Demonic Bodies in the Christian East

The Coptic tradition, and the venerable city of Alexandria, are both well represented in this forthcoming book from Oxford early next year: Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture by Travis W. Proctor (Oxford UP, February 2022), 280pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this: 

Drawing insights from gender studies and the environmental humanities, Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture analyzes how ancient Christians constructed the Christian body through its relations to demonic adversaries. Through case studies of New Testament texts, Gnostic treatises, and early Christian church fathers (e.g., Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian of Carthage), Travis W. Proctor notes that early followers of Jesus construed the demonic body in diverse and sometimes contradictory ways, as both embodied and bodiless, “fattened” and ethereal, heavenly and earthbound.

Across this diversity of portrayals, however, demons consistently functioned as personifications of “deviant” bodily practices such as “magical” rituals, immoral sexual acts, gluttony, and pagan religious practices. This demonization served an exclusionary function whereby Christian writers marginalized fringe Christian groups by linking their ritual activities to demonic modes of (dis)embodiment. The tandem construction of demonic and human corporeality demonstrates how Christian authors constructed the bodies that inhabited their cosmos--human, demon, and otherwise--as part of overlapping networks or “ecosystems” of humanity and nonhumanity. Through this approach, Proctor provides not only a more accurate representation of the bodies of ancient Christians, but also new resources for reimagining the enlivened ecosystems that surround and intersect with our modern ideas of “self.”

Athanasius of Alexandria

Lois Farag, whose scholarship on Coptic Christianity I have previously noted on here, has turned her hand to the most prominent of the prelates ever to occupy Egypt, and one of the theological giants of that crowded and eventful fourth century: Lois Farag, Athanasius of Alexandria (Cascade, 2020), 188pp.

About this new book we are told this by the publisher:

Athanasius of Alexandria, a famous theologian and historical figure, is quoted by many but known by few. His famous dictum, "For he became human that we might be made god (theopoiēthōmen)" is explained within the context of his theology and spirituality. The Introduction familiarizes the reader with Athanasius's writings and the historical context of his theology. The reader will engage with the Athanasian language and thought that shaped the Christian understanding of the Trinity. The reader also takes a journey through Athanasius's understanding of the human person, created in the image of God and living the life of renewal. The Introduction aims to guide the reader to a Christian theologian who had the courage to oppose emperors and bishops, and to endure exiles and other threats because of his unwavering theological convictions.

Philo of Alexandria

One of the diverting pleasures of my life is getting new catalogues in the mail from publishers; I'm sufficiently old-fashioned enough to prefer these in print, having found several of the electronic versions highly irritating to navigate.

The newest catalogue to arrive is from Yale University Press and among its notices is that of a book just released this month: Maren Niehoff, Philo of Alexandria: an Intellectual Biography (Yale UP, 2018, 336pp.).

About this book the publisher tells us

Philo was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who left behind one of the richest bodies of work from antiquity, yet his personality and intellectual development have remained a riddle. Maren Niehoff presents the first biography of Philo, arguing that his trip to Rome in 38 CE was a turning point in his life. There he was exposed not only to new political circumstances but also to a new cultural and philosophical environment.

Following the pogrom in Alexandria, Philo became active as the head of the Jewish embassy to Emperor Gaius and as an intellectual in the capital of the empire, responding to the challenges of his time and creatively reconstructing his identity, though always maintaining pride in the Jewish tradition. Philo’s trajectory from Alexandria to Rome and his enthusiastic adoption of new modes of thought made him a key figure in the complex negotiation between East and West.

