In addition to snippets of biblical, liturgical and patristic books, the monastery of Apa Thomas in Wadi Sarga has yielded a curious work: an almanac listing the events that may occur according to the days and positions of the moon, as well as the activities to do or not to do, and the illnesses or dangers that may arise according to the calendar. This text bears witness to the role that astrology and magic could have played in the lives of Christians of the time. This type of writing is found in greater numbers in the last of the monasteries surveyed.
The monastery of Abba Apollô in Balaiza (7th-8th c.) yielded thousands of texts. His library may even have been identified in the remains of room no. 4, with its niches. The first literary manuscripts dating from before the 7thcentury are above all biblical, demonstrating that when the monastery was founded, the most essential texts, the Scriptures, were first and foremost sought from older collections. Gradually, other genres (patristic, hagiographic, liturgical) took on greater importance.
Added to these Christian books were magical texts, historical annals attempting to harmonize secular history with biblical or Christian history, and a Greek codex, as yet unpublished, mixing classical sayings (Menander) with advice intended for monks, where here again Greek paideia and Christian culture are intertwined.
