism to Paul, she returned to Iconion and proposed some reconciliation plans to her mother Theocleia. While Thamyris had already died and the chance of reconciliation was lost forever, Thecla tried to invite the only hostile woman in the story to the Christian community of women that she founded. The result was not written, so readers have no choice but to imagine the outcome. However, Theocleia retains her opportunity to choose forever. In any case, Thecla created and developed a new Christian community. Even after her death, the community expanded and developed more and more. At the end of ATh, it is briefly written that ‘she went into Seleucia and, after enlightening many people by the word of God, fell into a good sleep’.54 However, her likely grave site near Seleucia soon became a huge pilgrim center named Hagia Thecla and attracted many pilgrims. Later in the fourth century, Gregory of

52

ATh. 30. Ibid. 39. 54 Ibid. 43. In this section, the newest translation is simply ‘she enjoyed a noble death’. However, it is also problematic, because in Vie et Miracles, she was believed not to have died but to just be hidden under the earth. When people were in trouble, she appeared to save them. 53

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Nazianzus stayed there for a while and wrote that it was the place of ‘Parthenon of the famous daughter Thecla’.55 At the end of the fourth century, a female pilgrim Egeria visited Hagia Thecla and wrote of her delight to again meet her female friend Marthana. I have long been paying attention to her description here, because she consistently used ‘ego = I’ as her subject of the sentences on visiting Hagia Thecla and expressing her pleasure, while she used ‘nos = we’ in the other holy places. I believe it was because Thecla was the female Apostle who recognized herself as ‘[I am] a female servant of the living God’. Conclusion Thecla was probably a fictional person. Even though she seems very independent to our modern eyes, she was a character in ancient literature, mostly produced by a male author. In the case of ATh, he used the Hellenistic romance motifs for missionary propagation. Thecla may have been a symbolized heavenly virtue that would overcome earthly vice. Nevertheless, there has been no almighty author except for God who can create anything from nothing. The materials he used had many diverse roots which he could not completely erase. As Elizabeth Fiorenza said: ‘Despite the romantic style of the Hellenistic novel … the image of Thecla retains reminiscences of the power and authority of women missionaries at the beginning of the Christian movement’.56 In addition, it not only retains reminiscences from the past but also reflects the social realities of that time that would pass into the hands of readers in the future. By the second century when ATh was supposedly written, women in the Mediterranean world had attained considerable authority. Theocleia, Tryphaena, and Thecla herself have strong social influence in ATh. As Hylen pointed out, it was not strange for the ancient reader, for there had been many female patronesses and priestesses. However, Thecla did not retain her traditional patron status. She set forth on an expedition to an unknown world. Her adventure to seek herself also reflects the tides of the age. The rituals of traditional urban communities gradually lost their power, and instead, absolute heavenly power became more important. As stated in the Introduction, Paul believed that Christ lived in him and Augustine inherited this idea. Saint Antony in Egypt and Symeon the Stylite in Syria practiced asceticism in the desert. However, what about the women? Thecla appeared to respond to this demand.

55 56

Gregorius Nazianzenus, Carmen de vita sua, v. 545-51, PG 37, 1067; Vie et Miracles, 56. E.S. Fiorenza, In Memory of Her (1983), 174.

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In ATh, she abandoned her family and hometown but acquired a new, spiritual family and successfully formed a new community outside the city. In practice, her story would be repeatedly read and retold. Many Byzantine female saints’ lives were based on ATh. In addition to Hagia Thecla, many other holy places were dedicated to Thecla and gathered pilgrims. Thecla resolutely announced, ‘I am a female servant of the living God’ and the female crowd responded: ‘One is God, who has delivered Thecla!’57 We should not forget that these women had children with them. Thecla was not only a heroine of celibate virgins but widely accepted by ordinary married women who had important roles in society. She went from being a first ranked female citizen to a female servant of God. Showing this transition process most successfully, Thecla in ATh became an important example of women in Late Antiquity.

57

ATh. 38.

La Tradición Juánica en el Asia Menor y el Martirio de Policarpo Mauricio SAAVEDRA, OSA, UNICERVANTES, Bogotá, Colombia

ABSTRACT In this article, we propose to analyse the presence and reception of the Joannine Tradition in Asia Minor, particularly by the author of the Martyrdom of Polycarp. The allusions to the Gospel of John framed in a theology and liturgical praxis, such as the celebration of the Quartodecimanist Easter, may provide the oldest testimony of the celebration of the Easter vigil in Smyrna in the second century.

