Data Stream Coptic

8/12/2019 Data Stream Coptic

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S O M E U N P U B L I S H E D C O P T I C L I T U R G I C A LM A N U S C R I P T S IN T H E J O H N R Y L A N D S LIBRARY By Dr. phil . habil . M A R I A C R A M E RI T is onl y in recent yea r s that the Coptic l i turgy h a s beencounted a s part of Copt ic literature. In December 1966, a t

the meeting of German and foreign Copt ic scholars in Hal le/Saa l e , i t was l isted in the series of lectures that might be delivereda t the Conference under the general title Koptische Literatur . 2A s interest in the Coptic l i turgy as a branchjof Copt ic literatureseems l ikely to grow, 3 there m a y well be some justification forwriting a short article about certain uncatalogued Coptic l i turgicalmanuscripts w h i c h have been preserved in the R y l a n d s L i b r a r ysince 1923, in w h i c h y e a r they were acquired b y the Library fromDr. Rendel Harris, w h o had purchased them in E g y p t .

The Coptic l i turgy b elongs essentia l ly to the Greek and By zantine rite. When, however, in the y e a r A D 451, after the Councilof Chalcedon, the C o pt s separated from the universal church,they developed to some degree a liturgy of their own, whi ch tothis day uses three languages : Copt ic a s a descendant of O l dEgypt ian , Greek , and Arab i c . The l iving l i turgy of today, in itsvarious forms, is preserved in hundreds of manuscripts scatteredthroughout the larger l ibrar ies of the Western and Eastern world.

There are many k inds of Coptic r i tes preserved in thesemanuscr ipts . The Euchologion, for example , the texts of themass according to St Basi l , St Gregory Nazianzen, and S t. I wish to thank Mr. R . Ha l l , Librarian of the R y l a n d s Library, and Dr . F.

Taylor, Head of the Department of Manuscripts in the same Library, for permission to study these unpublished liturgical manuscripts. I a m also grateful toDr. A . F . S h o r e of the Bri t i sh Museum for revising these pages. Fina l ly , I amgrateful to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for a grant to cover my staya t Manchester in summer 1966 and spr ing 1967 to study the manuscripts.

2 The lectures will b e p ub l i sh ed in Eas t Germany b y the Institut fur Byzan-t inist ik der Universi tat Hal le/Saale under the title Koptologische Studien in derDDR II HallelSaale.

3 While working on this article, there was published in C a i r o O.H.E. K H SB urmester s , The Egyptian or Coptic Church. A detailed description of her litur-gical services and the rites and ceremonies observed in the administration of hersacraments Publ icat ion de la Societe d A rcheologie C opte. Textes et Documents. Le Caire , 1967, 4 1 9 pages, 21 plates.

308


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S O M E C O P T I C L I T U R G I C A L M A N U S C RIPTS 3 0 9Mark or St. Cyril the Archbishop ; the Theotokias , writtenin honour of Our Lady, theMother of Christ, perhapsthe mostcommonof all surviving Coptic liturgical manuscripts ; and thecollections of hymns and chants contained in the Difnar or

Antiphonarium and in the D oxologies praising Christ, theArchangels, St. Mary, St. John the Baptist, Archbishops,Bishops, Synods, M onks and Monasteries, male and femaleMartyrs and especially popular Saintssuch as St. Mercuries,St. Theodore and St. G eorge. In addition, there have alsosurvived manuscripts containing the rites for the ordinations ofarchbishops, bishops, priests, anddeacons, for the consecrationof churches and altars, and for therites of m arriage, baptism andburial. Manuscript copies of these liturgical books continued tobe written up to the end of last century and are perhaps stillbeing written today. A s regards printed liturgicalbooks, oneshouldmention thesplendid work which Claudios Labib did at thebeginning of this century. He and hisfollowers arranged, printedandedited the old rites still alive in theCoptic Church to day.The dialect of all Coptic liturgical manuscripts is almost withoutexception Bohairic. Among the Coptic manuscripts in thePierpont Morgan Library in N e w York is a Sahidic Difnardated A D 893, w hich is considered to be the oldest preserved

Antiphonarium of the Copticrite. S o m e Coptic priests donot know Coptic ; theyonly read it. Ever sincethefourteenthand fifteenth centuries parallel A r a bic translations haveaccompaniedthe Coptic texts andm ost printed books contain thisparallel A rabic.

