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.

Four translations of major accounts of the life of the fourth-century Egyptian desert father St. Bishoi, in one volume

About the Author

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).

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).

Mark N. Swanson is Harold S. Vogelaar professor of Christian-Muslim studies and interfaith relations at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

Reviews
"Vivian goes at the text both creatively and with great discernment. The copious notes afford us the ability to track the use of the Scriptures in the text as well as to identify numerous other monastic and ecclesiastical details referenced. . . . [a] groundbreaking study." -Cistercian Studies Quarterly

"A work of seminal and ground-breaking scholarship"-Midwest Book Review

"This volume is undoubtedly both a milestone in the study of early Christian spirituality and a tremendous achievement. Joining the various receptions and revisions of a fascinating biography of a great desert father, it reveals how great literature shapes and is shaped by its reception."-Samuel Rubenson, Lund University

"The editors and translators of this superb edition of the major Vitae of the fourth-century Egyptian desert father Abba Bishoi (Greek: Paisios of Scete) have put us greatly in their debt by collating sources never brought together in this way before. The translations are 'firsts' for English readers; the texts important for scholars. Bedjan's publication of the Syriac Vita in 1892 was a pioneering work, but suffered many deficiencies in terms of its sources and therefore in its editorial conclusions: here it has been remedied by manuscripts he did not know. The other Vitae have gone direct to the most important extant manuscripts. In this set of elegant fresh translations, the combined work of several of the world's most eminent scholars of monasticism, we now possess the definitive account of one of the great figures at Scete. The introduction and notes generously contextualize the life of its protagonist, offering a fascinating window into day to day monastic life around an important (and visionary) charismatic leader."-John A. McGuckin, Oxford University Faculty of Theology

"For those fascinated by the curious world of Christian saints, and especially by the circuitous histories of how their tales were transmitted, this volume on the vita(e) of St. Bishoi in Greek, Ethiopic, Syriac, and Arabic fits the bill on multiple levels. The attention its authors and editors pay to the intricate processes of storytelling, translation, and the cultivation of moral virtue brings the history and legacy of an important Egyptian monastic saint to life. The collective labor that went into the production of this volume was undoubtedly large. I suspect the benefits accruing to interested readers will be even larger." -Stephen J. Davis, Yale University

"The value of the present collection is to be found not only in the translations themselves but in the unstintingly generous offering of research provided by the meticulous tables, appendixes, indexes, endnotes, and introductions that provide the reader a means of enjoying every element unique to each major vita-retelling in the convenience of one synthesized volume."-St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly

Book Information
ISBN 9781617979996
Author Tim Vivian
Format Hardback
Page Count 390
Imprint American University in Cairo Press
Publisher American University in Cairo Press