DOI article:
Crum, Walter E.: Progress of Egyptology, [13]: Coptic Studies
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.10056#0062
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Progress of Egyptology.
Coptic original of Severus of Ashmunaia.8 He had satisfactorily
demonstrated the fact of the existence of such a work some years ago.
The latest volume of Rossi's Turin papyri has, with its large collection
of small detached fragments, given him fresh opportunities for exer-
cising his skill and acuteness. He has managed to piece together, out
of some apparently hopeless remains, not inconsiderable passages from
the Encomium on Athanasius, of which he had already identified
portions in his previous publication.
Dr. Griitzmacher, of Freiburg, from his previous studies of Benedict
of Nursia, is well fitted to examine the documents on which our know-
ledge of the earliest monasticism—that of Pachomius iu Egypt—is
based.9 His book is practically an abstract and criticism of the Coptic
and Arabic texts published by M. Amelineau (Musee Gidmet xvii.),
from whose conclusions he does not often differ much. The Sa'idic
version of the Life of the saint is of course judged to be the original,
and to be represented pretty accurately by the Arabic; the Bohairic,
and through it the Greek forms of the story, likewise are derived from
the Sa'idic. The author combats Weingarten's well-known theory of
the Serapian origin of Christian monasticism, though he admits that the
existence of such heathen communities would have a strong influence
upon the early ascetics. Many interesting phases of the movement are
well thrown into relief; for example, the speedy hostility of the secular
clergy to the Pachomian foundations, and the rapidity with which the
latter were imitated—no less than ten communities observing the Pacho-
mian rule being established between Esnehand Hermopolis in the course
of a few years.
3. Gnostic and Magical. The Berlin Museum has not been without its
share of the treasures which of late years have been brought to light in
the Faiyum, and besides publishing the texts of some thirty of the
papyri,10 Professor Erman has given us admirable translations of one
group of them11 which he recognizes as the stock-in-trade of a magician.
There are amulets and charms in great variety—love charms, charms
against sleeplessness, charms to loosen chains, besides medical prescrip-
tions, directions for dying, and the like. The most remarkable,
no doubt, are those which show a strange confusion of heathen and
Christian ideas, telling now a story of Isis and Horus, now one of Christ
and Mary. The texts themselves are often of great interest, written
generally in an archaic idiom, and in a dialect which might be termed
with equal accuracy Sa'idic or Middle Egyptian. They have preserved
several very interesting and otherwise, no doubt, obsolete words, the
Progress of Egyptology.
Coptic original of Severus of Ashmunaia.8 He had satisfactorily
demonstrated the fact of the existence of such a work some years ago.
The latest volume of Rossi's Turin papyri has, with its large collection
of small detached fragments, given him fresh opportunities for exer-
cising his skill and acuteness. He has managed to piece together, out
of some apparently hopeless remains, not inconsiderable passages from
the Encomium on Athanasius, of which he had already identified
portions in his previous publication.
Dr. Griitzmacher, of Freiburg, from his previous studies of Benedict
of Nursia, is well fitted to examine the documents on which our know-
ledge of the earliest monasticism—that of Pachomius iu Egypt—is
based.9 His book is practically an abstract and criticism of the Coptic
and Arabic texts published by M. Amelineau (Musee Gidmet xvii.),
from whose conclusions he does not often differ much. The Sa'idic
version of the Life of the saint is of course judged to be the original,
and to be represented pretty accurately by the Arabic; the Bohairic,
and through it the Greek forms of the story, likewise are derived from
the Sa'idic. The author combats Weingarten's well-known theory of
the Serapian origin of Christian monasticism, though he admits that the
existence of such heathen communities would have a strong influence
upon the early ascetics. Many interesting phases of the movement are
well thrown into relief; for example, the speedy hostility of the secular
clergy to the Pachomian foundations, and the rapidity with which the
latter were imitated—no less than ten communities observing the Pacho-
mian rule being established between Esnehand Hermopolis in the course
of a few years.
3. Gnostic and Magical. The Berlin Museum has not been without its
share of the treasures which of late years have been brought to light in
the Faiyum, and besides publishing the texts of some thirty of the
papyri,10 Professor Erman has given us admirable translations of one
group of them11 which he recognizes as the stock-in-trade of a magician.
There are amulets and charms in great variety—love charms, charms
against sleeplessness, charms to loosen chains, besides medical prescrip-
tions, directions for dying, and the like. The most remarkable,
no doubt, are those which show a strange confusion of heathen and
Christian ideas, telling now a story of Isis and Horus, now one of Christ
and Mary. The texts themselves are often of great interest, written
generally in an archaic idiom, and in a dialect which might be termed
with equal accuracy Sa'idic or Middle Egyptian. They have preserved
several very interesting and otherwise, no doubt, obsolete words, the