Christianity and Monasticism in Middle Egypt

Minya and Asyut

Gawdat Gabra, Hany N. Takla, Gawdat Gabra, Hany N. Takla, Hany Takla, Gawdat Gabra, Hany Takla

• Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781617976407
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Art

Christianity and monasticism have long flourished along the Nile in Middle Egypt, the region stretching from al-Bahnasa (Oxyrhynchus) to Dayr al-Ganadla. The contributors to this volume, international specialists in Coptology from around the world, examine various aspects of Coptic civilization in Middle Egypt over the past two millennia. The studies explore Coptic art and archaeology, architecture, language, and literature. The artistic heritage of monastic sites in the region is highlighted, attesting to their important legacies.

1

The Monastery of Apa Thomas at Wadi Sarga: Points of Departure for a Relative Chronology

Renate Dekker

THIS CHAPTER DISCUSSES the identification of the superiors of the Monastery of Apa Thomas at Wadi Sarga and presents some points of departure for reconstructing a relative chronology of this monastic community on the basis of Coptic epitaphs and documents.¹

The Monastery of Apa Thomas, also called ‘the Rock of Apa Thomas,’ is situated on the west bank of the Nile, north of modern Kom Isfaht, at the mouth of Wadi Sarga. It was supposedly named after its founder, a certain Apa Thomas, and was inhabited until about the eighth century (Crum and Bell 1922: 6–9; cf. Timm 1984–92, vol. 3: 1400–1403; Wipszycka 2009: 90, 155–57).² The excavations by R.C. Thompson on behalf of the Byzantine Research Fund in 1913–14 yielded an abundance of textual and archaeological material, but as this has only partly been published, the history of the monastery is obscure (Thompson 1914: 187–88; Thompson in Crum and Bell 1922: 1–5).³ Nevertheless, the published Coptic material provides sufficient information for setting some chronological parameters.⁴

In the first part of this chapter I will demonstrate that the monastic saints invoked in the epitaphs on stelae were in fact superiors of the Monastery of Apa Thomas, and that some of them are also attested in Coptic documents. The second part discusses a recent hypothesis proposed by Alain Delattre (forthcoming) that the monastery at Wadi Sarga was possibly dependent on the Monastery of Apa Apollo at Bawit. The last section presents the individuals who occur in several texts and can also be linked to one of the leaders. As a result, their appearance not only enables us to distinguish dossiers of contemporary texts, but also to refine the relative chronology of the superiors of the monastery.

The Superiors of the Monastery of Apa Thomas

According to W.E. Crum, Apa Thomas presumably was the founder of the monastery at Wadi Sarga and the first of a group of local saints invoked at the beginning of many Coptic epitaphs on stelae and ostraca from Wadi Sarga (Crum and Bell 1922: 7–8, 57–84). The persons listed in the invocation formula after Thomas include Peter, Joseph, Anoup, Pamoun, Germanus, Justus, and Enoch, some of whom also appear in Coptic documents. At first, Crum could not decide whether they formed a group of contemporaries or a sequence of successive officials (Crum and Bell 1922: 8). In a later publication, when writing about the Topos (Monastery) of Epiphanius, he remarked that “one imagines a series of names—such as that customary, for instance, at Wâdi Sarga—to indicate a chronological succession of abbots” (Winlock and Crum 1926: 214).

The gradual but consistent development of the invocation formula indeed confirms Crum’s theory that the list of names refers to a sequence of monastic leaders (fig. 1.1). At the beginning, the formula only mentioned “Thomas and his brethren” (I.Sarga 29–30), but in the course of time it was expanded until it included the names of nine superiors, the latest being “Apa Am[…],” whom Crum did not identify (I.Sarga 54).⁵ The name can be supplemented as “Apa Amoun,” for P.Ryl.Copt. 294 shows that one of the fathers of “the Rock of Apa Thomas” was thus named (fig. 1.2).⁶

The invocation formula developed in seven phases, five of which are represented by a single inscription only. No fewer than eight epitaphs record the formula in phase 3, when it ended with Pamoun (I.Sarga 35, 37, 39–42, 50, 59). His inclusion in the list of the persons invoked implies that he had died and that these epitaphs date to the period when his successor, Germanus, was leader of the monastery. The list of names provides an excellent starting point for a relative chronology, but since none of the epitaphs bear an absolute date, clues for dating have to be derived from other textual sources.

