Copto-Arabic Studies (2016–2022)
p. 285-324
Texte intégral
1The period 2016–2022 has been a strange one for all of us, including those of us who work in Copto-Arabic studies. The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted many regular patterns of research and networking —but appears to have afforded at least some researchers time for individual projects, and it pushed late adapters (like me) to the exploration and use of technological and online resources (about which, more below). We learned to hold conferences and run workshops and edit collective volumes over video platforms. Much good work was done, some of which has come to publication.
2The bibliography presented below is substantial, but not exhaustive. I am aware of serious lacunae in the bibliography especially with regard to Arabic-language works, in part because of the pandemic’s disruption of my once regular travels to Cairo, precisely at a time when the sheer volume of limited distribution Arabic-language publication in Copto-Arabic studies was booming. (Again, more will be said about this below.)
3I have arranged my comments under four headings.
Online resources
4In my report at the Claremont Congress (2016), I made the briefest of mentions of the existence of online resources for Copto-Arabic studies, with the comment that a colleague younger than myself should catalogue them. I will not offer a catalogue here —but of course we are all now working with images of manuscripts available online: for Copto-Arabic studies, the Vatican1 and Paris2 collections are of special importance, as well as several collections digitized by the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library3— and the list can be expanded.4 The Goussen Library collection of the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Bonn provides an extraordinary collection of Christian Arabic printed books.5 Older Western text editions are increasingly available online; some journals and even monographs are being published in open access; and students of Copto-Arabic literature can benefit from a number of online glossaries and bibliographies of Arabic manuscript studies.6
5The abundance of material that is accessible online offers new opportunities, but also challenges. Even with the best quality digital images we must remember that we are working with surrogates; and often enough we are working with surrogates of surrogates (digitized microfilm). We need to be aware of the limitations of what is available to us and to teach this same awareness to our students.7
6The existence of online resources radically democratizes access to textual material of the past; the privileged access to and selective sharing of photographs or microfiche copies that I encountered in my early years of Christian Arabic manuscript studies has changed —at least for some collections. This is surely a good thing; we can rejoice that any student with an adequate internet connection who wants to gain some skill in reading Copto-Arabic manuscripts (manuscript surrogates, that is) can do so. One question for a scholarly association such as ours is how we will welcome self-trained students of Copto-Arabic literature, and receive and engage their contributions with seriousness and appreciation.
Notes on particular genres
7Important contributions, including editions of significant texts, have been made in the various genres of Copto-Arabic studies; I will mention a few that have stood out to me. Readers are directed to the appropriate sections of the accompanying bibliography for detailed lists of publications;8 the comments made here assume that the reader has access to those lists.
Historiography9
8During this last period we have seen the continuation of and the launching of new projects in the field of Copto-Arabic historiography. There is one major text edition to report: S. Moawad’s critical edition of Kitāb al-tawārīkh, the chrolonological and calendrical work of the 13th-century polymath Abū Shākir ibn al-Rāhib, in two attractive and reasonably priced volumes published in Cairo by Alexandria School (2016 and 2022).10 The International Copto-Arabic Historiography Project (ICAHP) founded by J. den Heijer and centered on the project of editing the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria (HP) has now resulted in several doctoral theses which include text editions: in addition to P. Pilette’s 2014 thesis (presented in the Claremont Congress report), the present Bibliography records the theses of N. Hamdi Boutros (2016) and M. Makhoul (2017) —and a variety of studies by these scholars and others on the HP. In addition, I sense that we are making (or at least are poised to make) major progress in understanding another frequently used but incompletely understood text, the History of the Churches and Monasteries of Egypt (HCME). P. Pilette has reopened the dossier on the codicology of this text, while R. Seignobos has identified the Kitāb akhbār al-Nūbā by one Ibn Sulaym al-Uswānī as one of the work’s sources.
9Other historiographical studies come to mind. While most of us know Shams al-Riʾāsa Abū l-Barakāt ibn Kabar for his ecclesiastical and liturgical encyclopedia Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulmah, A.Y. Sidarus points out that Ibn Kabar was also a historian, author of a Mukhtaṣar al-akhbār (preserved in MS Ambrosiana C 45 Inf) and of “a good part of” the Zubda of the Muslim amir Baybars al-Manṣūrī. In a special issue of Quaderni di Studi Arabi on “History Writing as an Inter-confessional Enterprise,” M. Penelas and M. Diez investigate the use by the Muslim historian’s al-Maqrīzī and Ibn Khaldūn (respectively) of the world history of al-Makīn.
