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247 Shenoute of Atripe on Christ the Physician And SHENOUTE OF ATRIPE ON CHRIST THE PHYSICIAN 247 SHENOUTE OF ATRIPE ON CHRIST THE PHYSICIAN AND THE CURE OF SOULS Christianity has long been characterized by both adherents and out- siders as a religion of healing, if not the emblematic religion of healing, and prominent among the enduring motifs of Christian theology is that of Christus medicus, Christ the physician1. Theologians as early as Ignatius of Antioch have drawn on familiar motifs of medical (i.e., physical or bodily) healing to characterize the saving power of Christ2. While the image of Christ the physician draws much of its power and immediacy from the Gospels’ familiar stories of Jesus as healer of physi- 1 Studies of healing in early Christianity approach both the theological and organiza- tional/medical aspects. Regarding theology, see the recent survey in M. DÖRNEMANN, Krankheit und Heilung in der Theologie der frühen Kirchenväter (Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum, 20), Tübingen, 2003, which has been instrumental for this article (= DÖRNEMANN, Krankheit und Heilung); as well as the classic study by A. VON HARNACK, Medizinisches aus der ältesten Kirchengeschichte, in Texte und Untersuch- ungen, 8.4 (1894), p. 125-47, revised and expanded in The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, trans. J. MOFFATT, New York, 1961 (1908), p. 101-124 (= HARNACK, Mission), which in my opinion has yet to be surpassed as a short survey of the early Christian theology of healing (including the Christus medicus theme). Other complementary studies have focused more on the institutions of health care in early Christianity, such as G.B. FERNGREN, Early Christianity as a Religion of Healing, in Bul- letin of the History of Medicine, 66 (1992), p. 1-15; IDEM, Organization of the Care of the Sick in Early Christianity, in Actes/Proceedings, XXX Congrès international d’histoire de la médecine, Düsseldorf 31-VIII – 5-IX-1986, Leverkusen, 1988, p. 192-97; R. STARK, The Rise of Christianity, San Francisco, 1997 (reprint of Princeton, 1996), p. 73-94; H. AVALOS, Health Care and the Rise of Christianity, Peabody, Mass., 1999; G.B. FERNGREN – D.W. AMUNDSEN, Medicine and Christianity in the Roman Empire: Compat- ibilities and Tensions, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 37.3 (1996), p. 2957-80; and IDEM, The Early Christian Tradition, in R.L. NUMBERS – D.W. AMUNDSEN (ed.), Caring and Curing: Health and Medicine in the Western Religious Traditions, New York, 1986, p. 40-64; and cursorily in A. PORTERFIELD, Healing in the History of Christianity, New York, 2005, p. 43-65. More specific studies of ecclesiastical healing in late antique Egypt include A.T. CRISLIP, From Monastery to Hospital: Christian Monasticism and the Transformation of Health Care in Late Antiquity, Ann Arbor, 2005 (= CRISLIP, From Monastery to Hospital); R. BARRETT-LENNARD, The Canons of Hippolytus and Christian Concern with Illness, Health, and Healing, in The Journal of Early Christian Studies, 13 (2005), p. 137-164; IDEM, Christian Healing after the New Testament: Some Approaches to Illness and Healing in the Second, Third, and Fourth Centuries, Lanham, Md., 1994. 2 Ignatius of Antioch, Eph. 7, 20, Trall. 6. R. Arbesmann’s assemblage of citations gives a fair impression of the widespread popularity of Christus medicus imagery in Greek and Latin Patristics, R. ARBESMANN, The Concept of ‘Christus Medicus’ in St. Augustine, in Traditio, 10 (1954), p. 1-28 (= ARBESMANN, Concept of ‘Christus Medicus’), supple- menting HARNACK, Mission. Le Muséon 122 (3-4), 247-277. doi: 10.2143/MUS.122.3.2045872 - Tous droits réservés. © Le Muséon, 2009. 92802_Mus09/3-4_01_Crislip 247 4/2/10, 10:30 am 248 A. CRISLIP cal ailments, E.M. Cioran’s aphorism from his 1933 hagiographical meditation, Tears and Saints, is still apt: “Had Christ promised us hygiene instead of the heavenly kingdom, we would not have been seeking solace in saints ever since his death!”3 For all the emphasis on the cure of the lame, withered, bleeding, and possessed at the hands of Jesus and his apostles, ancient theological reflection on Christ the divine physician develops the Son’s role less as bearer of hygieia, and more as bearer of soteria: healer of the soul and bringer of eternal life in the kingdom to come, especially through the life-giving sacrament of his body and blood4. As a corollary, the priesthood, the episcopacy, and – in late antiquity – monks came to the fore as dispensers and administrators of this saving medicine on earth, the cure of souls. This cure was to be effected not only through the Eucharist, “the potion of immortality,” but also through various forms of public and private confession, homiletics and consolation, and the refutation of the “pestilential” teachings of heretics5. In the course of late antiquity many in the diverse theological cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world would put the image of Christ the physician to use in establishing and elaborating their theologi- cal and disciplinary programs. In the context of early Egyptian Christi- anity – the focus of the present essay – such authors include Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Evagrius of Pontus, to name but a few6. 