Amente Demons and Christian Syncretism - David Frankfurter

David Frankfurter

Amente Demons and Christian Syncretism

Abstract: Drawing on a range of apocalyptic and magical texts from Roman and By-zantine Egypt, this paper argues that the Coptic Christian depiction of vicious under-world demons, so often cited as evidence of Egyptian survivals, in fact owes moreto Jewish apocalyptic literature than ancient Egyptian mortuary texts that scribesonly recalled Egyptian traditions in the course of reutilization and interpretation ofpara-biblical apocalyptic traditions. Secondly, the paper attributes the developmentof this Coptic underworld demonology to the creative agency of scribes in late anti-que Egyptian Christianity, in whose own subcultures and practices any model of de-monological syncretism must be situated.

I Introduction: An Egyptian Survival?One of the most widely supposed forms of classical Egyptian survival in late anti-que Egyptian Christianity is the literary depiction of Amente hell and its mon-strous, tormenting demons. Coptic descriptions of the gates through which thesoul must safely pass and the animal-headed monsters that threaten the souls dis-memberment at each gate seem clearly to recycle classical geographies and demon-ologies of Amente from Egyptian mortuary texts. This classical literary tradition wasmaintained in various forms in Egyptian literate (priestly) circles into the Greco-Roman period, as texts like the Book of the Dead, The Book of Gates, and The Lettersfor Breathing were inscribed for burial with the deceased, copied on tomb walls, andin some cases even drawn into temple contexts. Finding recollections or intimationsof these geographies and demonologies in Greek, Coptic, and other late Christiantexts from Egypt has long led scholars and casual readers to imagine a syncretismof Christianity and ingrained Egyptian beliefs.

What does it mean to speak of syncretism in this case? What details do we lookfor as unmistakably Egyptian, and what classical sources offer a base-line of Egyp-tian-ness, as opposed to other afterlife mythologies of the ancient world (or simplyChristian scribal inventiveness)? Does the category syncretism itself signify a devia-

Abbreviations: ACM = Meyer/Smith 1994; EAC = Bovon/Geoltrain/Kaestli 19972005; NHC = NagHammadi Corpus; NTA = Schneemelcher 2003; OTP = Charlesworth 1983 1985; PGM ICXXX =Preisendanz/Henrichs 1973 1974 (ILXXI), and Betz 1986 (ICXXX). My sincere gratitude to RitaLucarelli, Colleen Manassa, Jacques van der Vliet, and the Casablanca Group for their close readingsof prior drafts of this paper. Zandee 1960; Hornung 1999; Smith 2009; Spieser 2009, 14 18; Lucarelli 2010. E.g., Budge 1913, lxi lxxli; Burmester 1938, 36466; Hammerschmidt 1957, 24647. In general seeBehlmer 1996a.

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tion from a true or pure Christianity or that natural process by which a book orgreat tradition is acculturated? Most importantly, who would have been the agentsof this syncretism that is, in which social and cultural worlds do we situate thiskind of syncretism, and how is it different from other religious forms that came toexpress Christianity in local terms?

This paper will make two related proposals. First, the Christian depiction ofthese demons owes more to Jewish apocalyptic literature than ancient Egyptian mor-tuary texts that scribes only recalled Egyptian traditions in the course of reutiliza-tion and interpretation of para-biblical apocalyptic traditions. And second, the de-velopment of Amente demonology points to the creative agency of scribes in lateantique Egyptian Christianity, in whose own subcultures and practices any modelof demonological syncretism must be situated.

The classical Egyptian mortuary text the Book of the Dead describes the soulspost-mortem encounter with vicious, animal-headed door-guardians. These Amentedemons carried weapons and were charged with the dismemberment and dissolu-tion of the post-mortem body of the deceased, essentially eliminating its substancefrom the world of the dead (and thus its ancestral functions). By means of the mor-tuary text buried with her, the deceased would get through the gates these demonsguard in order to gain a pleasant and beneficent afterlife. In this way, Egyptian fu-nerary texts do present a distinctive eschatology in the wider Mediterranean worldof afterlife mythology.

But how consistent, or even culturally alive, was this demonology in the centu-ries immediate to Christianization the Ptolemaic and Roman periods? Funerary artof the Roman period, for example, offers little evidence for the exclusive or system-atic use of the Book of the Dead, more commonly evincing local workshops creativityin utilizing Egyptian and Hellenistic forms together to effect the souls transfigura-tion into a blessed and beneficent ancestor. Still, Egyptologists tend to view theBook of the Deads images of the afterlife passage as alive and authoritative intothe Roman period. The Egyptian novel of Setne-Khamwas, whose demotic manu-

This proposal essentially confirms and nuances the argument of Jan Zandee (1960, 30342). By demon I refer to an otherworldly being whose general function is to harass, obstruct, torment,or otherwise cause misfortune. However, outside Christian apocalyptic theology, the beings cust-omarily denoted as demons have a fundamentally ambivalent nature: i.e., with proper ritual know-ledge experts or gods can control and direct them, and they may serve essential roles in the cosmos(See Frankfurter 2006, 1326; Lucarelli 2011). Thus in denoting certain obstructive/tormenting figuresin the underworld as demons I do not imply their absolute opposition to other types of super-natural beings, as in Christianity. See Zandee 1960, 112259; Lucarelli 2010; and Meskell/Joyce 2003, 14451; with Spieser 2009, 1418; in particular on the functions of torture, dismemberment, and dissolution of the body. Riggs 2005; see also Dunand/Lichtenberg 1995. Kkosy 1982; Dunand/Lichtenberg 1995, 32993302; Hornung 1999, 13 14, with cautionary over-view of ms. evidence by Stadler 1012, 38788. I am grateful to Colleen Manassa for discussion on thispoint.

