The “Egyptian” Collection of Apocryphal Acts, Part 1: Coptic, Arabic, and Ge‘ez Sources
This is the first of two posts based on work in preparation for my forthcoming volume on Christian apocrypha for the Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library. I would like to thank Ivan Miroshnikov and Jacob Lollar for looking over the draft and making suggestions for improvement.
Readers interested in the apocryphal exploits of the apostles gravitate first, naturally, to the earliest examples of the genre, the so-called Five Great Apocryphal Acts: Peter, Paul, John, Andrew, and Thomas. The pull of these texts is so great that they leave neglected an assortment of “later” acts that, arguably, had a far deeper impact on Christian piety, not only because the plentiful manuscript evidence testifies to their popularity, but also because a large number of them circulated as a collection intended for liturgical use in Coptic and Ethiopic churches. The collection includes a core of 28 texts (with some additions, omissions, and substitutions), arranged largely in pairs: the preaching of the apostle and then his martyrdom. All twelve of the apostles are represented (with Matthias replacing Judas) along with Paul, James the Righteous, Mark, and Luke. Stories from the texts also appear in the Arabo-Coptic and Ethiopic Synaxaria, testifying, again, to their importance in northeastern African Christianity. The lack of attention paid to these apocryphal acts is due, in part if not in whole, to their remoteness linguistically, geographically, and temporally from the Greek and Latin centres that are the focus of most biblical scholars’ work (and training). But lately they have attracted the eye of experts in Coptic who are working to piece the collection together from manuscript pages dispersed in libraries throughout the world.
The collection is fully preserved in translations into Arabic and Ge‘ez. Coptic fell out of use as a literary language in Egyptian Christianity by the twelfth century, so Coptic manuscripts of the acts were replaced with Arabic and then left to rot in monastery libraries. The Arabic acts were subsequently translated into Ge‘ez for the use of the Ethiopic church. The first few texts in Arabic were published by Margaret Gibson (1896) from two manuscripts from Mount Sinai (ar. 445 and ar. 539). Gibson’s sister, Agnes Smith Lewis (1904), published the entire Arabic collection a few years later based primarily on an uncataloged manuscript from Dayr al-Suryan. A few photographs of the manuscript appear in her edition and it’s possible that the complete set of photographs are in the Lewis-Gibson archive at Westminster College, but so far only the published images have been found. And the manuscript itself may still be at the monastery, which is in the process of cataloging and digitizing its holdings. Lewis’s edition features several additional texts found in a few other manuscripts of the Arabic collection and includes variant readings from the texts published by Gibson. All of the texts can be read in English translation in Lewis’s companion volume of the same year. The Ge‘ez collection (Gadla hawaryat) was first published, though only in English translation, by Solomon Malan in 1871. His source was a manuscript owned by Henry Tattam and now in Manchester (John Rylands University Library, Eth. 6). The Ge‘ez, with English translation, appeared in 1901 in E. A. W. Budge’s edition based on two manuscripts acquired by the British Library: Or. 678 (15th cent.) and Or. 683 (17th cent.). As for Coptic materials, three texts appeared in an edition and German translation of a Fayyumic manuscript (Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia, F 920, No. 46–48) by Oscar von Lemm in 1890. Sahidic fragments from the White Monastery found in the Vatican library were published in a series of articles by Ignazio Guidi in 1887, followed by translation into Italian (1888). And a Bohairic manuscript from the monastery of Macarius (=CLM 2879) was edited and translated by Hugh Evelyn White in 1926; a single page from the same manuscript was published by Stephen Gaselee in 1908 and three more appeared in 1950 from a small collection owned by William H. P. Hatch. These major publications were supplemented with additional fragments from Naples (Guidi 1893), Paris (LeFort 1914), Moscow (von Lemm 1892), and the Vatican (Balestri 1905; Balestri and Hyvernat 1924). The first major study to take note of the African acts materials was Richard A. Lipsius’s essential study of apocryphal apostolic traditions (1883–1890), though Lipsius only had Guidi’s editions and Malan’s translations available to him.
