The Text of a Coptic Monastic Discourse on Love and Self-Control
Description
This book introduces a beautiful fourth-century Coptic discourse on love and self-control in its first English translation. The text's heading attributes it to Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, but this attribution is questionable. Exploring issues of authorship and context, this book locates the origins of On Love and Self-Control in the Upper Egyptian Pachomian monastic community of the mid-fourth century. It then traces the various uses of On Love and Self-Control to the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, when the single surviving manuscript was copied as part of an anthology at the Monastery of St. Shenoute of Atripe. A partial reconstruction of this now dismembered codex is provided.
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Carolyn Schneider is associate professor of church history at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong, where she serves as a missionary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She teaches courses introducing the history of the global church in every era but specializes in exploring the theologies of Athanasius in his fourth-century Egyptian context and Martin Luther in his sixteenth-century European context.
Content
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xxi
List of Abbreviations xxvii
Introduction 1
Summary of the Text 4
The Language and Fourth-Century Date of the Text 7
The Pachomian Koinonia: The Community to which On Love and Self-Control Was First Addressed 10
The Pachomian Remission: An Annual Opportunity for a Discourse On Love and Self-Control 15
A Potential Context for On Love and Self-Control in the Pachomian Conflicts following Pachomius's Death 17
Pachomian Use of On Love and Self-Control in the Editing of Instruction concerning a Spiteful Monk 25
The Dissolution of the Pachomian Community 36
On Love and Self-Control and Its Codex (MONB.CP) 42
The Provenance of the Manuscript of On Love and Self-Control 42
The Creation of the Codex in the Late Sixth or Early Seventh Century 44
Issues of Authorship 51
Attribution to Athanasius 51
Affinities between Athanasian Writings and On Love and Self-Control 52
Reasons to Question an Athanasian Origin for On Love and Self-Control 58
A Possible Origin for On Love and Self-Control among the Pachomians 67
Horsiesios and On Love and Self-Control 76
The Use of the Discourse On Love and Self-Control Beyond the Seventh Century 83
Events Affecting the Church in Egypt from the Seventh to Tenth Centuries 85
A Tenth-Century Reception of On Love and Self-Control by way of Instruction concerning a Spiteful Monk 87
On Love and Self-Control in the Eleventh-Century Apocalypse of Samuel of Qalamun 90
The Copying of On Love and Self-Control in the Eleventh or Twelfth Century 100
The Dismemberment of the Codex in the Nineteenth Century and Its Current Reconstruction 105
Conclusion 120
On Love and Self-Control: A Translation 125
Appendix A: A Comparison of Three Texts on Wine 147
Appendix B: The Contents of the Codex MONB.CP 153
Select Bibliography 187
General Index 201
Scripture Index 206
