SSCN Voumes 1-10, 1994-2004

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

of monks being involved in commerce and farming. So, because there was money flowing through their work or mostly through outside contributions, voluntary poverty was a considered a virtue. The examples included the typical one of St. Antony the Great, but it never failed to include St. Macarius the Great, who is a central figure in much of the presenter works in this area. Arabic Christian Literature: The first one in this category was by Dr. Youhanna N. Youssef of Melbourne, Australia and delivered by Hany N. Takla in the Friday morning session. It was titled, Severus of Antioch in Scetis . It dealt with the mention of the sojourn of the exiled Patriarch of Antioch into Wadi al-Natrun. This was mentioned in a passage in the Arabic life of the saint written by Athanasius of Antioch and found in a unique manuscript in the Cairo Patriarchal Library. The author divided this passage into six parts. He dealt with each by comparing the information to those found in Arabic and Coptic liturgical texts as well as Arabic historical accounts. When a variety of traditions were found, he tried to add evidence of relative dating as well as approximate overall dating. It is worthy of mention that the author here was a participant in the past Symposium on Wadi al- Natrun. The second paper in this category was delivered by Dr. Mark Swanson of St. Paul, Minnesota at the end of Saturday afternoon session. His paper dealt with Middle Ages maverick Coptic priest, Marcus Ibn Qunbar and his Orthodox contender, Michael, Bishop of Dumyat. The author distributed a valuable handout to the audience that had a summary of Table of Contents for Ibn Qunbar newly discovered Book of the Master and the Disciple or The 8 chapters , and a summary of Anba Michael's recitation of the errors found in Ibn Qunbar's writings. The presentation however centered on the teaching regarding Redemption or according to the author, the Old Old story of Jesus love. Qunbar's writing on the subject was eloquently contrasted to that of St. Athansius' sophisticated argument in the Incarnation of the

Word, and that of Severus Ibn al-Muqaffah's Kitab al-Idah (?). All in all, the author pointed out that the charges leveled on Ibn Qunbar did not seem to hold water too well when compared to his own words. Miscellaneous: The only presentation in this category is that of Dr. J. Harold Ellens, Michigan, titled, Al Fihrst of ibn al-Nadim and Coptic Christianity in the Tenth Century . This was delivered in the Saturday late morning session. In it he portrayed the ancient author as a learned 10 th century bookseller who read, wrote, and collected every thing under the sun. Al Fihrist was his encyclopedia of human knowledge up to his time. He devoted some space for the Copts in Egypt and recounted some intriguing details about a certain bishop of Alexandria (?) by the name of Yahya al-Nahwi (translated as John the Grammarian) supposedly around the time of the Arab Conquest of Egypt in the 7 th century. He related about him, his struggle against Monothelites as well as his purported welcome to the conquest of the Arabs of Egypt. He also related a story about a liberal Moslem Theologian that was professing that the Christians were right to say that the Word of Allah is Allah (cf. John 1). Neither personality can be clearly identified from independent sources but it would make for very interesting future research. Business Meeting of the Society: At the conclusion of the Conference, we conducted our second annual business meeting for the members. The meeting was presided over by Hany. N. Takla, the Society's President, assisted by Dr. Fawzy Estafanous, the President of St. Mark Foundation. The following items were discussed and/or agreed upon: 1. The financial Report of the Society: A graphical report of main income and expenses was distributed, showing comparison between this year numbers and the past five years. The major single expense was the Digitizing of the Coptic Microfilm Project, which was primarily funded by special contributions

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

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