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“A Suitable Abode for Christ”: The Church Building as Symbol of Ascetic Renunciation in Early Monasticism1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Caroline T. Schroeder
Caroline T. Schroeder
Affiliation:
Caroline T. Schroeder a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in the Humanities at the Introduction to the Humanities Program at Stanford University.
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Extract

In reading many early Christian texts from and about Egypt, one is struck by the importance of space for the ascetic lifestyle. Whether it be Antony locked in his desert fortress, the tightly arranged cells of Kellia in the Apopthegmata Patrum, or the landscape of the desert in so much hagiographical literature, the space in which the early Christians practiced ascetic renunciation was as infused with as much meaning as the ascetic practices themselves. Since few texts with descriptions of early ascetic space survive, studies have been left largely to archaeologists and art historians, not historians of Christianity. Only a handful of ascetic authors from the fourth through sixth centuries wrote about the theological significance they found in the building of churches. These include the wealthy Latin patron Paulinus of Nola (Italy), two anonymous members of the Pachomian monasteries in Egypt, and the Egyptian archimandrite Shenoute. The churches built for each of these late antique communities held deep theological significance. They symbolized the ascetic endeavors undertaken at those communities. Since for each writer, the ascetic struggle was constituted in slightly different terms, with different goals, practices, and interpretations of those practices, so were the church buildings imbued with different meanings. Yet, in each case, the church held meaning beyond its mere walls. Each was constructed as much by a theology and a discourse of ascetic discipline as it was by wood, brick, and stone.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 73 , Issue 3 , September 2004 , pp. 472 - 521
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2004

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References

2. For Egypt, see Grossmann, Peter, Christliche Architektur in Ägypten, Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section One: The Near and Middle East 62 (Leiden: Brill, 2002)Google Scholar; Hedstrom, Darlene Brooks, “‘Your cell will teach you all things’: The relationship between monastic practice and the architectural design of the cell in Coptic monasticism, 400–1000 (Egypt)” (Ph.D. diss., Miami University, 2001)Google Scholar; Bolman, Elizabeth, “Joining the Community of Saints: Monastic Paintings and Ascetic Practice in Early Christian Egypt,” in Shaping Community: The Art and Archaeology of Monasticism: Papers from a Symposium Held at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum, University of Minnesota, March 10–12, ed. Sheila, McNally, British Archaeological Reports International Series 941 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2001)Google Scholar; and Bolman, Elizabeth S. and Patrick, Godeau, eds., Monastic Visions: Wall Paintings in the Monastery of St. Antony at the Red Sea (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press and the American Research Center in Egypt, 2002).Google Scholar

3. A codicological reconstruction of the surviving manuscripts of Shenoute's works was completed only as recently as 1993 and continues to be amended as new manuscript fragments are identified. Emmel, Stephen, “Shenute's Literary Corpus: A Codicological Reconstruction” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1993)Google Scholar, soon to be published as Shenoute's Literary Corpus (Leuven: Peeters). See also below, n. 9.

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6. Shenoute mentions the Council of Ephesus and the death of Nestorius in a text known by its incipit, I Am Amazed, published in part by Orlandi, Tito under the title Shenute contra Origenistas (Rome: C.I.M., 1985)Google Scholar. On these events and datable late Shenoutean texts, such as correspondence with Timothy of Alexandria, see Emmel, , “From the Other Side of the Nile,” 95–96Google Scholar, and “Theophilus's Festal Letter of 401 as Quoted by Shenute,” in Divitiae Aegypti: Koptologische und verwandte Studien zu Ehren von Martin Krause, eds. Cäcilia, Fluck, Lucia, Langener, Siegried, Richter, Sofia, Schaten, and Gregor, Wurst (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert, 1995), 96–97Google Scholar. Shenoute's attendance at the Council of Ephesus has been debated, in part because he is not mentioned in the Council records. But the current dominant scholarly consensus is that he probably did attend in support of Cyril, even if the veracity of the details in Besa's account is dubious. On Shenoute's presence at Ephesus, see Besa, , Vita Sinuthii, 128–30Google Scholar, in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 1:57–59Google Scholar; Eng. trans, in Bell, , Life of Shenoute, 78–79Google Scholar; Emmel, , “Corpus,” 6, 11Google Scholar; Griggs, C. Wilfred, Early Egyptian Christianity: From Its Origins to 451 C.E., Coptic Studies 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 198–99Google Scholar; Frend, W. H. C., The Early Church (Philadelphia, Penn.: Fortress, 1965), 216.Google Scholar

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8. Orlandi, Tito, “The Library of the Monastery of Saint Shenute at Atripe,” in Egberts and others, Perspectives on Panopolis, 211–31.Google Scholar

9. Emmel's description and reconstruction of the organizing schema of Shenoute's corpus appears in his “Corpus,” 103–6, 793–802, 876–81. Letters also fill up the ends of the codices of the Discourses. On the dispersal of the manuscripts to primarily European collections, see Emmel, 15–31. I follow Emmel's system of citing Shenoute's works by the incipit of the text and the volume of the Canons or Discourses in which it appears. Because there are no critical editions, I also provide the page numbers and sigla of the codices from which any citations are taken, whether or not the cited passages have been published. For example, This Great House, Canon 7, XL 273 refers to page 273 in codex XL of the text in Canon 7 that begins “This great house.” If the citation has been published, publication information has been provided. If not, the location, catalogue number, and folio number of the unpublished manuscript are provided, along with some or all of the original Coptic text.

