I Have Been Reading the Holy Gospels by Shenoute of Atripe (Discourses 8, Work 1)

Download or read book I Have Been Reading the Holy Gospels by Shenoute of Atripe (Discourses 8, Work 1) written by Mark Moussa and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shenoute of Atripe's I Have Been Reading the Holy Gospels is a work of tremendous interest for the understanding of late antique Egyptian monasticism, and the career of the third abbot of the White Monastery in Upper Egypt. Among the remains of his surviving literary corpus, this work is one of the longest, richest in content, and best preserved. Following a brief discussion that introduces a summary of modern scholarship on Shenoute and the codicological context of I Have Been Reading the Holy Gospels, Chapter 2 provides a diplomatic edition of the remaining unpublished manuscripts of the text from the Musee du Louvre, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, and the British Library, as well as a re-edition of the Louvre folios published by Henri Guerin well over a century ago. A comprehensive list of alternate textual readings, offered in Chapter 3, accompanies the edition of these 57 manuscript pages. Chapter 4 presents a complete and fully-annotated translation of I Have Been Reading the Holy Gospels, incorporating readings from all six manuscript witnesses and one ostracon. Through an analysis of the text in the context of other selected works from the Canons and Discourses, the final chapter demonstrates the ascetic agenda that Shenoute promoted as leader of his community, primarily through the implementation of a monastic vow and his ideals of an ascetic support system for the monks of the White Monastery. His views on the proper Christian behavior of clerics also shed light on his self-awareness as a leader and critic of the Egyptian church and its ranks.