Tag: Coptic

So why should we edit Coptic martyrdoms anyway? The CSCO editor replies.

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve started to look at the modern critical edition of the texts around St Colluthus.  This was printed a decade ago  in 2013 in the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (CSCO) volume 650, edited by Gesa Schenke.1  The texts were printed properly – in place of the half-assed hand-written texts in the editiones principales.

The translation and commentary was in German, which nobody else can actually read, although some scholars pretend. Cough.

Anyway I ran the preface through ChatGPT, just to get an English version and skim read it before looking at the good stuff.  Well, we all know how boring these prefaces always are.

So I was rather surprised to find something really interesting, and even inspirational.  Have a read.  Accuracy not guaranteed, of course.

    *    *    *    *

The impetus for my engagement with Coptic martyr legends came from reading courses and practical exercises conducted as part of my teaching at the Department of Egyptology at the University of Cologne. These hagiographical texts, which had long been underestimated and consequently largely neglected, grew particularly close to my heart over many semesters of teaching. I was astonished by the wealth of quotations from Holy Scripture incorporated into them, which the martyrs repeatedly produced during interrogations by the authorities, whether asked for them or not. The manner in which a constant struggle is stylized between the wickedness of the ruling Roman power and the piety of the martyrs—out of which the latter repeatedly emerge victorious through divine intervention—leaves a deep impression and is at times as fantastic as it is amusing. “The lawless ruler” orders the martyr to be flogged, while “the good soldier of Jesus Christ” quotes Scripture and endures his suffering, only to be healed again through divine assistance after his tortures.

This continual struggle between good and evil, punctuated by cruel tortures and pious quotations, seemed to me to be a defining feature of the Coptic martyr legend, one that does not entirely justify the constant accusation of a lack of quality and originality in Coptic literature.

Not only does the continuation of this struggle between good and evil recall ancient Egyptian myths, but the incorporation of convincing biblical quotations into the vita and passio of famous saints also reveals itself to be a genuinely original literary device. Thus, in response to Winstedt’s warning— “It is much to be feared that the Coptic lives of the saints but seldom contain anything of profit or interest to ordinary sinful humanity” —it should be pointed out that, although these narratives may seem repetitive and long-winded to modern readers, the manner in which biblical quotations are incorporated reveals a distinctive literary dynamic that can be highly interesting. Moreover, this type of popular literature provides access to the intellectual and emotional world of the indigenous population and, not least, constitutes evidence of a living Egyptian Christianity that, from Late Antiquity through the Early Middle Ages, repeatedly worked with the basic pattern of these legends, deliberately varying and convincingly adapting it when required for particular purposes.

Using the legendary texts concerning Saint Kolluthos as an example, the typical dossier of an Egyptian martyr saint is presented and examined here. Particular attention is paid to the structure, narrative technique, and compositional purpose of these different types of legends, in order to contribute to a deeper understanding of these textual genres. All previously known Coptic literary texts concerning the holy physician, martyr, and miracle-worker are brought together and newly edited here for the first time. In this way, a basis for further study is established for this particularly important Egyptian saint, for whom all three types of legend—the Martyrdom, Encomion, and Miracula—have survived, albeit in some cases only fragmentarily.

The texts, which are entirely in Sahidic, are each provided with an introduction, a German translation, and a commentary. The Encomion of Bishop Isaac of Antinoe on Saint Kolluthos, edited by S. E. Thompson in this series, is not reproduced here, but is discussed extensively, since the edition appeared entirely without commentary. This substantial text, however, provides a vivid impression of the veneration of saints in Late Antiquity and the early Arab period and is particularly well suited to illuminating the compositional methods of Coptic legendary texts.

In addition, the texts presented here are intended as reading exercises. They can be used in Coptic instruction or as reading texts for consolidating knowledge of the Coptic language. The Coptic text of the originals is likewise presented in two columns, in order to familiarize modern readers with the ancient format of the texts and to encourage the study of “ancient reading.” Word division, however, follows modern standards and corresponds essentially to that used in the editiones principes. The Leiden system of brackets is used in the presentation of the texts.

Then, after acknowledgements, we read:

My father died before the idea for this work was even born. Nevertheless, I would like to dedicate the present work to his memory and thank him for passing on to me the principle that the enjoyment of Coptic texts should (almost) always come first.

Oxford, November 2012
Gesa Schenke

    *    *    *    *

That is really thoughtful.  I think that we might all look a bit more kindly at Coptic hagiographical texts in future.

  1. ”Das koptisch hagiographische Dossier des Heiligen Kolluthos: Arzt, Märtyrer und Wunderheiler”.  The table of contents can be found online here.[↩]

A letter of Peter of Alexandria to a bishop who apostasised in the persecution under Diocletian

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In the Acts of St Colluthus, which record events in May 304 AD, the persecutor Arianus attempts to get Colluthus the physician to apostasise by sacrificing to the gods.

Not that Arianus, nor the emperor Diocletian who set him to work, actually believed in the gods.  The demand was made precisely because it was known to be  one that a Christian could not accept, and would cease to be a Christian if he did.  Once he had done so, his Christian identity was gone.  This tactic is a standard one, even today, wherever men do evil to each other, which is often these days.

As part of the process of confusing his victim, Arianus tells of other Christian leaders who have buckled and conformed:

There was Apollonius, the bishop of Siout; his people were most understanding about him, and took a dignified view of his prudence, since he did not wish to be disobedient, or to be brought to court and hear all this rigmarole, but he proceeded of his own accord into the temple and sacrificed in full view of every one, with the vessels of libation in his hand, standing there and offering up sacrifice; he is not at all ashamed, and every one honours him. . . . Then there was Plutarchus, the bishop of Sbeht; this man for the excellence of his wisdom is worthy of all respect. He was prudent and reverenced the Emperor’s gods, and offered up sacrifice to them; and look at him now! He is alive, with every one who sacrificed with him, and is bishop over them.

Arianus uses a standard tactic: isolate the victim, try to convince him that “everyone else is doing it”, and “nobody is watching” and “it’s just this once”.  It is a warning to us that whatever course we are considering is a very bad one.  And of course, once the victim agrees, there is the despair that accompanies a violated conscience, and suddenly “you did it before” becomes the game.

