DREAMS, VIRTUE AND DIVINE KNOWLEDGE IN EARLY CHRISTIAN EGYPT What did dreams mean to Egyptian Christians of the fi rst to the sixth centuries? Alexandrian philosophers, starting with Philo, Clement and Origen, developed a new approach to dreams that was to have profound eff ects on the spirituality of the medieval West and Byzantium. Th eir approach, founded on the principles of Platonism, was based on the convictions that God could send prophetic dreams and that these could be interpreted by people of suffi cient virtue. In the fourth century, the Alexandrian approach was expanded by Athanasius and Evagrius to include a more holistic psychological understanding of what dreams meant for spiritual progress. Th e ideas that God could be known in dreams and that dreams were linked to virtue fl ourished in the context of Egyptian desert monasticism. Th is volume traces that development and its infl uence on early Egyptian experiences of the divine in dreams. BRONWEN NEIL is Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University, Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University and Research Fellow of the University of South Africa. She is co-e ditor of Th e Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor (2015), C ollecting Early Christian Letters (Cambridge, 2015) and Th e Brill Companion to Gregory the Great (2013). DORU COSTACHE is Senior Lecturer in Patristic Studies at St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Th eological College in Sydney and Honorary Associate of Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney. He is co-a uthor of Ş tiin ţ ă ş i teologie: Preliminarii pentru Dialog (2001) and co- editor of W ell- Being, Personal Wholeness and the Social Fabric (2017). KEVIN WAGNER is Lecturer in Th eology at the University of Notre Dame, Australia. He has been the principal convenor of the Th eology at the Beginning of the Th ird Millennium series of conferences and is the lead editor of the accompanying book series. DREAMS, VIRTUE AND DIVINE KNOWLEDGE IN EARLY CHRISTIAN EGYPT BRONWEN NEIL Macquarie University, Sydney DORU COSTACHE St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Th eological College, Sydney KEVIN WAGNER University of Notre Dame, Sydney University Printing House, Cambridge CB 2 8 BS , United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314– 321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06- 04/ 06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title:  https://www.cambridge.org/9781108481182 DOI : 1 0.1017/ 9781108646802 © Bronwen Neil, Doru Costache and Kevin Wagner 2019 Th is publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2019 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Neil, Bronwen, author. | Costache, Doru, author. | Wagner, Kevin (Th eologian), author. Title: Dreams, virtue and divine knowledge in early Christian Egypt / Bronwen Neil, Doru Costache, Kevin Wagner. Description: Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifi ers: LCCN 2019002333 | ISBN 9781108481182 (hardback) | ISBN 9781108740432 (paperback) Subjects: LCSH: Dreams – Religious aspects – Christianity. | Alexandrian school, Christian. | Th eology, Doctrinal – History – Early church, ca. 30–600. | Knowledge, Th eory of (Religion) | Virtue. Classifi cation: LCC BR 115. D 74N45 2019 | DDC 248.2/9–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002333 ISBN 978- 1- 108- 48118- 2 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URL s for external or third- party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents Figure page vi Acknowledgements vii List of Abbreviations ix 1 An Introduction to Greco- Roman Traditions on Dreams and Virtue 1 Bronwen Neil and Kevin Wagner 2 Th e Development of an Alexandrian Tradition 26 Bronwen Neil 3 Sleep, Dreams and Soul- Travel: Athanasius within the Tradition 66 Doru Costache 4 Synesius of Cyrene and Neoplatonic Dream Th eory 116 Kevin Wagner 5 Expanding beyond the Egyptian Ascetic Tradition 169 Bronwen Neil Bibliography 185 Index of Scripture 205 Index of Sources 206 General Index 209 v Figure 4.1 A diagrammatic representation of the relationship between the body, the soul and the soul’s vehicle page 147 vi Acknowledgements W e are grateful to the Australian Research Council for supporting this research through the Future Fellowship (FT 140100226) held by Bronwen Neil from 2014 to 2018. Bronwen would like to record her gratitude to various colleagues, conference delegates and reviewers for their critiques on the work in progress, especially Doru Costache, Kevin Wagner, David Runia and Damien Casey. Th e volume sprang from two events convened by Doru Costache at St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Th eological College: the annual patristics symposium in 2014, ‘From Alexandria to Cappadocia and Back Again’, and a seminar, ‘Dreaming in the Ascetical and Philosophical Traditions of Late Antiquity’ (April 2015). Later drafts were presented at the North American Patristics Society annual meeting (Chicago) in May 2016; the Canadian Society for Patristic Studies meeting (Calgary) in June 2016; the Asia Pacifi c Early Christian Studies Society confer- ence (St Petersburg) in September 2016; and the conference ‘Praying and Contemplating in Classical and Late Antiquity’, convened at North-W est University, Potchefstroom, South Africa, in March 2016. Th e second part of Chapter 4 is taken from Kevin Wagner’s unpublished PhD thesis (2015) and has been included here with slight modifi cations. Parts of Chapter 2 have been reworked from Bronwen Neil’s chapter in the proceedings published by Mohr Siebeck (Neil 2018a ), and I am grateful to the editors, Eleni Pachoumi and Mark Edwards, for their comments. C hapter 3 is a thoroughly revised and expanded form of Doru Costache’s article in P hronema (2016). His research, which was begun at St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Th eological College, a member institution of the Sydney College of Divinity, was completed in the Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney, and in the School of Philosophy and Th eology at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney. Doru wishes to record his gratitude to Bronwen Neil for her pertinent remarks and patient rec- tifi cation of stylistic shortcomings. At the University of Sydney, Doru has vii viii Acknowledgements benefi ted from the competent advice of Carole Cusack, Iain Gardner and Garry Trompf, to whom he is deeply indebted. At various stages, he has sought and received expert advice from Augustine Casiday, Alin Suciu, Andrew Louth and Diana Wood Conroy, to whom he is also grateful. We express our sincere thanks to Sandra Sewell, who proofread and subedited the volume, Ryan Strickler for doing the index, and to the anonymous readers appointed by Michael Sharp and all his team at Cambridge University Press who off ered useful suggestions for improve- ment. Finally, to our friends and families – especially Damien Casey, Helen Wagner, Otilia Costache and Adam Cooper – who have off ered their patient support during three years of writing, editing, rewriting and reediting, we cannot suffi ciently express our gratitude. Abbreviations ANF Ante- Nicene Fathers CCSG Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca CCSL Corpus Christianorum Series Latina CPL Clavis Patrum Latinorum CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum FOTC Fathers of the Church GCSNF Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller. Neue Folge HE Historia ecclesiastica JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies JTS Journal of Theological Studies LCL Loeb Classical Library LXX Septuaginta:  id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta lxx interpretes, eds. A. Rahlfs and R. Hanhart. Rev edn. Stuttgart, 2006 NPNF Nicene and Post- Nicene Fathers Series 1 and 2 NS New Series PG Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Graeca , ed. J.- P. Migne, 161 vols. Paris, 1857– 66 PL Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina , ed. J.- P. Migne, 221 vols. Paris, 1844– 64 SAPERE Scripta antiquitatis posterioris ad ethicam religionemque pertinentia . T ü bingen SC Sources chr é tiennes. Paris, 1943– SP Studia Patristica . Berlin, Leuven, 1957 SVTQ St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly VC Vigiliae Christianae VCS Vigiliae Christianae Supplements. Leiden, 1987– ix