Among the most interesting finds at the White Monastery is a codex, dating from the 10th/11thcentury , of disparate edifying texts. One section is devoted to sayings by philosophers who, when named, happen to be pagans (Diogenes the Cynic, Anacharsis). It also contained some longer texts, such as the parable of the three friends, close to a passage from the Roman de Barlaam et Josaphat, and aphorisms of Christian origin but considered to go back to pagan wisdom.
The presence of such a collection is surprising in the monastery of the supercilious Shenuté who, unlike other Christian figures of late antiquity, had little attachment to secular Greek culture. But the edifying character of these texts, beyond the scandalous figure of Diogenes, meets the trends of school pedagogy, which gives pride of place to aphoristic sentences, particularly those of Diogenes. This codex is a fine example of how Christianity has metabolized certain aspects of classical literature.
These are not the only bits of pre-Christian culture at the White Monastery. The monastery's library contained a Coptic version of the Roman d'Alexandre, a manuscript dating back to the 10th/11thcentury , but probably to a copy from late antiquity. The surviving extracts mostly deviate from the various recensions of the Pseudo-Callisthenes' work. In some cases, they bear witness to a good knowledge of secular Greek literature and an attachment to certain of its representatives: for example, the comic Menander, elevated to the rank of sage at the end of Antiquity thanks to his Sentences, becomes one of Alexander's companions. At the same time, certain new episodes Christianize the figure of Alexander.
