Shenoute of Atripe and the Uses of Poverty: Rural Patronage, Religious Conflict, and Monasticism in Late Antique Egypt by Ariel G. López (review)

This revised Princeton dissertation joins a short list of monographs on the work of Shenoute, fifth-century leader of the White Monastery in Upper Egypt. Others (Krawiec, Shenoute and the Women of the White Monastery, 2002; Schroeder, Monastic Bodies, 2007) mainly studied Shenoute’s monastic leadership, while López focuses on the “rustic audacity” (11) of Shenoute as he intervenes in political, economic, and religious affairs in his area on behalf of “the poor” (defined by Shenoute, 14–15). In addition, Shenoute is studied in the context of the entire late antique Near East, with comparative material from Antioch, Edessa, and other centers brought in.

López first sketches a series of antitheses that organize his reading of Shenoute (15): The friend/lover of poverty/Christian/Shenoute opposes the enemy/lover of wealth/pagan/Gesios. The friend/enemy distinction is analyzed in the first chapter (19–45), which studies appeals that Shenoute makes to higher authorities, including the emperor, on behalf of the poor. Presenting himself as a champion of the poor allows him to justify ventures outside the monastery. López combs the works of Shenoute (43–45) for his definition of “the poor” and makes good points about the way “the poor” and the holy man used each other to advance their interests: “They constantly appealed for help to holy men such as Shenoute, who claimed to defend ‘the poor,’ and took them at their word” (45).

The second antithesis (lover of poverty vs. lover of wealth) grounds chapters two and three, which deal with rural economy in fifth-century Egypt and the sources of monastic wealth used to benefit the poor. López demonstrates that “Shenoute’s miraculous surplus wealth … can only have come from gifts, gifts that were spoken of as ‘blessings’ from God, although they really came from the local laity, imperial magistrates, and … from the emperor” (64). The writings of Shenoute are important witnesses to the economy of fifth-century Egypt (he is a “missing link” for this period, 130), and López places their evidence within the broader analyses of Banaji, Sarris, and Hickey (73–101). The final antithesis (Christian vs. pagan) is analyzed in chapter four (102–26) in a close reading of Shenoute’s attacks on Gesios, a pagan or crypto-pagan landowner, and his defense of a raid on the temple at Pneuit. Shenoute’s battle against pagan elites reinforced his leadership in care of the poor, as shown by comparison with Libanius’s complaints about monks (102) and Augustine’s efforts to restrain Christian vigilantes (118).

The “big picture” analysis of Shenoute is valuable, but problems appear at the level of detail, specifically the selection of evidence and translation of Coptic texts. López uses evidence from the Life of Shenoute alongside evidence from Shenoute’s own writings. An appendix (135–37) dismisses, in effect, the conclusion of Lubomierski (Die Vita Sinuthii, 2007) that surviving versions of the Life represent stages of development from encomia over hundreds of years. López uses the Life because it contains “the institutional memory of Shenoute’s monastery, the representation it gives itself of its greatest abbot” (136), but using a “memory” recorded over centuries undermines the effort to place Shenoute in the fifth century. Another appendix (131–33) on the chronology of Shenoute’s life makes several novel assertions (birthdate of Shenoute, addressees of letters, attendance at Ephesus II) without adequate argument.

There are problems with Coptic texts and translations. The intent is to “avoid the Orientalizing, überliteral translation technique that is common among scholars” (x). But translations of Shenoute that retain his “voice” in a modern style must begin with an accurate reading of texts and correct Coptic grammar and vocabulary. For example, while discussing the conflict with Gesios, López quotes Not Because a Fox Barks...