We have not examined this text.
Evidence ID
E07047Saint Name
Hilaria, elder daughter of Zeno, who escapes from home and travels to Alexandria and Scetis disguised as a man to become a monk. : S02726
Pambo, Apa Pambo, monk in the Sketis (Wadi Natrun) : S01933Saint Name in Source
ⲁⲡⲁ ⲡⲁⲙⲃⲱType of Evidence
Literary - Hagiographical - LivesEvidence not before
474Evidence not after
999Activity not before
474Activity not after
500Place of Evidence - Region
Egypt and CyrenaicaPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
SohagPlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Sohag
Hermopolis
ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛ
Ashmunein
HermopolisCult activities - Places
Cult building - monasticCult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Composing and translating saint-related textsCult Activities - Miracles
Miracle during lifetime
Healing diseases and disabilities
ExorcismSource
A parchment leaf at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, I.1.b.291 (4773, Copt. 20), together with three leaves kept at Paris (BN 132.1, 19–21) and a fifth leaf in Leiden (National Museum of Antiquities, Insinger 56) belong to the same codex once produced for the White Monastery near Sohag. The manuscript is datable to the 10th century.Discussion
According to the Arabic Synaxarion, Hilaria was the older daughter of the emperor Zeno (r. 474-4910 - she and her sister are both fictional, as Zeno did not have any daughters. She ran away from her home in Constantinople making her way to Alexandria disguised as a courier. From there she travelled to Abu Mina and the Scetis, hoping to become a monk. Apa Pambo of Scetis eventually admits her to his monastery and she lives there as a monk undisturbed, until her younger sister falls ill. Her mother, sick with grief writes a letter to the monk Apa Pambo, entreating him to heal her younger daughter tormented by a demon. The princess is sent to the monastery in Scetis, where none of the monks want to share a cell with her, except for Hilaria. Within a week, her sister is healed from the demon and sent back home. But the emperor gets suspicious and asks for Hilaria to be sent to Constantinople where she admits that she is his daughter, but is allowed to return to the monastery to resume her life as a monk. The emperor, however, from then on bestows large yearly donations onto the monastery of Apa Pambo in Scetis. Only after her death is her true identity revealed to the other monks.Bibliography
Text and translation:
Elanskaya, A.I., The Literary Coptic Manuscripts in the A. S. Pushkin State Fine Arts Museum in Moscow (Leiden, 1994), 150–155.
Further reading:
O'Leary, De L., Saints of Egypt (London: SPCK, 1937), 152–154.