The effort to reconstruct the dismembered White Monastery manuscripts has been made easier in recent years thanks to digital tools that help scholars to identify fragments and combine them, at least virtually, with the materials published by Guidi and his contemporaries. Enzo Lucchesi’s (1984) reconstruction of six apocryphal acts manuscripts is a major step in this process; notable also are the efforts of Stephen Emmel (2004:1.364–65) and Françoise Morard (1981; 1983). Still largely unexplored, however, are materials from the Monastery of Michael in the Fayyum purchased by the Morgan Library and Museum in 1911; one complete manuscript in particular (M635; =MICH.CG) contains 11 martyrdom accounts, but this important source remains unpublished (with the exception of the Martyrdom of Thomas). Portions have been found of every text in the collection but only a few have been treated to comprehensive critical editions. As for the Arabic sources, two studies stand out: Michel van Esbroeck (1999) compares the contents of the Dayr al-Suryan manuscript to three other manuscripts, and an additional 27 full and partial collections are described, based mostly on catalog descriptions, by Alessandro Bausi (2001/2002) in a listing of both Arabic and Ge‘ez manuscripts. A further ten Ge‘ez manuscripts photographed by the Ethio-SPaRe project are described by Vitagrazia Pisani (2015). Many more certainly exist given that every church in Ethiopia likely has its own copy (Bausi 2001–2002:82).
The date of origin for the Coptic collection is difficult to determine; the earliest source is the fourth/fifth-century Moscow manuscript published by von Lemm (Moscow, Puškin Museum, GMII I. 1. b. 686), but the extant portions feature only the Martyrdom of Peter and Martyrdom of Paul, so at this time it’s not possible to determine how many of the other texts, if any, appeared in this collection. Also attested early is the Acts of Peter and Andrew, which appears in the fifth-century P. Köln Inv. Nr. 3221 (still unpublished). Translation into Arabic occurred before the creation of the earliest known manuscript—Sinai ar. 539, dated to the twelfth century—and from Arabic into Ge‘ez before 1292/1297, the date of the earliest cataloged Ge‘ez manuscript (EMML 1767).
Over the past several months I have been transferring information on the Coptic and Arabic sources to e-Clavis and its related Manuscripta apocryphorum pages. The Arabic materials present certain challenges. While a number of the manuscripts are well-cataloged and, in some cases, digitized, some have not been described in detail and are not readily accessible for autoptic analysis. This is essential as the titles of the texts vary in the manuscripts, so they must be independently verified. The e-Clavis entries address some of these problems, by establishing standard names for the texts, fixing errors in Bausi’s list, and supplementing that list with some additional manuscripts not known to him. The Ge‘ez manuscripts, assembled from Bausi, Pisani, and other resources, have yet to be added to the site.
Though certainly neglected, the “later” apocryphal acts are not entirely ignored in in modern scholarly collections of Christian apocrypha. Those that are related to the Five Great Acts—such as the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, which are excerpted from the Greek acts, and other texts with Greek origins, such as the Acts of Andrew and Matthias—are sometimes mentioned but the particular features of the non-Greek sources are rarely noted. Some collections add a few of the texts that feature the less celebrated apostles—such as the Bartholomew, Matthew, Luke, and James, Son of Zebedee texts in the French EAC collection (1997 and 2005), which also includes a brief introduction to the Ethiopian corpus by Alessandro Bausi (2:865–72), and several of the Andrew texts, as well as both James, Brother of Jesus and James, Son of Zebedee appear, some only in summary, in the Italian collection by Erbetta (1975–1981). The most rich assortment seems to be the Spanish collection edited by Antonio Piñero and Gonzalo del Cerro Calderón (2004–2011), though I have not yet been able to verify its contents. English collections are particularly poor in this regard: J. K. Elliott’s The Apocryphal New Testament contains only an eight-line introduction to the “Oriental Acts” (1993:531–32); his predecessor M. R. James offered little more (1953:471–72); and Aurelio de Santos Otero’s treatment on “Later Apocryphal Acts” from the English translation of Wilhelm Schneemelcher (1992) mostly lists sources—a few texts are not mentioned at all. Some progress has been made with the More New Testament Apocrypha volumes, which include full translations of a few texts: the Acts of Andrew and Philemon and the Preaching of Philip will be included in vol. 3 (both by Ivan Miroshnikov), and three texts appear based on their Greek forms, but with robust discussion of the non-Greek versions: the Acts of Thomas and His Wonderworking Skin (by Jonathan Holste and Janet Spittler, in vol. 2), the Acts of John by Prochorus (by Janet Spittler, in vol. 2), and the Martyrdom of Mark (by Tobias Nicklas, in vol. 3). Two other texts are included that sometimes appear in the manuscript tradition of the acts collection: the History of Philip (translated from the Syriac by Robert Kitchen, in vol. 2), and the Acts of Andrew and Paul (translated from the Coptic by Christian Bull and Alex Kocar, in vol. 3). Françoise Morard prepared materials for an edition of the Coptic evidence for the Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum but it is not clear when that will appear; Jean-Daniel Kaestli and Albert Frey are revising the manuscript and Ivan Miroshnikov is contributing a history of research.