10. Precise dating of the construction of the church is complicated by the fact that the current site has never been thoroughly excavated and surveyed (see below, nn. 31, 36–40). Emmel dates the church to about 450 (or sometime in the preceding decade) based on the datable events chronicled in the texts about the building and inscriptions in the extant building at the site. Archaeologist Peter Grossmann dates the church to 455 C.E. based on inscriptions and preliminary archaeological research. Crum, W. E., “Inscriptions from Shenoute's Monastery,” Journal of Theological Studies 5 (1904): 554–56Google Scholar; Emmel, , “The Historical Circumstances of Shenute's Sermon God is Blessed,” in ΘEMEλIA: Spätantike und koptologische Studien Peter Grossmann zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Martin, Krause and Sofia, Schaten (Wiesbaden: Reichart, 1998), 93–94Google Scholar; Grossmann, , Christliche Architektur, 528–29.Google Scholar

11. According to the monks at Deir Anba Shenouda, before becoming patriarch, Pope Cyril VI (d. 1971) lived for a time in a cave overlooking Deir Anba Shenouda.

12. See nn. 36–37 below.

13. Dale Martin lays out the multiple ancient philosophical and medical understandings of body, flesh, spirit, and soul as well as Paul's own views on the body. The Corinthian Body (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), 3–37, 128–29Google Scholar. A person's pneuma, or vital spirit, was a part of the body that coursed through flesh in the form of blood and sperm. Rousselle, Aline, Porneia: on Desire and the Body in Antiquity, trans. Pheasant, Felicia (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 13–15Google Scholar, and on female “sperm,” 27–32.

14. Shaw, , Burden of the Flesh, 2–3, 29–33.Google Scholar

15. Several examples of Shenoute's discourse of the flesh also occur in his letters to the women monks. In these letters, he chastises the monks for continuing to honor the bonds of the flesh (for example, family ties, friendship), and he accuses some of the women of showing favoritism to female relatives and friends or of desiring to visit male relatives in the men's community. Shenoute exhorts the women to transform their relationships into bonds of the spirit, in which all monks are equal in companionship and status to all others (except Shenoute). For an analysis of Shenoute's letters to women and models of kinship in the monastery, see the recent work of Krawiec, Rebecca in Shenoute and the Women of the White Monastery, 161–74.Google Scholar

16. Shenoute calls his community a “congregation” (or “congregations”): (synagoge) in contrast to Pachomius's koinonia.

17. Studies on religion and the body in late antiquity have flourished in recent years. Most influential on my work, as well as the field, remains Brown, Peter, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988)Google Scholar. Brown does not treat Shenoute, likely because of the inaccessibility of Shenoute's texts until recently.

18. Since Shenoutean texts continue to be identified among Coptic manuscripts, we may learn more about the context of Canon 7.

19. Emmel's codicological reconstruction of Canon 7 appears in his “Literary Corpus,” 214–62.

20. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XL 273–74, unpublished, France, Bibliothèque nationale ms. copte (hereafter FR-BN), 1304 ff. 139V–140R: . The other buildings include “other places” and laundries or baths, XL 274, unpublished (FR-BN 1304 f. 140R): ЄBOλ TωN ; ; cf. Emmel, , “Historical Circumstances,” 83.Google Scholar

21. Shenoute, If Everyone Errs, XL 282, in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 3:216.Google Scholar

22. Shenoute, The Rest of the Words, Canon 7, GO 392, in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 3:67–68Google Scholar: “The rest of the words in this book, or the others which we spoke and we wrote in the second year after the building of this house at the time when the barbarians were despoiling, until they invaded the city called Koeis, at the time when this great multitude dwelled among us as they were fleeing from the Cushites.” Cf. Eng. trans. and discussion in Emmel, “Literary Corpus,” 846, and “Historical Circumstances,” 85.

23. As there is no complete, published edition of God Is Holy, I follow the codicological reconstruction of the extant manuscripts of the text in codices DG, GO, XG, XL, XU, YH, YR, ZS, and ZV in Emmel, “Corpus,” 587–88, 626–27, 652, 663, 680–82, 699, 723, 725, 847–48, and the synoptic table 1060–63. I have examined all the witnesses to God Is Holy (apart from cases of textual parallels) reported by Emmel. On the context of the text, see Emmel, “Historical Circumstances,” 82.

24. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 1, in Wessely, , Texte, 1:97Google Scholar; cf. the Eng. trans, in Emmel, “Corpus,” 848. This introduction may have been written when Canon 7 was compiled and serves as a summarizing foreword or prologue. This may still form a portion of the “authentic” Shenoutean corpus, since Shenoute may have compiled the Canons himself. Emmel, , “Shenoute's Literary Corpus,” 810–11, 844–45.Google Scholar

25. As there is no complete, published edition of A23, I follow the codicological reconstruction of the extant manuscript fragments in codices GO, XL, and YR as enumerated in Emmel, “Corpus,” 626, 663, 669, 848–49, 1063. I have examined all the witnesses to A23 (apart from cases of textual parallels) reported by Emmel.

