Egyptian Monasticism Conference Minnesota: Abstracts

James Goehring,

Mary Washington College

Remembering for Eternity:
The Ascetic Landscape as Cultural Discourse in Early Christian Egypt

The landscape of Egyptian monasticism that emerges in the works of Christian authors reflects a cultural discourse constructed through a complex interplay of historical development and literary portrayal. Shaped by the needs of the present, the memory and portrayal of the past fashions an artificial world that serves to naturalize its creators’ own particular cultural and social construction of reality. This paper argues that the development of the ascetic landscape in Egypt corresponds with and promotes the construction of the great tradition of the church, naturalizing its emerging ideology in and through the memory of the past.

Karel Innemée,

University of Leiden

Mural Paintings in Coptic Monasteries: Problems of Dating and Conservation

Egyptian churches preserve paintings from the first centuries of Christianity when Egypt was a leader in church affairs, as well as from later periods that show the continued vigor of Egyptian ("Coptic") Christianity long after the Arab conquest of Egypt. These paintings have often suffered from neglect, and paradoxically the current revival of monasticism and of pilgrimage sometimes creates conditions that further endangering them. This lecture will present the current achievements of the conservation project at Deir al-Suriani (the Monastery of the Syrians), discussing the problems of conservation, dating, and interpretation when there are several superimposed layers of painting. It will relate this situation to that in other sites, particularly the so-called Red Monastery in Upper Egypt.

