Door of the Wilderness: The Greek, Coptic, and Copto-Arabic Sayings of St. Antony of Egypt. By Tim Vivian and Elizabeth Agaiby. An English Translation, with Introductions and Notes. Leiden, Brill, 2021. 262 pp. $155.00 hardback.

With Vita Antonii Athanasius of Alexandria made St. Antony the pioneer of and model for monastic life for Christian monasticism. In the Sayings of the Desert he is regularly the first monk quoted and recent research on the letters attributed to him has added to interest in him and his role in the emergence of monasticim. By providing English translations of the sayings attributed to or mentioning St. Antony, not only in the Greek collections, but also in later Coptic tradition the authors put St. Antony more firmly in Egypt and provide valuable insights into how his image has been transmitted in the Coptic tradition. While there are several different translations of the Greek sayings the most valuable translations in the volume are the translations from Coptic and Arabic, and in particular the latter which provide valuable insights into how Christian monasticism adapted to a Muslim society and the langauge of Islam. In addition the introduction and extensive notes to the Arabic section adds considerably to a tradition that has received little interest. Unfortunately the actual Arabic text, which in contrast to the Coptic and Greek is not available in a scholarly publication, is not included; only a few photos of folios of an Arabic mss are provided. The Door of the Wilderness thus does not only provide translations, inroductions, notes, as well as valuable appendices, but it also highlights the need for further research on the Arabic transmission of the sayings of the desert and in particular the Copto-Arabic tradition known as the Garden of the Monks (al-Bustân al-Ruhbân).