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Athanasius of Alexandria in Greek and Coptic Historical Tradition

Athanasius of Alexandria in Greek and Coptic Historical Tradition

JournalofCopticStudies 15 (2013) 43–54 doi: 10.2143/JCS.15.0.3005411

ATHANASIUS OF IN GREEK AND COPTIC HISTORICAL TRADITION

BY M. GWYNN

Athanasius ( 328-373) has a well-deserved reputa- tion as one of the most influential and controversial figures of Greek patristic history. His traditional image is that of the who champi- oned Christian against the so-called ‘Arian’ , an image that originated in the writings of Athanasius himself.1 Yet Athanasius has also been likened to a ‘Mafia gangster’,2 and has been described as a man characterised equally by theological genius and divisive violence.3 This is not the place for a full discussion of Athanasius’ complex career (my own biography of Athanasius has now been published as Athanasiusof Alexandria:Bishop,Theologian,Ascetic,Father).4 The aims of this paper are more modest: to assess the accounts of Athanasius presented in early Coptic historiography, to compare those accounts to the Greek historical tradition, and to consider the contribution that the Coptic evidence might make to a more balanced interpretation of Athanasius’ life and legacy. There are of course certain inherent difficulties in comparing Greek and Coptic accounts of Athanasius. The great majority of Athanasius’ works survive in the Greek in which he wrote.5 Scholars have therefore approached the study of his life chiefly through these works, and through the Greek ecclesiastical tradition represented by the fifth-century

1 This image is nicely encapsulated in the entry for Athanasius by Bright (1877) in the DictionaryofChristianBiography, and more recently in the numerous works of Charles Kannengiesser, summarised in his Prolegomena (2002). For a more critical assessment of Athanasius’ writings, see Gwynn (2007). 2 Barnes (1981) 230. Barnes expanded upon this interpretation in his Athanasiusand Constantius (1993). 3 Hanson (1988) esp. 239-273. For the ‘Arian’ Controversy, see now Ayres (2004) and Behr (2004), and for further recent studies of Athanasius, see Pettersen (1995), Martin (1996), Anatolios (1998) and the articles collected in Gemeinhardt (2011). 4 Gwynn (2012). 5 For Athanasius’ knowledge of Greek literary culture, see Stead (1976). Attempts have been made to argue that Athanasius also wrote in Coptic (Lefort (1933), Müller (1974)). As Barnes (1993) 13 has observed, however, while Athanasius probably could speak the Coptic language, all extant Athanasian Coptic writings appear to be from Greek originals.

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histories of Socrates (d. c.440), (d. c.450) and (d. c.466).6 To speak of a Coptic historical tradition on the other hand is to use the term Coptic in a very broad sense, as the relevant material largely survives in translations from lost Coptic language writings. More- over, there is no fully extant Coptic equivalent to the Greek ecclesiastical historians.7 Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret all wrote continuations of of Caesarea’s original HistoriaEcclesiastica, and their works cover the entire period of Athanasius’ episcopate and set his career against the wider background of fourth- and early fifth-century . The Coptic HistoriesoftheChurch may originally have offered an equally broad view of Christian history, for the first sections of the Histories likewise draw upon Eusebius, but this text is now extremely fragmentary.8 Much of the material from the lost Histories survives in Arabic transla- tion in the HistoryoftheofAlexandria, but this work is more narrowly focused on rather than the wider Church and despite its conventional title is a collection of biographies rather than a narrative history.9 A comparison between these various texts is not therefore com- paring like with like. A similar problem holds true for our other leading representative of early Coptic historiography, the seventh-century Chron- icle of John of Nikiu. John’s Chronicle survives only in a late Ethiopic of an Arabic translation of the original, and again is not an annalistic record of the type characteristic of the Greek chronicle genre.10 Nevertheless, the Greek and Coptic traditions do share considerable common ground. Both represent Athanasius as one of the greatest leaders of the fourth-century Church and uphold Athanasius’ conception of him- self as a champion of orthodoxy, an orthodoxy that came to be represented by the original Nicene of 325. During the fifth century, the author- ity of Athanasius was recognised by men from all parts of the theological spectrum, by of and Theodoret of no

