anthony alcock

This translation has been made from the text (NH Codex VI, 4) edited in the publication of P. Chérix. 2 There are minor gaps in the text that cannot be reconstructed, and these will be signalled by square brackets and dots. The numbers in brackets throughout the text are the folio numbers (fol. 36-48). The abbreviation CD refers to W.E. Crum Coptic Dictionary (1939). The text is a sort of teaching document, in which the teacher is identified at the beginning of the text in the phrase 'everyone in whom my form is revealed will be saved:'. The imperative 'know/recognize' indicates that answers to questions (spoken or unspoken) are being provided. Essentially, the information provided by the teacher is about the aeons: two perishable and one imperishable. The first is the aeon of the flesh, in which all but Noah and his family were destroyed (38); the second is the aeon of the soul, the present aeon, full of sin and impurity, in which everything will come to an end in a great fire. The knowledge provided about these two aeons is followed by an interlude (40-43) that may be of Christian origin. This interlude is followed by a lecture on the third and final imperishable aeon, to be ushered in by a great fire that will last for 1468 years and consume all: the pure will find eternal rest, while the impure will suffer eternal punishment. It is not known where the text was composed. Like many of the 4th cent. NH texts the dialect of the text is somewhere between Subakhmimic (SA 2) and Sahidic (S), and it was only towards the end of that century that Sahidic emerged as something resembling a standard dialect, at least in the Nile Valley. My translation is the product of an informal gathering throughout a semester in which I took part and attempted to help theology students at the university where I teach English (Kassel) to make sense of the text. 1 This translates the title at the end, the usual place for the title of a work. The two lines at the head of the text, perhaps a later addition, read: teschsis Ndianoia-pnohma Ntnaq Nqam : διάνοια seems to refer to critical faculty of thinking, while νόημα seems to refer to the object of thinking. The first line may be an attempt to explain the title proper. It might be understood perhaps as an exhortation to use reason to understand the thought of the Great Power. The term Great Power also occurs in Acts 8, 9ff., where it is clearly used of Simon Magus and in the Gospel of Thomas logion 85, where it is the progenitor of Adam. 2 P. Chérix Le concept de notre Grande Puissance (1982), which the text, a translation and detailed linguistic notes. Various text and translation publications of the entire corpus have been made by scholars, in various countries and for various reasons, but they are too numerous to mention here.

Charlemagne, known in German as Karl der Große, was a Frank who in 800 became the acknowledged successor 1 of Romulus, the last Roman emperor (d. 476). The titles of imperator and augustus were conferred on him, against his will, by the Pope 2. The capitulatio was a legal code to regulate the territories of Saxony: much of what is now France and Germany was under the control of the Franks by the 770s, but non-Christian Saxony was not, and Charlemagne, after thirty years of bitter fighting, 3 eventually subdued the Saxons, christianized them and added their territory to the growing kingdom of the Franks. The ordinances below governing Saxony give some idea of how important Christianization was to Charlemagne, and offences against Christianity, e.g. ordinances 2-12, might be penalized by death. They remained in force until 782, when they were replaced by a modified version, the capitulare saxonicum.

The short Greek text from which the following translation has been made was published by C. Tischendorf Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha (1851) pp. 261-265. There is an informative introduction on pp. lxxi-lxxvi. A brief description of its contents is made by M.R. James Apocryphal New Testament (1924) p. 471. Tischendorf claims that the Acta 'contain almost nothing that does not relate to the early apocryphal traditions of the apostles.' It is a brief text that has the appearance of not having been 'over-elaborated'. It begins with the story of the correspondence between Abgar V of Edessa and Christ and the resulting portrait made of Christ for Abgar in the throes of illness. After establishing Christianity at Edessa, Thaddaeus then moved north to Amida 1 and other parts of Syria, even as far as Berytus to preach.

The Coptic text of this martyrdom can be found in E. A. Budge Coptic Martyrdoms (1914) pp. 102-127.The Greek text was published in 1660 by François Combefis Illustrium Christi martyri lecti triumphi pp. 1-43. 1 There are occasional differences between the two, especially in the Proemium. 2 There is also a Syriac version, to which I have no access. The saint had two names: Placidas before his conversion and Eustathius after it. The Greek title makes no mention of the emperor at the time of the martyrdom. The title of the Coptic specifies that the martyrdom took place in the reign of Trajan, but later in the text it is clear that Hadrian was the emperor at the time. Neither Trajan nor Hadrian seems to have pursued an aggressive policy towards Christians: the only account of Trajan's attitude to the new religion is in his correspondence with Pliny, the governor of Bithynia (Letters 10, 96 and 97); Hadrian's attitude can be seen in his letter to a governor in Asia Minor, (cited by Justin Martyr 1 Apology § 68), both evidently of the opinion that Christians as such posed no threat and that accusations against them must be founded on hard evidence and subjected to 'due process' to determine if they were more than a mere delatio/συκοφαντία (denunciation). Hadrian is characterized in the Coptic text as 'more impious than all his predecessors', 3 but Eustathius, by refusing to celebrate his victory over the Parthians with Hadrian in the temple of Apollo and by attributing his success to God alone, may well have committed an act of lèse-majesté, a capital offence. Until his conversion Eustathius has been a successful and prosperous pagan. But to achieve his 'crown' of martyrdom, he learns in his conversion to Christianity that he has to submit to a series of tests, like Job: among other misfortunes, he loses his possessions, has to abandon his wife and is deprived of his children. The martyrdom process, from the conversion, involves a number of trials for whole family, some of them recalling motifs of the Greek stories of Xenophon of Ephesus, Chariton and others. The martyrdom itself is described briefly, and evidence that Eustathius and his entire family managed to 'rise above' the gruesome punishment inflicted on them is that, after several days of torture, 'the bodies of the saints shone as white as snow'. 4 The translation below is faithful, if not to the word at least to the sense. I have added notes where I thought appropriate. The writer is given at the end of the text as 'Victor the deacon, son of Mercurius the deacon'. This is the life and conduct of St Eustathius, general of Trajan, and Theopiste his wife and Agapius and Theopistus his children. Their contest was completed in the great city of Rome on 20 Thoth 5 under Trajan. Amen. Proemium The devout human being is endowed 6 with an ability to learn that is partly natural and partly voluntary: he establishes virtue and wishes to teach his neighbours from the examples of other previous generations, who gave thanks to the Benefactor of us all, our God and Lord, Jesus Christ and from whom he in turn expects thanks. I mean the acts of kindness that he does for us and our

The Latin text translated below is taken from Patrologia Latina 103 cols. 434-442. The title ascribes the text to Serapion, Macarius, Paphnutius and Macarius the Second, 1 all distinguished Egyptian monks whose names have probably been assumed by the authors to lend a certain authority to the document, written perhaps around the time of Benedict (480-527). According to the prefatory remarks, the text appears to be the product of a meeting of monastic leaders conducted in consilio saluberrimo. The text consists of three parts, in the first of which various rules are attributed to each of the brothers by name, e.g. 'the rules of Serapion' occupy sections 2-4, and so on. The other two parts seem to be rules jointly formulated by all four of them. This is a loose translation of Part One only.

Christianity probably came to Britain with soldiers in the Roman army guarding the frontier province that had been incorporated into the empire by Claudius in 43 AD and possibly also merchants doing business there. There are references to Britain in the works of Origen and Tertullian. 1 The entry in the Liber Pontificalis that a British king Lucius wrote to Pope Eleutherius (2nd half of 2nd cent.) asking to be received into the Church cannot be verified. 2 The first Christian martyr in Britain was St Alban, a victim of Diocletian's persecution of the early 4th cent. 3 Three British bishops, a priest and a deacon are known to have attended the Council of Arles in 314. Other Christians of note include Patrick, who evangelized Ireland, and Pelagius, whose concept of free will was rejected by prominent Christians such as Augustine of Hippo. The material remains of Christianity are discussed in F. Haverfield Romanization of Britain (1915), who concludes that Britons seem to have responded positively to the new culture notwithstanding resistance warriors such as Caractacus and Boudicca, and David Petts 'Christianity in Roman Britain' Oxford Handbook of Roman Britain (2014). According to Gildas (chapters 66-110), the British Church seems to have been best by moral decay: the gradual Roman evacuation of Britain in the early 5th cent. and the arrival of increasing numbers of settlers/invaders from the northern coastal regions of Germany, who were not Christian and brought new languages with them, may have accelerated this decay, and by the end of the 6th cent. Pope Gregory I is said by Bede Ecclesiastical History of the English People Bk 2 §1 to have been so impressed by the appearance of non-Christian English youths on sale in a Roman slave market that he authorized a mission led by Augustine to re-christianize the island.

The Greek text from which this translation has been made is published in A. Vassiliev Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina (1893) pp. 308-315. The foundations of the story are, to some extent, the Book of Jeremiah and, to a much greater extent, the pseudepigraphon known as 4 Baruch or the Paralipomena of Jeremiah (see note 11). The narrative has clearly been Christianized. In the introduction to the text (pp. lix-lxi) Vassiliev cites texts that use the same material as found in this text, e.g. in the post-5th cent. work entitled De Prophetis, 1 attributed to Dorotheus or Epiphanius of Salamis. Jerusalem was attacked twice by Nebuchadnezzar II in his attempt to extend the neo-Babylonian empire: 597 BC, which involved the siege of the city and the installation of a new monarch, Zedekiah; and 587 BC, which involved the destruction of the city and the transfer of its people into Babylonian captivity. The first siege seems to be documented in Biblical and non-Biblical sources; 2 the second only in Biblical sources. The manuscript from which the printed text has been edited, Codex Barberinus III, 3, was written in 1497. The narrative of the capture of Jerusalem, the lamentations of the prophet Jeremiah and the trance 3 of Abimelech. The great prophet Jeremiah from the village of Anathoth prophesied many things, in which the strength of prophecy is evident, about Jerusalem and Babylon as well as about divine incarnation. 4 Paschor, son of Emmer, the ruler of the house of the Lord, once struck him very hard and placed him who was lamenting the capture of Jerusalem in the stocks. Divine justice did not permit him to stay there, and he said to Paschor: 'Your name will declare you to be 'foreigner' and at the same your apostasy will become clear, because of your cursed neglect of the work of the Lord.' When Jehoiakim was king, Jeremiah was lamenting the fate of Israel. The false prophets persuaded the 1 Patrologia Graeca 43 col. 400. 2 D.J. Wiseman Chronicles of Chaldean Kings (1956) p. 32. 3 ἔκστασις 4 The 'divine incarnation' prophecy is perhaps Jer. 1, 2: ὡς ἐγενήθη λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ πρὸς αὐτὸν, in which the Logos is understood as a reference to Jesus. priests to destroy him: The hand of Saphan the son of Ahikam was with 5 Jeremiah and prevented his death. The Lord then said to Jeremiah: 'Make for yourself chains or a wooden yoke to put around your neck, and I will send you to the King of Moab and Idumaea, Ammon, and of Tyre and Sidon'. and Jeremiah did so. Ananias son of Azor, the false prophet, took the yoke from his neck and broke it before the people. He said: 'The Lord said to me: 'I will break the yoke of the King of Babylon from all nations.' Jeremiah said to the false prophet: 'Your lips are treacherous and your heart is poisonous. The truth is that you have broken the wooden yoke. 6 But instead, says the Almighty Lord: 'I will make a yoke of iron and place it on the neck of nations, and you, Ananias, will die.' 7 No sooner was this said than it was done: he departed to join the dead seven months later. In year 18 of Zedekiah, 8 King of Judah, when Jeremiah was grieving for Jerusalem, he was imprisoned. The Chaldeans were approaching the city, but somehow the prophet escaped and made his way to Benjamin, 9 driven by necessity. He was arrested by the Chaldeans and beaten and incarcerated. After some time in prison, he was rescued secretly by Zedekiah, who said to him: 'Since you are well-informed about the future of my kingdom, tell me.' And Jeremiah replied: 'It is not I who speak, my king, but the spirit who speaks in me. I have written what I have written.' And he accepted this. His detractors lobbied the king: 'How is that this man, incarcerated, is allowed to weaken the hearts of the warriors and does not preach peace but instead stirs things up ? It is better that one should die for many.' And Zedekiah said: 'Look, he is in your hands.' And they threw Jeremiah into the pit of mire of the dead. When Abimelech learned of this, he said to the king: 'Why do you maltreat this man ?' The king replied: 'I do this unwillingly, but he is in the charge of the people. Take thirty strong men with you and and bring him out of the pit.' And Abimelech hastened and, with the help of God, brought up the prophet unharmed. The king stood quite near him and said: 'Do not conceal from me what I seek.' Why put aside the truth, my lord ? I will not tell lies, even if you condemn me to death.' The king said: 'As the God of our fathers lives, I will not kill you whatever you say. Nor will I hand you over to these men.' Jeremiah said: 'If you adopt my counsel and do not proceed against the Babylonians, your life will be saved and the city will not be destroyed. But if you oppose them, know that you will not escape their hands and the city will be consumed by fire.' Zedekiah considered the words of the prophet to be worthless and so incurred the 5 It can easily be seen from LXX Jer. 33, 24 that Χηραχικὰμ is a copying error and is to be understood as χεὶρ ᾿Αχεικὰμ 6 The passages of Jeremiah are not direct citations and have been adapted by the writer. 7 τὴν ψυχὴν ἀπορῥήξεις 8 Installed as king by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC. 9 In N. Judea. Not affected by the Babylonian attack.