In what follows, I list all of the texts that comprise the core of collection with notes on their identification and publication, as well as a discussion of text-critical work that remains outstanding. All of the texts appear in Lewis’s and Budge’s editions unless otherwise noted.
- The Preaching of Peter (Preaching of Peter to Faustus): so far this text has appeared only in Ge‘ez, under the title History of Saint Peter; its new title was chosen to distinguish it from other texts about Peter. The Coptic (Sahidic: MONB.DM, 1 leaf; MONB.QY, 1 leaf) and Arabic are unpublished. Though the text is present in the Dayr al-Suryan manuscript, Lewis decided not to include it in her edition because it is “so nearly similar to the one already published by Mrs Gibson in Studia Siniatica, No. V that I have not thought it proper to include it in my volume” (1904: ix) but Lewis appears to have been confused as Gibson did not publish the text. Pre. Pet. Faust. has two notable features: it incorporates the Story of the Heartless Rich Man and the Precious Stone, found in two Greek chronicles, and the contents of Peter’s preaching is a pastiche of five beatitudes (shared also in the Martyrdom of Bartholomew); two of these are transformations of 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 7:29, which appear in a similar context in the Acts of Paul.
- The Martyrdom of Peter (from the Greek Acts of Peter 33–41): the Arabic remains unpublished as it is not found in Lewis’s manuscript. The Sahidic text appears in CLM 1998 (5 leaves, published and translated by Guidi), MONB.BY (1 leaf, unpublished), MONB.GQ (7 leaves, published and translated by Guidi), and MONB. MQ (4 leaves, three published and translated by Guidi).
- The Martyrdom of Paul (from the Greek Acts of Paul 14): Lewis published the Arabic text based on Vat. ar. 694, as the text does not appear in the Dayr al-Suryan manuscript. The Sahidic version is found in three manuscripts: CLM 1998 (3 leaves, published and translated by Guidi), MONB.BY (1 leaf, unpublished), MONB.MQ (1 leaf, unpublished), and MONB.MR (1 leaf, published in the catalog by Munier, 1916). Notably, there is no “preaching” text for Paul, though some manuscripts address this deficiency by including other tales of the apostle, including the Story of Peter and Paul in Rome, the Story of Peter and Paul in Antioch, Acts of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and episodes from the History of the Contending of Paul (published from the Ge‘ez by Budge).
- The Preaching of Andrew (Acts of Andrew and Philemon): the title, now fairly standard, helps to distinguish this text from other acts of Andrew, but it does not appear in the manuscripts, which simply have the Preaching of Andrew. Philemon is portrayed here as a disciple of Andrew and accompanies him on his missionary journeys. Early editions of the Sahidic fragments (from six manuscripts) are now superseded by the edition and English translation by Ivan Miroshnikov (2017), soon to appear also in MNTA 3. The text is not included in any of the other major apocrypha collections. One of the Coptic manuscripts (MONB.DN) contains a significantly longer text, or appends a sequel; this material does not appear in the Arabic and Ge‘ez versions. MONB.DN is noteworthy also because it collects only various acts of Andrew (Acts of Andrew and Matthias, Andrew and Paul, Andrew and Bartholomew, and Peter and Andrew).
- The Acts of Andrew and Bartholomew (available also in a shorter Greek version): the Greek text, known in two manuscripts, appears with an Italian translation in the doctoral thesis of Luna Martelli (2015). Only a few portions of the Coptic text have been published to date: MONB.PY (13 leaves, 10 published and translated by Guidi, and 1 in the 1905 catalog by Crum, re-edited with French translation by Lucchesi and Prieur, 1978), and MONB.DN (8 leaves, 4 published and translated by Guidi). It does not appear in any of the major apocrypha collections.
- The Martyrdom of Andrew (Coptic Martyrdom of Andrew): the Coptic is preserved only in two leaves from two Sahidic manuscripts (MONB.DM and MONB.GQ). These have been published with an English translation by Ivan Miroshnikov (2018), who believes the text is a Coptic creation (it is not an excerpt from the Greek Acts of Andrew as with Peter and Paul).
