Shenoute and the Women of the White Monastery (review)

Rebecca Krawiec has revised her dissertation (Yale, 1996) and produced a study of very interesting material: letters written by Shenoute of Atripe (348-464 C.E.) to female monks within his domain after he became their leader. The work of Stephen Emmel in re-constructing Shenoute's works ("Shenoute's Literary Corpus," Ph.D. diss., Yale, 1993) made it possible to examine this material and glean the information it offers for the practice of communal asceticism among women in the Thebaid. Krawiec also builds upon the work of Susannah Elm whose Virgins of God (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1994) is the rare work that examines Shenoute's conflicts with female monks. The letters are a rich source since they deal with specific problems and contain his painfully frank criticism of the women's behavior. However, this book is flawed by errors in translation, some due to reliance on flawed editions of Coptic texts, some due to grammatical misunderstanding, and some due to neglect of biblical allusions and quotations.

Before turning to these problems, I will consider the content of the book since it offers unusual evidence for the practice of communal asceticism. Krawiec begins (13-30) with an overview of the history of the White Monastery, founded by Shenoute's uncle, Pcol, to follow a Pachomian pattern. Yet Krawiec is well aware (21) of the difficulties of comparing Pachomian and Shenoutean practices since the sources for each are quite different. In chapter 2, she examines and quotes extensively from the thirteen fragmentary letters written by Shenoute to women. Nine different crises, labeled "Death of a Male Monk," "Jealousy among Women," etc., disturbed the relationship between Shenoute and the women after he assumed leadership.

Later chapters present Krawiec's conclusions about the beliefs and motives of both Shenoute and the women. Conflicting views of power, gender, and family are operative in their disputes. Shenoute claims absolute power based on his self-identification with "suffering servants" in Christian history (69-70) although some women object to his close supervision, which at times included corporal punishment and expulsion (73-91). Shenoute viewed the monastery as a family that needed to maintain the gender roles and disciplinary practices of the biological family (92-160). Krawiec strikes a wrong note here, seeming to measure Shenoute's actions by current standards: "He believed that the essential elements of monasticism could be expressed in a series of expectations that anyone could follow. The logical implication of a genderless monasticism was that men and women should live together without noticing each other's gender differences. Shenoute, however, did not accept that logical conclusion . . ." (108). On the other hand Shenoute's actions were perfectly "logical" to him given his devotion to Paul's writings and his cultural context.

In her final chapter, Krawiec examines the way Shenoute responded to problems, such as favoritism in food distribution, arising from the presence of biological kin in the monastery.

Although partial texts and translations of the letters have been published, some remain in manuscript. Krawiec's practice is to offer translations in her text and Coptic in notes only when a published edition is unavailable. However, problems arise from her reliance on Amélineau's edition, which contains many errors of transcription. Krawiec quotes Shenoute (43 n. 111), based on Amélineau, "You are deceiving them by your outward behavior," reading ( "by the outward") with Amélineau when the manuscript has ( i.e., "by the lie"). A similar error appears on 62, n. 68: read, (HP , i.e.,"deserve") for HN, i.e., "bring"), changing the statement to "you do not deserve to know" instead of "aren't you forced to admit." Vocabulary and grammar mistakes also mar the translations. The Coptic conjunction (MN) is misconstrued (86, n. 56): read "your love is with us . . . just as our love is with you," not "you have...