Ausar
Joined: 05 Mar 2004
Posts: 468
Location: The wrong side of the tracks
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| Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 1:32 pm Post subject: Book of Jeu: ancient Egyptian influces in Coptic Literature |
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One arguement for this demographic continuity,of course, is the Coptic modium itself;while systematized for
Christian literature in the fourth century, the writing system , we have seen,probably originated in the
temples for ritual purposes. Thus some early Coptic scribes may well have carried traditional assumptions
about the power of writing and vocalized sacred textsinto monasteries along with their skill in Coptic
translation. The evidence most encouraging of this notion is the third of fourth century Gnostic text, the
Book of Jeu, whose author has constructed rituals of heavenly asent according to models of Egyptian
mortuary texts, all famed as a dialogue between Jesus and the apostles. Classical Egyptian mortuary
''guides'' which protected the soul in its passage through the underworld, are represented into the second
century C.E.[73] And likewise the Books of Jeu present the passage for a soul's ascent as a sequence of
doors, each held by a guardian figure whose name must be known and to whom one must display a ''seal''
and utter a spell.
page 261
Like a passport through the heavens Jeu contains the drawings of these seals,which consist of none other than kharakteres, discussed above as heirs to the ideas of hieroglyphics.[74]
Jeu is certainly Christian in its choice of literary for ascent ritual in Jeu ultimately became broadly diffused in l
late antique religion. But Jeu's proximity to the ancient mortuary ''guides'' and the apotropaic rites and
symbols that tradition involved point to ascribe well-versed in such traditions of such mortuary texts.[75]
The shift from a traditional priestly to a Christian-Gnostic milieu is that no more radical than the shift from
temple to Hermetic conventicle that Garth Fowden described so cogently [76] Of course, one must take the
concept of ''shift'' in its loose sense, since the mere fact of conserved tradition implies more of a reassertion
than a transformation of scribal self-definition.
page 262
Religion in Roman Egypt:
Assimilation and Resistance
David Frankfurter
ISBN: 0-691-07054-7 |
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