Item Details

Memory and Early Monastic Literary Practices: A Cognitive Perspective

Issue: Vol 1 No. 1 (2014)

Journal: Journal of Cognitive Historiography

Subject Areas: Ancient History Cognitive Studies Archaeology

DOI: 10.1558/jch.v1i1.98

Abstract:

This article argues that certain important aspects of the institutionalized literary practices of early cenobitic monasticism and the rhetorics related to them may be significantly illuminated by insights from the cognitive study of the human mind and its relationship with the world. Using examples from our sources of early cenobitic monasticism in Egypt, specifically writings from the Pachomian federation and Shenoute of Atripe, this article suggests ways in which cognitive perspectives on memory and literature may shed light on the practices of reading, memorizing, and interpreting authoritative texts, and the corresponding need to control such practices, in the early monastic communities. In doing so, this article argues for the importance of keeping both individual and collective processes of memory in mind if we want to understand the influence of the mechanics of human memory systems on the ideas and practices of the early monastic communities, and suggests ways in which such perspectives may be combined.

Author: Hugo Lundhaug

View Original Web Page

References :

Barnier, A. J., and J. Sutton. 2008. “From Individual to Collective Memory: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives”. Memory 16(3): 177–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09541440701828274
Barnier, A. J., J. Sutton, C. B. Harris and R. A. Wilson. 2008. “A Conceptual and Empirical Framework for the Social Distribution of Cognition: The Case of Memory”. Cognitive Systems Research 9: 33–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2007.07.002
Behlmer, H. 2008. “Do Not Believe Every Word Like the Fool…!: Rhetorical Strategies in Shenoute”. Canon 6. In Christianity and Monasticism in Upper Egypt. I. Akhmim and Sohag, edited by Gawdat Gabra and Hany N. Takla. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1–12.
Boon, A. 1932. Pachomiana latina: Règle et épîtres de s. Pachôme, épître de s. Théodore et ‘Liber’ de s. Orsiesius: Texte latin de s. Jérôme (Bibliothéque de la Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 7); Leuven: Bureax de la Revue.
Brakke, David. 2010. “A New Fragment of Athanasius’ Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter: Heresy, Apocrypha, and the Canon”. Harvard Theological Review 103(1): 47–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0017816009990307
Clark, A. 1997. Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
—2001. Mindware: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Cognitive Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
—2005. “Intrinsic Content, Active Memory and the Extended Mind”. Analysis 65(1): 1–11.
—2008a. “Pressing the Flesh: A Tension in the Study of the Embodied Embedded Mind?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 76(1): 37–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2007.00114.x
—2008b. Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333213.001.0001
Clark, A., and D. Chalmers. 1998. “The Extended Mind”. Analysis 58(1): 7–19.
Coleman, J. 1992. Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521331
Coquin, R.-G. 1984. “Les Lettres festales d’Athanase (CPG 2102), Un nouveau complément: Le manuscrit IFAO copte 25”. Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 15: 133–58.
Craik, F. I. M. 2007. “Encoding: A Cognitive Perspective”. In Science of Memory: Concepts, edited by Henry L. Roediger, Yadin Dudai and Susan M. Fitzpatrick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 129–35.
Cubitt, G. 2007. History and Memory. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Damasio, A. R. 1994. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York: Putnam.
Davis, S. J. 2008. Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt, Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199258628.001.0001
DiMaggio, P. 1997. “Culture and Cognition”. Annual Review of Sociology 23: 263–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.23.1.263
Emmel, S. 1995. “Theophilus’s Festal Letter of 401 as Quoted by Shenoute”. In Divitiae Aegypti: Koptologische und verwandte Studien zu Ehren von Martin Krause, edited by Cäcilia Fluck, Lucia Langener, Siegfried Richter, Sofia Schaten and Gregor Wurst. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 93–98.
—2002. “From the Other Side of the Nile: Shenute and Panopolis”. In Perspectives on Panopolis: An Egyptian Town from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest: Acts from an International Symposium Held in Leiden on 16, 17 and 18 December 1998, edited by A. Egberts, B. P. Muhs and J. van der Vliet (Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava, 31.; Leiden: Brill, 95–113.
—2004a. Shenoute’s Literary Corpus. 2 vols. CSCO 599–600, Subsidia 111–112. Leuven: Peeters.
