Thorns in the Flesh by Crislip Andrew;

Author:Crislip, Andrew;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2013-05-27T16:00:00+00:00

Palamon’s illness evokes Athanasius’s description of Antony in old age, never relenting in his askēsis and yet enjoying perfect health until death at 105. The Great Coptic Life, in contrast, traces Palamon’s affliction of the spleen to his ascetic rigor. His illness furthermore does not signify Satan’s torments (as did Syncletica’s cancer), nor does it result from self-torturing or transgressions of ascetic norms (as we saw variously in Chapter 4). It is a simple function of his asceticism. According to the esteemed doctor, the cure is simple: Palamon must lessen his asceticism, if even only slightly.

In both the Coptic and Greek versions, Palamon takes this advice and eats a diet appropriate for the sick, but failing to see any improvement after a few days (hanehoou), he concludes that the treatment will not work. In the context of ancient medical practice (or modern for that matter) a few days is an extraordinarily short time to expect relief from dietary therapy. The Life rather plainly implies that Palamon simply had no interest in seeing his treatment through. Instead he interpreted his illness as an opportunity to emulate the martyrs of old. “Do not think,” Palamon says, “that recovery (mton) is from perishable foods, but recovery and strength (jom) is from our Lord Jesus Christ. For if the martyrs of Christ endured their limbs to be cut off and were beheaded and burned in the fire, and they endured unto death in the faith in god that is theirs, then I am worthy to be sick (erjōb) because of an insignificant (elakhiston) illness. Although I obeyed you, and was persuaded by you, and ate the foods considered to strengthen the body, look, no relief has come to me.”34 Palamon’s words reflect Paul’s ubiquitous words to the Corinthians, as well as the gendered rhetoric of martyrological narratives; through endurance of sickness or weakness (erjōb) he will gain strength (jom) from Christ.

Yet here again the Life’s interpretation of the meaning of the saint’s illness is conflicted and ambivalent. While the Greek and Coptic traditions diverge at this point, both grapple with a complicating factor: Palamon did not receive the kind of enduring health from Christ that one might expect from such hagiographies as the Lives of Antony and Onnophrius. In the Greek Vita Prima, Palamon boldly predicts, “So if I return to the rigorous askēsis in which is all comfort I will be healed.”35 Palamon’s confidence in asceticism was misplaced, since he was dead a month later.36 The Greek Life’s stark presentation of Palamon’s death leaves the question of meaning unanswered. The Coptic version complicates the matter. Although Palamon declines to continue treatment, gone is Palamon’s bold confidence that he would be cured by his askēsis. Yet in the Coptic he is cured, however briefly: “And thus he returned again to his ascetic practices (nefaskēsis) in great suffering, until the Lord saw the constancy of his strength (ntefmetjōri) and gave him comfort (nteftimton) and healed him (nteftalcof) from his illness.”37 Thus in the Great Coptic

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