6 For a general introduction to these three historians see Chesnut (1986), and for Socrates and Theodoret see the works of Urbainczyk (1997, 2002). A fourth Ecclesiastical History was written in the fifth century by , an adherent of the so-called ‘Neo- Arian’ . His hostility to Athanasius makes him a valuable if at times unreliable alternative source, but in this article I have limited myself to the ‘orthodox’ Greek tradition represented by his three contemporaries. 7 Nor is there any indication that these fifth-century Greek ecclesiastical histories were ever translated into Coptic. 8 See Orlandi (1968a), Johnson (1973, 1977) and most recently Orlandi (2007). 9 On the complex history of this work see den Heijer (1989). All my translations are taken from the text of Evetts (1907). 10 All translations here from the Chronicle are taken from Charles (1916).

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less than by Cyril and his Alexandrian successors.11 This remained true in the divided churches that gradually emerged after the Councils of Ephesus in 431 and in 451.12 Where the historical traditions differ sig- nificantly is in the events of Athanasius’ life that they choose to emphasise and in the sources upon which they draw. It is these differences which I wish to explore. According to the HistoryofthePatriarchs (Evetts (1907) 407-408), Athanasius as a youth was raised by his mother, who was an ardent pagan and desired him to marry. Athanasius, however, drove away the many beautiful girls his mother brought before him. In despair his mother took him to Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria (312-328), who baptised them both and oversaw Athanasius’ education in the Scriptures. A different story of Athanasius’ childhood appears in the Greek ecclesiastical histo- rians. Socrates (I.15) and Sozomen (II.17), drawing in turn on the ecclesiastical historian Rufinus (X.15), report that when Alexander first saw Athanasius the latter was playing with other children and performing the actions of a bishop in their games, even baptising them. Athanasius played the role so well that Alexander confirmed the that Atha- nasius had performed and took him into his entourage.13 These stories are equally hagiographical towards Athanasius and nei- ther can be proven to be true (or false). Both have the same purpose, to identify Athanasius as a man marked out from his youth for greatness and to bind Athanasius closely with his predecessor Alexander. However, this last theme is of greater significance in the Coptic tradition than in the Greek. Socrates ends his version of Athanasius’ upbringing with the statement that Alexander brought Athanasius to Nicaea as his ‘to assist him in the disputations there when the was convened’ (Socrates I.15), but he places no major importance on Athanasius’ role during Alexander’s episcopate. By contrast, the HistoryofthePatriarchs declares that once Athanasius’ education was complete Alexander ‘made him his scribe, and he became as though he were the interpreter of the aforesaid father, and a minister of the word which he wished to utter’

11 Athanasius’ works are cited repeatedly in the patristic florilegia of Nestorius’ Bazaar ofHeracleides and Theodoret’s Eranistes. For the importance of Cyril’s exploitation of Athanasius’ anti-Arian against Nestorius to establish himself as Athanasius’ heir and the new champion of orthodoxy, see Wessel (2004) esp. 126-137. 12 On the reinterpretation of Christian tradition that took place during the debates sur- rounding Chalcedon, see further Gwynn (2009) and other articles in the same volume. 13 Rufinus’ source for this episode is unknown, but as he spent a number of years in Egypt it is possible that his story draws on Alexandrian tradition. For the Ecclesiastical History of Rufinus, see Thelamon (1981).