—2004b. “Shenoute the Monk: The Early Monastic Career of Shenoute the Archimandrite”. In Il monachesimo tra eredità e aperture: Atti del simposio “Testi e temi nella tradizione del monachesimo cristiano” per il 50o anniversario dell’Istituto Monastico di Sant’ Anselmo, Roma, 28 maggio - 1o giugno 2002, edited by Maciej Bielawski and Daniël Hombergen (Studia Anselmiana, 140; Analecta Monastica, 8. Rome: Centro Studi S. Anselmo/Herder, 151–74.
—2007. “Coptic Literature in the Byzantine and Early Islamic world”. In Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300–700, ed. Roger S. Bagnall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 83–102.
—2008. “Shenoute’s Place in the History of Monasticism”. In Christianity and Monasticism in Upper Egypt. I. Akhmim and Sohag, edited by Gawdat Gabra and Hany N. Takla. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 31–46.
Emmel, S., and C. E. Römer. 2008. “The Library of the White Monastery in Upper Egypt”. In Spätantike Bibliotheken: Leben und Lesen in den frühen Klöstern Ägyptens, edited by Harald Froschauer and Cornelia Eva Römer. Nilus: Studien zur Kultur Ägyptens und des Vorderen Orients, 14. Wien: Phoibos, 5–14.
Fauconnier, G., and M. Turner. 1998. “Conceptual Integration Networks”. Cognitive Science 22(2): 133–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog2202_1
—2002. The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.
Fish, S. 1980. Is There a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Foat, M. E. 1996. “I Myself Have Seen: The Representation of Humanity in the Writings of Apa Shenoute of Atripe”, PhD diss., Brown University, Providence.
Gardiner, J. M. 2007. “Retrieval: On Its Essence and Related Concepts”. In Science of Memory: Concepts, edited by Henry L. Roediger, Yadin Dudai and Susan M. Fitzpatrick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 221–24.
Goehring, J. E. 1999a. “The Origins of Monasticism”. In Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Early Egyptian Monasticism (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity). Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 13–35.
—1999b. “Calcedonian Power Politics and the Demise of Pachomian Monasticism”. In Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Early Egyptian Monasticism (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 241–61.
—1999c. “The Fourth Letter of Horsiesius and the Situation in the Pachomian Community Following the Death of Theodore”. In Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Early Egyptian Monasticism (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity). Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 221–40.
—1999d. “Monastic Diversity and Ideological Boundaries in Fourth-Century Christian Egypt”. In Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Early Egyptian Monasticism (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity). Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 196–218.
—2006. “2005 NAPS Presidential Address: Remembering Abraham of Farshut: History, Hagiography, and the Fate of the Pachomian Tradition”. Journal of Early Christian Studies 14(1): 1–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/earl.2006.0017
Graham, W. A. 1987. Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hogan, P. C. 2003. Cognitive Science, Literature, and the Arts: A Guide for Humanists. New York: Routledge.
Kotsifou, C. 2007. “Books and Book Production in the Monastic Communities of Byzantine Egypt”. In The Early Christian Book, edited by William E. Klingshirn and Linda Safran (CUA Studies in Early Christianity). Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 48–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/earl.2007.0015
Krawiec, R. 2008. “The Role of the Female Elder in Shenoute’s White Monastery”. In Christianity and Monasticism in Upper Egypt: Volume 1: Akhmim and Sohag, edited by Gawdat Gabra and Hany N. Takla. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 59–71.
Layton, B. 2007. “Rules, Patterns, and the Exercise of Power in Shenoute’s Monastery: The Problem of World Replacement and Identity Maintenance”. Journal of Early Christian Studies 15(1): 45–73.
—2008. “The Ancient Rules of Shenoute’s Monastic Federation”. In Christianity and Monasticism in Upper Egypt: Volume 1: Akhmim and Sohag, edited by Gawdat Gabra and Hany N. Takla. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 73–81.
—2009a. “The Monastic Rules of Shenoute”. In Monastic Estates in Late Antique and Early Islamic Egypt: Ostraca, Papyri, and Essays in Memory of Sarah Clackson, edited by Anne Boud’hors, James Clackson, Catherine Louis and Petra Sijpesteijn (American Studies in Papyrology, 46). Cincinnati, OH: The American Society of Papyrologists, 170–77.
—2009b. “Some Observations on Shenoute’s Sources: Who are Our Fathers?” Journal of Coptic Studies 11: 45–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.2143/JCS.11.0.2044698
Lefort, L.-T. 1955. S. Athanase: Lettres festales et pastorales en copte (CSCO 150, Scriptores Coptici 19). Leuven: L. Durbecq.
—1965. Œuvres de S. Pachôme et de ses disciples (CSCO 159, Scriptores Coptici 23). Leuven: L. Durbecq.
Leipoldt, J. 1906–1913. Sinuthii Archimandritae: Vita et Opera Omnia, 3 vols. CSCO 41, 42, 73, Scriptores Coptici 1, 2, 5. Paris: Imprimérie nationale.
