Université Paul Valéry (Montpellier III) – CNRS UMR 5140 « Archéologie des Sociétés Méditerranéennes » Équipe « Égypte Nilotique et Méditerranéenne » (ENiM)

CENiM 9 Cahiers de l’ENiM

Le myrte et la rose Mélanges offerts à Françoise Dunand par ses élèves, collègues et amis

Réunis par

Gaëlle Tallet et Christiane Zivie-Coche

*

Montpellier, 2014

© Équipe « Égypte Nilotique et Méditerranéenne » de l’UMR 5140, « Archéologie des Sociétés

Méditerranéennes » (Cnrs – Université Paul Valéry – Montpellier III), Montpellier, 2014

Françoise Dunand à sa table de travail, à l’Institut d’histoire des religions de l’Université de Strasbourg, dans les années 1980 (d. r.).

TABLE DES MATIÈRES

Volume 1

Table des matières Abréviations bibliographiques Liste des contributeurs

I-III V-VIII

IX Introduction Gaëlle Tallet et Christiane Zivie-Coche

D’une autre rive. Entretiens avec Françoise Dunand

XI-XIX Gaëlle Tallet

Bibliographie de Françoise Dunand

XXI-XXVII I. La société égyptienne au prisme de la papyrologie Adam Bülow-Jacobsen

Texts and Textiles on Mons Claudianus

3-7 Hélène Cuvigny

« Le blé pour les Juifs » (O.Ka.La. Inv. 228)

9-14 Arietta Papaconstantinou

Egyptians and ‘Hellenists’ : linguistic diversity in the early Pachomian monasteries

15-21 Jean A. Straus

Esclaves malfaiteurs dans l'Égypte romaine

23-31 II. Le ‘cercle isiaque’ Corinne Bonnet

Stratégies d’intégration des cultes isiaques et du culte des Lagides dans la région de Tyr à l’époque hellénistique

35-40 Laurent Bricault

Les Sarapiastes

41-49 Paola Davoli

The Temple of Soknopaios and Isis Nepherses at Soknopaiou Nesos (El-Fayyum)

51-68 Michel Reddé

Du Rhin au Nil. Quelques remarques sur le culte de Sarapis dans l’armée romaine

69-75 III. La religion en images Pascale Ballet

Une lecture culturelle de la petite plastique dans l’Égypte du nord à l’époque gréco-romaine ? Les formes de l’hellénisation

79-93 Robert Steven Bianchi

Replication in Egyptian Art : A Bronze Statuette from Ain al-Labakha Reconsidered

95-103

D’une autre rive II

Céline Boutantin Quand les animaux singent les hommes. Terres cuites égyptiennes d’époque gréco-romaine

105-127

David Frankfurter Terracotta Figurines and Popular Religion in Late Antique Egypt : Issues of Continuity and ‘Survival’

129-141 Zsolt Kiss

Têtes alexandrines

143-148 Karin Mackowiak

Singeries et théâtralité : à propos d’une figurine de harpiste hellénistique

149-160 Karol Myśliwiec

Quelques aspects du syncrétisme dans l’œuvre des artisans de l’Athribis ptolémaïque

161-170 IV. Penser l’histoire des religions François Blanchetière

Le christianisme, religion orientale ?

173-178 François Bœspflug

D’Isis lactans à Maria lactans. Quelques réflexions sur deux motifs similaires

179-197 Guillaume Ducœur

Georges Dumézil et ‘le Buddha hésitant’

199-209 Jean-Marie Husser

Maîtres et disciples dans les milieux apocalypticiens

211-216 Natale Spineto

Mircea Eliade, Oscar Cullmann et l’opposition entre temps cyclique et temps linéaire en histoire des religions

217-226

Volume 2 Table des matières XXIX-XXXI V. Croyances et pratiques funéraires Alain Charron

De bien particulières momies animales

229-247 Magali Coudert

W99 : un individu particulier de la nécropole byzantine d’el-Deir (oasis de Kharga)