The Copts have books and manuscripts containing theritesforthe feasts of all seasons. The ecclesiastical year opens at thebeginningof the month of Tut (September). Thegreat feast tocome is that ofOur Lord's Birth and from about the tenth ofKiahk(December) till theninth of January the Theotokiais sung in praise of Our L ady. The next rite in use is that of theGreat Fast(Lent), beginning eight weeks (Holy Week included)

Otto M einardus, Monks and Monasteries o the Egyptian Deserts (Cairo,1961), p. 279, mentions that A bu na Antunius of Der es-S urjan in the WadiNatrun, south of Alexandria, is writinga Coptic-Arabic Dictionary and copyingmanuscripts in hiscave, where he lives as an anchorite not far fromthe monastery.


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3 1 0 T H E J O H N R Y L A N D S L I B R A R Ybefore Easter Sunday. A fortnight before Lent the Fast ofNineveh in memory of the Prophet Jonas, takes place and lastsfour days. There are three more fasts, that of the Apostlesbefore the fifth of July (St. Peter and St. Paul), the Fast of theMother of God before thesixteenth of August, and the LittleFast (Advent). Fasting is important to the devout Copt.Under the influence of the Muslim Fast of Ramadan completeabstinence from any food between sunrise and sunset is demanded.Delicate persons received dispensations and moderntimes havenaturally occasioned many changes in the ancientpractices.

As regards the present article, only the Fastof Ninevehandthe Great Fast (Lent) before Easter Sunday are re levant.Rylands Coptic MS. 472 contains fragments of two differentmanuscripts. Fols. 2 and 3, half-leaves only, apparently belong toa Lent-Book, according to the fragmentary rubricated heading inArabic on fol.2 r (last line), whichreads on the third day of theForty H oly Days of Nineveh . Only twentyfolios, measuring18X 29 cm., remain of this manuscript, the original Coptic numberof the la st folio being 217 . Fol. is a half-leaf showing theremains of a coloured crossof interlaced strap-work, and fol.l vthe remains of a roughly-drawn human figure. The remainingfolios are apparently part of a Lectionary containing the Gospelreadings without the hymns which are brought together in the

Difnar . These additional folios, with verses from the Psalmsand Gospel readings, were written in honour of St. Mercurios,St. Peter, St. Paul and the Four Holy Beings without Body.

Burmester TheEgyptian Church, p. 13 , describes seven fasts, including theFast of Heraclius and the Wednesday and Friday Fast throughout the year.The Fast of Heraclius lasts for on e week. Itbegins on the Monday of the weekfollowing Carnival Sunday of the Greek Church which corresponds to SexagesimaSundayof the Latin Church. T his Fast the Christians of Jerusalem undertook

to observe in perpetuity for G od's forgiveness of the Emperor Heraclius whorecovered the Holy City from the Persians in A D 628, when he visited it in th efollowing year, if he permitted the massacre of th e whole Jewish population ofJerusalem, which he accordingly did. The details of Coptic Fasts in the M iddleAges are described by Abu'1Barakat in his Arabic study (later translated intoFrench) La Lampe des tnebres , chapters 16-19. The full title is Lesobservances liturgiques et la discipline du jeune dans 1'Eglise Copte , in LeMuseon, xxvi (1923), 249-92; xxxvii (1924), 209-80; and xxxviii (1925), 261-320.This latter part deals with the fasts.


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S O M E C O PT IC L IT U R GIC A L M A N U S C R IPT S 3 1 1R yl. C opticMS 473is a portion of afine Lent manuscript, ins pite of its fragm entary state of preservation. The last foliobears the C optic number 395 and threehundred and forty-

