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.
Mikhail, Maged S. a.: - Maged S.A. Mikhail is professor of history at California State University, Fullerton. His research and teaching focus on Coptic Christianity, late antiquity, and the Islamic Middle East. He is the author of The Legacy of Demetrius of Alexandria (2017) and From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt: Religion, Identity and Politics after the Arab Conquest (2014).
Swanson, Mark N.: - Mark N. Swanson is Harold S. Vogelaar professor of Christian-Muslim studies and interfaith relations at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
Vivian, Tim: - Tim Vivian is professor emeritus of religious studies at California State University, Bakersfield, and a retired priest of the Episcopal Church. He has published, among many books, The Life of Antony (with Apostolos N. Athanassakis, 2003), The Holy Workshop of Virtue: The Life of Saint John the Little (with Maged S.A. Mikhail, 2010), Becoming Fire: Through the Year with the Desert Fathers and Mothers (2009) and The Sayings and Stories of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (vol. 1, 2021).