249-257 Jean-Luc Fissolo

Des abeilles et des dieux

259-274 Roger Lichtenberg

Un nouveau rituel de momification ? Quelques questions posées par la radiographie des momies égyptiennes

275-280

Table des matières III

Cathie Spieser La nature ambivalente du sang, du lait, des figues et du miel dans les croyances funéraires égyptiennes

281-287

VI. Les ‘îles des Bienheureux’ Gillian E. Bowen

The crux ansata in early Christian iconography : Evidence from Dakhleh and Kharga oases

291-303 Romain Garcier et Jean-Paul Bravard

Qu’est-ce qu’une oasis ? Réflexions géographiques sur un objet-limite

305-323 Colin A. Hope

The Kellis 1 Cemetery : Roman Period Burial Practices in Dakhleh Oasis

325-348 Salima Ikram

Canine Cults in Kharga Oasis : the Dogs of Dabashiya

349-355 Olaf E. Kaper

Coffin or Bed ? Decorated Biers from Hellenistic and Roman Egypt

357-370 Fleur Letellier-Willemin

Les décors de jours d’el-Deir : une machine à remonter le temps dans l’oasis de Kharga

371-383 Gaëlle Tallet

Fragments d’el-Deir (oasis de Kharga) au tournant de notre ère. À propos de Carl Schmidt et de William Hornblower

385-412 VII. La place des femmes Damien Agut-Labordère et Anne-Emmanuelle Veïsse

Grecques et Égyptiennes dans les contrats de prêt aux IIIe et IIe s. a.C.

415-423 Claire Feuvrier-Prévotat

Du malheur d’épouser une femme riche au temps de Plaute

425-432 Jean-Claude Grenier

L’Égypte et les impératrices…

433-442 Geneviève Husson

Princesses et impératrices dans la nomenclature des tribus et des dèmes d’Antinooupolis

443-446 Christiane Zivie-Coche

Une dame lettrée, chanteuse de Hat-mehyt

447-461

EGYPTIANS AND ‘HELLENISTS’:

LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY IN THE EARLY PACHOMIAN MONASTERIES

ARIETTA PAPACONSTANTINOU The production and survival of a rich bilingual corpus of texts associated with Pachomius and his monastic foundations is witness to the continued popularity of the founder of collective monasticism in medieval times, both in the Greek-speaking world and within Egypt itself. Since the late nineteenth century, one of the most persistent discussions concerning that corpus of texts has revolved around determining the form and language of the first biography of Pachomius. James Goehring has given a very lucid overview of the debate as it stands, and there is little point in repeating that exercise here.1 The most striking aspect of that debate is its inconclusiveness. Over more than a century, it has been impossible to come to a consensus on the question of linguistic priority. In 1986, Goehring made the suggestion in passing that the existence of distinct linguistic groups within the monasteries may have been at the origin of distinct material and traditions, all emanating from the same milieu.2 He thus implied, without saying it explicitly, that no single text was at the origin of all the others – a departure from the traditional philological model of the Urtext towards one favouring the parallel emergence of multiple related texts, which has become more and more common in textual studies since the 1980s. In her brief overview of the linguistic situation in Egyptian monasteries,3 Sofía Torallas suggested much the same thing from a different angle, seeing the multilingual transmission of monastic literature as a sign of the multilingualism of monastic environments.4 She also highlighted the presence of both languages within monastic communities, and pointed to the existence of ‘houses’ specifically reserved to speakers of a given language. This approach is certainly the way forward in analysing what may well have been the simultaneous development of texts in the two languages used within the community. My aim in this paper is not to discuss yet again the philological relation between the different texts, however important the issue may be for the early history of Pachomian monasticism. Rather, I would like to examine more thoroughly the evidence for bilingualism in the early Pachomian communities, and to assess the scope and relevance of that evidence in our understanding both of linguistic balance in fourth-century Egypt and of the self-image early monasticism strove to create. Among the many sub-narratives contained in the early Lives of Pachomius is the biography of Theodore of Alexandria, a character who also appears in the Epistula Ammonis, a second-generation text with close links to the Vitae as regards its contents.5 Yet even though in all those texts he is consistently described as a central figure in the overall organisation of the community under Pachomius and his successor Theodore, his case has not attracted much scholarly attention.6 It is the Bohairic Vita that contains the longest and most detailed narrative on Theodore the Alexandrian.7 He is introduced quite lengthily as a young man from a pagan family who was “moved by the Spirit of God to become a Christian”, and promised to himself that if he became a Christian he would also become a monk.

