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Canon Formation and Social Conflict in Fourth-Century Egypt: Athanasius of Alexandria's Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

David Brakke
David Brakke
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Extract

In histories of the formation of the Christian biblical canon, the thirty-ninth Festal Letter of Athanasius of Alexandria, written for Easter 367, holds a justifiably prominent place. Not only is this letter the earliest extant Christian document to list precisely the twenty-seven books that eventually formed the generally accepted canon of the New Testament, but Athanasius is also the first Christian author known to have applied the term “canonized” (κανονιςόμενα) specifically to the books that made up his Old and New Testaments. Athanasius's canon is explicitly closed: “In these books alone,” the bishop declares, “the teaching of piety is proclaimed. ‘Let no one add to or subtract from them’ (LXX Deut 12:32).” The significance of this document goes beyond these formal and terminological issues, however, for the extant fragments of the letter provide a glimpse into the social and political factors that accompanied the attempted formation of a closed canon of the Bible in one ancient Christian setting. Christianity in fourthcentury Egypt was characterized by diverse and conflicting modes of social identity and spiritual formation: study groups led by charismatic teachers, Melitian communities centered around the veneration of martyrs, and the emerging structure of imperial orthodoxy headed by Athanasius all presented themselves as legitimate expressions of Christian piety. Within this complex setting, the formation of a biblical canon with a proper mode of interpretation was an important step in the formation of an official catholic church in Egypt with its parish-centered spirituality.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 87 , Issue 4 , October 1994 , pp. 395 - 419
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1994

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References

1 Only a portion of Athanasius's Greek text survives and has been edited by Joannou, Périclès-Pierre, Fonti: Discipline generate antique (IVe-IXe s.) (2 vols.; Rome: Grottaferrata, 1963) 2. 71–76Google Scholar. Much of the rest of the letter survives in fragments of its Coptic translation published by Lefort, Louis-Theophile, S. Athanase: Lettres festales et pastorales en copte (CSCO 150; Louvain: Durbecq, 1955) 16–22Google Scholar, 58–62, and by Coquin, Rene-Georges, “Les lettres festales d'Athanase (CPG 2102). Un nouveau complement: Le manuscrit IFAO, copte 25,” OLP 15 (1984) 133–58Google Scholar. Because there is not yet a critical edition that brings together all this evidence, I shall cite the edition in which the passage to which I refer appears. Translations from ancient sources are my own unless otherwise noted; an English translation of the thirty-ninth Festal Letter that integrates all the published fragments appears in Brakke, David, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford: Clarendon, 1995) 326–32Google Scholar.

2 Athanasius Epistulae festates 39, in Joannou, Fonti, 2. 75 lines 3–6.

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7 See the extended discussions of the position of Hebrews and the odd reference to the Didache in the Coptic version in Schmidt, “Osterfestbrief,” 184–93; idem, “Neues Fragment,” 336–40; Zahn, Athanasius, 5–13.

8 Athanasius Epistulae festales 39, in Joannou, Fonti, 2. 71 line 13; 72 lines 13–21.

9 For the distinction between scripture and canon, see Graham, William A., “Scripture, Encyclopedia of Religion 13 (1987) 133–45Google Scholar, esp. 142–43; for its application to the development of the Christian Bible, see Sundberg, Albert C., “Canon of the NT,” IDBSup 136–40Google Scholar; and idem, “Towards a Revised History of the New Testament Canon,” StEv 4 (1968) 452–61, esp. 453–54.

10 Athanasius Epistulae festates 39, in Joannou, Fonti 2. 75 line 26–76 line 2. Nonetheless, Ruwet, Jean was wrong to argue (“Le canon alexandrin des Écritures. Saint Athanase,” Bib 33 [1952] 1–29Google Scholar) that Athanasius considered such catechetically useful books to be just as inspired as those in his Old and New Testaments.

11 For example, see Bagnall, Roger, Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) 304Google Scholar.

12 Portions of this section repeat material from Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism, 57–70.

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17 von Campenhausen, Hans, Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries (London: Black, 1969) 194Google Scholar; see also Eusebius Hist. eccl. 6.11.11; and Acta Justini et Septem Sodalium 3.

18 Brown, Peter, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (Lectures on the History of Religions, n.s., 13; New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) 103–8Google Scholar. On the spirituality of the relationship between teachers and students, see Valantasis, Richard, Spiritual Guides of the Third Century: A Semiotic Study of the Guid-Disciple Relationship in Christianity, Neoplatonism, Hermetism, and Gnosticism (HDR 27; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991)Google Scholar, although he is pessimistic about reconstructing the actual relationships between real teachers and students in history; and Fowden, Garth, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) 156–61Google Scholar, 186–95.