fourfolios have survived, thes ize of thele aves being 33 20 cm .The marginsare ornam ente dw ithrather roughly-painted paragraph m arks andbirds . Judgingfro m the s cript the m anuscriptbelongstotheendof thes ixte enth centurybutthe ornam entationsappear to be laterindate. P erhaps they have been added s ubsequently, assometimes occurs w ith oth er m anuscripts.Follow ingthe norm al practice of L ent-Books ,C optic M S . 473begins w ith V erses of theP s alms and Biblere adingsfor the Fas tof N ineveh, las tingfour days. A t the bottom of fol. r is w ritten,in A ra bic, this ends w hat is read onthe fourthday [Wednesday,Feria IV]of the Fas t of N ineveh . There are severa l lacunae.Thus, thete xt forthe M ondaybeginning theGreat Fast (L ent)is im perfect. C ontinuity onlybegins with fol. l v thethirdday[Tuesday] of the firs t week of theFortyHolyD ays : inthemorning, the V erse of the P salm , theG o s pel (M att.),E pis tle to the R om ans, C ath olic E pistles (Peter), A cts, and the G os pel(L uke). 2 W ith fol. begins the fourth day [W ednesday] ofthe Forty H oly D ays : in the m ornin g, the V ers eof th e P s alm,the G ospel (M att.), E pistle to the R omans, C atholic Epis tles(P eter), A cts , the Verse of the P salm, and theG ospel (Luke).This form continues forThursday,Friday andth e Sabbath, andw ith fol.5 1 v the servicefor the first S undayof theForty H olyD ays begins : in theevening, the V erse of theP salm, th eG ospel (Matt.); in the m orning, the V erseof thePsalm, th eG ospel (M att.),E pis tle to theR omans, C atholicEpistles (James),

Th.P etersen, The P aragra ph M ark in C optic Illuminated O rnament ,Studies in rt an d Literaturefor Belle da C osta G reen (P rinceton, 1954), pp. 149-87 ; M . Cram er, Koptische Buchm alerei (R ecklinghausen, 1964), pp. 18-26, D asParagraphenzeichen.2 For details of th eVersesfro m the P salms andG ospel C hapters one mayreferto C ode x V aticanusC opticus (V at. C opt.) N o. 30 for S undaysand to Vat. Copt.N o. 100 forweekda ys. There are some differences, due to thefreedomwhichthe C opticChurch allows her P riests in perform ing the li turgy. ForC odicesno. 30and no. 1 00see A . H ebbelynckandA . van L antschoot, Codices CopticiVatican i vol. I (R ome, 1937). A thirdLent m anuscriptinthe Vatican L ibraryhas been published by A . van L ants chootinCodices C optici Vaticani B orgian ivol.I I (R ome, 1947), Vat. C opt. Borgia no. 30.


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3 2 T HE JO HN RYLA N DS L IBRARYA cts, the V erse of the Psalm, the G o s pel (Matt.). Thenconsiderable lacunae occur, continuity not beginning again untilfol. 7 1 r (Friday of the second week of the Forty HolyDays, etc.).Including several lacunae, the structure ofthis Lent manuscriptremains the same for the seven weeksuntil Palm Sunday (fol.31 8 ) : the Verseof the P salm, the Gospel(John), the Verse of theP salm, the Gospel (Luke), Epistle to the Hebrews, C atholicEpistles (Peter), Acts, the Verse of the Psalm, the G ospel(Matt.),the G o s pel (M ark), the G ospel(L uke), the V erse ofthePsalm, theG o s pel (John), Isaias, the Lettersto the C orin thians,the Verse of the P salm, theGospel (John). Palm S unday isincomplete and the readings for the whole of Holy W eek aremissing. There exist special manuscripts and books containingonly the rite for Holy W eek. Books and manuscripts withVerses from the Psalms andGospel readings arenamed Lection-aries of the Holy Week or Passah -Books ; those containingonlythe hymns for H oly Week are named Turuhat -Books.The Arabic word * tarh (sg.), turuhat or turuh (pi.), isderived from the verb taraha , which in its third form meanssinging alternately , two choirs facing each other.Special manuscripts and books w ith hymns for Lent werecom piled for use with Lent Lectionaries in thesame way as

turuhat manuscripts or books complem ent the lectionariesfor H oly Week ( Passah -Books). Lent hym ns are preserv edin several of the British Museum manuscripts described byCrumin his Catalogue o the Coptic Manuscripts in the BritishMuseum (London, 1905). These are songs consisting of manystanzas with four verses, most of them acrostica lly arranged.E very sta nza begins w ith oneletter of the Greekalphabet, A-.Q ;the sevenC optic letters are excluded. The oldest known Coptichymnfor Lent is preserved in the above-mentioned PierpontM organ MS. M 575, fols. 49 r -5 2 v P ortions of the stanzasaresim ilar to those in the rather late manuscripts in the BritishM useum.

1 M . Cramer, S tudien zu koptischen Pascha-Biichern. Der R itus derKarwoche in der K optischen Kirche, bearbeitetnach koptischen und koptisch-arabischen M anuskripten und Drucken , in Oriens Christianas xlvii (1963),118-28; xlix 1965),90-115;andl 1966),72-130.