1 J.E. Goehring, The Letter of Ammon and Pachomian Monasticism (Patristische Texte und Studien 27; Berlin 1986) 3-22. See also J. Grossmann, “Some observations on the Arabic Life of Pachomios (Ms Göttingen University Library 116) compared to the Coptic and Greek Lives”, BSAC 45 (2006) 43-58.

2 Goehring, The Letter of Ammon (1986) 22. 3 S. Torallas Tovar, “Linguistic identity in Graeco-Roman Egypt”, in: A. Papaconstantinou (ed.), The Multilingual

Experience in Egypt, from the Ptolemies to the ‘Abbāsids (Farnham 2010) 36-42. 4 Torallas Tovar, “Linguistic identity” (2010) 41. 5 Goehring, The Letter of Ammon (1986) 24-33. 6 See the short paragraph in Goehring, The Letter of Ammon (1986) 201, and the remarks in Torallas, “Linguistic

identity” (2010) 39-40. 7 Bohairic Vita 89-91 [transl. Veilleux, Koinonia I, 117-123].

Arietta Papaconstantinou 16

Some days later he went to see the archbishop, Apa Athanasius, and told him about everything that was in his heart. The [archbishop] at once baptised him, made him a lector, and arranged a place for him to live in the church, where he gave himself up to ascesis. He met no women at all, with the sole exception of his mother and his sister.8

In his new capacity, Theodore hears of Pachomius and the Koinonia and is intrigued. Some time later, some monks from Pachomius’ monastery come to Alexandria to speak to Athanasius, and Theodore is very happy to see them.

He went up to them and while someone acted as interpreter for him he spoke to them, “I, too, wish to go south with you to see your father, the Man of God, and to have his blessings”.

The monks reply that they cannot take him along of their own accord, “because of the archbishop”. Athanasius gives him leave to go, and he follows the monks back to Pboou.

Having come south to our father Pachomius, he embraced him with the kiss of peace. Our father received him with joy because he saw that he was humble, and especially because the archbishop had written him about [Theodore, asking him] to receive him cordially. At once he assigned him to a house in which an ancient old man lived who, as he understood the Greek language, could converse with him and comfort him. He made fine progress and advanced in all good works and according to the rules of the brothers.9

Pachomius communicates with him through an interpreter. One day, he discusses the monks in Alexandria with him, and shows him that their commitment is very superficial. With time, Pachomius increasingly appreciates Theodore’s qualities.

When our father Pachomius noticed that Theodore had made progress in divine knowledge, he appointed him housemaster for the strangers who were also coming to become monks with him. And our father Pachomius made efforts to learn Greek, so as to exhort them often according to Scripture and to teach Theodore the way to govern the brothers placed under his authority.10

The Vita Prima describes Theodore’s new role with a few more details:

Abba Pachomius loved this Alexandrian Theodore dearly, because he adapted well to the life of the monks and bore it with patience. And with God’s grace he made every effort to learn Greek, so as to talk with Theodore and offer him encouragement. Then he appointed him housemaster of the Hellenists who arrived after him, Alexandrians and foreigners. And his house was full of fragrance and piety.11

From the very start, Theodore is presented as the one who crosses the linguistic border. He is put with someone who knows Greek so that he can communicate; at the same time, he learns Egyptian – quite quickly, we are told, because he is very studious; for his sake, Pachomius himself learns Greek. It is thus not surprising to see that Theodore is from then on presented as the ‘official’ interpreter in the monastery.

