Figures in the Carpet: Macarius the Great, Isaiah of Scetis, Daniel of Scetis, and Monastic Spirituality in the Wadi al-Natrun (Scetis) From the Fourth to the Sixth Century Not many years ago I read a very good scholarly book on Palestinian monasticism in Late Antiquity. In my review of that book I observed, however, that …
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Shenoute’s Place in the History of Monasticism A LITTLE MORE than 1,500 years ago, inside the massive church whose ruined hulk has come to be known as the White Monastery (Arabic Dayr al-Abyad), on an occasion near the middle of the fifth century when the monastery’s longtime leader Shenoute was about one hundred years old, …
Pachomius and the White Monastery IN THE fiRST volume of the Oxford History of the Christian Church, entitled The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great and published in 2001, Henry Chadwick included the following brief paragraph on Shenoute in his chapter on “Monks: The Ascetic Life.” In the fifth century the …
Searching for Shenoute: A Copto-Arabic Homilary in Paris, BN arabe 4796 Introduction and Review Will students of the Arabic literature of the Copts be able to contribute to the current intensive study of the literary corpus of St. Shenoute the Archimandrite? The idea that they might is by no means farfetched. After all, Arabic recensions …
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The Art of Coptic Churches WE WENT TO THE CHURCH while the elders of the monastery went with us. There were pictures of monks on the wall of the place, representing our monastic fathers: Antony the Great and Apa Pachom and Apa Paule and Apa Makarios.21 These were on one side and the archbishops of …
The Monastery of St. Antony (RED SEA) SAINT ANTONY, THE FATHER OF MONKS, found his final place of refuge in a cave in Mount Colzim (Qulzum) in the Wadi al-‘Araba near the Red Sea. A spring at the foot of the mountain supplied water and he planted a small garden. After his death in 356, …
The Monastery of St. Paul (RED SEA) SAINT PAUL OF THEBES (Anba Bula, ca. 235-348?) is known as ‘the first hermit.’ For more than ninety years he lived in a cave near a natural spring and a palm tree. Daily a raven brought him a piece of bread. The palm tree provided leaves for weaving …
The Church of St. Antony Al-Maymon (BENI SUEF) IN AROUND THE YEAR 285, St. Antony set out for a mountain near the Nile called Pispir, where he lived twenty years before going into isolation near the Red Sea. The present-day Dayr al-Maymun, which is situated on the east bank of the Nile about thirteen miles …
The Monastery of al-Zawya (ASYUT) THE MONASTERY OF AL-ZAWYA, near the village of al-Zawya, resembles a fortress. High walls topped with ornamental brickwork surround houses and a church in an area of about 80×100 meters. The gate is situated in the west wall and narrow streets lead to a church in the center, dedicated to …
The Monastery of Apollo at Bala’iza and Its Literary Texts Dayr al-Bala’iza, situated at the edge of the desert on the west bank of the Nile some eighteen to nineteen kilometers south of Asyut, gained initial recognition among Coptic scholars through the large cache of manuscripts, both literary and documentary, discovered at the site during …
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