Lundhaug, H. 2008. “Cognitive Poetics and Ancient Texts”. In Complexity, ed. Willy Østreng (Interdisciplinary Communications 2006/2007). Oslo: Centre for Advanced Study, 18–21.
—2010. Images of Rebirth: Cognitive Poetics and Transformational Soteriology in the Gospel of Philip and the Exegesis on the Soul (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 73). Leiden: Brill.
—2012. “Shenoute’s Heresiological Polemics and Its Context(s)”. In Invention, Rewriting, Usurpation: Discursive Fights over Religious Traditions in Antiquity, edited by David Brakke, Jörg Ulrich and Anders-Christian Jacobsen (Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity, 11). Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 239–61.
Moscovitch, M. 2007. “Memory: Why the Engram is Elusive”. In Science of Memory: Concepts, edited by Henry L. Roediger, Yadin Dudai and Susan M. Fitzpatrick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 17–21.
Munier, H. 1916. Manuscrits coptes (Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, 9201–9304. Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale.
Olick, J. K. 1999. “Collective Memory: The Two Cultures”. Sociological Theory 17/3: 333–48.
Orlandi, T. 1985. Shenute contra origenistas: Testo con introduzione e traduzione (Unione Accademica Nazionale: Corpus dei Manoscritti Copti Letterari. Rome: C.I.M.
—2002. “The Library of the Monastery of Saint Shenute at Atripe”. In Perspectives on Panopolis: An Egyptian Town from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest: Acts from an International Symposium Held in Leiden on 16, 17 and 18 December 1998, edited by A. Egberts, B. P. Muhs and J. van der Vliet (Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava, 31). Leiden: Brill, 211–31.
Reese, E., and R. Fivush. 2008. “The Development of Collective Remembering”. Memory 16(3): 201–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658210701806516
Robinson, J. M. 1990. “The First Christian Monastic Library”. In Coptic Studies: Acts of the Third International Congress of Coptic Studies: Warsaw, 20–25 August, 1984, ed. Włodzimierz Godlewski. Warsaw: PWN, 371–78.
Roediger, H. L., F. M. Zaromb and A. C. Butler. 2009. “The Role of Repeated Retrieval in Shaping Collective Memory”. In Memory in Mind and Culture, edited by Pascal Boyer and James V. Wertsch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 138–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511626999.009
Rousseau, P. 2007. “The Successors of Pachomius and the Nag Hammadi Codices: Exegetical Themes and Literary Structures”. In The World of Early Egyptian Christianity: Language, Literature, and Social Context, edited by James E. Goehring and Janet A. Timbie (CUA Studies in Early Christianity. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 140–57.
Schacter, D. L. 1996. Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind, and the Past. New York: Basic Books.
—2007. “Memory: Delineating the Core”. In Science of Memory: Concepts, edited by Henry L. Roediger, Yadin Dudai and Susan M. Fitzpatrick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 23–27.
Snyder, B. 2000. Music and Memory: An Introduction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Stewart, C. 1998. Cassian the Monk (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sutton, J. 2005. “Memory and the Extended Mind: Embodiment, Cognition, and Culture”. Cognitive Processing 6: 223–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10339-005-0022-x
Timbie, J. A., and J. R. Zaborowski. 2006. “Shenoute’s Sermon The Lord Thundered: An Introduction and Translation”. Oriens Christianus 90: 91–123.
Tollefsen, D. P. 2006. “From Extended Mind to Collective Mind”. Cognitive Systems Research 7: 140–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2006.01.001
Tulving, E., and D. L. Schacter. 1990. “Priming and Human Memory Systems”. Science 247(4940): 301–306. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.2296719
Veilleux, Armand. 1968. La liturgie dans le cénobitisme Pachômien au quatrième siècle (Studia Anselmiana, 57). Rome: Herder.
—1980–1982. Pachomian Koinonia: The Lives, Rules, and Other Writings of Saint Pachomius and His Disciples, 3 vols. Cistercian Studies Series. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 45–47.
Waring, J. 2002. “Literacies of Lists: Reading Byzantine Monastic Inventories”. In Literacy, Education and Manuscript Transmission in Byzantium and Beyond, edited by Catherine Holmes and Judith Waring (The Medieval Mediterranean Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400–1500 42). Leiden: Brill, 165–87.
Wertsch, J. V. 2009. “Collective Memory”. In Memory in Mind and Culture, edited by Pascal Boyer and James V. Wertsch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 117–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511626999.008
Wertsch, J. V., and H. L. Roediger. 2008. “Collective Memory: Conceptual Foundations and Theoretical Approaches”. Memory 16(3): 318–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658210701801434
Williams, M. H. 2006. The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226899022.001.0001