- The Preaching of James, Son of Zebedee: included in the French (EAC 2:935–57) and Italian (Erbetta 2:541–48) collections, but translated from the Ge‘ez. Much of the Sahidic text has been published (MONB.DM, 6 of 7 leaves published and translated by Guidi; and MONB.QY, 1 leaf published in the catalog by Munier); another leaf in two fragments was discussed recently by Alin Suciu (2012) but without an edition or translation.
- The Martyrdom of James, Son of Zebedee: the complete Sahidic text (from MONB.DM) has been published and translated into Italian by Guidi, and a single leaf from MONB.MR appears in the catalog by Wessely (1909–1917), but two additional witnesses remain unpublished: MICH.CG (2 leaves), and MONB.GQ (1 leaf). The translation in the French collection (EAC 2:935–37) is based, again, on the Ge‘ez.
- The Travels of John, Son of Zebedee (from the Greek Acts of John by Prochorus 1–64): this shortened version of Acts John Proch. finishes with the narrator directing readers to another source for additional stories of John: “an exceeding great discourse which we call Kamatike, that is to say, The Sufferer” (from the Bohairic text). Complete versions of Acts John Proch. exist also in Arabic and Coptic; portions of the larger version in Sahidic were published and translated by Guidi with some pages appearing in catalogs (from MONB.GR and MONB.DO; 9 other manuscripts are unpublished) and the shorter in Bohairic (CLM 2879, 9 leaves) by Evelyn White and Hatch. Some Arabic manuscripts substitute a translation of the Syriac History of John (included in Lewis’s edition from Sinai ar. 539), or include the History after the main collection.
- The Dormition of John (from the Greek Acts of John 106–15): in an apparent attempt to link this text to the preceding, the Arabic and Ge‘ez texts substitute Prochorus for John’s disciple Verus. Other changes include a prologue summarizing the missing portions of Acts John Proch. and references to the martyrdoms of Peter and Mark, as well as a much different final speech from the apostle, and an epilogue in which John’s disciples return to the grave to find it filled in and John’s discarded clothes placed nearby. Lewis’s edition includes also a second version of the Dormition from Sinai ar. 539 closer in form to the Greek text (Verus is still present, the final speech has not been altered, and the disciples do not return to the grave). A full Sahidic text appears in London, British Library, Or. 6782, published first by Budge (1913) and there are eight additional fragmentary witnesses (including 4 leaves from MONB.BY, and 3 leaves from MONB.GQ, two of which were published and translated by Guidi in 1893 and also translated in the Italian collection by Moraldi (2:1206–1209); 1 leaf from MONB.DM published in the catalog by Crum; 1 leaf from MONB.DO published in the catalog by Wessely). Most of this material was utilized for the edition by Junod and Kaestli (1983:1.376–97). At least BL Or. 6782, MONB.BY, and MONB.GQ have more affinities with the second version. The Bohairic (published and translated by Evelyn White from 5 leaves of CLM 2879) is more like the first.
- The Preaching of Philip: the apostle is joined here by Peter, who frequently accompanies the titular apostles at least for the journey to their appointed city. The text is largely complete in Coptic, with portions extant in all three Coptic dialects: Sahidic (MONB.DM, 5 leaves, 1 published in the catalog by Crum; MONB.QY, 3 leaves, published and translated by Guidi, and after him by von Lemm; and an unpublished leaf in the Schøyen Collection), Bohairic (published and translated by Evelyn White from 4 leaves of CLM 2879), and Fayyumic (6 leaves, published and translated by von Lemm). Ivan Miroshnikov is preparing an edition of the text and his translation will appear in MNTA 3. Some Arabic manuscripts (including Sinai ar. 539) substitute the Syriac History of Philip (translated by Robert A. Kitchen in MNTA 2), or include the History after the main collection.
- The Martyrdom of Philip: this text seems to be unrelated to the Preaching, aside from their agreement on the location of Philip’s mission (Phrygia, though the Arabic text has the corruption “Africa” and further specifies that the location of his death is Carthage, perhaps due to the influence of the History of Philip). The Sahidic text is found in four manuscripts, including the unpublished MICH.CG (3 leaves), MONB.BY (1 leaf, unpublished), MONB.DM (2 leaves, unpublished), and MONB.MR (1 leaf; published in the catalog by Crum). The Bohairic (nearly complete) was published and translated by Evelyn White from CLM 2879.
