DOI Artikel:
Crum, Walter E.: Progress of Egyptology: christian Egypt
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12583#0081
Christian Egypt.
65
of these and other dispersed fragments, since we seem still as far as ever
from the much-needed collective edition. The Cairo Institut is rich in
Coptic texts of all sorts, as the present writer can from his own inspection
testify. Will not M. Lacau undertake their publication ?
Dr. Budge's Psalter has' not yet received the notice which the first
complete and homogeneous text of that book in the Sa'idic dialect should
attract. Mr. Brightman has, however, turned his attention to it, and has
shown,3 without any attempt at minute criticism, that the text contains
many of the additions found in the Old Latin and Bohairic, but generally
omitted in the Greek; though it supports, on the other hand, some of the
less generally accepted readings of that version, more especially those of
the peculiar papyrus, Brit. Mus. xxxvii = Swete's U. Certain also of
the Sa'idic titles are noticeable.
Scarcely a year passes without bringing some further study of the
multifarious writings of Gregory Barhebraeus. That by Dr. Gottesberger3
is, however, apparently the first in which his use of the Egyptian versions
has been dealt with. It would seem from the quotations (forty-five in all) in
Gregory's work on the Psalter, that he was familiar either with a Coptic
version of the book or with some translation or annotation (probably in
Syriac) of that version. His statement, here cited, that the Coptic had, in
his day (second half of thirteenth century), already lost most of the
Salomonic books, is interesting. The now extant Bohairic MSS., however,
of those books date, I think without exception, from much later times. It
can hardly be doubtful, as Dr. G. appears to imagine, which Coptic version
of the Psalter was in Gregory's hands, though, of course, Arabic or Syriac
" readings " or translations might well have been made from the Sa'idic
text.
Prof. Guidi has published* a valuable comparative study of the lists of
canonical books as accepted in the Alexandrine Church and preserved in the
various versions of the last of the Apostolical Canons. There are two main
forms of this list: that extant in Coptic (Tattam, Lagarde) and the
shorter text, known only in Arabic and Ethiopia. Of these the latter has
much resemblance to the version in certain Melkite canonical collections, and
it can moreover be shown to be probably of relatively late Greek origin.
The influence of this foreign canon, excluding as it does all doubtful
books, doubtless conduced, Prof. Guidi holds, to the disappearance from
Egypt of those apocryphal works which figure so prominently in the
literature of Ethiopia.
A similar subject—the Canon according to the thirty-ninth Festal
Letter of Athanasius—is learnedly treated by Prof. Zahn/ who discusses
f
65
of these and other dispersed fragments, since we seem still as far as ever
from the much-needed collective edition. The Cairo Institut is rich in
Coptic texts of all sorts, as the present writer can from his own inspection
testify. Will not M. Lacau undertake their publication ?
Dr. Budge's Psalter has' not yet received the notice which the first
complete and homogeneous text of that book in the Sa'idic dialect should
attract. Mr. Brightman has, however, turned his attention to it, and has
shown,3 without any attempt at minute criticism, that the text contains
many of the additions found in the Old Latin and Bohairic, but generally
omitted in the Greek; though it supports, on the other hand, some of the
less generally accepted readings of that version, more especially those of
the peculiar papyrus, Brit. Mus. xxxvii = Swete's U. Certain also of
the Sa'idic titles are noticeable.
Scarcely a year passes without bringing some further study of the
multifarious writings of Gregory Barhebraeus. That by Dr. Gottesberger3
is, however, apparently the first in which his use of the Egyptian versions
has been dealt with. It would seem from the quotations (forty-five in all) in
Gregory's work on the Psalter, that he was familiar either with a Coptic
version of the book or with some translation or annotation (probably in
Syriac) of that version. His statement, here cited, that the Coptic had, in
his day (second half of thirteenth century), already lost most of the
Salomonic books, is interesting. The now extant Bohairic MSS., however,
of those books date, I think without exception, from much later times. It
can hardly be doubtful, as Dr. G. appears to imagine, which Coptic version
of the Psalter was in Gregory's hands, though, of course, Arabic or Syriac
" readings " or translations might well have been made from the Sa'idic
text.
Prof. Guidi has published* a valuable comparative study of the lists of
canonical books as accepted in the Alexandrine Church and preserved in the
various versions of the last of the Apostolical Canons. There are two main
forms of this list: that extant in Coptic (Tattam, Lagarde) and the
shorter text, known only in Arabic and Ethiopia. Of these the latter has
much resemblance to the version in certain Melkite canonical collections, and
it can moreover be shown to be probably of relatively late Greek origin.
The influence of this foreign canon, excluding as it does all doubtful
books, doubtless conduced, Prof. Guidi holds, to the disappearance from
Egypt of those apocryphal works which figure so prominently in the
literature of Ethiopia.
A similar subject—the Canon according to the thirty-ninth Festal
Letter of Athanasius—is learnedly treated by Prof. Zahn/ who discusses
f