The following contains two translations:-a relatively free version of two Latin letters:from the Pope to the King of England with reply about a crusade 1 and-an equally free version of the French text 2 of the deposition of a servant, Bernard de Vignolles, about the attempt to assassinate Henry VII in 1496. 3 What these two events have in common is that they never took place. Julius' letter to Henry is clearly in response to a letter from Henry, alluded to in Henry's reply to the Pope, calling for action against the Ottoman Empire. 4 In the first sentence of Henry's reply (§ 5) the words 'we had given' (dederamus) may suggest that the letter did not go through the normal postal channels but was delivered in some other way. It seems a little odd, in view of the universal joy it seems to have occasioned in the Vatican, that no copy of this communication has survived. It is not clear if Henry's first letter was addressed to all the European princes or only to the Pope. In the 15th and 16th cent. growing Turkish power had gained control of the main trading routes between Europe and Western Asia power and finally put an end to the Byzantine Empire with its conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The Ottoman-Venetian War (1499-1503) ended in favour of the Ottoman Empire and left the Turks in control of the Aegean, the Adriatic and the Ionian seas. On Henry's participation in European affairs after the death of his son Arthur, cf. Charlotte

The following is an English version of the Latin text published in Sixtus Senensis Bibliotheca Sancta (1610) pp. 94ff. 1 An English translation of a different text 2 was published by M. R. James Apocryphal New Testament (1924) pp. 480-484. He is one of many who doubt the authenticity of the 14 letters first mentioned by Jerome de viris illustribus 12, who was moved to include the philosopher in his 'catalogue of saints' because of the popularity of the letters (quae leguntur a plurimis 'which are read by very many') and did not dismiss them as fictitious. Whether Paul knew Latin and, if he did, how good it was 3 is not known. Even his letter to the Romans may not have been addressed to natives of the city but to Jewish Christian immigrants. The consul dates of letters 10, 11, 12 and 14 correspond to those given in the comprehensive account at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_consuls, which seems to be reliable. Seneca is presumably in Rome, but there is nothing to indicate the whereabouts of Paul. Letter 5 has an indirect reference to the sympathy felt by Poppaea Sabina, the second wife of Nero, for Judaism, as in Josephus antiquitates judaicae 20 189ff.: the suggestion seems to be that she was indignant with Paul for converting from Judaism to Christianity, which he did when she was only three years old. Letter 1 Seneca to Paul My dear Paul, I believe you have been told of our discussion yesterday with our friend Lucilius 4 about matters secret and otherwise, for it was attended by some of your fellow-philosophers. We found a secluded spot in the Gardens of Sallust, 5 where the aforementioned colleagues, who were going in another direction, saw us and took the opportunity to join us. We would have been glad of 1 I have seen a reference to a recent volume entitled Der apokryphe Briefwechsel zwischen Seneca und Paulus (2006) ed. A. Fürst, but I have not been able to consult it. 2 He does not identify this version. 3 He probably addressed his gaoler in Latin (Acts 16, 27). If one believes the letters, Paul's Latin was good enough but lacked veneer. 4 The recipient of many of Seneca's epistulae morales. 5 Originally belonged to Julius Caeasar and later acquired by the historian Sallust in NE Rome.

The following text is a dialogue in which the questions are usually short and intelligible; the answers can be descriptive, metaphorical or enigmatic, 1 ; some might even be called riddles, e.g. [1] and [2]; some indicate a weary or even jaundiced view life in general; some answers have a double meaning, e.g. [61]. There is evidence that the emperor and the philosopher were reasonably well acquainted, 2 so an exchange of this sort is not impossible, but it is not clear to me

The following translation has been made from the text published by E. Bratke in Religionsgespräch am Hof der Sasaniden, which appeared as a monograph in Texte und Untersuchungen 19 fasc. 3 (1899) pp. 1-305, where the title of the document is given as Έξήγησις τῶν πραχθέντων ἐν Περσίδι. The text occupies pp. 1-45. Details of all the mss. can be found on pp. 62-87. The copy used by Bratke is Cod. Paris graec. 1084. The numbers in brackets are those of the publication. This, in part, a somewhat free translation. 1 The Greek capital letters are Middle Persian or Pahlavi words, the Iranian language used in the Sassanid Era. A Greek translation is provided, presumably by the author of the text.

According to Abbé Élie Batareikh 'Une nouvelle recension de la vie d'Abercius' Oriens Christianus 4 (1904) pp. 276-307 there are several manuscripts of this Life, and he gives plentiful details of them. The manuscript he has selected for publication is an 11th cent. text from the Monastery of St Saba, currently in the Greek Patriarchate in Jerusalem. I have retained his text division. Texts of Abercius' life and martyrdom, possibly composed in the 4th cent., had been known for some time before corroboration of his existence was forthcoming with the discovery of his epitaph from the early 3rd cent. in 1882-83 by William Ramsay, 1 a Scottish archaeologist and New Testament scholar: the epitaph text in the Life (§121) is almost identical with that on the gravestone. It is possible that the epitaph served as the foundation on which the Life was written. The Abercius named in it is thought to have been the successor of Papias bishop of Hierapolis, 2 formerly a cult site of Cybele in Phrygia. Two striking features of the text: the attention paid to military politics, not always accurate, and the details of travel. It seems likely that whoever wrote the text was reasonably well-informed with a certain amount of travel experience. My translation is less than literal. Life and martyrdom of our holy father, the apostle-like 3 Abercius bishop of Hierapolis. 4

The text translated 1 below is from M.R. James Apocrypha Anecdota (1893) pp. 43-103, which is the first publication of the story contained in Paris Gr. 1458, an 11th cent. codex. James has a lengthy preface to the text (43-57), in which he points out similarities between this text and various acts of the apostles Paul, Peter, and others as well as a certain obvious contiguity with non-Christian writers of romance fiction, such as Xenophon of Ephesus, Achilles Tatius and others. The story seems to consist of exactly two halves: § § 1-21. where the protagonists are Xanthippe, Probus and

The text translated here is from Codex Barrocianus 180, but was not included by Tischendorf. Just over thirty years later it was published by M. R. James Apocrypha Anecdota (1893) pp. 161-163. Portions of the 'Acts of Philip' (Paris grec 1468 fols. 326v-331v) and 'Martyrdom of Philip' (Codex Barrocianus 180) are published by C. Tischendorf in Apocalypses Apocryphae (1866) pp. 141ff. More information about Philip came to light in a Greek text discovered in 1974. 1 The text is essentially about the final obsequies of the apostle, during which there is a miraculous event: a cross, perhaps that on which Philip was crucified, appears surrounded by dazzling light that made it unapproachable, except by the bishop and his entourage. The cross identifies itself as Philip, who tells the bishop what he wants. Speaking animals are not unknown in hagiographic texts, 2 but inanimate objects with the gift of speech are less common. 3

Henry the Young King, as he is often known, was the oldest son of Henry II and Eleanor. He was born in 1155. The account of his death and burial translated below is in the form of a brief sermon written by one Thomas of Earley, also known as Agnellus, the archdeacon of Wells c. 1183.The text was published by Joseph Stevenson in Radulphii de Coggeshall Chronicon Anglicanum (1875) pp, 263-273, a unique manuscript in the Bodleian Library, Ms. Laud. 1100 fol. 118b. Thomas' text seems a little effusive for a 'pro forma' obituary, and the constant reference in it to Henry as beatus and sanctus creates the impression that a bid for his canonization was being planned, 1 but there is no evidence that he was canonized. His description of the funeral procession sounds like an eye-witness account of either Thomas himself or a reliable informant. On p. 267 he writes that he 'saw' a miracle performed by the mere touch of Henry's garments, but it is known where or when he saw it. The following information about Henry, which deals with the years 1170, 1173 and 1183, is from a text compiled by Roger of Howden, 2 a priest in Yorkshire whose intention was to continue the work of the Venerable Bede and who died in 1201. (a) Year 1170 is summarized on pp. 325-355 of vol 1: it has an unflattering account of the unsatisfactory coronation and consecration of the young king, partly because they were not performed by Thomas Becket, the legitimate archbishop of Canterbury 3 and partly because Henry's wife, Margaret, was not crowned queen. and this exasperated her father, the French king Louis, so much that he assembled an army and invaded England, but the invasion came to nothing. (b) Year 1173 is summarized on pp. 362-375 of vol. 1: just after Easter Louis, with a considerable alliance including young Henry and the second son Richard, rose against Henry II, who managed to withstand them and subsequently tried to enlist the support to European monarchs sympathetic to him; finally, there was a battle between the two sides, in which Henry II was the victor; there was a subsequent peace conference in September of that year, in which offers were made to and accepted by Henry's dissident children; residual opposition to Henry II was soon quashed.