In the Image of Origen

Given his prominence and the controversy surrounding him, it should come as no surprise that interest in Origen has remained consistently high, as I have often noted on here over the years. Set for release next spring is a book that looks to cover a number of angles in academic scholarship on the great Alexandrian theologian: In the Image of Origen Eros, Virtue, and Constraint in the Early Christian Academy by David Satran (University of California Press, 2018), 270pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

The most prominent Christian theologian and exegete of the third century, Origen was also an influential teacher. In the famed Thanksgiving Address, one of his students—often thought to be Gregory Thaumaturgus, later bishop of Cappadocia—delivered an emotionally charged account of his tutelage in Roman Palestine. Although it is one of the few “personal” accounts by a Christian author to have survived from the period, the Address is more often cited than read closely. But as David Satran demonstrates, this short work has much to teach us today. At its center stands the question of moral character, anchored by the image of Origen himself, and David Satran's careful analysis of the text sheds new light on higher education in the early Church as well as the intimate relationship between master and disciple.

Clement of Alexandria's Moral Psychology

What is it about the great city of Alexandria that so many of its leading Christian intellectuals seem to have never shaken off a certain soupçon of heterodoxy? Whether we're talking Origen, Cyril, or Clement (inter alia--to say nothing of the infamous Arius of course) there remains in the minds of some just a bit of doubt, a bit of unease, as to how sound these men are.

Among them, Clement of Alexandria occupies a pivotal if at times controverted position within early Christianity, as I noted here. Some traditions have canonized him and recognize him as a patristic figure of great authority; others have done neither; still others view him as guilty of  heresy. A new book, set for September release, may shed more light on him: Kathleen Gibbons, The Moral Psychology of Clement of Alexandria: Mosaic Philosophy (Routledge, 2016), 208pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

In The Moral Psychology of Clement of Alexandria, Kathleen Gibbons proposes a new approach to Clement’s moral philosophy and explores how his construction of Christianity’s relationship with Jewishness informed, and was informed by, his philosophical project. As one of the earliest Christian philosophers, Clement’s work has alternatively been treated as important for understanding the history of relations between Christianity and Judaism and between Christianity and pagan philosophy. This study argues that an adequate examination of his significance for the one requires an adequate examination of his significance for the other.

While the ancient claim that the writings of Moses were read by the philosophical schools was found in Jewish, Christian, and pagan authors, Gibbons demonstrates that Clement’s use of this claim shapes not only his justification of his authorial project, but also his philosophical argumentation. In explaining what he took to be the cosmological, metaphysical, and ethical implications of the doctrine that the supreme God is a lawgiver, Clement provided the theoretical justifications for his views on a range of issues that included martyrdom, sexual asceticism, the status of the law of Moses, and the relationship between divine providence and human autonomy. By contextualizing Clement’s discussions of volition against wider Greco-Roman debates about self-determination, it becomes possible to reinterpret the invocation of “free will” in early Christian heresiological discourse as part of a larger dispute about what human autonomy requires.

We are also given the table of contents:

Acknowledgements
Note on Translations
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Mosaic Law in early Christianity
Chapter 2: Miming Moses: Clement’s Self-Presentation and the Dependency Theme
Chapter 3: Moses, Statesman and Philosopher
Chapter 4: The Logos of God, the Problem of Evil, and Clement’s Transformation of Providence
Chapter 5: Right Reason and the Gnostic’s Grasp of the Mosaic Law
Chapter 6: Clement’s Idiosyncratic Concept of Autonomy in the Context of Ancient Thought
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Antioch vs. Alexandria, Round #19824307

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Christian East, or patristic and exegetical history, has invariably and frequently encountered the famed, if not hackneyed, Antioch-Alexandria "divide" when it comes to hermeneutics and exegesis as well as Christology. Any nostrum that is repeated as often as this one deserves to come in for fresh re-examination, and it appears we have it in a recent study by Richard Perhai, Antiochene Theoria in the Writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret of Cyrus (Fortress, 2015).

About this book the publisher tells us:

Biblical scholars have often contrasted the exegesis of the early church fathers from the eastern region and “school” of Syrian Antioch against that of the school of Alexandria. The Antiochenes have often been described as strictly historical-literal exegetes in contrast to the allegorical exegesis of the Alexandrians. Patristic scholars now challenge those stereotypes, some even arguing that few differences existed between the two groups.

