Codex sa 292L, Oxford, BL, Huntington 5 is a partially extant Sahidic Coptic Holy Week Lectionary consisting of a first longitudinally torn half folio and another 36 folios. Apart from the main texts written in Coptic, the codex contains short Arabic headings, an extended Arabic instruction addressed to the congregation, and a seven-line marginal note written in Arabic at the bottom of one of the folios (f. 23r, reproduced at the end of this blog entry). The examination of this marginal note yielded an unexpected result. The marginal note turned out to be the unique example of an elaborate Arabic probatio pennae (pen trial) in a Coptic manuscript.

The genre of probationes pennae or pen trials is encountered in innumerable manuscripts and in more than one tradition. It materializes on flyleaves or in marginalia in a great variety of forms, including jottings, catchwords, or nonsensical words. In the European medieval tradition, when trying their pen, scribes resorted also to miniatures, caricatures, or simply wrote the words probatio or probatio pennae, always in Latin, sometimes accompanied by more text not necessarily in Latin. My research on manuscripts originating from the medieval Middle East unveiled an additional particularity in the pen trial occurrences. The Hebrew pen trial tradition features a rhyme-property with several examples of pen trial texts in rhyming verses, which seems to be lacking in the European medieval pen trial tradition. The Hebrew pen trial tradition seems to find its pendant in Arabic, therefore allowing us to speak of a Semitic tradition. In examples produced in the Middle Eastern region, the words ‘pen trial’, in Arabic taǧribat qalam, or similar formulae are always the first words of two hemistichs ending with a perfect rhyme. In this tradition, while the second hemistich invariably includes the words lā falaḥ or lā aflaḥ man ẓalam ‘may he who acted wrongfully not succeed’, the first hemistich may use the noun qalam ‘pen’ rhyming it with the verb ẓalam ‘(he) did wrong or acted wrongfully’, or variants with the words ḥibr or midād ‘ink’ instead of pen, evidently triggering other rhyming end words. A fourth pen trial tradition might be worth mentioning. It is the Judeo-Arabic one which is well represented in the Cairo Genizah fragment collection in Cambridge. An examination of the collection showed dozens of occurrences of the Arabic words תגרבה taǧribah ‘trial’, קלם תגרבה taǧribah qalam ‘pen trial’ and even חבר תגרבה taǧribah ḥibr ‘ink trial’ written in Hebrew characters, however lacking a second rhyming hemistich.

To come back to the seven-line marginal note in the manuscript at issue, the first line of the probatio pennae follows the above-mentioned formulaic Arabic pen trial, rhyming qalam with ẓalam. Yet diverging from the Arabic pen trial tradition, the scribe adds a second verse, ending with qasam ‘(he) gave’ (lit. ‘he allocat­ed’), a procedure that is not found among the samples of Arabic (and Judaeo-Arabic) pen trials, in which the formulaic verse usually appears on its own. The scribe drives the innovation further by adding the first three verses of chapter 111 of the Septuagint Psalter. The latter have turned out to be interesting by themselves, being taken from an Arabic Bible tradition based on a translation from the Syriac Peshitta. The search for representatives of the Arabic taǧribat qalam tradition has yielded many examples of both Muslim and Jewish manuscripts; so far, codex sa 292L seems to feature the first occurrence discovered in a Christian manuscript. The pen trial was most probably written by an anonymous Coptic scribe with a sophisticated knowledge of Arabic at a time when codex sa 292L had ceased to be in liturgical use.

For more details on what seems to be the first known example of an Arabic pen trial in a Coptic manuscript, see my article in the Journal of Coptic Studies 22 (2020), 69–93.

 

Ms. sa 292L, f. 23r: Coptic text with Arabic probatio pennae

© Malte Rosenau. Published with the kind permission of the Bodleian Library

For my current research on the biblical Book of Ruth, I had to check the palimpsest codex Add 17183 in the British Library, London. This parchment manuscript with two superimposed layers of writing originated in the monasteries of Scetis in Lower Egypt and was worked on on two occasions: the original manuscript from the 7th century CE contained Coptic biblical texts from the Old Testament including the Books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Judith, and Esther. Three centuries later, the codex was rewritten in Syriac with a selection of sayings and writings of the Church and Desert Fathers.