The two characters named in the title are linked to each other by narrative elements but separated from each other by a considerable period of time. The narrative elements are precisely-fitting footwear and the marriage between a royal and a non-royal. The earliest written story is from the 1st cent. AD and the latest from the 17th and 19th centuries. 1 In his work, the Geographica, Strabo the 1st cent. AD tells the story in Bk 17 chapter 1, 33 of Rhodopis , a successful courtesan of the 7th cent. BC. who lived in Naucratis, the first Greek settlement in Egypt. In the course of his visit to Giza to see the pyramids Strabo. like his predecessor Herodotus, was probably told about Rhodopis, but unlike Herodotus, was also told this story. 2 The Rhodopis narrative in Herodotus Histories Bk 2 cc. 134-135, the text and translation of which I have added below before the Strabo story, has no trace of the Rhodopis story. Of the two versions that have survived in modern European languages, the earlier of the two modern stories was first written down by Charles Perrault when he was 69 in 1697 for his children, 3 the last of whom was Pierre, born in 1678. It seems likely that he collected his stories from oral sources 4 and rewrote them. Over a hundred years later Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, students of popular literature and German language, did more or less the same. 5 Whatever the Grimms' reasons for collecting and rewriting the stories, entertainment of

The short text translated below was published by A. Vassiliev Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina (1893) pp. 1-4 from the 11th cent. Ms. Monte Cassino 277. 1 On p. 4 it is claimed that the author of the text was a certain Eurippus, otherwise unknown: All of this has been by written by me, Eurippus, the second of his disciples, as accurately as possible (κατὰ ἀκρίβειαν). For a comprehensive study of all the known texts of the beheading of John, cf. A. Berendts Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der Zacharias-und Johannes-Apokryphen (Texte und Untersuchungen n.s. 1904), in particular pp. 5ff., which deal specifically with the Cassino text. For those who wish to consult the Greek text I have added it after the translation.

This study offers alternative translations of several passages in a letter previously published in JEA 54 (1968), 239-42, based on their grammatical and lexical content. It is tentatively suggested that this document may have served as a Vorlage for someone wishing to recover a debt from one convinced that he is under no obligation to repay it.

Hin in Coptic Texte Anthony Alcock (Kassel) The following note contains additional Information to the article by N. Kruit and K. Worp" Metrological notes on Containers and liquids" in vol. 45 fasc. l (1999) ofthis Journal. Footnote 41 contains the observation that" ...

Fragments of a lost faith between demons and gods - an age of revelation the gnostic imagination in the world of the pleroma the arrogance of the demiurge and the creation of the world "And God Said, let us make mankind in our own image and likeness" mysterium comiunctionis - the gnostic saviour waiting for the end Simon Magus and the origins of gnosticism visionaries, prophets and divine men - towards a history of gnosticism ascetics and libertines.

The following contains notes largely on the diachronic nomenclature of the five oases in the Western Desert. The Egyptian word wH3t was reproduced in Greek as ὄασις, which has no grapheme to indicate the fricative sound of the second consonant. It survives in Coptic as ouax/ouaxe, which finds its way into Arabic as ‫.واح‬ It may be related to the word meaning 'basin', but since the oases are not neessarily in a depression of any sort, this is not certain. Coptic does not write the word with an article, which suggests that it was considered to be a toponym. The word survives via Greek in several European languages. 1 According to a tradition recorded in the temple of Edfu (3rd cent. BC) there were seven oases. 2 These notes are about five in particular, though there are more. 3

At the ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325) 1 it was decided that there should be regular provincial synods to deal with matters of church discipline. The Council of Serdica (mod. Sofia), held in about 343, was one of these. 2 The following is a translation of the summary of it provided by Socrates in his Historia Ecclesiastica, edited and translated by Robert Hussey in 1853. The Council reveals the beginnings of the extension of Rome's authority and the beginnings of the rift between East and West that culminated in 1054.

The text from which the following translation has been made is text number 3 in a volume simply entitled Thomae Mori Opera Omnia, published at Frankfurt in 1689, 1 where it is paginated separately as pp. 3-26. More seems to have published the Latin and the English at about the same time in 1513, 2 the Latin ending with Richard's coronation, the English continued in Hardyng's Chronicle of 1543. 3 It is clear enough even from a casual perusal that there are sometimes quite substantial differences between the two versions. My translation of the Latin is not literal. I have tried to simplify More's language. Prefatory remarks, perhaps by More himself. make it clear that the text is an 'excercise' (exercitatio) written 'without study' (nec ita magno studio) and the author had no opportunity to revise (emendare) his text, with the result that the language lacks the elegance of other of his Latin works. The numbers in brackets are the page numbers of the printed text. As far as I know, More does not give any reason anywhere why he wrote this text. One therefore has to speculate.

The following is a translation of a text published by A. Vassiliev Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina (1893) pp. 308-316. In his prefatory remarks on pp. lix-lxi Vassiliev quotes a passage from de prophetiis, a work ascribed to Epiphanius of Cyprus or Dorotheus that contains the stoning of Jeremiah (see below note 20) and says that the text was known to Ephraim the Syrian. The version published here was copied from a manuscript designated Cod. Barberinus III, 3, fol. 153-172, dated to 1497 AD, which I have been unable to locate. But another copy is cited by Vassiliev: the 14th cent. Cod. Vat.

The following translation has been made from É. Amélineau Monuments pour servir à l'histoire de l'Égypte chrétienne (1888) pp. 165-195 (fols. 211 to 232 with pagination A-MD). He questions the authenticity of Cyril's authorship on pp. xxviii to xxxi, largely on the grounds that the historical content is doubtful. As far as I know, there is no version of the text in Greek, any other language or any other dialect of Coptic. The only details of the manuscript that Amélineau provides are that it is Cod. Vat. Copt. 66. G. Zoega Catalogus Codicum Copticorum (1805) pp. 28ff describes it as codex xxiii ex volum. vat. 1xvi. 1

The following is a translation 1 of the text in M.R. James Apocrypha Anecdota (1893) pp. 96-108 entitled διήγησις ζωσίμου εἰς τὸν βίον τῶν μακάρων, which is the main story in the text, but is in turn followed by a story about Zosimus. Details of the mss containing the Greek text, as well versions in Syriac, 2 Ethiopic and Arabic, are provided on pp. 86ff. I have followed the text division used by James. The text is, as James observes (p.95), is intended to promote the ascetic life among the communities of the East. 3 There are two manuscripts of the text, an older one in Paris (A) and a later one in Oxford (B), and the variant readings of the two are included in a critical apparatus, to which I refer sparingly. My translation is, I hope, faithful but not literal: I have sometimes converted direct speech into indirect speech and used paraphrases. Summary of the text. § I introduces the story in third-person narrative form. § § II-VI switch to the first person narrative of Zosimus, a Christian monk and how, after much prayer, he is given permission to visit the inhabitants of Islands of the Blessed, a people that traces its origin to Jonadab son Rechab, to learn their way of life. 4 § § VII-XV: narrative taken over by the Blessed, who give an account of their origin and life for Zosimus. XVI-XXI: narrative resumed by Zosimus, who tells of his return with the tablets on which he has recorded the account; he is visited by an angry devil and, after a violent confrontation, vanquishes him and sends him off to the 'eternal fire' with his demonic army; the document is then read aloud to all those living in the wilderness; Zosimus dies aged sixtythree. XXII: narrative taken up by a monk of uncertain name, who confirms the site of Zosimus' cave as a therapeutic pilgrimage site. 1 The first English version to appear, as far as I know, is that W.A. Craigie The narrative of Zosimus (AN Fathers 1867-1872 Supplement to vol. 10) pp. 200-224. I have not seen it. 2 F. Nau Les fils de Jonadab (1899), to which I refer from time to time. 3 One wonders if it coincidence that there is no Coptic version, Egypt having produced quite a bit of monastic literature of its own. 4 The term used throughout the text is διοίκησις except for §XXI, where the term πολιτεία is used, a common term of Christian hagiographic, martyrological and monastic writing. 1 The main part of the text tells the story of the Rechabites in Jeremiah 35 (Hebrew) and 42 (LXX): they were a nomadic pastoralist people who first appear in the written record in the 9th cent. BC and were avid worshippers of Yahweh, profoundly opposed to the agriculturalist Canaanite worship of Baal. The Rechabites earned a great reputation for themselves by their abstemious way of life and, unlike the disobedient people of Judah, were spared by God, who promised that they would live forever. The Greek tradition about Islands of the Blessed is well attested in various writers 5 but how and when it found its way into Judaic tradition seems to be unknown. § § XVI-XXII of the Greek version seem to be a 'Christian' addition that is not in the Syriac, which ends after the account of the Islands of the Blessed. Thus, one might say that the Greek text contains two stories by Zosimus: one about the Blessed and one about himself.

The text from which the following translation has been made is published in E. A. Wallis Budge Coptic Apocrypha (1913) pp.146-176 from an 11th cent. codex from the library of the Monastery of Mercurius at Edfu in Upper Egypt now known as B.M. Or. 7024, which also contains an encomium by John Chrysostom on John the Baptist. The manuscript is described by Budge on pp. l-liii.

This note takes the form of stray thoughts on B. Layton The canons of our fathers: monastic rules of Shenoute (2014). It is not a review because I have not read the book as thoroughly as a review normally requires. The White Monastery complex is regularly referred to in this and other recent books and articles as a 'federation', a term that appears to suggest that there was a constitution of some sort which enabled members to join the organization on a voluntary basis and, if they later wanted, to secede. 1 On pp. 15-19 the author provides a translation of a text 2 of which the Coptic has been published only by G. Zoega Catalogus Codicum Copticorum (1805) no. CLXXXI pp. 375-377 (selectively) and É. Amélineau Monuments pour servir à l'histoire de l'Égypte chrétienne au IVe et Ve siècles (1888) pp. 229-236, complete but 'inexact' (Layton p. 12 note 21). Prof. Layton's translation is based on a text that he has improved and that differs from both of the above. The text uses the Imperfect about twenty times. English does not have an Imperfect, merely a Past tense, of which there

The following is an English version of the Greek text 1 published in Eckhart Reinmuth (ed.) Joseph und Aseneth (2009) pp. 56-129. It is slightly different from the text published by P. Battifol "Le livre de la prière d'Asenath" Studia Patristica fasc. 1 and 2 (1889-90) pp. 39-86. Reinmuth's text has a facing German translation. An English version of Battifol's text has been published by E. W. Brooks Joseph and Asenath (1918), who has also published the Syriac text, a translation from the Greek that has been dated to the first half of the 6th cent. AD. 2 Movement between Egypt and southern Palestine is attested in both written Egyptian and Hebrew sources. The earliest Hebrew source is Gen. 12, where Abram (c. 20th cent. BC) is said to have taken his family to Egypt to escape from famine. Egyptian records provide information about the 15th Egyptian dynasty (c. 1650-1550), which seem to have consisted of immigrants from Canaan in what was possibly an immigrant tradition that may have started several centuries earlier and resulted in a concentration that made them dominant in the northeast Delta. They are now known as 'Hyksos', derived from ḥḳ3w-ḫ3swt 'foreign rulers' (Hyksos) but were probably generally also known as rtnw or more c 3mw 'Asiatics'. Some idea of the social mobility possible for immigrants may be gained from the 16th cent. biographical text of Ahmose (Egyptian name), an admiral whose father was named Abana (Semitic name). It is not known whether the Biblical Joseph was one of the Canaanites in the NE Delta before, during or after Hyksos occupation, but if the Israelites spent 430 years in Egypt (Ex. 12, 40) and if Ramesses II (1303-1213) was the Pharaoh of the Exodus, then the concentration of Canaanites in Egypt may have begun in the 17th cent. BC. If the action of this

Women Cobblers in a 4th Cent. Egyptian Oasis? Anthony Alcock (Kassel) The formative element τσεν-in Greek writings of Egyptian names derives from the Egyptian τ (" the" f.)+ σε (" daughter")+ v (" of). The masculine form employs the masc. art. π-ι-σεν-1. In Egyptian ...