26. As there is no complete, published edition of This Great House, I follow the codicological reconstruction of the extant manuscripts of the text in codices DG, GN, GO, XG, XL, XU, YH, and YR as enumerated in Emmel, “Corpus,” 587, 623, 626, 651, 663–64, 681–82, 699, 849–51, and the synoptic table in 1063–69. I have examined all the witnesses to This Great House (apart from cases of textual parallels) reported by Emmel except for unpublished folio fragment GO 186–87, France, The Louvre (hereafter FR-PL), E. 9996, and unpublished GO fragment 2, Italy, Biblioteca Nazionale “Vittorio Emanuele III,” ms. (hereafter IT-NB), IB17 f. 4.

27. Shenoute, This Great House, XL 273–74, unpublished (FR-BN 1304 ff. 139V–140R): Cf. Emmel, , “Historical Circumstances,” 83.Google Scholar

28. As there is no complete, published edition of I Myself Have Seen, I follow the codico-logical reconstruction of the extant manuscripts in codices DG, GN, XU, and YR as enumerated in Emmel, , “Corpus,” 587–88, 623, 682, 699, 851–52Google Scholar, and the synoptic table in 1069–70. I have examined all the witnesses to I Myself Have Seen (apart from cases of textual parallels) reported by Emmel. Similarly, there is no complete, published edition of If Everyone Errs, so I follow the codicological reconstruction of the extant manuscripts in codices DG, GN, GO, XG, XL, and XU as enumerated in Emmel, , “Corpus,” 588, 623–24, 626–28, 652, 664, 682, 852–54Google Scholar, and the synoptic table in 1070–74. I have examined all the witnesses to If Everyone Errs (apart from cases of textual parallels) reported by Emmel. As Emmel has suggested, If Everyone Errs may have been the originally intended ending to Canon 7. Its conclusion begins with a summary statement quite similar to the colophon of God Is Holy: “For from the beginning of this discourse (logos) to its end, all the things that are written in this book find fault with us because of the unnatural things that prevailed upon the majority of people, men and women, and also that we are in the house of God, the Christ, and his places so that we might sanctify ourselves in order that they too (the houses) might become holy.” Shenoute, If Everyone Errs, Canon 7, XL 281–82, in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 3:216Google Scholar. Emmet's hypothesis is further supported by the abrupt shift in topic that occurs in the last three sermons. Emmel, , “Corpus,” 845–46.Google Scholar

29. As there are no complete, published editions of The Rest of the Words, Continuing to Glorify the Lord, and It Is Obvious, I follow the codicological reconstruction of the extant manuscripts in codices DG, GN, GO, XL, XU, YK, and ZS as enumerated in Emmel, , “Corpus,” 588, 624, 628–29, 664, 699, 723, 854–59Google Scholar, and the synoptic table in 1074–81. I have examined all the witnesses to The Rest of the Words, Continuing to Glorify the Lord, and It Is Obvious in Canon 7 (apart from cases of textual parallels) reported by Emmel. It Is Obvious is an excerpt of a longer sermon found in Discourses 4. Emmel, , “Corpus,” 842Google Scholar, and “Historical Circumstances,” 82.

30. The Coptic Orthodox Church has plans for future growth at the monastery. In 2002, four novices were training to become monks at Deir Anba Shenouda. The Church also recently built a large new guest house, a dining hall and chapel for visitors, and a new church solely for the monks near their cells.

31. Grossmann, , “Dayr Anbā Shinūdah: Architecture” in The Coptic Encyclopedia, ed. Atiya, Aziz S., 8 vols. (New York: MacMillan, 1991), 3:769Google Scholar; Christliche Architektur, 528; and personal conversations June-July 1999, Cairo. Both the original structure and the rebuilt, seventh-century church possessed architectural innovations. Notably, the later structure may have been one of the first Egyptian churches to possess a khurus, or room that separates the nave from the sanctuary. During the medieval period, the khurus rapidly became a feature of all Egyptian churches. “New Observations,” 71–72; “Dayr Anbaā Shinuādah,” 768–69; Christliche Architektur, 534–36).

32. The listing of these two monasteries on the World Monument Fund's World Monument Watch list is due in large part to the efforts of Dr. Elizabeth Bolman, assistant professor of Art History at Temple University. She is coordinating an international and interdisciplinary consortium of scholars who are pursuing research and conservation at the monasteries.

33. “A much larger settlement and a new church was required by the flourishing monasticism of that age, under Saint Shenudeh. A fresh site was adopted, outside of the existing town, which was partly deserted; the old church was taken down, and the more important parts of it re-used in the great new basilica …, and the less useful stone was burnt for lime for the new building…. Such seems to have been the growth of the place which became celebrated as the home of the great saint Shenudeh, whose life has been preserved to us.” Flinders Petrie, W. M., Athribis, British School of Archeology in Egypt 14 (London: London School of Archaeology in Egypt, 1908), 15.Google Scholar

34. Petrie, , Athribis, 13–15Google Scholar. Other early studies of the site include Lefebvre, G., “Deir-el-Abiad,” in Dictionnaire d'sarchéologie Chrétienne et de liturgie, 15 vols. (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ane, 1903–1953), vol. 4, part 1:459–502Google Scholar; de Villard, Ugo Monneret, Couvents près de Sohâg (Deyr el-Abiad et Deyr el-Ahmar) (Milan: Tipografia Pontificia Arcivescovile S. Giuseppe, 1925–1926)Google Scholar. Lefebvre provides illustrations dating from 1895 to 1913.

