Thanks to an extensive dossier of literary evidence, historians of monasticism and early Christian Egypt know quite well the origins and early history of the federation of monasteries (Koinonia) that Pachomius founded in Upper Egypt in the middle of the fourth century. More poorly documented is the Koinonia's subsequent development in the fifth and sixth centuries and its eventual disappearance. Why did the smaller and slightly later group of monasteries that Shenoute of Atripe directed last centuries longer and eclipse the Pachomian federation in the collective memory of Coptic Christians? In this outstanding volume James Goehring offers a persuasive answer to this question by presenting and analysing important evidence for a major crisis in the Koinonia during the sixth century. Goehring edits and translates three fragmentary hagiographical Coptic texts (and translates two other related works) dealing with the career of Abraham of Farshut, who was removed as leader of the Pachomian federation on account of his non-Chalcedonian views and subsequently started his own monastery at Farshut using the rules of Shenoute. These materials provide a case study in finding history in hagiography. Although the Coptic works attribute Abraham's removal to the intervention of the Chalcedonian emperor Justinian i, Goehring argues that the Koinonia was itself divided between Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian monks, that Abraham fell victim to this internal division (perhaps with some imperial assistance), and that other non-Chalcedonian monks likewise left the community. The resulting more consistently Chalcedonian Pachomian federation could hardly endure in its non-Chalcedonian environment, especially after the Muslim conquest left it without imperial support. Thus, Shenoute's White Monastery federation (always smaller, more strictly disciplined, and more ideologically rigid than its Pachomian cousin) emerged as the centre of monastic energy in Upper Egypt and, ironically, the primary venue for the transmission of Pachomian literature. In addition to his model critical texts and translations and his perceptive literary and historical analysis, Goehring provides detailed codicological analysis of the relevant Coptic manuscripts, as well as plates and helpful indices. Impeccable philology, clear writing and sound historical judgment characterise this work, which will interest historians of early monasticism and of Christianity in late ancient and early Byzantine Egypt.