G. López
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
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University of California Press
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University of California Press, Ltd.
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© 2013 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
López, Ariel G.
Shenoute of Atripe and the uses of poverty : rural patronage, religious conflict and monasticism in late antique Egypt / Ariel G. López.
p. cm. — (Transformation of the classical heritage ; 50)
Revised dissertation--Princeton University, 2010.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0-520–27483–9 (cloth, alk. paper)
eISBN 9780520954922
Shenute, Saint, ca. 348–466.2. Egypt—History—30 B.C.–640 A.D.3. Egypt—Economic conditions—332 B.C.–640 A.D.4. Coptic monasticism and religious orders—History. 5. Romans—Egypt. I. Title. II. Series: Transformation of the classical heritage ; 50.
BR1720.S48L67 2013
271.0092—dc232012021905
Manufactured in the United States of America
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with its commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Cascades Enviro 100, a 100% post consumer waste, recycled, de-inked fiber. FSC recycled certified and processed chlorine free. It is acid free, Ecologo certified, and manufactured by BioGas energy.
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction: “Rustic Audacity”
1.Loyal Opposition
2.A Miraculous Economy
3.Rural Patronage: Holy and Unholy
4.The Limits of Intolerance
Conclusion
Appendix A: The Chronology of Shenoute’s Life and Activities
Appendix B: The Sources
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
PREFACE
This book is a revised version of the dissertation that I defended at Princeton University in 2010. It is the product of almost a decade of strenuous and challenging work. It has also been a source of great joy and many pleasant surprises for me. I can say with confidence that, like Saint Augustine, I have learned many new things just by writing about them. As I look back, much of it seems now to be the product of timely coincidences. Coptic is what brought me to late antiquity. As an amateur Egyptologist, I had started learning this language before leaving high school. I first read Shenoute, with much difficulty, when I was sixteen years old in Buenos Aires, Argentina. But it was only toward the end of six years of training in social history, at the University of Buenos Aires, that I discovered this fascinating historical period. I decided to take a seminar on late antiquity thinking that I would finally put my knowledge of Coptic to some use. To prepare, I borrowed Peter Brown’s celebrated book, The World of Late Antiquity, from a close friend. This work revealed a whole new world to me. It showed me that it was possible to write ancient history with the same vividness and sophistication that I had seen in the work of many French and English historians of the medieval and modern periods. I spent weeks working through the little volume, reading and rereading, and synthesizing its contents to the point of memorizing large chunks of it.
When I found out that elite American universities were willing to pay graduate students “simply” to do their own research, my goal was set: I was going to be Peter Brown’s student. I can still picture my father’s disbelief when I told him that Princeton University was going to financially support my study of ancient history. Princeton gave me endless time and resources, the opportunity to be the student of my intellectual idol, and the chance to meet my wife. I will forever be thankful for that.
My first seminar with Professor Brown dealt with the development of the care of the poor in late antiquity. For someone trained in social history as I was, this issue presented obvious attractions. This study is, in many ways, a very long and late version of the paper I should have written for that seminar. At the time, however, I had no idea of the potential of Shenoute’s writings for the study of social history. I settled on Shenoute of Atripe as a dissertation topic simply because I knew that this abbot was by far the most important writer in Coptic. It was only slowly, through painful and sometimes tedious work, that I came to discern this study’s main thesis: that Shenoute’s entire public life was articulated in terms of his relationship to the poor. I would like to stress what a great and pleasant surprise this was for me. It meant that I could study social history, in late antiquity, in Coptic!
Such research, however, has presented me with multiple difficulties. First and foremost, Shenoute’s literary corpus is a daunting challenge for any scholar. Voluminous, fragmentary, disorganized, much of it unpublished or untranslated, it can be overwhelming at times. I was fortunate enough to be able to consult the digital images of numerous unpublished manuscripts in Rome thanks to the kindness of Professor Tito Orlandi. I have read, in the original Coptic, every text quoted in this study (see appendix B on my handling of the sources). But the reader should be warned in advance. The study of Shenoute’s literary corpus is a lifelong endeavor. There are texts that—for different reasons—I have not been able to consult. And who knows how many unrecognized fragments of Shenoute’s manuscripts may still lurk in European, Egyptian, or American libraries? It has certainly not helped that many of the editions available are not trustworthy or were made by scholars with little interest in the history of the period. I have included numerous and lengthy quotations in this work in the belief that these texts deserve to be more widely known and knowing that they would not be accessible to most scholars otherwise. In my translations, I have tried to avoid the Orientalizing, überliteral translation technique that is so common among scholars with an exclusively philological interest in these texts. If we translated ancient Greek literature as literally as Shenoute is usually translated, it would sound as bizarre and alien as Shenoute is usually made to sound.
A second challenge I have encountered
