Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

egypt 619
be more striking. In Pousi’s, three spoons merit mention; in Theodore’s, the
properties are apparently so extensive that no effort is made to describe
them in detail. It is no wonder, then, that Pousi has been judged ‘a poor
man’, ‘a humble civil servant’, Theodore ‘a man of rank and substance’. 22
There is no way, however, to determine whether either estate is in any way
typical of what a praesidial courier or a ducal stenographer might be
expected to have inherited or acquired and bequeathed; but there is a sense
that Theodore’s substance outstripped his office and that the reverse was
true for Pousi. Nevertheless, both wills, but especially Theodore’s, raise for
any description of late antique Egypt issues of broad concern, to which
attention may now be drawn.
First, both wills give evidence of thorough Christianization in sentiment
and in fact. Although Christianity by tradition made an early appearance in
Egypt, its progress in the countryside is virtually imperceptible in its first
three centuries. The most striking documents, so-called libelli of the Decian
persecution, a.d. 250, are in effect negative evidence (though implying a
corresponding positive). These certificates of pagan sacrifice attest that the
individuals concerned sacrificed, poured libations and tasted the sacrificial
meats – that, accordingly, they were not Christian. 23 It is only in the fourth
century that Christianization, following the great persecution of 303–4,
experienced a ‘take-off’ of such magnitude as to leave a noticeable imprint
in the documentary papyri. As the fourth century progresses, the papyri
present increasingly numerous references to churches and clergy, while
implying for the latter a hierarchical structure of bishops, priests and
deacons. 24 There were later pagan survivals. A festival of the Nile, though
perhaps conducted without blood sacrifice, is evidenced as late as 424. 25
Pagans continued to teach philosophy at Alexandria through the fifth and
into the sixth century. These included, before his conversion, Flavius
Horapollon, native to the village of Phenebythis of Egypt’s Panopolite
nome, whose metropolis was a hotbed of late antique paganism. 26 The
temples on the island of Philai, including the famous Isis temple, remained
open and active till their destruction by Justinian’s general Narses in the mid
sixth century. Nevertheless, Christianity had become virtually universal in
Egypt in the fifth century, thoroughly universal in the sixth, penetrating, as
a variety of evidence attests, as far south as the First Cataract frontier. 27
Elsewhere, but only by way of example, twelve priests and five deacons,
implying the existence of from twelve to seventeen churches in the supposedly
declining village of Karanis in the Fayum, are evidenced in a
22 Jones, LRE 595–6, 895, 599 (in that order). 23 P.Oxy. lviii 3929, with intro.
24 Bagnall, Egypt ch. 8, for this and for much that follows. 25 P.Oxy. xliii 3148.
26 P.Cair.Masp. iii 67295, PLRE ii.569–70 (Fl. Horapollon 2). Cf. Rémondon (1952).
27 MacCoull (1990).
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