35. Deichmann, F. W., “Zum Altägyptischen in der koptishen Baukunst,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts—Abteilung Kairo 8 (1938): 34–37.Google Scholar

36. Grossmann, , Christliche Architektur, 533.Google Scholar

37. Ibid., 534–35.

38. Grossmann, , “New Observations in the Church and Sanctuary of Dayr Anbā Šinūda—the So-Called White Monastery—at Sūhāğ: Results of Two Surveys in October 1981 and January 1982,” Annales du Service des antiquités de I'Egypte 70 (1984): 69–73Google Scholar; Christliche Architektur, 528–36, and figures 150–54. The results of his most recent work, including new site plans, are forthcoming in Dumbarton Oaks Papers.

39. Grossmann, , Christliche Architektur, 534.Google Scholar

40. Ibid., 532; Coquin, René-Georges and Martin, Maurice, “Dayr Anbā Shinūdah: History,” in Atiya, , ed., The Coptic Encyclopedia, 3:761.Google Scholar

41. Among many such descriptions, see Petrie, , Athribis, 14.Google Scholar

42. Krautheimer, Richard, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, rev. ed., Pelican History of Art (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), 122–24Google Scholar. Krautheimer has suggested that the feature of the tri-conch sanctuary may derive from Italy or France.

43. Grossmann, , “Dayr Anbā Shinūdah: Architecture” 3:769Google Scholar; cf. Christliche Architektur, 535–36.

44. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, YH frag. 1, in Pleyte and Boeser, , Manuscrits, 318Google Scholar. That this sermon probably celebrated the church's inauguration has been established by Emmel, , in “Historical Circumstances,” 82–83.Google Scholar

45. Grossmann has observed that it is physically impossible for the number of monks estimated to have resided there to have built the church in four to five months. Personal conversations, Leiden, August 2000.

46. A hypothesis proposed by Emmel. Personal conversations, Leiden, August 2000.

47. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 88, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres 2:145.Google Scholar

48. 1 Cor. 6:15–19; 12:12–26; cf. Romans 12:4–5. I follow Martin's interpretation of Paul's ideology of the body in The Corinthian Body; see esp. chap. 6–7 on the body and pollution.

49. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, GO 25, unpublished, Great Britain, British Museum, Oriental Collection (hereafter GB-BL), 3581A f. 66R: .

50. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, GO 52, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:1Google Scholar. For “despise,” Amélineau's text here is , which I read as Amélineau translates it as “souillent,” suggesting he reads as CωωЧ, meaning to pollute or defile.

51. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, GO 88, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:145Google Scholar. I have translated ПPωMЄ (lit. “the person” or “the man”) as a “humanity” to reflect its usage as a collective singular noun. This should not be confused with the abstract noun that means the abstract quality “humanity.” Cf. the use of ПPωMЄ in This Great House, Canon 7, XG fragment 1aV (n. 53 below), where Shenoute clearly refers to all people.

52. I do not identify Shenoute's opponents “Gnostic,” although they subscribe to philosophies that have been characterized as “Gnostic.” The “Gnostic” label has frequently been applied to theologies involving an inferior creator god or “demiurge.” On the modern creation of “Gnosticism” and a reevaluation of the “Gnostic” label, see Allen Williams, Michael, Rethinking “Gnosticism”: an Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996).Google Scholar

53. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XG fragment 1aV, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 1:304–5.Google Scholar

54. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XG fragment 1aV-fragment lbR, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 1:305.Google Scholar

55. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XG fragment lbR, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 1:305.Google Scholar

56. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XU 304, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:4.Google Scholar

57. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, DG 331–32, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:31.Google Scholar

58. On Shenoute's use of kinship language to construct a new, spiritual monastic family, see Krawiec, , Shenoute and the Women of the White Monastery, 161–74Google Scholar. On familial language that denotes specific ranks in the monastery, also see Layton, , “Social Structure,” 28–29.Google Scholar

59. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, GO 52–53, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:1–2Google Scholar. “Members of a prostitute” reads literally, “prostitute members”

60. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XU 333, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:25.Google Scholar

61. Schroeder, Caroline T., “Prophecy and Porneia in Shenoute's Letters,” paper delivered at the symposium, “Living for Eternity: The White Monastery and Its Environs,” Minneapolis, Minn., March 6–9, 2003Google Scholar; Behlmer, Heike, “The City as Metaphor in the Works of Two Panopolitans: Shenoute and Besa,” in Egberts and others, Perspectives on Panopolis, 13–29.Google Scholar

62. Cop. П or (unnatural things or acts).

63. See nn. 24, 55, 57, 59, and 60 above and nn. 115 and 127 below. Notes 24, 55, and 57 are examples of these general references to sinfulness.

64. For a review of scholarship on Romans 1, see Brooten, Bernadette J., Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 195–302.

