Antony the Great has had a compelling lure on the imaginations of Christians from Late Antiquity to the present day. The success of his Vita attributed to Athanasius of Alexandria, elevated Antony above his ascetic peers and established him as the "father of monasticism" throughout the Christian world. The Vita is still considered the primary source for the study of Antony and his monastic environment. However, Antony has another Vita attributed to Serapion of Thmuis that has hitherto remained overlooked and unpublished. Originally composed in Arabic around the 13th century, it quickly gain...

In The Arabic Life of Antony Attributed to Serapion of Thmuis, Elizabeth Agaiby demonstrates how the redacted Life of Antony, the “Father of all monks and star of the wilderness”, gained widespread acceptance within Egypt shortly after its composition in the 13th century and dominated Coptic liturgical texts on Antony for over 600 years – the influence of which is still felt up to the present day. By providing a first edition and translation, Agaiby demonstrates how the Arabic Life bears witness to the reinterpretation of the religious memory of Antony in the Coptic Orthodox Church.

However, Antony has another Vita attributed to Serapion of Thmuis that has hitherto remained overlooked and unpublished. Originally composed in Arabic around the 13th century, it quickly gained more popularity and influence in Egyptian monasteries than the Athanasian Vita, and from the 14th century to the mid-20th century, it not only won widespread acceptance, but the authority of liturgical texts.

The legacies of the Coptic Christian presence in Alexandria and the Egyptian Deserts from the fourth century to the present day The great city of Alexandria is undoubtedly the cradle of Egyptian Christianity, where the Catechetical School was established in the second century and became a leading center in the study of biblical exegesis and theology. According to tradition St. Mark the Evangelist brought Christianity to Alexandria in the middle of the first century and was martyred in that city, which was to become the residence of Egypt’s Coptic patriarchs for nearly eleven centuries. By the fourth century Egyptian monasticism had begun to flourish in the Egyptian deserts and countryside. The contributors to this volume, international specialists in Coptology from around the world, examine the various aspects of Coptic civilization in Alexandria and its environs and in the Egyptian deserts over the past two millennia. The contributions explore Coptic art, archaeology, architecture, language, and literature. The impact of Alexandrian theology and its cultural heritage as well as the archaeology of its university are highlighted. Christian epigraphy in the Kharga Oasis, the art and architecture of the Bagawat cemetery, and the archaeological site of Kellis (Ismant al-Kharab) with its Manichaean texts are also discussed. Contributors Elizabeth Agaiby, Fr. Anthony, David Brakke, Jan Ciglenečki , Jean-Daniel Dubois, Bishop Epiphanius, Lois M. Farag, Frank Feder, Cäcilia Fluck, Sherin Sadek El Gendi, Mary Ghattas, Gisèle Hadji-Minaglou, Intisar Hazawi, Karel Innemée, Mary Kupelian, Grzegorz Majcherek, Bishop Martyros, Samuel Moawad, Ashraf Nageh, Adel F. Sadek, Ashraf Alexander Sadek, Ibrahim Saweros, Mark Sheridan, Fr. Bigoul al-Suriany, Hany Takla, Gertrud J.M. van Loon, Jacques van der Vliet, Youhanna Nessim Youssef, Ewa D. Zakrzewska, Nader Alfy Zekry

Copts in Modernity presents a collection of essays, many containing unpublished archival material, showcasing historical and contemporary aspects pertaining to the Coptic Orthodox Church. The volume covers three main themes: History; Education, Leadership and Service; and Identity and Material Culture.

Instrumental in the conversion of many, including Augustine, The Life of Antony provided the model for subsequent saints' life and constituted, in the words of patristics scholar Johannes Quasten, 'the most important document of early monasticism.'

This book brings together for the first time a complete dossier of Greek, Coptic, and Copto-Arabic texts and analyses of the sayings of St Antony the Great, one of the most important of the early monastic figures of Christianity.

This book revolutionizes our understanding of the life and thought of the great anchorite father of the Egyptian desert. It is a signal contribution to our knowledge of Egyptian Christianity in the third and fourth centuries.—Birger Pearson, Institute for Antiquity and Christianity Samuel Rubenson, by means of a fresh analysis of the letters of St. Antony, exposes the distortion of the picture of early Christian monks as unlettered and primitive. Rubenson describes the desert monasteries as centers of theological reflection in Egypt, showing how they combined the speculative philosophy of the Greeks and the biblical tradition. Included in this volume is a new translation of the letters themselves, which are shown to be authentic and an important source for the study of the desert fathers and the early monastic tradition. The later image of Antony is demonstrated to be influenced by church politics of the latter part of the fourth century. Samuel Rubenson is Associate Professor at Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

The most important document of early monasticism, written in 357, this is a biography of the recognized founder and father of monasticism. +