This work agrees that both schools were concerned with a literal and spiritual reading. But, it also tries to show, through analysis of Theodore and Theodoret’s exegesis and use of the term theoria, that how they integrated the literal-theological readings often remained quite distinct from the Alexandrians. For the Antiochenes, the term theoria did not mean allegory, but instead stood for a range of perceptions—prophetic, christological, and contemporary. It is in these insights that we find the deep wisdom to help modern readers interpret Scripture theologically.

Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on John

Whatever his failings in the realm of inter-personal relations (if the Church in Alexandria had an HR department as bothered by busybodies as most organizations today, you can bet Cyril would have been written up during his annual evaluation as "divisive" and "extremist," which things could well be said of most if not all Church Fathers!), there is no denying his significance to the development of early Christian doctrine. Set for release in May is another translation of one of Cyril's works: Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, vol. 2, David R. Maxwell, trans. and Joel C. Elowsky, ed.,  (IVP Academic, 2015), 400pp. 

About this book we are told:

Cyril of Alexandria (ca. 378-444), one of the most brilliant representatives of the Alexandrian theological tradition, is best known for championing the term Theotokos (God-bearer) in opposition to Nestorius of Constantinople. Cyril's great Commentary on John, offered here in the Ancient Christian Texts series in two volumes, predates the Nestorian controversy and focuses its theological firepower against Arianism. The commentary, addressed to catechists, displays Cyril's breathtaking mastery of the full content of the Bible and his painstaking attention to detail as he offers practical teaching for the faithful on the cosmic story of God's salvation. David R. Maxwell provides readers with the first completely fresh English translation of the text since the nineteenth century. It rests on Pusey's critical edition of the Greek text and displays Cyril's profound theological interpretation of Scripture and his appeal to the patristic tradition that preceded him. Today's readers will find the commentary an indispensable tool for understanding Cyril's approach to Scripture.

Byzantine Bibliophilia

For those interested in books as such, the University of Toronto, which just sent me their new catalogue, has two new books of interest. The first is edited by Barbara Rosenwein, Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, Second Edition (U Toronto Press, 2013), 552pp.

About this book we are told:

Covering over one thousand years of history and containing primary source material from the European, Byzantine, and Islamic worlds, Barbara H. Rosenwein's Reading the Middle Ages, Second Edition once again brings the Middle Ages to life. Building on the strengths of the first edition, the second edition contains 40 new readings, including 13 translations commissioned especially for this book, and a stunning new 10-plate color insert entitled "Containing the Holy" that brings together materials from the Western, Byzantine, and Islamic religious traditions. Ancillary materials, including study questions, can be found on the History Matters website

The second is William A. Johnson, Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus (U Toronto Press, 2013), 416pp.

About this book we are told:

Lying now under the sand 300 kilometres south of the coastal metropolis of Alexandria, the town of Oxyrhynchus rose to prominence under Egypt's Hellenistic and Roman rulers. The 1895 British-led excavation revealed little in the way of buildings and other cultural artefacts, but instead yielded a huge random mass of everyday papyri, piled thirty feet deep, including private letters and shopping lists, government circulars, and copies of ancient literature.

The surviving bookrolls - the papyrus rolls with literary texts - have provided a great deal of information on ancient books, ancient readers, and ancient reading. Examining only those texts that survive in full form in medieval manuscripts, William Johnson has analysed over 400 bookrolls to understand the production, use, and aesthetics of the ancient book. His close analysis of formal and conventional features of the bookrolls not only provides detailed information on the bookroll industry - manufacture, design, and format - but also, in turn, suggests some intriguing questions and provisional answers about the ways in which the use and function of the bookroll among ancient readers may differ from modern or medieval practice. Meticulously erudite, this work will be of great importance to all papyrologists, classicists, and literary scholars.