Colluthus also knows the tactic.  Wisely he says as little as possible, wisely, except to refuse to sacrifice.  The persecutor intends to try to confuse his victim.  The only response is not to engage.

Interestingly we have a letter to this Apollonius of Siout (or Assiout) from his patriarch, Peter of Alexandria, rebuking him. It was published in 1973 by Henry Chadwick.  1  It is unusual that we have this.  As Chadwick rightly observes:

It was natural for the church to remember with pride the names and ‘birthdays’ of the martyrs who had died in the great persecution, and equally natural that the names of apostates were not recorded. Lapse, whether by preference or by weakness, had taken them out of the community, and there could be nothing but grief and embarrassment in the later recall of their concession to diabolical forces. No one had a motive for advertising their number or even existence. There was every reason to hush up the awkward facts, especially if the apostate had been a divine of some eminence…2

The opening of the letter, which is all that we have, survives in Paris MS copte 131 (1), fol. 1r-v (online here).  This is a single damaged leaf from a parchment codex, which has ancient page numbers on it – 67 and 68. The leaf is good quality and dates to the 9-10th century.  The modern “manuscript” is actually a collection of leaves from the White Monastery in Sohag, purchased in Cairo from dealers in 1885.  If so, possibly further leaves exist somewhere.  It would be nice to have the rest of the letter!  Anyone know?

Peter, it seems, was working hard to support his flock in this difficult time.  He worked to support, against the attempts of the persecutors to isolate.  He worked to get the victims to “bounce back” rather than allow their persecutors to use their integrity against him and despair.  He asks plaintively why Apollonius allowed himself to be drawn in by the twisted words of the interrogator.  He offers healing, instead of despair.  This is a wise pastor at work.

Here is the English translation, from which I have removed brackets, italics, and so forth, and added paragraphing for readability:

. . .  Epistle of …  Peter the Archbishop of Alexandria, which he wrote to Apollonius the Bishop of Sioout after he heard that he had fallen away when he fell down into the pit of idolatry.

I am grieved indeed for this sheep who has strayed—or rather for this shepherd whom the evil hunter has caught and has caused him to stray to him … and has brought him low through the awakening of evil thoughts and the idolatry of those whom I consider to fall away through a fateful mis-step and to have betrayed their own selves. As for you, poor wretch, perhaps Apollinarius has dragged you down with him into the pit of destruction since the writing of your name and his begin with the same letters!

I am at a loss about you, where your wits have gone, that you have not had the wit to turn back and escape, and have not had the wit to exercise yourself and escape by means of others who have their wits about them, before you were ruined. If you had given yourself over to me before you were ruined, I would by all means have helped you, as I did in the case of another who came to me and I helped him, namely Basil the Persian.

When this man came in to us, he saw us in our chamber praying, and wondered at us. I said to him ‘Do you not worship God in this way?’ He said ‘No’. I said to him ‘What is the manner of your belief ?’ He said ‘I believe in the sun, and the moon, and water, and fire, as illuminators of the whole world.’ And when I heard this, I wept; and when I wept, my tears poured upon him, and I baptized him with them; and when he saw me weeping, he him­self wept as well; and thus if was that he acknowledged the Godhead, and believed even as I had told him; and I evangelized him with the Faith.

But as for you, Apollonius, why have you not made haste to save yourself from the snare in which you have been caught ? If you had paid heed thoroughly, God would have given you strength. I wonder at you, that you should join in debate with the enemies of Him in Whose holy Name you were baptized.

Who has put this beast’s heart in you? I do not know.

You have established  . . . a faith worthy of veneration. What has happened to you? Tell me! Speak to me, you who have been separated by error from the Godhead. Know the Faith of the Almighty! Say yourself, ‘My God, convert me … .’

It is truly a shame, the denial which has caught you in a trap, and something from which there is no escape. Who suggested to you treason like this? I had no intimation of your evil disposition before today; else I could not have borne to refrain from sending to you to correct you. In whom have you baptized, brother? Have you not baptized . . .

The fragment ends there.  Both Apollinarius and Basil the Persian are otherwise unknown.

Here’s the beginning of the leaf.  Note the words “Epistole” and “Petros” in column 1, lines 1 and 2.

H/t to Alin Suciu whose blog made me aware that the MS was online.  Thank you!

  1. This was published in J. Barns & H. Chadwick, “A letter ascribed to Peter of Alexandria,” in: Journal of Theological Studies, New Series 24 (1973) pp. 443-455. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23962128.[↩]
  2. Page 446.[↩]

A few musings on Colluthus and Coptic and copyright infringement

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m still pottering around in the Coptic martyrology area, especially with regard to the Great Persecution of the church under Diocletian.  I have  a translation of another version of the Acts of St Colluthus to upload, although a valueless one.  I’ve been looking for the other texts about the same saint – two encomiums – with limited success.

But it is terribly difficult simply to find stuff in Coptic.  Today, by accident, I discovered that all the Coptic material about Colluthus has recently been collected and critically edited, with German translation.  This is Gesa Schenke, “Das koptisch hagiographische Dossier des Heiligen Kolluthos”, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium volume 450, Louvain: Peeters (2013).

Obviously this is great news: except for two minor details.  The first detail is that I did not come across this earlier.  I have been googling relentless for some days about Colluthus, and reading books and articles, without ever becoming aware of the existence of this book.  I have now added it to the Wikipedia page for St Colluthus, if only to spare others the same experience.  With luck this will now bubble up into AI responses.

The other issue is that the book is not online; not even, as far as I can tell, in the pirate libraries which eke out their shadowy existence on the fringes of the web, ever pursued by the agents of the publishing industry.  The reason for this is fairly straightforward: it was published by Peeters in the CSCO series.

The CSCO series is vast.  I have no idea what it contains, myself, and if I don’t, nobody does.  Peeters carry out a marvellous function, in creating this great archive of obscure oriental texts.  But I can only imagine that they sell almost exclusively to research libraries that subscribe to the series  and don’t care what the price is.  Because that single volume is 120 euros, all by itself.

In fairness I suspect that collections of PDFs are circulated among orientalist students.  How else could they work?  This used to happen with the Sources Chrétiennes series, although it is now some years since any zip file came my way.

