Shenoute of Atripe and the Uses of Poverty. Ariel G. Lopez
the sight of a governor visiting and praising Shenoute’s own “city in the desert”:
What did the God-loving military governor Chossoroas, whom you could not dissuade from visiting us, say? He said, glorifying God: “You have made the desert a city.” In Panopolis it has been reported otherwise, twisting the words into a lie.64
Why did all these governors like Shenoute so much? For the same reason—he claimed—that Panopolis hated him: he cared for the “poor,” and he would not shut up. The “panegyrics” on the governors Heraklammon and Flavianus, which Shenoute delivered on the occasion of their visits in lieu of a regular sermon, make this point very clear.65 These magistrates and Shenoute admired each other because they had a similar passion: they were all “lovers of the poor.” This kinship of interests created an immediate if fleeting friendship:
I have said these words and other things to Dioskorides the governor and Heraklammon, his scholastikos, who became governor after him.66 I also spoke to Theodotos, the military governor, as was fitting. And I did not hide what was in my heart to Spudasios, the comes of the empress,67 and also to his brother. For they were my friends, and they are men who love God very much, being merciful, pitiful, philanthropic, and, in particular, lovers of the poor.
I also said further things to Ailianos, who was governor of the Thebaid and then became Augustal prefect in Alexandria. But he became suspicious when he heard this, thinking that I was talking about that hostile man who lives in Panopolis (i.e., his enemy Gesios). I answered him as it was fitting and removed his suspicion. Furthermore, I spoke with many notables and magistrates, and I also spoke to Andreas, the military governor. Therefore it is not a wonder that I have spoken before you (the governor Flavianus) and that I have not hidden what has been revealed to me. For I am a miserable man, and I only want you to profit from your effort of coming here.68
By listing the authorities who, in striking contrast to his rivals, had respectfully asked for his spiritual guidance, Shenoute declared himself to be an “authorized” interlocutor with the powerful. This passage, from his speech to Flavianus, hints at one remarkable trait of these “panegyrics”: they are as much about Shenoute as about the magistrates themselves. Shenoute makes every virtue that he praises in a good governor—love of the poor, justice, disinterestedness, courage—a synonym for himself and becomes thereby the measure of everyone and everything.69 Shamelessly extolling himself as the universal exemplar was the best way to teach and commend the holders of power.
Governor Heraklammon is thus presented with an inspiring paradox: a monk (i.e., Shenoute) who flees power and fame only to become world famous and be offered a bishopric by the powerful archbishops of Alexandria:
How many bishops have spent how many days and nights here (i.e., at Shenoute’s monastery) with a multitude of clerics, the elite, soldiers, and other laypersons by the command of the archbishop and his letters so that I might go to him to be ordained bishop? But I did not go, because I wanted the name of God to be glorified …
… when we went to the great meeting of the holy ecumenical council [in Ephesus], the glorious archbishop testified [about me] to other archbishops, bishops, and the whole council, praising me and boasting of me, saying things like: “When I sent for him because of that issue (i.e., to ordain him as bishop) he did not come, but when I wrote to him to come to the council with us, he did not place any concern for himself and joined us quickly in this city before other bishops, before we had decided anything.”70
One wonders what the bishop of Panopolis would have made of all these grandiose claims. Shenoute’s writings—we have seen—never mention him, not even when discussing issues related to the church of Panopolis. The bishops that truly count for Shenoute are the archbishops of Alexandria. And for good reason. The power of the Alexandrian archbishop over his church—he had absolute power over every single episcopal ordination—was unparalleled anywhere else in the empire.71 Egypt never had a counterpart to Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Porphyry of Gaza, or Rabbula of Edessa in late antiquity. As far as we can tell, no Egyptian bishop outside of Alexandria ever had more than a local impact in this period. A powerful abbot like Shenoute could act therefore as if these low-profile bishops did not exist, and he could afford to refuse any offers for episcopal ordination. Even though late antique sources from Egypt talk about the care of the “poor” as a defining duty of the local bishop and his church, Shenoute willfully ignores them and focuses all his expectations for help on the imperial governors.72
How, then, should these governors show their love for the “poor”? Above all, according to these peculiar “panegyrics,” through their exercise of justice. As Peter Brown has noted, the qualities admired by Shenoute in “his” governors were the standard values of an ancient and Mediterranean-wide language of power that emphasized control of anger, humanity, wisdom, and justice.73 This language had become suffused, since the late fourth century, with the Christian ideals of the care of the poor, and, as a result, it had come to represent the ideal of “vertical solidarity.” The governor’s two cardinal virtues should be mercy and justice, which has itself “become a form of almsgiving”:74
The first good thing (Shenoute tells Flavianus) is to protect justice, and its ornament is mercy. For these are the two principal and necessary things. They crown each other, justice and mercy. Whoever protects justice but is not merciful although he has [wealth to give] or whoever is merciful but does not protect justice although he has the power [to do it] is like a maimed person whose hand is not straight and has become weak, that is, he has gold, silver, money, power but no mercy, for his power to have mercy and to do justice has become weak.75
The governor, as described by Shenoute, towers high above local society and is expected to condescend to the “poor” in the same way that God lowered himself to become human. Old Testament prophets, “who speak about us, and not about themselves,” provide the language to describe his virtues and potential vices. A good governor will avoid the typical sins of a late Roman bureaucrat: buying his post and selling justice for bribes. “If the magistrates desire it,” he tells Flavianus, “they can become rich in good works in a single year and a single tour to the province.” Such a good governor had a bright future both in heaven and on earth:
Truly, just as he (i.e., Flavianus) is famous for his way of life, he is even more famous because he protects righteousness, mercy, and justice. He gives what belongs to God to God and what belongs to the emperors to the emperors with the wisdom and zeal of his intelligence. He is loved by the poor, he is also loved by the emperors [so much so] that they gave him the magistracy three times for nothing. He will be honored by the emperors and praised by Christ.76
Shenoute’s endeavor to become the privileged friend of imperial magistrates was, without any doubt, a reasonable political strategy. There is no question that he needed a direct link to the imperial authorities if he was going to bypass the local town and become the preeminent interpreter and spokesman of local interests (the “poor”). Having the ear of the governor could turn a monk into an influential personality. The letters of John of Lycopolis, preserved in papyri, show this clearly. “The knowledge of our intimacy,” John wrote to a magistrate, “causes many who know your feelings toward me to flee to me and (in this case) to make me ask from your nobility [the following favor … ].”77 In the case of Shenoute, it cannot be denied that his “friendship” with imperial magistrates produced spectacular results: his impressive church building, which—as we shall see in the next chapter—was founded and financed by the military governor Caesarius. Indeed, even Cyril of Alexandria needed the help of Shenoute when traveling to the emperor, and Cyril’s enemy Nestorius, the disgraced patriarch of Constantinople exiled to a fortress near Shenoute’s monastery, had no other choice but to turn to him when dealing with the authorities. After several unsuccessful letters to Andreas, a military governor and one of Shenoute’s “friends,” Nestorius “sent to Antinoe and appealed to Caesarius, the military governor, because he was a friend of our father Shenoute.”78
That having been said, it is essential not to confuse Shenoute’s hopes with an accurate description of reality. His very insistence on his friendship with