Coptic Manuscripts

This chapter considers modern contributions to the dating of early Coptic manuscripts.  With regard to paleography, the present argument revisits and reinforces arguments originally offered by Peter Parsons, critiquing developmental models of paleography in light of the extant datable evidence.  Paleography should remain a means of last resort, and is not reliable for dating literary manuscripts to a single century.  The survey underscores the clear connection between our securely-datable manuscripts and Egyptian monasticism.

The late-antique Egyptian monastic leader Shenoute (ca. 348-465) left behind an extraordinarily large corpus of writings in seventeen (or more) volumes of collected works. Although multiple copies of this remarkable body of Coptic literature existed in the library of Shenoute's monastery in the medieval period, those copies survived into the modern era only in tatters, which along with the remains of the monastery's many other books became scattered among more than thirty museums, libraries, and private collections on three continents. During two centuries of work among these remains, Coptologists have identified 4,350 pages from about one hundred medieval parchment codices containing works of Shenoute. A project to publish a complete edition of this corpus began formally in 2000. From the fragmentary but nonetheless extensive remains of his corpus, it has become possible to recover remarkable biographical information about Shenoute, as well as to gain insight into his thought and leadership. His writings are a mine of information not only about the internal life and discipline of Shenoute's monastic institution, but also with regard to religious and other societal circumstances in the region around the nearby Upper Egyptian district capital, Panopolis.

In this article I attempt to analyze a Coptic manuscript sa 52 (according to the nomenclature of K. Schüssler), from the collection of Pierpont Morgan Library. In this parchment codex we have almost the entire text of the Book of Isaiah in the Sahidic dialect of the Coptic language.
The first part of this book is particularly important: the so-called Proto–Isaiah. One third of the text of Proto–Isaiah in Sahidic can be found only in our manuscript sa 52!
The presentation and analysis of the codex sa 52 is divided in several parts. The first part contains a short history of our manuscript against the background of the whole Pierpont Morgan collection. In the second part there are some technical informations about our codex (its form, measurements, shape of the letters, manner of writing, etc.).
The third part is dedicated to the Coptic text itself and its comparison with the Greek text of the Septuagint (according to the edition of J. Ziegler). In the last part – based on several examples – we try to answer the following question: how the Coptic text of sa 52 helps us in our interpretation of the Greek text of Proto–Isaia, especially when the
text of Septuagint is difficult and unclear.

The volume contains a critical review of data, results and open problems
concerning the principal Greek and Coptic majuscule bookhands, based on
previous research of the author, revised and updated to offer an overview of the
different graphic phenomena. Although the various chapters address the history
of different types of scripts (i.e. biblical majuscule, sloping poitend majuscule,
liturgical majuscule, epigraphic and monumental scripts), their juxtaposition
allows us to identify common issues of the comparative method of
palaeography.
From an overall critical assessment of these aspects the impossibility of
applying a unique historical paradigm to interpret the formal expressions and the
history of the different bookhands comes up, due to the fact that each script
follows different paths.
Particular attention is also devoted to the use of Greek majuscules in the writing
of ancient Christian books. A modern and critical awareness of palaeographic
method may help to place the individual witnesses in the context of the main
graphic trends, in the social and cultural environments in which they developed,
and in a more accurate chronological framework.

Open Access | The Shepherd of Hermas was translated in both Akhmimic and Sahidic Coptic. This contribution revisits the surviving manuscripts of the Shepherd and discusses two issues concerning its Coptic reception which seemed settled: the dating of the earliest manuscript and the question of a a split transmission of its text, with the first four Visions separated from the rest of the book.

https://doi.org/10.18566/cueteo.v48n109.a10

While Egypt was the cradle of monasticism since Antony, the stylite type of monasticism is rarely represented in the Coptic corpus of monastic literature. Hence every text will contribute to our knowledge. In this article, we will highlight the importance of the city of Sakha, in the book of history of the Patriarchs, the book of the Churches and Monasteries (twelfth century). The liturgical texts relating to this saint are exceedingly rare, hence the importance publishing all texts. We will edit, translate all the liturgical texts relating to one of this group, we were able to find a doxology Batos not attested in most of the manuscripts as well as the texts of the Antiphonarion (Difnar). It is important to mention that this saint lived in Lower-Egypt around the sixthseventh century which means that it was around the time of important events such as the usurper of Phocas, the Persian invasion, the Byzantine reconquest, and the Arabic conquest. He was influenced by the biography of the great Simon the Stylite. Nowadays, no traces of his cult survive in Sakha which explains the rarity of manuscripts containing anything relating to this saint, however Sakha is nowadays known as a step of the journey of the Holy Family.

