Pachomius

This paper explores how the "apa" came to be viewed in the Vitae devoted to Pachomius, and how his "presence" shaped not only the monastery but the surrounding community. As a singular expression of the "holy man," the abbot--as portrayed in early documents--came to be understood as an integrating center for and as a mediation of divine power within the wider society.

The book presents a comparison of two early Christian biographies, namely Vita sancti Antonii and Sancti Pachomii vita Graeca prima, and their pagan literary background - represented by texts such as Vita Apollonii and Vitae sophistarum by Philostratus, De vita Pythagorica by Iamblichus, Vita Pythagorae and Vita Plotini by Porphyry, Vitae sophistarum by Eunapius and Vita Procli by Marinus. Both central primary sources, Vita Antonii and Vita Pachomii, are presented in Slovenian translation, each for the first time, with a commentary.

Biography as a genre now presents more of a problem than a functional concept. The old Plutarchian and Suetonian distinctions, posited by Friedrich Leo with wide repercussions, are nowhere to be found. The demarcation between biography and neighboring genres is often questionable and researchers frequently prefer to speak of the biographic, which seems to be free from strict classifications. Aretalogy, once a catchword for the texts presented in this book, has been exposed as pure theoretical fiction; the entire current of research started by Richard Reitzenstein has disappeared after the criticism of Howard Kee. Another genre, hagiography, can hardly offer a more stable point of departure. Its main difficulty has been demonstrated by Felice Lifshitz. The texts it represents were considered historiography during the entire first - and much of the second - Christian millennium; it is difficult to treat them outside of that particular context. When they were finally deposed and proclaimed a separate category, this was mostly due to a new deity, the Nation, which was to occupy the historical holy of holies. Like biography, hagiography seems to elude excessive genre classification; Van Uytfanghe has shown that one can, at the most, speak of the hagiographic discourse. A problem that is of particular interest here is the question of gospels. The general opinion about their relationship towards pagan biography has changed dramatically, twice, within the last century. For a long time, they were considered a phenomenon sui generis, yet in recent times their resemblance to the works of classical authors is again seen as a fact.

The present study applies the relevant methodology for comparing pagan and Christian texts, established by Richard Burridge, to the lives of Antony and Pachomius. It seems that their roots within the ancient biographic tradition can be also taken for granted. Yet this is hardly an indicative fact; it certainly does not imply that the Christian lives had other formative influences apart from the obvious effect of the gospels.

The second chapter thus deals with direct contact between both traditions. It is based on a long line of research that tried to define Christian biography in terms of ancient literary genres. The search has failed to produce any satisfactory result, mostly due to problematic conceptions of the nature of genre as such. Still, it has brought to light a series of significant findings. Richard Reitzenstein has shown how Vita Antonii quotes, several times, the Life of Pythagoras by Porphyry. Astonished by this discovery, he developed a theory of nothing less than Pythagorean roots of the entire monastic movement.

This striking direct contact has justified the next logical stage in the present analysis, namely its search for parallels. Researchers have so far concentrated on the highly consequential Vita Antonii; as a counterbalance, the study here also deals with the less circulated Vita Pachomii. This confirms the more comprehensive findings and their validity for the broader Christian biographic tradition, precisely by means of its different, even marginal position. This searching for parallels is based on the system once developed by Ludwig Bieler during his inquiry into the lives of holy men of Late Antiquity. A comparison along the lines of destiny, personality, knowledge, teaching, and activity of pagan and Christian holy men actually yields several similarities between pagan and Christian tradition.

It is nonetheless difficult to label, as Reitzenstein did, the early Christian biographers as mere epigones, imitators of an existent literary genre. Seen from a closer perspective, their work is also quite different from the texts written by their pagan predecessors. Its major distinction is its constant use of the Scriptures; its constant presence in the text dwarfs the number of classical allusions. A Christian saint is not merely an updated variant of the divine philosophers but is also a new Moses, a new Elijah, a new John the Baptist.