84 David Frankfurter

scripts date into the Roman period, includes a famous scene of underworld judgmentand the (rather Greek) punishments to which sinful souls are assigned, a quite differ-ent scene from the gates in the Book of the Dead. But what kind of evidence does ademotic Egyptian text of restricted readability offer to illuminate the context of Chris-tian scenes of Amente demons? How would it pertain to the world of Egyptian Chris-tian scribes or even popular mortuary beliefs?

A more immediate resource for underworld mythology in the Christian and im-mediately pre-Christian period in Egypt can be found in the late funerary texts.Across this quite diverse corpus of texts, which were recited and deposited withmummies as part of funerary ritual, the vicious gatekeeper demons are comparative-ly rare, especially by the Roman period. There are, to be sure, some reflections of theBook of the Deads system of gates and monstrous guardians. One text of earlyRoman vintage declares by the power of the written word and image that the de-ceased not be handed over to the blades of the slaughtering demons at the execu-tion of the damned through the words of any accuser. Another declares the soul assinless before such underworld judges as the devourer of blood who has come forthfrom the slaughterhouse. In another text the soul herself is rendered able to repelthe foe from the entrance of the underworld. [It is her Osiris that] will [not] weary ofbeheading the disaffected ones and trampling upon the rebel.

But the encounters of the soul with the guardians and judges of the underworldcould be welcoming as well:

you will pass safely through the twin doors of the cavern gods, and join those who are at rest.Welcome, welcome, so says the one who controls the throne, the collector of documents, in theact of clearing your way. Your arm will be grasped by the guardians of the portals.

Indeed, in the second-century bce document called The Book of Transformations, thevery animal heads of the watchers who guard the doors of the underworld lion,jackal, crocodile, serpent, and others signify the souls welcomed entry into theworld of the gods, not the approach of hideous monsters. In this regard, themodel of dangerously obstructive Amente demons would not have been a centralpart of afterlife mythology in Egyptian mortuary texts of the Greco-Roman period.

See Smith 2009, esp. 1122. Book of Glorifying the Spirit (P. Sekowski, cols. 12), tr. Smith 2009, 460. Letter for Breathing Which Isis Made for Her Brother Osiris (P. Louvre N 3158, 6/48/1), tr. Smith2009, 480. Book of Transformations (P. Louvre N 3122), tr. Smith 2009, 625. Book of Traversing Eternity, tr. Smith 2009, 407. It may be, as an anonymous reviewer proposed, that the construction of Amente beings aswelcoming served as a magical declaration to assure the souls passage rather than a description ofan alternate type of mortuary passage.

Amente Demons and Christian Syncretism 85

II The Depiction of Obstructive Demons in Christianand Allied Texts of the Roman Period.

A number of Egyptian Christian texts do, however, depict an afterlife passage that isdistinctive in its attention to demonic gatekeepers and punishers. A hagiographicaltext, the Life of Pisentius (VII-X ce) describes the punishers of Amente thus:

There were iron knives in their hands, and iron daggers with pointed ends as sharp as spearpoints, and they drove these into my sides, and they gnashed their teeth furiously againstme. I saw death suspended in the air in many forms. And straightway the Angels of crueltysnatched my wretched soul from my body, and they dragged me to Amenti When they hadcast me into the outer darkness I saw a great gulf, which was more than a hundred cubits deep,and it was filled with reptiles, and each one of these had seven heads, and all their bodies werecovered as it were with scorpions. And [one] had in its mouth teeth which were like unto pegsof iron. And one laid hold of me and cast me into the mouth of that Worm, which never stoppeddevouring.

Here, the victims are not those lacking the proper codes to pass by the guardians ofthe gates but rather heathens, non-Christians. It is a veritable collage of punitiveAmente demons, worthy of Hieronymus Bosch, bent on the dissolution of souls.But are its interests actually Egyptian in some perennial sense?

A more compelling example of Egyptian afterlife mythology in early Christiantexts is the Pistis Sophia, datable to the third or fourth century ce. Couched inthe popular early Christian literary frame of post-resurrection discourse Jesus ap-pears on a mountain to deliver secret teachings to his most intimate disciples thisparticular section of the Pistis Sophia begins as a teaching on world-renunciation toavoid the judgments of Amente, the fire of the Dog-Face [ ],the demons of Ialdabaoth, and other afterlife dangers (3.102). To the discipleMarys question as to the places of punishment in the outer darkness Jesus revealsthat

The outer darkness is a great dragon, whose tail is in his mouth, and it is outside the wholeworld and it surrounds the whole world. And there is a great number of places of judgment with-in it, and it has twelve chambers of severe punishments and an archon is in every chamber, andthe faces of the archons are different from one another. The first archon, moreover, which is inthe first chamber, has a crocodile-face, and his tail is in his mouth, and all freezing comes out ofthe mouth of the dragon, and all dust and all the various diseases. This one is called by his au-thentic name in his place Enchthonin. And the archon which is in the second chamber a cat-

V. Pisentii, ed. Amelineau 1887: 14749, tr. Budge 1913, 329. See also Discourse on Abbaton, esp.fol. 5a, 7b-8a (harasses souls to give up spirits), 22a (monstrous appearance), ed. Budge 1914. Ingeneral Zandee 1960, 32841. Pistis Sophia 12627, 14447, ed. Schmidt/MacDermot 1978a. Compare Mt 28: 1620; GosMary (BG 8502, 1); GosJudas (Cod. Tchacos); GosPhilip (NHC II, 3) SeeNickelsburg 1981. The genre still inspired new compositions in the eleventh century ce: see, e.g.,Suciu/Thomassen 2011.


