 Schenute was the most influential monastic head and perhaps the most powerful man in Egypt during his time.Besa, his biographer and successor as Abbot of Atripe, states that at one time he ruled over 2200 monks and 1800 nuns.But Schenute was too self-conscious, passionate and tyrannical, his rule too severe, and his enforcement of it too violent, to make his influence wholesome and lasting.