Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 22 January 2023 pshoi of scetis: update Tim Vivian and Maged S. A. Mikhail Keywords: Abbots; Coptic Christian saints; Coptic literature; Dayr Anba Bishoi; Manuscripts; Monasteries; Monasticism; Monks; Pope Shenouda iii; Saints; Scetis; Wadi al-Natrun.
pshoi of scetis (Coquin 1991), fourth- to fifth-century monk, died ca. 417 (feast day: 8 Abib/Apip) (Basset 1905–28: 1172–76). The saint enjoys tremendous popularity throughout the Christian East, and particularly among the Copts. “Bishūy” is a common name within that community, busloads of pilgrims visit the saint’s monastery at scetis (Shihēt/Wadi al-Natrun) every week, and his life has been made into a full-length movie. The saint and his monastery have only increased in popularity since the 1980s, as the late Coptic patriarch H.H. Pope shenouda iii (Patr. 1971–2012) established his patriarchal residence adjacent to the monastery, which rendered it the leading monastery in Egypt.
If we accept that Bishoi was a contemporary of john colobos (“John the Little”), we may deduce that he lived mainly in the fourth century and, with Evelyn-White, fix his death in the first decades of the fifth century (Evelyn-White 1926: 159–60). According to the Coptic Synaxarium, Pshoi (Greek Paḯsios; Arabic Bishoi/Bishoy/Bishūy) was born at the village of Shansha, either in the modern province of al-Daqahliyah or Buḥayra (Beheira). In this account, he has six brothers. His mother (his father is not mentioned) sees “an angel in a vision” who announces Pshoi’s vocation to her: “The Lord says to you, ‘Give Me one of your children to serve Me.’ She answers, ‘Lord, take whoever You want.’” The angel takes the hand of Anba Bishoy, who is “thin and his body” frail. His mother tells the angel, “My Lord, take one who is strong to serve,” but the angel tells her, “This is whom the Lord has chosen.”
The Life of Bishoi (hereafter Life), attributed, incorrectly, to John the Little,1 exists in Greek, Arabic, Syriac, Ge‘ez (Ethiopic), and Garshuni (Arabic written using the Syriac alphabet); the language of the original composition remains obscure, and while the complete absence of a Coptic Life for the saint remains enigmatic, and a Coptic original is not inconceivable, the evidence suggests a Greek exemplar (Life 8–9 (8–19). Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca (bhg), 1402–3d, lists the major Greek texts, but several others may now be identified through the Pinakes Database,2 though many of those references are to fragmentary or abridged Synaxarium manuscripts. Their relation to the Life preserved in Arabic is complex (Vivian and Mikhail 2022: 8–17).
In the Greek Life “both of Paḯsios’ parents are devout, fearing the Lord.” His mother’s vision occurs after his father’s death (Life 3 (52)). At an unspecified time, “Godly Paḯsios became a lover of the virtues and increased both in age and grace; wounded by both loving desire for and fear of God, he fell in love with the monastic way of life.” Paḯsios embraces the monastic life at scetis at an age not precisely stated, placing himself under the direction of the elder Pambo (Arabic: Bamwah). In the Life, after Pambo’s death, Paḯsios and John the Little separate; John remains at Scetis, and Paḯsios establishes himself “in the western part of the desert,” digs a cave, and lives in it (Life 12 (55)). The fame of his miracles spreads, and a number of disciples gather around him, perhaps forming the nucleus of the first dayr anba bishoi; but, as with antony and macarius of Egypt, we must not imagine that Paḯsios (or, to speak in modern terms, Anba Bishoi) was a superior (“abbot”) as we understand that term today.
© Claremont Graduate University 1 Tim Vivian and Maged Mikhail, Pshoi of Scetis: Update 22 January 2023 Bishoi’s authority, more spiritual than temporal, was compatible with more or less lengthy sojourns in the remotest parts of the desert. The Life includes visions of Jesus, Constantine, and others; Bishoi defends the Holy Spirit; defeats the Devil; washes Christ’s feet; pastors other monks, including anchorites; and he and paul of tamma become “agents of salvation for everyone.” In Arabic Manuscript Family C, Bishoi carries Christ.3 The Life concludes with the deaths of Bishoi and Paul, their burial together, and the translation of their relics.4 In the non-Greek, or Semitic, recensions of the Life “the Berbers raided the desert,” perhaps in 407, “killing the saintly elders,” so Bishoi and John flee; Bishoi flees to Middle Egypt where his legacy becomes intertwined with that of Paul. As first-person narrator, John is much more prominent in the Semitic recensions of the Life. After the two leave Scetis, John tells us that he went to clysma, then on to “the monastery of the great Saint Anba Antony”; Bishoi, he says, “headed toward Upper Egypt and traveled to the city of Ansina, and lived on that mountain practicing asceticism and great [self-]restraint.” It is here that he washes Christ’s feet (Arabic Life γ and 69A (302–303)). The Greek and Semitic recensions of the Life preserve very different accounts of the translation of the saint’s relics.
In the Arabic Life the translation is supervised by an otherwise unknown abbot named Athanasius (Life 79 (310)). The date of this translation is not given, and the relics appear to have been moved twice (Vivian and Mikhail 2022: 4–6). Still, we know from a list of the relics venerated in Egypt, drawn up by the deacon mawhub, editor and author of a part of the history of the patriarchs of the egyptian church, that these bodies were preserved in the Wadi al-Natrun at the end of the eleventh century.