19 Regarding Pantaenus, Clement, and the early history of the catechetical school in Alexandria, see Bardy, Gustave, “Aux origines de l'école d'Alexandrie,” RSR 27 (1937) 65–90Google Scholar; and Dawson, David, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992) 219–22Google Scholar. Regarding Origen and Demetrius, see Trigg, Joseph Wilson, Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the Third-Century Church (Atlanta: John Knox, 1983) 130–46Google Scholar.

20 Origen Princ. l.praef. 3.

21 The attitudes of Clement and Origen are well described by Hanson, R. P. C., Origen's Doctrine of Tradition (London: S.P.C.K., 1954) esp. 127–73Google Scholar.

22 The Valentinians were particularly noted for this practice; see, for example, Treatise on the Resurrection, in Layton, Bentley, The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987) 272–74Google Scholar, 316–24; and Dawson, Allegorical Readers, 177–78.

23 Origen Horn, in Gen. 5, 7, 17; idem, Comm. in Matt. 17; and idem, Comm. in Cant. pref.

24 Origen Princ. l.praef. 3.

25 Clement Alex. Strom, passim.

26 Irenaeus Adv. haer. 1.6.4 (referring to Valentinian practice).

27 The Valentinian teacher Ptolemy dedicated a letter to his spiritual sister Flora (Epiphanius Panarion 33.3.1). Women attended Origen's classes (Eusebius Hist. eccl. 6.8.2) and were considered capable of philosophy by Clement (Paed. 1.4; Strom. 4.8, 19–20); see Brown, Body and Society, 122–39, 276–71. For more on this aspect of academic Christianity and its importance in Athanasius's regulation of Christian virgins, see Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism, 57–75.

28 von Campenhausen (Ecclesiastical Authority, 194–212) provides the classic discussion.

29 Zost. 129.4–12; 130.4–10; Gos. Truth 43.1–2; Plato Symp. 210A–212A; see also Pagels, “Visions, Appearances,” 426–27.

30 On Origen's asceticism, see Gregory Thaumaturgus In Origenem oralio panegyrica 9; Eusebius Hist. eccl. 6.3.9–12.

31 von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority, 157–60, 201; Pagels, “Visions, Appearances,” 426.

32 Layton, “Significance of Basilides,” 135–36.

33 Ancient biographies of Origen are attributed to Gregory Thaumaturgus (In Origenem oratio panegyrica) and Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 6).

34 von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority, 200, in reference to Clement Alex. Strom. 6.57.2.

35 Koester, “Writings and the Spirit,” 371–72; see Graham, William A., Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) 67–68Google Scholar.

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37 Justin Martyr Apol. 1.67; Koester, “Writings and the Spirit,” 368–70.

38 Williams, Arius, passim.

39 Epiphanius Panarion 69.2.6.

40 Ibid., 69.3.1; Williams, Arius, 32.

41 ”Alexander promoted Arius to the dignity of the priesthood. This latter began, under the pretense of scriptural authority, to expound doctrine to the people, having the congregation come to church on Wednesday and Friday so as to hear the Word of God” (Martyrdom of Saint Peter of Alexandria). The text can be found in Telfer, William, “St. Peter of Alexandria and Arius,” AnBoll 67 (1949) 130Google Scholar; the translation is by Vivian, Tim, St. Peter of Alexandria: Bishop and Martyr (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) 70Google Scholar.

42 Athanasius Orationes contra Arianos 1.5; translated in Williams, Arius, 85.

43 Athanasius Orationes contra Arianos 1.5. As Schmidt stated (“Neues Fragment,” 344), “The spirit of scientific inquiry belonging to Origen and his school is completely foreign to him [Athanasius]” (my translation). On the masculinization of orthodoxy and feminization of heresy in Athanasius, see Burrus, Virginia, “The Heretical Woman as Symbol in Alexander, Athanasius, Epiphanius, and Jerome,” HTR 84 (1991) 235–39Google Scholar.

44 Alexander Alex. Epistula encyclica 2. On Athanasius's authorship of this letter, see Stead, G. Christopher, “Athanasius' Earliest Written Work,” JTS, n.s., 39 (1988) 76–91Google Scholar.

45 Athanasius Epistulae festales 2.7 [Syriac]; the twenty-fourth Festal Letter was mistakenly transmitted as the second.

46 Ibid., 39 [Coptic], in Coquin, “Les lettres festales,” lr.a19–29.

47 Athanasius Epistulae festales 39 [Coptic], in Lefort, 5. Athanase, 16 lines 17–31.

48 Athanasius Epistulae festales 39 [Coptic], Coquin, “Les lettres festales,” 6v.a25–b29.

49 Athanasius Epistulae festales 39 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 17 lines 8–9, 21–24; this uses the Septuagint version of Exod 14:25.

