With increasing interest in early Egyptian (Coptic) Christianity, this volume offers an important collection of essays about Coptic language, literature, and social history by some of the finest authors in the field. The essays range broadly through the areas of Coptic language and literature, examining the origins and history of the Coptic community in its formative years. The Jewish content and connections of earliest Christianity in Egypt are explored, as is the survival of pagan religion in a later, increasingly Christian world. Studies of Egyptian monasticism range from investigations of...

Since 1963 the seriesPatristische Texte und Studienhas been publishing research findings coordinated by the Patristics Commission, which today is a joint venture of all the German Academies. The series is presenting editions, commentaries and monographs on the writings and teachings of the Church Fathers.

This volume contains a critical edition and translation of the Coptic texts on Abraham of Farshut, the last Coptic orthodox archimandrite of the Pachomian federation in Upper Egypt. While past studies have focused on the origins and early years of this, the first communal monastic movement, James E. Goehring turns to its final days and ultimate demise in the sixth century reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. He examines the literary nature of the texts, their role in the making of a saint, and the historical events that they reveal. Miracle stories and tendentious accounts give way to...