The Use and Dissemination of Religious Knowledge in Antiquity - Catherine Hezser
9. The Dissemination of Religious Knowledge through Apocrypha in Egyptian Monasteries
The Use and Dissemination of Religious Knowledge in Antiquity - Catherine Hezser
Hugo Lundhaug [+]
University of Oslo
Hugo Lundhaug is Professor of Biblical Reception and Early Christian Literature at the University of Oslo, Faculty of Theology, and scientific director of the interdisciplinary research school Authoritative Texts and Their Reception (ATTR). He has published books and articles on Coptic manuscripts and literature, monasticism, apocrypha, new philology, and cognitive theory, including Images of Rebirth: Cognitive Poetics and Transformational Soteriology in the Gospel of Philip and the Exegesis on the Soul (Leiden: Brill, 2010) and the co-authored (with Lance Jenott) The Monastic Origins of the Nag Hammadi Codices (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015).
Description
This article addresses the dissemination of religious knowledge by means of apocryphal texts and traditions transmitted in Egyptian monasteries from late antiquity to the early Islamic period. Placing the apocryphal texts of the Nag Hammadi Codices within the broader context of Egyptian monastic literary practices, looking at monastic manuscript collections from the fourth to the twelfth centuries, the paper argues that the production and use of Apocrypha was not a marginal phenomenon in Egyptian monasticism. On the contrary, the transmission of Apocrypha played a significant role in the distribution of religious knowledge.