- The Preaching of Bartholomew: the French translation (EAC 2:903–32), like the James Zebedee texts, is based on the Ge‘ez, but the translators here have drawn upon 12 manuscripts (including the two published by Budge). As for Coptic, only a portion of the Sahidic text has been published (MONB.DM, 1 of 2 leaves published in the catalog by Crum; MONB.MS, 1 of 2 leaves published in the catalog by Crum; CLM 1245, 2 leaves unpublished), the Fayyumic (1 leaf) was published and translated by von Lemm, and the Bohairic (CLM 2879, 4 leaves), was published and translated by Evelyn White.
- The Martyrdom of Bartholomew: as with the Preaching, the French translation (EAC 2:894–99) draws on 12 Ge‘ez manuscripts. As noted above, Bartholomew’s teaching features the same cluster of beatitudes as Pre. Pet. Faust. The Coptic (Sahidic) fragments (2 leaves from MICH.CG, and 1 leaf in MONB.GQ) remain unpublished.
- The Preaching of Thomas (= Greek Acts of Thomas and His Wonderworking Skin): the Greek text is translated, for the first time, into English by Jonathan Holste and Janet Spittler in MNTA 2 (who are responsible for its distinctive title; the manuscripts simply call it the Acts of Thomas). The Coptic materials for Acts. Thom. Skin. (4 leaves from MONB.QY, 1 from MONB.DM, and 1 from MONB.MS) and the Martyrdom (the entire text from MICH.CG, 2 leaves from MONB.GQ, 2 from MONB.DM, 4 from MONB.MQ, 2 from MONB.MR, and 2 from MONB.MS) were published, most of them for the first time, by Paul-Hubert Poirier (1984; with French translations).
- The Martyrdom of Thomas (from the Greek/Syriac Acts of Thomas 159–71): the text begins after a brief summary of Acts Thom. Skin. and shortens the speech material in 159–60. Sahidic text published, as stated above, by Poirier.
- The Preaching of Matthew (=Acts of Matthew in the City of the Priests): the text is related to the Acts of Andrew and Bartholomew, which takes place in Parthia, though the connection is minor: at the beginning Matthew briefly meets up with Andrew and Peter (not Bartholomew) who are returning from Parthia. The only Coptic witness is a single Bohairic leaf recently published by Alin Suciu (2018). The text appears in the French (EAC 2:909–26) collection, based on Budge’s Ge‘ez text, and in summary in the Italian (Erbetta 2:506–507).
- The Martyrdom of Matthew: this text begins with a statement that Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew in Jerusalem and then he moves on to Parthia for his martyrdom (so this is not a sequel to Acts Matt. Priests). It is found in several Sahidic manuscripts: MICH.CG (1 leaf), MONB.BY (1 leaf), MONB.GQ (1 leaf), and MONB.QY (1 leaf published in Crum’s catalog). The text appears in the French (EAC 2:927–32) collection, based on Budge’s Ge‘ez text, and in summary in the Italian (Erbetta 2:508–509).
- The Martyrdom of James, Son of Alphaeus: there is no corresponding Preaching text for James. The text is rarely acknowledged—it is omitted from CANT, appears in none of the apocrypha collections, and does not even rate a mention in de Santos Otero’s summary. The Arabic version was published first by Gibson from Sinai ar. 539, along with an English translation, and then by Lewis from the Dayr al-Suryan manuscript. It is extant in one Sahidic manuscript (MICH.CG, 1 leaf), which has not yet been published.
- The Preaching of Simon, the Canaanite: the Arabic of both the Preaching and the Martyrdom appeared first in Gibson’s edition and translation of Sinai ar. 539, and then by Lewis from the Dayr al-Suryan manuscript. The Sahidic is represented by a single leaf from MONB.DM (published and translated into Italian by Guidi). Simon appears also in the unrelated Coptic Acts of Simon and Theonoe, which sometimes leads to confusion between the two texts in discussions of the manuscript evidence.
- The Martyrdom of Simon, the Canaanite: the martyrdom takes up the story of Simon from the end of the Preaching (a rare example of close relationship between the two categories of texts). The Coptic evidence includes MICH.CG (2 leaves), 1 leaf each in MONB.DM (published and translated by Guidi), and MONB.BY. A shorter version is found in a single leaf from MONB.GQ, published and translated by Guidi in 1893.