This leads to the crux of the matter: what was the reason for using both frameworks of reference? Why did the author of the Life of Antony decide to endow the desert ascetic with features of both pagan and Christian models? What prevented him from simply relinquishing the pagan references? The answer seems to be in the polemical atmosphere of the texts mentioned; both Vita Antonii and Vita Pachomii keep questioning, in various ways, the role of παιδεία. They argue, both openly and otherwise, with those who endorse different ideas on education and the necessary cultural background. This is not only a polemic between Christianity and its surrounding pagan culture; the texts also seem to reflect the internal problems of the developing Christian community. Incorporating the pagan tradition appears to have functioned as a warrant of legitimacy, of certain enculturation of its message among the educated audience whose horizons were shaped by the classical παιδεία.

Yet the nature of this enculturation appears to have been mostly formal, designed to elicit attention and benevolence from the reader. The text brims with constant correction of this message, coupled with its simultaneous translation into the language of the Scriptures. Here, the intention is less mysterious; the author is guiding his readers towards a new message with different, Christian content.

This innovative study uses one well-documented moment of violence as a starting point for a wide-ranging examination of the ideas and interactions of pagan philosophers, Christian ascetics, and bishops from the fourth to the early seventh century. Edward J. Watts reconstructs a riot that erupted in Alexandria in 486 when a group of students attacked a Christian adolescent who had publicly insulted the students' teachers. Pagan students, Christians affiliated with a local monastery, and the Alexandrian ecclesiastical leaders all cast the incident in a different light, and each group tried with that interpretation to influence subsequent events. Watts, drawing on Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac sources, shows how historical traditions and notions of a shared past shaped the interactions and behavior of these high-profile communities. Connecting oral and written texts to the personal relationships that gave them meaning and to the actions that gave them form, Riot in Alexandria draws new attention to the understudied social and cultural history of the later fifth-century Roman world and at the same time opens a new window on late antique intellectual life.

The tradition of Christian letter collections begins with the letters of the apostle Paul.  And, according to many scholars, the collection of Paul's letters involved the combination of fragments of discreet letters to form "composite letters."  While nearly all of the letters attributed to Paul have been subject to such partition hypotheses, it is the composite nature of 2 Corinthians that enjoys the widest agreement among scholars of the New Testament.  This chapter sets out some ancient material evidence relevant to the question of how letters were collected and archived in the decades immediately after their sending and receipt in order to examine the plausibility of proposed partition theories of 2 Corinthians.  I begin by considering recent attention dedicated to the letters of Cicero in regard to the question of composite letters before moving to what I see as a potentially even more fruitful area of investigation—namely, two bodies of ancient material evidence, the letters of Pachomius (which are extant in different ancient versions and include a number of demonstrably composite letters) and collections of documentary papyrus letters (which illuminate the processes that scholars have imagined were at work in the formation of composite letters in the Pauline corpus).

Scholars have explored Athanasius’s conflict with other Christian teachers in Egypt who practiced “open-canon” readings and exegetical discussions on “the deeper parts of Scripture,” and who encouraged their students to seek knowledge and heavenly visions apart from the parish clergy. Recent research has shown that many of these groups were not only urban study circles in Alexandria but also various monastic organizations throughout Egypt that admired the Alexandrian theological legacy associated with Origen and the teaching of such revered spiritual guides as St. Antony. By analyzing the tractates of Nag Hammadi Codex I as a fourth-century collection of Christian writings, and comparing its content with themes found in the letters of Antony, we find that the fourth-century reader of this codex, far from encountering teachings typically regarded as “gnostic” (dualism, docetism, a “world-hating spirit”) would have found a number of themes strikingly compatible with Antony’s letters. Finally, we discuss what appeal both collections would have had to monastic readers during the period of religious controversy that characterizes fourth-century Christianity in Egypt.

"To join our song not only with the communion of saints and angels, but with all of creation. We are reminded of the chorus singing long before humans joined in: "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?"--The Wisdom of Creation


Today Quest for Holiness
Western scholars have mostly focused on the quest for holiness by the early Christian monks known as the desert fathers, and mothers. Yet until now, little attention has been given to their contemporaries practical mysticism, spiritual tradition, and application in every day life that remained the central core of  their surviving practice. They still practice the unceasing prayer; in its original monastic way of the 'arrow prayer, of biblical origin in Jesus parable of the publican;
Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me,
Lord Jesus Christ help me,
Lord Jesus Christ, I glorify Thee.