Crum suggested that Thomas probably lived shortly before AD 600, on account of a list of names in a Syriac palimpsest that is presently kept at the British Library in London (Crum and Bell 1922: 8–9).⁷ This parchment book contained biblical texts (Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Judith, and Esther) in Sahidic, which were overwritten with extracts from patristic writings in Syriac when the book was reused in Wadi al-Natrun in AD 913.⁸ The dating of the Sahidic texts is problematic since they are “extremely difficult to read,” as Crum had already observed (Crum 1905: 5). H. Thompson, the editor of the Sahidic texts, consulted H. Hyvernat, who proposed a dating “not later than AD 650, probably about 600” on the basis of the palaeography (Thompson 1911: vi), which Crum accepted (Crum and Bell 1922: 9). Nevertheless, the dating of a text on the basis of its script alone is hazardous.

The list of names, written at the end of the book of Esther, mentions Apa Thomas, Apa Peter, Apa Joseph, and Apa Mena.⁹ The first three names correspond with those of the earliest superiors of the Monastery of Apa Thomas, but a leader called Mena is not attested. Perhaps he was the copyist of the manuscript, who wanted to commemorate the first superiors of his community (Crum and Bell 1922: 9),¹⁰ or a monk who was himself commemorated together with the early superiors by the copyist. If the list was indeed intended for commemorative purposes, and if Thomas, Peter, and Joseph were dead when the Sahidic texts were copied, the copying should have taken place in the time of Anoup, Joseph’s successor, and during the first phase of the invocation formula. When the dating proposed by Hyvernat for the Sahidic texts is accepted, Anoup’s leadership and phase 1 can be tentatively dated to about 600–50.

When Anoup died, his name was added to the invocation formula (phase 2) and Pamoun succeeded him as leader of the monastery. He, in turn, was succeeded by Germanus, who was the superior when the above-mentioned epitaphs of phase 3 were carved. One of them dates to year 13 of the indiction cycle (I.Sarga 35). Germanus probably was the same person as the superior Apa Germane who appears in a tax receipt as the representative of the dikaion, or juridical body, of the Monastery of Apa Thomas in a first indiction year (O.Sarga 344).¹¹

Judging from an acknowledgment of a debt, Apa Justus, the seventh superior listed in the invocation formula, represented the dikaion of the Monastery of Apa Thomas in year 13 of the indiction cycle (P.Ryl.Copt. 201). Either Justus succeeded Germanus in year 13, and so both the above-mentioned epitaph associated with Germanus (I.Sarga 35) and the document date to the same year and cycle, or the document is to be dated to a subsequent cycle, that is, fifteen years later. The reference to a dux in a letter addressed to Apa Justus (O.Sarga 102) indicates that this monastic leader must have headed the monastery well before AD 750 in view of the fact that the office of dux disappeared in the course of the first half of the eighth century (Sijpesteijn 2010: 111 and n. 23).

Apa Enoch appears once as the superior who represented the dikaion of the Monastery of Apa Thomas (Apa E[noch]; O.Sarga 164),¹² and as the sender of instructions to “my brother” Apa Enoch, the steward (O.Sarga 104). In addition, it was probably the superior Enoch, and not the homonymous steward, who sent an instruction to the steward Papnoute, since the sender referred to himself as “his father” (O.Sarga 95). It is likely, but not completely certain, that Papnoute was steward before Enoch, as I will discuss below.

When Enoch was superior of the monastery and his namesake was steward, the sailor of a liburnus-ship came to the former with a request for cables and ropes (O.Sarga 104). Crum suggested that the liburnus “should be a warship” (Crum and Bell 1922: 97 n. 1). According to P. Sijpesteijn, the ship belonged to the Muslim fleet (Sijpesteijn 2010: 111). Since the Muslim navy was founded during the caliphate of ‘Uthman (644–56) by Mu‘awya, the governor of Syria, any reference to the Muslim fleet postdates about 650.¹³ If Sijpesteijn is right, the letter mentioning the ship is of a later date, and Enoch must have been superior of the monastery after AD 650.¹⁴

Apa Amoun, the “father of the Rock of Apa Thomas,” features in a letter about the donation of a garden to the monastery (P.Ryl.Copt. 248). He was the ninth and last superior to be included in the invocation formula and appears on a single epitaph (I.Sarga 54).

One of the superiors of the Monastery of Apa Thomas and his second-in-authority, or steward, received a letter from his bishop, Eunomius of Sbeht (Apollinopolis Parva/Kom Isfaht; O.Sarga 375). Unfortunately, the name of the superior is lost.

The relative chronology should also include five monastic leaders who are attested in documents, but not on the epitaphs:

• Sarapamon, superior of the Rock of Apa Thomas, who sent a letter to the anonymous archimandrite of another monastery, requesting a deed of protection on behalf of certain youths who had fled from his (Sarapamon’s) monastery (P.Ryl.Copt. 289);

• the anonymous archimandrite who received Sarapamon’s letter (P.Ryl.Copt. 289);

• Apa George, the head and archimandrite, who represented the dikaion of the Rock of Apa Thomas when paying their taxes (P.Ryl.Copt. 124);

• Daniel, the archimandrite, who employed a carpenter in indiction year 12 to work at the monastery, presumably that of Apa Thomas (O.Sarga 161);

• Apa Victor, archimandrite of the “Holy Mountain,” which probably does not refer to the Monastery of Apa Thomas, for the latter is never called “Mountain” (P.Sarga 96).