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(Evetts (1907) 408). This emphasis is naturally appropriate to an Egyptian context and is typical of the HistoryofthePatriarchs, where the suc- cession of the of Alexandria is further reinforced by similarly associating Theophilus with Athanasius, and then Cyril with his uncle Theophilus.14 The relationship between Alexander and Athanasius also underlies hagiographical claims that Athanasius played a leading role at the Council of Nicaea, claims which have no basis in the writings of Athanasius himself.15 Most importantly for my present purposes, their relationship is equally central to the account in the HistoryofthePatri- archs (likewise preserved in fragments of the Coptic Histories) of the conflict between Alexander, Athanasius and that led to Arius’ death. Immediately following the story of Athanasius’ youth and , the HistoryofthePatriarchs reports that after the Constantine died, his son Constantius was corrupted by Arius. Constantius therefore sum- moned Alexander from Alexandria to Constantinople and asked him to restore Arius. Athanasius accompanied Alexander to the imperial court as ‘his interpreter and scribe and mouthpiece’ (Evetts (1907) 409) and refuted Arius in debate until Arius withdrew. The next day, Arius bribed the royal attendants not to allow Athanasius to enter the debating room, but Alexander refused to speak, for ‘how shall I speak without a tongue’ (Evetts (1907) 410). Athanasius was then allowed to enter and Arius fled and remained condemned. After Alexander of Alexandria died, Arius then again appealed to Constantius for aid and demanded that he be received by the bishop Alexander of Constantinople. When Alexander tried to resist, Arius presented a creed that falsely concealed his heresy, and Alexander agreed that he would receive Arius into the priesthood the following Sunday. Arius came to the church on the Sunday, dressed in his finest garments, but during the reading he had to leave to relieve himself and ‘all his bowels gushed out from his body’ and he died (Evetts (1907) 411-413). The death of Arius, modelled on the scriptural fate of Judas (Acts 1:18), is a famous episode in Christian heresiological tradition. Yet the account in the HistoryofthePatriarchs is unusual. The reported debate in which

14 Theophilus is Athanasius’ secretary and companion in the History (Evetts (1907) 425), while John of Nikiu (Chronicle LXXIX) recounts another probably legendary story of how Athanasius met Theophilus and his sister (the mother of Cyril) and supervised their upbringing. 15 This claim first appears in ’ FuneralOration to Athanasius composed less than a decade after Athanasius’ death (Oration XXI.14).

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Athanasius represented Alexander of Alexandria against Arius in the presence of Constantius is entirely absent from the Greek historical tra- dition and is chronologically impossible, for Alexander died in 328 and Constantius succeeded his father in 337. The episode reinforces the depiction of Athanasius as a foe of and as the ‘tongue’ of Alexander, an image that also occurs in Cyril’s writings and elsewhere.16 By placing the recall of Arius in the reign of Constantius, the Historyof the Patriarchs also protected the reputation of Constantine, who is praised repeatedly in the History as the defender of Nicaea but who was in fact responsible for Arius’ return from banishment after 325.17 This was not an innovation by the author of the Coptic original of this section of the History, for the recall of Arius is also falsely attributed to Constan- tius by Rufinus, an error (almost certainly deliberate) that was corrected by Socrates.18 The account of Arius’ clash with Alexander of Constantinople in the HistoryofthePatriarchs is closer to the version found in the Greek eccle- siastical historians (Socrates (I.37-38), Sozomen (II.29), Theodoret (I.13- 14)), although here too there are differences. Most notably, the History ofthePatriarchs describes Arius actually attending the church on the day of his death, scented and perfumed and dressed in all his finery, and only then having to leave to relieve himself. In the Greek versions, Arius died in a procession before he could enter the church, and according to Socrates (I.39) the place of his death was commemorated at the rear of the of Constantine. All these narratives drew their material from a common source: the writings of Athanasius himself. Athanasius first described the death of Arius in his LettertoSerapionofonthe DeathofArius (known as the DeMorteArii), now usually dated to c.339- 346, and then again in slightly modified form in his EncyclicalLetterto theBishopsofEgyptand 18-19 of 356. The later Greek and Coptic

16 In his LettertotheofEgypt in 429 Cyril declares that Athanasius ‘was to the old man [Alexander] like a son to a father, guiding him in everything useful and admirably showing him the way in all he did”. In the c. sixth-century Pseudo-Dioscorus’ Panegryic onMacariusofTkôw, Dioscorus prays to Athanasius ‘let your spirit be doubled upon me, for this is the crucial time when I have need of the tongue of the elder, Alexander’ (XIII.2-3) (translation from Johnson (1980)). 17 The same tradition of protecting Constantine is visible in John of Nikiu, where Arius is said to have appeared in the days of Constantius, who attached himself to the heresy (Chronicle LXXVIII.5). 18 See Socrates II.1. Rufinus also agrees with the HistoryofthePatriarchs in wrongly placing the recall of Arius in the episcopate of Alexander of Alexandria (X.13). Like his account of Athanasius’ upbringing (n.13 above), this may reflect a common Alexandrian tradition