- The Preaching of Judas Thaddaeus (=Greek Acts of Peter and Andrew): the Preaching is a recasting of the Greek Acts with the name of Jude (also identified in some manuscripts as the brother of Jesus) substituted for Andrew. Peter accompanies Jude throughout the text, rather simply leaving him at the city gates as in other acts. There is no separate Martyrdom but the story ends with his peaceful death. Lewis incorporates also readings from Sinai ar. 539 in her edition. Two Sahidic manuscripts are presently known: MONB.DM (1 of 2 leaves published and translated by Guidi), and MONB.QY (2 leaves, unpublished). The Acts of Peter and Andrew also appears in Coptic, though not, apparently, as part of the acts collection: in the Andrew compendia of MONB.DN (in 1 unpublished leaf) and a portion in the fifth-century P. Köln Inv. Nr. 3221 alongside the Testaments of Job, Adam, and Abraham.
- The Preaching of Matthias (=Greek Acts of Andrew and Matthias): the text is extant in two versions—one long (found in Ge‘ez and reflected in the extant portions of Copt2), which agrees with the Greek text, and one short (in Arabic, a second Ge‘ez version, and the extant portions of Copt1), which lacks 11:2–16:1 and gives a larger role to Matthias (in the Greek and long Ge‘ez he departs from the City of the Cannibals, leaving Andrew alone to endure torture and evangelize the city; but in this version he remains with Andrew for the remainder of the text). Copt1 comprises 3 leaves in Fayyumic (edited and translated into German by von Lemm), and three Sahidic manuscripts: CLM 1245 (1 leaf edited by Catherine Louis [2005:193–97], and re-edited with English translation by Ivan Miroshnikov [2019]), MONB.DM (1 leaf published by Wessely and reedited with French translation by Lucchesi and Prieur), and MONB.QY (2 leaves unpublished). Copt2 comprises one Sahidic manuscript: MONB.DN (comprising 3 unpublished leaves). The full range of Coptic evidence is described in Miroshnikov’s 2019 article. Acts Andr. Mth. is also extant in Syriac, Georgian, Old Slavic, and Latin. It is widely published in apocrypha collections, principally based on the Greek text.
- The Martyrdom of Matthias: another neglected text—it is not included in any apocrypha collections and is not mentioned in de Santos Otero’s summary. The Coptic evidence comprises a single Bohairic leaf published and translated from CLM 2879 by Evelyn white, as well as the Sahidic MICH.CG (2 leaves) and MONB.MR (1 leaf published in the catalog by Munier).
- The Preaching of James, the Brother of the Lord: the Sahidic text is extant in a single leaf from MONB.QY, published in the Cairo catalog by Munier. The text does not appear in any apocrypha collections.
- The Martyrdom of James, the Brother of the Lord: aside from an episode in which a blessing from James helps a governor’s wife conceive, the text draws its account from the Hypomnemata of Hegesippus (via Eusebius). Smith Lewis’s text is based on Vat. ar. 694 (it is absent from the Dayr al-Suryan manuscript). The Sahidic text is found in MICH.CG (4 leaves) and MONB.DM (1 leaf, published and translated by Guidi).
- The Martyrdom of Mark: the text is a faithful translation of the Greek Martyrdom of Mark, which appears in EAC (2:569–86) and will be translated into English for MNTA 3 by Tobias Nicklas. Lewis’s text is based on Sinai ar. 539 (it is absent from the Dayr al-Suryan manuscript). Three leaves of the Bohairic text from CLM 2879 were published and translated by Evelyn White and another from the same manuscript by Hatch (1950). The Sahidic is extant in five manuscripts: MICH.CG (9 leaves), MONB.BY (3 leaves, 1 published in the catalog by Alla Elanskaya, another by Crum, and all 3 by Hubai), MONB.DD (1 leaf, published and translated into French by LeFort, and after him by Hubai), MONB.QY (1 leaf published in the catalog by Crum), and Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum and Papyrussammlung, Staatliche Museen, P. 22081 (2 leaves, published in Hubai). Hubai’s synoptic edition (1989) draws on all of the Coptic evidence except for MONB.QY and MICH.CG. In some Arabic manuscripts, Mart. Mark is substituted with the Homily on Mark by Severus of Naswara.