face is his authentic face; this one is called in their place Charachar. And the archon which isin the third chamber, a dog-face is his authentic face; this one is called in their place Archar-och. And the archon which is in the fourth chamber a serpent-face is his authentic face. Thisone is called in their place Achro-char. And the archon which is in the fifth chamber a blackbull-face is his authentic face; this one is called in their place Marchur. And the archon which isin the sixth chamber a mountain pig-face is his authentic face; this one is called in their placeLamchamor. And the archon which is in the seventh chamber a bear-face is his authenticface; this one is called by his authentic name in their place Luchar. And the archon of theeighth chamber a vulture-face is his authentic face; this one is called by his name in theirplace Laraoch. And the archon of the ninth chamber a basilisk-face is his authentic face;this one is called by his name in their place Archeo-ch. And the tenth chamber: there is agreat number of archons within it, each one having seven dragon-heads with their authenticface. And the one over them all is called by his name in their place Zarmaroch. And the eleventhchamber: there is a great number of archons in that place, each one of them having seven cat-heads with their authentic face. And the great one over them is called in their place Rochar.And the twelfth chamber: there is a great number of archons in it, each one of them havingseven dog-heads with their authentic face. And the great one over them is called in theirplace Chremaor. Now these archons of these twelve chambers are inside the dragon of theouter darkness. And each one of them has a name according to the hour. And each one ofthem changes his face according to the hour. And furthermore, to each of these twelve chambersthere is a door opening to the height, so that the dragon of the outer darkness has twelve cham-bers of darkness, and there is a door to every chamber opening to the height.

The resemblance to the imagery of the Book of the Dead is both iconographic theanimal-headed rulers and functional the secret names by which the rulersmight be known and appeased. Of course, the text is framed as a Christian revela-tion; the cosmology is Christian (or Christian-Gnostic); and unlike the Amente de-mons of the Book of the Dead, which play an essential cosmic purpose in Osiris myth-ology, these animal-headed archons are we learn prone to rebellion []and prevented from such only by the oversight of the heavenly Jeu. Still, the authorslearned adherence in this section of the text to the Egyptian demonological/cosmo-graphical system of the Book of the Dead, when taken in the context of Pistis Sophiascomparatively early composition (that is, in comparison with the hagiographicaltexts to be considered below), suggests the authors direct acquaintance with sometraditions of Egyptian mortuary literature, whether through priestly training or famil-iarity with the scribes who maintained that literature through the early Roman peri-od. This is a specific model of Egyptian literary influence, however, that would notapply to texts composed after the fourth century and that ought to be applied to ear-lier Egyptian Christian texts only with special historical justification.

Pistis Sophia 126, ed./tr. Schmidt/MacDermot 1978a, 317 19. See in general Kkosy 1970. Acknowledging that manuscripts of the Book of the Dead itself largely ceased production after thePtolemaic period, even while its legacy seems to have continued in mortuary literature (see above,n.8). See also Frankfurter 1993,100102; 1998, 26164.


In fact, a wider assessment of early Egyptian Christian texts presents complica-tions to the presumption of broad survivals from Egyptian to Christian depictions ofAmente demons. Those Egyptian Christian texts composed on the early end, closer intime to the latest Egyptian mortuary books (and the relatively unusual Pistis Sophia),tended actually to transpose the journey of the soul from Amente to heaven. TheGnostic Apocalypse of Paul (II ce) describes the apostles ascent past toll-collec-tors [] of each heaven, who judge the worthiness of each passing soul(NHC V, 2). The Apocalypse of Elijah (III ce) promises that, for sectarian insiders,God will write [his] name upon their foreheads and seal their right hands sothat neither the Lawless One will have power over them, nor will the Thrones hinderthem, but they will go with the angels to my city. But as for those who sin, they willnot pass by the Thrones, but the Thrones of death will seize them and exert powerover them (Apoc.El. 1.9 11). This notion of ascending past demonic opponentsin the sub-heavenly realms by virtue of ones magical seals provided by Godor some type of manual constitutes a good part of the Pistis Sophia and virtuallythe entirety of its sister-text the Books of Jeu. The Books of Jeu provide actual imagesof the seals required for ascent, as if reflecting a ritual function beyond the texts nar-rative function. And indeed, Origen of Alexandria describes in the mid-third centu-ry ce what members of a certain Christian group are taught to say at the eternallychained gates of the Archons after passing through what they call the Barrier ofEvil.

As much as these motifs the souls movement through gates, the demonicguardians, and the passport provided by magical seals recall central featuresof the Egyptian mortuary texts, they also show signs of participating in a broaderMediterranean complex of heavenly ascent, judgment, astral beings, and evensome ritual practices. Texts like the Ascension of Isaiah, from second-century AsiaMinor, and the Hekhalot texts from late antique Palestinian Judaism imagine the an-gelic obstructions to heavenly ascent as maintaining the purity of heaven and itshost. Texts like the Acts of John, also from Asia Minor, and a report on Gnosticsby the second-century Latin author Irenaeus of Lyons describe elaborate funerarysymbols and spells used to protect the soul in its post-mortem ascent. The so-called

