It was with deep sadness and sorrow that we received the terrible news that Peter Nagel, the doyen of Coptic Septuagint Studies and most important supporter of our project, passed away last Thursday, August 1, 2024. As Professor of Christian Near Eastern Studies in Halle (Saale) and Bonn he taught and influenced several generations of scholars not only in Coptic Studies. It is difficult to list the many achievements and merits of Peter Nagel as an outstanding scholar of the 'old school'. Since this will be done in many places, we will concentrate here on his significant contributions to the study and edition of the Coptic Old Testament. It was Peter Nagel who launched and directed the first systematic attempt at a complete reconstruction and edition of the Coptic Old Testament, or the 'Coptic Septuagint', at the Seminar Christlicher Orient and Byzanz of the Martin–Luther–University Halle-Wittenberg in the late 1970s. After his move to the University of Bonn the project Koptische Septuaginta continued its work in Halle from 1994–2000 under his advice and direction. When it was already confirmed that our project would be funded at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities as apart of the long-term research funding program of the German Academies we celebrated Peter Nagel's 75th birthday and thanked him for his support and guidance with an international symposium at the Coptic Monastery in Höxter-Brenkhausen in April 2013. We were also able to honor Peter Nagel with a Festschrift celebrating his 80th birthday. This volume very fittingly was the first to appear in our new monograph series Texts and Studies on the Coptic Bible. It is difficult to describe in a few lines how much our digital edition has profited from the numerous and diverse analogue materials he has made available to us. It is, therefore, only appropriate that we have dedicated a special section in our digital resources menu to Peter Nagel's contributions to the study of the Coptic Bible, including his most recent editions.

Like Coptic Studies in general, the field of Coptic Biblical Studies in particular will for ever be connected with the name of Peter Nagel: ⲡⲉϥⲣⲁⲛ ⲛⲁⲱⲛϩ ϣⲁ ϩⲉⲛϫⲱⲙ ⲛ̄ϫⲱⲙ

The Coptic Old Testament Project has an open position for a Student Assistent. See the advertisement on the website of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony here.

The time has come to provide a progress report with the highlights of the second year that the project has been in operation. 

1. New dedicated Partner Project web page 

The website of the Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament now hosts a dedicated Holy Week Lectionary (=HWL) web space under the Partner Projects tab. The new space is fully functional and features blogposts and publications along with the three dedicated sections for the Holy Week Lectionaries: Sahidic Holy Week Lectionary, Bohairic Holy Week Lectionary, and Arabic Holy Week Lectionary. A synopsis of the entire Holy Week lectionary index, prepared on the basis of all manuscripts examined in the framework of the project, can be consulted in each of the three sections.

1.1 Sahidic Holy Week Lectionary section

The five lectionaries (270 leaves) displayed in the Sahidic HWL section are by now fully indexed, liturgically tagged, and transcribed. Meanwhile, the Manuscript Speculation Tool (=MST), created by Diliana Atanassova, Troy A. Griffitts and Ulrich B. Schmid for the reconstruction of pages in fragmentary manuscripts,[1] was further developed and adapted for the reconstruction of lectionaries. Besides, Diliana Atanassova and myself used the MST extensively for the reconstruction of the codex structure of another liturgical manuscript from the White Monastery library, namely the Sahidic Euchologion MONB.VE.[2] Thanks to the development of the MST and to our experience with the reconstruction of liturgical manuscripts, we are now able to reconstruct the codex structure of the individual Sahidic lectionaries despite their fragmentary state, see for example the codex structure of sa 299L.

1.2 Bohairic Holy Week Lectionary section

The list in the Bohairic HWL Lectionary section now includes nine Holy Week lectionaries (2710 leaves) along with the four Ṭuruḥat (272 leaves) for the Holy Week codices. All nine Bohairic HWL were indexed by Peter Missael and liturgically tagged by myself. In cooperation with the British Library, the Bohairic Holy Week lectionary bo 3000L will soon be the subject of a show case. I have already liturgically tagged and transcribed the bilingual Bohairic–Arabic texts of the 313 leaves. Its codex structure is also already retrievable. As for the other eight Bohairic HWL in the list, more than 1100 leaves have already been transcribed. The transcription was achieved with the support of our student assistants Peter Missael and Sophie-Charlotte Gissat.

