Shenoute of Atripe and the Uses of Poverty: Rural Patronage, Religious Conflict, and Monasticism in Late Antique Egypt by Ariel G. López (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Shenoute of Atripe and the Uses of Poverty: Rural Patronage, Religious Conflict, and Monasticism in Late Antique Egypt by Ariel G. López Rebecca Krawiec Shenoute of Atripe and the Uses of Poverty: Rural Patronage, Religious Conflict, and Monasticism in Late Antique Egypt Ariel G. López Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2013. Pp. xi + 237. ISBN 978-0-520-27483-9. This book is a welcome and valuable addition to studies of Shenoute of Atripe, an important monastic and, as López emphasizes, economic and political leader in late antique Egypt. López examines Shenoute’s “discourse of poverty,” arguing that Shenoute presented himself as an advocate for the poor and so was able to carve out a new form of leadership. López claims that Shenoute’s religious and economic positions, which for Shenoute would have been inseparable, make him similar to contemporaneous figures in the fifth-century Eastern Roman Empire. The success of the book lies in its detailed analysis of the economic conditions of fifth-century Egypt with a focus on how Shenoute’s self-presentation as advocate of the poor provides an “invaluable resource” for understanding the economic shifts, particularly of the rural economy of Egypt, of this time period (101). López’s introduction sets out his main argument that the economic context is crucial to a proper understanding of Shenoute’s writings, an approach López uses to differentiate his work from other scholarship on Shenoute. The book is meant to change the conversation in three ways: by expanding the analysis of Shenoute’s texts beyond a monastic context; by liberating Shenoute from Coptic studies, the very “idea” of which has created, he argues, an “orientalist” view of Shenoute (12); and by challenging the traditional dating for Shenoute (a position he details in an appendix, 131–33) to argue instead for a career that flourishes in the fifth, not the late fourth, century. Because most of Shenoute’s writings cannot be placed in specific settings or dated precisely, López suggests that Shenoute’s constructions of poverty provide the central historical context for understanding his texts. (He thus offers in a second appendix a not entirely persuasive defense of his decision not to situate the evidence from Shenoute’s writings throughout the book.) For López this historical context is “rustic audacity,” a term that refers to forms of economic struggle primarily between villagers and landowners but also at times among the villagers themselves (4). Since “rustic audacity” was not limited to Egypt it provides López with the means to connect Shenoute with the larger empire (18). The first chapter lays out how Shenoute creates his new role through opposition to the urban elite by supporting the “poor,” a “relational” category that Shenoute uses for his own interests (44-45). López argues that Shenoute is unusual in several regards: he opposes rather than connects the monastery and city, unlike other monastic figures (23); he fosters his own “bad reputation” (which has survived into modern scholarship) by including in his texts descriptions of the criticisms against him (25); and he takes an active role outside the monastery more than any other Egyptian abbot “before or after him” (41; 127). Shenoute can extend his spiritual [End Page 374] authority into the civic realm by setting himself up as the defender of the poor against their oppressors, the urban elites. Shenoute would have seen “the duty to care for the poor” as belonging to the imperial power structures (26), yet he inserts himself into those structures by creating a new position based on his ability to engage in parrhesia, a freedom of speech founded on the moral qualities of the speaker. In this way he combats “violence,” by which Shenoute means the “social injustice” of the oppression of the poor (34-35). Having laid out Shenoute’s “discourse of poverty,” López then turns in chapter 2 to exploring evidence of the “real” economic functioning of Shenoute’s monastery. López focuses on Shenoute’s shift from an early position that monastic funds should take care of the poor, held before he became head of the monastic...