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The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity


from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world


Shenoute, abbot of the White Monastery near Sohag in Upper Egypt (ob. c. 465), in a Coptic Discourse refers to the saints as allies of those without sin; written in the 5th century.

Evidence ID

E02849

Type of Evidence

Literary - Sermons/Homilies

Major author/Major anonymous work

Shenoute of Atripe

In his discourse entitled The idolatrous pagans, or, And we will also reveal something else (discourses 8, work 9 or 10), Shenoute mentions that the saints pay attention to peoples' lives, and serve as their allies or enemies.

‘Why have we been content with violent acts, in all of which we violate only ourselves? Let us not make ourselves strangers to God and his Christ on account of merriment and deceitful amusement and impiety, and let us not be enemies to his saints. We know that if God turns his face from us no one will pay attention to us in our life and when we go to him.’


Translation: Brakke and Crislip 2017, 121.

A critical edition of the Coptic text is still pending.

Liturgical Activities

Sermon/homily

Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Ecclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits

Theorising on Sanctity

Considerations about the veneration of saints

Source

Shenoute’s entire literary corpus, preserved in medieval manuscripts only, almost exclusively comes from a single find spot, a storeroom of the church at his ‘White’ monastery. A critical edition of this entire corpus of Shenoute's written work is still in preparation by S. Emmel and others.


Bibliography

Translation and Discussion:
Brakke, D., and Crislip, A., Selected Discourses of Shenoute the Great: Community, Theology, and Social Conflict in Late Antique Egypt (Cambridge, 2017), 118–124.


Record Created By

Gesa Schenke

Date of Entry

26/5/2017

Related Saint Records
IDNameName in SourceIdentity
S00518Saints, unnamedCertain


Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Gesa Schenke , Cult of Saints, E02849 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E02849