... | Ayuda. The Sounds of 'aain in Egyptian, Greek, Coptic, and Arabic. Autores: Anthony Alcock; Localización: Journal of egyptian archaeology, ISSN 0307-5133, Nº. 94, 2008 , pag. 275. © 2001-2011 Universidad de La Rioja · Todos los derechos reservados. XHTML 1.0; UTF‑8.

The following is a modern English prose version, more a paraphrase in fact, of part of a poem written about the beginning of the 16th cent and published for the first time in 1520. 1 The poem is called the Lyfe of Joseph of Arimathie, and the text below renders the section that deals with Joseph's arrival and stay in England (lines 113 to 400). The

The text from which the following translation has been made is published in P. de Lagarde Catenae evangeliorum aegyptiacae quae supersunt (1886) pp. 82-127. 1 There is only one manuscript, a late 9th cent. Bohairic copy text from Deir es Suriani in the Wadi Natrun. 2 The text was written presumably between the mid-6th and the end of the 9th century; the interpretations of Mark, unlike those of the other gospels, are mostly those of Severus of Antioch. The text survives, as far as I know, in no other language. The manuscript was acquired by Robert Curzon (Lord Zouche) in 1838. The obvious errors made by Curzon were corrected by Lagarde, Bishop Lightfoot and others. It is now in the British Library, and a description of it can be found in B.

This short text is no. III in H. Delehaye Les versions grecques des Actes des Martyrs Persans sous Sapor II (1905) pp. 39-44. On p. 7 Delehaye provides a list of the days on which martyrs were executed together with references to the Syriac versions in Assemani and Bedjan. 1 The feast day of Pherbute is April 5. Shapur II (309-379) seems to have pursued a vigorous pro-Zoroastrian policy, perhaps in relatiation for the pro-Christian policy of Constantine. He is said to have been the first to collect the Avesta, the scriptures of Zoroastrianism, and seems to have been on friendly terms with the Jews in his territory. According to Syriac texts his persecution of Christians began around the time of Constantine's death in 337. Pherbute is portrayed in the text as intelligent and attractive. After her arrest she is interrogated by someone called the mauptes 2 and two officials (ἄρχοντες). Each one succumbs to her charms and promises to rescue her from death if only she will marry him. Mutatis mutandis the episode recalls the story of Susanna and the two judges in the eponymous apocryphal Biblical tale. 3 According to F. Just Iranisches Namenbuch (1895) p.99, Pherbute was the sister of Simeon Bishop of Seleucia. 4

There are two texts of the Life: a 9th cent. text written by an unnamed monk of the abbey of Ruys and a 12th cent. one by Caradoc of Llancarfan. 1 They are quite different from each other. The translation that follows is that of Caradoc's text, first published in complete form by J. Stevenson in Gildas de excidio et conquestu britanniae (1838) pp. xxxi-xli, as a preface to some of the works of Gildas. Gildas may have been born around 510. There is no agreement about his place of birth. 2 At some point he moved to Brittany, where he founded a monastery at Ruys not far from the coast. There is still a statue of Gildas in a bay near the coast. There is also a church named after him, and the inhabitants of the region are known in French as Gildasiens. Whether there was one or two persons named Gildas is not known but perhaps probable. 3

The following translation has been made from J. B. Chabot Synodicon Orientale (1902), 1 which has the text and translation of thirteen synods held by the Church of the East between 410 and 775. The fifth synod was held in 544. Mar Aba was a convert to Christianity from Zoroastrianism, who eventually succeeded two rival church leaders, Elisha' and Narse: in their mutually hostile fifteen-year tenure of office they managed to split the Church of the East, the principal see of which was Ctesiphon. Unity of faith and conduct had to be re-established, and Aba found it necessary to reach out to all Christians in his jurisdiction after his election in 540. The result was a synod in 544. 2 The text of the Aba Synod consists of a number of writings by Aba that form discrete sections. The text translated below is the fourth section that deals with the schism precipitated by the dual patriarchate, cf. Chabot pp. 85-89 (Syriac) and pp.338-345 (French), and has been made principally from the latter with occasional reference to the former. The signatures of the ten bishops who ratified the decisions (‫ܦܣܩܐ‬) and definitions (‫ܬܚܘܡܐ‬) made in this section appear after the text.

A poem of 536 hexameters commemorating this 'summit' was published in full by Ernst Dümmler Poetae latini aevi Carolini (1881) vol. 1 pp. 377-379. It is known in German as the 'Paderborner Epos'. Its Latin title is 'Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa'. The final section of the work (ll. 426-536) is presented below with an English version. Dümmler has many footnotes, 1 but I have included none of them here. The author of the work, Angilbertus or Engelbertus, was educated by Alcuin at the court of Charlemagne and was nicknamed 'Homer' because he wrote poetry.

The following translation has been made from the Arabic text published, with Latin translation, by J.K. Thilo Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti vol. 1 (1832) pp. 66-131. In his notes (pp. xxviff.) Thilo states that the text was first copied and translated by H. Sike 1 at Utrecht in 1697 and quotes extensively from Sike's work. Jeremiah Jones published the text, a parallel Latin-English version, in volume II of his New Method for establishing the New Testament Canon (1827) pp. 144-186. The Latin version is also published in C. Tischendorf Evangelia Apocrypha (1876), discussed on pp. xlviii-lii and printed on pp. 181-209. 2 In 1886 an English translation, probably from the Latin, by Alexander Walker was published in the Ante-Nicene Fathers (1886) vol. 8.The text is summarized by M.R. James Apocryphal New Testament (1924) pp. 80-82. The Syriac version, published by E.A. Wallis Budge in The history of the Blessed Virgin (1899) with English translation in two volumes, has probably given rise to the Arabic version. A summary of the relationship between the various infancy gospels is provided by P. Peeters Évangiles Apocryphes 2 (1914) in his introduction. The Jesus of the text has been described as follows: Cette image grotesque d'un gamin omnipotent et omniscient est une des plus fortes caricatures qu'on ait jamais inventées, et certes ceux qui l'ont écrite avaient trop peu d'esprit pour qu'on puisse leur prêter l'intention d'y avoir mis de l'ironie. 3 Jesus performs miracles in this text as both an infant (though he does speak on two occasions) in §10-§34, the miraculous cure effected by his swaddling clothes or bathwater and as a child in §35-§47. From §48 to the end he engages with scholars and demonstrates his superior knowledge, 'to be about my Father's business' (§53). One or two stories exhibit a swift divine punishment of wrongdoers (e.g. §29). One or two stories allude to the human nature of the miracle-worker (e.g. §30). Many of the stories are quite short, but one occupies two sections: 33 and 34. Details, such as parents' suspicion that Jesus might be a magician (§36) or the comment that Joseph was not a very good carpenter (§38), relieve the tedium of the catalogue of miracles. 1 From a manuscript now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. For a digitized copy of fols. 1b-34a see: https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/f041d73c-5f3e-4afb-9a44-ba8ea77b8cff/surfaces/922ece94-540c-4499-b22c-bccc9c579664/# The ms. has no chapter numbers, and the divisions of Sike are his own. 2 The Latin texts published by Jones, Thilo and Tischendorf are copies of the translation made by Sike. 3 The contemptuously dismissive verdict of Ernest Renan Histoire des origines du christianisme vol. 6 (1877) p. 514 1 In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we undertake with the help of God and his favour and success to write the miracles of Our Lord Jesus Christ, known as the Infancy Gospel. In the peace of the Lord. Amen. 1. In the book of Joseph the Chief Priest, who lived at the time of Christ and, according to some, was Caiaphas, we find that Jesus in his cradle said to his mother Mary: "I am Jesus Son of God. the Logos, to whom you gave birth, as Gabriel the angel announced to you, sent by my Father for the salvation of the world." 4 2. In year 309 of the Era of Alexander 5 Augustus ordered everyone to be registered in the place of his birth. He 6 rose and took Mary his betrothed and went to Jerusalem and came to Bethlehem to be registered there with the people of his house in his village. When they reached the cave, 7 Mary said to Joseph: "The birth-time is near, and I cannot go the village. Let us go into the cave." This was at sunset. Joseph went quickly to bring her a woman to be with her. While he was doing this, he saw an old Hebrew woman from Jerusalem and said to her: "Bless you, come into this cave, for in it there is a woman about to give birth." 3. The old woman went with Joseph, and it was sunset as they entered. It was full of beautiful lights, great lamps and candles of sunlight. The child wrapped was sucking at the breasts of his mother Our Lady Mary in a manger. While they were marvelling at this light, the old woman said to Our Lady: "Are you his mother ?" She said: "Yes". The old woman said: "You do not look like the daughters of Eve." Our Lady replied: "As there has never been a boy like this, so his mother has no equal among women." The old woman said: "Mistress, I have come to earn an eternal reward." Mary said: "Place your hands upon the child." She did so and straightaway became pure, She went out and said: "From this day forward I will serve and attend to this child, all the days of my life." 4. Shepherds then arrived and lit a fire and rejoiced, the hosts of heaven appearing and celebrating God on high. While the shepherds were doing this, the cave began to look to them like a venerable 4 There is a Quranic parallel for Jesus speaking, mutatis mutandis, in the cradle in Sûra 19, 29-34. 5 Also known as the Seleucid Era, which marks the conquest of Babylon, according to the Christian calendar 312/311 BC. The use of this calendar may point to a Syriac origin of the text. 6 No name is given, but Joseph is to be understood 7 One might expect 'a cave', but the Ar. uses the def. art.

The following stories can be found in E.A. Wallis Budge The laughable stories collected by Mâr Gregory John Bar Hebraeus (1897), in which he publishes the Syriac text of all seven hundred and twenty seven stories with an English version of all but the stories translated below, which it was felt required 'the respectable obscurity' of Latin. The same book also has the Syriac title Book of Refreshing Stories and the Arabic version made by Bar

The short text reproduced and translated below was first published by Jean-Baptiste Cotelier Ecclesiae Graecae Monumenta in 1681 vol. 2 pp. 457ff. The copy reproduced below is from William Stubbs The chronicles and memorials of the reign of Richard I vol. 1 (1864) pp. 183-189, which includes an English translation. The text, written by a Cypriot monk named Neophytus, contains observations on how Cyprus suffered during the Crusades and how Richard I was received when he appeared there during the Third Crusade (1189-1192) and what he did there. Each page of Greek is followed by a page of English. Where the following translation lacks fidelity, this is indicated in a note.

who made several corrections and suggestions. My aim here is to present translations of some passages that are more faithful to the Coptic and, in some cases, more accurate than those of Schiller. I make no reference to Crum's review. Where possible I have checked the printed text with the copies of the manuscripts on plates I-VII. 1 Release 26 xatmpnoute etouatB eouon nim. mpou< ou >w< ejitou 'with God who is above

This note contains the text and translation of imperial edicts that chart the progress of Christianity from an illegal faith to a legal faith to the dominant faith of the Empire. The edicts in question were issued by Galerius (311), Constantine/Licinius (315) and Theodosius (380). The sources of these documents are: Lactantius de mortibus persecutorum for the texts of Galerius (§34) and Constantine/Licinius (§48) and the codex theodosianus xvi 1, 2 for that of Theodosius. Greek versions of the Galerius and Constantine/Licinius Edicts can also be found in Eusebius historia ecclesiastica 8 ch. 17 § § 3-and Bk 10 ch. 5 § §2-14 respectively. I have not translated the Greek text, but have added notes to the parallel Greek and Latin texts that follow.