A Wave of Mystical Fascination
In the last century,  the devoted scholarship of O. Meinardus, P. VanDoorn, and J. Watson with many others, produced various hagiographic  studies on the status of present piety, with analysis of daily life, monastic tradition and hagiography. From the cradle of monasticism, the example of holy men; Abba Sarap-Amon, the veiled, Abba Abraam the Almoner, Bishop of Fay'um (Arsenoe), Abba Justus, and many others, crowned by the thematurge (wonder worker): Papa Abba Kyrillos (Coptic Patriarch 1959-71), revived the interest of reporters from S. Leeder to Dr. E. Wakin, and W. Dalrymple.

Revival of Monastic Spirituality
"Journey Back to Eden,"  written as a journal,  recounts Mark Gruber's year of spiritual discovery among the austere desert monasteries of Egypt, in a journey that began as part of his  research for a doctoral dissertation in Anthropology. However, this is by far more than a story of just his life. It is a story of grace, faith, and coming to know God more through our world. Through all of his experiences in Egypt, Father Gruber's faith was strengthened. The Copts, contemplating God and loving him wholeheartedly, taught Father Gruber not only about their customs and theology but also showed him a living example of true faith in God."

From St. Macarius Monastery, Fr. Robert Taft, SJ, a renowned Byzantine peritus, writes in "Praise in the desert: the Coptic monastic office, yesterday and Today": "Monastic life has been lived in lower Egypt without interruption since the first half of the fourth century." Jill Kamil mentions in her book; "Christianity in the land of the Pharaohs," alleging that, "Until today there are solitary recluses, some of whom make their way to the top of the religious hierarchy." She recounts the story of the recent patriarch, Papa Abba Kyrillos, devout to unceasing prayer, impacting the spiritual conscience of Copts.

A Life of Prayer
A life of prayer is what preserved Christian life, Christianity is a way of abundant living given to us by our only teacher and role model, Jesus the Christ. Throughout his ministry, our Lord gave us an example of praying on every occasion, and before all decisions; early (Mark 1:35), all night (Luke 6:12), into a mountain (Mark 6:46), in desert places (Luke 5:16), and exhorted us to pray always and not to loose heart. The desert fathers took this commandment of earnest fellowship in prayer seriously. Fr. Matta's own mentor, Abba Menas, abbot of St. Samuel the confessor monastery, was an example of unceasing prayer life, even after his election to the Coptic Patriarchate.

Abba Justus and Abba Kyrillos
Rev. Dr. John Watson, the ecumenical Anglican Coptologist, may have written the most insightful study of present day Coptic mystics that even a Copt could hardly explain, in his fascinating book; "Among the Copts". Chapter three, "In the state of Angels, has the book's peak experience, describing a contemporary monk, "Abba Justus who remained faithful to his monastic vocation for the next thirty-five years. He was not ordained as a priest. He did not leave the monastery. (St. Anthony, on the Red sea).  He held no Hierarchy or ecclesiastic  position, establishing a reputation as an  ascetic, healer, and clairvoyant."

Before the foundation of the world
"On our way back to the Syrian Monastery (SM), I asked our tutor Bishop Johannes, a great church historian, how is it possible for someone to declare he has received the Eucharist before the foundation of the world? Our tutor, then, Fr. Shenouda, Maccarian replied that the claimant, Abba Philemon, is a mystic, who feigns folly, while he could have had a hidden meaning (allegorical), hard for us now to grasp !"
The eminent Nottingham Patristic, and director of Cambridge Orthodox Studies Inst. resumed; "Days passed by, and returning back to Abba Tigi Coptic Seminary, in Abba Ruwais, Cairo, I joined in liturgical service with Abba Kyrillos, thematurge. The holy wonder worker asked me, unexpectedly, about Fr. Philemon in particular. I could not keep anything from my blessed spiritual mentor, asking him of the mystic's parable, he smiled graciously and answered, "Did Abba Philemon say that? Surely he completed his elementary education!"  Becoming even more puzzled with his reply, I asked him, insistently about what did he mean?

