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If he is compared to visible things, he will be found to be superior to all of them. Then he asks who dwells there. The answer is found in other Pauline texts, Eph.

To these must be added the cherubim and the seraphim, which are more important and nearer to God. He then compares Antony to each of these beginning with the lowest grade 24 Greg. This is done through a skillful use of the principle of interpreting the Scriptures by means of the Scriptures allowing John to find the correct description for each of the heavenly ranks.

And was not the knowledge of Antony abundant and that of what man was more abundant than his? And who is it who was more on fire with the fire that consumes, that is, God, so that filled with it like burning coals, as it is written «coals were ignited by him» Ps.

He is aware that these comparisons may seem extravagant or provoke scandal «Perhaps you are murmuring His answer to the imaginary objection is to go even further: «but it is to God that I compare him». This is done again through the use of the principle of interpreting the Scriptures by means of the Scriptures, invoking successively: 1 Cor.

This is followed by numerous other 25 There is an allusion here to the Stoic principle that the nature of a thing is to be found in its etymology, based on the idea that the names correspond to the reality and are not pure convention. Thus it can be seen that a significant portion of the material for the encomium is obtained through comparisons synkriseis , as Hermogenes had recommended, which are then developed and amplified through the use of Scriptural texts using the techniques of etymology and following the principle of interpreting the Scriptures through the Scriptures Before the arrival of Mark, Egypt was in darkness, as it is written «The people that walked in darkness and the shadows, the light has shone has shown on them» Is.

This was not the natural light of the sun, but the light that illuminates every man coming into the world Io. Mark did not shine of his own light, but reflected the light of God as the moon reflects the sun. Before Mark removed the idols the day was absent from Egypt and there was everlasting night, but when Mark, the light, arrived, the day began Fragmentary as the text is, it clearly reflects the same style and techniques involving the use of Scriptural texts already seen in the previous homily.

The passages in which Origen appeals to this text are numerous. Among them may be mentioned hom. Orlandi, Studi Copti, Why then is he not confuted by those things which he spoke badly in them?

I know indeed that penance has led many to salvation. I know, to be sure, that the pretext of penance has made many go to perdition. For many of the just were weakened and said in their heart, «As long as there is penance, let us sin, and then we will do penance again». But they were not able to achieve penance.

Many of those who live rightly say, «If I fall, I will rise again». They fell and were not able to rise. They went to eternal punishment He is more compassionate in Barnabas, he is more severe in Paul.

For Paul himself said: «See the gentleness and severity of God» Rom. Is it not the same sap that goes through all the branches? We then have need of both of them. So also is the single holy spirit in them: it is harder in Paul and softer in Barnabas Thus Barnabas was a fig sweet inside and outside, that which seems good to eat, as it is written cf. Paul on the other hand was a pomegranate, whose skin on the outside was hard, but with much fruit inside sweet and pleasing. I saw that its skin contained a multitude of necessary things Thus through imaginative expansion of the text of Act.

The style and techniques used in these two sermons are sufficiently similar to confirm their common authorship. As Garitte already observed, John was well acquainted with the rules of the encomium genre, used the traditional topics and employed comparisons with considerable skill. Yet his homilies, for all they owe to traditional Greek rhetoric, have a very marked Egyptian flavor Virtually nothing is known of this author.

The superscription of the encomium on Apollo states that he preached it while he was still a monk of this monastery, before he became a bishop.

On the basis of the historical data contained in the encomium on Apollo, Kuhn concluded to a probable date toward the end of the sixth century. Both of these encomia are written in the high style suitable for a public celebration, in these cases, the annual celebration of the saint.

He continues by stating that on this table the life of our father «you will find the faith and obedience of the patriarchs towards God, the meekness and lack of vindictiveness of Moses and David, the tranquility of Joshua He is in effect announcing the source of his material through the use of Scriptural comparisons, for the actual details of the life of Apollo available to him seem to have been rather sparse.

This refers to the community of Pbow, he explains. This man, on the other hand, let virtue be for him instead of all his belongings. Abraham was obedient to God and offered up to him as sacrifice his beloved son in accordance with the purpose of his heart Gen. But this man presented himself a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God cf. Abraham walked for three days on the road up to the mountain of sacrifice cf. But this man endured over so great a distance from this district until he went up to the monastery established on this mountain.

Clearly then Apollo was both similar to and superior to Abraham. There follows the account of his being received into the monastery by the successor of Pachomius, Theodore, and Horsiesius, the description of the significance of the monastic habit and of his progress in virtue, all filled with scriptural allusions. I am speaking of the abundance of the virtuous actions of this blessed man who is worthy of heaven.

For who, O our father, has preserved perfection like you, O our father, with the likeness of God in him undelfiled? What earthborn man had trodden under the nature of those on earth and has acquired the nobility of those in heaven that he might be with them like you, O our father? O, how shall I be able to speak of the greatness of the honours which befit this holy man, man in his nature but equal to the angels in his ways, this earth-born man according to his substance but son of God and brother of Christ according to his way of life!

