Pachomius The Great - Coptic Literature

Coptic Literature

Examples of purely Coptic literature are the works of Abba Antonius and Abba Pachomius, who spoke only Coptic, and the sermons and preachings of Abba Shenouda, who chose to write only in Coptic.

The Pachomian system tended to treat religious literature as mere written instructions.

The earliest original writings in Coptic language were the letters by St. Anthony of Egypt, first of the “Desert Fathers.” During the 3rd and 4th centuries many ecclesiastics and monks wrote in Coptic, among them, St. Pachomius, whose monastic rule (the first cenobitic rule, for solitary monks gathered in communities) survives only in Coptic. St. Athanasius, is the first Patriarch of Alexandria to use Coptic, as well as Greek.