Monastic Rules and Penance in the Life of Murqus al-Anṭūnī: A 14th-Century Copto-Arabic Hagiography

Monastic life in Egypt in the medieval period remains a little-studied subject. This article explores the portrayal of the ideal monastic life in the Life of Murqus al-Anṭūnī, a hagiographical work about Murqus (d. 1386), a monk of the Monastery of St Anthony near the Red Sea. It contends that this text was composed for the monks of that monastery to follow as a form of monastic rule. This article also draws attention to the practice of penance and forgiveness as portrayed in this hagiography and in that of Murqus’s disciple, Ibrahīm al-Fānī, and discusses the polemical nature of these texts. Furthermore, it situates these hagiographies within the wider context of monasticism and of the survival strategies of the Coptic Church during the persecution of Christians and Jews led by the Mamluk government.