Then, with terminology borrowed openly from the Apocalypse and numerous prophetic passages from the Old Testament, Stephen turns to the events that led Apollo to leave the monastery of Pbow, the renewed efforts of Justinian to impose the «innovation» of Chalcedon He describes the nature of the error, how Egypt led by Dioscorus, was like a light on a lampstand, then passes to the time of Justinian, mentioning Severus and Theodosius and then how the archimandrite Abraham of Pbow was deposed.

There is a considerable rhetorical play on the word «plant» with reference to the Apollo mentioned by Paul 1 Cor. It is worthy of note that Stephen cites also Basil, Chrysostom and Shenoute. The encomium concludes with a final peroration in the form of an apostrophic prayer addressed to the saint. It manifests a clear familiarity with the high style suited to such an occasion. The numerous references to authors such as Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom, Shenoute, Severus, as well as to the founders of the Pachomian congregation, show that he was also well acquainted with the literature.

The Encomium of Elias Nothing is known of this martyr and apparently the author of the encomium had very little to go on other than the fact of the existence the shrine dedicated to Elias and the miracles worked there. He notes that Jesus had stated that the just will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father, but he said that of all the just. Saint Elias, on the other hand, resembles the sun by his name, his virtues and his splendor. He identifies Elias as having been a soldier and a physician, presum- ably because of the healings worked in his sanctuary, «Elias was in truth the general of his king the Christ and the physician of all those who are sick».

He was a great warrior against the enemies that were known, He was a brilliant conqueror of the adversaries of evil who were invisible. He was near to the king of this world, And he was the friend of the king of heaven and earth, Christ Jesus. He was counted in the army with the number of those who possess the earth, He was also counted among the forces of heaven because of the combat of his confession.

He was physician first in a single city, Now he is the healer of those who have drawn near to him and those far away fol. Since the author did not really know anything about Elias, there is no real historical development in this encomium as there is in the one on Apollo. He is constrained to rely upon purely formal elements to develop his subject.

He compares him to Daniel, whom he resembles because he also despised the servants of idols and confessed Christ. Then, since he is a physician, he is to be compared to Luke.

It is worthy of note that Stephen introduces the same metaphor «like a lily among thorns» to describe Elias that he had used for Apollo fol. So it was with Elias. This is in fact an example of another of the progymnasmata, «maxim». Just as God saved Israel through prodigies and miracles, so Providence has disposed that the feast of the holy physician should fall in the month in which sicknesses are produced so that his holy prayers may heal all in soul and body fol.

At this point Stephen seems to have exhausted what he has to say about Elias and announces that he will say a few words also about the holy brethren who are buried in his sanctuary. They were presumably ascetics, although neither names nor details are provided. Luke is invoked again Lc. An apostrophe is then introduced addressed to «O man», inviting him to chase out of his soul these passions.

Stephen then concludes that it is fitting for the bones of the ascetics to rest beside those of the martyrs, because the ascetic life and that of the martyrs does not differ and is equal in result fol.

This theme was encoun- tered also in the encomium of Apollo. The work concludes with a final peroration of exhortations to seek the Lord, to confess the Lord like the martyrs, to imitate the holy ascetics, and to repentance fol. Although this piece lacks some of the traditional elements expected in an encomium, e. There is no reason to doubt that the author is the same as that of the encomium of Apollo. Athanasius and two of St. Claude of Antioch Additional encomia in Arabic are attributed to him To browse Academia.

Log in with Facebook Log in with Google. Remember me on this computer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Need an account? Click here to sign up. Download Free PDF. Essays in Honor of David W. Johnson edited by James D. Goehring and Janet A. Mark Sheridan. A short summary of this paper. Download Download PDF. Translate PDF. Rhetorical Structure in Coptic Sermons Although a significant number of Coptic sermons1 have been published in the last fifty years, very little attention has been devoted to the literary and rhetori- cal analysis of this form of literature since the publications of C.

The first group consists of homilies on biblical themes, the second of sermons on angels, the third of works devoted to the Virgin Mary and the fourth contains works devoted to 1 In modern English usage as in other modern languages no clear distinction is made be- tween the terms «sermon» and «homily» see the Oxford English Dictionary, s.

In Christian antiquity, however, the term «homily» usually referred to a specific text-based form of preaching of which two types can be distinguished, the exegetical homily and the thematic homily.

In the former type the preacher seeks to expound the meaning of the text, citing it and following it in order. In the second type, he takes the text as his point of departure, but does not necessarily follow the order of the text in his exposition. See T.

Ueding, Darmstadt , In the present article the term «sermon» is used as a ge- neric modern category for all forms of ancient preaching or fictive preaching and the term «homily» is reserved for text-based sermons.

However, it must be admitted that even in antiquity, at least in Coptic, the distinction was not always so clear, as will be noted below. On the history of the «homily», see M. See also: A. The authors are not treated in chronological or- der. The total number of sermons described or analyzed comes to about twenty-six.

Many of these sermons, especially in the first category, are in the Bo- hairic dialect, which means that at least in their present form they are not earlier than the ninth century. We would be dealing then with a period of almost five hundred years, a period in which significant internal and external events impinged on the life of the Egyp- tian church.

