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Zenobios

By René-Georges Coquin

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zenobios, archimandrite and a man of great culture. He wrote in the period of Nestorius in Greek. The secretary of Apa shenute and a physician, he became archimandrite on the death of besa (Kuhn, p. 38). He founded a convent of nuns in the land of Akhmim. He was buried in the monastery where he died, perhaps the White Monastery (dayr anba shinudah).

Zenobios was celebrated at the White Monastery, as witnessed by the typika preserved in Leiden (Insinger, 38c-d and 40, ed. Pleyte and Boeser, pp. 197-224), Venice (ed. Mingarelli, vol. 2, pp. 50-55), and Vienna (Nationalbibliothek K9731, ed. Wessely, no. 264). His life existed in Coptic at the White Monastery. Crum has cited several leaves of it, and till has published the Vienna fragments (pp. 125-33) and drawn attention in a general way to the Michigan fragments (p. 179). The synaxarion of Upper Egypt commemorates him at 6 Amshir (Basset, p. 795; Forget, text, p. 453, trans., p. 476). It does not seem that his Life has been preserved in Arabic.

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Bibliography

Kuhn, K. "A Fifth-century Egyptian Abbot." Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 5 (1954):36-48, 174-87, and n.s. 6 (1955):35-48. Mingarelli, L. G. Aegyptiorum codicum reliquiae Venetiis in Bibliotheca Naniana asservatae, Vol. 2. Bologna, 1785. Pleyte, W., and P. A. A. Boeser, Manuscrits coptes du Musée d'antiquités des Pays-Bas à Leyde. Leiden, 1897. Till, W. Koptische Heiligen- und Martyrerlegenden, Vol. 1. Rome, 1935. Wessely, K. Studien zur Palaeographie und Papyruskunde, Vol. 18. Leipzig, 1917. RENÉ-GEORGES COQUIN