I don’t like the idea of depriving the publishers of these series of the revenue from sales.  That’s how they fund their work.  On the other hand starving students and poverty-stricken pensioners are not going to be able to buy volumes anyway.  So we have the situation where PDFs exist and are tolerated, at least to some extent.  I have no idea what the answer is.

I could take a day of my life, drive a couple of hours up a road studded with speed cameras to a research library with inadequate parking, locate a copy of Schenke and spend some time at the photocopier with the pages of interest. But I don’t think that I will.  All the same, if you want Colluthus texts and translations, Schenke’s volume is the place to look.

The actions during the Diocletianic persecution of the provincial governor of the Thebaid, Satyrus Arianus, look like an interesting subject.  A papyrus which I translated in my last post mentioned him.  There are apparently others.  But it is strangely difficult to locate these things using Google, or even Papyri.info.

In fact this seems to be a general theme with Coptology.  Hardly anybody knows anything about it, and, if you try, it’s really hard to find out anything.  Oh well.

The trial of St Colluthus ca. 304 AD – a literal transcription of the court proceedings

Posted on by Roger Pearse

St Colluthus was tried and executed in the Great Persecution ordered by the emperor Diocletian, in May 304.  Unusually we have a near-exact transcript of his appearance before the Roman provincial governor.  This was Satyrus Arianus, whose activity against the church is recorded in a number of papyri. The opening and closing paragraphs are clearly later additions, perhaps rubrics.

Unlike the dreary fictional martyrdoms, in which the saint is insolent, gives long speeches full of bible quotes, miracles take place, and the prosecutor is a pantomime villain, this account shows the banal reality of such persecutions.  A superficially genial prosecutor tries to break down the resistance of the victim with a mixture of fake reasonableness, social pressure, gas-lighting and victim-blaming.  The tactic was doubtless used many times before on men of some social class – Colluthus was a physician – and probably effectively. In response the saint wisely says as little as possible.

The translation here has been extracted from E.A.E. Reymond and J.W.B. Barns (edd.), Four martyrdoms from the Pierpont Morgan Coptic codices, Oxford (1973), pp.145-150 and 11-13. This is a difficult book to access and use, but is full of good things.  I have removed formatting elements likely to obstruct the general reader.  The footnotes are mainly mine.  (The professional reader should of course access the printed book, not this post.)

Translation

The martyrology of the holy martyr of Christ Colluthus, and the physician and healer of every one who partakes of the body and blood of Christ in purity; he fulfilled his contest on the twenty-fourth day of Pashons;[1] in God’s peace, Amen.

It happened in the twentieth year of the emperors Diocletian and Maximinian (sic), the transgressors, and in the third year of Constantine, on the twenty-fourth day of Pashons,[2] that the holy Colluthus was set upon the tribunal of Antinoou.[3]

Arianus the governor said to the holy Colluthus, “If you want to be saved, do sacrifice, and you shall live. All these people present are praying for you to see sense. If shame is what restrains you, arising from vanity, well, now, show some shame before me; do sacrifice, and you will be saved. For so far you have shown no shame before any one worth your shame. Colluthus, reverence the Emperor’s gods, so that you do not perish miserably.”

The holy Colluthus answered, “The glory of this world is temporal, but the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven is eternal life.”

The governor said to him, “The tortures of the law-court are many and if there were some one present today accusing you, you would do your best not to be defeated in any argument; do not accuse your own self, and kill yourself. For your own people who are present are grieved for your sake. Let them see you sacrifice, and rejoice with you. Moreover, the administrator of lodgement[4]—that is, myself—has won no credit for his place of giving lodgement for this matter. Let every one see your good sense and admire you.

“Moreover, if there is any affair or consideration between you and any one, that other person will certainly be present to your discomfiture;[5] do not spite your own self. For when death comes peacefully and naturally, people console themselves, for they call it ‘the lot of mankind’, since it is the fate of every one; but in this place where you are now sentence is passed upon murderers and temple robbers and violators of graves and debauchees and adulterers and villains—no respectable person is brought out from here and destroyed. But if there is any one who has flouted the law, it is evident to every one that what has betrayed such a person is not wisdom, but an insanity of conceit; just as robbers are reckless of death for robbery’s sake.

“Now I have been lenient with you so far, so that you may see sense and live a life of liberty like any free man. . . . Colluthus, why don’t you speak to me when I am speaking to you?”

The holy Colluthus said, “It is not fitting for me to make a long speech before a governor.”

The governor said to him, “Do sacrifice, Colluthus!”

The saint said, “I will not sacrifice”

The governor said to him, “Indeed you have not obeyed me and sacrificed to the gods about whom the Emperor has written to me. I shall consume your body by fire. But this shall not happen yet, in case you wish to consider with yourself.”

The saint answered, “I have already considered with myself before I came here to you.”

The advocates said to him, “Grant him a few days, if you please.” Arianus said to the advocates, “He looks to me as if he wants to, and has changed his mind.” The governor said to him, “Do you want to wait a few days, to think the matter over? For I can see it in your face—it shows me that you want to be saved.”

The saint made no answer at all. . .

The governor said to him, “Are you ashamed to admit it?”

The saint said to him, “A word is enough to the wise.”[6]

The governor had the fire laid before the blessed Colluthus. The governor said to them[7], “Stop, don’t do him any harm yet.”

Then the governor turned to the holy Colluthus and said to him, “Be sensible now, and do as you are told. There was Apollonius, the bishop of Siout;[8] his people were most understanding about him, and took a dignified view of his prudence, since he did not wish to be disobedient, or to be brought to court and hear all this rigmarole, but he proceeded of his own accord into the temple and sacrificed in full view of every one, with the vessels of libation in his hand, standing there and offering up sacrifice; he is not at all ashamed, and every one honours him. . . . Well now, speak to me, Colluthus, and you shall be in especial honour. . . . Then there was Plutarchus, the bishop of Sbeht;[9] this man for the excellence of his wisdom is worthy of all respect. He was prudent and reverenced the Emperor’s gods, and offered up sacrifice to them; and look at him now! He is alive, with every one who sacrificed with him, and is bishop over them. As for you, Colluthus, it is a governor who is pleading with you, and advising you! The governorship has humbled itself for you. Let it be enough to have done what you have in the matter of the books, when you were persuaded by your God and did not burn them.[10]

“There was a man here today on a charge of murder. That man wants to live; but as for you, Colluthus, something evil possesses you, to make you destroy yourself with murderers! Don’t you see the beauty of this pleasant weather? There will be no pleasure to come your way if you kill your own self. But listen to me and you will be saved.”