Aelfric (955-1020) was a late Anglo-Saxon abbot of a monastery at Eynsham, approx. 8 km north of Oxford. In addition to his voluminous religious works in Old English, he produced a teaching manual of Latin for children based on the works of Donatus (310-380), who wrote two works on language, ars major and ars minor, and Priscian (c. 500), whose 18 vol. institutiones grammaticae is a comprehensive treatment of the language. The work has a preface in both English and Latin, which are quite different from each other. The Latin is directed specifically at pupils, mentioned affectionately more than once, and dwells a little on the difficulties of grammar; while the English certainly mentions pupils but dwells rather on the need for learning, with an allusion to the Gospel injunction about making use of talents, and warns of poor copying as a source of error. The rather peevish comments that he makes about the British pronunciation of Latin, in particular the word pater, would be out of place in the English version, and that is why they are not in it.. For ease of consultation I have added the appropriate pages from Julius Zupitza Aelfrics Grammatik (1880) pp. 1-2.

The text translated here appears in two forms: as (a) a self-contained narrative and (b) part of a longer text, a dispute held in Persia between Christians and non-Christians. 1 The former has probably been excerpted from the latter. (a) The former was first published from two mss in Munich by Johann Christian von Aretin Beyträge zur Geschichte und Literatur (1804) vol. 2 fasc. 4 pp. 49-69 and reprinted in J-P. Migne Patrologia Graeca 10 (1857) cols 97-108 and was clearly at one time attributed to the eminent Christian writer Sextus Julius Africanus, an attribution contemptuously rejected by Aretin.

The short text translated below was published by A. Vassiliev Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina (1893) pp. 1-4 from the 11th cent. Ms. Monte Cassino 277. 1 On p. 4 it is claimed that the author of the text was a certain Eurippus, otherwise unknown: All of this has been by written by me, Eurippus, the second of his disciples, as accurately as possible (κατὰ ἀκρίβειαν). For a comprehensive study of all the known texts of the beheading of John, cf. A. Berendts Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der Zacharias-und Johannes-Apokryphen (Texte und Untersuchungen n.s. 1904), in particular pp. 5ff., which deal specifically with the Cassino text. For those who wish to consult the Greek text I have added it after the translation.

Graeco-Byzantina (1893) pp. 58-72 reproduces two quite different versions of a text that deals with the priesthood of Christ. The text on pp. 58-60 is an ἀπόδειξις (A); the text on pp. 60-72 is a διήγησις (B) in two versions, of which I have translated the left-hand version. The date of composition is not known. There is an Arabic version, published by B. Evetts 'History of the Patriarchs' Patrologia Orientalis 1 (1907) pp. 120-134, where it follows sections of text designated by Evetts as 'Prefaces' and by C.F. Seybold Historia Patriarcharum (1904) pp. 8-15. The compiler of the History, Severus Bishop of Ashmunein, 1 says of it that he collected material for the History from all over Egypt, and some of these were translated from Coptic into Arabic by a deacon named Michael, the first of these being the story form (διήγησις) of Priesthood, in the monastery of Nahyâ. 2 I am not aware of any surviving Coptic version. The text precedes the History perhaps because Jesus was characterized in Hebrews 3, 1 as the 'chief priest of our faith', a description that is not inappropriate for a patriarch. The Arabic is so different from the Greek that comparison between the two would make little sense. Several Latin versions were published in the Middle Ages, including one by Robert Grosseteste, the 13th cent.

The following note contains the text of P.Oxy 6.903, copied from the Duke Database of Documentary Papyri (DDbDP) with photograph. The translation and notes are mine. My interest in it was prompted by how close some of its phraseology is to that of Coptic, the indigenous language. The names of the complainant woman and the accused man are not given. They appear to be married, but it is not clear to me whether they were in fact married when the violence outlined in this suit began. Only two place names are mentioned: Antinoopolis and, possibly, sambacw. The text was found at Oxyrhynchus and is probably the scene of the action outlined in it. Antinoopolis, which had a bishop in the 4th cent. 1 , is some distance to the south. The several personal names are probably untraceable. The text may be an affidavit or perhaps deposition, but how a document of this sort was made, kept or used I cannot say. The document lacks details of date,. Is one to assume that the complainant wrote it ? The complainant has various charges to make: (1) the accused has inflicted physical violence on those in her service and those in her charge and implicitly accuses the complainant of theft; (2) the accused has locked the complainant out of her house, apparently after she had attended church, an activity of which the accused may have disapproved; (3) the accused has not contributed in any way to the payment of taxes, but apparently insists that the complainant pay them, and in connection with this he confiscated the 'documents', had the complainant locked up, after or during which the accused's assistant, Choous, was incarcerated and later bailed by a certain Euthalamus and the complainant; (4) the accused robs the complainant of her bathing accessories in front of the baths at Antinoopolis in the presence of his own mother, apparently to recoup some of the bail money which she had provided for Choous; (5) the accused tries to force the complainant to dismiss a servant, whom he seems to accuse of theft, but she refuses to do, and he threatens that in one month's time he will take a mistress ! Like many tales of domestic woe recounted in such brief form, principally for the benefit of those concerned, it is not easy to follow.

The following is a relatively simple English version of the above-mentioned texts contained in a book that used to belong to the Monastery of Michael the Archangel at Phantoou near Hamouli in the Fayyum and has since found its way into the Pierpont Morgan Library (USA) with the designation M 609. The texts occupy fols. 53r to 100v.

The legend of Cyprian and Justina seems to have arisen in the 4th cent. and became so popular that the section dealing with Justina found its way into the 13th cent. text known as the Legenda Aurea, 1 and from there into modern literature, where Cyprian the magician became the model for Faustus. In addition to the Acts and Martyrdom there is also an autobiographical memoir, the Confession, a 1st person narrative in which the saint has an opportunity to relate the errors of his youth before discovering the true path of Christianity. 2

The following translation is of the Coptic and Syriac versions of the legend published by I. Guidi 'Judas Cyriaque' Revue de l' Orient Chrétien 9 (1904) pp. 79-95 and 310-332, 1 where information about the manuscripts containing the texts is provided. A copy of the Bohairic text that is much easier to read than Guidi's can be found in I. Balestri and H. Hyvernat Acta Martyrum (1924) pp. 9-23, and this is the one I have used for the translation together with page numbers of that publication. I will not go into any sort of detail that involves comparing the two texts, but it is striking that the title preceding the Coptic text uses only the name Cyriacus and describes him as the one who found the Cross. The Syriac text, on the other hand, identifies the martyr as 'Judas', a Jew who became a Christian bishop and received the 'Christian' name Cyriacus, in the title preceding the text and in the title following the text. For the mother's name I have used Hannah throughout. Coptic The Coptic is a Bohairic text and not surprisingly uses a number of words that occur mostly or solely in that dialect. I have added references to some of these words in W.E. Crum Coptic Dictionary (1939).

In his note 'Carion et Zacharie, moines de Scété' Revue de l'Orient Chrétien 10 (1905) pp. 209-212 François Nau draws attention to the relatively unusual occurrence of notices about the same persons in two sources: the Coptic Synaxary and the Greek 1 version of the Apophthegmata Patrum (AP). The persons in question are Kariôn, father, and Zacharias, son. The brief Synaxary notice was published with French translation by R. Basset in Patrologia Orientalis 1 (1907) pp. 335-337 (Bâbah 13=October 10) and probably derives from the much fuller notice in the AP, published in Patrologia Graeca 65 (1864) col. 249. Apart from a translation of the Synaxary text and one or two notes I have little to add to what Nau has written. Nau (p. 210 note 6) provides other examples of married men who had abandoned their families in order to embrace the monastic life. It is interesting that of the four family members in this story only the male ones are named and that, whereas the AP begins with the father Kariôn, the Synaxary notice commemorates Zacharias the son. Coptic Synaxary (335) On this day the blessed Zacharias the monk died. The father of this ascete was called Qâriûs, who had conceived the idea of becoming a monk. When his told his wife about this, she gave him her consent. (336) He went up to the desert of Shîhât 2 and became a monk there with a venerable elder. He had a son and a daughter, whom he left with their mother. Some time later there was a great price rise 3 in his home town, and his wife took the two children to the desert to their father. She complained to him about the difficulty she was suffering because of the price rise. She then said to the children: "Go with your father", and they did. Kariôn sent the girl back to her mother, saying that God had divided the children between them: "You take the girl and I 1 But not the Coptic version. 2 Two spellings of the name are found in the text: ‫شيهات‬ , clearly based on the Coptic <iht <ixht / and ‫,السقيط‬ clearly based on the Greek form σκήτις. The Greek form has probably developed by substituting the /k/ because it does not have a grapheme that corresponds to /x/, except of course for the rough breathing over an initial vowel. A parallel phenomenon can also be observed in the name 'John': iwxannhs ‫)يوحنا(‬ and iwannhs ‫,)يؤانس(‬ the former common in Sahidic and the latter in Bohairic. 3 ‫غلء‬ as a result of a famine (Gk. λιμός).

The Syriac text of this hagiography with Latin translation was published by E.W. Brooks in Vitae virorum apud monophysitas celeberrimorum (1907): Latin (pp. 23-68) and Syriac (pp.31-95) The text was written by a certain Elias, a disciple of John. An event in the text, the capture of Callinicus 1 in 542, places the composition after that date. The numbers in brackets throughout the translation, made principally from the Latin, are the page numbers of the Syriac text given in the margin of the Latin translation. Elias' biography is the main source of chronological data about John but not the only one, 2 and the following information has been extracted from all of them. John (483-538) was born in Callinicus. His full name, John son of Cursus, is not given in the text. 3 In 503 he became a government employee before becoming a monk in about 511. In 519 he became bishop of Tella 4 of Mauzlat. In 521 he was forced to resign his bishopric for his anti-Chalcedonian views 5 and was forced into exile. In 531, after an extended missionary tour of northern Syria as far east as the border with the Persian empire at Nisibis, he was recalled, with seven other bishops, from compulsory exile by the emperor Justinian in 531. In 532 he was summoned by Justinian to Constantinople to defend his Monophysite views. In 537 he attended a meeting hosted by the Chalcedonian Ephraim patriarch of Antioch at Resaina to discuss Christological issues. When John refused to accept the Chalcedonian doctrine, he was arrested by Ephraim and spent just over a year confined in the monastery known as Comes Manasse. In 538 he died The author clearly has a keen eye for detail and a fondness for a certain prolixity. 6 An interesting episode in the text is the presentation of John's thoughts (pp.50-53): it deals with the soul-searching of the saint when confronted by the prospect of high office (the episcopacy) in the Church at a particularly sensitive period facing those opposed to the decisions of Chalcedon, a dichotomy between the Church spiritual and the Church secular. Since the text is not a work of fiction, it has to be assumed that Elias knew John well enough to provide an accurate and credible account of his thoughts about the consequences of being a bishop, perhaps because John had laid bare his thoughts to his disciple. ‫ܝ‬ 1 It has more than one name and has been called Raqqa since the Muslim conquest in about 640. 2 There is also a text by John of Ephesus edited and translated by E.W. Brooks in 'Lives of Eastern Saints' Patrologia Orientalis 18 (1907) pp. 513-526 and a chronicle translated by E. W. Brooks and F. J. Hamilton Zachariah of Mitylene (1899). 3 His writings include canonical texts published in Dissertatio de Syrorum fide ed. P. Lamy (1859) and Canones ed. C.Kuberczyck (1901). 4 Also known as Constantia. Mod. Viranşehir. 5 He was driven out with twelve bishops 'of his neighbourhood' and at first went back to his old monastery of Mar Zakkai, cf. Brooks p. 515. 6 My translation has mostly followed Brooks' version, with occasional simplifications.