3 E.M. CIORAN, Tears and Saints, trans. I. ZARIFOPOL-JOHNSTON, Chicago, 1995 (1933), p. 67. 4 HARNACK, Mission, p. 103-104. 5 “Potion of immortality” is one among several widespread formulations, HARNACK, Mission, p. 109. On the expansion of Christus medicus theology to incorporate his apostles and prophets, and then his clergy, saints, and monks, see the recent study by L. DYSINGER, OSB, Prayer and Psalmody in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus (Oxford Theological Monographs), Oxford, 2005, p. 107-113 (= DYSINGER, Psalmody and Prayer). Confession and penitence is at the core of the Christian “cure of souls” tradi- tions. For a standard survey of the cure of souls, ubiquitous throughout Christian history, see J.T. MACNEILL, A History of the Cure of Souls, New York, 1951, especially p. 88-111 for late antiquity. Characterization of heretical teachings as pestilential is a widespread topos from Ignatius of Antioch on. See DYSINGER, Psalmody and Prayer, p. 104-105. 6 Studies abound concerning the theological appropriation of medical imagery (in- cluding the cure of souls) in individual patristic authors that have appeared since Harnack’s early survey (see n.1 above), so Origen (S. FERNANDEZ, Cristo medico según Orígenes: La actividad médica como metáfora de la acción divina [Studia ephemeridis “Augustinianum”, 64], Rome, 1999), Evagrius (DYSINGER, Prayer and Psalmody; A. GUILLAUMONT and C. GUILLAUMONT, Évagre le Pontique: Le gnostique, ou À celui qui est devenu digne de la science [Sources chrétiennes, 356], Paris, 1989, p. 151), Augustine (ARBESMANN, Concept of ‘Christus Medicus’), Ambrose (D.M. FOLEY, Ambrose’s Adaption of Medical Knowledge, in Studia patristica, 38, Leuven, 2001, p. 400-404), Ephraem the Syrian (A. SHEMUNKASHO, Healing in the Theology of St. Ephrem [Gorgias Dissertations, Near East Series, 1], Piscataway, N.J., 2002 [= SHEMUNKASHO, Healing in the Theology of Saint Ephrem]), Ps.-Macarius the Egyptian (Cure of Souls, p. 106), 92802_Mus09/3-4_01_Crislip 248 4/2/10, 10:30 am SHENOUTE OF ATRIPE ON CHRIST THE PHYSICIAN 249 The present essay explores Christus medicus imagery in several theo- logical works by the Coptic monk Shenoute of Atripe (fl. ca. AD 385- 465), archimandrite (abbot) of a federation of three monasteries near the modern Egyptian city of Sohag, a writer whose homiletic appropriation of the theme has been neglected7. The principal texts under investigation here, “I Am Amazed,” “The Spirit of God,” and “A Priest Will Never Cease,” are connected bibliographically by their sequential arrangement in a volume of Shenoute’s Discourses8. In these works, variously deliv- ered as public sermons or treatises intended for a mixed nonmonastic and monastic audience, Shenoute reveals himself to be actively engaged in theological issues and theological discourses shared among the Greek, Syriac, and Latin Christian cultures of the greater Mediterranean world. Furthermore, while Shenoute draws from the wellspring of late antique Christian theological discourse, it would be unfair to characterize Shenoute as entirely derivative of the dominant Greek theology of the fourth and fifth centuries. Rather, Shenoute adds his own unique, perhaps both personal and distinctively upper Egyptian, perspectives on the Christus medicus and cure of souls motifs. Thus, Shenoute’s adapta- tion and deployment of Christus medicus theology is important for contextualizing Shenoute within the theological cultures of late antiq- uity. But the Christus medicus theology of Shenoute’s Discourses is not of interest merely as a supplement to the intellectual history of late Romanos the Melodist (R.J. SCHORK, The Medical Motif in the Kontakia of Romanos the Melodist, in Traditio, 16 [1960], p. 353-63). And medical imagery more broadly con- strued figures prominently in a number of Patristic authors, e.g., the Cappadocian Gregorys (M.E. KEENAN, St. Gregory of Nyssa and the Medical Profession, in Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 15 [1944], p. 150-61; and IDEM, St. Gregory of Nazianzus and Early Byzantine Medicine, in Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 9 [1941], p. 8-30); Origen (DYSINGER, Prayer and Psalmody, p. 106-110) and Jerome (A.S. PEASE, Medical Allusions in the Works of St. Jerome, in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 25 [1914], p. 73-86 [= PEASE, Medical Allusions]). For the Christus medicus motif in fourth- century Christian art (focusing narrowly on the representations of three Gospel healing pericopes) see D. KNIPP, ‘Christus Medicus’ in der frühchristlichen Sarkophagskultpur: Ikonographische Studien der Sepulkarlkunst des späten vierten Jahrhunderts (Supple- ments to Vigiliae Christianae, 37), Leiden, 1998 (= KNIPP, ‘Christus Medicus’). 7 Shenoute led the White Monastery federation for most of his alleged 118 years of life, most likely dying in 464/5 (traditionally on July 1 [7 Epep in the Egyptian calendar]).
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