See Kakosy 1970, who views this transposition as due to Greek philosophical influences. Lucarelli2010; 2011 points to the migration of these monstrous guardian figures from mortuary literature totemple walls. On the diverse traditions informing this scene, see Pesthy 2007. Compare Athanasius, V. Ant. 65, 22. See Frankfurter 1993, 3537. Pistis Sophia 86, 98, 112 15, 13844. Ed./tr. Schmidt/MacDermot 1978b. The most thorough discussion of this text is Scott-Moncrieff1913, 18393. Origen, c. Celsum 6.31, tr. Chadwick 1965, 346. See especially Himmelfarb 1988. Irenaeus of Lyons, c. Haer. 1.21.5; Acts of John 114 15: the apostle John seals himself in everypart in anticipation of death, calling on the angels [to] be put to shame and demons be afraid; let


Mithras Liturgy, from a third-century Egyptian ritual manual, notes the approach ofasp- and bull-headed gods at different points in the ascending sequence of visionsand instructions (PGM IV.66393); but these are hardly demonic beings. As in theBook of Transformations mentioned earlier, they do not function to hinder somuch as welcome the visionary into the divine world. Egyptian Christian texts likeApocalypse of Elijah, Pistis Sophia, and Books of Jeu in fact seem to follow theBook of Revelation in imagining the seal as a protective insignia in the end-times or a component in mystical ascent rituals (Rev 7:34; 14:1; 22:4).

Reviewing this range of ascent texts from the early Roman Mediterranean worldwe can imagine that Egyptian mortuary book tradition (or its priestly hybrids) mightstand somewhere in the background. Even in Egyptian religious texts the sequencesand cosmic locations of gates and guardians of mortuary mythology were oriented indifferent ways for solar and Osiris mythologies and were customarily transposed toother cosmological functions, so descent/ascent and underworld/stratospheric pro-gressions were all conceivable orientations in Egyptian tradition. However, bythe third century of the Common Era the idea of passing through gates with demonicguardians had mutated in so many different directions, expressing so many differentreligious values, that it is quite difficult to derive even the texts of Egyptian prove-nance simply from their authors potential acquaintance with Egyptian mortuarytexts.

III The Legacy of Jewish and Christian ApocalypticLiterature in Demonology

Clearly this early Christian literature of the underworld that was developing bothwithin and beyond Egypt shows a more complicated development of afterlife orguardian-demons than simply the reprocessing of Egyptian mortuary gods. In fact,it is worth considering how hell itself evolved in Egyptian Christian literature

the rulers be shattered and the powers fall; let the places on the right hand stand fast and those on thleft by removed; let the devil be silenced, let Satan be deridedAnd grant me to finish my way to[Christ] preserved from violence and insult (Tr. NTA 2, 204). See Manassa in this volume; Darnell 2004; and Lucarelli 2011, 11924 So, for example, the Confession of Cyprian of Antioch (mid-IV ce), wherein the character Cyprian,in Memphis during his sorcery stage, encounters the diverse forms of demons, dragons, and Rulers ofDarkness, including the monstrous forms of hatred (blind, having four eyes in the back of its skullthat always shunned the light and many feet which hung directly from its head,), wickedness(thin, many-eyed, having arrows in the place of its pupils), and hooked-nose [](having its entire body sharp like a sickle and the pupils of its eyes sunk together in abandonment) Conf. Cyp. 4, ed./tr. Bailey 2009, 4043. The images of monstrous demonic afflicters here resemblethose of the (roughly contemporaneous) Testament of Solomon, but the Cyprian text deliberatelyplaces them in an Egyptian underworld.


how a Christian Amente came to function as a zone of monstrous beings. Christianimages of Amente show a relationship less to classical Egyptian mortuary traditionthan to the growing literature of hell in Jewish (and Christianizing) apocryphal textslike the Books of Enoch, the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, the Testament of Abraham, theApocalypse of Peter, and certainly the Book of Revelation, all of which were circulat-ing in Egyptian Christian culture by the fourth century ce.

The Jewish tradition of representing hell as it appears in these texts (and which,by the Roman period, had come to integrate Greek, Zoroastrian, and Egyptian after-life mythologies) revolves around a geography of punishment, in which particular an-gels assigned by God, like Tartarouchos or Temelouchos, are charged with inflictingeternal suffering on sinners. By the Roman period, so Martha Himmelfarb hasshown, these features extended to measure-for-measure punishments, torments al-lotted to sinners according to their sins, as exemplified in the Apocalypse of Peter,which originated in second-century ce Palestine:

And the children [who were exposed or aborted] shall be given to the angel Temlakos. And thosewho slew them will be tortured forever, for God wills it to be so. Ezrael, the angel of wrath,brings men and women with the half of their bodies burning and casts them into a place of dark-ness, the hell of men; and a spirit of wrath chastises them with all manner of chastisement, anda worm that never sleeps consumes their entrails And near to those who live thus were othermen and women who chew their tongues, and they are tormented with red-hot irons and havetheir eyes burned.

Ones painful state in the afterlife is keyed directly to the nature of ones sins in liferather than to the whims or specific agency of angels or demons. Apocalypse ofPeter was so influential as to inspire a late fourth-century Egyptian monk to composethe far more extensive geography of heaven and hell in the Apocalypse of Paul.

The early Jewish and Christian texts provided their readers and editors with es-pecially monstrous images of punitive afterlife angels: from Revelations human-headed, iron-scaled, giant stinging locusts under Abaddon to the Guardians ofHell in 2 Enoch, their faces like those of very large snakes, their eyes like extinguish-ed lamps, and their teeth naked down to their breasts, to the Accuser of Hades inthe Apocalypse of Zephaniah: His hair was spread out like the lionesses. Histeeth were outside his mouth like a bear. His hair was spread out like womens.

