Word: coptic
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...written by some early Christian hermit, forsaking the pleasures of the city for the austere spiritual life of the desert. Instead, they are the thoughts of a 20th century monk, Malta el Meskin (Matthew the Poor), who is at the forefront of a remarkable renaissance of monasticism in the Coptic Church of Egypt...
...population, are akin to Eastern Orthodox Christians in liturgy and doctrine. As in other Eastern churches, monks play an important role, since only they can become bishops. While the number of monks in Western religious communities has declined by the hundreds during the past decade, the nine ancient Coptic monasteries of Egypt, almost deserted a few years ago, are now filled to overflowing. Though Egypt is identified with Islam, no place could be more appropriate for a monastic renaissance. It was in Egypt that monasticism first flowered, nurtured by the formidable example of the great 4th century anchorite, St. Anthony...
...ancient monastery of Deir el Makarios in the desert 50 miles southwest of Cairo, a Coptic monk is causing a mild sensation, drawing as many as 500 visitors a day. His name: Matta el Meskin, Matthew the Poor. Like the great anchorite St. Anthony, Matta el Meskin was once an affluent young man-a prosperous pharmacist. At the age of 29, heeding Jesus' call to "sell what you have," he disposed of his two houses, two cars, two pharmacies, gave the proceeds to the poor and, keeping only a cloak, devoted himself to prayer and asceticism...
...Gnostic scriptures. Known as the Nag Hammadi Codices, for the town in southern Egypt near the site of their discovery, the library consists of twelve 4th century papyrus books containing 52 texts that are thought to have been translated from the original Greek into Egypt's ancient Coptic language. Many scholars believe that it will become as important to understanding the early Christian era as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the library of a Jewish Essene community that was discovered...
...Hammadi texts were packed away 16 centuries ago, perhaps to protect them from book-burning Christian opponents. The texts, rediscovered in 1945 or 1946, were probably hidden in a large jar in a mountainside tomb outside Nag Hammadi. Most of them ended up in Cairo's Coptic Museum. Yet because of scholarly rivalries and unsettled political conditions in Egypt, no comprehensive study of the entire find was undertaken until 1970, after Presbyterian Robinson, director of Claremont (Calif.) Graduate School's Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, got UNESCO to assemble a team for the painstaking process of piecing together...