1.3 Arabic Holy Week Lectionary section

As already mentioned in the project’s first year report, the list in the Arabic HWL section includes all bilingual Sahidic–Arabic (3 manuscripts, 238 leaves) and Bohairic–Arabic HWL (5 manuscripts, 1300 leaves) already included in the other two dedicated sections as well as the monolingual Holy Week lectionary ar 1L (185 leaves). All Arabic texts of the Sahidic–Arabic HWL, more than 280 leaves of the Arabic texts of the Bohairic–Arabic HWL, and 50 leaves of the monolingual ar 1L have already been transcribed by myself.

2. 14-day visit of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome

Diliana Atanassova and myself visited the BAV in Rome from June 5 to June 16, 2023 to carry out an autopsy of the manuscripts preserved in Rome and included in the project’s main sources. Besides, Diliana Atanassova consulted all Sahidic liturgical typika kept in the BAV and pertaining to her research in the framework of her DFG project AT 193/1-1 “The Hymns in the Coptic Liturgy of the White Monastery in Upper Egypt”. A detailed account of the Sahidic and Bohairic HWL autopsy results can be found in two dedicated blogposts (part I and part II).

3. Blogposts in the second year

- Elhage-Mensching, Lina, The Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary: 2022 progress report. In: Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament, 21 March 2023.
- Elhage-Mensching, Lina, A Visit to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 5-16 June 2023: Autopsying Coptic Holy Week Lectionaries (Part I). In: Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament, 5 July 2023.
- Elhage-Mensching, Lina, A Visit to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 5-16 June 2023: Autopsying Coptic Holy Week Lectionaries (Part II). In: Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament, 4 August 2023.
- Elhage-Mensching, Lina, Remarks on the translation of John 2:15 into Coptic and Arabic. In: Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament, 20 February 2024.
- Missael, Peter, Sahidic influences in two Bohairic Holy Week Lectionaries. In: Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament, 29 November 2023.

4. Publications in the second year

- Atanassova, Diliana / Elhage-Mensching, Lina (2023). Die sahidischen Euchologia des Weißen Klosters – eine kodikologische Bilanz. In: Diliana Atanassova, Frank Feder, Heike Sternberg el-Hotabi (eds), Pharaonen, Mönche und Gelehrte. Auf dem Pilgerweg durch 5000 Jahre ägyptische Geschichte über drei Kontinente. Heike Behlmer zum 65. Geburtstag, Texte und Studien zur Koptischen Bibel / Texts and Studies on the Coptic Bible 4, 61–78.
- Atanassova, Diliana / Griffitts, Troy A. / Schmid, Ulrich B. (2023). Manuscript Speculation Tool 2.0: Digital Support for the Reconstruction of Biblical and Liturgical Coptic Manuscripts. In: Diliana Atanassova, Frank Feder, Heike Sternberg el-Hotabi (eds), Pharaonen, Mönche und Gelehrte. Auf dem Pilgerweg durch 5000 Jahre ägyptische Geschichte über drei Kontinente. Heike Behlmer zum 65. Geburtstag, Texte und Studien zur Koptischen Bibel / Texts and Studies on the Coptic Bible, 79–94.
- Feder, Frank (2023). Old Testament, Coptic Versions of the: Update. In: Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia (CCE), https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/cce/id/2188/.

