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Ivan Miroshnikov, Writing and Communication in Early Egyptian Monasticism. Edited by Malcolm Choat and Maria Chiara Giorda, The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 71, Issue 1, April 2020, Pages 360–362, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flz166
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This excellent volume, comprising ten chapters, deals with various issues pertaining to ‘writing practices and communication networks within early Egyptian monasticism, from the fourth to the eighth centuries ce’ (p. 9). Two introductory essays (first by Lillian I. Larsen, then by the editors of the volume, Malcolm Choat and Maria Chiara Giorda), offering an overview of the volume and warning the reader of both scholarly and hagiographic ‘caricatures’ of early monastic (il)literacy, are followed by eight articles arranged alphabetically according to the authors’ surnames.
Malcolm Choat’s informative article (ch. 3) offers a survey at length of documentary letters whose senders and/or addressees were monks and which can be dated prior to the middle of the fifth century ce. Scholars of Coptic papyrology should be especially grateful to Choat for compiling a list of early monastic letters written in Coptic that are not included in a known archive—and whose dating, therefore, is a matter of debate—and for his cogent exploration of the acceptability of an early date for a letter proposed by its editors (pp. 44–6). Choat offers an admirably balanced view on the provenance of the papyrus fragments recovered from the book covers of the Nag Hammadi codices that have very often, albeit somewhat inaccurately, been designated ‘cartonnages’ (pp. 33–6).