La tradición juánica en el Asia Menor La tradición juánica llegó a finales del siglo I al Asia Menor y se sobrepuso en muchos aspectos a la tradición paulina anterior. Así lo constatan muchas fuentes asiáticas del siglo II que son reluctantes a la figura de Pablo, o al menos, a algunos aspectos de su doctrina, y claramente favorables a la figura de Juan. Clemente Alejandrino, Ireneo, Polícrates relacionaron la misión de Juan directamente con Éfeso y el Asia Menor. Policarpo fue identificado como un insigne discípulo suyo1, y tradiciones extrabíblicas del Apóstol fueron con el tiempo localizadas en esta región2. A nivel de su teología, la tradición juánica también vio su aceptación y consolidación en el Asia Menor con el desarrollo de argumentos planteados en los escritos juánicos3. Temas como el milenarismo4, la creencia según la cual antes 1 Iren., Ep. Flor., en Eus., h. e. 5, 20, 6, cf. Tert., praescr. 32, 2 (SC 46, 130-1). Noticia de la que también hace eco Hier., vir. Ill. 17 (PL 23, 667-70). 2 Tales tradiciones son el encuentro de Juan con el herético Cerinto en los baños y la historia de un joven discípulo de Juan que terminó siendo ladrón. Estas tradiciones fueron localizadas en Éfeso y Esmirna respectivamente, cf. Eus., h. e. 4, 14, 16; Clem., q. d. s. 42, 7 (SC 537, 212). La identificación de Esmirna como el lugar en donde sucedió la historia contada por Clemente es hecha tardíamente en Chron. Pasch. 251. Los apócrifos Hechos de Juan van también en esta perspectiva. 3 Cf. Maria Grazia Mara, Presenza della tradizione giovannea nelle prime comunità cristiane, en Atti del I Simposio di Efeso su S. Giovanni Apostolo (Roma, 1991), 111-27. 4 Cf. Manlio Simonetti, ‘L’Apocalissi e l’origine del Millennio’, Vetera Christianorum 26 (1989), 337-50; Emmanuela Prinzivalli, ‘Il millenarismo in Oriente da Metodio ad Apollinare’, Annali di Storia dell’esegesi 15 (1998), 125-51; William Hourbury, ‘Messianism among Jews and Christian in the Second Century’, Augustinianum 28 (1988), 71-88.

Studia Patristica CXXIV, 217-222. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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del juicio final Cristo habrá instaurado, con centro en Jerusalén, el reino de los justos resucitados para reinar con Él mil años, en una tierra renovada y rica de frutos de toda especie, tuvieron fervientes seguidores en esta región. Tal es el caso del gnóstico judaizante Cerinto, Papías, Justino, Melitón e Ireneo5, aunque si bien cada uno con una distinta impostación. Así también, la celebración de la Pascua, recuerdo de la pasión del Señor, el día 14 del mes lunar de Nisán, independientemente del día de la semana en que cayera, fue de especial recepción en el mundo asiático. En esta tradición litúrgica se identifican personajes como el mismo apóstol Juan, Felipe y sus hijas, Policarpo, Traseas de Eumenia, Ságaris de Laodicea, Papirio, Melitón de Sardes y Polícrates de Éfeso6. Todos estos datos a favor de la aceptación de la tradición juánica por parte de autores eclesiásticos durante el siglo II parecen contrastar con los supuestos silencios acerca de los textos juánicos en el mismo ámbito eclesiástico asiático, con la supuesta aceptación que tuvo el cuarto evangelio por parte de los círculos gnósticos y con el recelo al cuarto evangelio y el Apocalipsis por parte de algunos miembros de la jerarquía romana7. Tal escenario llevó a varios estudiosos a pensar en una fobia de parte de la ortodoxia a la tradición juánica. Dentro de esa misma tesis, Ireneo influyó enormemente en el cambio de fortuna del evangelio de Juan entre los autores ortodoxos, superando todo prejuicio hacia este y convirtiéndolo en un arma contra los diferentes grupos heréticos. Dicha tesis es hoy en gran parte superada por los estudios de R. Brown8, C. Hill9, entre otros, que han llamado la atención acerca de la influencia de este evangelio sobre autores como Ignacio, Policarpo, Aristides, Papías, El Pastor de Hermas y la Epístola de los Apóstoles, todos ellos antes del año 150 y en una extensión que va desde Siria, pasando por el Asia Menor y Grecia hasta la misma Roma. En cuanto que Ireneo haya sido quien cambió la fortuna del cuarto evangelio superando todo prejuicio hacia él y ganándolo para la ortodoxia, tal tesis se considera hoy exagerada, en cuanto la tradición juánica estuvo presente durante todo el siglo II en regiones como el Asia y en autores eclesiásticos, aunque es cierto que con Ireneo tanto la variedad y la extensión del uso del cuarto evangelio y las tradiciones en torno a él y a su autor se consolidaron notablemente10. Además, no encontramos en Ireneo un espíritu de defensa del 5

