09 works, Today, December 8th, is Patapios of Thebes' day, his story, illustrated #341

Charles K. Wilkinson

Fishing and Fowling

Original from Egypt, Thebes

Tempera on paper

h. 28 cm (11 in); w. 139 cm (54 3/4 in)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Charles K. Wilkinson, curator emeritus of Near Eastern art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1920 Mr. Wilkinson joined the graphic section of the museum's Egyptian archeological expedition, one of several museum expeditions in which he was to take part. In 1956 he became curator of the new Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, which was combined with the Islamic Art Department in 1959 under his direction. He retired in 1963.

From 1970 to 1974, the British-born Mr. Wilkinson was Hagop Kevorkian curator of Middle Eastern art and archeology at the Brooklyn Museum, and from 1964 to 1969 he was adjunct professor of Islamic art at Columbia University. He was the author of ''Nishapur: Wall Decorations of the Early Islamic Period.'' More on Charles K. Wilkinson

Patapios of Thebes (fl. 4th century AD) was born in Thebes of Egypt, situated in the fourth province of Upper Egypt, approximately 419 miles south of Cairo, and lived in the Kemetian desert sometime during the fourth century. His father was a governor of the region and a descendant of a well known Egyptian family. He and his wife were devout Christians and instructed Patapius in Scripture. 

Unknown iconographer

Coptic mural from the Monastery of Appolo at Bawit 

Coptic Museum, Old Cairo

As Patapius reached a mature age, well-known tutors were brought from Alexandria to instruct him in science, mathematics, philosophy and rhetoric. Through this education, he became accutely aware of how transient this world is and was attracted to the ascetical way of life. He was particularly inspired by Clement, Origen and Athanasius. His father also took him to the renowned catechetical school in Alexandria where Patapius came under the influence of a blind teacher named Didemus. Didemus inspired him even further to desire the ascetical path he had chosen. 

J.K. Rider

THE ASCETIC

Acrylic on canvas

16 W x 20 H x 0.8 D in

Private collection

Inspired by a vision, this work by J.K. Rider depicts a certain 7th Century Hermit from the East who reached the pure inner light whilst living in an ancient desert cave. The different hues have been used to evoke beauty, fear, curiosity, and even disgust. The Hermit is reaching out from dimensions toward the viewer- urging him/her to find the same sort of illumination.

Was unable to find biographical information for J.K. Rider

When he finished his studies, he returned to Thebes to find out that his father had passed away. Desiring to live a life like the ascetics, he decided to leave for the Egyptian desert where he became well known for his ascetic deeds.

Unknown iconographer

The Ascetic Life

Icon

Private collection

No longer able to find peace in the desert he set off for Constantinople in 428. During his voyage, he met his disciple Sechnuti, who was an Egyptian rower. During this voyage, their ship passed near Corinth where they stayed.

Carl Anton Joseph Rottmann

Corinth with Akrocorinth, c. 1847

Oil on panel

Height: 161.7 cm (63.6 in); Width: 205.5 cm (80.9 in)

Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany.

Carl Anton Joseph Rottmann (11 January 1797, Handschuhsheim – 7 July 1850, Munich) was a German landscape painter and the most famous member of the Rottmann family of painters.

Rottmann belonged to the circle of artists around King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who commissioned large landscape paintings exclusively from him. He is best known for mythical and heroising landscapes.

Rottmann received his first drawing lessons from his father, Friedrich Rottmann, who taught drawing at the university in Heidelberg. He formed himself chiefly through the study of nature and of great masterworks. In his first artistic period, he painted atmospheric phenomena. He settled in Munich in 1822 and devoted himself to Bavarian scenery. 

He made the acquaintance of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who in 1826/27 sponsored his travels in Italy in order to widen his repertoire,. In Italy, Rottmann made sketches for the 28 Italian landscapes in fresco which he was commissioned to paint in the arcades of the Hofgarten at Munich. T

In 1834 Rottmann traveled to Greece to prepare for a commission from Ludwig. At first also intended for the Hofgarten arcade, the 23 great landscapes were eventually installed in the newly built Neue Pinakothek where they were given their own hall.

