Where to find the “Clavis Coptica”

An interesting post at Alin Suciu on some new Coptic fragments of ps.Severian of Gabala made reference to a mysterious “Clavis Coptica”.  A google search left me none the wiser, so I thought that I’d better write something.

It looks as if “Clavis Coptica” is an informal reference to a “Clavis Patrum Copticorum”, which exists in a pay-only-access database.  If you look at this page it gives you these details.

It’s very disappointing to find something like this offline.  Only a handful of people will ever be able to use it.

UPDATE: Alin Suciu has now posted himself on this question here.  He asked Tito Orlandi, who replied:

The Clavis Coptica (or Clavis Patrum Copticorum) is the complete list of the literary and Patristic works which form the Coptic literature, modeled on the example of the Clavis Patrum Graecorum (by Geerard) and the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca/Latina/Orientalis.

Each work has an identification number of 4 digits, which may be quoted as: cc0000.

The list is presently found on the web page of the Corpus dei Manoscritti Copti Letterari
(http://cmcl.let.uniroma1.it) accompanied by information on manuscripts, content, and critical problems.

The bare list (id. number, author-title) will soon be found for free on the Hamburg web page of the CMCL. A printed Clavis Coptica is in preparation.”

It is very good news that the list will be accessible to us all.

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