The Syriac text and French translation of this text were published by François Nau in Patrologia Orientalis 5 (1910) pp. 701-749, one of a group of texts that he characterizes as 'legends', which would fit the text's depiction of Christianity in Syria in the 3rd-4th cent.. This translation is mainly from the French but the Syriac text has been consulted regularly. The numbers in brackets are the subdivisions of Nau's translation. There are no obvious subdivisions in the manuscript texts. In his introduction (p. 697ff.) Nau suggests that Aaron is one of the saints that were 'imagined' by the Jacobite Church after the Chalcedonian schism of 451, and they remained purely Jacobite and were not adopted by the rest of the Christian world. The monastery of Aaron on Berika is first mentioned in the 9th-10th cent. by Bar Hebraeus. 1 The legend may have been written to provide a well-known 'ancestor' of two 6th cent. monasteries in Melitene both bearing the name 'Aaron'. One may suppose that various later traditions have been incorporated in the text. However much 'truth' there is in the story of Aaron, its portrayal of well-organized Christianity in and around Edessa in the late 2nd-early 3rd cent. fits in nicely with the story of the adoption of the new religion by Abgar V (Ukkama) at the time of Jesus himself. There are striking points of resemblance between this text and the Life of Epiphanius in Patrologia Graeca 41 (1863) cols. 24-112, 2 such as: the episode of the demon-possessed royal daughter and the almost personal relationship that develops between the saint and demons in general; the constant repetition that the saint is merely the channel used by God to perform miracles (starting in §8); the insistence by various parties after the performance of a miracle that the saint remain with them; the extensive travel in both texts; the minimal use of scriptural quotations or allusions. If the frequency of Greek words in a Syriac text is an indicator of the language of composition, one might suggest that Aaron was written in Syriac.

The text used for the translation below is that of Patrologia Graeca 41 (1863) cols. 24-112, edited and translated in 1672 by Dénis Petau (Dionysius Petavius), who warns readers that they may have to exercise their 'judgement and critical historical faculty' when reading the text. As he points out, the Life is a mixed bag of true and false or, perhaps more accurately, verifiable and unverifiable. The text is arranged in § §67: § §1-38 are the work of a disciple named John, who first appears in §11 of the text; § §39-67 are the work of Polybius, 1 another disciple, who first appears in §32. The death of John is recorded in §39 and is preceded by a 'formal' transfer of authorship: John tells Polybius that Epiphanius has given explicit instructions that miracles performed through him by God are not to be committed to writing but that he, John, has ignored this and written an account of them, which he then hands over to Polybius. Both John and Polybius are the 1st person narrators of their respective sections. The translation is occasionally somewhat free, and where it seems to be quite different from the Greek, I have tried to explain this in footnotes. Several things strike one about the text: Epiphanius is never called 'saint', people of saintly distinction are gifted with 'divine foreknowledge', Biblical quotations seem to be kept to a minimum and exorcism and healing are portrayed as a convincing demonstration of the power of Christianity (personified as the Crucified One), conversion of Jews to Christianity is a recurring theme. It is perhaps worth mentioning that there is a striking resemblance between this text and the Life of Aaron of Saroug published by F. Nau in Patrologia Orientalis 5 (1910) pp. 701-749. Comparison of the two would be a work of scholarship. to which I lay no claim here. Epiphanius (315-403), Bishop of Salamis, 2 was a prolific writer on many subjects. His best known work is his hostile review of all the heresies that tried to undermine Christian belief, the name of which, Panarion (medicine chest), clearly identifies the heresies as poisonous substances and the heretics as poisonous creatures. Each heresy is associated with a venomous or dangerous creature, the snake, perhaps not surprisingly, being a particular favourite. It is interesting to see how little space is devoted in §59 of the Life (essentially a work of popular semi-fiction) to what may be considered Epiphanius' magnum opus.

Little is known about Thomas Eccleston beyond the fact he entered the Franciscan Order (Minor Brothers) around 1232 and may have been a student at Oxford. His text De adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam is a chronicle of the Order from the arrival of Agnellus of Pisa in 1224 to about 1258, presumably at or near the time of Thomas' death. The style suggests that we have Thomas' notes rather than a polished piece of prose. There are are 4 mss., all of which seem to derive from one archetype. No critical edition of the text has yet been prepared. The published text, from which this translation has been made, is that of J.S. Brewer Monumenta Franciscana (1858) pp.5-72. The numbers in brackets throughout the text are the page numbers of the publication. There is an English translation of the whole text by Fr Cuthbert The Friars and How They Came to England (1903), but he seems in places to be following a different text from that of Brewer. The text is subdivided into collationes, 1 which may have been addressed to the monks in the evening. I have used the conventional book subdivision term 'chapter'. I have translated only the first five of fourteen chapters. They deal with the period from the arrival of the brothers to their gradual dispersion and growth between 1225 and 1250. The first person used occasionally in the narrative is presumably Eccleston. The development of the association between the Franciscans and the University of Oxford is sketched out in Chapter Three. The same chapter devotes a certain amount of attention to the importance of dreams and visions among the Franciscans. 2 1 1 Whether they were collationes in the sense of John Cassian (texts to be read aloud during supper) I do not know 2 For a study of this phenomenon see K. Pansters 'Dreams in medieval saints' lives: Francis of Assissi' Dreaming 19 (2009) pp. 55-63.

The Syriac story of Alexis translated below was published by A. Amiaud Légende syriaque de St Alexis (1889) pp. ‫ܓ‬ to ‫ܒܘ‬ with a French translation pp. 1-17. This translation is made largely from the French, with occasional reference to the Syriac.There are in fact two texts: the first and second parts of his life, and it is only the first part that is translated here. There are eight manuscripts, six in London and two in Paris. Three of them date from the 6th cent., the oldest from the Syrian Monastery in the Wadi Natrun in NW Egypt. The editor believes that the story probably originated in Syria and spread to many parts of the Christian world. On pp. xxxii-xxxvi he provides a summary of the Greek and Latin versions and cites the study of Jean Pien Acta Sanctorum 4 (1725) pp. 243-270. Aimaud fixes the date of composition of the text between 450 and 475 (p. xlvii). Of the several persons mentioned in the text only one is named, Rabbula bishop of Edessa, who did not find out about Alexis until after he had died. Those who knew the saint during his lifetime, his parents, the usher at his wedding and the sacristan of the church at Edessa, remain anonymous. It is not known if Rabbula's energetic work on behalf of the poor and the immigrants described in the final passages of the text was inspired by the fate of Alexis or whether it provided an opportunity to make the bishop part of the narrative. Two points about the saint's death as a mirror of his life: his death was solitary because his new-found friend, the paramonarius, seems to have been prevented from being with the saint when he died and the disappearance of the body from the grave at the end of the text might be seen as the ultimate act of the self-effacement practised by the saint throughout his life. The numbers in brackets are the page numbers of the French translation (1) The history of the Man of God 1 from the city of Rome, glorified and crowned through works of poverty in the city of Edessa in the days of the glorious and holy priest St Rabbula bishop of the city of Edessa. 2 1 The name Alexis or the names of his parents are not used in the text. The title is often used of saints (Aimaud p. xlv) as well Biblical figures. 2 350-435

The following is a translation of the Bohairic text published by I. Guidi and H. Hyvernat Acta Martyrum (1907) pp. 157-181. The Latin translation was published in 1908 and occupies pp. 99-111 of that volume. 2 The translation volume (pp. 8-9) contains details of the manuscript from which the text has been taken, and these can be summarized as follows: the narrator is a certain Dionysius draconarius; 3 there are varying dates in texts in various languages of the saint's feast; the text of the martyrdom is followed by a text, which I have not translated, of several miracles; on fol. 184 v of the manuscript is a marginal note of the owner of the book, which reads 'Lord, have mercy on me, your servant Habib the sinner, son of Pouhôr. AM 784 (=AD 1084)', an interesting feature of which is the use of the Greek word for 'son': f. 194 r has a painting of Thedore slaying a dragon.

The following translation has been made from a text published by A. Vassiliev Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina (1893) pp. 317-322. One detail that may provide a date for the composition of the text is the intriguing reference to Andrew of Crete, who is known to have died in 712, thus pointing to a 9th or even perhaps late 8th cent. composition date. The ms. containing the text is the 14th-15th cent. Cod. Ven. S. Marci 87 ff. 255 to 262. 1 The text shows non-standard forms, e.g. on p. 317 ἀκολουθοῦν τοῦ σώματος where one might expect ἀκολουθοῦσι τῷ σώματι and ἐκ followed by the accusative (p. 320). I have used a framework that makes the contributions of the interlocutors in this Q & A session relatively easy to follow. The numbers in brackets are the page numbers of the printed text. The questions of James the brother of the Lord and the answers of John the Divine. Praise the Lord James: Tell me, Divine John, about the last days of man. How does the soul leave the body and where is it going to live until the second coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ ? John: Listen, James. If the order comes from our invisible God that the soul is to be parted from the body, the eternally existing angel comes for the man and the first Archangel Michael with swords of fire, accompanied by another four, and take up the soul from the body and follow the body to the grave with the soul and remain at the grave until it has been blessed by the priest. Then the sinful soul laments loudly and say: "Alas ! alas! I have left the light and am now going to the darkness. 2 Alas ! I have left my friends and am going to a land which I have never seen. Alas ! I have left my body. 3 It is all dust. But I had a temporary pleasure, and now I am going to the place where sinners 1 Details from Vassiliev pp. lxi-lxii. 2 Vassiliev notes that something is missing from the text. 3 Vassiliev notes that something is missing from the text.