Nowadays, the underlying Coptic text is invisible to the naked eye. However, multispectral imaging has proven to be a promising technique in palimpsest manuscripts, and a cooperation between our project and the British Library was initiated – especially with Ilana Tahan, Lead Curator, Hebrew & Christian Orient Studies, and Christina Duffy, Imaging Scientist.

The results have been amazing. The multispectral images provided by the British Library have made the Coptic text visible and readable to a very large extent by fading out the Syriac text. This has been of invaluable importance for our work.

After obtaining these marvellous results the idea of a joint „showcase“ arose and was immediately realised. You can find out more here: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/Coptic-Old-Testament-Book-of-Ruth

On the website you can choose between three views of the manuscript: the “Normal View”, the "PCA View" (showing the multispectral images) and the "Transcript" (Coptic transcription).

The „Digital Edition of the Coptic-Sahidic Old Testament“ hopes to continue this fruitful cooperation with the British Library for its mutual benefit to both institutions. I would like to use this opportunity to express my thanks to the British Library team: Ilana Tahan, Christina Duffy and the IT specialist Richard Power – as well as to my colleagues Chrysi Kotsifou and Malte Rosenau for their support in this project.

From Fragments to Books
We're happy to annouce the first issue of From Fragments to Books, the official newsletter of the Coptic Old Testament Project. Published bi-annually in PDF format, the newsletter will offer reports and background information on the project and the edition of the Coptic-Sahidic Old Testament. If you wish to receive future issues of this newsletter automatically, please subscribe to our copt-ot-newsletter mailing list.

In November 2019, Diliana Atanassova and Alin Suciu visited Ann Arbor to sift through the several hundred non-inventoried fragments of White Monastery manuscripts in the University of Michigan Papyrological and Special Collections.[1] During their stay, they were able to sort out and identify some previously unknown Coptic fragments. Among those fragments containing biblical, hagiographical and patristic texts, one presented the particularity of bearing Sahidic text on one side and Arabic text on the other. The small paper fragment was assigned the Michigan inventory number P.Mich.Inv.no.4969.82. It is broken on all sides and contains eight partial lines of Coptic text on one side and five partial lines of Arabic text on the other (see the figures below). The Coptic text was easily identified as Luke 21,34–36 and the Arabic text as Matthew 20,31–34.

The presence of the two languages strongly suggests that the fragment belonged to a bilingual Sahidic-Arabic manuscript. To date, there are seven such extant Sahidic-Arabic manuscripts, three of which are Holy Week lectionaries[2] with readings from the Old and the New Testament. The fourth textual witness consists of six preserved folios bearing readings from the Old Testament only.[3] The fifth is a psalter,[4] and the sixth was identified by Alin Suciu as a fragment of 4 Ezra (= 2 Ezra 3–14).[5] The seventh is a liturgical codex in Sahidic with Arabic translations. Passages in Greek and Bohairic also appear in that manuscript.[6]

As Alin Suciu pointed out in relation to the Ezra fragment “such artifacts belong to very last stage of production of Sahidic manuscripts in Egypt.”[7] The similarity in script and decorative punctuation between the Ann Arbor fragment and the Holy Week lectionaries as well as the Ezra fragment is clearly visible. See as an example the online photographs in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana of the Holy Week Lectionary sa 16L. But while this likeness leads to the assumption that the Ann Arbor fragment stems from the same period – the end of the 14th or the beginning of the 15th century,[8] the slightly different Coptic hand is clear evidence that the new Ann Arbor fragment does not belong to any of the above Sahidic-Arabic manuscripts. This is also confirmed by the different Arabic hand.

The fact that the newly inventoried fragment bears texts from different Gospels points to a bilingual Sahidic-Arabic lectionary. Searching through the available lists and databases presenting Sahidic and Bohairic liturgical sources with biblical readings showed that both the Sahidic and the Arabic texts are acephalous and incomplete and most probably present the remains of the pericopae Luke 21,34–38 and Matthew 20,29–34, known in the Coptic liturgy.

