EGYPT
360
EGYPT
canons have not yet been the object of a critical study;
nor does it seem that they were ever pubHshed.
(7) The Canons of Athanasius, or rather the Coptic writing which underlies the Copto-Arabic collection of 107 canons bearing that name, are undoubtedl}' one of the oldest collections of church regulations and very Ukely rightly attributed by the tradition to St. Athana- sius of Alexandria, and, iu that case, perhaps to be identified with the "Commandments of Christ" which the Chronicle of John of Nikiu attributes to this Father of the Church and the " Canons of Apa Athana- sius" mentioned in the catalogue of the library of a Theban monasterj', which catalogue dates from about A. D. 600. The Sahidic text, unfortunately not com- plete, was published and translated (along with the Araljic text by Riedel) by Crum from a British Mu- seum papjTUs (sixth or seventh centurj-) and two fragments of a manuscript on parchment (tenth cen- tury) preserved in the Borgian Collection (Naples) and the Rainer collection (Vienna), in Riedel and Crum's "Canons of Athanasius of Alexandria", London, 1904. To this work we are indebted for the information con- tained in this brief notice. Although this interesting document is a pure Egyptian production, there is but little doubt that it was originally written in Greek.
(S) The Canons of St. Basil, preserved in a Tm-in papyrus broken into many hopelessly disconnected fragments, which Fr. Rossi published and translated although he could not determine to what writing they belonged (I Papiri Copti del Museo Egizio di Torino, II, fasc. IV). Of late those fragments were identified by Crum, who, despairing of establishing their original order, arranged them for convenience according to the Arabic recension published by Riedel (Die Kirchen- rechtsquellen des Patriarchats Alexandrien, Leipzig, 1900, p. 231) and translated them into English [" Cop- tic Version of the Canons of St. Basil" in "Proceed- ings of the Society of Biblical Archajology", XXVI (1904), pp. 81-92]^
Iliston/. — Among the historical productions of Cop- tic literature, none of which can be highly commended, we shall mention: —
(1) An Ecclesiastical History in twelve books, ex- tending from a period we cannot determine, to the re-establishment of Timothy ^'Elurus as patriarch of Egjqjt. If we suppose that in this, as often in similar works, the author continued his narrative until his own times, it would seem almost certain that he wrote it in Greek. At all events the prominence given to the affairs of the Church of Alexandria shows him an EgjTDtian, as from his tone it is clear that he pro- fessed Monophj'sitism. Like so many other Coptic literary productions, the Ecclesiastical History reached us in the shape of fragments only. They are all in Sahidic, and once belonged to two different copies of the same work, or perhaps to two copies of two works very similar in scope and method. Both copies (or works) contain a number of passages trans- lated (more frequently paraphrased, sometimes abridged) from the "Ecclesiastical History" of Euse- bius. On the other side the Coptic work was heavily laid under contribution by Severus of Ashmunein in hi.s " Historj' of the Patriarchs of Alexandria". Some of the fragments were published by Zoega in "Cata- logus Codicum Copticorum", with a Latin transla- tion, some by O. v. Lemm, " Koptische Fragmente zur Patriarchengeschichte Alexandriens" ("M^moires de l'Acad.Imp.deS.Pdter.sb.", Vll'^ser., XXXVI, ll,St. Petersburg, ISSS; and "Bulletin de I'Acad. Imp. de 8. IY'ter.sb.", 1S9G, IV, p. 237, in both cases with Ger- man translation; the others by Crum, "Eusebius and Coptic Church Histories" in " Proceedings of the Soc. of Bibl. Archa-ology", XXIV, 1902, with English translation).
(2) The Acts and Canons of the Council of Nicsa, preserved in Sahidic fragments in the Turin and Bor- gian collections. They have been published, trans-
lated into French, and discussed at length by E. Revil-
lout, " Le Concile de Nicee d'apres les textes coptes et
les diverses collections canoniques, I, textes, traduc-
tions et dissertation critique", Paris, ISSl (Journal
Asiatique, 1873-75); vol. II, "Dissertation critique
(suite et fin) ", Paris, 1899. The author believes in the
genuineness of this collection; see, however, the two
excellent reviews of Vol. II by Batiffol (Revue de
I'histoire des religions, XII, 1900, pp. 248-252) and
Duchesne (Bulletin critique, 1900, I, pp. 330-335).
(3) The Acts of the Council of Ephesus, of which we have considerable fragments of a Sahidic text in the Borgian and Paris collections. The fragments of the former collection were published by Zoega, "Cata- logus", pp. 272-280, with a Latin translation; those of the latter collection by Bouriant, "Actes du concile d'Ephese: texte Copte public et traduit" ("M6moires publics par la Mission archeol. fran^aise au Caire", VIII, Paris, 1892). The Paris fragments have also been translated into CJerman and thoroughly dis- cussed by Kraaz, with the help of C. Schmidt, "Kop- tische Acten zum Ephesinischer Konzil vom Jahre 431" (Texte u. Untersuchungen, new series, XI, 2, Leipzig, 1904). Kraaz thinks that this recension is the work of an Egyptian and, in substance, a good representative of the Greek tlocimients already known. These fragments contain, however, additional infor- mation not entirely devoid of historical value.
(4) The so-called "Memoirs of Dioscurus", a Mono- physitical counterpart of the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. It is in the shape of a Bohairic panegyric of Macarius, Bishop of Tkhou, delivered by Dioscurus during his exile at Gangrs m presence of the Egyptian delegates who had come to announce to him the death of Macarius. The publication of that curious docu- ment with French translation and commentary was begun by Revillout under the title of "R^cits de Dio- score exil6 a Gangres sur le concile de ChalcMoine" (Revue Egvptologique, I, pp. 187-189, and II, pp. 21-25, Paris, 1880, 1882), published and translated into French by E. Am^lineau, "Monuments pour servir" (Memoires publics, etc., IV, Paris, 1888), pp. 92-164. As against Revillout, Amcjlineau asserts the spuriousness of these Acts. Almost immediately after the latter's publication, Krall published and translated some Sahidic fragments which exhibited a better recension of the same docmnent, and show that in this, as in other cases, the Bohairic text was trans- lated from the Sahidic. In disagreement with Am6- lineau, Krall thinks it more probable that the Memoirs of Dioscurus were originally written in Cireek, and sees no reason to doubt their genuineness ("Koptische Beitriige zur agyptischen Kirchengeschichte " in " Mit- theikuigen aus der Sammhmg der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer", IV, p. 67, Vienna, 1888). In 1903 Crum published copies by A. des Rivieres of ten leaves of a papyrus codex, once a part of the Harris collection, now lost. Three of those leaves belonged to the panegj'ric of Macarius, while the others were part of a life of Dioscurus, of which a Syriac recension was published by Nau ("Histoire de Dioscore, patriarche d'Alexandrie ^crite par son disciple Th(5ophiste" in "Journal Asiatique", S^rie X, t. I, pp. 5-108, 241- 310). Nau thinks that the SjTiac and Coptic recen- sions of the life are independent of each other, which points to a Greek origmal for that doemnent and probably also for the panegyric (Notes sur quelques fragments coptes relatifs a Dioscore, ibid., t. II, pp. 18r-4).
(5) A correspondence in Bohairic between Peter Mongus, Patriarch of Alexandria, and Acacius, Patri- arch of Constantinople. It includes the Henoticon which Zeno issued at the suggestion of Acacius It was published in a French translation by E. Revillout, "Le premier schisme de Constantinople" [Revue des questions historiques, XXII (1877), Paris, pp. 83- 134], and by Am^lineau, " Lettres de Pierre Monge et