Iren., haer. 5, 33-6. Eus., h. e. 5, 24, 2. 7 El primer escrito exegético cristiano que conocemos es el Comentario a Juan hecho por el gnóstico valentiniano Heracleón hacia el año 160, cf. Manlio Simonetti, Testi gnostici in lengua latina e greca (Roma, 20095), 201-8. Sobre los recelos de Gayo y de parte de la jerarquía romana al cuarto evangelio y al Apocalipsis a fines del siglo II, cf. Emmanuela Prinzivalli, ‘Gaio (e Alogi)’, NDPAC (2007), 2029-30. 8 Cf. Raymond Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York, 1979). 9 Cf. Charles Hill, The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church (New York, 2004). 10 Cf. C. Hill, The Johannine Corpus (2004), 95-6. 6

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cuarto evangelio contra los gnósticos como si hubiese que defender su ortodoxia, ni una presentación de este a los eclesiásticos con el fin de buscar su aprobación. Lo que Ireneo refuta en los gnósticos es la exégesis que hacen de Juan, no la fuente que usan para inspirar sus doctrinas. Ireneo, hace uso del evangelio de Juan, como un texto de autoridad que pertenece desde el principio al cristianismo ortodoxo. Raymond Brown señaló que ya a finales del siglo I la primera carta de Juan demostró que había una manera ortodoxa de leer el cuarto evangelio, y que el combate de esta epístola contra los secesionistas posteriormente estimuló a muchos escritores como Ireneo a emplear el evangelio de Juan contra los gnósticos quienes eran descendientes espirituales de los secesionistas en cuanto que estaban influenciados por el modo en que estos leyeron el cuarto evangelio. Así pues, no fue Ireneo quien salvó para la Iglesia el evangelio de Juan, sino mucho antes lo hizo el autor de 1Juan11. Con esta panorámica de la historia y recepción de la tradición juánica en el Asia Menor, es ahora nuestro objetivo estudiar la especificidad de la tradición juánica en el Martirio de Policarpo, el principal escrito de la Iglesia de Esmirna, con el fin de analizar qué posturas tuvo la comunidad frente a la autoridad del apóstol Juan, frente a la asimilación de los escritos provenientes de esta tradición, y la aceptación de los temas teológicos propuestos por los mismos, particularmente el milenarismo y la práctica cuartodecimana.

La tradición juánica en el Martirio de Policarpo12 El autor del Martirio de Policarpo se propuso narrar los acontecimientos conforme al martirio que aparece en el Evangelio13. Con esta intención no sólo aparecen alusiones a los sinópticos, sobretodo a Mateo, sino que en su gran mayoría dichas alusiones, sobretodo de los capítulos 7 y 8, pueden ser bien identificables con el evangelio de Juan y su teología14. Las alusiones al evangelio de Juan enmarcadas en una teología y praxis litúrgica como lo fue la celebración de la Pascua cuartodecimana pueden arrojar el testimonio más antiguo de la celebración de la vigilia pascual en Esmirna en el siglo II15. 11

Cf. R. Brown, The Community (1979), 149-50. Para el Martirio de Policarpo recomendamos la última edición crítica del texto trabajada por O. Zwierlein, Die Urfassungen der Martyria Polycarpi et Pionii und das Corpus Polycarpianum (Berlin, Boston 2014). También se puede consultar el reciente comentario de P. Hartog, Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians and the Martyrdom of Polycarp (Oxford, 2013). 13 M. Polyc., 1, 1; 19, 1. 14 Cf. Gennaro Luongo, ‘Bibbia e agiografia: echi giovannei nel Martyrium Polycarpi’, en Atti del IX Simposio di Efeso su S. Giovanni Apostolo (Roma, 2003), 105-22. 15 Así lo ha interpretado Remo Cacitti, Grande Sabato, Il contesto pasquale quartodecimano nella formazione della teologia del martirio (Milano, 1994), 52. 12