When Pachomius gave instructions to the brothers, Theodore would interpret for the sake of those who did not understand Egyptian. He was housemaster for thirteen years before the blessed Pachomius’ death. The first spiritual fruits of that house among the Alexandrians were Ausonius the Great and another Ausonius, and a boy called Neon. Among the Romans there were the God-bearers Firmus and Romulus, and Domninus the Armenian and the other holy men. Some of them knew the Great Man in the body; others did not.12

Theodore’s role as principal interpreter is presented as entirely established in the Letter of Ammon, where he repeatedly appears in that capacity. His function is to manage the community’s linguistic diversity, and

8 Bohairic Vita 89 [transl. Veilleux, Koinonia I, 117]. 9 Bohairic Vita 89 [transl. Veilleux, Koinonia I, 119]. Vita Prima 94 is a much shorter version of this: “Another

Theodore, lector of the Church of Alexandria and an ascetic, heard about abba Pachomius and the brothers, and he came up to the Thebaid by boat. He was also pious and obedient as one of the Lord’s sheep. [Pachomius] received him and for his encouragement placed him in a house with an ancient brother who knew the Greek language, until he could understand also the Thebaic language” [transl. Veilleux, Koinonia I, 361].

10 Bohairic Vita 89 [transl. Veilleux, Koinonia I, 120-121]. 11 Vita Prima 95 [ed. Halkin 46, transl. after Veilleux, Koinonia I, 361, with modifications]: Τοῦτον οὖν τὸν Ἀλεξανδρέα

Θεόδωρον, τῷ βίῳ τῶν µοναχῶν στοιχειωθέντα καλῶς καὶ ὑποµείναντα, λίαν ἠγάπησεν ὁ ἀββᾶς Παχώµιος· ἐσπούδασέ τε µαθεῖν ἑλληνιστὶ χάριτι θεοῦ καίπερ Αἰγύπτιος ὤν, ὥστε συλλαλε ῖν Θεοδώρῳ καὶ παραµυθίας µεταδιδόναι. Λοιπὸν ο ὖν ἔταξεν αὐτὸν οἰκιακὸν τῶν µετ’αὐτὸν ἐλθόντων ἑλληνιστῶν, Ἀλεξανδρέων καὶ ξενικῶν. Καὶ ἦν ἡ κατ’ αὐτὸν οἰκία πλήρης εὐωδίας καὶ εὐλαβείας.

12 Vita Prima 95 [ed. Halkin 47, transl. Veilleux, Koinonia I, 362].

Egyptians and ‘Hellenists’: linguistic diversity in the early Pachomian monasteries

17

he is presented as a bilingual surrounded by monolinguals who need his mediation in order to communicate.

We listened to him saying these things in the Egyptian language, while Theodore the Alexandrian translated into Greek. [This latter] had been a lector in the church of Pierius, a holy man...13

This is repeated a number of times in the corpus,14 highlighting Theodore’s practical role as the main linguistic mediator in the community. That role is paralleled by his role as a direct connection to Athanasius of Alexandria. The choice of Pboou over Alexandria by Theodore as the perfect monastic retreat is approved by the archbishop, lending institutional legitimacy to Pachomius’ entire undertaking, and reinforcing its symbolic power through the link with the already prestigious Athanasius. At the same time, Theodore is presented as a sign of the success of the monastery: both his own presence there, and the existence of the linguistic diversity he is brought to manage are the result of the glory and fame of the monastery, which have attracted inmates from all over the empire. Thus in the literary construction of the community’s legitimacy and prestige, Theodore is a key figure. This role is built up in the Vitae, both Coptic and Greek, and it is reproduced by the Epistula Ammonis, which not only confirms the existence of a special ‘house’ for the ‘Hellenists’ with Theodore the Alexandrian at its head, but gives some supplementary information on its mode of operation.

