Удивительное
Сегодня подруга, состоящая в SBL (Society of Biblical Literature), обнаружила в их рассылке рецензию на мою монографию и переслала её мне. Написал её какой-то совершенно незнакомый мне человек T.C. Schmidt, да ещё и не коптолог, не специалист по магии и не литургист (это три категории людей, которые до сих пор обращались к моей книжке по конкретным вопросам, и число обращавшихся не превышает десятка, как мне кажется). Наверное, это немного глупо, но меня почему-то это поразило - особенно тот факт, что он реально прочёл всю книгу и абсолютно точно выделил её слабое место. Как он на неё наткнулся? Почему решил прочитать? Тиражи у Горгиас маленькие, цены безумные, рекламы никакой не было, да и вышла она как раз накануне ковида, а здесь у нас её никто особо не готов читать, потому что не по-русски и предмет вообще-то узкий.
Когда наша прекрасная наукометрическая комиссия Вышки оценила её как практически не-бывшую, т.е. выдала баллов меньше, чем за статью в каких-то второсортных журналах (потому что Gorgias Press не входит в их странные списки, так же, как и Peeters), я и сама как-то перестала думать о ней, а, оказывается, кто-то прочитал и похвалил. Поразительно.
Себе для памяти сохраню кусок (немножко грустно, что мой английский уже не такой perspicacious, и я не могу так легко писать, как тогда).
The epilogue turns back to a theme touched upon in the introduction and not yet mentioned in this review: the contemporary Coptic martyrs in Libya, executed by ISIS in 2015. Rogozhina is right to highlight how ancient texts still speak to living traditions today and, further, how remarkable events of the past are not always unfamiliar in the present. Scholars would do well to,like her, link their studies with the weighty issues of the moment. Rogozhina further maintains that not all the fantastic details in martyr literature are impossible, for alongside the twenty-one Coptic Christians executed in Libya there was one man from Ghana who, after seeing the faith of the Christians, decided also to confess his faith in Christ and face death. Rogozhina is correct that such things do happen-and I will point out, can be found further attested in the writings of Richard Wurmbrand, who observed the same during his harsh years spent in communist prisons. Events of this nature hence should not be dismissed out of hand by scholars when read in ancient martyr accounts.
Yet in this I do detect a tension in Rogozhina’s book. Until this point she has generally maintained that the historical value of the events described in Coptic martyrological literature are not in that they actually occurred but in what such descriptions can tell us much about their authors and their audience. However, does not this final move to highlight the historical reality of remarkable deeds of faith undermine, if only slightly, the overall thesis of the book? Given the epilogue, it seems that it would have been appropriate for Rogozhina to modify her thesis by balancing it with the emphasis that certain historical details of saints can indeed be gleaned from their martyrological literature and then, perhaps in a later section of the book, sketch out the historical Philotheus as much as possible.
Either way, this book is an excellent analysis of the Martyrdom of Philotheus and of Egyptian martyrological literature in general. Rogozhina’s expertise in languages (Greek, Coptic, Georgian, etc.) and various genres of study (legal, archaeological, historical, liturgical, hagiographical, etc.) is expertly marshaled with perceptive analysis carried through to the reader with clear, perspicacious language.
Когда наша прекрасная наукометрическая комиссия Вышки оценила её как практически не-бывшую, т.е. выдала баллов меньше, чем за статью в каких-то второсортных журналах (потому что Gorgias Press не входит в их странные списки, так же, как и Peeters), я и сама как-то перестала думать о ней, а, оказывается, кто-то прочитал и похвалил. Поразительно.
Себе для памяти сохраню кусок (немножко грустно, что мой английский уже не такой perspicacious, и я не могу так легко писать, как тогда).
The epilogue turns back to a theme touched upon in the introduction and not yet mentioned in this review: the contemporary Coptic martyrs in Libya, executed by ISIS in 2015. Rogozhina is right to highlight how ancient texts still speak to living traditions today and, further, how remarkable events of the past are not always unfamiliar in the present. Scholars would do well to,like her, link their studies with the weighty issues of the moment. Rogozhina further maintains that not all the fantastic details in martyr literature are impossible, for alongside the twenty-one Coptic Christians executed in Libya there was one man from Ghana who, after seeing the faith of the Christians, decided also to confess his faith in Christ and face death. Rogozhina is correct that such things do happen-and I will point out, can be found further attested in the writings of Richard Wurmbrand, who observed the same during his harsh years spent in communist prisons. Events of this nature hence should not be dismissed out of hand by scholars when read in ancient martyr accounts.
Yet in this I do detect a tension in Rogozhina’s book. Until this point she has generally maintained that the historical value of the events described in Coptic martyrological literature are not in that they actually occurred but in what such descriptions can tell us much about their authors and their audience. However, does not this final move to highlight the historical reality of remarkable deeds of faith undermine, if only slightly, the overall thesis of the book? Given the epilogue, it seems that it would have been appropriate for Rogozhina to modify her thesis by balancing it with the emphasis that certain historical details of saints can indeed be gleaned from their martyrological literature and then, perhaps in a later section of the book, sketch out the historical Philotheus as much as possible.
Either way, this book is an excellent analysis of the Martyrdom of Philotheus and of Egyptian martyrological literature in general. Rogozhina’s expertise in languages (Greek, Coptic, Georgian, etc.) and various genres of study (legal, archaeological, historical, liturgical, hagiographical, etc.) is expertly marshaled with perceptive analysis carried through to the reader with clear, perspicacious language.