Egypt

Located just beyond the Mesopotamian frontier, Egypt seems to have been the major destination of the first Manichaean efforts to penetrate the Roman Empire. The movement met with great success there, as the plentiful Coptic Manichaean texts attest.^[35] Manichaean influence extended beyond Alexandria and the Nile Delta to Upper Egypt far into the oasis towns of the western desert, as the recent find of a Coptic-Aramaic Manichaean book at Ismant El-Kharab illustrates.^[36]

The Christian bishops of the Hermopolite nome were important landowners in the fourth century, but their privileged socioeconomic status did not necessarily bring with it a facility for argumentation.^[37] In art area where the Manichaeans had been so successful, rosy optimism of the kind found in the Acta Archelai , with its hero's easy victories over Mani himself, may well have struck Christians contending with actual Manichaeans as unhelpfully simplistic, even incredible. One may even surmise that Manichaeans were not uncommonly favored to carry the day in such debates, as is dear from reports of an incident set in the city of Hermopolis Magna.

Copres, an Egyptian ascetic and leader of a small monastic community of fifty, arrived in Hermopolis one day to find that a Manichaean had been successful in persuading the local people to join his cause.^[38] From Copres' perspective, the unnamed Manichaean engaged in the deception of the inhabitants: "." The wording in the Greek text of Historia monachorum in Aegypto , our oldest source for this encounter, does not lend support to Lieu's assumption that Copres happened across the Manichaean while the latter engaged a large crowd in

[35] E.g., C. Schmidt and H. J. Polotsky, "Ein Mani-Fund in Ägypten: Originalschriften des Mani und seiner Schüler," SPAW , Phil.-hist. Klasse 1 (1933): 4-90. More generally, see W. Seston, "L'Égypte manichéene," Chronique d"Égypte 14 (1939): 362-72; G. Stroumsa, "Manichéisme et marranisme chez les manichéens d'Egypte," Numen 29 (1983): 184-201; idem, "The Manichaean Challenge to Egyptian Christianity," in B. A. Pearson and J. E. Goehring, eds., The Roots of Egyptian Christianity (Philadelphia, 1986), 307-19.

[36] On the site in general, see C. A. Hope, "Three Seasons of Excavations at Ismant el-Kharab in Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt," Mediterranean Archaeology 1 (1988): 160-78. Notices of the find appear in J. Leclaut and G. Clerc, "Fouilles et travaux en Égypte et au Soudan, 1987-1988," Orientalia 58 (1989): 404-5; eaedem, "Fouilles et travaux en Égypte et au Soudan, 1988-1989," Orientalia 59 (1990): 410-11.

[37] A. K. Bowman, "Landholding in the Hermopolite Nome in the Fourth Century, A.D.," JRS 75 (1985): 137-63.

[38] See Historia monachorum in Aegypto 10.30-35 [190-225] (A.-J. Festugière, ed., Historia monachorum in Aegypto , Subsidia Hagiographica 53 [Brussels, 1971], 87-89); and see Rufinus, Historia monachorum 9 (PL 21:426C-427B).

debate.^[39] The phrase "" should be interpreted simply to mean that the Manichaean had been finding support among the inhabitants of the town, probably through appeals to small groups and individuals. The aorist participle in the Greek text (though not the present participle in the Latin) certainly suggests that the deception took place prior to Copres' arrival. The references to actual crowds of people () appear some lines later, after the point where Copres engages the Manichaean in debate before the public (). Thus we may assume that these references are to the people, perhaps including both pagans and Christians, who would have gathered for a debate unfolding in an open area of the town.

In this contest, Copres did not enjoy the good fortune that attended Archelaus in his debate with Mani. Even Copres admitted that he utterly failed to convince his opponent, a euphemistic circumlocution implying that he lost the debate. Unperturbed, Copres resorted to a more unsavory means of demonstrating the truth of his faith:

Since () I was unable to persuade him in public, I turned and said to the crowds of listeners: "Light a great fire on the open road () and we are both going into the fire, and whichever one of us remains unhurt shall be the one who has the noble faith ()." When this had been done and the crowd zealously lit up the fire, I carried him with me into the flame.^[40]

At this point, the Manichaean blurted out what any clever youngster in a similar bind would say: "Let each of us go in by himself and you should go first since you suggested it." Undaunted, Copres crossed himself in the name of Christ,^[41] leapt into the fire, and remained there un-

[39] See Lieu, "Fact and Fiction in the Acta Archelai, " 83-84. See Tardieu, "Les manichéens en Égypte," 13-14.