The Real Pope

The pope of Rome's use of that title is generally agreed to be later than the pope of Alexandria--though neither, of course, exactly has a copyright on the word "father," which is what it means. The pope-patriarch of Alexandria, who traces his apostolic lineage to St. Mark, lives in vastly different--which is to say vastly worse--conditions today than his Roman brother. A new book, set for release next month, looks at their history: Sawirus al-Mugaffa, History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria: The Copts of Egypt Before and After the Islamic Conquests (I.B. Tauris, 2013), 692pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

A History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria is a unique series of biographies of the Coptic patriarchs from the earliest, St Mark, to the tenth century. Many of the accounts are in fact older Greek and Coptic works translated into Arabic and edited by Sawirus, who sought out the originals from the monasteries of the day. The events recorded include the Muslim conquest of Egypt, the overthrow of the last Umayad ruler Marwan II, Arab-Christian relations, and histories of the various countries. Often based upon eyewitness accounts by contemporary authors, they provide an essential source for the religious, economic and social life of Egypt in the early Islamic period. Unavailable even in many libraries, this edition contains both the Arabic text and the English translation of B. Evetts, together with an Introduction by leading contemporary scholar Hugh Kennedy.

Interpreting the Bible in Late Antiquity

As I noted before, conflicts over interpretation of Scripture are very commonplace at any point in Christian history.  A new book takes us back to some very early debates over how to understand Scripture, and the regional differences in those understandings: Interpreting the Bible and Aristotle in Late Antiquity: the Alexandria Commentary Tradition between Rome and Baghdad, eds., Josef Lössl and John W. Watt (Ashgate, 2011, 360pp).

About this book, the publisher tells us the following, supplying also the contents:

This book brings together sixteen studies by internationally renowned scholars on the origins and early development of the Latin and Syriac biblical and philosophical commentary traditions. It casts light on the work of the founder of philosophical biblical commentary, Origen of Alexandria, and traces the developments of fourth- and fifth-century Latin commentary techniques in writers such as Marius Victorinus, Jerome and Boethius. The focus then moves east, to the beginnings of Syriac philosophical commentary and its relationship to theology in the works of Sergius of Reshaina, Probus and Paul the Persian, and the influence of this continuing tradition in the East up to the Arabic writings of al-Farabi. There are also chapters on the practice of teaching Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy in fifth-century Alexandria, on contemporaneous developments among Byzantine thinkers, and on the connections in Latin and Syriac traditions between translation (from Greek) and commentary.

With its enormous breadth and the groundbreaking originality of its contributions, this volume is an indispensable resource not only for specialists, but also for all students and scholars interested in late-antique intellectual history, especially the practice of teaching and studying philosophy, the philosophical exegesis of the Bible, and the role of commentary in the post-Hellenistic world as far as the classical renaissance in Islam.

Contents: Introduction, Josef Lössl and John Watt.Part 1 Alexandria to Rome: Origen: exegesis and philosophy in early Christian Alexandria, Alfons Fürst; Prologue topics and translation problems in Latin commentaries on Paul, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe; Ambrosiaster's method of interpretation in the Questions on the Old and New Testament, Marie-Pierre Bussières; Philosophical exegesis in Marius Victorinus' Commentaries on Paul, Stephen Cooper; Jerome's Pauline commentaries between East and West: tradition and innovation in the Commentary on Galatians, Andrew Cain; The Bible and Aristotle in the controversy between Augustine and Julian of Aeclanum, Josef Lössl; Boethius as a translator and Aristotelian commentator, Sten Ebbesen.

Part 2 Alexandria to Baghdad: Translating the personal aspect of late Platonism in the commentary tradition, Edward Watts; Aristotelianism and the disintegration of the late Antique theological discourse, Dirk Krausmüller; Sergius of Reshaina as translator: the case of the De Mundo, Adam McCollum; Sergius of Reshaina and pseudo-Dionysius: a dialectical fidelity, Emiliano Fiori; The commentator Probus: problems of date and identity, Sebastian Brock; Du commentaire à la reconstruction: Paul le Perse interprète d'Aristote (sur une lecture du Peri Hermeneias, à propos des modes et des adverbes selon Paul, Ammonius et Boèce), Henri Hugonnard-Roche; The genesis and development of a logical lexicon in the Syriac tradition, Daniel King; From Sergius to Matta: Aristotle and pseudo-Dionysius in Syriac tradition, John Watt; Al-Farabi's arguments for the eternity of the world and the contingency of natural phenomena, Philippe Vallat; Bibliography; Indexes.