5. Forthcoming publications

- Atanassova, Diliana / Feder, Frank (forthcoming). Die Bedeutung der biblischen Lesungen und der sahidischen Lektionare für die Edition der sahidischen Bibelübersetzung – Eine Zwischenbilanz. In: Felix Albrecht, Frank Feder, Martin Karrer (eds), Liturgische Traditionen: Ihr Nutzen und Stellenwert für die biblische Editionswissenschaft / Liturgical Traditions: Their Use and Value for Critical Editions of the Bible, Antike Schriftauslegung / Ancient Scriptural Interpretation.
- Atanassova, Diliana / Elhage-Mensching, Lina (forthcoming). The Digital Edition and Critical Evaluation of the Coptic Holy Week Lectionary. Outline of a New Project in Coptic Studies. In: Chrysostom Nassis, Arsenius Mikhail, Daniel Galadza (eds), ΛΟΓΙΚΗ ΛΑΤΡΕΙΑ. Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of the Society of Oriental Liturgy, Thessaloniki, 13–18 June 2022, Studies in Eastern Christian Liturgies.
- Atanassova, Diliana / Elhage-Mensching, Lina (forthcoming). The Anaphora of Saint James in a Sahidic Euchologion of the late 10th century. In: Proceedings of The Liturgy of St James Conference, Regensburg, 6–10 June 2022.
- Atanassova, Diliana (forthcoming). New Research on Coptic Liturgy 2012–2022. In: Proceedings of the 12th International Congress for Coptic Studies, Brussels, 11–16 July 2022.
- Elhage-Mensching, Lina (forthcoming). The Owner Family of a Sahidic–Arabic Holy Week lectionary: Arabic and Bohairic marginalia in the 14th century codex sa 16L. Ιn: Proceedings of the 12th International Congress for Coptic Studies, Brussels, 11–16 July 2022.
- Elhage-Mensching, Lina (forthcoming). Eusebian Tituli Psalmorum in the Coptic Psalter Codex sa 2033. In: Felix Albrecht, Reinhard Kratz (eds), Editing the Greek Psalter, De Septuaginta Investigationes, 511–521.

 

It is with pleasure that I have joined Diliana Atanassova and Lina Elhage-Mensching in the Sahidic Euchologia project in the Göttingen VMR. Looking through the transcriptions on MONB.VE, on one of the newly assigned leaves of the codex, Paris, BnF, Copte 132.3 fol. 221 recto, I have been able to identify six fragmentary lines from the prooimion of the fraction of the liturgy of St Gregory. Here is the transcribed page. The text was known so far in a Greek[1] and in a Bohairic[2] recension, which differ from each other in the address of Christ. It cannot be known which recension (if any) the Sahidic text agreed with, as the legible text only begins with the clauses that describe Jesus’ action at the Lord’s Supper and ask for their actualization in the present rite. These clauses probably go back to very ancient formulas accompanying fraction, as they are already attested in a fourth-century papyrus (the ‘Milan euchologion’, see the Trismegistos Database TM 64589). The Sahidic recension of the prooimion contains one additional clause compared to the Greek and the Bohairic, “who once signed (ⲥⲫⲣⲁⲅⲓⲍⲉ), sign also now,” see lines 29-30 of the recto.
Since the other side of the fragment cannot contain the end of the anaphora of St Gregory, it has to follow the prooimion and is thus the verso. The preserved words indeed agree with a fraction prayer or an inclination before communion prayer, though it cannot be identified yet. As my colleagues Lina Elhage-Mensching and Diliana Atanassova pointed out, the recto proves to be the flesh side, and the content positions the fragment after page 30 of the euchologion, which preserves the institution narrative of the anaphora of St Gregory, and before page 39, which preserves the anaphora of St Cyril. Between page 30 (last leaf of the second quire) and page 39 (the fifth leaf of the third quire) only two leaves can have the order hair/flesh, i.e. the second and the forth leaves in the third quire). As we know[3], codex MONB.VE began with a flyleaf, so the second leaf of the third quire corresponds to the pages 33/34 and the fourth leaf to the pages 37/38. However, since page 39 contains a continuation of the anaphora of St Cyril from page 38, this allowed Atanassova and Elhage-Mensching to position the Paris fragment as the second leaf of the third quire.
Thus, our combined efforts have made it possible to reconstruct the page numbers of the Paris fragment as [33]/[34]. The new placement of the Paris fragment in the codex structure of MONB.VE can be seen here.