Ths brief note consists of little more than translations of texts written by or attributed to three major figures in the early history of Coptic cenobitic monasteries. The rules specified what monks had to do after they had been admitted to a monastery and the commitment was what they promised (not) to do before they were admitted. Transfer from a relatively open free-choice system bound by social rules to one that is closed and bound by institutional rules inevitably requires adjustment on the part of the new entrant. Monks were, however, able to and did leave the closed institution, as can be seen for example in this text included among the works of Shenoute. 1 The known or likely authors of the texts translated below are, in roughly chronological order, (a) Pachomius 2 , (b) Pgol and (c) Shenoute. Pgol seems not to have left any writings of his own, and his words are known only from the texts of Shenoute, who gives an account of a sermon 3 preached by Pgol translated below. Of the three writers the only one to achieve international fame 4 in his time was Pachomius, thanks largely to the Latin translation of his Rule made by Jerome. In his Preface to the Rule Jerome explains that he undertook the work of translation at the 'insistence' (imperantibus) of important men at a time when he was 1 J. Leipoldt Sinuthii Archimandritae Vita et Opera Omnia III (CSCO, 1908) : 116-151. For an English version see https://www.academia.edu/11634712/De_eis_qui_e_monasterio_discesserunt 2 For the fragmentary Coptic version see Th. Lefort Oeuvres de S. Pachôme (1956) pp. 30-33 rules 88 to 130. I have translated the Coptic fragments of the rules (praecepta) only. A Latin translation of the Coptic, made by Lefort, may be found in A. Boon Pachomiana Latina (1932) pp. 163-166. Two recensions of the Greek version in two columns are also supplied by Boon on pp. 170ff., who took them over from Lefort's article in Le Muséon 37 (1924) pp. 1-28. 3 The text is characterized by the word παράδειγμα, from which one might conclude that it is part of a sermon, but this of course is speculation. 4 There are no written works of Pgol, and the works of Shenoute, apart from having been copied in the scriptorium at the Monastery of Michael the Archangel at Touton near the Fayyum, seem not to be attested outside his own White Monastery.

The following is a translation of two Greek versions of a letter said to have been sent by Christ from heaven to remind people about Sunday observance published in A. Vassiliev Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina (1893) pp.23-32: one to Rome (pp. 23-28) and the other to Jerusalem (pp. 28-32). 1 Another letter, said to have been found at Gethsemane, is printed by Vassiliev on pp. xiv ff., but I have not translated it. Vassiliev has a short section (p. iii) on the language used in the text. One of the earliest injunctions to observe Sunday as a holy day must that in the Didachê. 2 A legal requirement of 7 March 321 prohibits work on Sunday in urban but not in rural areas: 3 "All judges and urban residents and those engaged in trades of all sorts are to rest on the venerable day of the sun. Those in rural areas, however, engaged in agriculture are free and at liberty to work, for it often happens that sowing grain and planting vines can be done on no other day, so the opportunity to take advantage of weather conditions should not be missed." (Omnes iudices urbanaeque plebes et artium officia cunctarum venerabili die solis quiescant. ruri tamen positi agrorum culturae libere licenterque inserviant, quoniam frequenter evenit, ut non alio aptius die frumenta sulcis aut vineae scrobibus commendentur, ne occasione momenti pereat commoditas caelesti provisione concessa). 4 The Rome letter is said to have been sent to St Peter's Church, while the Jerusalem letter was apparently embedded in a heavy stone that fell to ground in Bethlehem and was not revealed until the stone was opened. The earliest reference to the letter seems to be in a letter written by Licinianus Bishop of Africa (Carthage) to Vincentius Bishop of Ebositana (Ibiza) in 584, telling him not to take the document seriously and dismissing it as a 'figment of the devil'. The document was not only widely circulated but long-lived. The Rome version (p. 26) has an intriguing reference to the early medieval anti-hierarchical sects of Bogomils and 1 After I had finished my translations of these texts, I chanced upon Maximilian Bittner 'Ein vom Himmel gefallene Brief Christi' Denkschriften der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften 51 (1906): on p. 8 he provides details of all the manuscripts used and on pp. 26-33 he presents parallel texts of the Vassiliev text (β) and one very close to it (β1), which sometimes offers better readings, so I have incorporated these improvements and indicated them in the footnotes as β1. The other versions published in Bittner's study (pp. 42-240) give some idea of how widely the text circulated. 2 Ch. 14. 3 Text of Codex Iustinianus III 12, 2. Since this injunction, which is not explicitly Christian. was issued only 9 years after Constantine's decisive battle at Milvian Bridge, one wonders if the venerabilis dies solis might not also be connected with the sol invictus, which Constantine believed had helped him to secure victory in 312. 4 The holiness of the Lord's Day is mentioned in several apocryphal texts, e.g. C. Tischendorf Apocalypses Apocryphae (1866) pp. 63 and 107.

The first two texts translated here are (a) the Hypomnemata Domini Nostri, also known as the Acta Pilati together with (b) the letters from Pilate to Herod, Herod to Pilate and Theodore to Pilate, all edited and translated by Ignatius Rahmani Hypomnemata domini nostri (1908) on pp. ‫ܓ‬ to ‫ܟ‬ and pp. 22-37. Of the Syriac mss. used by Rahmani one is of the 14th cent. and the other is of the 8th cent. The translation is subdivided into numbered paragraphs, which are not in the Syriac text. Rahmani's notes to the letters are on pp. 29-31. The much fuller Greek text of the Acta can be found in Constantine Tischendorf Evangelia Apocrypha (1876) pp. 210ff. (abbreviated to EA), to which I refer from time to time. The chapter divisions adopted by Rahmani follow those of Tischendorf. I have indicated in the footnotes words that have entered Syriac from Greek or Latin. The only letter in EA is a Latin letter from Pilate to Tiberius, but there are translations of the letters from Pilate to Herod and Herod to Pilate in M. R. James Apocryphal New Testament (1924) pp. 155ff. (abbreviated to ANT). James writes that the letters 'exist in Greek' but does not say where. They are both quite different from the Syriac letters. There is a third manuscript with a copy of the letter from Herod to Pilate and Theodore to Pilate, cf. Rahmani p. 29, with the variant readings at the bottom of the printed pages ‫ܝܙ‬ to ‫ܝܛ‬. The third text (c) belong to the type of hymn known ‫ܣܘܓܝܬܐ‬ 'sogiatha' composed for divine services on Sundays and holy days. It is a dialogue/dispute between the two thieves crucified with Jesus and was composed for Good Friday. It was published by Bruno Kirschner 'Alfabetische Akrosticha' Oriens Christianus 7 (1970) pp. 260-283. It has 51 four-line stanzas (also known in English as quatrains), each containing seven syllables, three of which are stressed. There are no rhymes. After the first five stanzas, which Kirschner describes as '5 akrostische Strofen', 1 the alphabetic acrostic begins: each letter of the alphabet is assigned to two stanzas, thus stanzas 6 and 7 both begin with ‫ܐ‬ , and so on. The 44 'alphabetic' stanzas are evenly divided between the two speakers, Titus and Dumachos, 2 whose names are not given in the Syriac text but are supplied by the editor in the translation. The last two stanzas begin with ‫ܒ‬ and ‫ܛ‬. but I am not sure that this is significant. The hymn tune seems to be indicated by the letter ‫ܒ‬. The first five stanzas set the scene, in which the reader/listener is invited to eavesdrop on the quarrel between the believer and the unbeliever played out in the presence of a silent judicial Jesus. The 'good' thief Titus, on the right, the believer, gets the last word. Dumachos, the unbeliever, remains adamantly intransigent in his adherence to a reality that makes sense to him. The last two stanzas are those of the hymnodist. 1 Kirschner p. 261. I am unable to detect an acrostic of any sort in these stanzas. 2 For this form of the name cf. ch. 10 of the Hypomnemata fn. 28. In fact. the dialogue begins in stanza 5 and the alphabetic acrostic in stanza 6.

The following translation has been made from a text published by E. Bigot de vita S. J.ohannis Chrysostomi dialogus (1680) pp. 311-324 in a Greek and Latin version, both of which I have consulted. The translation is based principally on the Greek text. In his preface to the reader Bigot explains that a Latin version had published in the mid-17th cent. by G. Henschen, (an English version of which was published by Alban Butler Lives of the Saints in 1833) 1 and that, after discovering the Greek text in a Vatican manuscript, he decided to publish the Greek and Latin versions that they might be compared. There is a Latin (but not Greek) preface outlining the historical background, which mentions Diocletian and Maximian as emperors, quater and ter, respectively, 2 and someone called Simplicius, 3 atrocissimum et astutum nimis, sent by the emperors to interrogate and torture the Christian residents of Tarsus. 4

Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) wrote a long essay, entitled "Religion und Philosophie" for an issue of Revue des deux mondes, a periodical founded in 1829 that quickly became a cultural bridge between the Old and New Worlds. In his foreword Heine explains that he had already published work introducing Geman culture to a French public and, for various reasons, this present essay was only a fragment of a much larger whole. It was published in French but originally written in German. The translation presented here is of the part that deals with religion. His impressive knowledge of early Christianity, clearly derives from extensive reading on the subject, bearing in mind of course that the written 'discourse' on almost any subject was considerably smaller in the early 19th cent. than it is in the 21st cent. Heine refers to various people and events connected with the early Church, naturally using the sources available to him. Several years elapsed between his baptism and the publication of this text. He seems eager, and perhaps somewhat defensively so, to explain various facets of German culture to the French, so the tone of apologia is never too far away. But then one cannot discount the possibility that Heine's 'deference' to the French is slightly tongue-in-cheek. He was born a Jew, but at the age of 28 he became a Christian. The ostensible reason for the conversion, according to one his several stray remarks on the subject, was: ´The baptismal certificate is my admission ticket to European culture' (Der Taufzettel ist das Entre-Billet zur europäischen Kultur). What he meant by this is not clear to me, not least because he has left so many comments on Christianity and Judaism made at various times and under various circumstances. In some of these comments it is clear that he felt Judaism to be a gloomy faith, 'das tausendjährige Familienübel' (the thousand year-old family sickness), as he calls it it in the Das neue israelitische Hospital zu Hamburg, written for the inauguration of the hospital that still exists, so generously endowed by his uncle Salomon in 1839. One can only wonder what Uncle Salomon made of Heine's poem. There is an entertaining section explaining to the French German popular belief in malevolent spirits, which were felt to be quite real creatures, and this leads Heine neatly into the main actor in this text: Luther. More than half of the text is devoted in one way or another to Martin Luther and his work, of which there are two important aspects which can scarcely be separated from each other: one of these aspects concerns Luther as the reformer of the Church, who succeeded in achieving the reform work initiated by others; the other as a formative figure in the development of the modern German language. As for the first, Luther was fortunate enough to secure the political support of relatively powerful princes who saw this as an opportunity to detach themselves from Rome. As for the second, Luther was fortunate enough to have at his disposal the relatively new invention of movable

The following contains English versions of two texts on John the Baptist attributed to John Chrysostom, one in Copric and one in Greek: (1) a Coptic text, Brit. Mus, Or. 7024, published in E.A. Wallis Budge Coptic Apocrypha (1913) pp. 128-145 and described in the proemium as an 'encomium' that was 'delivered' by John Chrysostom but the location of the delivery is not specified. I have been unable to locate any Greek text from which it may have been translated. A striking feature of the text is the lengthy quotation, which occupies pp. 19 to 32 from a book 'written the apostles' discovered in a library in Jerusalem, with an excursus on the Third Heaven that is said to have been granted to John the Baptist. In addition to being an encomium it also contains an exegesis of a gospel passage, in which the congregation is addressed directly. Comments on the content of the text are provided in footnotes; (2) a Greek text entitled On the Beheading of the Forerunner Baptist John, published in Patrologia Graeca 59, cols 483-490. It is located in the section labelled Spuria. The first line of the text is quoted by Socrates Historia Ecclesiastica (6, 18) and Sozomen HE (8, 20). The text has two sections: section one is about evil women, starting with but not confined to Herodias, and section two features good women and various OT stories, including a rather elaborate account of conditions in the story of Elijah and the widow of Sarepta (3 Kg. 17, 9ff.). The basis of the comparison between wicked and good women seems to be Sirach 25 and 26, quoted extensively in the text. There is also an Ethiopic text with the English title Discourse of John Chrysostom in praise of John the Baptist, but the text itself is quite late (though it may be easily based on a much earlier text in another language) and, as far as I can tell, it has been neither published nor translated. 1 There is also a panegyric on John the Baptist attributed to Theodosius of Alexandria (mid-6th cent,), 2 but it is quite different from the encomium attributed to Chrysostom both in content and length. The numbers in brackets in the translation from the Coptic are those of the manuscript. The abbreviation CD is to W. E. Crum Coptic Dictionary (1939). The only division in the Greek text marks the two sections of 'good women' and 'bad women'. 1 https://www.rct.uk/collection/1005080/discourse-of-john-chrysostom-in-praise-of-john-the-baptist-geez. It has 106 folios, written in a clear hand, which can easily be read on the website by those able to read Ethiopic. It is part of the Royal Collection Trust (acquired by the British monarch in 1868). 2 K. H. Kuhn Panegyric of John the Baptist (1973), delivered by Theodosius of Alexandria (c. 536).