Judging from the documents, the leader of the Monastery of Apa Thomas was called “father” or “superior” (proestos) when he represented the dikaion of the monastery, and the archimandrites were associated with another monastery, which is once designated as the “Holy Mountain.” At a later stage, archimandrites interfered with the administration of the Monastery of Apa Thomas: Apa George paid the taxes due from the monastery, and Daniel employed a carpenter. This observation also seems to apply to Dayr al-Bala’iza, or the Monastery of Apa Apollo, in the same district of Sbeht (Apollinopolis Parva/Kom Isfaht): five leaders were called “superiors,” but two others were “archimandrites.”¹⁵ Interestingly, the title ‘archimandrite’ is particularly attested at the Monastery of Apa Apollo at Bawit (in the Hermopolite district), whereas only a few of its leaders were designated proestos.¹⁶

In the context of the Pachomian koinonia and the Shenoutian federation, the title ‘archimandrite’ designated the supreme leader of a group of monasteries, who resided at the main monastery.¹⁷ It referred to a specific function and is likely to have been borne by a limited number of monastic leaders, but the documents from the monasteries at Wadi Sarga, al-Bala’iza, and Bawit provide various examples. In my opinion, it is unlikely that each of these monasteries housed proestotes as well as archimandrites. Since most archimandrites are associated with the Monastery of Apa Apollo at Bawit, I am inclined to think that this monastery was, or became, the center of a monastic congregation, which included at least the Monastery of Apa Thomas and Dayr al-Bala’iza.¹⁸

A Relationship with the Monastery of Apa Apollo at Bawit?

In a recent article, Delattre (forthcoming) observes that the monastery at Bawit was indeed involved with the administration of other monastic institutions, “peut-être dans le cadre d’une congrégation dont il aurait été l’élément central.”¹⁹ In addition, he proposes the hy...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Contributors
• Maps
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1. The Monastery of Apa Thomas at Wadi Sarga: Points of Departure for a Relative Chronology
• 2. Intellectual Life in Middle Egypt: The Case of the Monastery of Bawit (Sixth–Eighth Centuries)
• 3. Christianity and Monasticism in al-Bahnasa according to Arabic Sources
• 4. Mesokemic or ‘Middle Egyptian’—the Coptic Dialect of Oxyrhynchos (?)
• 5. The Monastery of Apollo at Bala’iza and Its Literary Texts
• 6. “Twenty Thousand Nuns”: The Domestic Virgins of Oxyrhynchos
• 7. Anba Isaac, Bishop of the Fayoum, al-Bahnasa, and Giza, 1834–81
• 8. The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: History and Heritage (Reflections of Its Monks)
• 9. John of Shmoun and Coptic Identity
• 10. Christianity in Asyut in Modern History
• 11. The Place of Qusqam in the Textual Data on the Flight into Egypt
• 12. John of Lykopolis
• 13. Discerning the True Religion in Late Fourteenth-Century Egypt: Pages from the Dayr al-Muharraq Edition of al-Hawi by al-Makin Jirjis ibn al-‘Amid
• 14. Egyptian Gnosticism from Its Cradle in the Alexandrian Quarters of the Second Century to Its Jar Tomb in the Upper Egyptian Town of Nag‘ Hammadi
• 15. Notes on the Arabic Life of Ibrahim al-Fani: A Coptic Saint of the Fourteenth Century
• 16. Snippets from the Past. Two Ancient Sites in the Asyut Region: Dayr al-Gabrawi and Dayr al-‘Izam
• 17. Liturgy of the Monastery of al-Muharraq
• 18. L* as a Secret Language: Social Functions of Early Coptic
• 19. Bawit in the Twenty-first Century: Bibliography 1997–2014
• 20. Children’s Burials from Antinoopolis: Discoveries from Recent Excavations
• 21. Recent Excavations at Bawit
• 22. Funerary Aspects in the Paintings from the Apollo Monastery at Bawit
• 23. The Cave of John of Lykopolis
• 24. Al-Shaykh Sa‘id Revisited: A Reassessment of the Spatial Layout of a Monastic Community
• 25. Toward the Documentation of the Monastery of the Holy Virgin at al-Muharraq, Asyut
• 26. The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: Reflections of Its Monks Today
• 27. An Overview of Rock-cut Coptic Sites in Asyut
• 28. Architectural Typology of Historic Coptic Churches from Oxyrhynchos to Dayr al-Ganadla
• Abbreviations
• Bibliography