Plugging into Grace
Abba Kyrillos (Coptic Papa Cyril, VI) was an admirable teacher, who instructed in the Desert Fathers tradition. He walked to his Patriarchal cell, and I just followed silently, while he asked me to plug in his reading light, an ailing lamp that did not even have a switch, and in unquestioning obedience I did. He smiled in an assuring mode and asked me, 'George, my son, now, have you got it?' "No, Abba I do not have a clue!"
The holy mystic said, "My dear son, electric energy like Divine grace is always available, and all we need to do is to plug into the mains to get the light." The haunting puzzle 'of Abba Philemon, almost fifty years old; receiving the Eucharist before the foundation of  the world was clueless, and my confusion was evident and was showing on my face.

Abba Kyrillos comforted me saying , "In due time, you will understand, only be assured that everything has its origin in the eternal will (salvific economy) of the Holy Trinity. Next visit to St. Macarius monastery, the Coptic seminarian asked Abba Philemon; "What do you mean by receiving communion before the world was established? The mystic replied; "Didn't St. Paul write on our being chosen in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the Universe? The roots of our existence has been in the Divine will. As we live our own life, in time, our eternally created origin unfolds in front of us. All grace we receive through Christ has its origin in the Godhead. Our union with Christ has its obvious eternal goal, and its very origin is in eternity.

Communion of the Mystics
Abba Philemon stunned me by referring to what Abba Kyrillos (then Abbot of St. Samuel the confessor) explained to me, many years before I ever met the Macarian Solitary, on mystical communion. "If you, uttered in the heart of your thought, while sitting all alone in your cell filled with longing for Jesus saying; 'Lord, I yearn to receive you in communion, do you have any doubt of him not responding? Believe me, you will receive the Lord who will grant you your heart's desire (Ps 20:4)." I looked thus at Abba Philemon and said; 'Why do we then pray the Liturgy?'  He replied, "As Papa Kyrillos has explained to you earlier, receiving according to our heart's desire, we discover that the Eucharist has its origin in the economy of the Father. The liturgy reminds us of what is in God's thought, and of his eternal pleasure. Believe me brother, the time will come when you receive communion of your heart's desire, according to the eternal will of Christ." --George Bebawi, Ph.D., Cantab

Faith Adoring the Mystery
Reading the Bible With St. Ephraem the Syrian; "When grace is abundant in man, then the fear of death is despised on account of the love of righteousness. He finds many arguments in his soul (proving) that it is becoming to bear troubles for the sake of the fear of God. And those things which are supposed to injure the body, and to repel nature unjustly, which consequently are of a nature to cause suffering, are reckoned in his eye as nothing in comparison with what is expected to be. And his mind convinces him firmly of the fact that it is not possible to recognize truth without gaining experience of the affections, and that God bestows great care upon man, and that he is not abandoned to chance. Especially those who are trained in praying unto Him and who bear suffering for His sake, see (these truths) clearly (as if painted) in colors. But when little faith takes root in our heart, then all these things are felt as contrary, not as serving for testing us."-- St. Isaac the Syrian, Mystic Treatises.

The book has two parts: 1. Confluences and mystical ideas at the Oriental Fathers and 2. The translation in Romanian with commentary and notes of the Letters of John Sabba of Dalyatha. The Forward of the book is signed by the Mitropolitan PhD Irineu Ion Popa. In the last part of the book we can fine a very beautiful study of Sebastian P. Brock about the "Prayer of hart in Syriac Tradition".

Building on recent scholarship on the provenance of the Nag Hammadi Codices, the present article argues that the different character of the subgroups detected is best accounted for by proposing that one group was produced in the Pachomian monastery of Sheneset/Chenoboskion, while one or both of the others with some likelihood may have been produced in the Pachomian monastery at Shmin/Panopolis. The codices were then united through a monastic book-exchange network, and/or monks transferring from one monastery to another, before their final deposition at nearby Jabal al-Tarif.

This article argues that certain important aspects of the institutionalized literary practices of early cenobitic monasticism and the rhetorics related to them may be significantly illuminated by insights from the cognitive study of the human mind and its relationship with the world. Using examples from our sources of early cenobitic monasticism in Egypt, specifically writings from the Pachomian federation and Shenoute of Atripe, this article suggests ways in which cognitive perspectives on memory and literature may shed light on the practices of reading, memorizing, and interpreting authoritative texts, and the corresponding need to control such practices, in the early monastic communities. In doing so, this article argues for the importance of keeping both individual and collective processes of memory in mind if we want to understand the influence of the mechanics of human memory systems on the ideas and practices of the early monastic communities, and suggests ways in which such perspectives may be combined. The article was completed under the aegis of project NEWCONT (New Contexts for Old Texts: Unorthodox Texts and Monastic Manuscript Culture in 4th- and 5th-Cent. Egypt) at the University of Oslo, Faculty of Theology. The project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) / ERC Grant agreement no 283741.