65. Clark, Elizabeth A., “Ideology, History, and the Construction of ‘Woman’ in Late Ancient Christianity,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 2 (1994): 167–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Wallace-Hadrill, D. S., The Greek Patristic View of Nature (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1968)Google Scholar on how early Christian authors positioned the person within the larger system of the created world.

66. “Woe to us, because we have defiled ourselves and we have defiled all the earth including even the houses of God and his places. The earth was filled with adultery, fornication, rape, violence, every impiety, like these lands where every defilement that you can enumerate or that you can think of lives.” Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, YR 290, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:483–84Google Scholar. See also God Is Holy, Canon 7, DG 154, in Catalogue of the Coptic Manuscripts in the British Museum, ed. Crum, (London: British Museum, 1905), 80–81Google Scholar: “I said verily and I knew that they are people who commit fornication among themselves or by themselves in every worthless, unnatural act so that they need purity and worthiness.” Crum provides the transcription for only a part of this unpublished folio (GB-BL 3581A f. 62).

67. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, DG 105, unpublished (FR-BN 1305 f. 16R):

68. See n. 55 above: “And humanity is the race (genos) of God. We use it badly, in unnatural things without fear. For sin made humanity ignorant that it was from God and that it was a child of God.”

69. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, GO 52, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:1Google Scholar; cf. n. 50 above.

70. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XV 1, in Wessely, , Texte, 1:97.Google Scholar

71. See the entry for OYOП in Crum, Walter E., A Coptic Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1939), 487–88Google Scholar, esp. the qualitative This is true in other languages, as well, such as the Greek hagios.

72. “In whom will God rest … ? I will say also, 'What defiled person will provide an opportunity in him for every uncleanness, Satan, and does not encounter much suffering?” Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XV 1, in Wessely, , Texte, 1:97.Google Scholar

73. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 1, in Wessely, , Texte, 1:97.Google Scholar

74. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 78, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:144Google Scholar. See also n. 106 below.

75. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 78–79, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:144.Google Scholar

76. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 93, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:147–48.Google Scholar

77. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 79, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:145Google Scholar. Cf. 1 Pet. 2:4.

78. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, DG 132, in Wessely, , Texte, 1:118Google Scholar. Re “spirit,” Wessely reconstructs the text in as which may be a good reading of a damaged manuscript but makes little sense when read in this passage. I suggest instead

79. Similarly, in A23, Shenoute reminds his monks that God watches over the heart and mind of those who keep their bodies holy and pure in the places of God: “The Lord shall watch over the heart and the minds of the people who will keep their body holy in the places of the holy one, the king, God the almighty.” Shenoute, A23, Canon 7, XL 272, unpublished (FR-BN 1304 f. 139R):

80. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 88, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:145–46.Google Scholar

81. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XU 313, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:11.Google Scholar

82. Shenoute, If Everyone Errs, Canon 7, XG 347, in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 4:19.Google Scholar

83. Shenoute, I Myself Have Seen, Canon 7, DG 341–42, in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 3:213.Google Scholar

84. “How will they ever escape from the curse of the anger of the wrath of the Lord? Is God patient with those who commit unclean acts in his places, until they come to his hands and he does to them according to their sins, or even he gives their retribution to them from this place—the one belonging to the person who is pained and who groans over his acts. One appeals to God so that he might give over the soul of the one who defiled his house or his houses to a transformation into their despicable passions and to a dwelling-place of demons, just as Jerusalem was once given over to a transformation and a dwelling-place of dragons—Jerusalem, on the one hand, so that people might not dwell in it because it did not obey, but the soul that will do unnatural things, on the other hand, so that God will not dwell in it, nor his spirit, because of its ignorance.” Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XU 307, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:6–7Google Scholar. Cf. Jer. 9:11, where Jerusalem becomes a den of jackals. Shenoute's rhetoric in Canon 7 also frequently resembles the temple oracles in Jeremiah 7 and 8.

85. Shenoute, I Myself Have Seen, Canon 7, DG 336, in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 3:209.Google Scholar

86. “For how or why will Jesus make a house or a place foreign to him if he does not first obliterate the soul or the souls of those who sinned in them before him? Since instead of being filled with the spirit characterized by fear of the Lord, according to what is written, they were filled with the audacious spirit and the unclean spirit.” Cf. Luke 5:26, Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XU 310, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:8–9.Google Scholar

87. Shenoute, I Myself Have Seen, Canon 7, DG 343, in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 3:214.Google Scholar

88. Continuing from the previous quote, “But it is a wasteland and a desert, since there was no one good in them…. Did a spirit of God come to humanity in the season of its impiety in the beginning, before it knew Jesus? If we do not understand that God did not at first leave people in paradise because of a single transgression, then how will we be received by him if we do all these evil things?” Shenoute, I Myself Have Seen, Canon 7, DG 343–44, in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 3:214–15.Google Scholar

89. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 95–96, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:149–50.Google Scholar

90. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 96–97, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:150.Google Scholar

91. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 100, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:153.Google Scholar

92. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XG 190, in Wessely, , Texte, 1:88.Google Scholar

93. “But indeed, as for those who asked for him, he saved them from every evil thing, and he guarded his house and his houses from every disturbance if they prayed and they praised him in them until their consummation.” Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XG 190, in Wessely, , Texte, 1:88.Google Scholar

94. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XV 97–99, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:150–52.Google Scholar

95. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 79, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:144–45Google Scholar. Cf. “But I will say in this way that the thing on the outside is that of humans so that they might exist in it; the things on the inside, however, are those of Christ who dwells in them, and his father according to the words of truth of the scriptures, the old and the new.” God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 95–96, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:149Google Scholar. In each analogy, humanity is connected to something different, either the inside or the outside. Both analogies, however, represent hierarchies between interior and exterior or divinity and creation in which the “interior” signifies the element that stands closer to God in the hierarchy of creation.

96. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 79, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:145.Google Scholar

97. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XV 95, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:149.Google Scholar

98. Ibid.

99. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 94, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:148–49Google Scholar. Cf. Eph. 2:12. Similarly, in I Myself Have Seen, Shenoute instructs his monks to worry about spiritual matters, not worldly matters: “For as for those who grieve according to God, God will remove their grief completely, just as also those who mourn will be comforted. As for those who do not grieve according to God, God will give them over completely to grief…. For many are those who grieve according to the world because of the things that belong to them, each one according to his sort. Few are those who grieve because of the things of Christ and who do not have anything that pursues them.” Shenoute, I Myself Have Seen, Canon 7, DG 342–43, in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 3:213–14. Cf. Isa. 61:2–3.Google Scholar

100. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 104–5, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:156.Google Scholar

101. Shenoute, A 23, Canon 7, XL 272, unpublished (FR-BN 1304 f. 139R); see n. 79 above.

102. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XU 305–6, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:5–6Google Scholar. Anyone who does not heed the warnings is damned: “This is the way that the curse that is written in scripture and the anger of the wrath of the Lord will come upon every person who will commit these unnatural acts in this house or these houses or these places because they did not obey the voice of their God.”

103. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XV 311–12, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:10Google Scholar. Shenoute's reasoning here resembles Gen. 18:23–32, where Abraham asks God whether he will destroy the righteous in Sodom along with the wicked. God concedes that he will save Sodom if ten righteous people can be found there.

104. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XV 311–12, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:10.Google Scholar

105. Ibid.

106. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XV 313, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:11.Google Scholar

107. “For what other hypocrisy is more evil than this: that a congregation wanted some people whose pestilential works they know about to dwell with them more than they wanted Jesus to remain with them.” Shenoute, , This Great House, Canon 7, XV 313Google Scholar, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:11.Google Scholar

108. Shenoute, , This Great House, Canon 7, XU 318Google Scholar, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:13Google Scholar. The Coptic text reads Coptic has two verbs χω2, which mean to “touch” or to “smear.” Ezek. 13:10 in the Bohairic reads which means to “anoint” or to “smear.” The Sahidic uses Crum, , Coptic Dictionary, 461, 797Google Scholar; Henricus, Tattam, ed. and trans., Prophetae Maiores in dialecto linguae Aegyptiacae Memphitica seu Coptica, 2 vols. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1989; orig. pr. 1852), 2:54.Google Scholar

109. “I will overturn the wall that you have daubed. I will cast it down upon the earth so that its foundations will be revealed and will collapse…. I will fulfill my anger upon this wall so that it will not only collapse very hard on itself, but also upon others that touch it, like a house that fell upon other houses.” Shenoute, , This Great House, Canon 7, XU 318–19Google Scholar, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:13–14.Google Scholar

110. Shenoute, , This Great House, Canon 7, XU 319Google Scholar, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:14.Google Scholar

111. Matt. 7:1, Luke 6:37, Rom. 14:10.

112. Shenoute, , This Great House, Canon 7, XU 324Google Scholar, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:18.Google Scholar

113. Ibid.

114. Shenoute, , This Great House, Canon 7, XU 324–25Google Scholar, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:18.Google Scholar

115. Shenoute, , This Great House, Canon 7, XU 327–28Google Scholar, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:21Google Scholar. While this Gospel passage was popular among Shenoute's ascetic contemporaries for its antifamilial bent, Shenoute uses it to urge a divorce not from biological family but from sinning monastic fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. Cf. Clark, Elizabeth A., Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 197–98.Google Scholar

116. Shenoute, , This Great House, Canon 7, XL 274Google Scholar, unpublished (FR-BN 1304 f. 140R): Cf. the parallel text in YH fragment 1, in Pleyte, and Boeser, , Manuscrits coptes, 318–20Google Scholar. Also see XU 304, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:4Google Scholar, where Shenoute asks who is more polluted than people who are “pestilential” or “enslaved to demons.”