The holy Colluthus said to him, “The death which is coming to me is more pleasant than the life which you would give me,”

The governor said to him, “So you do not realize that I have authority to chastise you? Come now, use your reason like a sensible man, and listen to me.”

The holy Colluthus said to him, “Whoever listens to you will bring his own death upon him­self. But I will not forsake my Lord Jesus Christ.”

The governor said to him, “Look at all these people with their tears streaming down as they see you standing on the tribunal—and you have shown no pity on your own self, but you are disobedient. Now, listen to me and sacrifice, and you shall live.”

The saint said to him, “This life is indeed no life to me, but death.”

And straightway he ordered him to be set up on the rack.[11]

The governor said to him, “You do not need any one to ask you— do you want me to grant you some more days?”

Besamon the advo­cate said, “Yes, that is his wish.”

The governor said to him, “What do you want? Say, and I will do it for you.”

Jeremias the chief advocate said, “My lord, this is indeed what he wishes—that you should bear with him for a few days more; for his silence tells us this; (we know) from his demeanour.”

The governor said, “Colluthus, why don’t you speak? Which do you want me to do—to sentence you, or to be lenient with you?”

The righteous man said to him, “Do what you like.”

The governor said to him, “Thus far till now I have been lenient with you. If you for your part will only be lenient with yourself, then I shall be all the more pleased.”

The saint said to him, “Your kindness constrains me to say a word more.”

The governor said to him, “Now I have begun to hear a good word from you. For this kind of speech tells me that you want me to leave you for a few more days.”

The holy Colluthus said to the governor, “What are these words of comfort which you are saying? I will no longer listen to you and be misled so as to forsake my God; but I am rather confirmed in His Faith. And I am ready to bear anything for the sake of His holy Name; for the torments of this world are nothing, but the torments of God are great, and eternal, and there is none who shall be able to hide in His presence.”

The governor ordered a great stone to be hung upon his neck. The governor said to him, “Colluthus, do not say a word to me about anything but the matter which we are hoping for—that you will obey the law of the Emperors.” But the saint spoke no word at all.

The governor said to him, “Think scorn of this vain glory which will be of no profit to you! Turn now, man, and take for yourself a glory worthy of respect.”

The saint said to him, “The glory of my Lord Jesus Christ will preserve me for ever.”

The governor said to him, “We are not demanding from you a contest of words with us, but we are demanding from you an urgent matter—that you should be persuaded by us and sacrifice to the gods. Well, then, consider with yourself.”

The holy Colluthus said to him, “Do not detain me any more.”

The governor said to him, “You have been ordered to be wise and not show contempt of the court. “

The holy Colluthus said to him, “I have been wise all the time; and I came here in pursuit of the wisdom of my Lord Jesus Christ.”

The governor said to the members of the entourage, “There, you see; I have used every possible means with him in the hope of saving him; and you see how he would not listen and be saved. I am just not going to tolerate him for another single moment.”

The members of the entourage said, “Sentence him; he deserves to die, for he has dared to mislead us, and he made us a promise and broke it, when he mocked us and did not sacrifice.”

The holy Colluthus said to them, “I said no word which it was not proper to say.”

The governor said to him, “Sacrifice and be sensible.”

The saint said to him, “I will not sacrifice, neither will I listen to your stupid arguments.”

The governor was angry, and said to him, “If you will not sacrifice, hear your sentence, which you have earned: I order you to be burned alive.”

The holy Colluthus said, “I thank You, my Lord Jesus Christ, that I have been deemed worthy of Your grace, to die for the sake of Your holy Name.”[12] And he was taken out to be burned.

Now that day was the twenty-fourth of the month Pashons, and the holy Colluthus fulfilled his martyrdom, and his soul was taken up to heaven in glory, and he made festival with the angels, and all the saints rejoiced with him through the grace and compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ; with whom is the glory of the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever, Amen.

Footnotes

[1] May 19th – in the Coptic Synaxarion it is Bashons 25th.

[2] May 304.  The earliest certainly known date for Arianus as provincial governor (Praeses) of the Thebaid is 305/6; see P. Oxy. 2665.  This is one of a number of administrative letters about seizing church property.  In this case it involves seizing the personal property of a Christian named Paulus.  He has already been sentenced by Arianus, who is named as the “hegemon of the Thebaid, Satrius Arianus” (τοῦ διασημοτάτου ἡγουμένου Θ̣η̣βαίδος Σατρίου Ἀριανου).  The officials write that there is no evidence in the land registry that Paulus owns any property.  Transcription URL: https://papyri.info/current/16870.  Translation with assistance from ChatGPT: “In the consulship of our lords the Emperors Constantius and Maximian, the Augusti…

To Aurelius Hierakion, also called Dionysius, gymnasiarch and councillor, and to … prytanis of the illustrious and most illustrious city of the Oxyrhynchites, and to …mus, gymnasiarch, and to Sarapion, advocates (syndikoi) of the same city.  We, Aurelius …, also called Heraclianus, formerly high priest, and Agathinus, exegete, both councillors of the same city and custodians of the archives of the same nome, send greetings to our esteemed friends.

You have written to us stating that Aurelius Athanasius, procurator of the privata in Egypt, had ordered—through the letter which he wrote in accordance with the divine command of our sovereign Emperors and Caesars, and in accordance with the letters sent to him by Neratius Apollonides—that the property belonging to Paulus, from the Oxyrhynchite nome, should, pursuant to the decision submitted by the most distinguished governor of the Thebaid, Satrius Arianus, be transferred to the accounts of the treasury and that a written report should be furnished.

Therefore, having investigated thoroughly using the records deposited in the archives, we declare that Paulus possesses nothing, nor is he registered in any way in the records deposited in the archives, nor do we know that his wife has anything; the aforesaid Paulus does not appear to be registered in the same records in the public archives.

(Second hand:) I pray that you remain well, dear friends.

(First hand:) Dated in the year … of our lords Constantius and Maximian, the Augusti, and of Maximinus, most illustrious Caesars …”

[3] Antinoupolis, or Antinoe.  In Colluthus 2, the trial is at Shmoun (Hermopolis Magna).

