The Life Of Bishoi

Four translations of major accounts of the life of the fourth-century Egyptian desert father St. Bishoi, in one volume Saint Bishoi of Scetis (d. ca. 417) enjoys tremendous popularity throughout the Christian east, particularly among the Copts. He lived during a remarkable era in which a litany of larger-than-life monastics lived and interacted with one another. Even then, Bishoi stood out as the founder of one of the four great monasteries of Scetis (Wadi al-Natrun): those of Macarius, John the Little, Bishoi, and the Baramus. Yet in spite of Bishoi’s prominence, the various recensions of his hagio-biography have received sporadic, scattered attention. The Life of Bishoi joins other Lives of eminent monastics of early-Egyptian monasticism: the Lives of Antony, Daniel, John the Little, Macarius, Paphnutius, Shenoute, and Syncletica. These Lives are vital for what they tell us about monastic politeia (way of life), spirituality, and theology, both of the early monastics and of those who later wrote, translated, and revised the Lives. They appeared first in Greek and Coptic, and later generations translated and revised them into Syriac, Arabic and Ge‘ez (Ethiopic). This definitive volume contains the first English translation of the Greek, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic Lives of Bishoi, each translation accompanied by an introduction that focuses on certain aspects of the source text. It also has the first transcription and English translation of an important Greek text. The General Introduction provides rich context about the texts and textual traditions in the various languages, and thoroughly revises our knowledge about the Syriac tradition, the translation of the Syriac text here now consequently providing what is the best translation in any modern language. CONTRIBUTORS Tim Vivian, California State University, Bakersfield Maged S.A. Mikhail, California State University, Fullerton Rowan Allen Greer III (1935–2014), an Episcopal priest and Walter H. Gray Professor of Anglican Studies at Yale Divinity School, was author of Broken Lights and Mended Lives: Theology and Common Life in the Early Church and Anglican Approaches to Scripture: From the Reformation to the Present. Robert Kitchen is a retired minister of the United Church of Canada, living in Regina, Saskatchewan. He read for the D.Phil. (Oxford) in Syriac Language and Literature and has taught Syriac studies in Sweden and Austria. Apostolos N. Athanassakis was Argyropoulos Chair in Hellenic Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The Sayings and Stories of the Desert Fathers and Mothers offers a new translation of the Greek alphabetical Apophthegmata Patrum, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. For the first time in an English translation, this volume provides: extensive background and contextual notes significant variant readings in the alphabetical manuscripts and textual differences vis-à-vis the systematic and anonymous Apophthegmata reference notes to both quotations from Scriptures and the many allusions to Scripture in the sayings and stories. In addition, there is an extensive glossary that offers information and further resources on people, places, and significant monastic vocabulary. Perfect for students and enthusiasts of the desert tradition.

For the First time in well 100 years, this effort has been pains takingly re-edited for the modern English reader. Saint Ephrem the Syrian was born sometime around the year 306 in Nibisis, a Syrian town located in modern-day Turkey. Fleeing westward from the Persians, who were ravaging Turkey, Ephrem settled in Edessa, in southern Turkey, in 363. There, he continued to write hymns, especially defending the teaching of the Council of Nicea against the Arian heretics, who were influential in Edessa. He died tending plague victims in 373.

Saint John the Little was a monk and hegumen of Scetis (Wadi Natrun) during the first great period of early Egyptian monasticism. The Apophthegmata preserve some fifty sayings by or about him (see CS 59, 85 '96). In addition, Zacharias, eighth-century Bishop of Sakha, wrote his Life, more than seventy percent of which is composed of material not found in the Apophthegmata. John bears witness to the formative period of early Egyptian monasticism. His Life, with its emphasis on obedience and compassion, offers a lively witness to the earliest monastic traditions and to their transmission and continuing importance in the Coptic Church. This book contains an introduction to the textual history of the Life of Saint John the Little (339 '409) along with fresh English translations of the Bohairic and the Syriac Lifes of John the Little plus the definitive Bohairc Life in the Coptic text. It will be of interest particularly to academics, monastics, and others interested in monasticism, early Christian monasticism, early Church History, the Coptic Church, or monastic spirituality. Tim Vivian is associate professor of religious studies at California State University, Bakersfield. He is the author of numerous books and articles on early Christian monasticism, including The Life of Antony (with Apostolos N. Athanassakis), CS202, and Becoming Fire: Through the Year with the Desert Fathers and Mothers, CS225, both published by Cistercian Publications. Rowan Greer is the Walter Gray Professor Emeritus of Anglican Studies at Yale Divinity School. His scholarly work has been primarily in patristics. Retired since 1997, he lives in New Haven, Connecticut. Maged S. A. Mikhal is assistant professor of history at California State University, Fullerton. His publications and research focus on the history of Egypt during the early Islamic period.

Christianity arrived early in Egypt, brought according to tradition by Saint Mark the Evangelist, who became the first patriarch of Alexandria. The Coptic Orthodox Church has flourished ever since, with millions of adherents both in Egypt and in Coptic communities around the world. Since its split from the Byzantine Church in 451, the Coptic Church has proudly maintained its early traditions, and influence from outside has been minimal: the liturgy is still sung to unique rhythms in Coptic, a late stage of the same ancient Egyptian language that is inscribed in hieroglyphs on temple walls and papyri. Dr. Otto Meinardus, a leading authority on the history of the Coptic Church, here revises, updates, and combines his renowned studies Christian Egypt, Ancient and Modern (The American University in Cairo Press, 1965, 1977) and Christian Egypt, Faith and Life (The American University in Cairo Press, 1970) into a new, definitive, one-volume history for the Millennium, surveying the twenty centuries of existence of one of the oldest churches in the world.

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.

"The Sacred Writings Of ..." provides you with the essential works among the Early Christian writings. The volumes cover the beginning of Christianity until before the promulgation of the Nicene Creed at the First Council of Nicaea. This volume is accurately annotated, including * an extensive biography of the author and his life Ephraim the Syrian was a Syriac and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. His works are hailed by Christians throughout the world and many denominations venerate him as a saint. He has been declared a Doctor of the Church in Roman Catholicism. He is especially beloved in the Syriac Orthodox Church. Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as prose biblical exegesis. These were works of practical theology for the edification of the church in troubled times. So popular were his works, that, for centuries after his death, Christian authors wrote hundreds of pseudepigraphal works in his name. Ephrem's works witness to an early form of Christianity in which western ideas take little part. He has been called the most significant of all of the fathers of the Syriac-speaking church tradition. (courtesy of wikipedia.com) This editions includes: The Nisibene Hymns Nineteen Hymns on the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh. Fifteen Hymns for the Feast of the Epiphany. The Pearl—Seven Hymns on the Faith Three Homilies Select Demonstrations .

This is the first full-length study of Demetrius of Alexandria (189–232 ce), who generated a neglected, yet remarkable hagiographic program that secured him a positive legacy throughout the Middle Ages and the modern era. Drawing upon Patristic, Coptic, and Arabic sources spanning a millennium, the analysis contextualizes the Demetrian corpus at its various stages of composition and presents the totality of his hagiographic corpus in translation. This volume constitutes a definitive study of Demetrius, but more broadly, it provides a clearly delineated hagiographic program and charts its evolution against a backdrop of political developments and intercommunal interactions. This fascinating study is a useful resource for students of Demetrius and the Church in Egypt in this period, but also for anyone working on Early Christianity and hagiography more generally.