117. “If we are ignorant because we are people who are not able to know that many are the members of the body in which this disease grows, the one who knows it gives testimony that it moves among them like these snake poisons. As long as it was quiet in these members, it was appearing in these other members.” Shenoute, , If Everyone Errs, Canon 7, XG 347–48Google Scholar, in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 4:19–20.Google Scholar

118. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XU 327–28, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:21Google Scholar. Shenoute describes sick and neglected limbs that fall away in if Everyone Errs, Canon 7, XG 347, in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 4:19.Google Scholar

119. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XU 328–29, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:21–22.Google Scholar

120. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XU 464, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:27.Google Scholar

121. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, YR 289–290, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:482–84.Google Scholar

122. Cf. Shenoute's use of the trope of porneia in Canon 1, n. 61 above.

123. Shenoute, This Great House, Canon 7, XL 279–80, unpublished (FR-BN 1304 f. 142R/V):

124. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 100–101, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:153.Google Scholar

125. Those who have succeeded in renouncing their families “are ashamed of the ones who do these things, especially some unclean ‘great men’ and some pestilential ‘great women’ who love unnatural things in order to fulfill them more than they love the God who created them. It is not one time that I said, ‘Woe to us in the day that Jesus will judge us with them.’” Shenoute, , God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 101Google Scholar, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:153Google Scholar. “Great men” and “great women” are titles of ranks in the monastery. Layton, , “Social Structure and Food Consumption,” 29Google Scholar. Layton translates the titles as “senior men” and “senior women.”

126. Continuing from the text in the previous note: “Truly, some sons and daughters— those who have loved God more than their parents and more than their siblings and more than taking a wife and more than taking a husband and who have condemned ‘great men’ and ‘great women’ who have grown old in the works of the demons—will raise themselves up on the day of judgement. If there is one who is zealous for souls to present themselves before Christ, then they make known their purity and they will pray for him to strengthen the men who renounced their wives and the women who separated from their husbands so that they might be fulfilled.” Shenoute, , God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 101–2Google Scholar, in Amelineau, , Oeuvres, 2:153–54.Google Scholar

127. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 99–100, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:152–53Google Scholar. Cf. 2 Tim. 2:20–21, regarding gold, silver, wood, and clay utensils in a “large house,” and the “treasure in clay jars” in 2 Cor. 4:7.

128. Shenoute, God Is Holy, Canon 7, XU 100, in Amélineau, , Oeuvres, 2:153Google Scholar. See n. 91 above.

129. Shenoute, , If Everyone Errs, Canon 7, XG 349Google Scholar, in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 4:21.Google Scholar

130. See Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (New York: Ark Paperbacks, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 114–39; Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology, with a New Introduction (London: Routledge, 1996), 54–87.Google Scholar

131. The clearest description of this comes in Shenoute's Continuing to Glorify the Lord in Canon 7, published in Leipoldt, , Opera Omnia, 3:69–74Google Scholar. See also Emmel, , “Historical Circumstances,” 86–91.Google Scholar

132. Emmel, , “Historical Circumstances,” 88.Google Scholar

133. I exclude symbolic interpretations of church buildings that do not appear in ascetic literature, such as book 10, chapter 4 of Eusebius's Church History, which records a dedicatory address celebrating the building of a cathedral at Tyre. The church symbolizes Christianity s triumph over paganism; despite its fantastic appearance, its “marvels pale” in comparison to the beauty of the “spiritual edifice” that is Jesus Christ, who dwells among the Christians and even inside their souls, 10.4.2–72; Eng. trans, in Eusebius: the History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, trans. Williamson, G. A., rev. and ed. with a new intro. by Andrew, Louth (New York: Penguin Books, 1989), 306–22.Google Scholar

134. Paulinus's life and literature has received increased scholarly scrutiny in recent years, beginning with Lienhard, Joseph T., Paulinus of Nola and Early Western Monasticistn (Köln: P. Hanstein, 1977)Google Scholar, and continuing with Conybeare, Catherine, Paulinus Noster: Self and Symbol in the Letters of Paulinus of Nola, Early Christian Studies Series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)Google Scholar, and Trout, Dennis E., Paulinus of Nola: Life, Letters, and Poems, The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 27 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999)Google Scholar, esp. 23–52 on Paulinus's life.

135. Trout, , Paulinus of Nola, 53–103.Google Scholar

136. Trout, , Paulinus of Nola, 150Google Scholar. On the resources that enabled the construction of the basilica complex at Nola, also see 153.

137. Paulinus, , Epistle 32.10–17Google Scholar, Carmen 27.360–595, 28.7–59, 180–217, and Eng. trans, in Carel Goldschmidt, Rudolf, Paulinus' Churches at Nola: Texts, Translations, and Commentary (Amsterdam: N.V. Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1940), 38–47, 52–65, 72–75, 80–83Google Scholar. The most prized relic at the Basilica Nova was a piece of the “true cross” given to Paulinus by Melania the Elder. Epistle 32.11 and Eng. trans, in Goldschmidt, , Paulinus' Churches, 38–41Google Scholar. Conybeare has found Paulinus's descriptions “reticent,” particularly when compared to Prudentius's depiction of an imagined Temple of Wisdom. She characterizes Paulinus as exhibiting “relatively little interest in describing material objects as such,” Conybeare, , Paulinus Noster, 92–93Google Scholar. When judged against the almost complete lack of particulars regarding the physical space and material appearance of the church in Shenoute's, Canon 7Google Scholar, however, Paulinus's ekphrasis seems awash with details.