[4] A legal term for the court-proceedings.

[5] Colluthus seems to have been informed against, and Arianus indicates that his accuser is present.

[6] This Christian response to attempts to entrap them may originate (H. Chadwick, JTS NS 20 (1969), 645) in the New Comedy.

[7] Lit. “him”.

[8] The recipient of a letter from Peter of Alexandria, condemning his conduct.  Published with translation in J. Barns & H. Chadwick, “A letter ascribed to Peter of Alexandria,” in: Journal of Theological Studies, New Series 24 (1973) pp. 443-455. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23962128

[9] Otherwise unknown.

[10] Diocletian’s edict to burn Christian scriptures.

[11] ἑρμητάριον, hermetarion/ermetarion. A torture rack or iron bed, but a machine of some complexity which frequently goes wrong in martyrdoms by divine intervention.  The definition in Lampe, “stake”, is misleading.

[12] These final words of Colluthus are not found in the Berlin palimpsest which also contains a version of the same text.

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A book arrived through the post yesterday: E.A.E. Reymond & J.W.B. Barns, Four Martyrdoms from the Pierpont Morgan Coptic Codices, Oxford (1973). This contains the martyrdom of St Colluthus, plus an English translation.  I did try to order it by ILL, but something went wrong, and I gave up.  Needless to say they have now actioned it, just as the book from Amazon arrived.

Looking at it made me realise that I just do not read many – or any – physical paper books any more.  It’s all electronic.  My novels are on kindle, and my reference texts in PDF.  Anyway today I settled down to get to grips with it.

But it’s a funny old thing.  There’s a long and rambling introduction, which needed the attention of an editor badly.  It’s as if the authors just decided to talk around the subject, darting off here and there.  It’s full of interest, but compared to modern introductions, organised by topic with headings, it is very frustrating.  It really resists the reader.  This is a black mark on Oxford University Press, who should have demanded better.

This is followed by the Coptic text for all four martyrdoms – which has NOT been typeset!  Instead the pages are reproductions of hand-written sheets.  It’s incredible that in 1973 the press issued a volume without typesetting.  Oxford has been typesetting Coptic since the 18th century.  So what on earth happened here?

This is followed by translations of the four texts.  These are plainly designed as cribs.  Mysteriously various parts of the translation are in italics.  The introduction offers no clue.  Fortunately a couple of these were in the first line.  I wondered if these were words not in the original, as in the old KJV bible translation.  But this was impossible.  I looked at the tiny, handwritten Coptic, and then at the indexes – also handwritten! – and realised that these words in Italics were the Greek words like “martyrologion” embedded in the Coptic.  A footnote would have helped.

I think a bit of user-friendly formatting may help with the readability of the translation, so I will try this.

The introduction does contain interesting material.  For one thing, I learned that even Hippolyte Delahaye, the great Bollandist hagiographer of the early 20th century, thought that Coptic martyrdoms were pretty bad.  I feel better now, after concluding the same about yesterday’s texts.

For another, I learn that the martyrdom of St Colluthus reads a lot like a Roman trial record, rather than a made-up hagiography.  The prosecutor Arianus is a historical figure, attested elsewhere, with his genial, polished routine of getting prisoners to sacrifice to the gods.  Arianus refers to one bishop who has done so, as a way to pressure the victim; and apparently a letter from a patriarch to that bishop exists, unpublished in 1973, bollocking him for doing so.  This deserves investigation.

I wondered about the editor, E.A.E. Reymond (1923-1986).  Apparently there is an entry for her in M. L. Bierbrier, “Who was who in Egyptology”, 5th edition (2019), p.391; but this is not accessible to me.  A google search tells me that her name was Eva Anne Elisabeth Jelínková-Reymond, known as Eve, and professionally as E. A. E. Reymond.  She was a Czech scholar of Demotic, and worked as a research assistant at CNRS up to 1957, then at Cambridge (1955-1960), then as a lecturer, then reader in Coptic at the University of Manchester from 1960 onwards, although curiously she published nothing on Coptic until 1973.  Her publications are all technical.  She must have had an interesting life somewhere.  I had thought about creating a Wikipedia page for her – if the people who control the site would allow it – but I really do not have enough information.

How the first pages from the White Monastery were discovered

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In the 18th century, a chamber in the ruins of the White Monastery at Sohag in Egypt contained piles of loose leaves of a vast and ancient Coptic library.   In previous posts I have noted how the first to learn of the existence of this material was Cardinal Stefano Borgia, secretary  of the Papal missionary organisation, the Propaganda Fidei.  In 1781 he published a Coptic text containing two miracles of the obscure Coptic saint Colluthus from some pages sent to him by a Franciscan missionary in Egypt.1  The actual transcriber and translator was, of course, not the mighty cardinal but A. Giorgi.

I thought that it would be interesting to see exactly what Borgia said about the find, in his preface.  An English translation is below.

Latin:

ERUDITO LECTORI STEPHANUS BORGIA

Fragmentum sane pretiosum, ac insigne prorsus Actorum S. Coluthi Martyris, quod nunc publici iuris facimus, detectum fuit anno circiter MDCCLXXVIII inter rudera veteris monasterii, quod situm erat prope Thebas in superiore Aegypto, quae urbs caput, & metropolis Thebaidis quondam erat.  Aliter etiam audiebat haec ipsa urbs, quae nimirum dicta quaque est “Diapolis”, vel “Diospolis” (a), & “Hecatompylos”, mutuato posteriori hoc nomine a centum portis, quibus eadem donabatur (b), & ob quas apud Iuvenalem (c) legitur: “Atque vetus Thebe centum iacet obruta portis.”

Thebarum itaque civitas, de qua nunc loquimur, haud permiscenda est cum ceteris eidem homonymis, quas & in Boeotia (quae quidem ob Amphionis fabulam, per quam ab eo condita eiusdem moenia circumferuntur, celebris evasit, quaeque & Heptapylos dicta est ob septem eidem tributas portas, quas respexit Iuvenalis (d), dum ait: “Rari quippe boni: numero vix sunt totidem, quot Thebarum portae, vel divitis ostia Nili” & in Cilicia, & in Corsica, & in Italia tandem, in Lucania nempe, olim exstitisse cognovimus. Hinc factum est, ut Ptolemaeus (a), quo nostras Thebas ab aliis distingueret, civitatem hanc ipsam “μεγάλην” “magnam” scilicet appellaverit.