50 Athanasius Epistulae festales 39 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 21 lines 11–12, 14–15.

51 Layton, “Significance of Basilides,” 135–36.

52 Burrus, Virginia, “Hierarchalization and Genderization of Leadership in the Writings of Irenaeus,” StPatr 21 (1989) 43–45Google Scholar.

53 Gregg, Robert C. and Groh, Dennis E., Early Arianism—A View of Salvation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981)Google Scholar.

54 Athanasius Orationes contra Arianos 2.28; see also 1.37.

55 See Gregg and Groh, Early Arianism, 163–64.

56 Brown, Peter, “The Saint as Exemplar in Late Antiquity,” in Hawley, John Stratton, ed., Saints and Virtues (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society 2; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987) 4Google Scholar.

57 Athanasius Epistulae festales 39 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 62 lines 3–8.

58 I am dependent here, for both the general concepts and the specific examples, on Folkert, Kendall W., “The ‘Canons’ of Scripture,” in Levering, Miriam, ed., Rethinking Scripture: Essays from a Comparative Perspective (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989) 170–79Google Scholar. Folkert divides scripture into “two general forms”: “Canon I denotes normative texts, oral or written, that are present in a tradition principally by the force of a vector or vectors. Canon II refers to normative texts that are more independently and distinctively present within a tradition, that is, as pieces of literature more or less as such are currently thought of, and which themselves function as vectors” (p. 173).

59 This indeterminate nature of the academic canon's contents may lead some to argue that it cannot be called a canon, which must by definition be closed. This definition itself assumes a canon of only one type—the Christian Protestant canon—and so obscures other kinds of scriptural collections in religions past and present. On the difficulty of understanding Jain scriptures from a “Canon II” perspective, see Folkert, “‘Canons’ of Scripture,” 175–76.

60 Eusebius Hist. eccl. 3.25.5.

61 Athanasius Epistulae festales 39 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 21 lines 1–2; Coquin, “Les lettres festales,” 6r.b25–6v.a8, 25–29.

62 See Zahn, Grundriss, 60; idem, Athanasius, 26–29; see esp. 28–29 regarding the fact that even Athanasius's scriptural citations in his other works make no use of this distinction.

63 Barnard, Leslie W., “Athanasius and the Meletian Schism in Egypt,” JEA 59 (1973) 181–89Google Scholar; Williams, Arius, 32–41; and Vivian, St. Peter of Alexandria, 15–40.

64 Frend, W. H. C., Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church: A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus (New York: New York University Press, 1967) 396–98Google Scholar.

65 Regarding violence and church funds, see Barnard, “Athanasius and the Meletian Schism”; Barnes, Timothy D., “The Career of Athanasius,” StPatr 21 (1987) 393–96Google Scholar; idem, Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1993) 25–33. Regarding bishops and priests, see Athanasius Epistula ad Dracontium; idem, Epistulae festales 40 [Coptic]; and Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism, 100–102.

66 Athanasius Epistulae festales 39 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 21 lines 12–14. Zahn denied (Athanasius, 14) that either the Melitians or the Arians were the “heretics” whom Athanasius charged with promoting apocryphal books, but he wrote before Schmidt (“Neues Fragment”) published for the first time the fragment in which Athanasius specifically names the Melitians as boasting about their apocrypha.

67 Camplani, Lettere festali, 271–72.

68 Athanasius Historia Arianorum 78.1.

69 Athanasius Epistulae festales 39, in Lefort, S. Athanase, 21 lines 12–14; Coquin, “Les lettres festales,” 6r.bll–21, in Joannou, Fonti, 2. 76 lines 3–8.

70 Of these, the identification of the Ascension of Isaiah seems the most secure (see the discussion of 1 Cor 2:9 below, p. 413) and that of the Moses literature the least secure (see David Frankfurter, “The Legacy of the Jewish Apocalypse in Early Christian Sects: Regional Trajectories,” in James Vanderkam and William Adler, eds., The Jewish Apocalypses in Christian Tradition [Minneapolis: Fortress, forthcoming]; see also Camplani, Lettere festali, 277). Evidence for the circulation of the Ascension of Isaiah in fourth-century Egypt includes fragments of its text in Coptic (Lefort, Louis-Theophile, “Fragments d'apocryphes en copte-achmimique,” Mus 52 [1939] 1–10Google Scholar; Lacau, Pierre, “Fragments de l'Ascension d'Isaie en copte,” Mus 59 [1946] 453–67Google Scholar); a quotation of it by Ammonas, the monastic disciple of Antony the Great (Letter 10, in The Letters of Ammonas: Successor of Saint Antony [trans. Chitty, Derwas J.; Fairacres Publications 72; Oxford: S.L.G, 1979] 12)Google Scholar; and its reported use by Hieracas, the Christian ascetic teacher (Epiphanius Panarion 67.3.4).

