The Healing Shrines of St. Phoibammon: Evidence of Cult Activity in Coptic Legal Documents
Abstract:
A group of 8th century Coptic child donation documents addressed to the monastery of Apa Phoibammon on the mountain of Jeme in Upper Egypt has been the subject of much discussion. The exclusively male children donated by their parents have always been understood as gifts to the monastery itself, a place where they were, however, not intended to grow up as monks, but to remain as lifelong servants. The reason stated for these donations were miracle healings granted by Apa Phoibammon, the patron saint of that monastery, in his local healing shrine. Such donations of cured former patients are a common feature especially to shrines of healing saints as demonstrated by their frequent descriptions in miracle stories circulating widely in the early Arab period. Juxtaposing phrases used in these Coptic legal texts with those from miracle stories of famous Egyptian healing saints, such as Coluthus, Menas, and Phoibammon himself, can demonstrate the impact hagiography had on daily experience and vice versa. The documentary evidence from Jeme thus forms the missing link between hagiography and reality as it emphasizes the practicalities involved when people were donated as living testimonies of a saint’s miraculous healing power. Due to the desire to legalize such donations, a written contract could only have been drawn up with the saint’s legal representative, in this case the abbot of the monastery at Jeme, who ran the healing shrine of Apa Phoibammon where the donated children would serve.[1]
© De Gruyter 2016
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- Erratum
- Konrad F. Zawadzki: Der Kommentar Cyrills von Alexandrien zum 1. Korintherbrief. Einleitung, kritischer Text, Übersetzung, Einzelanalyse
- Stellenregister für Band 20/Index for Volume 20
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Artikel
- Ancient Book Culture and the Literacy of James: On the Production and Consumption of a Pseudepigraphal Letter
- Cyprian, Paul, and Care for the Poor and Captive: Offering Sacrifices and Ransoming Temples
- Adam and the Logos: Aphrahat’s Christology in Demonstration 17 and the “Imponderables of Hellenization”
- Greek Lists of the Apostles: New Findings and Open Questions
- The Healing Shrines of St. Phoibammon: Evidence of Cult Activity in Coptic Legal Documents
- Rezensionen
- Alistair C. Stewart: The Original Bishops. Office and Order in the First Christian Communities
- Gabriele Spira: Paradies und Sündenfall. Stoffe und Motive der Genesis 3- Rezeption von Tertullian bis Ambrosius
- Ville Vuolanto: Children and Asceticism in Late Antiquity. Continuity, Family Dynamics and the Rise of Christianity Christian Laes, Katariina Mustakallio und Ville Vuolanto, Hgg.: Children and Family in Late Antiquity. Life, Death and Interaction
- Katharina Greschat: Gelehrte Frauen des frühen Christentums. Zwölf Porträts
- Anders-Christian Jacobsen: Christ—the Teacher of Salvation. A Study on Origen’s Christology and Soteriology
- Siegfried G. Richter, Charles Horton and Klaus Ohlhafer, eds.: Mani in Dublin. Selected Papers from the Seventh International Conference of the International Association of Manichaean Studies in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, 8–12 September 2009
- Stefan Klug: Alexandria und Rom. Die Geschichte einer Beziehung zweier Kirchen in der Antike
- Ann Conway-Jones: Gregory of Nyssa’s Tabernacle Imagery in its Jewish and Christian Contexts
- Chris L. de Wet: Preaching Bondage: John Chrysostom and the Discourse of Slavery in Early Christianity
- Philippe Blaudeau und Peter Van Nuffelen, Hgg.: L’historiographie tardo-antique et la transmission des savoirs
- Erratum
- Konrad F. Zawadzki: Der Kommentar Cyrills von Alexandrien zum 1. Korintherbrief. Einleitung, kritischer Text, Übersetzung, Einzelanalyse
- Stellenregister für Band 20/Index for Volume 20
