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SHENOUTE: UPDATE Heike Behlmer Keywords: Shenute, Saint, approximately 348-466; Besa, Abbot of Athripe, active 5th century; Coptic Christian Saints; Saints; Monks; Monasteries; Dayr Anba Shinudah (Suhaj, Egypt: Province); Abbots; Akhmim (Egypt); Authors; Manichaeism; Manuscripts; Coptic language; Coptic literature. Shenoute (lived late 4th to mid-5th cent.) was the abbot of a monastic federation in Upper Egypt and arguably the most important Coptic author of the late fourth and fifth centuries. Shenoute was the third leader of an ascetic community founded by his uncle Pgol around the middle of the 4th century. This community was using a set of rules adapted from the Pachomian rule, and at Pgol’s death hosted about 30 monks and nuns (Layton 2014: 27-34). Under Shenoute’s leadership, the community developed into a center of monastic life and culture, consisting of three interconnected communities (Yale Monastic Archaeology Project South (Sohag); Davis forthcoming): two monasteries for men, the Monastery of Apa Shenoute (DAYR ANBA SHINUDAH) or White Monastery (Dayr al-Abyad), and the Red Monastery (DAYR ANBA BISHOI or Dayr al-Ahmar; Bolman 2016); and a monastery for women located in an Egyptian temple in the village of Atripe near modern Sohag, as well as individual cells for (male) hermits. In the 30 years since the appearance of the Coptic Encyclopedia entry SHENUTE, SAINT written by Karl Heinz Kuhn, huge progress has been made in all areas of Shenoutean studies, in particular the reconstruction of the manuscript tradition of Shenoute’s works (Emmel 2004a) and later traditions about this monastic leader, his theology, and the linguistic and literary characteristics of his writing, as well as the built environment and material culture of his monastic federation (Blanke 2019; Davis forthcoming). It is difficult to do justice to this flood of new research, but its progress has been charted and made accessible by numerous overviews (Timbie 2005, 2010, 2015a, 2015b, and 2

Based on the legacy and published works of the Göttingen orientalist Paul de Lagarde (1827-1891), the contributors to this volume undertake a historical inventory of his life and scientific work, including its political aspects, especially Lagarde's anti-Semitism. Besides describing the history of German Ancient Near Eastern Studies, the book also furnishes a broader context against the backdrop of then-prevalent "völkisch" ideology.