Carl Rottmann died on 7 July 1850 in Munich, aged 53 of undisclosed causes. He is buried in the Alter Südfriedhof in Munich. More on Carl Rottmann

By 435, after seven years in Corinth, Patapius left his skete in the Geranian mountains to resume his journey to Constantinople taking with him the monk Sechnuti. In Constantinople, they secretly went to the Monastery of Blachernae, where he obtained a cell in the city wall. Patapius kept his identity a secret and resumed a life of strict fasting, vigil and prayer under the guise of a simple monk.

 Cristoforo Buondelmonti,

Mediaeval map of Constantinople, c. 1422

The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Map of Constantinople around 1420, after Cristoforo Buondelmonti. The District of Blachernae can be seen on the center left part of the map, surrounded on two sides by the walls of the City, below the Golden Horn.

Cristoforo Buondelmonti (1386 - c. 1430) was an Italian Franciscan priest and traveler, and a pioneer in promoting first-hand knowledge of Greece and its antiquities throughout the Western world.

He left his native city of Florence, in Tuscany, around 1414 C.E. in order to travel, mainly in the Aegean Islands. He visited Constantinople in the 1420s. He is the author of two historical-geographic works: the Descriptio insulae Cretae (1417, in collaboration with Niccolò Niccoli) and the Liber insularum Archipelagi (1420). These two books are a combination of geographical information and contemporary charts and sailing directions. The last one contains the oldest surviving map of Constantinople, and the only one which antedates the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453.

While travelling over the island of Andros, he bought a Greek manuscript and brought it back with him to Italy. This was the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo, which played a considerable role both in humanistic thinking and in art. More on Cristoforo Buondelmonti

Here he performed many miracles of healing. After a life adorned with virtue and miracles, he died at a great age of eighty-three in 463 and was buried by his disciples in the church of St. John the Baptist in Constaninople of Petras which was under the protection of the royal family of Constantinople, Palaiologoi, and especially of Saint Hipomoni (Saint Patience) who was the mother of the last emperor of Byzantium, Constantine Palaiologos.

Unknown iconographer

Saint Patapios of Thebes, c. 17th century

Wooden Icon

The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopedi, Greece

Since the saint's repose, the Church has carefully preserved the stories of his life and his sacred relics. One thousand years after the repose of the saint, when the Turks captured Constantinople, his relics where removed and taken to the little cave-skete in Corinth (as he had requested during his lifetime). The saint's body was hidden behind a western wall in the cave facing the iconostasis and chapel they built.

His relics was brought to the Geraneia mountains, in the Gulf of Corinth, by ascetics from Constantinople and sealed in a cave. In 1904, the relics were discovered when the cave was opened. The saint's body had been placed beneath tiles and large leaves, to protect it from the damp, and it exuded a sweet odour. On the relic was a scroll giving Patapius's name, with a wooden cross and some Byzantine coins. However some visitors of the cave took pieces of the Saints’ relics for an amulet! But in many of them the Saint came on their dreams and asked them to return his pieces to the nunnery. So they did.

Unknown iconographer

Saint Patapios, c. 15th century

Icon

Found in a cave in Loutraki, Greece

Byzantine hagiography of Saint Patapios that was found in his cave in Loutraki

Then a priest from Loutraki, Father Konstantinos Sousanis, took the relic of Saint Patapius from the cave and kept it, with the church’s permission, to his house in Loutraki, in order to keep it away from the vandals. Later, on 1952, Father Nectarios Marmarinos, a priest from Soinikismos of Corinth, established at the place of the cave in which St. Patapius was found a monastery and the relic was returned to the cave.

Unknown artist

St. Patapios the Righteous of Thebes, c. 10th century

Manuscript

Vatican Library

The first mother superior, on 1952, was nun Siglitiki. Nun patapia was the next mother superior from 1963 to 1970, when she resigned because of health problems. She helped very much at the building of the monastery. The next, and current, mother Superior is sister Isidora. Written by Ecumenical Catholic Church of Christ

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