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writers took from Athanasius the essential elements of the story — the resistance of Alexander of Constantinople, Arius’ deceptive creed, and the description of his actual death — but all felt free to embellish the story further and add their own details.19 In the HistoryofthePatriarchs (drawing again on the Coptic Histories oftheChurch), the death of Arius is followed by a short narrative of Athanasius’ episcopate under Constantius. To support the friends of Arius, the emperor sent George with 500 horsemen to seize the bishopric of Alexandria. They killed the followers of Athanasius in his church, and Athanasius went into hiding. After six years, ‘Athanasius showed him- self, and went to the prince, thinking that he would kill him, and that he would receive the crown of martyrdom’. Constantius set Athanasius adrift alone in a small boat, but the waves carried him to Alexandria where the and people received him with joy and he expelled George. Seven years later, a new rival came named Gregory, who this time brought with him 2000 soldiers. Athanasius was arrested and almost killed, but he escaped with Liberius, of , and Dionysius, patriarch of . He remained with Liberius until Con- stantius’ death, and Constantius’ orthodox son then restored Athanasius to his see (Evetts (1907) 413-415). The chronological and historical problems raised by this narrative are almost too numerous to mention. The arrival of George as bishop of Alexandria occurred in February 357, a year after the attack on the Church of Theonas on the night of 8/9 February 356 that forced Athana- sius into hiding. His return six years later was made possible by the death of Constantius and the accession of , and George was lynched by the pagans of Alexandria not expelled by Athanasius. The claim that Athanasius surrendered himself to Constantius for execution directly con- tradicts Athanasius’ own denial of voluntary martyrdom in his Apologia deFuga, while the story that Constantius set Athanasius adrift appears to be a conventional hagiographic legend.20 The joyful response of the Alexandrians may recall the welcome that Athanasius received on his

19 Orlandi (2007) 19 argues for a common source on Arius’ death which Athanasius as well as the Greek and Coptic historical writers exploited. But the source for the Greek historians at least must be Athanasius, for Sozomen quotes directly from Athanasius’ EncyclicalLetter and Theodoret from the DeMorteArii. 20 The same combination of and history occurs in the Coptic LifeofAtha- nasius and EncomiumofAthanasius edited by Orlandi (1968b), again drawing on material from the Coptic HistoriesoftheChurch.

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return from his second exile in 346.21 That exile had seen Athanasius replaced as bishop of Alexandria by Gregory, whose episcopate (which began in 339) is wrongly placed in the HistoryofthePatriarchs after that of George rather than before. Liberius of Rome was indeed an ally of Athanasius in the under Constantius, together with Dionysius (who was bishop of not of Antioch). But the reference to Constans (who was Constantius’ brother and died in 350) is again confused. The only instance in which the son of an emperor restored Athanasius upon his father’s death was the action of Constantine II on the death of Constan- tine the Great in 337. It is here that the contrast between the HistoryofthePatriarchs and the Greek ecclesiastical historians in their presentation of Athanasius is most dramatically apparent. Although written as a biography, the account of Athanasius’ life in the History has little or no narrative or chronologi- cal cohesion.22 To a significant degree, this is equally true of the relevant section of the Chronicle of John of Nikiu, although John is at least able to identify Constans as Constantius’ brother rather than his son and cor- rectly places both the attack on Athanasius and the exile of Liberius of Rome after Constans’ death (Chronicle LXXVIII.11-22).23 Neither the HistoryofthePatriarchs nor John of Nikiu ever refer to Athanasius’ original condemnation and exile under Constantine after the Council of Tyre in 335, which forms the essential background to Athanasius’ experi- ences under Constantius. Nor is either apparently aware of how the rela- tionship between Athanasius and Constantius fluctuated throughout the and 350s, from imperial favour to open hostility.24 The context and