The idea of mercy in the Life and Teachings of St Pachomius is examined primarily through an analysis of his epistles which reflect his original thinking compared with the different versions of his Vitae. The basic conclusion is that the idea of mercy in monastic life derives from the prolongation of the mercy that was bestowed upon us from the Cross and must be elaborated in the organized coenobitic life which is meant to reveal the New Jerusalem on earth. Mercy is therefore basically an eschatologically founded idea. It consists an originality of Pachomian thinking stemming mainly from Judeochristian circles, who seem to be behind Pachom and marking the possibility of living an eschatological experience through vita active.

This paper considers the particular teacher-student dynamics that Pachomian monasteries created.  Pachomian leaders understood that they needed to maintain authority over their followers while only occasionally exercising the full power their followers gave them.  They communicated this authority through formal and informal instructions that focused on Biblical texts and used the biographies of Pachomian leaders to show the particular way in which the texts underpinned life in a Pachomian community.

На 9 ноември 2021 г. и 13 януари 2022 г. се проведоха двете части на онлайн семинар, озаглавен Saints in the Slavic Christian world (900-1400). Assessing culture, power, religion and language in Slavic hagiographies and religious literature, посветен на светците в християнския славянски свят в периода 900-1400 г. Събитието се организира съвместно от университетите в Лунд (Швеция) и Гент (Белгия), заедно с Асоциацията за балканска история (Румъния). Модератор и организатор бе Емил Сагау, изследовател в Центъра по богословие и изследвания на религията в Лундския университет.

The article seeks to reassess and contextualise the conversion narrative of the Egyptian
monk Pachomius, the founder of coenobitic monasticism. It thereby offers a case study
into how and why the Pachomian literary tradition was shaped, altered and abridged,
while also challenging the traditional views associated with Pachomius’ military career.

"τὴν ἀδελφότητα ἀγαπᾶτε" 1 (1 Peter 2:17)
This article presents three cases of fourth-century double communities
that might make it possible to answer this question. The fi rst such community, founded at the beginning of the fourth century by Pachomius at Tabennesi (Upper Egypt), started as a male monastery and a female convent built for his sister, Maria. Around the 350s, a wealthy and pious Greek family, Macrina and her brothers, Naucratius and Basil the Great, transformed their family estate in Annisa (Cappadocia) into a double community. In 386, Jerome and his brother Paulinianus, together with the former’s faithful disciples, the Roman noblewoman Paula and her daughter, Eustochium, founded a double monastery in Bethlehem. Since these communities gave, in fact, an opportunity for members of the same family to live an ascetic life in proximity, one can start from the hypothesis that the family origin of these ascetic households must have been a significant factor in the making of double monasticism in this part of the Christian world.

Meeting in the Temple When the infant Jesus was presented in the Temple and raised in the arms of old Simeon, who moved stammered his Nunc dimittis, the nature and the role of youth and mature age in God's plan were revealed in the fullness of light. Hypapante (Ὑπαπάντη), that is to say, " Encounter " which the Eastern's call the salvific encounter contained in and reproduced by the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, popularly known as Candelaria. In fact, not only does the he encounter takes place between the Old and the New Covenant, between the expectation and the fulfilment, between the divinity offered and the humanity received, but also-by antonomasia-between the young and the old, between the vigor and wisdom. In the early light of that Candelaria that mutual exchange took place, that sacred trade between the generations that will be and is the secret of the vitality of families and Christian communities throughout the centuries: the silent delivery of the child answered the jubilant hymn and prophecy of the elderly; the poor and youthful offering of the Virgin echoed the praise of the widow. Jesus and Simeon, Mary and Anna the daughter of Phanuel, represent in advance, between admiration and joy, all driven by the Spirit which makes the encounter between men possible, that sacred reciprocity secular wisdom of the monks, condensed in the Rule of St. Benedict (RB), summed up in the sentence: " venerate the elders, love the younger. " 1 The two passages of the RB in which these recommendation appears are those of Benedict, in contrast to the Rule of the Master (RM), his model, which does not contain them, as noted by Adalbert de Vogüé O.S.B., (1924-2011 †). It gives the impression that this issue is particularly dear to the editor of the RB, and also the passages which emphasise the importance of the opinion of the young before the elderly, are characteristic and peculiar 2 to them. If you innovate with respect toward young people, Benedict follows the oldest tradition in the description of the role of the elders: these are the model that young people should imitate (7:55); to them they must submit in obedience (71:4); they must be treated with deference (63: 10-17); they are the comforters par excellence (27:2-3) and the guardians of the chastity of the young (22:7), and as gatekeepers (66:1) and master of novices (58:6) their mission being the welcoming of guests and postulants. In respecting and cultivating these values monasticism finds its human balance and at the same time builds a guarantee for its continuity throughout time. This generational harmony RB 4, 70-71 y 63:10. Please refer to the explanation of the abbreviations and the editions that we 1 have used in the bibliography. RB 3:3; 63:5-6; 64:2.