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S O M E C O P TI C L I T U R G I C A L M A N U S C R I P T S 3 1 3Theunpublished Coptic liturgical manuscripts 474-478 in

the Rylands Library areall connected with the Rite of theTheotokia or Psalmodia of the Monthof Kiahk (December). The original basis of this rite was seven hymns in praise of theVirgin, one for eachday of theweek. They were intended forregular use throughout the year, although today the practiceseems to be observed only in the monasteries. B y the clergy theyare apparently only sung during the Month ofKiahk, Decemberthe tenth to January the ninth. These se ven main hymns, theorigin of which is doubtful, are accompanied by four Odes, thefirst for the Monday-hymn and Tuesday-hymn, the second for thehymns for Wednesday and Thursday, the third for those forFriday and Saturday, and the fourth forthe Sunday-hymn. Inaddition, other songs belong to the seven Theotokias , such asdoxologies, turuhat , absalija and lobesh , or roof songs,to complete the cycle. The reciting occurs in the T ^ O ?( * HXOC ), tune or mode, Adam first and Batossecond. Theseare the opening words of the second and fifth

Theotokia . There is a certain established order forthe use ofthe seven main hymns and the songs attached to them, but astrictly prescribed arrangement of the texts, as, for instance, inthe rite of the R o m an C atholic Church, does not exist. Thereis much more fre edom in the Eastern Churches in the regulationof these rvice. In consequence,manuscriptsof Theotokiasor Psalm odias of the Month of Kiahk exhibit puzzlingdifferences. The main Sunday hymn and the so ngs belongingto it maybe written at the beginningor the end of the manuscriptbut it is always the first Theotokia . Consequently the Monday hymn is the second, and the Saturday song theseventh

Theotokia . Ryl. Coptic MS. 475 beginswith the midnightsong during the Month of Kiahk, followed by a song in praiseofthe Resurrection of Our Lord, continued by the first, second

Claudios L abib, The C optic Theotokia or the Psalmodia o the M onth oKiahk Cairo, 1911, 2 vols. (Coptic-Arabic); De Lacy O'Leary, The CopticTheotokia L ondon, 1923 (Coptic texts without translations). De Lacy O'Leary in Coptic Studies in Honor o W. E. Cram (Washington,1950), pp. 417-20, has doubts concerning the legend that a potter who became amonk in S cetis composedthe sevenbasic Theotokias in course of a single week,expanding in them topics already suggested by A thanasius .


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3 1 4 T H E JO H N R Y L A N D S L I B R A R Yand third Ode (Exod. xv Dan. iii, xxiv, etc., and verses ofPs. cxlvii). Then follow prayers to the Saints, a kind of litany,at the end of which followsthe fourth Ode (verses of Ps. cxlix andcl). After this there is no break between the first or Sunday

Theotokia and the seventh or Sabbath Theotokia .Xere (^at/>e)-texts in praise of the Virgin and other songsbelonging to the Theotokia in general fill the next folios.Fols. 2 1 8r to 221 v are illegible, because paint, apparently, has been

spilt over the pages. The arrangement of this Theotokia ,with the Odes and Songs belonging tothe Month of Kiahk, isunusual as compared with earlier and later Theotokias .N orm ally the seven main hymns do not follow one after the otherbut are interrupted by the four Odes and the other songs.Generally the first or Sunday Theotokia is given at the end ofthe manuscript orbook.

The size of the folios of Ryl. Coptic MS. 475 is 5 X 1 1 cm.Fol. v , the fly-leaf, exhibits the picture of a roughly painted crossof interlaced strap-work. Theinscription is Jesus Christ, Sonof God . S ome parts of theoriginal binding and the loops andknots for closing the book are preserved. This manuscript mayhave been written in the eighteenth or nineteenth century.

Thesame may be said of Ryl. Coptic MS. 474 which, incontrast to 475, is not a complete * Theotokia buta fragmentary one. Seventy-four folios are preserved, measuring2 2 X 8 cm. Some are numbered by an earlier Arabic hand,some by a modern hand, and the rest not at all. A t leastten folios are illegible, as they are badly soiled. The wholeis rather confused but the leaves certainly belong to a

Theotokia . On some, part of the beginning of the fifth* Theotokia has survived ; others show the text of a litany tothe Virginand theSaints, always beginning w ith the word to beh ,to appeal to somebody. There remain also some folios ofx -texts in praise of the Motherof God and the Saints,

fo lios of the third Ode (Dan. iii, xxiv, etc.), of a so-calledlobesh -text, of an absalija ( Psalli -text), and somefragments of an acrostic hymn. Portions of the original bindinghave survived but unfortunately in a bad state of preservation.