[40] Historia monachorum 10.30-31 (Festugière, ed., 87-88). See also the version in Rufinus, Historia monachorum 9 ( PL 21:426C-427A):

Once I came down to the city and found there a man, a certain doctor of the Manichaeans, who was seducing the people. I had a debate with him, but because he was very cunning I was unable to shut him up with words. Fearing lest the crowds of listeners should be harmed if he were to depart with the appearance of being the victor in debate (veritus ne auditorum turbae laederentur, si ille quasi superior abscessisset in verbis) , I said before the crowds of listeners: 'Light a fire in the middle of the street and we will both go into the flame. You should believe that whichever one of us is not scorched by it, his is the true faith.' After I said this, the people were mightily pleased and a great fire was lit without delay.

Note the interesting expository expansion in Rufinus' version, italicized here.

[41] On the invocation of the name and titles of Christ as a form of protection against harm and sickness, see C. H. Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt (London, 1979), 82-84; R. W. Daniel and E Maltomini, Supplementum Magicum I , Papyrologica Coloniensia 16.1 (Wiesbaden, 1989), nos. 22, 23, and esp. 35, pp. 61-66, 102-3.

scathed for half an hour, after which the crowd shouted an acclamation () before the deed of wonder ().^[42] It was the Manichaean's turn to do the same, and the poor man was pushed against his will into the flames, where he suffered like any mortal lacking divine protection. After this clear demonstration of who had the upper hand, the assembled Hermopolite citizenry lifted up the victorious Copres and carried him in procession toward the church while praising God.^[43]

No doubt elaborated according to hagiographic conventions, this story nevertheless has a peculiar aspect of verisimilitude. If the story were invented out of whole cloth, the author would most likely not have wished to bring attention to the fact that the final victory was achieved only after an initial setback.^[44] In any case, the observation that the Manichaean could hold his own in a public debate with a Christian holy man is instructive about ancient expectations. The plots further development reminds us that Christians, failing to compete with Manichaeans in public debates for which the latter were normally well-prepared, sometimes altered the nature of the conflict or public demonstration to suit their own particular strengths. Needless to say, the ordeal, as a test of the extent of one's control over his own physical body, was a form of demonstration that dearly favored an ascetic who had made self-mortification his daily practice.^[45]

The easy shift from public debate to ordeal recounted above reminds us of the limitations of the cultural realm within which formal public disputations were appreciated. Illiterate and unlearned audiences found demonstrations of power by deeds more convincing than the ability to spin arguments.^[46] In encounters between religious rivals, deeds of wonder were commonly, though not necessarily, interpreted as signs of divine favor, whereas skill in argument was viewed as being of human, or even diabolical, origin.^[47] The report of a miracle of power possessed

[42] Historia monachorum 10.32 (Festugière, ed., 88); see J. Colin, Les villes libres de l'orient gréco-romain , 109-52.

[43] See Lieu, History of Manichaeism , 157, citing a later Syriac version of this story in the writings of Anan-Isho.

[44] I also accept Scott Bradbury's suggestion that this setback may reflect a hagiographical plot device to prepare the audience for a demonstration of power.

[45] This is not to say that Manichaeans were not respected ascetics in late antiquity; in fact, the opposite is true.

[46] For example, the success of the apostle Addai in Edessa was due to his deeds of wonder: "There was no one who stood against him, for the deeds which he did permitted no one to rise against him." See Doctrina Addai f.21b; English translation from G. Howard, ed., The Teaching of Addai (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1981), 67. On the low level of literacy in the ancient world, see W. V. Harris, "Literacy and Epigraphy I," ZPE 52 (1983): 87-111.

[47] On this issue see, for example, Julian the Apostate and Eusebius of Rome in the Julian legend, in H. Gollancz, Julian the Apostate (Oxford, 1928), 58-59.

wider and more direct appeal as a readily accessible icon for those who could not, or would not, embrace the bewildering complexities of verbal disputation. The ordeal can thus be read as the functional equivalent—a kind of sermo humilis —of the public debate.