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En efecto, todo el episodio del arresto de Policarpo transcurre entre “el viernes hacia la hora de la cena”16 hasta “el gran sábado”17 cuando los perseguidores lo condujeron a la ciudad, todo el prendimiento dura una noche. El señalamiento de la παρασκευή en un momento tan crucial como el arresto, y con la intención teológica de imitar el evangelio, quizá no deba ser solo valorado como una mera indicación cronológica, sino como la evocación del clima de aquella vigilia pascual del cual dicho término, justamente en Io. 19:31, hace referencia cuando aparece como hápax legomenon neotestamentario la expresión “σαββάτου μεγάλου”. También es importante notar cómo el obispo guardó el ayuno todo el tiempo desde el arresto del viernes hasta la llegada a la ciudad al día siguiente. Mientras por el contrario, sus perseguidores comían y bebían en aquella hora (ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ὥρᾳ), el se recogió en oración “en dirección hacia Oriente” (στἀθεὶς πρὸς ἀνατολάς)18. El contexto microasiático testimonia cómo desde el Oriente se esperaba la venida gloriosa de la parusía de Cristo19. Policarpo oró en pie, durante dos horas. Esto quizá no sea sólo un eco de la oración de Jesús en el cenáculo de Io. 17, sino también, la posición erguida de su oración recuerda la figura del cristiano que en la oración se hace cruz (σταυρὀς)20. Junto a la situación de oración y ayuno, clásica del judaísmo, está también la mención del lugar donde los perseguidores encontraron al obispo: “acostado en una pequeña habitación del piso superior”. Esta idea puede bien ser una referencia a Act. 1:13, donde los apóstoles regresando al cenáculo después de la Ascensión, se dirigieron al piso superior, esperando la venida del Señor y perseverando en la oración con un mismo espíritu. La misma alusión al piso 16

M. Polyc., 7, 1. Varias hipótesis se han levantado para explicar el significado de este “Gran Sábado”. Podía hacer referencia a un sábado de Pascua, quizá también se trataba de un sábado coincidente con una fiesta del calendario judío como la fiesta de los Purim. También puede tratarse de una confusión ya que el mes macedonio de Jantipo corresponde al mes romano de febrero, pero también al mes de abril del calendario sirio-macedonio, muy extendido en Oriente. De ahí que un oriental haya podido interpolar el adjetivo μέγα para convertirlo en un sábado pascual. También se puede interpretar como un sábado cualquiera en que los paganos celebraban alguna fiesta especial. Finalmente, también se pude notar que la expresión μέγα σάββατον significó domingo en oposición a μικρὸν σάββατον que designaba al sábado, cf. José Ayán Calvo, Ignacio de Antioquía, Policarpo de Esmirna, Carta de la Iglesia de Esmirna (Madrid, 1999), 255, n. 22. Para ver el status questionis de la secular controversia acerca de esta expresión, cf. R. Cacitti, Grande Sabato (1994), 11-38. 18 Cf. R. Cacitti, Grande Sabato (1994), 47, n. 28. La explícita alusión a la orientis partem hacia la cual los cristianos se dirigen en oración, puede tener aquí su más arcaico testimonio. En efecto, este testimonio es anterior al de Clem., str. 7, 7, 43, 7 (SC 428, 150-2): “Pablo se dirigió a Oriente, alzó las manos al cielo y oró por mucho tiempo”. 19 Epistula Apostolorum 16; M. Pion., 21, 1; Meth., symp. 11, 285 (SC 95, 310). 20 Odas de Salomón 27, 1-3: “He extendido mis manos y he santificado a mi Señor: porque alargar mis manos es signo de Él, y mi estar erguido, el madero enderezado”. 17

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superior como lugar de oración y de visiones celestiales se encuentra en Act. 10:9 y 20:8. Así pues el lugar, la dirección, y el símbolo de este tipo de oración de Policarpo nos conducen en una prospectiva de tipo escatológico, propia de la liturgia que espera la parusía del Señor, la cual es un característica importante de la Pascua cuartodecimana muy propia de las iglesias de Asia. Esta estrecha relación entre Pascua y Parusía en la pascua cuartodecimana, tiene además un acento milenarista, como parece confirmarlo, entre otras muchas fuentes asiáticas de esta tradición, la Epístola de los Apóstoles, cuando ante la pregunta de los apóstoles sobre el tiempo de la segunda venida la respuesta del Señor es: “Cuando un centésimo o un veintésimo esté cumplido, entre el Pentecostés y la fiesta de los Ázimos, tendrá lugar la venida de mi Padre”21. Esta característica de la Pascua cuartodecimana que coloca en relación la Pascua con la Parusía aparece en el testimonio de Polícrates de Éfeso que en lo álgido de la controversia con Víctor de Roma, proclama que todos los mártires por él nominados que celebraron la Pascua el 14 del Nisán, incluyendo Policarpo, “resucitarán el día de la venida del Señor, cuando venga de los cielos con gloria y en busca de todos los santos”22. Así pues, en el Martirio de Policarpo no solamente encontramos unas alusiones al evangelio de Juan, sino que estás son utilizadas teológicamente para relacionar el arresto de Policarpo con la Pascua de Cristo, entendida como “pasión”, en el sentido más cuartodecimano de la expresión, y además, la redacción de dicho acontecimiento posiblemente tiene las características de una celebración de la Pascua cuartodecimana, convirtiéndose esta narración en el primer testimonio que probablemente tenemos de esta práctica litúrgica en Esmirna, antes de los testimonios de Ireneo y Polícrates. La oración de Policarpo del capítulo 14 puede ser también un testimonio del conocimiento del autor sobre el evangelio de Juan y el Apocalipsis. Policarpo se dirige a Dios como el todopoderoso, título que sólo aparece en el Apocalipsis y no menos de seis veces23. En particular, en Apoc. 15:2 los que han triunfado sobre la Bestia invocan a Dios todopoderoso de la misma forma en que Policarpo lo invoca mencionando su esperanza para la resurrección de la vida eterna24. Finalmente, en 20, 2 el autor habla de Jesús como unigénito (μονογενής), término acuñado en el evangelio de Juan en 1:14.18, 3:16.18 y que aparece también en 1Io. 4:9. 21