21 Athanasius, HistoriaArianorum 25; FestalIndex XVIII (AD 345/6). This episode is recalled with appropriate rhetoric as comparable to Christ’s Entry to Jerusalem in Greg- ory of Nazianzus, Oration XXI.28-29. 22 According to the History, Athanasius was bishop for 47 years, of which he passed the first 22 in exile and conflict and the final 25 in tranquillity and peace (Evetts (1907) 416). The 47 years dates Athanasius’ episcopate incorrectly from 326 rather than 328, while the division of those years into conflict and peace is at best rhetorical. The earlier statement in the History that Athanasius was exiled three times and that his third exile lasted 11 years (Evetts (1907) 404) must likewise be rejected. 23 The prominence of Liberius of Rome in both the HistoryofthePatriarchs (Evetts (1907) 415, 417) and the Chronicle (LXXVIII.20-25) must derive from his association with Athanasius. There is no reference in either work to Liberius’ eventual lapse and reconcili- ation with Constantius (which Athanasius acknowledges and seeks to justify in Historia Arianorum 41), and Liberius also appears alongside Athanasius in the iconographic pro- gram of the church consecrated by Patriarch Benjamin (626-665) at the of Saint Macarius (discussion in Davis (2004) 126-127). 24 For a survey of this complex relationship see Barnes (1993) esp. 165-175.

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events of Athanasius’ life, so crucial to modern historians, played only a marginal role in the Coptic tradition of their great fourth-century bishop. By contrast, the Greek ecclesiastical historians all provide coherent — if at times varying — narratives of Athanasius’ episcopate from his accession to his death. This, of course, in part reflects the different liter- ary tradition within which they worked. But it is striking that the Greek authors display a far more extensive knowledge of Athanasius’ career and apologetic writings than is visible in our Egyptian sources. We have already seen that the account of Arius’ death in the HistoryofthePatri- archs echoes directly or indirectly Athanasius’ version of those events. All of the episodes in the confused narrative of the 340s and 350s pro- vided in the History and in the slightly less confused Chronicle of John of Nikiu also derive originally from a work of Athanasius, the Historia Arianorum. The most explicitly polemical of all Athanasius’ writings, composed in late 357 and addressed to a primarily Egyptian audience, the HistoriaArianorum gives a highly selective survey of the years 335- 357. It was from this text that either the Coptic author of this section of the History or his source drew his material, but not apparently Athana- sius’ correct chronology.25 What a modern historian misses in the History and the Chronicle, however, is any reference to the other great apologetic- historical writings of Athanasius. The Apologia contra Arianos, the ApologiaadConstantium and the ApologiadeFuga were all exploited by the Greek ecclesiastical historians. So too were the De Decretis NicaenaeSynodi for Athanasius’ interpretation of Nicaea, and the De SynodisAriminietSeleuciae for the councils and theological debates of the 340s and 350s. The HistoryofthePatriarchs and the Chronicle of John of Nikiu are content to proclaim the triumph of Nicaea and to condemn the ‘Arians’ who teach that the Son of is created, an asser- tion that does little justice to the reality of the fourth-century Christian controversies.26 In light of such evidence, it cannot be surprising that so many scholars have dismissed the HistoryofthePatriarchs and the Chronicle of John

25 One possible source is the so-called “Fonte A”, a record of the Alexandrian patri- archate collected near the end of Athanasius’ episcopate, which Orlandi (2007) 15-16 proposes as a major influence upon the HistoryofthePatriarchs’ account of Athanasius’ life. The correct chronology was preserved in one text also compiled in an Alexandrian context, the work now known as the Historiaacephala. 26 The extremely minimal attention paid in these works to Athanasius’ long theological struggle with those he condemned as ‘Arian’ contrasts markedly with the life of Cyril presented in the HistoryofthePatriarchs, which is dominated by his ongoing debate with Nestorius and quotations from his polemical writings (Evetts (1907) 432-443).