De loco, in quo huiusmodi fragmentum prostabat, fidem nobis facit Angelus Antonius Bergomas Alumnus Fratrum Minor, Reformator, Nagadae degens, quod oppidum est Aegypti superioris, qui huiusmodi fragmentum ad nos dono misit cum nonnullis aliis, ac singulis quidem membranaceis, atque eodem loco existentibus, tum & Copticis litteris exaratis; inter quae est, quod ceteris praestet, illud, quod Coptice, & Graece uno tempore loquitur, quodque capitula aliquot adhuc integra Evangelii S. Ioannis comprehendit, quae insuper edenda in sacrorum studiorum utilitatem mature curabimus (b). Interim praeclare actum censeri debet cum fragmento, de quo agimus, quod nempe strenuum illustratorem, & interpretem magnum natum fuerit, virum scilicet cl. Augustinum Antonium Georgium Eremitarum Augustinensium Procuratorem generalem, cui commode illud extricandum pro summa sua orientalium fere omnium linguarum peritia, & pro insigni ad ardua quaeque  expedienda alacritate commisimus. Quare cum duo tantum, eaque mutila prodigia contineat fragmentum Actorum S. Coluthi, quae ad eius martyrium patrata perhibentur, ita ad ea supplenda ipse industriam, & animum suum comparavit, ut nil sive verosimilius, sive felicius excogitari posse videatur iis, quae ab eo nunc proponuntur.

Nos vero, ut quoquo modo huic rerum apparatui sane egregio respondeamus, & orientalis litteraturae studiosis morem geramus, characteris specimen aere insculptum exhibemus, quod nempe ex prioribus fragmenti lineis petitum est, ut proinde ex eo iudicium ferri possit de universa Copticarum litterarum forma, qua quinque omnino membranae, binis in unaquaque scripturae columnis appositis, exaratae sunt, quot nempe a pag. 221. ad pag. 230., quemadmodum recensentur, existunt. Hinc sane colligere est, fragmentum hoc pertinuisse olim ad codicem, in quo forsan alia Sanctorum Martyrum acta continebantur, quodque vulgo “Passionarium” appellari consuevit. Profecto scribendi forma magnam redolet vetustatem, quae ex sententia laudati Georgii nostri, & Raphaelis Tukii natione Aegyptii, & Episcopi Arsenovensis, cui acceptae referri debent editiones peractae Liturgicorum librorum, & Psalmorum Coptice loquentium typis Propagandae Fidei, viri sane utriusque ad iudicium de huiusmodi re recte ferendum perquam idonei, saeculi quinti aetatem citra dubium omne attingat. Nulla in hisce membranis capitulorum vestigia, sive sectionum indicia, neque eo loci, quo ad rem aliam fiat orationis conversio; ut idcirco ubi explicit prioris miraculi narratio per haec verba: “Dantes gloriam Deo, & Sancto Colutho,” continenter, citra ulterioris capituli auspicationem, alterius prodigii descriptio subsequatur per haec verba: “Audite quoque magnum aliud miraculum”. Acta haec Thebanensi, seu Sahidica dialecto, quae in superiore Aegypto obtinebat, non autem Memphitica, seu Alexandrina, quae communiter adhibebatur, concinnata sunt. At non haec nos nunc agimus.

(a) Hinc Manethoni, Africano, & Eusebio Reges Thebani “Diopolitani” nuncupantur.

(b) “Hecatompylos” eadem de causa vocabatur urbs Parthiae maxima, & regia, inter Ecbatana, & Alexandriam Ariae.

(c) Sat. xv. v. 6.

(d) Sat. xiii. v. 26.

(a) Lib. iv. cap. 5.

(b) Vide quae de hoc fragmento adnotavit eruditiss. Andreas Christianus Hwiidius Hauniensis in Specim. ined. versionis Arabico-Samarit. Pentateuchi Romae 1680. pag. 14.

English:

TO THE LEARNED READER, STEPHANUS BORGIA.

This truly precious and altogether remarkable fragment of the Acts of Saint Coluthus the Martyr, which we are now publishing, was discovered (detectum) around the year 1778 among the ruins of an old monastery situated near Thebes in Upper Egypt, a city that was once the capital and metropolis of the Thebaid. This same city was also known by other names: it was called “Diapolis” or “Diospolis” (a), and “Hecatompylos,” the latter name being derived from the hundred gates with which it was endowed (b), and on account of which we read in Juvenal (c): “And ancient Thebes lies buried beneath its hundred gates.”

The city of Thebes of which we now speak, therefore, must not be confused with other cities bearing the same name, which we know to have existed in Boeotia (which indeed became famous because of the legend of Amphion, by whom its walls are said to have been built, and which was also called Heptapylos because of the seven gates attributed to it, as Juvenal (d) had in mind when he said: “for truly the good are rare: they are scarcely as many in number as the gates of Thebes or the mouths of the wealthy Nile)” — and also in Cilicia, in Corsica, and finally in Italy, namely in Lucania. Hence it came about that Ptolemy (a), in order to distinguish our Thebes from the others, called this very city “μεγάλην”—that is, “the Great.”

Concerning the place where this fragment was offered for sale (prostabat), we have the testimony of Angelo Antonio Bergamo, a member of the Order of the Reformed Friars Minor, residing at Nagada, a town in Upper Egypt. He sent this fragment to us as a gift, along with several others, each of them on parchment and found (existentibus) in the same place, and all written in Coptic letters. Among them, the one that stands out above the rest is that which speaks (loquitur) both in Coptic and Greek at the same time, and which contains several chapters—still complete—of the Gospel of Saint John, which we shall take care to publish in due course for the benefit of sacred studies (b). In the meantime, the fragment with which we are now concerned should be considered particularly fortunate, in that it has found a vigorous editor and great interpreter, namely the renowned Father Agostino Antonio Giorgio, Procurator General of the Augustinian Hermits, to whom we conveniently entrusted the task of unraveling it, on account of his supreme expertise in almost all Oriental languages and his notable eagerness to undertake difficult tasks. Therefore, since the fragment of the Acts of Saint Coluthus contains only two miracles—and those mutilated—which are reported to have been performed at the time of his martyrdom, he so applied his industry and mind to supplementing them that it seems impossible for anything to be more plausibly or more successfully devised than what he now proposes.