La langue copte est la mémoire vivante de la transmission
des évangiles au moins depuis le troisième siècle. Elle
est encore aujourd’hui la langue liturgique des chrétiens
d’Égypte. Nous l’aborderons en deux temps :

Les manuscrits coptes comme traces du corpus
néotestamentaire des premiers siècles

Nous n’avons pas les originaux des textes du Nouveau
Testament, mais nous ne disposons que de copies de
copies. Écrits en grec, ces textes ont été rapidement
traduits dans les langues vernaculaires dont le copte,
dernier stade de la langue égyptienne, existant sous forme
de dialectes distincts. Leur étude aide à la reconstitution
de l’exemplaire grec antérieur, c’est-à-dire d’un texte plus
proche des origines.
La présentation consistera à rappeler la problématique
du texte initial du Nouveau Testament ; à montrer les
différents manuscrits coptes dont nous disposons ;
et à souligner leur intérêt pour la compréhension de la
transmission du corpus néotestamentaire.

Introduction à la langue copte

Cette présentation s’adresse aux débutants absolus.
Son but est d’introduire au cours de copte sahidique qui
s’ouvrira en septembre 2019 au TEB. Elle se fera en 3
temps : un exposé rapide des différents dialectes coptes ;
un apprentissage de l’alphabet (basé sur le grec) ; enfin et
surtout, l’analyse mot-à-mot de trois textes : le Prologue de
Jean (Jn 1, 1), le Notre Père de Luc (Lc 11, 2-4) et la Tentation
au Désert (Mt 4, 1-11), afin que ces deux heures permettent
une véritable immersion dans la langue copte.

<I>ICCoptS 4 (Louvain-la-Neuve 1988)</I> = <I>Actes du IV<SUP>e</SUP> congrès copte, Louvain-la-Neuve, 5–10 septembre 1988</I>, edited by Marguerite Rassart-Debergh and Julien Ries. Vol. 1: <I>Art et archéologie</I>; vol. 2: <I>De la linguistique au gnosticisme</I>. Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain, vols. 40–41. Louvain-la-Neuve, Louvain, and Paris: Institut Orientaliste de l'Université catholique de Louvain and Peeters Press, 1992.

This paper points out that the fragment Copte 131(8) f. 127 from Bibliotheque nationale de France belongs to the codex sa 2041, former sa 45 in Biblia Coptica, which contains the book of the prophet Ezechiel. Moreover, it confirms the identification of the fragment’s content as Ezechiel 1,21-22.24?.25-26 and corrects the erroneous association of the fragment with codex MONB.BO including the homilies on the gospel of Luke by Rufus of Shotep.

This is a catalogue entry for MMA 19.196.3, an incomplete bilingual manuscript codex dating possibly to the 17th century Egypt and acquired following the 1919 campaign by the MMA’s Egyptian Expedition to Dayr al-Suriyān, Wādī al-Naṭrūn. The entry appeared in the catalogue accompanying the Met exhibit "Jerusalem 1000–1400" (see the link below).

Citation: Dospěl, Marek, “Copto–Arabic Book of Prayers,” in: Barbara Boehm & Melanie Holcomb (eds.), Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People under Heaven, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016, p. 104.

This paper delves into the modern history of the Bruce Codex (Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Bruce 96), a Coptic manuscript acquired in Egypt in the eighteenth century by Scotsman James Bruce. Very little is known of the modern history of this papyrus codex, which contains some of the first direct “Gnostic” sources available to scholars (the so-called “Books of Jeu” and “Untitled Text of the Bruce Codex”). We propose that a careful examination of sources from the last decades of the eighteenth century, however limited they may be, can shed new light not only on the circumstances surrounding the discovery and the purchase of the codex, but also on the condition of the manuscript at the time of its  acquisition. This paper will cover the history of the Bruce Codex from 1769, when it was allegedly purchased, to 1794, date of death of the original owner.

L’origine de la forme courte du Notre Père en St Luc 11,2-6 (14h-15h30)

Peu de théories justifient l’origine de la forme courte du Notre Père de Luc par rapport à la forme longue de Matthieu. Laurent Pinchard exposera la grande diversité des formes du Notre Père de Luc dans les manuscrits grecs, afin d’en comprendre l'évolution au cours des premiers siècles, et en quoi les manuscrits coptes en attestent un état particulier dans la transmission

Traduction de la prière filiale de Jésus en Jn 17,1-5 en copte (15h30-17h)

A partir de la présentation de l’alphabet et de quelques rudiments de grammaire, ce temps sera consacré à l'analyse mot par mot du texte copte de la prière filiale de Jésus (Jn 17,1-5) ; cette présentation introduira l’offre d’un cours de copte par le TEB sur deux ans, visant à lire les évangiles canoniques et apocryphes (généralement accessibles uniquement en copte). Aucune connaissance préalable du copte n’est nécessaire.

