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Pachomian Sources Reconsidered1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Extract

It had seemed that Ladeuze had firmly established the literary priority of the best Greek sources for the Life of Pachomius and his first successors as against the Coptic. Halkin's edition of the Vitae Graecae, while suggesting that the surviving ‘Vita Prima’ was not the earliest recension, had supported the same main conclusion—‘Cette première Vie de Pachôme fût certainement rédigé en grec. La discussion est présentement close.’

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1954

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References

page 39 note 1 Anal. Boll. lxiv (1946), 277. Peeters had already taken the bait on the publication of the Sahidic text: see Anal. Boll. lli (1934), 286–320.

page 39 note 2 Actually, there is some doubt whether the contents of Bo. 98 do concern Pachomius and not Theodore.

page 48 note 1 For convenience, we will henceforth follow the Syriac in restricting this term to the ‘Paralipomena’ of the Bollandists, although, as we have seen, this is really begging a large question.

page 48 note 2 Thus in the story of Silvanus, the name of the lad's surety is given as ‘a certain Petronius’—surely the well-known name of Pachomius's successor—in place of the otherwise unknown Psenammon of G1—although what we know of Petronius from G1 is incompatible, chronologically and otherwise, with his being Silvanus's surety. And further on in the same story, when the brethren seek to find whom Pachomius is praising, the names of Petronius, Orsisius and Theodore are suggested. Orsisius has replaced the Cornelius of G1—we can well suppose that the fame of Cornelius had faded in the interval between the writing of the two documents.

page 51 note 1 We should note in passing that analysis of the language and the vocabulary of the two documents makes it quite certain that they are not from the same hand—though it is to be noted that the Greek of the Homily on Idolatry appended to F but to none of our other sources for Asc. is allied to that of G1 rather than of Asc., and would not be inconsistent with its being due to the same Greek hand as G1.

page 53 note 1 Apophthegmata references are given according to the tables in Bousset's Apophthegmata.

page 53 note 2 Actually, he was consecrated bishop during the Patriarchate of Simon I (a.d. 689–701), and held his see for thirty years.

page 55 note 1 Του σου πατρος ἠμν Ζωσιμ κεφλαια πνυ ὠφλιμα, ed. Augoustinos, Jerusalem 1913, 2.20–3. 11.

page 59 note 1 The comparison of the three documents here has, incidentally, given us a good example of the freedom of the correspondence normal between Asc. and G2 in a passage where G2 does not correspond to D.

page 59 note 2 It is curious, and possibly significant, that one MS. of G2—H in Halkin's apparatus —was based on a text which had a similar, though rather shorter gap, beginning on p. 210, 1. 23 (49 lines of Halkin's edition later than the gap we trace in D), and ending on p. 228, 1. 21 (46 lines earlier than the D gap).

page 60 note 1 A typical example, where a change bears in itself the marks of dependence, can be quoted from G217‖G118. The latter (p. 11, 1. 26) speaks of Pachomius's heart ὠς θρα χαλκ ἠσφαλισμνη κατ ληστῳν. G2, finding the simile of the door unacceptable, describes Pachomius as τν ἠσφαλισμνον τῳ τς πστεως θυρεῳ (p. 183, I. 12).

page 60 note 2 I am not unaware that in this paragraph I have tended to assume that G2 did in fact take from G1 the chapters in which his correspondence is with that Life. But even if these could conceivably have been isolated chapters, or parts of a different collection, afterwards used by G1, their text would appear to have been as we find it in G1, and they would be found to share the same characteristics in contrast with G2.

page 63 note 1 We should note that G2's spelling Μουχονσις seems closer to the normal Coptic spelling of the name of this monastery than the Μογχωσις of G1.

page 63 note 2 Βλπων δ αὐτν πατρ μν Γαχομιος σοφν ντα—G1 Τοτου το Θεοδώρου τ συνετν θεασμενος Παχώμιος—G2

page 63 note 3 We must note how natural it is for a writer concerned with edification and not history, and restricting himself to the Life of Pachomius, to leave out all mention of Theodore's subsequent disgrace. G2 would allow us to suppose that Theodore continued as οἰκονμος of Tabennesi without interruption until Pachomius's death.

page 72 note 1 Lefort is mistaken in stating that the Syriac version of the story in Asc. reads John. Both in Budge and in Bedjan the name appears as (‘Yawnan’ =Jonah), not as (‘Yohannan’ = John).