Shenouda Boutros: The Good Life: According to a critical reading of Shenoute of Atripe's text : I Have Been Reading the Holy Gospels.

Throughout the long history of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the 5th century Shenoute of Atripe stands not only as leader of one of it’s largest monastic communities but also as the most prolific author of Coptic literature.  Despite the great size of the corpus of Shenoute’s literature, relatively little research has been done to critically analyze his writings.  This paper will examine the understanding of Shenoute on the “Good Life” in his discourse: “I Have Been Reading the Holy Gospels.” Focus will be given to Shenoute’s understanding of the ultimate good, happiness and what is the ‘good life’.  Such a short paper does no justice to this great and important figure, but it is a preliminary attempt to study the moral theoria of Shenoute.