Epistula Apostolorum 17. La alusión a la fiesta de Pentecostés y a la de los Ázimos es una alusión a la Pascua, así como la alusión a Pentecostés tuvo una relación con la parusía en la iglesia antigua, cf. Tert., bapt. 19, 2 (SC 35, 94); Or., Cels. 8, 22 (SC 150, 222-4), cf. R. Cacitti, Grande Sabato (1994), 52-64. 22 Eus., h. e. 5, 24, 2. 23 Apoc. 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7; 19:6; 21:22. 24 M. Polyc., 14, 2. Para el uso del término παντοκράτωρ en otros escritos prenicenos, cf. Jean Pierre Batut, Pantocrator, “Dieu le Père tout-puissant” dans la théologie prénicéenne (Paris, 2009).

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En lo que respecta a la presencia del Apocalipsis en el Martirio de Policarpo, parece claro que el ambiente de persecución descrito en todo el Apocalipsis, y de manera particular en Apoc. 2:8-11 en la carta a la Iglesia de Esmirna, fue material de inspiración para el redactor del Martirio de Policarpo. De una parte, la mención acerca de las calumnias de los que se llaman judíos sin serlo25, ve su desarrollo en el Martirio de Policarpo cuando son estos quienes denuncian públicamente al obispo26, con ardor reúnen palos y leña de los talleres para quemarlo27, e intentan impedir que los cristianos recuperen su cuerpo28. De otra parte, la promesa de la corona de la vida que aparece en el Apocalipsis29, metáfora de un premio póstumo, aparece realizada en Policarpo que con su martirio ha alcanzado una corona de incorruptibilidad30. Sin embargo, aunque tanto la temática de la virulencia judía como la metáfora de la corona, sean comunes a ambos textos, también es verdad que estos temas son tratados en otras fuentes del mismo período y el Martirio de Policarpo dista casi 50 años del Apocalipsis, por lo que la mención de estos temas pudo ser solamente el reflejo de una realidad extendida y no necesariamente una dependencia directa del Apocalipsis. Conclusión El Martirio de Policarpo parece tomar varias expresiones del evangelio de Juan elaborando en un contesto cristológico la narración de la noche del arresto de Policarpo con el trasfondo de la celebración de la Pascua. En cuanto al tema de raigambre juánico que es la celebración de la Pascua el 14 del Nisán, encontramos en el Martirio de Policarpo una posible alusión que ratifica el testimonio de Ireneo y de Polícrates acerca de la celebración cuartodecimana en Esmirna. En efecto, el arresto del obispo pudo haberse presentado en medio de la celebración de la Pascua, o más plausible aún, el autor del Martirio de Policarpo, dentro del carácter litúrgico del documento, reelaboró el prendimiento del obispo con las características propias de la teología de la celebración cuartodecimana. Por otra parte, testimonios posteriores a los analizados, aún de finales del siglo II, vinculan a la Iglesia de Esmirna con la tradición juánica de manera clara. Tanto Polícrates como Ireneo relacionaron a Policarpo con la tradición juánica, sea con la celebración de la Pascua cuartodecimana sea con la figura de Juan respectivamente. 25 26 27 28 29 30

Apoc. 2:9. M. Polyc., 12, M. Polyc., 13, M. Polyc., 17, Apoc. 2:10. M. Polyc., 17,

2-3. 1. 2; 18, 1. 1.