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Thus, St. Jerome related how the first monk, St. Paul of Thebes (whose existence is as yet unsupported) lived 113 years in the desert near Thebes, garbed only in palm leaves, receiving his only nourishment from loaves of bread brought to him by a crow. When he died, allegedly in 347, his grave was dug by two lions who remained to greet his successor St. Anthony, a confirmed historical figure and definitely a native Egyptian, who renounced all possessions and never washed his face. While the monk's move to the desert might be considered a cowardly escape from religious persecution, when one examines Egyptian traditions dating back into ancient times, the desert had been conceived as the realm of evil spirits, ruled by Seth, the Egyptian God of Evil and the enemy of Osiris. So, instead of being the coward's path, the Egyptian monk would view himself as alone with only God to turn to for strength against the forces of Hell.
The inability to make ends meet in the secular world can be symbolically translated into a symbolic choice of poverty, further convincing the hermit that he is close to God and will be one of the Chosen Ones when salvation comes. In any case, the rise of monastic communities outside of the cities in late third century Egypt provided a further indication that Christianity was gaining ground in the rural population, not simply the urban context of Greek cities such as Alexandria. Historian Robin Lane Fox's argument that Christianity won out in the Roman world because it “at its best it practiced love in a world of widespread brutality” may be overly romantic, but on an ideological level, such a notion may have appealed to the Egyptian during a period of severe stress.
The Last Stand of the Old Religion and the Unique Nature of Coptic Christianity
The preceding discussion could suggest that little opposition existed in Egyptian society to the rise of Christianity as a replacement for the old religion, but this was not so. Not all Egyptians saw a religious shift as the answer to their political, ideological, and economic difficulties as late as the end of the fourth century. "Exposito totius mundi et gentium" composed in Egypt circa 350 supported the “excellent worship of the gods” in Alexandria and saluted the Serapeum as “the only wonder of the world” at the same time that Eusebius was claiming all Egyptians to have followed the example of the Emperor to Christianity. The only way for the Roman governor to break up the cult of Isis at Menuthis was by moving the relics of Cyrus and Paul there, replacing one set of religious symbols with another.
That the conflict between Christians and adherents of the old religion was not yet resolved at the end of the fourth century is further supported by violent riots in the streets of Alexandria between Christians and pagans, using the Serapeum as a sanctuary. While Emperor Theodosius pardoned the pagans and proclaimed as martyrs all the Christians killed in those encounters, the local authorities used the incidents as an excuse to demolish the Serapeum in 391.
Meanwhile, in severe upper Egypt, on the edges of the ancient kingdom of Nubia, the Isis cult continued to worship at the temple of Philae until the mid sixth‑century protected by the Blemmyes. The Blemmyes, strong believers in Isis, after a series of invasions into Egypt, signed a treaty in 451 with the Romans guaranteeing their priests access to the island temple and their right to bring sacrifices there. In AD 543, the temple was finally recaptured and closed by order of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, its priests were imprisoned, and the statues (the "holy of holies") of the gods taken to Constantinople. One part of the temple was converted to the Church of St. Stephen. Etched on the walls one can still see the ominous declaration of victory: “The cross has conquered and will ever conquer.”