71 Athanasius Epistulae festales 39 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 20 lines 3–21.

72 Pseudo-Athanasius Canones 12, in The Canons of Athanasius of Alexandria (ed. and trans. Riedel, Wilhelm and Crum, W. E.; London/Oxford: Williams & Norgate, 1904) 24Google Scholar; Orlandi, Tito, “A Catechesis Against Apocryphal Texts by Shenute and the Gnostic Texts of Nag Hammadi,” HTR 75 (1982) 88–89Google Scholar; see also Camplani, Lettere festali, 275–76.

73 Zahn in particular criticizes Athanasius (Athanasius, 14, 17) for not mentioning the quotation of Enoch in Jude as well as the many citations of apocryphal books by earlier church fathers; Zahn did not know the Coptic fragment in which Athanasius dealt with this objection.

74 Athanasius Epistulae festales 39 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 60 line 6–62 line 2.

75 Mart. Isa. 11.34; Jerome Comm. in Isa. 17 on Isa 64:4. See Stone, Michael E. and Strugnell, John, The Books of Elijah, Parts 1–2 (SBLTT 18; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979) 41–73Google Scholar, esp. 68–71. Origen had attributed the quotation to an Apocalypse of Elijah (Comm. in Matt. 5.29 on Matt 27:9), but it is not found in the extant work of this title; see Frankfurter, David, Elijah in Upper Egypt: The Apocalypse of Elijah and Early Egyptian Christianity (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 46–49Google Scholar.

76 Athanasius Epistulae festales 39 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 21 lines 12–14; Joannou, Fonti, 2. 76 lines 2–8.

77 Tertullian Pud. 10.6; Irenaeus Adv. haer. 1.20.1.

78 Clement Alex. Strom. 1.15.69.9; on the secrecy of Hermetic books, see Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, 157–58.

79 Athanasius Epistulae festales 41–42 [Coptic]. On the pre-Constantinian roots of the martyr cult in Egypt, see Frankfurter, David, “The Cult of the Martyrs in Egypt Before Constantine: The Evidence of the Coptic Apocalypse of Elijah,” VC 48 (1994) 25–47Google Scholar.

80 Athanasius Epistulae festales 42 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 65 lines 3–15.

81 Athanasius Epistulae festales 41 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 26 lines 9–10; 62 line 23–63 line 5.

82 Mart. lsa. 11.36–43.

83 T. Mos. 8–10.

84 Athanasius Epistulae festales 41 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 26 lines 11, 18.

85 Athanasius Epistulae festales 39 [Coptic], in Lefort, 5. Athanase, 20 lines 31–33.

86 Rose, H. J., “Divination (Introductory and Primitive),” ERE 4 (1911) 775Google Scholar. On divination in ancient Greece and Rome, see Luck, Georg, Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985) 229–305Google Scholar.

87 Preus, J. Samuel (“Secularizing Divination: Spiritual Biography and the Invention of the Novel,” JAAR 59 [1991] 444–45Google Scholar) draws on numerous anthropological studies.

88 Athanasius Epistulae festales 42 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 66 lines 7–25.

89 Athanasius Epistulae festales 42 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 66 lines 3–7.

90 Jonathan Z. Smith, “Sacred Persistence: Toward a Redescription of Canon,” in idem. Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism; Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1982) 36–52, esp. 50.

91 Ibid., 50–51.

92 Athanasius Epistula ad virgines [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 91 lines 5–12; Athanasius Epistulae festales 39 [Coptic], in Lefort, S. Athanase, 21 lines 11–15. On the authenticity the Letter to Virgins preserved in Coptic, see Brakke, David, “The Authenticity of the Ascetic Athanasiana,” Or 63 (1994) 17–56, esp. 19–25Google Scholar.

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94 Athanasius Orationes contra Arianos 1.44; idem, De decretis Nicaenae synodi 13; Ernest, Athanasius of Alexandria,” 347–48.

95 Graham, “Scripture,” 134; idem, Beyond the Written Word, 5–6.

96 Tetz, “Athanasius und die Einheit,” 205–7.

97 Life of Pachomius 189 [Bohairic Coptic], in Veilleux, Armand, trans., Pachomian Koinonia (3 vols.; Cistercian Studies 45–47; Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1980) 1. 230–32Google Scholar; Lefort, Louis-Théophile, “Théodore de Tabennese et la lettre de S. Athanase sur le canon de la Bible,” Mus 29 (1910) 205–16Google Scholar.

98 Hahneman, Geoffrey Mark, The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon (Oxford Theological Monographs; Oxford: Clarendon, 1992) 165–70Google Scholar.

99 Ehrman, Bart D., “The New Testament Canon of Didymus the Blind,” VC 37 (1983) 1–21Google Scholar.