 

[1] E. Renaudot, Liturgiarum orientalium collectio, Frankfurt, 1847 vol. 1:114.

[2] E. Hammerschmidt, Die koptische Gregoriosanaphora, Berlin, 1957, 64.

[3] D. Atanassova and L. Elhage-Mensching, “Die sahidischen Euchologia des Weißen Klosters – eine kodikologische Bilanz”, in: D. Atanassova, F. Feder, H. Sternberg-el Hotabi (eds.), Pharaonen, Mönche und Gelehrte. Auf dem Pilgerweg durch 5000 Jahre ägyptische Geschichte über drei Kontinente. Heike Behlmer zum 65. Geburtstag, unter Mitarbeit von Theresa Kohl (Texte und Studien zur Koptischen Bibel 4), Wiesbaden 2023, 61–78.

 

In 2013 Hans-Gebhard Bethge published an article in Early Christianity entitled "Ein neu bekannt gewordener Papyrus-Codex mit Texten aus Paulus-Briefen. Ein Werkstattbericht." An English version of this article is also available. Brent Nongbri blogged about this manuscript in 2019. In the SMR database in Münster, the manuscript has received the number sa 491.

Along with other information, Bethge mentions the dimensions of the pages (24.5x15.5 cm), the average amount of lines (30-35) to a page, and the average number of letters per line (25). In addition, the page numbers for the final two pages of Hebrews can be read as 139 (ⲣⲗⲑ) and 140 (ⲣⲙ), following which, the numbers 141 (ⲣⲙⲁ), 142 (ⲣⲙⲃ), and 144 (ⲣⲙⲇ) are visible on the first pages of Galatians. Hence, Gal must have followed Heb, and Heb 13 was preceded by text on about 138 pages!  Bethge is worth quoting in full (p. 6):  

"If Heb is somewhere around page 130 and – as one may assume – 1 and 2 Cor as well as Rom, or at least Rom, had preceded them, then space would remain for something additional. It is unclear, though, what texts or writings these could have been, and it can therefore only be speculated upon. Surprisingly enough, one page in this codex, at a rough estimate, is nearly equivalent to one page in Nestle-Aland’s Novum Testamentum Graece. Taking into account the aforementioned long epistles, the pages occurring at the beginning may therefore have been preceded by approximately 100 pages of Pauline texts. It still remains a mystery as to what else could have been there. Earlier on, Gregor Wurst and I had considered a theory that had supposed the Acts to be the codex’s opening script. However, this can hardly be the case as it is far too long. Careful thought could now be given to an idea that the so called Catholic epistles may have been positioned right at the beginning. The space available would probably have been sufficient. Given the state of current knowledge, however, this exciting question still awaits an answer."

This is a perfect challenge for our Manuscript Speculation Tool. This tool allows us to enter manuscript parameters into an input form for the computer to create a manuscript based on these parameters and the text that we think it must have contained. I have started with Bethge's suggestion that 1 and 2 Cor and Rom could have preceded Heb in a manuscript that has 25 letters per line and 32.5 lines to the page. (It is a nice thing that we can enter decimals; in this case, 32.5 is the midpoint between 30 and 35). In addition, I have added three extra lines for a header (superscription) above Rom and two lines in front of every new writing to allow for subscription and/or superscriptions. The string of books and "headers" that will do all that is LB1;Rom;LB2;1Cor;LB2;2Cor;LB2;Heb;LB2;Gal. Finally, I told the computer to start with page 1 (α) and create 140 pages. This is the result: Heb ends on page 137!

Allowing for the possibility that the first leaf (pages 1-2*) could have been part of the manuscript cover and was thus not numbered, this is a perfect match! In fact, the match is so good that I have not even looked for an alternative scenario. As a result, we can safely put aside any speculation as to what other books let alone from outside of the Corpus Paulinum might have been included before Heb. Instead, this very old papyrus codex (4th c.?) seems to have followed the "normal" arrangement of the Pauline Epistles in the Coptic (Sahidic) tradition: Rom 1-2 Cor Heb Gal sq.