The Legacy of Demetrius of Alexandria 189-232 CE

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.
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.

Maged S. A. Mikhail is Professor of History at California State University at Fullerton, USA.

Preface Abbreviations Part I: The Genesis and Evolution of a Hagiographic Program 1. The Bishop and the Scholar 2. Sources 3. Early Imprints 4. Date and Socio-Literary Setting of the Sahidic Coptic Tradition 5. The Encomium on Demetrius as Hagiography 6. Hagiography across Language and Culture 7. Arabic Recensions, Amendments, and Omissions: Emergence of the Normative Hagiography 8. Lent and Epact in Alexandria 9. Form, Function, and Meaning Part II: Texts - Demetrius's Bio-Hagiographic Dossier I. Earliest Evidence II. An Encomium on Demetrius of Alexandria III. Demetrius's sirah in the History of the Patriarchs' Primitive Recension IV. Eutychius's Nazm al-jawhar (The String of Pearls) V. Kitab al-tawar-kh and the Chronicon orientale VI. The Coptic-Arabic synaksar (Synaxarium) VII. Abu al-Barakat's Musbah al-zulma (A Lamp in the Darkness) VIII. The Difnar (Antiphonarium) IX. Doxologies and Praises Works Cited Index