Another fra gm entary Theotokia is R yl. Coptic MS. 476, of


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S O M E C O P T I C LITUR G I C A L M A N U S C R I P TS 3 1 5which one hundred and forty-five folios have survived, the size ofleaf being 22 X 16 cm. There are remains of the originalbinding. On the front and back cover the loops for closing thecodex are preserved. A s the size of the folios is the samethroughout, they w ere probably at anearlier period bound together, but subsequently have become separated and torn. Theyare decorated with small interlaced strap-work painting at thetop and with paragraph marks in the margins. S o m e are onlydrawn, some coloured. Five hands have been concerned inwriting these fragments. The first wrote part of the midnightsong of the Month of Kiahk the second the acrostic hymns, andthe third part of the Monday and Friday * Theotokias withparallel Arabic. The fourth hand is responsible for ^epe -texts and an absalija hymn. One further acrostic hymnmay be attributed to a fifth hand. The folios containing theMonday and Friday Theotokias (fols. 89 r - 1 32 v ) may perhapsbe datedsixteenth century ; the others seem to be later.Thirty-twofolios of a Euchologion , an Anaphora ofSt. Basil, with considerable lacunae, have survived in Ryl. CopticMS. 477. The last folio with a Coptic number is 92. Thethree Eucharistic liturgies have already been referred to above.They are those for St. Basil, St. Gregory and St. Mark orSt.Cyril. The Anaphora of St. Mark is historically the mostimportant. It is the old Alexandrian Anaphora in its Copticform , but is now rarely used. The two foreign Anaphorasare ascribed to St. Gregory Nazianzen and to St. Basil. Thelatter is a shortened form of the Byzantine St. Basil Liturgy.Both were originally used in their Greekform, but later weretranslated into Coptic, although not litera lly. The rite of St.Gregoryis used three times a year, that of St. Mark and St.Cyril in theory during Advent and Lent. The usual Copticpractice is the Anaphora of St. Basil, to which these thirty-tw o folios belong. There are further in Ryl. CopticMS. 477nine folios of a Theotokia preserved ; only two haveretainedtheir Coptic numbers, fols. 127 and 147. Fols. 3 r to 5 V areremains of x -texts in praise of the Virgin. Some othersingle folios have surv ived, one with so-called tobeh -texts,prayers to the Saints. The few remaining folios, only single ones,


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3 6 T H E J O H N R Y L A N D S LIBRA R Ymay also belong to a Theotokia , but they cannot be arrangedinto a separate manuscript. The last part of this manuscriptcontains a hymn to be recited during the night before PalmSunday. Four of the folios are numbered in Coptic B F ^, that is, 2, 3 , 4, 5.

More than a hundred single folios with texts written byseveral hands constitute Ryl. CopticM S . 478. All the folios areof the same size. They w ere apparently unbound and then puttogether out of order. They may be dated rather late, perhaps tothe last century. One folio shows a roughly drawn cross ofcoloured, interlaced strap-work with the in scription JesusChrist, S o n of God . Some folios deal with the Sunday,Monday and Tuesday Theotokia , all in fragments. Thereare also fragm ents of hymns belonging to the Tuesday andWednesday Theotokia , and a fragmentary Ode and a

Tarh -Song associated w ith the Saturday Theotokia .Fols. 23 r to 3 5 V seem to be part of the rite of baptism. O n e foliocontains in Coptic the words I christenyou in the name of theFather, the Son and the HolySpirit , followed by chapters of theGospel and hymns to the Archangels. Finally, there are fragments of acrostical hymns, doxologies, absalija , and acclamations to the Saints, mostlysingle folios in different hands.

One valueof these fragmentarymanuscripts probably lies inthe fact that it seems doubtful whether any liturgical manuscriptswill ever come out of Egypt again. The L ent-B ook is of valueto scholars interested in this subject because it is a ratherlarge fragment and probably sixteenth-century. In the B ritishMuseum are preserved, besides the hymns already mentioned,some single folios of five Lectionaries of Lent manuscripts,listed in Crum's Catalogue N o. 31, a single leaf, is written inthe S ahidic dialect and may be dated to the ninth or tenthcentury.