Many parchments fragments belonging to the same coptic biblical manuscript are kept in the
British Library under the shelfmark Or. 4717 (5); most of them are palimpsests, whose primary scripts have
not received so far big attention. A re-examination of the fragments, undertaken in the frame of the ERCproject
Redhis, has revealed that, among the several scripturae inferiores, three come from three different Latin
late antique legal manuscripts, whose content must be jurisprudence. This paper offers a brief paleographical
and codicological presentation, together with a few hints on the contents, whereas edition and commentary
are in preparation by Serena Ammirati and Dario Mantovani. All together the three Latin scripturae inferiores
represent the most extensive (more than 400 lines, some of them barely legible) unknown cluster of legal texts
so far found.

At the International Congress of Coptic Studies in Rome on 18 September 2012, Professor Karen L. King, Hollis Professor of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, presented a papyrus fragment with Coptic text, known as The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. This document includes very problematic sentence: „Jesus said to them: My wife…”. Prof. King maintains in her article that the papyrus comes from the 4th century and contains Coptic translation of a gospel, possibly written in Greek in the second century, although there is no consensus among the experts on this matter. This article engages in the debate on The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife and first includes the description of the manuscript and its datation, then provides the Coptic text with its translation and in finally the comparison is made of the Gospel with the selected verses from another Coptic document: The Gospel of Thomas. The article shows, that The Gospel of Jesus’Wife is a modern forgery, written on a scrap of ancient papyrus and that most of words and expressions, used in this document, comes from The Gospel of Thomas.

For Coptic Christians, the mystical presence of saints is “real” and supernatural dreams can be considered as authentic experiences. Saints who appear in dreams belong to the collective imagination of the Copts and are perceived to be as real as those of waking reality. Dreaming of them is thus deeply established in Coptic history, culture, and religiosity, and the interpretation of dream accounts can be understood as a normal process of interaction and decision-making. An interesting dream that was experienced by a Coptic abbot in the mid-twentieth century is contained in an unpublished manuscript at the Monastery of St. Paul the Hermit at the Red Sea. Catalogued as MS St. Paul (History) 152/130, the Abbot Mīsāk al-Anbā Būlā (who subsequently became Bishop Arsāniyūs II) documents on the front flyleaves of the manuscript, a supernatural dream he experienced in 1946 that he interpreted as being divinely inspired, and hence prompted him to construct a new cenotaph for St. Paul the Hermit in the ancient cave church at his Monastery near the Red Sea. Using the documented account as a case study, this chapter explores the circumstance surrounding the construction of the marble cenotaph in the Monastery in the mid-twentieth century, and the importance given by Copts to dreams as a means of divine revelation.

This paper aims to present the ongoing and soon to be published critical edition and translation of the Coptic version of a sermon attributed to Ephrem the Syrian on Joseph the Patriarch. After a short review of the ancient Jewish and Christian traditions and literatures devoted to Joseph the Patriarch, we will look at the structure and nature of the original Greek version of the sermon, as well as the particularities of its numerous translations: Latin, Armenian, Georgian, Arabic, Slavic and Coptic, the version we are interested in. We will finally say a few words about the manuscripts that preserved the sermon in Coptic, the main features of this Coptic version, as well as the state of our project.

The reconstruction of the Coptic tradition related to the monk Onophrius: a crucial case of integration of literary, archaeological and documentary sources. Known aspects and open questions.

The Coptic version of the Vita Onuphrii, transmitted by three semi-complete codices and the fragments of other three manuscripts, makes of Onophrius a well-known monastic figure, whose itinerant adventures are preserved
by an unusually large number of witnesses, testifying to the fortune
of both the wandering monk and the work related to him.
The Vita Onuphrii belongs to the literary genre of the historiae monachorum, since the episode regarding our saint does not constitute an independent
biographic narration – as it happens in some Greek recensions
and in the Ethiopic tradition – but it is part of a travel narrative, where several other characters are described by the supposed author, Papnoute.
Despite the fact that this work has been the object of several studies, even very recently, there are good reasons to reanalyze it once more.
Combining all the available sources – documentary, literary, archaeological, and even oral – this paper aims therefore to shed light on those aspects that have been neglected, such as the worship places related to the saint, the way in which an historia monachorum become the “Life of Onophrius”,
and the reason of the fortune of his cult till the eleventh century.