1 En 2122, 27; 2 En 42; ApocZeph; T. Abr. 17; Rev 9, 20 See Zandee 1960, 342; Himmelfarb 1983;and in general Bauckham 1998, 22126. Apoc.Pet. 89, tr. NTA 2, 63031. See now also Callon 2010 for an incisive discussion of this mirroring of punishment and sin. Insome respects Wisdom of Solomon 35 is the forerunner of these eschatological torments. Setne 2participates in this tradition, but it is difficult to see its derivation as ultimately Jewish or Egyptian. Himmelfarb 1983; Bauckham 1998, ch. 2. Apocalypse of Paul: Duensing, in NTA 2, 713 15; Bau-ckham 1998, 9293; Copeland 2001.


His body was like the serpents when he wished to swallow me. Most significantly,these beings are specified as angels or as serving at the direction of God and theArchangels to punish the sinful and none else. That is, they carry an explicitly ethicalfunction rather than the principally obstructive function borne by the demonic gate-keepers in the Book of the Dead or, for that matter, the astral demons of Gnosticascent literature. In both cases the underworld punishers are armed, vicious, mon-strous in appearance, and bent on inflicting unbearable pain (or, in the Egyptianmortuary texts, the dissolution of the soul), but their status in the larger religiousframework differs: in the Book of the Dead, the demons are guardians, foils insome sense to the efficacy of funerary ritual; while in the early Jewish and Christianapocalypses depicting hell, the angels provide graphic warning against sinfulnessand assurance that sin would be resolved in the next world.

These fundamental mythological differences, however, do not seem to have re-stricted the potential for a synthesis of afterlife demons in Egyptian Christianity.Abbot Shenoute of Atripe (IV-V ce) refers in a sermon to the chastisement of the de-mons that [the sinner himself] resembles, the chastisement that he will receivewith Satan in Amente, and how he will be received threateningly by the handof the Angel down to Amente. By the sixth century a Coptic text like the Martyr-dom of St. Shenoufe and his Brethren envisions whipping, flaying, and beheading de-mons, even while most tours of hell like the one credited to the monastic founderPachomius continued to specify the punitive beings as angels.

What is important to note here is that, after the fourth century, the main resour-ces for this synthesis of Amente demons could not have been Egyptian mortuarybook traditions, which depended on a vital priestly institution and knowledge ofEgyptian hieroglyphic writing, but rather the considerable corpus of apocalypticand apocryphal literature. It was, in fact, over the fifth and sixth centuries thatthese texts were undergoing extensive copying in Greek and translation to Coptic

Revelation 9; 2 En 42 [ms. A], tr. Andersen, OTP 1, 167; Apoc.Zeph. 6.8, tr. Wintermute, OTP 1, 512.Darnell notes some filiations between Apocalypse of Zephaniah (incorrectly labeled Apocalypse ofElijah) and Egyptian cosmographical tradition, 2004, 125. It is true that the B.D. implies an ethical presentation of the transitioning soul and, thus, of thepunishments he avoids, so that only the pure and sinless (as the text alleges) can enter or pass by.However, as a text the B.D. functions magically as a passport, a declaration or speech-act tocreate the clients innocence. Thus by virtue of the text itself he will not be driven off or turned awayat the portals of the Duat He will be permitted to arrive at every gate according to what is written(ch. 144, tr. Faulkner 1994, 121). Thus a bad person could be effectively presented as good throughthe spells of the B.D. In contrast, the punitive angels of the Jewish/Christian hell tradition preside overpunishments; no barriers at all restrict the souls entrance to their destined locations; they simplyland in each place, to receive their due rewards or punishments. De Iudicio, frag. 3v, 1r, ed. Behlmer 1996b, 3233 (216 17, tr.). Mart. Shen.: Reymond/Barns 1973, 1023 (txt), 203 (tr.). Pachomius: V. Pach. Sbo 88. Compare V.Sin. 88. In general see Frankfurter 1996, 17778. Demons of punishment: compare Apoc. Pet. 10.2(Eth.), on which Bauckham 1998, 225.


to produce many of the manuscripts we have today. (The ninth through twelfth cen-turies saw another spate of copying and editing, whence these texts became part ofmonastic libraries.) Syncretism in the development of Amente demons was there-fore a fundamentally interpretive process, drawing out the implications, powers,and images of the underworld angels of apocalyptic literature, but in such a wayas to invite the recollection of indigenous traditions of Amente demons.

Abbot Shenoute provides an example of this exegetical synthesis of Amentedemons. I have said many times, he argues in one of a number of sermons onthe topic of hell, that:

if the place did not exist [in which] the Lord God will give retribution to those who do these[sinful] things, the fallen would not [still] be kept in the cities, in the roads, in the streets, pierced and slaughtered by the hidden powers who bear these axes, just like those whom theprophet (Ezekiel) saw.

Shenoutes strategy here is to superimpose the vision of horrific slaughter-angelsfrom the Book of Ezekiel (ch. 9) onto Amente, allowing the demons of the under-world all the archaic powers to dismember and dissolve while still counting as an-gels of God. The monastic audiences attention is directed to the functions and pow-ers, albeit anonymous, of the punitive Amente beings, so that they appear moredemonic than angelic. Thus even in public discourse the lore of Amente had distinctbiblical and apocalyptic support and inspiration.

