Coptica 15, 2016

Athanasius’s Fighting Spirit Doubled in Shenoute 79 a homily that survives in Arabic and was written in layers between the late seventh century and the mid-ninth century under the pseudonym of Theophilus, the anti-pagan Bishop of Alexandria. In that retelling of the story Athanasius does not merely observe but actually destroys not one but more than one temple in Akhmim. 33 The author calls Athanasius “this brave, pure one, our father Anba Athanasius, who triumphed in hidden and open combat… .” Even in fleeing to Upper Egypt, the text says, “the chief of combatants, the brave one, the hero Anba Athanasius” achieved victory. “O father,” it says, “you have uprooted the devil from the country of Egypt; you have demolished the remaining temples that were in the town of Akhmim that was the temple of Egypt. You have broken all its idols.” 34 There is no mention of the Archangel Michael any longer. Here Athanasius himself is the destroyer. So, as the Archangel said in the Arabic Life of Shenoute , Shenoute’s appropriation of Athanasius did indeed double Athanasius’s fighting spirit, not only in Shenoute but even in Athanasius himself, at least in his hagiographic portrayal.

33 H. Fleisch, “Une Homélie de Théophile d’Alexandrie en l’honneur de St. Pierre et de St. Paul,” Revue de l’Orient Chrétien 30 (1935-1936): 371-419. See also Jos van Lent, “The Arabic Homily of Pseudo-Theophilus of Alexandria,” in Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History , vol. 1, 600-900 , ed. David Thomas and Barbara Roggema, History of Christian-Muslim Relations 11 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 256-260. It is unclear whether the Arabic was translated from a Coptic or a Greek original. 34 Fleisch, “Une Homélie de Théophile d’Alexandrie,” 388-389.