The World of Early Egyptian Christianity: Language, Literature, and Social Context. Essays in Honor of David W. Johnson (review)

The world of scholarship on early Egyptian Christianity has been transformed since the beginning of the career of David W. Johnson, S. J., to whom this volume is dedicated. The contributions to the book underscore the importance of Father Johnson's work for the increasing significance of Egypt (especially documents from Egypt that survive in Coptic, Arabic, and Syriac languages) to our larger understanding of late-antique religion.

The volume is divided into two sections. Part 1, "Language and Literature," contains essays by Tito Orlandi on Coptic ecclesiastical history, Mark Sheridan on rhetoric in Coptic sermons, Monica Blanchard on terms used by Cassian and Jerome to deride certain monks, Janet Timbie on the text of one of Shenoute's writings, and Leo Depuydt on the application of Boole's laws of logic to Coptic grammar. Coptic specialists will appreciate the pieces in this section.

Part 2, "Social Context," contains the essays of greatest interest to nonspecialists. The renowned scholar of early Judaism, Daniel Boyarin, contributes the essay "Philo, Origen, and the Rabbis on Divine Speech and Interpretation." He lucidly explores the hermeneutical principles behind Origen's and the Rabbis' interpretations of the Song of Songs. Using Philo and Paul as pivot points, Boyarin argues that for Origen, the Logos' incarnation into human flesh in the form of Jesus "provides . . . the guarantee of Christian allegorical access to truth" (p. 123). Thus, for Origen, "the very process of allegorical interpretation constitutes in itself and already a transcendence of the flesh" (p. 124, emphasis in original). The "carnal" and "spiritual" meanings of the divine kiss in the Song of Songs "are actually opposed to each other, as the body is opposed to the soul" (p. 124). This stands in contrast both to Philo, for whom the "fleshly" and "allegorical" meanings operate hand-in-hand, and to Rabbinic midrash, in which "it is that very body, the actual mouth, that experiences God's kiss" at concrete moments in history, such as the crossing of the Red Sea (pp. 125–27). Arguing against previous scholarship, which has asserted that Origen and the Rabbis differ not in hermeneutical theory but in the endpoints of allegorical interpretation, Boyarin insists that differences in interpretation point to differences in theories of language:"In the allegory the metaphors of the language are considered the signs of invisible entities. . . , while in the midrash they are actually spoken love poetry of an erotic encounter" (p. 127). James Goehring provides another chapter in his ongoing work on the memory of the waning days of the Coptic orthodox Pachomian monasteries as transmitted in texts relating to Abraham of Farshut (the last anti-Chalcedonian archimandrite of the Pachomian community at Pbow). In "Keeping the Monastery Clean: A Cleansing Episode from an Excerpt on Abraham of Farshut and Shenoute's Discourse on Purity," Goehring examines an account of Abraham purifying a meeting place from the pollution that resulted from a visit of the Emperor Justinian's representatives. He argues that the text adapts Shenoute's concepts on physical and spiritual purity into its anti-Chalcedonian polemic, and he concludes that "the inclusion of the cleansing episode . . . creates a framework whereby the ultimate loss of Pbow to the Chalcedonian party corresponds to the spread of pollution through the institution" (p. 175).Textually, the episode "quarantine[s]"the anti-Chalcedonian Pachomian monastery and "reaffirms the dangers of Chalcedon, reinforcing in the process the boundaries of its own orthodoxy" (p. 175). David Frankfurter's piece, "Illuminating the Cult of Kothos:The Panegyric on Macarius and Local Religion in Fifth-Century Egypt," will interest anyone working on the encounters between Christianity and traditional polytheistic religions (whether in Egypt or elsewhere). Frankfurter uses the Panegyric as an opportunity to explore...