the world and petition the authorities is by no means particular to Shenoute. One only needs to read late antique petitions from Egypt to notice how widespread this so-called violence had become. By the sixth century, it seems, every crime had become a crime of the rich and powerful against the weak and poor—“violence” in Shenoute’s language. Social contrasts and inequality come to be portrayed in dramatic terms and form the background to every petition. The poor, miserable petitioner represents himself in the bleakest possible terms while complaining about the abuses endured at the hands of his all-powerful rivals.88
Shenoute himself contributed actively to the spread of this language. And not only with his preaching. It has been argued that the very existence of a monastic sector tends “to raise the pitch of the ideological discourse and articulation of other groups and sectors—themselves influencing, at least in part, monastic discourse and organization.”89 In Peter Brown’s apposite words, “The monks functioned much as a chemical solution functions in a photographers’ darkroom: their presence brought out with greater sharpness of contrast the new features of a Christian image of society.”90 Like Shenoute—whose Discourses and Letters can be considered a long, single-minded, and ultimately successful petition—the writers of these petitions never run the risk of understatement when begging for justice and attention from the provincial governor.
What such a “violent” world needed was a courageous truth-teller who would speak truth to power and denounce all this “violence” to the emperor and his representatives. What it needed, in other words, was parrhēsia, fearless speech, a concept Shenoute uses when describing his words and deeds against the “violent.”91 The ideal of parrhēsia was of course very old. For centuries it had been incarnated by the philosopher who was expected to act as an honest and courageous adviser and critic of the powerful. In late antiquity, the concept was infused with new life with the emergence of bishops first and then monks as its new embodiment. The Christian takeover of the old role of the philosopher as the public conscience of society introduced important Old Testament echoes into the classical ideal. Someone like Shenoute was as much a parrhēsiastēs as an Old Testament prophet. His truth-having was guaranteed not only by his objectivity and moral rectitude, but also by a privileged relationship to the divine. His parrhēsia before the powerful of this world derived to a large degree from his parrhēsia before God himself. His criticisms, therefore, attacked not only the abuse of power and wealth but also impiety and sinfulness.
What are the specific implications of parrhēsia as a discursive style? Michel Foucault’s brief lectures on this topic are particularly helpful to understand Shenoute’s self-presentation.92 In the first place, the relation between parrhēsia and rhetoric deserves some consideration:
The word parrhesia, then, refers to a type of relationship between the speaker and what he says. For in parrhesia, the speaker makes it manifestly clear and obvious that what he says is his own opinion. And he does this by avoiding any kind of rhetorical form which would veil what he thinks. Instead, the parrhesiastes uses the most direct words and expressions he can find. Whereas rhetoric provides the speaker with technical devices to help him prevail upon the minds of his audience (regardless of the rhetorician’s own opinion concerning what he says), in parrhesia, the parrhesiastes acts on other people’s minds by showing them as directly as possible what he actually believes.93
The idea that Shenoute’s style of preaching derives somehow from the Greek rhetoric of the Second Sophistic94 is misleading not because as a “Coptic,” uneducated peasant he bitterly resented Greek culture and language, but rather because for a parrhēsiastēs the only legitimate mode of communication was straight talk. The desired effect of parrhēsia was in fact to silence rhetoric, the “loquacity” and impertinent questioning of a self-indulgent audience—whether in Greek or Coptic.95 This is particularly important because Shenoute’s rivals lived at Panopolis, a “college town” overflowing in poetry—and poetry had taken over many of the traditional functions of rhetoric in late antiquity. While Shenoute attempted to impress imperial magistrates with his plain speaking, his opponents composed epics comparing the same magistrates to Homeric heroes who fought the barbarians to save the Thebaid.96 As a traditional rhetorician Shenoute stood no chance against Panopolis: “Because the old power-holders work within a code of formalization, they cannot be challenged gradually but only altogether, by an almost deliberate, sacrilegious disregard for a traditional culture which the holders of old power are busily creating and evermore formalizing to exclude the usurpers.”97
One of the many interesting points raised in Foucault’s illuminating lectures is that the use of parrhēsia implies necessarily a specific self-presentation.98 The truth of what the parrhēsiastēs says—and he never has the slightest doubt that what he says is true—is guaranteed not by a logical demonstration but rather by the possession of certain moral qualities by the speaker. We have seen that Shenoute never tires of enumerating his own virtues when speaking to the authorities. It was these virtues that gave him the right to criticize and advise the powerful and his enemies. His personal life was presented as a blazon of essential truths that served as a guideline for his audience. Above all, it was crucial to give proofs of personal courage. A parrhēsiastēs is courageous because his criticism of the powerful is dangerous to himself. This courage proves his sincerity. Shenoute liked to emphasize that his tireless denunciations often provoked outrage among his audience. His “panegyric” on Flavianus, for example, has a curious excursus in which he tells the governor about the reaction of another magistrate to this straight talk. Apparently, Shenoute had spoken on behalf of the poor preaching justice and charity only too blatantly. The result:
A friend from your province (i.e., Flavianus’s country of origin) who came to us, not only did he not like my speech, but he [even] accused me to the governor. But I did not say anything that is not in the scriptures, in particular in the Psalms. That nothing may be hidden from you, I will tell you how he lied against us and what we wrote to him.
Then Shenoute quotes, in the middle of his speech, his extensive “letter to Bakanos and those who are with him, against his accusations,” of which the following extracts give a good idea:99
I have to tell you the truth: I grieve for you exceedingly. For what cause, I will not say—God will judge us both. About the accusation that you have made against me in the law-court, lying: I don’t care. I don’t flee from the laws. Only God’s court has anything to do with me and I have nothing to confess. When you go up to the final judgment, we will see whether we came up to this hill (i.e., Shenoute’s monastery) to “gather men to fight each other on account of the villages” and whether “I gave them bread” (these are the real accusations of Bakanos against Shenoute). You lie; you slander the places of God (i.e., the monasteries). Who will trust you? If we had wanted to practice (gumnaze) the laws against the things you said, you would have not avoided their refutation. You have come to Egypt to lose your soul for nothing. This is not the moment to add numerous biblical quotations.
The victims of Shenoute’s courage are therefore not only to be found in Panopolis; they are even among the “friends” who visit him. Only Flavianus’s extraordinary friendship had prevented him from becoming furious at such supposedly incendiary criticisms:
For unless you were wise and unless love supported every thing and every word which a friend will tell his true friends in Christ, you would hate me when I tell you these things. … Don’t blame me because I tell you the truth. … Oh magistrates, do not listen to my manner of speaking and become furious!100
The typical setting for the display of parrhēsia in the classical world was a dialogue between ruler and parrhēsiastēs, what Foucault has called the “parrhesiastic game.”101 In this, too, Shenoute’s interaction with the authorities recalls classical traditions. He is always taking the questions of his audience and answering them in such a forceful way that he hurts the questioners’ pride. His discourses to the military governors who visited the monastery, for example, portray them as