Symposium Papers

Elizabeth Bolman, Temple University	Preservation and Destruction at the Red and White Monasteries, Sohag	Two fifth century Coptic monasteries in the region of Sohag, in Upper Egypt, have endured for centuries, well preserved in the arid desert. In recent years, the pace of change at both the Red and White Monasteries has been increasing, and continues to increase exponentially. I will discuss the evidence and reasons for this and also the steps which are currently being taken to study and preserve these two monasteries, and the remains of monasticism in the area. Eternal life is no doubt an impossibility for physical remains, but hopefully we can become involved, during this period of great transformation, in the preservation of knowledge about them.
David Brakke, Indiana University	Monks, Priests, and Magicians: Demons and Monastic Self-Differentiation in Late Ancient Egypt	This paper will explore Egyptian monastic literature’s presentation of the monk as an expert in controlling the demonic in the context of social contact and competition with two similar and overlapping figures, the (pagan) priest and magician. How does monastic literature define and legitimate the identity and role of the monk? First, a series of stories counter the similarities between monks and priests/magicians by basing the monk’s ability to fight the demonic in a superior written text, the Christian Scriptures (as opposed to the magical text). Second, some anecdotes show monks in direct competition with priests and/or magicians, a struggle in which the demonic can serve as a "third term" and which the monastic literature resolves by depicting priests becoming monks. Finally, accounts of exorcisms by monks locate monastic authority over the demonic in the virtue of humility, a strategy of legitimation that more generally promotes the monastic lifestyle as superior to other options for religious virtuosi.
Todd Brenningmeyer, Sheila McNally, University of Minnesota	Analysis of Space surrounding the visible remains of the Red and White Monasteries (short report on work in progress)	Archaeological study of early monasteries in Egypt has concentrated on churches. There has also been work on some other types of buildings, such as refectories. There has not been any effort to discuss spatial layouts as a whole, although these can be informative even when buildings cannot be identified. At the White and Red Monasteries, much of the original area has now been developed, so a complete picture of the layout is probably impossible. Nonetheless, it is important to find out as much as possible before more evidence vanishes. We have utilized satellite imagery, which has suggested areas to investigate n site, and are hoping to use radar to complete a study of the easily accessible open areas as quickly as possible
Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom, Wittenburg University	Tableware and Monastic Practice 600-1400: New Questions from the Ceramic Corpus at John the Little's Monastery.	Examples of Coptic glazeware, Fayyumi ware and later Ayyubid vessels indicate that the monks at the topos of John the Little in Wadi Natrun (anc. Scetis) were not isolated from trade routes or living in austere asceticism, but were recipients of gifts, used standardized vessels for every day use, and owned vessels more commonly associated with the trading markets in Fustat/al-Qahira and Alexandria. This discussion will consider the implications of such discoveries for our understanding of monastic practice in Egypt in the Islamic periods and how this site compares to other Islamic settlements in Egypt, both Christian and Muslim.
Chrisi Kotsifou, Catholic University	Economic relations of the White Monastery and its surrounding communities	In the last years, scholars of Egyptian monasticism have started to comment on the economic role of the various monastic establishments. Nowadays, it is widely accepted that monasteries were in constant interaction with surrounding communities, lay or monastic. Monasteries and villages were mutually dependent and could not have survived and thrived without their ongoing dealings. This paper will explore the extent to which the White Monastery fits into this model. It will concentrate on edited works of Shenute and Besa and look at the economic affairs of their establishments. Were these communities as self-sufficient as their leaders would have liked? How much did they depend on each other and, more importantly, on laymen for their every day activities? Equally, this study will attempt to determine how the White Monastery and its leaders influenced the economic life of surrounding villages and towns. What could the advantages have been of living close by to a large monastic community?
Rebecca Krawiec, Canisius College	Clothes Make the Monk: The Rhetoric of Clothing in Late Antique Monasticism	Clothing was a visible means of establishing an ascetic identity in late antiquity. Several examples from hagiography reveal the important link, rhetorically and visually, between clothing and ascetic identity. The rule material associated with the institutionalized setting of monasticism reinforces this link by using clothing as a marker of > membership and its values. The abbot of the White Monastery, Shenoute, for example, used clothing to combat difference, especially in terms of economic background, among his followers. In his rhetoric, Shenoute employs a garment of his (first contaminated by blood and pus during a long illness and then destroyed by moths) as a metaphor connecting three letters written to combat a period of unrest, and eventually outright rebellion, in the monastery. In these letters, therefore, clothing signifies not just monastic identity but also the spiritual status of the monastic self, either its purity or pollution. While hagiographies and monastic rules both suggest that monastic deeds became proper clothing, here Shenoute plays with that expectation: the monks' clothing will reveal, through its contamination, the sins they cannot hide.
Bentley Layton, Yale University	Monastic Order in Shenoute's White Monastery Federation (This paper will not be included in the forthcoming publication. An extended version will appear later.)	Investigating the nine books of Canons of Apa Shenoute, this paper will analyze the organizational structure of the White Monastery federation during the reign of Apa Shenoute; the nature and sources of its monastic rules; and the statements that Shenoute utters to produce or legitimate monastic moral order.
