Alin Suciu’s research while affiliated with Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities and other places

This article focuses on Paul of Tamma, a fourth- or fifth-century Egyptian author who wrote a series of ascetic texts, preserved only in the Sahidic dialect of Coptic. The first part examines the ancient sources concerning Paul of Tamma, which are exclusively hagiographic. Although they contain many unreliable elements, there is good evidence that Paul was a contemporary of the great Egyptian ascetics Shenoute, Aphu of Oxyrhynchus, Pshoi of Jeremiah, Apollo of Tetkooh, and Isidore of Scetis, who all lived at the end of the fourth and early in the fifth centuries. The article goes on to examine the manuscript evidence of the Asceticon of Paul of Tamma, identifying new fragments of his works. I propose that Paul originally wrote in Coptic, not Greek, and that his texts have literary contacts with the ascetic literature of the monastic centres of Scetis, Nitria, and Kellia. The article also includes an edition and English translation of a hitherto unknown Sahidic miniature manuscript of Paul of Tamma's De Cella.