For our part, in order to respond in some measure to this truly excellent scholarly undertaking and to gratify students of Oriental literature, we present a specimen of the script engraved on copper, taken from the first lines of the fragment, so that from it a judgment may be formed concerning the whole form of Coptic letters in which all five parchment leaves are written—with two columns of writing on each—namely those which exist from page 221 to page 230, as they are numbered. From this it may be gathered that this fragment once belonged to a codex that perhaps contained other Acts of the Holy Martyrs, and which was commonly called a “Passionarium.” Indeed, the style of writing smacks greatly of antiquity, which, in the opinion of our aforementioned Giorgio and of Raphael Tukius, an Egyptian by birth and Bishop of Arsenopolis—to whom are owed the editions already completed of the Liturgical books and the Psalms in Coptic printed by the Propaganda Fide press, both men highly qualified to make a correct judgment on this matter—unquestionably reaches back to the fifth century. In these leaves there are no traces of chapters or indications of sections, nor any place where the discourse turns to another subject; so that where the account of the first miracle ends with these words: “Giving glory to God and to Saint Coluthus,” the description of the second miracle immediately follows, without any heading of another chapter, with these words: “Hear also another great miracle.” These acts are composed in the Theban, or Sahidic, dialect, which prevailed in Upper Egypt, and not in the Memphitic, or Alexandrian, dialect, which was more commonly used. But we are not concerned with these matters now.

(a) Hence Manetho, Africanus, and Eusebius call the Theban kings “Diopolitans.”

(b) For the same reason, “Hecatompylos” was also the name of the greatest royal city of Parthia, situated between Ecbatana and Alexandria in Aria.

(c) Satires, Book XV, verse 6.

(d) Satires, Book XIII, verse 26.

(a) [second occurrence] Book IV, chapter 5.

(b) [second occurrence] See what the most learned Andreas Christianus Hwiidius of Copenhagen noted about this fragment in his unpublished Specimen of the Arabic-Samaritan Version of the Pentateuch, Rome 1680, page 14.

He then goes on to give the Greek text of a Greek menologium about the saint, and then other bits and pieces, of no importance here.

Borgia is clearly suspicious of the supposed location of the find, in a monastery near Thebes.  It may be that he has enough knowledge of the area, from missionary reports, to realise that this cannot be true.  He repeats the information that he has – plainly from Bergamo – that it was “discovered (detectum) around the year 1778 among the ruins of an old monastery situated near Thebes.”  Then in the next paragraph he refers instead to “the place where it was offered for sale (prostabat)”. No doubt the pages were indeed brought to Luxor – was the antiquity trade already beginning at that date? -, and so were offered to Bergamo at Naqada, just 15 miles away to the north.

Stephen Emmel in his massively scholarly Shenoute’s Literary Corpus vol. 1 (2004), p.20 rightly suggests:

Both the vagueness of the reported provenance and its basic inaccuracy are symptoms of what was no doubt a conscious effort on the part of those in charge of the monastery to keep their treasure secret. Even when subsequent visitors to the monastery asked explicitly about old books, with a view to studying or buying them, the horde of precious parchment fragments was not revealed.(56)

On the other hand, it is reasonable to suppose that it was precisely the steadily growing stream of European visitors interested in antiquity that led to a new regard for the heap of ruined old books in the trash room, which could now be perceived as a valuable commodity. Furthermore, in 1718 a Jesuit mission had been established in Akhmim, across the river from the monastery …

In all this, it is important to remember that archaeology had yet to be invented, and would not be invented until the 20th century.  Indeed the creation of a scientific discipline to uncover the past was prompted precisely by observing the rate at which “everything was being destroyed.”

In this period those in charge at the White Monastery no doubt felt that they were acting very much for the best, turning worthless unreadable rubbish into good solid current coinage – always a pleasant thing – at the expense of rich but daft foreigners.  The same predatory feeling still motivates a very large number of people in Egypt today, of course.

  1. Fragmentum Copticum ex Actis S. Coluthi Martyris Erutum ex Membranis Vetustissimis Saeculi V ac. Latine Redditum:  online here.[↩]

More Coptic on St Colluthus

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A few days ago I wrote about locating the 18th century publication of an early Coptic fragments of the acts of St Colluthus.  This was important, not for the content, but for the preface explaining how Cardinal Stefano Borgia came to own some parchment pages from the White Monastery at Sohag in Egypt; the first in Europe to do so.

I’ve not had time to read this preface as yet.  But by coincidence I learned today that those parchment pages have just been digitised and indeed uploaded to the Vatican website.  The Vatican collection is being thoroughly turned into digital copies, and of course this includes the Vatican Borgia collection.  After Cardinal Borgia’s death his collection of Coptic manuscripts was divided into two halves.  The first, containing mainly biblical texts, ended up in the Vatican.  The rest went to Naples.

Here’s the BlueSky post by Aaron M., who maintains the Wiglaf website which indexes what has been uploaded.  It’s a far, far better way to locate Vatican manuscripts than the official pages.  Here’s the post on his blog, “Week 25 of 2026“:

Twenty-five manuscripts were digitized the past week, unusually for the Vatican, the majority of these were uploaded on Sunday. Most of the manuscripts this week, twenty-two, came from Borg.Copt. The last three manuscripts came from. Barb.lat, giving two, and one volume only from Ott.lat. It is not clear if this is the start of a new pattern in digitization work, or an outlier week.

To the right is f.11v from Borg.copt.109.cass.XXVII.fasc.141, a 9th Century Sahidic copy of The Acts and Martyrdom of St. Coluthus.  First a note about the shelfmarks and the identification: Borg.Copt.109 is a collection of approx. 168 disbound leaves and partial manuscripts. They are shelved in 29 boxes, marked as “Cass” in the shelfmark, but numbered sequentially. Thus cass.XVII.fasc.141 is number 141 of the entire collection, and found in box 27. These were originally catalogued by Georgio Zoega1 in the early 19th C, and then there is a later catalogue/concordance between his catalogue and the current organization found in

J.-M. Sauget, “Introduction historique et notes bibliographiques au catalogue de Zoega,” _Museon 85_ (1972) pp. 25-63.