Eunice Maguire, Johns Hopkins University	Dressed for Eternity	To an abbot trained in Egypt, like John of the Ladder, monasteries although unconcerned with the vanities of fashion, are laundries and dyeworks where spiritual robes are made clean and splendid for the heavenly city. The image suggests a consciousness of earthly monastic clothing. There is enough visual, material, and textual evidence to help us begin to picture Egyptian monks and perhaps nuns, before and after the coming of Islam, and to consider how their dress distinguished them from lay contemporaries and non-monastic clergy. Since Egypt was the cradle from which monasticism grew and traveled it is also instructive to look outside Egypt for ways that dress may express some concepts separating urban priests from desert monks when Byzantine Egypt, for almost a century after Chalcedon, shared a material and cultural world with the wider empire.
Mark Moussa, The Catholic University of America	Shenoutian Control, Articulate Discourse, and the Communal Challenges of the White Monastery	The career of Shenoute of Atripe (d. 465), one-time leader of Upper Egypt's White Monastery, is notable in part for the abbot's corpus of occasional sermons that were delivered during the course of a long monastic career. While the texts are valuable for the many historical anecdotes related to the centrality of the monastery community to the town of Atripe and the Panopolitan region at large, they also reveal Shenoute's preoccupation with the practices and doctrinal inclinations of both his subjects and individuals outside of his immediate authority. In contrast to much of the extant volumes of Canons written by him, this paper will discuss selections from Discourses 7 and 8 that contain striking portrayals of Shenoute's self-assigned role within the Egyptian clerical hierarchy, his rhetorical promotion of wide ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the promotion of specific guidelines of Shenoutian orthopraxy, and derision against irregularities in Christian pedagogy, clerical marriage, and ascetic discipline.
Caroline Schroeder, Ithaca College	Prophecy and Porneia in Shenoute's Letters	In his letters to the men and women of his monastery, Shenoute frequently draws on prophetic rhetoric taken from the Christian Old Testament to enhance his authority as an ascetic leader. In these same letters, Shenoute uses gendered and sexualized language to discuss and condemn sins he believes are being committed in the monastery. This paper will examine the relationship between Shenoute's use of prophetic discourse and his frequent condemnation of the sin of porneia in select texts. It will argue that Shenoute's references to sexual sin should not be interpreted simply as an account of the activities of the monks under his supervision. Rather, Shenoute's rhetoric reflects his vision of the monastery as a feminine space or figure comparable to Israel or Jerusalem in the Christian Old Testament, an entity whose sins are construed as faithlessness to God as the true object of Israel's, and now the monastery's, devotion.
Ivancica Schrunk, University of St. Thomas	Spiritual Economy and Spiritual Craft: Monastic Pottery Production and Trade	Our present knowledge of the production and distribution of Coptic pottery, greatly due to the work of Pascale Ballet, shows that monasteries were producers, distributors, and consumers of table and utilitarian wares. Archaeological research has located pottery workshops within the monastic compounds or outside their walls in three regions: the Delta, the Middle Egypt, and the Upper Egypt. One large monastic site, Kellia, had abundant ceramic finds of various provenience, but no evidence of local production. The scarce textual evidence suggests that monastic production and distribution was part of economies of scale in the hands of religious and secular establishments. In relationship with the outside world, the economic role of monasteries in the local and long-distance exchange is tangible. More elusive is their cultural and spiritual role in maintaining Roman red slip wares, in introducing painted wares, and in accepting glazed wares.
Columba Stewart, Saint John's University	The Practices of Monastic Prayer: Origins, Evolution, and Tensions	Egyptian monks were known for the commitment to unceasing prayer, but what did this really mean? This paper will explore forms of monastic prayer from historical, theological, and ascetic perspectives, challenging our assumptions about how early monastic men and women actually prayed and what their own experience of prayer may have been. Both textual and archeological evidence will be considered. Major issues will include the role of biblical texts in monastic prayer, tracing fault lines between different theological understandings of prayer, and establishing foundations for later development of prayer practice.
Pieternella van Doorn-Harder, Valparaiso University	Imagined Antiquity: Women’s Spirituality	Monastic life for Coptic Orthodox nuns gained popularity during the 1960s and has developed into one of the strongest institutions for women in the Coptic Orthodox Church today. It provides possibilities for women to hold respected, authoritative positions within the Church. Looking for models of spirituality and holiness, the twentieth century nuns had to turn to the hagiographies of women in the early Christian. Coptic Orthodox nuns in Egypt have a long history to look back on. Their experiences derive from an environment that daily presents multiple dichotomies. For each circumstance, the nuns have to settle their framework of symbols that can apply to a wide range of experiences from daily chores to visionary experiences. Being women in Egypt they appropriate and adapt the symbols available from the Muslim-Christian environment, the male oriented church hierarchy, and the male-dominated society. Their trump card, however, remains themes and figures from pre-Islamic antiquity that can be imitated, or serve as frame of reference in times of conflict. My contribution will discuss this intersection between antiquity and the present.

Discussants at Closing Session

Mark Swanson,

Luther Seminary

Richard Valantasis,

Iliff School of Theology