The pericope Luke 21,34–38 appears in the Holy Week Lectionary among the readings of Tuesday at the 6th Hour of the Eve and can be found in 19 of the 20 witnesses considered by Oswald Burmester in his Lectionnaire de la Semaine Sainte.[9] It can also be read in the Bohairic rite during the Prayers of the Veil and the Night Prayers.[10]

The whole pericope Matthew 20,29–34 is attested in only one Bohairic manuscript (Paris, BnF, Copte 134, 1886 AD) and, what is more, among the readings of Palm Sunday. Rather interesting is the fact that the incipit of this pericope Mt 20,29 is preserved in the typika of the White Monastery MONB.WD, London, BL, Or. 3580 A.1r, l. 14 and MONB.AW, Wien, ÖNB, P.Vindob. K 9732r, l. 32.[11]  It was recited on Saturday four weeks before Christmas.

All these clues and indications confirm the fact that we are dealing with a fragment from a Sahidic-Arabic lectionary which represents an eighth, previously unknown Sahidic-Arabic manuscript witness.

Although the identification of the texts can be considered certain, their liturgical Sitz im Leben remains to be investigated. The identification of the type of the new bilingual lectionary involves many difficulties that cannot be overcome for the time being, because the two Gospel pericopae do not appear together, not to mention follow each other in any of the extant types of lectionaries, be it Holy Week lectionaries, Lent lectionaries, Annual (Gospel) lectionaries or sabbato-kyriakai lectionaries. [12] Moreover, all the considerations mentioned above make it unfortunately impossible to conclude at present which text is recto and which is verso. Nevertheless, I am giving here the transcription of both texts to facilitate further investigation.

P.Mich.Inv.no. 4969.82 recto/verso

Luke 21,34–38

     34[              ]

 1   [ⲛⲧⲉⲡⲉⲧⲛϩⲏⲧ] ︥·· ϩⲣⲟϣ [ϩⲛ̄ⲟⲩⲥⲓ]

 2   [ⲙⲛ̄ⲟⲩϯϩⲉ. ⲙⲛ̄ϩⲉⲛ]ⲣⲟⲟⲩϣ ⲛ̄[ⲧⲉⲡⲃⲓⲟⲥ]

 3   [ⲛ̄ⲧⲉⲡⲉϩⲟⲟⲩ ⲉⲧⲙ̄ⲙⲁ]ⲩ̣· ⲉⲓ ⲉϫⲱ̣[ⲧⲛ̄ ϩⲛ̄ⲟⲩ]

 4   [ϣⲥ̄ⲛⲉ 35ⲛ̄ⲑⲉ ⲛ̄ⲟⲩⲡ]ⲁϣ·  ϥⲛ̣[ⲏⲩ ⲅⲁⲣ]

 5   [ⲉϫⲛ̄ⲛⲉⲧϩⲙⲟⲟⲥ ϩⲓϫ]ⲙⲡϩⲟ ⲙ̄ⲡ̣[ⲕⲁϩ ⲧⲏⲣϥ̄·] 

 6  36[ⲣⲟⲉⲓⲥ ⲇⲉ ⲛ̄ⲟⲩⲟⲉⲓ]ϣ̣ ⲛⲓⲙ· ⲛ̄ⲧ̣[ⲉⲧⲛ̄ⲥⲟⲡⲥ̄]

 7   [ϫⲉⲕⲁⲥ ⲉⲧⲉⲧⲛⲉϣ]ϭⲉⲙϭⲟⲙ [ⲉⲣ̄ⲃⲟⲗ ⲉⲛⲁⲓ̈]

 8   [ⲧⲏⲣⲟⲩ ⲉⲧⲛⲁϣ]ⲱ̣ⲡⲉ̣ [ⲁⲩⲱ ⲉⲁϩⲉⲣⲁⲧ]

     [ⲧⲏⲩⲧⲛ̄                     ]

 

P.Mich.Inv.no. 4969.82 recto/verso

Matthew 20,29–34

    ³¹[                               ]

                  ˊيا ربˋ

1     [قايلين ارﺣﻤ]نا يا بن داود

2  ³²[فوقف يســ]وع ودعاهما

3     [وقال لهما ماذا]تريدان ان افعل

4     [بكما ³³ قالا له يا]سيد ان تفتح

5     [اعيننا ³⁴ فتحنن ﯿ]سوع ولمس

       [                              ]