138. “This present of the Lord, this symbol by means of which through Christ's gift the same person comes into being young and dies to his old self, behold it here, in the double church of Felix, now that the buildings have been restored.” Paulinus, Carmen 28.196–98, and Eng. trans, in Goldschmidt, , Paulinus' Churches, 82–83.Google Scholar

139. “And let us avoid not only committed sin but also the thought of sin, like the morbific smell of a rotting body, a nasty odour, with nostrils pinched together.” Paulinus, , Carmen 28.241–43Google Scholar, and Eng. trans, in Goldschmidt, , Paulinus' Churches, 84–85.Google Scholar

140. Paulinus, , Carmen 28.223–40Google Scholar, and Eng. trans, in Goldschmidt, , Paulinus' Churches, 84–85.Google Scholar

141. Paulinus, , Carmen 28.279–81Google Scholar, and Eng. trans, in Goldschmidt, , Paulinus' Churches, 86–87.Google Scholar

142. Carmen 27 contains two exceptions: a brief hope that the paintings will distract people from food and wine, and a fleeting plea for freedom from “sinful love.” Paulinus, , Carmen 27.585–95, 623–29Google Scholar, and Eng. trans, in Goldschmidt, , Paulinus' Churches, 64–67.Google Scholar

143. Trout, , Paulinus of Nola, 90–103Google Scholar; see 91, 95–98 for a discussion of Jerome's correspondence with Paulinus in Jerome's epistles 53 and 58.

144. Trout, , Paulinus of Nola, 153–54.Google Scholar

145. Ibid., 133, 154.

146. For a review of the archaeological evidence at Pbow as it pertains to the literary evidence in the Pachomian chronicles, see Goehring, , “New Frontiers in Pachomian Studies,” in Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Early Egyptian Monasticism, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (Harrisburg, Penn.: Trinity, 1999), 185–86Google Scholar. This article was originally published in Pearson, Birger A. and Goehring, James E., eds., The Roots of Egyptian Christianity, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (Philadelphia, Penn.: Fortress, 1986), 236–57Google Scholar. The later version should be consulted because it contains additions and emendations that pertain to the archaeological site at Pbow. See the Addendum in the version in Ascetics, 184–86; and “Introduction,” in Ascetics, 9.

147. Paralipomena 32, in Sancti Pachomii Vitae Graecae. Subsidia Hagiographica 19, ed. Francisci, Halkin (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1932), 157–58Google Scholar; Eng. trans, in Veilleux, , Pachomian Koinonia, 2:55–56Google Scholar. On the use of the term “oratory” to characterize the structure, see Grossmann, , “Kirche oder ‘Ort des Feierns’: zur Problematik der pachomianischen Bezeichnungen des Kirchengebäudes,” Enchoria 26 (2000): 41–53.Google Scholar

148. Goehring, , “New Frontiers in Pachomian Studies,” in Ascetics, 185.Google Scholar

149. Again, see Goehring's review of the literature on the site of Pbow in “New Frontiers in Pachomian Studies,” in Ascetics, 184–85.

150. Goehring, , “New Frontiers,” in Ascetics, 185–86Google Scholar, esp. n. 111.

151. Chitty, Derwas, The Desert a City: An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism under the Christian Empire (Oxford: Blackwell, 1966Google Scholar; reprint Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1995), 22; also cited in Goehring, “New Frontiers,” 185. Chitty, writing decades prior to the archaeological excavations at Pbow, associates the text with the monastery at Tabennese.

152. van Lantschoot, Arn., “Allocution de Timothée d'Alexandrie prononcée à l'occasion de la dédicace de l'église de Pachome a Pboou,” Muséon 47 (1934): 13–56Google Scholar. Van Lantschoot provides the Arabic version of the text, a French translation, and a commentary. The text is believed to be translated from an earlier Coptic manuscript. Only one known fragment of the Coptic text survives, van Lantschoot, , “Allocution,” 14.Google Scholar

153. Van Lantschoot admits that the text, presumably due to its style, content, and original language (Coptic), could not have been read by Timothy at the dedication of the church. He finds it likely, however, that it was written before the Arab conquest of Egypt since there is no mention of those events or a similar social disruption. Scholars throughout the twentieth century have objected to attributing the text to Timothy for a variety of sound, historical reasons outlined by van Lantschoot, . “Allocution,” 14–23.Google Scholar

154. Van Lantschoot, , “Allocution,” 39–42.Google Scholar

155. Ibid., 42–44.

156. Ibid., 44–45.

157. Ibid., 45–46.

158. Ibid., 46–52.

159. Ibid., 52–56.

160. Ibid., 26, 39, 38, 56.

161. Goehring's groundbreaking work on the theological and ideological bent of the Pachomian corpus has demonstrated an increasing concern with the “orthodoxy” of the community and its founders as well as the monasteries' relationship with the Alexandrian episcopacy. See esp. “Pachomius's Vision of Heresy: The Development of a Pachomian Tradition,” Museon 95 (1982): 241–62Google Scholar; reprint in Goehring, Ascetics, 137–61.

162. Van Lantschoot, , “Allocution,” 50, 52.Google Scholar

163. Conybeare, , Paulinus Noster, 95.Google Scholar

164. Ibid., 99.

165. Bolman, , “Joining the Community of Saints,” 43.Google Scholar

166. Ibid.

167. Conybeare, , Paulinus Noster, 95.Google Scholar

168. Bolman, , “Joining the Community of Saints,” 46.Google Scholar