COPTIC TEXTS RELATING to the CHURCH CANONS an Overview
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-1- UNIONE ACCADEMICA NAZIONALE Corpus dei Manoscritti Copti Letterari LETTERATURA COPTA Serie Studi TITOORLANDI COPTIC TEXTS RELATING TO THE CHURCH CANONS An Overview Roma - CIM - 2016 The layout has been prepared by the author,using troff/grofffor page layout, and postscript fonts. God bless Unix/Linux and Gnu. The Coptic font has been designed by Alberto Camplani and Alessandro Pardini. ©CIM - Roma ISBN 978-88-85354-20-3 CONTENTS I. Generalia 5 II. Bibliological and Codicological Units 7 1. The monastery of apa Shenute, 9 2. The monastery of St. John, 14 3. Origin not known, 17 III. Textual Units 21 IV.Historical Classification 39 V. Table of the Works 60 Appendices 65 1. Codicological Units, 65 — 2. Fragments, 66 3. Bibliographical List, 70 4COPTIC TEXTS RELATING TOTHE CHURCH CANONS GENERALIA 5 I. GENERALIA During the preparation of the catalogue of the so-called Claren- don Press collection of Coptic manuscripts, in the Bodleian Library of Oxford, which I hope to publish soon, I was confronted with the ne- cessity of clarifying (after some texts relating to the Virgin Mary: Or- landi #a411, 2012) the relationship between the fragments containing canonical texts and the known textual units belonging to this genre. As I did in the case of the Virgin Mary texts, I thought it useful to pub- lish the results in this separate book, because theyare interesting in manyother respects. All the technical observations made in the Intro- duction to the previous book are valid also for this one, but are not re- peated here. Theyconcern the situation of the fragments and works of the coptic literature, and the terminological problems that it raises. Therefore for the terminology and classification criteria the reader is referred to what is said in the Introduction to the book quoted above, especially to pp. 7-11, about: Codicological units Bibliological units, ancient or modern, with their scriptoria Te xtual units, with their literary genres Author units Narrative units Something I want to add on twoissues, whose relevance often eludes the scholars who study Coptic texts: (a) the relationship be- tween the works, and the (sometimes different) titles which accompa- ny them in the different codices; (b) the corpora or collections in which the individual texts are included in the different manuscripts. The history of the tradition of the Coptic texts, both in the philological and the literary investigation, cannot be properly appreciated without a clear vision of the situation suggested by the analysis of those twoele- ments. The persons who have chosen the texts included in one codex were normally guided by their own interests and finalities. Theymay 6COPTIC TEXTS RELATING TOTHE CHURCH CANONS have been of liturgical character,such as producing a collection to be read in the relevant celebrations, or for reference in ecclesiastical and monastic questions which might arise, and this is the case of historical texts, or,asinour case, canonical texts in a large sense. Theyfound the texts in manuscripts, which constituted their model, with their own title, but (a) theyassumed as obvious that theycould change them or leave them unaltered as theysaw itfittotheir present interest. There- fore the differences in the titles point to the history of the tradition and to the specific interest which theywere intended to support. (b) They also might find the texts included in a collection, also accompanied by specific titles; and according to the same rules of behaviour theycon- sidered themselves entitled to preservethe collections, or extract indi- vidual texts, or constitute other collections, in each case keeping or changing the relative titles. Forthis reason we consider as individual separate entities: (a) the texts (eventually parts of one text); (b) the titles, which may be super- scribed (inscribed) or subscribed or both; and (c) the collections, when it is clear that theywere so intended by the commissioning person. And as such theyare treated, from nowon, in the database of CMCL (http://www.cmcl.it, link: Clavis Coptica), with a number of CC (clavis coptica or Clavis Patrum Aegyptiorum), duly quoted in what follows. Finally we wish to emphasize that this is not astudy of the Cop- tic Church canons but a systematic description of the manuscript doc- uments on which such a study should be based, with some observa- tions on the history of the manuscript tradition. BIBLIOLOGICAL AND CODICOLOGICAL UNITS 7 II. BIBLIOLOGICAL AND CODICOLOGICAL UNITS In this section I list the ‘‘codicological units’’which contain the ‘‘textual units’’ofcanonical character,which will be described in sec- tion III and V.Theyare arranged according to the ‘‘bibliological units -ancient’’towhich theyprobably belong, because it is