Rather, raising the moral level of the congregation was the principal concern of the preacher. Consequently the Coptic preacher had no interest in rhetoric as such. His discourse is simple, without ornament, and avoids all play with words such as one finds in the rhetorical style of Greek preaching. Conversely, the stories introduced by the Coptic preacher are miss- ing in Greek preaching.

He notes as well the great length of some of these writings, which would have lasted up to two hours if actually preached, but insists that this was normal in antiquity. Atiya, New York , , who notes that the old controversial question over the origins of Bo- hairic as a literary dialect remains unresolved.

However, there are no literary manuscripts older than the tenth century other than biblical fragments. According to Lefort, the ori- gins of Bohairic as a literary dialect are to be found in the reconstruction of the library of St.

Macarius in the ninth century. See L. The conclusions are summarized and repeated in his article, «Einige Bemerkungen». Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa vom VI. Jahrhundert v. The lat- ter work has since been replaced by J. Rhetorical Structure in Coptic Sermons As later standardized, Greek and Latin rhetoric fell into three distinct catego- ries: that intended for the assembly, for the courts forensic and the epideictic. Precise canons for these were developed, which included the internal divisions and the use of a variety of ornaments, comparisons, tropes and figures.

This would have included a proper introduction and conclusion and a few types of discourse such as «ar- gumentation», but as far as the influence of Greek rhetorical style goes, it was practically nil. The typical features of Greek rhetoric such as irony, sarcasm, plays on words, etc. Shenoute would be the principal representative of the former. As the Coptic church became progressively a monastic church and the older form of discourse addressed only to monks became less frequent, the miracle story seems to have quickly conquered the field.

First of all, the juxtaposition of works produced in a time period of over five hundred years without a serious effort to locate them in their historical setting makes it impos- sible to detect or speak of development. The whole group of Bohairic pieces needs to be treated separately from the Sahidic literature. The former may in- deed be a witness to earlier literature transposed from Sahidic into Bohairic, but without specific analysis, Bohairic cannot be used as a witness to the period before the Arab conquest.

The few cases where we have comparable pieces in 7 These divisions go back in fact to Aristotle. However, it belongs to the very nature of such works deliberate false attribu- tion that they were never intended to be delivered orally, at least not by the per- sons to whom they are attributed. In many cases the false attribution cannot be simply a case of mistaken attribution or errors of transmission, since the fictive authorship is built into the construction of the literary pieces.

Such is the case with the compositions attributed to Evodius, which will be discussed below. The whole question of the reasons for the existence of this large body of literature in Coptic has never been dealt with adequately. It may not be possible to do so in a satisfactory way. On the relationship of these, see M. See also W. For a hypothesis regarding the reasons for the pseudepigraphical homilies by Evodius, see my article mentioned in note In this he was following ancient usage.

See pp. In Coptic the most common designation of text-based homilies seems to have been logos. Sheridan, Rufus of Shotep. Homilies on the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Rhetorical Structure in Coptic Sermons should be grouped together under the heading of «sermon» or «homily» or Predigt in German may be questioned. From the point of view of literary genre and rhetorical style, the one thing that they may have in common is that they were all compositions intended somehow for liturgical use.

But in terms of literary genre and the rhetorical style associated with diverse genres, they may be quite different. Only a careful analysis of the language used in homilies can provide clues regarding the time frame in which they were composed and the purpose of the authors.

Many of the Coptic authors were quite sensitive to correct theological language. Only detailed ex- amination of the terminology, of the literary genre, and of the rhetorical style can aid in developing a more reliable and articulated over-view of the devel- opment of this literature and of its historical function.

The rest of this article will be devoted to some specific examples of rhetorical analysis that might serve to improve methodol- ogy in this field.

It is a text-based homily in the strict sense. The manuscript is M, ff. For observations on the style of Pseudo-Epiph- anius, see H. Petruccione, Washington, D. Rhetorical Structure in Coptic Sermons stantinople.

The homily on Lazarus begins with an elaborate exordium proemium , a stylistic feature that can be found in other Coptic homilies.

The purpose of the exordium in general is to capture the attention of the listeners for the subject to be treated. See the Coptic clavis of T. Orlandi, «Cy- cle», in The Coptic Encyclopedia 3, ed. Atiya, New York , The tongue of Christ is full of life for everyone over whom death has ruled. The hands of Christ are life giving, with which he gives a hand to all and sets them on their feet. The garments of Christ are life-giving, healing the women with hemorrhages cf.

Matt ; Mark ; Luke The feet of Christ are seekers after the strayed sheep, which he brings back to the good sheepfold John ; Luke The commandment of Christ is a healer, with which He heals those who are leprous and cleanses them cf. Luke ; Abundant Life. Acorn Ahmed Kattan. Ahram Online. Al Jazeera. Anba Moussa.

Archbishop of Canterbury. Baroness Anelay. Basem Morris. Bath Abbey. BBC Prayer for the Day. BBC Radio. BBC Radio 4. BBC Radio Wales. BBC TV. Twitter Tweets by BishopAngaelos. Latest YouTube. Archive May 1. January 1. November 1.