Legacy of Demetrius of Alexandria 189-232 CE

<p>This is the first full-length study of Demetrius of Alexandria (189–232 ce), who generated a neglected, yet remarkable hagiographic program that secured him a positive legacy throughout the Middle Ages and the modern era. Drawing upon Patristic, Coptic, and Arabic sources spanning a millennium, the analysis contextualizes the Demetrian corpus at its various stages of composition and presents the totality of his hagiographic corpus in translation. </p><p>This volume constitutes a definitive study of Demetrius, but more broadly, it provides a clearly delineated hagiographic program and charts its evolution against a backdrop of political developments and intercommunal interactions. This fascinating study is a useful resource for students of Demetrius and the Church in Egypt in this period, but also for anyone working on Early Christianity and hagiography more generally. </p> <p>Preface </p><p>Abbreviations </p><p>Part I: The Genesis and Evolution of a Hagiographic Program </p><p>1. The Bishop and the Scholar </p><p>2. Sources</p><p>3. Early Imprints </p><p>4. Date and Socio-Literary Setting of the Sahidic Coptic Tradition </p><p>5. The Encomium on Demetrius as Hagiography </p><p>6. Hagiography across Language and Culture</p><p>7. Arabic Recensions, Amendments, and Omissions: Emergence of the Normative Hagiography </p><p>8. Lent and Epact in Alexandria</p><p>9. Form, Function, and Meaning</p><p>Part II: Texts – Demetrius’s Bio-Hagiographic Dossier </p><p>I. Earliest Evidence </p><p>II. An Encomium on Demetrius of Alexandria </p><p>III. Demetrius’s sirah in the History of the Patriarchs’ Primitive Recension</p><p>IV. Eutychius’s Nazm al-jawhar (The String of Pearls)</p><p>V. Kitab al-tawarīkh and the Chronicon orientale </p><p>VI. The Coptic-Arabic synaksar (Synaxarium)</p><p>VII. Abu al-Barakat’s Musbah al-zulma (A Lamp in the Darkness)</p><p>VIII. The Difnar (Antiphonarium)</p><p>IX. Doxologies and Praises</p><p>Works Cited </p><p>Index</p>