Bilingual Coptic-Arabic Psalter.

£12,500 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

from the monastery of Saint Anthony This volume bears witness to a very specific monastery in Egypt known as the Monastery of Saint Anthony, in the eastern desert nestled deep in an oasis in the Red Sea Mountains. The Monastery of Saint Anthony is a Coptic Orthodox monastery that was established by the followers of Anthony the Great, an early Christian monk believed to have been born in circa 251 AD. The Monastery is one of the most prominent in Egypt and has strongly influenced the formation of several Coptic institutions, and it's walls still welcome several hundred pilgrims a day. The Monastery is believed to have been built around 298 and 300 AD (after the death of Saint Anthony), and was an established pilgrimage destination during the later crusades. By the 19th century however, the Monastery was in need of major repairs and apparently the few monks that lived there relied greatly upon the support of the nearby village of Bush. It is therefore even more remarkable to have a manuscript copied from the later part in this Monastery's history, and it is very unlikely that other witnesses exist from this period. For more information on the Monastery of Saint Anthony see: Otto Friedrich Meinardus, Monks and Monasteries of the Egyptian Deserts, Cairo, Egypt (The American University in Cairo Press, August. 1989). This Psalter, with its distinctively Coptic decoration, has been inscribed in Coptic with a parallel translation into Arabic throughout,. There is also a full colophon

• Binding: Hardcover

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