This paper examines the apparently unnoticed presence of the Greco-Coptic term “gnostikos” in a text of the Pachomian corpus, one of the only occurrences of the term in the entire indigenous Coptic corpus. After a careful contextualization of the term and its use by Pachomius, we will look at the way it was understood by the ancient authors, from the “invention” of the term by Plato, to its appropriation by Christian writers, notably Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Evagrius of Pontus. We will then see where Pachomius stands regarding his usage of the term “gnostikos” and if this attestation can shed new light on the development and use of the term by the first Christians.

This chapter explores the use of hagiographic texts as 'Vitae vel regulae', i.e. as narrated monastic rules and monastic programs. It focuses especially on the Life of Antony, the Life of Martin, the Life of the Jura Fathers, the Life of Pacomius and Walahfrid Strabo's Life of Gallus and explores the different textual strategies to convey monastic ideals and the different concepts of normativity and regular observance developed in these texts.

‘Vita vel Regula: Multifunctional Hagiography in the Early Middle Ages’, in: Samantha Herrick (ed.), Hagiography and the History of Latin Christendom, 500-1500, Leiden: Brill 2019, pp. 123-142.

This chapter critically reviews and complicates three premises of the standard historiography of early-medieval monasticism: monastic life turned at an early stage into a “regular life,” lived according to a written rule; the practice of following a normative written rule was stable, not subject to much historical change; there was an organic evolution that culminated in the implementing of the Rule of Benedict as the unifying norm for monastic life in the context of Carolingian monastic reforms. The chapter complicates these notions on the basis of four case studies: the “angelic Rule” of Pachomius and its role in creating a monastic origin myth; the sancta regula of Caesarius as a way to achieve collective sanctity; the Regula Columbani as a program to unify a monastic movement; and the Regula Benedicti in its two manifestations: as a document revealing a late-antique attempt to organize an ascetic community; and as a Carolingian instrument of reform. Monastic rules are not only different in their content and in their disciplinary program, but each of them carries a different understanding of normativity and a distinctive idea of what the term “rule” (regula) really means.

If you are interested in this chapter, please send me an e-mail: adiem@maxwell.syr.edu.

Pages 335–46 in Studia Patristica XCIII: Vol. 19: The First Two Centuries – Apocrypha and Gnostica. Edited by Markus Vinzent. StPatr 93. Leuven: Peeters, 2017.

The Dialogue of the Savior, preserved only in Nag Hammadi Codex III, as commonly been treated as a Gnostic text from the second century and studies have focused on this context and on tracing its even earlier sources. In contrast, this article eschews the category of ‘Gnosticism’ and argues that the text as it has been preserved is better understood as a product of early Egyptian monasticism. By comparing the Dialogue of the Savior with other monastic texts from Egypt, it will be shown how the text reflects monastic ideals and interests, here exemplified by its treatment of the postmortem trials of the soul.

The research and writing of this article were conducted within the context of the NEWCONT-project (New Contexts for Old Texts: Unorthodox Texts and Monastic Manuscript Culture in Fourth- and Fifth-Century Egypt) at the University of Oslo, Faculty of Theology. The project was financed by a ‘Starting Grant’ from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) / ERC Grant agreement no 283741.