The name given by a modern scholar to this section of the Pyramid Texts alone is enough to make it interesting, and it was for this reason that, as a student, I first read it with the help of R.O. Faulkner's translation "The 'Cannibal Hymn' from the Pyramid Texts" Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 1924 pp. 97ff., even though it was not part of the required reading. Scenes of slaughter and butchery are common enough in Old Kingdom graves, 2 but they appear to be a record of things that actually took place to serve the physical needs of at least those who could afford to eat meat. The texts here were probably 'performed' in order to serve the spiritual needs of at least those who took an interest in such matters, but where, when, how and under what circumstances is not known, at least to me. The content of these two spells may be summarized as follows: 393: The death of the king on earth and his appearance in the afterlife is marked by cataclysmic events. 394-396: Statements of his power and wisdom, which are greater than those of his parents. 397-403 He is a bull who is assured of victory and has successfully negotiated his passage from the Island of Fire full of powerful magic. He takes his rightful place (with Geb) as the adjudicator of men and is surrounded by willing helpers, five wonderfully named spirits; his role as king is state clearly in 400 (b) as 'one who receives what is brought in and who assigns that which is to be done', a continuation of his activity on earth. 404-end The rest contains descriptions of the food consumed by Unas: 3 quantity, provenance and preparation. The last line seems to suggest that Unas can enjoy life 'among the living on earth' and is thoroughly 'eternal'. Sethe's Pyramidentexte (1908), in which the two versions, Unas and Teti, are presented one on the top of the other makes it easy to see the differences between the two versions, for example, how much more elaborate the writing in the Teti pyramid is. For the sake of convenience I have added copies of Sethe's text as well as a photograph of the Unas text 1 It may be objected that the name is a misnomer: if the understanding of the term 'hymn' is limited to the praise of a deity, the only candidate for praise here is the recently 'apotheosized' king; 'cannibalism' is a popular term derived from the name of a group of people discovered by westerners to be practioners of this activity and as such is an inappropriate designation for the practice, hence the creation of the term 'anthrophagy, and in this text since it is mostly gods who are being consumed, one is therefore compelled to resort to the analogous 'theophagy'. I suspect that the current name will continue to be used despite these scrupulous considerations. 2 Pierre Montet Scènes de la vie privée (1925) ch. 5 3 wnÏs: English speakers who understand w and Ï as vowels are likely to write 'Unas' and say 'Oonas'; those who understand the two as consonants (labio-velar approximant and palatal approximant, respectively) or semi-vowels might be tempted to write and say something like 'Wenyes', but 'Wenis' is the only alternative name known to me. Attempts to construct an 'accurate' vocalization of lexical items in Ancient Egyptian mostly belong in books written by and for a specialized readership. Names, on the other hand, have a more widespread use and complex history, not least because Egyptian (rather like English) has been subjected to the modifications imposed on it by occupying foreigners, mostly Greek, who created, without any obvious embarrassment, their own version of Egyptian names: Khufu became Cheops, Menkaure' became Mycerinus, and so on.

This is the third in a series of translations of traditions (104-160), both canonical and non-canonical, relating to Jesus Christ found in Muslim writers. The Arabic text with Latin translation was published by Michael Asin y Palacios in Patrologia Orientalis 19 (1926) pp. 531-569. As with the previous two articles, the abbreviations are those of Asin and are explained by him in his Conspectus Siglorum on pp. 533ff. As elsewhere, I have omitted the pious invocations often used after the names of major religious figures in Islamic texts. The phrase describing Jesus's origin 'son of Mary', used repeatedly in the text, has mostly been omitted. Asin points out in his foreword that, unlike the previous 103 logia, which all come from the monumental work of al-Ghazâli Iḥya', these logia are extracted from various sources and, unlike earlier articles, this one does not have an apparatus criticus. 104 B II 91 9. They saw him (Jesus) coming out of the house of a prostitute and said: "Spirit of God, what are you doing in her house ?" He replied: "To be sure, the doctor is visiting the sick." Cf., for example, Matth. 9, 10-13. 105 J 167 6 Jesus son of Mary said: "Gathering of apostles, the son of Adam was created on earth in four states. In three of them he is sure of his salvation 1 but in the fourth his thoughts become desperate 2 and he is afraid of being abandoned by God. As for the first state, man is created in three dark places: the belly, the uterus and the placenta. While he is in the belly, God sustains him with food. When he comes forth from the belly, he progresses to milk, but he is unable to take a step towards it with his foot or his shin or to receive it with his hand. He is quite unable to make any movement of his own. Almost without choice he is forced to drink the milk until he grows in flesh and blood. When he is beyond the milk, he progresses to a third state, taking food from his parents which they earn honestly or dishonestly. But if both parents die, others are favourably disposed to him: one feeds him, another offers him something to drink; one gives him shelter, another clothes him. But when he reaches the fourth state, and he has become a man in strength and appearance, fearing that he 1 ‫واثق‬. I have added to the text the words enclosed by Asin in brackets [de sua salute]. 2 ‫الظن‬ ‫ئئ‬ ‫سي‬ I am not sure how to read this, but I have translated the verb as if it were a form of ‫.يئس‬ Asin: malam de eo opinionem concipere fas est.

In reply to the question 'What is literature ?' Terry Eagleton, on p. 2 of Literary Theory (1983), quotes a striking answer, attributed to Roman Jakobson, that it 'is organized violence committed on ordinary speech'. He does not give a source for this judgement. The quotation and the attribution are widely repeated by those who write on such matters, but, despite looking at more than a few websites, I have so far not found a source that reliably confirms that Jakobson wrote it in either Russian or English. I suspect that this phrase, which seems to me to be as astute as it is amusing, may be a 'pseudepigraphon' or perhaps an 'agraphon' foisted by Eagleton on Jakobson, and I suggest that, from now on, at least the attribution to Jakobson be discontinued.

The following translation has been made from a text published in an article by Abbé L. Bargès 'Les sources du Nil' which appeared in Journal Asiatique 3rd series 6 (1837) pp. 97-164. 2 The title of the original text is ‫المديد‬ ‫الفيض‬ ‫كتاب‬ ‫السعيد‬ ‫النيل‬ ‫اخبار‬ ‫فى‬ The Book of the Extent of the Inundation in the History of the Blessed Nile. I have made use of Bargès' somewhat free, almost paraphrase-like, translation but at the same time have tried to remain close to the Arabic. The author of the work was Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Salâm al-Menoufî, described as a 'sheikh' and 'imâm'. He was born in the Delta village of Menouf c. 9th-10th cent. AH and followed the school of Islamic law known as Shafi'i, which understood the Qu'rân and the hadîth tradition as the exclusive sources of Islamic law. The author cites an earlier work from which he has extracted his information, the Magnificent Garden and Perfumed Flowers (‫العطر‬ ‫والزهر‬ ‫النضر‬ ‫الروض‬ ‫)كتاب‬ of Abu Muhammad 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahîm ibn Lâjîn (d. 803 AH) of Rashîd in the Eastern Delta. The book has four chapters. 3 In short, it seems to be a compendium of observations made by earlier writers, arranged 'avec un ordre et une clarté' lacking in those writers, combined with the observations of the compiler himself. The following comments are based merely on observation not knowledge. Various phrases recur sporadically but not systematically in the text that appear to act as punctuation markers: ‫قلت‬ (I said) is followed by a passage of text that concludes with ‫اعلم‬ ‫ا‬ (Allah is the most knowledgeable), while ‫انتهى‬ (it is concluded) simply comes at the end of a quoted passage, in two instances followed by ‫منه‬ ‫اردته‬ ‫.ما‬ Sometimes it appears to be preceded by the phrase ‫نصه‬ ‫ما‬ .The word ‫قال‬ is used at intervals where one might expect quotation marks in a modern European language.

The phrase tp ḥr m3st 'head on knee' is usually taken to indicate grief: at the beginning of the story (l.3) the death of the king Sehetepibre (Amenemhet I) has just been announced, and the Residence is closed and normal business suspended, šnyt m tp ḥr m3st pꜥt m imw 'the courtiers with head on knee and the nobles lamenting'. The context and the circumstances clearly suggest an association between this gesture and grief, but I would like to propose here that there may be something more than grief involved: meditation. A practice is recorded by Abu 'Abdallah ibn Battuta, author of a work entitled Riḥla (‫رحلة‬ Travel) and a Sufi, who describes a Sufi practice of putting one's head upon one's knees that he encountered in Alexandria in 1326 AD 1 and which he said was called ‫,الترفيق‬ a word otherwise unkown in Arabic. It was suggested some years ago that this hapax legomenon is in fact ‫,التزيق‬ another hapax, formed from ‫زيق‬ 'neck'. The description in question is of someone entering a mosque, sitting down, leaning against a column and putting his head on his knees (‫ركبتيه‬ ‫على‬ ‫راسه‬ ‫.)وضع‬ This practice may be related to an act performed by Elijah when he went up Mount Carmel 2 to thank God for saving Israel and 'put his face between his knees' (‫רקכו‬ ‫בין‬ ‫פּנים‬ ‫.)וישׂם‬ An Egyptian Jewish commentator, writing on the Biblical passage, interprets the gesture as one of turning away from the world and meditating that was taken over by the Sufis. 3 1 G. Cecere 'Tarfîq versus Tazyîq' Quaderni di Linguistica e Studi Orientali 2 (2016) pp. 265-290.

The following Sahidic Coptic text was first published as such in É. Chassinat Le quatrième livre des entretiens et épîtres de Shenouti MIFAO 23 (1911) pp. 84-94 1 and later by P. du Bourguet 'Entretien de Schenouté sur les devoirs des juges' Bulletin de l'Institut Français Orientale 55 (1955) pp. 87-109. The English translation that follows it is mine. The numbers in brackets throughout the text are the page numbers of the manuscript.