One must acknowledge another element in the apocalyptic traditions behindCoptic Amente demons: the construction of Death itself as a personified antagonistto a righteous hero. Also stemming from early Jewish tradition (Jer 9:21; 1 Cor 15:55;Ac 2:24; Rev 20: 14; et al.), the idea of Death as an enemy received extensive elabo-ration in the Testament of Abraham, where a horrific Death first disguises himself inorder to claim the patriarchs soul (1620, long recension), and in the so-calledharrowing of Hell tradition in early Christianity, which celebrated Christs conquestof Death before his ascension. In these texts Death becomes both heroic foil andmonster, trying to claim souls for himself. A standard component of Easter liturgiesby the late fourth century, this monstrous character of Death is picked up in Copticapocryphal compositions like the History of Joseph the Carpenter and the Book of Bar-tholomew. But even while Death could assume visible features of the punitive an-

See Evelyn White 1926; Crum, in Winlock/Crum 1926, 196208; although cf. Orlandi 2002, 22027on insecurity in identifying the holdings of the Shenoute library. On periods in the translation andcomposition of hagiographical and apocryphal works see esp. Orlandi 1986, 7073, 7881. Shenoute, I Have Been Reading the Holy Gospels 12, 17, ed./tr. Moussa 2010, 138 (emended; text, p.35), compare, 14546 (txt 49). See James 1892, 96104. See Gounelle 2000; Frank 2009. Hist. Jos. Carp.: see now Ehrman/Plee 2011: 15793, with the classic study by Morenz 1951.BkBarth: see bibliography, n.55 below.


gels in some texts, his role in narrative and liturgy differed significantly from theAmente demons: rather than obstructer, torturer, or destroyer, he functions as antag-onist to the righteous hero, even (in some Byzantine hymns) the heros pathetic ortragic victim. Like the Egyptian mortuary texts there is the implication that the rit-ual speech of the liturgy bears the power to repel or vanquish Death through describ-ing his character and downfall. And yet, it must be pointed out, this illocutionarypower to repel demonic forces through declaration is hardly unique to Egyptian mor-tuary texts. Rather, it is a phenomenon of ceremony itself.We will see the importanceof liturgical context in greater detail in the next section.

IV Public Performative Contexts for the Developmentof Amente Demons in Egyptian Christianity

So far we have seen that the main literary roots for constructing an Amente demon-ology in Egyptian Christian literature lay in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic litera-ture, although it was in the interpretation and indigenous improvisation of this liter-ature that some Egyptian traditions seem to have been recollected, to produce theparticular syntheses we see in some texts. Now I would like to ask another questionabout the development of Amente demonology a social question: Who were theagents of this synthesis of hell-angels and demons in late antique Egypt? Whowere the bricoleurs of Amente demonology?

From the Apocalypse of Zephaniah to Shenoutes sermons, the materials we haveso far explored to understand syncretism in the imagination of mortuary demonspoints repeatedly to scribes of some sort as the agents of syncretism. But how dowe place such scribes? Scribality, such as we can characterize it meaningfully, in-volves inevitable overlaps between those who read and copied early Jewish andChristian apocalyptic texts and those who composed new apocalypses and legendswith afterlife details, and between those who inscribed, edited, and performed offi-cial liturgies and those who prepared magical spells for quotidian purposes. It is inrecognizing this rich and complex subculture, infused with biblical traditions, apoc-ryphal texts, a reverence for the heavenly book, and a sensibility for the efficacy ofliturgical speech, that we can understand the status and functions of Egyptianideas about Amente demons.

Shenoutes sermons, before sizeable audiences of monks, elite visitors, and localvillagers, illustrate one way that the lore of Amente angels and demons moved be-tween the world of monastic scribes and text-production and a world of popularlore a world actively negotiating the meaning and authority of Christian ideas.The literary depictions of Death as heros antagonist indicated another, perhaps

T. Abr. 17.13 15 (long recension); Hist.Jos. Carp. 21.1 See esp. Frank 2009.


more salient, context for the development of Amente demon traditions betweenchurch and popular lore: liturgy, the regular ecclesiastical ceremonies in celebrationof saints, angels, and eucharist.

The ca. seventh-century Book of Bartholomew, which uses an elaborate traditionof an Amente ruled by Death/Abaddon and his six sons to frame Christs harrowingof Hell, was clearly composed for reading in liturgical settings. The book unrolls as aseries of dramatic dialogues, culminating in a series of doxological angelic hymns atChrists heavenly enthronement. An even more vivid document of Amente demon-ology, the Discourse on Abbaton by Archbishop Timothy (X ce), serves to establish afeast-day in celebration of the enthronement of Abaddon, Angel of Death, whoseteeth project from his mouth a half cubit, whose fingers and toes are like sharp reap-ing-knives, and whose head is crowned with seven more heads, all shape-changing.The homily functions to sanction

the day wherein [God] established Abbaton, the Angel of Death, and made him to be awful anddisturbing, and to pursue all souls until they yield up their spirits, so that we may preach con-cerning him to all mankind,and also that when men hear of [him on] the day of his establish-ment they may be afraid, and may repent, and may give charities and gifts on the day of hiscommemoration, just as they do to Michael and Gabriel,

Working from earlier traditions, the scribe constructs Abaddon, the Angel of the Bot-tomless Pit introduced in the Book of Revelation (9: 1 11), as Lord over Amente andmonstrous judge of sinners in direct relationship to a public festival. A mythology ofAmente is not only public in nature but binding collectively: May God who hasdeemed us worthy to gather together in this place this day to commemorate Abad-don, the Angel of Death, whom God has made king over us, At the sametime, the very monstrosity of Abaddon gains the positive functions of reducing sinand mediating for the community in his capacity as Amente angel.

