The Cave Church of Paul the Hermit; At the Monastery of St. Paul in Egypt

by Edited by William Lyster

• ISBN13: 9780300118476
• ISBN10: 0300118473
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2008-08-06
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

The Coptic Monastery of St. Paul by the Red Sea grew up around the cave where Paul, the first Christian hermit, lived in solitude. The cave served as a shrine in late antiquity, became a church in the middle ages, and expanded again in the early modern period. This visually and intellectually exciting book chronicles the history of a series of devotional paintings in the Cave Church. It explores how the monastic community commissioned painting twice in the church in the 13th century, during one of the greatest eras of Coptic art, and how one of the monks painted it again in the 18th century, helping to inaugurate a Coptic renaissance after centuries of decline. The foundation of this volume is a wall painting conservation project sponsored by the American Research Center in Egypt. The book also sets the art and architecture of the Cave Church in its historical context and examines the role of the Monastery of St. Paul as part of the sacred geography of Christian Egypt through time.

Author Biography

William Lyster is an independent scholar based in Cairo.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Preserving the Past for the Future: The American Research Center in Egypt

Preface: The Historical Relationship Between the Monasteries of St. Antony and St. Paul

Prologue: In the Footsteps of St. Antony

Introduction: The Monastery of St. Paul the Hermit

Paul the Hermit and His Monastery: Generation, Imitation, and Reception

Jerome's Life of Paul and the Promotion of Egyptian Monasticism in the West

The Monastery of St. Paul in Historical Context

Patriarchs, Archons, and the Eighteenth-Century Resurgence of the Coptic Community

Pilgrims, Missionaries, and Scholars: Western Descriptions of the Monastery of St. Paul from the Late Fourteenth Century to the Early Twentieth Century

New Research from the Library of the Monastery of St. Paul

The Heritage Transformed: The Cave Church of St. Paul

New Archaeological Evidence for the Architectural Development of the Cave Church

The Conservation of the Mill Building, Refectory, and Cave Church

Conservation of the Wall Paintings in the Church of St. Paul

The Medieval Paintings in the Cave Church, Phase One: Continuity

The Medieval Paintings in the Cave Church, Phase Two: Tradition and Transformation

Reviving a Lost Tradition: The Eighteenth-Century Paintings in the Cave Church, Context and Iconography

Reshaping a Lost Tradition: The Eighteenth-Century Paintings in the Cave Church, Style and Technique

The Coptic and Arabic Inscriptions in the Cave Church

Conclusion

Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.