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as of little value to a modern reconstruction of the career of Athanasius. Yet such a conclusion would be a mistake. It is true that as historical narratives these works are inferior to the Greek ecclesiastical historians. But the light that they shed on Athanasius is all the more important because it is not concerned with chronological or theological detail. At the end of the life of Athanasius in the History, the bishop is said to have written ‘many homilies and treatises’ (Evetts (1907) 422). But the works the author wishes to emphasise are not the ApologiacontraArianos or the HistoriaArianorum. They are the LifeofAntony, the FestalLetters and a work on virginity, which is cited at the very beginning of Athana- sius’ life in the History and is the only Athanasian work quoted at any length (Evetts (1907) 405).27 The LifeofAntony was translated into every early Christian language, but the FestalLetters and the authentic Athanasian works on virginity survive only in Syriac and Coptic, and the same is true of a number of other Athanasian ascetic and pastoral writings.28 The fragmentary nature of our evidence makes precise conclusions difficult, but it would seem that the Coptic tradition had only limited interest in the apologetic and polemi- cal works of Athanasius and, unlike the Syriac and Armenian traditions, did not collect translations of Athanasius’ works into corpora.29 The Atha- nasian writings our Coptic sources preserve are instead individual letters, often on ascetic themes, cycles of homilies, and quotations preserved in florilegia which increasingly took the place of complete original texts. Many of these writings were subject to editing by later authors for both stylistic and doctrinal reasons,30 and pseudonymous texts that acquired Athanasius’ name equal or indeed outnumber his genuine works.31 But

27 This work is otherwise unknown, although its content closely parallels Athanasius’ FirstLettertoVirgins (written c.337-339) which likewise only survives in Coptic. See Brakke (1994) 37-38. 28 For a recent assessment of the ‘Ascetic Athanasiana’ and their variable authenticity, see Brakke (1994), while on Athanasius’ relationship with the emerging ascetic movement, see in general Brakke (1995). 29 The Syriac and Armenian corpora likewise omit Athanasius’ major apologetic and doctrinal works in preference for smaller letters and treatises, but they are nevertheless significantly more extensive than any surviving Coptic Athanasiana. See respectively Thomson (1963, 1965-1977) and Casey (1931). 30 However, I am not aware of any Athanasian work in Coptic undergoing the degree of editing both favourable and hostile to the doctrines of Chalcedon visible in Athana- sius’ works preserved in Armenian and Syriac, most notably his LettertoEpictetus. See Thomson (1963, 1965). 31 This of course is also true in Greek. The most famous such work is the DeIncar- nationeDeiVerbi, an Apollinarian text from which Cyril derived his formula ‘one nature (mia) of the Word incarnate’.

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even the pseudonymous works shed some light on Athanasius’ status within the Coptic tradition. Not only does the attribution of writings to him attest to his authority for later generations, but the works attributed to him reflect his reputation not merely as a controversialist but as a pastoral and ascetic leader.32 The final vision of Athanasius recalled by John of Nikiu is not a scene of doctrinal or ecclesiastical controversy, but the spiritual bishop guiding and protecting his flock: ‘In those days [the reign of Emperor ] there appeared a miracle through the intervention of the apostolic Saint Athanasius, the father of the faith, . When the sea rose against the city of Alexandria and, threatening an inundation, had already advanced to a place called Heptastadion, father accompanied by all the priests went forth to the borders of the sea, and holding in his hand the book of the holy Law he raised his hand to heaven and said ‘O Lord, Thou God who liest not, it is Thou that didst promise to after the flood and say: “I will not again bring a flood of waters upon the earth”’. And after these words of the saint the sea returned to its place and the wrath of God was appeased. Thus the city was saved through the inter- cession of the apostolic Saint Athanasius, the great star’ (John of Nikiu, Chronicle LXXXII.21-23). For our knowledge of the events and controversies of Athanasius’ long episcopate, his own polemical writings and the Greek ecclesiastical his- torians will always remain our primary resource. Yet the evidence that this Greek tradition provides can never fully explain Athanasius’ ultimate triumph. Despite years of conflict and exile, Athanasius won and retained the love and support of his church, of the monks, and of the people of Alexandria and Egypt, and he redefined the authority of the Alexandrian see. It is the memory of this achievement that the Coptic tradition pre- serves. Athanasius’ role as a pastoral leader, so essential to understanding his complex life, has for too long been overlooked by historians like myself dependent solely upon the Greek patristic record, and modern scholarship has been all the poorer for it.

32 See for example the moral homilies preserved (rightly or wrongly) in his name, or the undoubtedly pseudonymous LifeofSyncletica and the 107 Canons of Athanasius. The image of Athanasius as a benevolent pastoral leader and ascetic also dominates in Coptic art (see the examples cited by Davis (2004) 55), a subject too vast to discuss here.

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David M. Gwynn 335 McCrea Building/Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London GB- Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX [email protected]

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