This particular manuscript was originally catalogued as being from the 4th century, but later scholarship points to it being a 9th C copy, carefully imitating a 4th C hand, which was known to be practiced at the White Monastery at that time.

The manuscript itself is at the Vatican website here.

Marvellous!

Searching for “Giorgi Fragmentum Copticum”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

One of the earliest enthusiasts for Coptic literature was Cardinal Stefano Borgia (1731-1804), a Papal bureaucrat who created a museum in the Borgia Palace in his home town of Velletri.  He spent considerable sums acquiring material for it, and especially material from Egypt.

There is a 1781 publication which describes how he obtained some Coptic fragments which we now know to come from the White Monastery in Sohag in middle Egypt.  The publication is referenced by Stephen Emmel in his ground-breaking Shenoute’s Literary Corpus, in vol. 1 (2004), p.20 with the bibliography in vol. 2, p.964.  The same material appears in other papers, including one by Paola Buzi (online here).1  Buzi gives the reference thus:

GIORGI A., Fragmentum Copticum ex Actis S. Coluthi Martyris Erutum ex Membranis Vetustissimis Saeculi V ac. Latine Redditum, Romae 1781, p. 3-4.

This is not an easy item to find.  Indeed at one point I wondered if it even existed.  But it does exist, and indeed it is online here.

However it took me two days (!) to locate it, trying various extracts of the title.  In the end the search phrase “Fragmentum Copticum ex Actis” produced it, although I am sure that I had tried this before.

But before I located the 1781 publication, I stumbled upon a 1783 reprint in a four-volume series of what we would today call academic papers, publishing previously unpublished primary materials from various libraries.  The name of Stefano Borgia appears in several places within it.

The series is titled Anecdota litteraria ex mss. codicibus eruta, published in Rome and edited by Giovanni Cristoforo Amaduzzi and G. L. Bianconi.  But reference volumes such as the British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books also reference it under the name of Stefano Borgia.

The series volumes may be found here:

Volume 4 contains the Fragmentum Copticum.  The table of contents (“Elenchus”) on page XII (page 17 of the PDF) gives the “Fragmentum Copticum…” as the second item, on pages 47-229.  Page 49 (page 74 of the PDF) features an address to the reader by Stefano Borgia, and the details that we want are on page 50.  After this, page 75 has a “monitum” (notice) by “Augustinus Antonius Georgius” – i.e. our friend “Giorgi” about the text, but this does not indicate that he is the author of the remarks.

Attributing this work to “A. Giorgi” is unhelpful, it seems, at least as far as Google is concerned.  It is probably better to attribute it to Stefano Borgia.

Title page
  1. Paola Buzi, “The Borgia Coptic manuscripts collection preserved in Naples. A new catalogue,” in Huitième Congres International d’Études Coptes, Paris, 27 giugno – 3 luglio 2004, (Paris 2007), pp. 41-50 (online here).[↩]

Let’s all agree that Amelineau needs to be flogged!

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Today I received an email asking me about a letter of St Shenouda of Atripe, the 4th century Coptic abbot.  The letter in question was apparently written to a nun, saying “I knew you long ago.”  The email asked if I knew the source.

Well, I have almost no familiarity with the works of Shenouda (or Shenoute), so I thought that I would poke around a bit.  The email author was French, so I wondered what existed in French.

Interestingly Emile Amelineau translated some material by Shenouda into French as long ago as 1907, in his “Oeuvres de Schenoudi”.  Vol. 1 is here; vol. 2 here.  But… neither has a table of contents!  Cunningly, the editor has also ensured that none of the names of the works appears in the running titles.  This would not be great in printed volumes; in a PDF it is impossible to gain an overview of the volume and its contents without significant work.  Flinders Petrie had hard words for Amelineau’s destructive ineptitude as an archaeologist at Abydos; a century later, I feel ever so slightly vexed at such carelessness.

On reading his interminable introduction, in search of information, I find that he is not really editing anything.  What he is doing is printing chunks of fragments from papyri.  So, for him, each section is just whatever was found in such a manuscript.  That may be better than nothing, but it does not help us here.

It seems that the reconstruction of Shenouda’s works had to wait until modern times, and the labours of Stephen Emmel.1.  But that will have to wait for another day.

  1. See https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2023/2023.08.22/[↩]

Pachomius, “Instruction concerning a spiteful monk” – now translated by Anthony Alcock

Posted on by Roger Pearse

There is a text preserved in a Coptic manuscript which is thought by some to be the work, or partly the work, of the Egyptian monastic leader Pachomius.  Dr Anthony Alcock has kindly prepared a new translation of the work, from the text printed by E. A. Budge in Coptic Apocrypha in the Dialect of Upper Egypt (1913), p.146-176.  He has made this available to us online, under the title of: Instructing an angry monk at Tabennêse.  It’s here:

The text was printed from a single parchment manuscript, discovered at the monastery of S. Mercurius at Edfu.  It is now British Library Oriental 7024.  The text is on folios 18r-49v.  The colophon dates it to AD 985.1  The work was edited again by L. T. Lefort, Œuvres de S. Pachôme et de ses disciples, CSCO 159, (with French translation CSCO 160) (1956), p.1-24.  But this I have not seen.  The original work was certainly in Coptic, but at least two manuscripts of an Arabic translation are known.  Lefort made use of one, and the other was discovered recently by Khalil Samir.  Other Arabic manuscripts probably exist, or so I learn from A. Veilleux &c, Pachomian Koinonia: Instructions, Letters and other writings of Salnt Pachomius and his disciples, vol. 3 (1982) which also includes an English translation (online at Alin Suciu’s site here).

The manuscript attributes the work to Pachomius, but there is some disagreement among scholars, or so I learn from Ulla Tervahauta &c, Women and Knowledge in Early Christianity, p.255 n.18 (preview here).  There is more discussion at Carolyn Schneider, The Text of a Coptic Monastic Discourse On Love and Self-Control (2017), p.79 f. (preview here).  No doubt any Coptic monastic text might drift into being attributed to Pachomius, whoever the original author.   Lefort was the first to note that the work includes a long section from Athanasius’ On Charity and Continence, quoted without attribution.

Thank you Dr Alcock!

  1. So this page.[↩]