The mutual influence of liturgy and mortuary protection of the soul seems appa-rent in the use of liturgical phrases on grave stelae in late antique Egypt, but the con-nection is even more vividly demonstrated in a number of tenth/twelfth-centurytombs for clergy recently excavated in Nubia. Here, each wall is covered in magicalsymbols, cryptograms, and liturgical phrases, all meant to protect the deceased from

On liturgical/ceremonial contexts for hagiographical narrative, see Papaconstantinou 1996, 2001;Timbie 1998; Lubomierski 2008; and now Zakrzewska 2011 B. M. ms. Or. 6804, ed./tr. Budge 1913, 147 (txt), 179230 (tr.), on whose dating and liturgicalcharacteristics see Kaestli and Cherix, in EAC 1, 300302 and now Westerhoff 1999. Earlier texts withdistinct oral-performative or liturgical elements in their narrative presentations include the Gospel ofthe Egyptians (NHC III.4069; IV.5081) and the Apocalypse of Elijah (on whose oral elements seeFrankfurter 1993, 7896). Disc. Abbaton: Budge 1914, 22749 (txt), 47465 (tr.); Disc. Abbaton f. 7b-8a, ed. Budge 1914, 231, trans. (adjusted) 47980. Disc. Abbaton f. 32a, ed. Budge 1914, 248, trans. (adjusted), 495. Mediation by Abbaton on behalfof righteous: f. 24b-25a.


Amente demons. The mythic basis for this protection would be akin to the descrip-tions of the seals borne by the deceased in the Apocalypse of Elijah and other texts toavert the terrible attack of those

foul and terrible beings [that Antony was supposed to have witnessed] standing in the air, intenton holding him back so he could not pass by.When his [accompanying angels] combatted them,[the demonic beings] demanded to know the reason, if he was not accountable to them.

Liturgical phrases and magical symbols on the four walls of a tomb would accom-plish the task of repelling the demons met by the emerging post-mortem soul. In-deed, two other Egyptian apocryphal texts roughly contemporaneous with thesetombs present the encounter of the departing soul with the angels and torments ofAmente as a mythic reflection of the stages of funerary ritual: that is, what thesoul encounters and how it benefits from liturgies at the third, seventh, thirtieth,and fortieth day after death. The scribal synthesis of an Amente demonology andthe syncretism it inevitably represents thus did not only take place in monastic set-tings, in the context of interpretation and literary composition. It also occurred in, orin anticipation of, public ritual settings where these compositions legends, homi-lies, visions both established images of Amente for popular reception and encour-aged the development of a popular folklore of Amente that certainly cycled back intoliterary compositions.

As evidence of this popular folklore that developed out of literary and liturgicalcompositions and their ceremonial performance we turn finally to some unusual ap-plications of Amente demonology found in Coptic magical texts of the fifth and latercenturies. A surprising number of such texts invoke demons specifically for theirfunctions in punishing or even dismembering sinners: Theumatha, who dwells in Ge-henna with fiery tongs (ACM 79); Temelouchos, the one whotortures the lawlessand the liars and the perjurers (ACM 92); the six powers of death, who bringevery sickness down upon every person and remove souls from bodies (ACM 98,

See Tudor 2011. Tombs: ajtar/Van der Vliet 2010, 26176; Van der Vliet 2011. Athanasius, V. Ant. 65, tr. Gregg 1980, 79. Lantschoot 1950, on the Syriac texts Vision of Macarius and Vision of Mark of Tarmaqa. On theorigins and nature of this kind of periodized funeral liturgy see Dagron 1984. It is, of course,problematic to retroject textual circumstances of the X-XII centuries back to the formative period ofAmente demonology in the fourth and fifth centuries. It might be suggested, for example, that theselater documents reflected ecclesiastical scribes desire under Muslim rule to represent a popularChristianity in more regular interaction with church belief systems an authentically EgyptianChristianity, perhaps (Orlandi 1986, 80; compare Papaconstantinou 2006, 7886). These texts aboutthe underworld, however, reflect few ecclesiastical values or any broader Egyptian identity beyondwhat might be consolidated in local rites and festivals. In fact, the embeddedness of hagiographicaland apocryphal compositions in actual ritual settings has been widely observed throughout lateantique Christian literature (see Rose 2009). See Frankfurter 2007. Cognate with Tartarouchos (Apocalypse of Peter 13): see Rosenstiehl 1986.


a clear recollection of the Book of Bartholemew); Sourochchata, who is associatedwith dissolving the sinews and ligaments and joints,, presumably in some under-world capacity (ACM 111) ; and Aknator the Ethiopian, who seems both to lead soulsto Amente and to decapitate them (ACM 119). Even on their own, apart from the lit-erary depictions of Amente, these magical texts envision an elaborate realm of mon-strous beings that serve eternally in specific roles to punish and destroy. There is alsothe sense that each of these monsters is bound to a name that can be invoked forpurposes in this world.

As authorities over (or in) Amente, these beings serve an ethical function, themaintenance of justice in the cosmos: that is, the just punishment of the wicked.This function is underlined in the Berlin text invoking Temelouchos (ACM 92): re-venge is sought against perjurers in this world by appeal to the being who destroysperjurers in Amente. As in the literary texts, so in the magical texts Amente demonsrepresent a greater justice, if a more dangerous and uncontrollable one. This idea isactually illustrated quite vividly in a mural of Hell found in a tenth-century church inTebtunis. The mural portrays the chief Amente demons Abaddon, Aftemeluchos, anda Dekan who chews souls in the grotesque process of punishing sinners. It is infact one of the very few iconographic representations of Amente angels or demons.These traditions seem rather to have revolved around books and the scribal entrepre-neurs who knew those books. But clearly the same beings were depicted or invokedas authoritative in hagiography, liturgy, iconography, and magical spells. In the mag-ical spells we see scribes extracting powerful archons by name and activity for theircombination of harsh justice, monstrosity, and authority: the very image of vindictivepower in one mode, the servant of God in another.