And while everyone was looking at me, the holy Theodore arose and enjoined them all to prayer. And taking me by the hand, he entrusted me to the Alexandrian Theodore and a certain Ausonius, who was his second, as teachers and guides, saying to Ausonius: “Encourage him to learn the divine scriptures. For he will not remain in the monastery, but will become a servant of God’s church”. And they received me and led me into the house in which dwelt the twenty Greek-speaking monks (Ἑλληνισταὶ) who were under them. After they had sat down, they requested each [monk] to relate what he remembered of that which he was asked and what the holy Theodore had replied. And so, since I heard each of the twenty, and after them also Ausonius and Theodore the Alexandrian, reporting what they remembered, and because I pondered [it all] in my heart (Lk 2.19), I was able to remember these things that I have written down. For having been queried by me, the Alexandrian Theodore explained to me on the spot the meaning of what the great Theodore had said to each of his questioners. And these things were said a little more than a year after Gallus, who was called the new Constantius, was proclaimed Caesar.15

Thus even though they were in their own, linguistically determined house, the twenty-odd ‘Hellenists’ of the monastery were learning Egyptian and could follow what the head of the community, by then ‘the holy Theodore’, was saying. Their linguistic skills being still insecure, however, on return to their foreigners’ quarters they had a session with their ‘teachers and guides’, Theodore the Alexandrian and his second, Ausonius, during which they discussed the superior’s teachings – presumably in Greek. As a Greek-speaking guest, Ammon is offered the special treatment of direct explanation of the teachings by Theodore. The entire situation mirrors to a large extent the one described at the arrival in the monastery of Theodore himself: he was put with a Greek-speaker so that he could follow the teachings, until he could learn Egyptian. The bonds between the ‘Hellenists’ are strong, presumably linked to their linguistic dependence on each other. When the monks make a trip to an island to gather firewood,16 the Hellenists go in their own boat, under the guidance of Theodore. While they are spending the night on the island, some monks from Alexandria come to find them, and announce that they have a letter from the great Anthony.

After the greeting, having been encircled by us all, he said to them: “You who are arriving, rejoice. For you have seen our father Anthony”. And they said, “He has written to you through us”. And they gave him the letter. After he had read it and become full of joy, he gave the letter to Elourion and ordered him to read it aloud to the brethren. And once again, Theodore the Alexandrian translated, for it was written in the Egyptian language.17

Throughout the corpus, we are presented with a situation whereby the ‘Egyptians’ only speak Egyptian,

13 Epistula Ammonis 4 [Goehring, The Letter of Ammon, text 127, transl. 161]. 14 See for instance Epistula Ammonis 5 [ibid.]; 6 [text 128, transl. 162]; 22 [text 144, transl. 173]; 28 [text 150,

transl. 177]. 15 Epistula Ammonis 7 [Goehring, The Letter of Ammon, text 129, transl. 163]. 16 Epistula Ammonis 27-29 [Goehring, The Letter, text 149-52, transl. 176-178]. 17 Epistula Ammonis 29 [Goehring, The Letter, text 151, transl. 178].

Arietta Papaconstantinou 18

while the ‘Alexandrians’, Romans, Armenians or any others speak Greek, and are trying to learn Egyptian. Even though Greek is unambiguously presented as the lingua franca of the Empire at large, in the monastery the language of communication is Egyptian. Contrary to the outside world, where Greek is an essential tool of communication, in the Koinonia the ‘Hellenists’ have to learn Egyptian in order to fit in. This is one more device used to mark the complete inversion of the values of the outside world within monastic communities. Other monastic texts of the period present the situation in much the same terms. Palladius, for example, tells a story he held from the Nitrian priest Cronius, regarding a certain Eulogius, an Alexandrian who went to consult Anthony on a matter of conscience. Cronius relates the entire exchange between Eulogius and Anthony:

But Cronius, having spent some time in places around the Thebaid, came down to the monasteries of Alexandria. And it happened that the brothers were celebrating the fortieth day of the one and the third day of the other. Cronius learned this and was amazed. Taking a gospel and putting it in the middle of the brothers he took an oath, after recounting the event, saying, “In all those conversations I was the blessed Antony’s interpreter, since he did not know Greek; for I knew both languages and interpreted for them, speaking to them in Greek, to Antony in Egyptian”.18

John of Lykopolis also used an interpreter to speak with Palladius:

So, after greeting me, he said through an interpreter: “Where are you from? And why have you come? For I believe you are from the convent of Evagrius”. I said: “I am a stranger who came from Galatia”. And I confessed that I also belonged to the company of Evagrius. Meanwhile, as we talked, the governor of the district arrived, Alypius by name. Turning to him, he gave up the conversation with me. I retired a little giving way to them, standing slightly apart. As their conversation lasted a long time, I was distressed, and in weariness I complained against the good old man, since he showed disdain for me and honoured him. My mind being annoyed at this, I thought of leaving and disdaining him. Having called his interpreter, named Theodore, he said to him: “Go and tell that brother, ‘Do not be petty. I will soon dismiss the governor and talk to you’”.19

In all these cases, interpreters appear out of the blue to allow communication between the ‘Egyptian’ monk and the ‘foreign’, Greek-speaking visitor. The same happens when Theodore, still in Alexandria, wants to speak to the monks sent by Pachomius to see Athanasius: he approaches them and speaks to them with the help of an interpreter, who seems to simply be there.20 It is impossible to conclude from those passages whether each time an interpreter shows up it is actually one of the characters of the story, or whether there were specialised interpreters who were effaced but present whenever Egyptian-speakers and Greek-speakers met to discuss some issue. That clear-cut opposition between the two languages, and the way it is made to function as a literary device, raises one important question: did it correspond to the reality on the ground, or are we in the presence of yet another trope of early monastic literature? For years, such texts served as evidence that Egypt was a binary society divided between Greeks and Egyptians, Greek-speaking urban elites and Egyptian-speaking peasants. This view has almost become anathema in recent literature, where it is regularly reasserted that the situation was much more complex, and that this simplistic opposition was the product of an antiquated and European-centred form of scholarship with imperialistic overtones. However true that may be, the scholars who held this view did not entirely invent it: they found it in texts such as the ones cited above, a fact that has not been sufficiently taken into account. The ‘simplistic’ view presented by monastic literature is under fire today to a large extent because it is in conflict with the evidence we have from papyri, considered, with good reason and despite their shortcomings, to be much more reliable as a mirror of social practice than texts produced by a specific milieu and subsequently copied and rewritten by the keepers of that milieu’s memory. Fourth-century papyri show that at that time Greek was more commonly used than Coptic in writing, and even exclusively for public or legal documents. Coptic was, however, used widely in correspondence, and was also more

18 Palladius, Historia Lausiaca 21.15 [ed. G.J.M. Bartelink, Palladio. La storia Lausiaca (Verona 1974)]. 19 Palladius, Historia Lausiaca 35, 5-6 [ed. Bartelink, Palladio (1974)]. 20 Bohairic Vita 89 [transl. Veilleux, Koinonia I, 118]: “He went up to them and while someone acted as interpreter for

him he spoke to them”.

Egyptians and ‘Hellenists’: linguistic diversity in the early Pachomian monasteries

19

present in the countryside than in the cities, which concords with the image offered by the Pachomian texts.21 Monastic recruitment cut across social boundaries. Most of the monks we hear about, including Pachomius himself, were from strata of society that would have been literate and would have known at least some Greek. John of Lykopolis was a builder, his brother a dyer, trades which, like many others, have yielded scores of business-related papyri in Greek. Pachomius, we are told, was the son of ‘Hellenes’, and he was a recruit in the Roman army. It seems hardly conceivable that he could not understand a word of Greek. Besides, the Pachomian corpus contradicts itself internally on the question of the master’s monolingual persona, since on the one hand we are told that he learned Greek in order to communicate with Theodore, and on the other that he needed Theodore in order to communicate with the Greek-speakers. Another episode, found in the Paralipomena, and repeated in the Vita altera and the Vita tertia, is even more in contradiction with this persona. Having failed to communicate with a highly-placed Roman who had come to join the monastery, Pachomius receives the gift of tongues from God:

It happened also that the Blessed Man was visiting the brothers in their cells and correcting the thoughts of each one. He came also to a certain Roman [brother], coming from a great family, who also knew the Greek language well. The Great Man, coming to him to admonish him for his profit and to know the movements of his heart, spoke to him in Egyptian. The brother did not understand what he told him; nor did the Great Man know what the Roman said, [52] because he did not know Greek. So the Great Man was compelled to call a brother who could interpret what they both said. But when the interpreter came, the Roman did not want to tell the Great Man the faults of his heart through another person. He said, “I want only you after God, and nobody else, to know the evils of my heart”. Hearing this, the Great Man ordered the interpreter to withdraw and he made a sign with his hand to the Roman to wait until he came back to him. The Blessed Man left him and went to pray by himself. Stretching out his hands to heaven, he prayed to God, saying, “Lord Almighty, if I cannot profit the men whom you send to me from the ends of the earth because I do not know the languages of men, what need is there for them to come? If you want to save them here through me, grant, O Master, that I may know their languages for the correction of their souls”. He prayed for three hours, entreating God earnestly for this. Suddenly something like a letter written on a piece of papyrus was sent from heaven into his right hand. Reading it, he learned the speach of all the languages. Having sent up praise to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, he came back to that brother with great joy, and began to converse with him faultlessly in Greek and Latin. When that brother heard it, he said that the Great Man surpassed all the scholars in that language. After correcting the brother as required, and determining the penance corresponding to his faults, he commended him to the Lord and left him.22

The implications of this passage are important, and I will come back to them later. For the moment let us note that this is the second time the corpus tells us that Pachomius learnt Greek, and even, in this second case, Latin. More than anything, these stories function like aetiological narratives attempting to justify the fact that Pachomius, presented throughout as a grass-roots Egyptian who only spoke the local language, was not actually as monolingual as his Vitae would have him. Monolingualism in Egyptian monasticism is indeed essentially a trope, much like such themes as the capacity to tame beasts or the propensity to cry for one’s sins. Contrary to these themes, however, it was not used to describe the struggle of ascetic against human nature, but rather to indicate one’s proximity to God through one’s purity of heart rather than through learning. Indeed, Egyptian was construed in that literature as the language of the uneducated. This is most obvious in two sayings of Arsenios from the Apophthegmata Patrum.

Someone asked Abba Arsenios, “Why do we not make anything out of such education and wisdom, while these Egyptian peasants acquire so many virtues?” Abba Arsenios answered him, “We make nothing out of our earthly knowledge; but these Egyptian peasants have acquired their virtues through their own labour”. When Abba Arsenios once asked an Egyptian ascete about his own thoughts, another man recognised him and asked, “Abba Arsenios, why do you, who have such a good Roman and Greek education, ask this peasant about your own thoughts?” And Arsenios answered, “I have a good Roman and Greek education, but I have not even

21 R.S. Bagnall, Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East (Berkeley 2011) 75-85. 22 Paralipomena 27 [transl. Veilleux, Koinonia II, 51-52].

Arietta Papaconstantinou 20

learnt the alphabet of this peasant.”23

Here Greek and Latin are clearly identified as the languages of learning, while by opposition to them, Egyptian is presented as a ‘non-learned’ language, the language of ‘this peasant’. Through that quality, it had a more direct access to God, a form of access that was through ‘the heart’, as the Pachomian Vitae put it. Education and learning, equated here with Greek and Roman education, and consequently with the corresponding languages, got in the way of that direct access. This non-intellectual approach to the divine was an essential tenet in the overall ideology of early monasticism. The point is forcefully made in the Life of Anthony, a text which became an essential reference for subsequent monastic literature. Apart from the fact that he did not know Greek, we are told that he was “extremely wise” and that “although he had not learned to write, he was a perceptive and intelligent person”. The story continues to describe how he outwitted two philosophers who had come to test him. The following passage makes the point very explicitly:

Later, when others like them came to meet him on the outer mountain, thinking that they could mock him because he had not learned to write, Anthony said to them, “What do you think? Which is first, the mind or letters? And which is the cause of which? Is the mind the source of letters, or are letters the source of the mind?” When they said to him that the mind is first and is the inventor of letters, Anthony said, “The person whose mind is sound, therefore, has no need of letters”. Both the philosophers and others who were present were amazed at this. They went away astonished because they had witnessed such great understanding in an unlettered person. Indeed, although Anthony had been raised on that mountain, as it were, he had grown old there, his character was not wild; instead, he had the graces of someone raised in the city. His speech was seasoned with divine salt.24

The concept of a language better adapted to divine understanding was neither new, nor unique to the monks. It runs through the writings of the neoplatonists and the Hermetic corpus. According to Plotinus, the Egyptian writing system made of images could capture the non-discursiveness of the intelligible world better than the analytical alphabetic system of the Greeks.25 The same distinction is made in the Hermetic corpus between the discursive, argumentative nature of Greek and the aural qualities of Egyptian, which works through ‘sounds laden with actions’.26 Iamblichus also argued at length for the divine qualities of Egyptian in his De mysteriis. Even though the concept was circulating, however, the neoplatonists used Greek, while Egyptian was an ideal rather than a spoken reality. In that sense, it is perhaps Athanasius of Alexandria who is closest to their model, as he was an entirely Greek-speaking and Greek-educated author writing about the qualities of Egyptian in terms of proximity to the divine. In the monastic circles that adopted this symbolic opposition between the two languages, on the other hand, Egyptian was a spoken language and thus corresponded to an everyday reality and concerned real people. This naturally created the contradictions described above, because simplistic binary oppositions that work well in the realm of symbols rarely map neatly onto social reality. The texts above, even without being confronted with other evidence, show that the linguistic situation was quite complex, and became more and more so as monasticism spread and attracted inmates from different areas. As the pentecostal miracle from the Paralipomena shows, there was one important issue at stake, namely that of direct access to the mediating monastic figure. The question was not so much which language one used, as long as one could speak ‘the secrets of one’s heart’ without an interpreter. Thus Pachomius entrusts the new monks who do not speak Egyptian to spiritual masters who speak their language and can thus communicate with them directly; we even see Pachomius learn Greek to communicate directly with Theodore. Like the monk who received him initially, Theodore in turn becomes responsible for the new Greek-speakers, and even eventually the head of the ‘Greek house’. This insistence on direct communication is highlighted in Pachomius’ prayer to God which results in the pentecostal miracle. In very interesting terms, he asks for the capacity to access the souls of those who come to him for

23 Apophthegmata Patrum, Alphabetical Collection, Arsenios 5-6 [PG 65.88-89]. 24 Athanasius of Alexandria, Life of Anthony 73 [transl. A.N. Athanassakis, in: T. Vivian and A.N. Athanassakis,

Athanasius of Alexandria, The Life of Antony. The Coptic Life and the Greek Life (Cistercian Studies Series 202; Kalamazoo 2003)].

25 PLOT. Enneads 5.8.6. 26 Corpus hermeticum, Ὅροι Ἀσκληπιοῦ πρὸς Ἄµµωνα βασιλέα 1-2 [ed. A.D. Nock, vol. 2 (Paris 1945) 231-232].

Egyptians and ‘Hellenists’: linguistic diversity in the early Pachomian monasteries

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guidance through the command of their language. In a world of confession, self-exposure and spiritual guidance, mediators were understandably unwelcome. The very notion of a linguistic mediator in what was necessarily a very personal relationship was problematic – and the Roman official with the illustrious background is understandably wary of such a triangle. This transformed the mastery of both languages into an important tool for upward mobility within the community. Bilinguals no doubt started off as the anonymous ‘interpreters’ so often mentioned, and with time this gave them access to knowledge and information they would not have otherwise had, and thus increased their hold on the workings of the micro-society that was the Koinonia. Their skills put them at an advantage in relation to the others, as they could communicate directly with everyone and controlled the transfer of meaning between groups. Thus, despite the lip-service paid to monolingualism and its privileged access to the divine, what we see in these texts is the importance taken in the monastery’s hierarchy by the bilinguals. Contrary to the repeated assertions of monastic literature, in this area at least monastic society functioned exactly like any other.