Electing a New Pope...of Alexandria

It was with sadness that I learned of the death of Pope Shenouda III, the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria. In fact, just last weekend in Los Angeles, before hearing of the news of his death, I had a conversation with one Orthodox Christian who told me that a new Coptic monastery in southern California was apparently built recently in part to be a place of refuge and possible retirement for the Coptic pope. Now that is not to be. Eternal memory!

He has had a very difficult papacy over the last several decades as the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt has gone from bad to worse. It is surely a mercy that he has been spared any more of this suffering, which looks only to worsen in the months and years ahead if current trends are any indication.

Certain aspects of the press have been amusingly shocked at how the obsequies are unfolding, with Copts coming to see and reverence the fully vested body of the late patriarch, as here:

But this is a good and healthy thing, as I have argued before. And it is not entirely uncommon in the Christian East. I know that Syriac hierarchs have been recently buried in a similar manner, as you can see here in the Malankara church.

What comes next? Unlike the Roman pope, there are no "cardinals" in the Coptic Church to meet in secret conclave to elect a successor. Instead, the Coptic Church's procedures have varied over time, as I demonstrate in my Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity.

In the main, the election has historically involved many parts of the Coptic Church and is not confined merely to other hierarchs: usually lower clergy, and laity, vote on a new patriarch, often using the ancient biblical method of finally selecting a candidate by lot.

Regardless of method used this time, let us pray for a man of great strength for he shall surely need it in the trials that lie ahead.

St. Mark of Alexandria

Francis Dvornik's 1948 study The Idea Of Apostolicity In Byzantium And The Legend Of Apostle Andrew was one of the most important to help us understand the process by which the early Church gradually shifted the argument from the "principle of accommodation" to the importance of "apostolicity" when arguing over the pre-eminence of patriarchal sees. More recently, Susan Wessel's fascinating and very important study has shown in great and convincing detail how this process was really accomplished in the fifth century under Pope Leo I: Leo the Great and the Spiritual Rebuilding of a Universal Rome.

Now another recent publication has examined the role of the apostle Mark in shaping the Church of Alexandria: Thomas C. Oden, The African Memory of Mark: Reassessing Early Church Tradition (IVP, 2011, 279pp).


About this book, the publisher tells us:

We often regard the author of the Gospel of Mark as an obscure figure about whom we know little. Many would be surprised to learn how much fuller a picture of Mark exists within widespread African tradition, tradition that holds that Mark himself was from North Africa, that he founded the church in Alexandria, that he was an eyewitness to the Last Supper and Pentecost, that he was related not only to Barnabas but to Peter as well and accompanied him on many of his travels. In this provocative reassessment of early church tradition, Thomas C. Oden begins with the palette of New Testament evidence and adds to it the range of colors from traditional African sources, including synaxaries (compilations of short biographies of saints to be read on feast days), archaeological sites, non-Western historical documents and ancient churches. The result is a fresh and illuminating portrait of Mark, one that is deeply rooted in African memory and seldom viewed appreciatively in the West.

One of the "blurbers" draws out the Coptic implications:

"The African Memory of Mark honors the way the Coptic Church has been the faithful, preeminent carrier of the Markan tradition in the church, and does that by weaving the different genres of sources into a narrative whole. Oden is not unaware of standard depictions of Mark and the Gospel that bears his name in which the African note is rather marginal--where it is acknowledged at all--but he challenges established scholarship by marshaling the evidence and refocusing it on the continuity of the Coptic memory of Mark. Whether or not the reader agrees with the argument of the book, Oden has raised the bar of scrutiny and challenged many of the unstated assumptions of conventional scholarship. From critic and fan alike, Oden deserves credit." (Lamin Sanneh, D. Willis James Professor of Missions & World Christianity, Yale University )