important to pay attention to the origin of the manuscripts as one of the factors leading to the evaluation of the texts which theycontain. Tw o provisos: (1) there is in manycases more than one ‘‘place of origin’’(generally the repository of a monastery or a church) for one manuscript, because the codices, as it seems, were frequently dis- placed from one repository to another.Ilist the manuscripts under the heading which seems to have the greatest significance for our purpos- es. (2) The origin which is indicated is sometimes far from sure, still I believe that it is better to represent the situation in this way (duly declaring the uncertainties) rather than continuing the confused ap- proach common so far in similar cases. For the history of Coptic manuscripts, as well as for the history of the relative literature, it is time to propose a synthesis, a model, uncertain as it may be, in order that it can be improvedthrough constructive discussion, instead of ran- dom adjustments of an implicit but undeclared reality. Inside the ‘‘bibliological units - ancient’’weclassify: (a) codices in complete or semi-complete conditions, as theyare now. Here again it is a relative definition: a codexaswehav e it now, kept in one ‘‘bibliological unit - modern’’, may be the result of re-binding to- gether pieces coming from different codices, etc. But again we prefer to run our risks, and the reader be alert. Theyare identified by means of the call number giventothem in the data-base of CMCL (http://www.cmcl.it); but also the official call number used in the ac- tual collection is given. (b) Units virtually identified assigning single sheets or groups of sheets, today kept separately in different ‘‘bibliological units - mod- ern’’, to the same ancient ‘‘codicological unit’’, that is, groups of dis- persed sheets reasonably considered to have belonged to one and the same codex. Theyare identified by means of the siglum giventothem 8COPTIC TEXTS RELATING TOTHE CHURCH CANONS in the data-base of CMCL; but also the call number of the single sheets is listed. (c) Units consisting of one sheet or a small group of sheets, which have not yet found any‘‘complementary’’sheet to form a virtual ‘‘codicological unit’’ofthe type (b). Theyare identified by means of the official call number of the relevant collection, slightly modified as it appears in the lists of the data-base of the CMCL. The units are described according to the following template: Name of the unit in the CMCL archive. Localization and content: either quote of the fragments, possibly with the original page number,followed by the ‘‘textual unit’’con- tained, or quote of the ‘‘codicological unit’’followed by the num- ber of folios and the ‘‘textual unit’’contained. Material. Date. Local language (usually called ‘‘dialect’’). Editions (of the parts which concern this study.When otherwise not necessary,only the most recent edition is mentioned). Comments. BIBLIOLOGICAL AND CODICOLOGICAL UNITS 9 Bibliological unit - ancient, 1: The monastery of apa Shenute in the mount Atripe (MONB).1 Codicological units, 1. Reconstructed codices MONB.BG Localization and content: MP.I.1.B0712 (p. 1-2); PN.129.14.093 (p. numb.not visible); BL.OR03580.28 (p. numb.not visible); PN.131.3.26 (p. 35-36) PN.129.12.07 (p. 59-60) PN.130.3.50-54 (p. 61-70) = cc0091, Canones Apostolorum. WK.09599 (p. 107-108); WK.09603 (p. 141-142); WK.09600-09602 (p. 143-148); CH.541.46.1-2 (p. 151-152); IB.14.01-02 (p. 157-160); IB.14.03 (p. 177-178) = cc0089, Canones Athanasii. Material: parchment. Date: ca. 950, cf. Riedel-Crum #0213 (1904) p. 84. Local language: Sahidic. Editions: Horner #0231 (1904), p. 459sgg. (PN.129.14.093, BL.OR03580.28, PN.131.3.26, PN.129.12.07). VonLemm #0191 (1907-15), n. LXXXIX (MP.I.1.B0712). Maspero #0172 (1886), p. 142-3 (PN.129.12.07). Leipoldt #0234 (1904) (PN.130.3.50-54). Mu- nier #0173, I p. 5ff. (CH.541.46). Riedel-Crum #0213 (1904) p. 143-150; 157-160; 177-178. Comments: It is possible that between the pages 71 and 107 (lost) was copied cc0088 (Canones Clementis;cf. Riedel-Crum #0213 (1904) p. 85). MONB.CV Localization and content: PN.129.14.143 and 142 (p. num. not visible) = cc0010 Agathonicus of Tarsus, Disputatio cum Iustino Samaritano;cc0011 Titulus extrava- gans de synodo Chalcedonensi;cc0950 Agathonicus of Tarsus Apoph- 1. Cf. Orlandi #a300 (2002); #a411 (2012), p. 15. The sigla of the individual fragments are explained in Appendix 2, p. 64ff. 10 COPTIC TEXTS RELATING TOTHE CHURCH CANONS thegma de incarnatione;cc0966 Contraconcilium Chalcedonense. PN.131.1.26 (p. num. not visible) = end of an unknown homily; be- ginning of cc0320 (BHG.APP0080, CPG5800). Proclus of Con- stantinople In Mariam V. (from the Acts of Ephesus). BL.OR06807.11-12 (p. num. not visible) = cc0101 Cyril of Alexan- dria, Epilysis XII Capitulorum (from the Acts of Ephesus). BL.OR06954.04 (p.