One is reminded here of another religious development in Roman Egypt: to wit,the condensation of Divine Wrath in certain new gods like Tutu and Petbe-Nemesis,who thereby became local protector-figures, earning cults and stelae. Monstrous be-ings and vicious demons are repeatedly drawn into the service of communities toprotect, heal, and even vanquish minor demons, all through the creative agency ofspecialists: scribes, craftsmen, painters. The ambiguity of Abaddon and Temelou-chos, between angelic judge and demonic punisher, follows a pattern well attestedamong Asian religions, known for their rich iconographies of demonic protectorslike Bhairava and Mahakala.

Walters 1989, 200204. See Frankfurter 1998, 11120; Kaper 2003; Lucarelli 2011, 12124. Spieser 2009 shows the sameprocess of harnessing chaotic gods as taking place in much earlier times with Taweret andSekhmet. See, e.g., Linrothe/Watt 2004


V Conclusions: Scribality and Syncretism

A thorough review of the traditions and texts in Egypt that pertained somehow to ademonology of Amente does not sustain a model of syncretism based in old-fash-ioned notions of survival, whereby a perennial Egyptian mythological worldviewtook on Christianity as a simple veneer, a new way of displaying its eternal power.To be sure, the Greek and Coptic literature of Egyptian Christianity its apocalypses,encomia, and martyrologies display significantly more interest in the nature of theunderworld than almost any other Christian literature of late antiquity (except Ire-land, whose links with Egyptian Christianity are still debated). But in regard tothe essential features of this interest mythological structure, ideology, ethics Ihave followed Jan Zandee in arguing that the development of this demonology inEgyptian Christian (including Gnostic) texts rested fundamentally on the Jewishapocalyptic tradition and the hybrid traditions of ascent to the divine world pervad-ing Mediterranean religions rather than Egyptian texts and priestly traditions, whichwere largely defunct by the fourth century.

The traditions of the punitive angels or demons in Amente had long developed inconversation with theological problems (how do sinners and the righteous get theirjust desserts after death?) and funerary liturgies (how does the soul leave the body,where does it go, and who protects it?). Apocalyptic texts inspired further creativityon scribes parts about the character of the angels of hell creativity that may haveinvolved some general, intra-scribal recollections of Egyptian mortuary traditions.We might speak of a kind of scribal habitus, in the sense of associative professionalmemory, whereby writing about the denizens of Amente for liturgical, funerary,magical, or apocalyptic purposes would itself invite the recollection of mythologicaltraditions that would not necessarily be current in popular culture much as acraftsman or singer might access earlier traditions well out of popular currency bymeans of the basic performative or artistic genres he engages.

During the era of the temples a number of earlier Jewish and Christian texts de-picting the underworld seem to have developed in some kind of immediate conversa-tion with indigenous scribal traditions: the Apocalypse of Elijah in its use of EgyptianChaosbeschreibung motifs and structure, and quite likely the Testament of Abrahamand Apocalypse of Zephaniah in their particular visions of mortuary process in the su-pernatural world. The Pistis Sophia certainly suggests one authors unusual familiar-ity with perhaps even training in Egyptian mortuary and cosmographical tradi-tions. But this is the kind of overlap of esoteric scribal communities apocalyptic,priestly, Hermetic that one would expect in the third or fourth centuries, when Egyp-tian priests could well have regarded Christian apocalypticism as a compelling frame-

Inter alia, Ritner 1976, Stevenson 1983. Apocalypse of Elijah: Frankfurter 1993. Testament of Abrahams vision of judgment and Egyptiantraditions: see James 1892, 5558, 76; Nickelsburg 1976, 2940; Allison 2003, 3233, 26667 al-though Allison stresses broader Jewish/Mediterranean context (e.g., 34656)


work for the expression of Egyptian literary traditions. By the later fourth century ce,however, the potential for such immediate social overlaps would have diminished withthe decline of the house of life institution of the Egyptian temple cults. By that time,rather than Egyptian funerary books or widespread folklore, it would have been textsalready sanctioned in Christian monastic scribal milieux that is, Jewish and Christianapocalyptic texts that provided the immediate inspiration, the springboard, for thesynthesis of Amente demonology in Christian literature. Syncretism, I have argued,took place among scribes in the course of developing Christian scribal practices, par-ticularly in the area of ceremony and performative services.

Whether monks, shrine functionaries, or ecclesiastics of some minor order,scribes public roles extended (a) to the improvisation of efficacious ritual speech lit-urgy and magical spells out of biblical and apocryphal traditions, traditions withinwhich laypeople already credited them as experts, and (b) to improvising and articu-lating mythological traditions for the purpose of sanctioning public ceremonies and lit-urgy. Overall, scribes mediated actively between texts, liturgical development, andthe laity, between the social spaces of monastery, church, and courtyard, and thustheir subculture was an inevitable font of innovation in all manner of text-production.In moving beyond the immediate resources of early apocalyptic texts to elaborate theangels and demons of Amente, those dangerous monsters charged by God to enforceeschatological justice and punish sinners in the outer darkness, scribes certainlydrew in various ways from cultural imagination and local lore. But, I would suggest,they were not passive vehicles of some archaic or timeless Egyptian spirit, as surviv-als scholars would propose. In regarding scribes as agents of syncretism and accul-turation we must consider the practical, even performative contexts in which scribal-ly-based traditions would be recollected as habitus. The elaboration of Amentedemonology took place in the course of writing materials for ceremony (hagiography,encomium, sermon), to develop ambiguous powers for quotidian application (magic),and certainly to reveal an elaborate cosmology that extended to the afterlife; and itwas thence shared among monastic scribes as part of their creative subculture.

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