First in the Desert: St. Paul the Hermit in Text and Tradition (Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity, 36)

This volume invites the reader to a journey into the mystery that is St. Paul the First Hermit. Presented in nine language traditions that span ten centuries of transmission, Paul’s vitae are a case study in cultural fusion and diversity. Assembled here for the first time, they provide the scaffolding for the volume that offers a window into the world of Eastern Christianity that consists of deeply interconnected, diverse communities. We learn about churches and monasteries and libraries; about books and relics; about art and iconography; and about the place of St. Paul in various liturgical traditions.

Lisa Agaiby, Academic Dean and Senior Lecturer in Coptic Studies at St. Athanasius College, University of Divinity, Australia. Her most recent publications are, with Tim Vivian, Door of the Wilderness: The Greek, Coptic, and Copto-Arabic Sayings of St. Antony of Egypt (Brill, 2022), with Mark N. Swanson and Nelly van-Doorn Harder (eds.), Copts in Modernity (Brill, 2021), and The Arabic Life of Antony Attributed to Serapion of Thmuis: Cultural Memory Reinterpreted (Brill, 2018).