- The Martyrdom of Luke: this text survives also in Syriac; both may be translations of an original, but at present not available, Greek version. Lewis’s text is based on Sinai ar. 539 (it is absent from the Dayr al-Suryan manuscript). There are two Bohairic manuscripts: MACA.DM (complete text, published and translated into Italian by Giuseppe Balestri), and CLM 2879 (4 leaves, published and translated in Evelyn White, and an additional page by Gaselee).
I am frequently asked about what apocryphal texts are unpublished or are in need of more text-critical attention. As this survey indicates, there is much work to be done on these versions of apocryphal acts. First, more examination is needed on the texts’ language(s) of composition. Several of them have Greek counterparts: the Martyrdoms of Peter, Paul, and Thomas, and the Dormition of John likely derive from their Greek acts, but an intermediate language is also possible; the same could be said of the Acts of John by Prochorus, Martyrdom of Mark, the Acts of Peter and Andrew (aka Preaching of Judas Thaddaeus), the Preaching of Matthias (aka Acts of Andrew and Matthias), the Acts of Andrew and Bartholomew, the Acts of Thomas and His Wonderworking Skin, and (in a sense) the Martyrdom of James, Brother of the Lord (an adaptation of material from Eusebius), but Ivan Miroshnikov, for one, believes that at least some of this material could be translated from Coptic to Greek, not the reverse. Also at issue are the texts with Syriac counterparts (the Martyrdom of Luke, and the two other texts that sometimes appear in the collection: the History of John, and the History of Philip). Again, perhaps these each have a lost common Greek source, but Miroshnikov believes the solution is translation from Coptic to Syriac. Regardless of the texts’ ultimate origin, their earliest form in the acts collection is Coptic, and editions drawing on all of the available Coptic manuscripts (with an eye to the complete texts in Arabic) are sorely needed. Of particular importance is the publication of the martyrdoms in MICH.CG. For three texts—the Preaching of Peter to Faustus, the Martyrdom of Bartholomew, and the Martyrdom of James, Son of Alphaeus—none of the Coptic manuscripts have been published, and Pre. Pet. Faust. still hasn’t appeared in Arabic. Modern translations also need to focus more on the Coptic evidence; the choice of the French and Italian collections to translate the Ge‘ez versions is bewildering. One final area of investigation is the recovery of misplaced manuscripts. While there are now numerous available manuscripts of the Arabic collection, it would be useful to have in hand Lewis’s Dayr al-Suryan manuscript, particularly since it is the earliest known copy of the collection. Also lost is the small Bohairic booklet once owned by William Hatch.
Not only do these texts need text-critical attention but they also await exegetical investigation. But this post is already far too long, so that topic will have to wait for another day.
Works Cited
Balestri, Giuseppe. 1905. “Il martirio di S. Luca evengelista.” Bessarione 2.8: 128–140.
Balestri, Giuseppe, and Henry Hyvernat. 1924. Acta Martyrum. Vol. 2. CSCO 86. Paris: Typographeo Reipublicae.
Bausi, Alessandro. 2001/2002. “Alcune osservazioni sul Gadla hawâryât.” Annali dell’Istituto Orientale di Napoli 60–61: 77–114.
Bovon, François, Pierre Geoltrain, and Jean-Daniel Kaestli, eds. 1997 and 2005. Écrits apocryphes chrétiens. 2 vols. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade 442 and 516. Paris: Gallimard (=EAC).
Budge, E. A. Wallis. 1901. Gadla hawâryât: The Contendings of the Apostles, Being the Lives and Martyrdoms and Deaths of the Twelve Apostles and Evangelists. 2 vols. London: Frowde.
Crum, Walter E. 1905. Catalogue of the Coptic Manuscripts in the British Museum. London: British Museum.
Elanskaya, Alla I. 1991. The Literary Coptic Manuscripts of the A. S. Pushkin State Fine Arts Museum in Moscow. VC Sup 18. Leiden: Brill.
Elliott, J. K. 1993. The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Emmel, Stephen. 2004. Shenoute’s Literary Corpus. 2 vols. CSCO 599–600, Subsidia 111–12. Leuven: Peeters.
Erbetta, Mario. 1975–1981. Gli apocrifi del Nuovo Testamento. 3 vols. Italy: Marietti.
Esbroeck, Michel van. 1999. “Une collection de 35 apocryphes apostoliques.” ParOr 24: 179–99.
Evelyn White, Hugh G. 1926. The Monasteries of the Wadi ‘n Natrûn. Part 1: New Coptic Texts from the Monastery of Saint Macarius. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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