10Rather than focusing on individual texts, M.S.A. Mikhail’s The Legacy of Demetrius of Alexandria (189–232 CE) gives an excellent example of how a set of Copto-Arabic sources can be placed in temporal sequence and used to elucidate tradition-historical questions. The chapter on “Arabic Recensions, Amendments, and Omissions” documents a late thirteenth-century “drive toward a singular —historical, liturgical, ritual— narrative within the Coptic Church.”11
Bible12
11The Commentary on the Apocalypse (that is, the biblical book of Revelation) by Būlus al-Būshī, who in 1240 became bishop of Miṣr (Old Cairo), has attracted a considerable amount of attention. The late Bishop Epiphanius of the Monastery of St. Macarius published an edition from a manuscript of St. Macarius, first online and then in Cairo in 2017.13 The following year, N. Edelby’s critical edition of the text with French translation was published in Beirut. The year after that, S.J. Davis and others published an English translation of the commentaries on Revelation 1-3 by Būlus al-Būshī and Ibn Kātib Qaysar as the first volume in the new Christian Arabic Texts in Translation series (Fordham University Press).
12Other work on the Arabic Bible and its interpretation continues, for example by scholars associated with the Biblia Arabica project:14 e.g. R. Vollandt’s continuing work on Coptic scholars’ interest in the Arabic translation of the Pentateuch by Saʿadia Gaon; or the work on the Arabic manuscripts of the epistles of St. Paul by S. Schulthess; or V. Zaki’s concentration specifically on the epistles of Saint Paul in the text tradition called the “Egyptian Vulgate,” and its role in European scholarship. While I will have to say more about the volume later, I should also mention here J. Faragalla’s edition and translation of the early thirteenth-century civil-servant-turned-hermit Simʿān ibn Kalīl’s Introduction to the Psalms.15
Hagiography, monastic vitae16
13Several important monograph-length texts and studies have appeared in the recent period. While the Life of Antony by Athanasius of Alexandria is rightly seen as foundational for the development of monastic hagiography in late antiquity, its weight in scholarship and pedagogy (and easily available translations) has obscured the fact that a different biography was highly influential both in medieval Egypt as well as in the medieval West. L. Agaiby has addressed this situation with an edition, translation, and study of The Life of Antony attributed to Serapion of Thmuis, probably a thirteenth-century composition in Arabic (soon translated into Latin). L. Agaiby’s work on Saint Antony,17 like M.S.A. Mikhail’s work on Patriarch Demetrius, serve to remind scholars that attempts to understand Coptic Orthodox realities in the modern era cannot simply leap back to Coptic, Greek, or Latin patristic sources for their elucidation; for many centuries, hagiographical development and liturgical reflection was largely taking place in Arabic.
14Another contribution to the study of hagiographical development in Arabic is The Door of the Wilderness: The Greek, Coptic, and Copto-Arabic Sayings of St. Antony of Egypt, edited by T. Vivian and (again) L. Agaiby. L. Agaiby’s contribution takes seventy-four sayings of Saint Antony from dated manuscripts (from 1300 to 1925) of Bustān al-ruhbān from the Monastery of St. Antony, which allows for a study of the evolution of the portrayal of the saint (and of the concerns of the monks) over time —and again, in Arabic.
15Several other volumes can be named: S. Moawad has provided us with critical editions and translations both the Arabic version of the Life of Dioscorus and of the Arabic Life of Shenoute. A. Tsuji’s study of remarkable saints of the fourteenth century, Coptic Saints in Mamluk Egypt, has been published in Japanese, with an English volume to come. C. ten Hacken’s major work on the dossier for The Legend of Saint Aūr and the Monastery of Naqlūn has been published, with an article providing supplemental material. And in a collection edited by T. Vivian and M.S.A. Mikhail, The Life of Bishoi: The Greek, Arabic, Syriac, and Ethiopic Lives, M.S.A. Mikhail painstakingly sorts through the dossier and provides an English translation of the Copto-Arabic text. In addition to these monographs, the Bibliography offers a long list of article-length contributions, bearing witness to a rich period in the study of Copto-Arabic hagiography.
Liturgy18
16The section “Liturgy” of my bibliography is underdeveloped, in part because of my own limitations and in part because I can refer the reader to D. Atanassova’s report on Coptic liturgy.19 Risking some overlap with that report, I want to mention developments in the study of the medieval Copto-Arabic liturgical manuals. One of the earliest of these is Dallāl al-mubtadiʾīn, “The Guide for the Beginners,” attributed to the Coptic Patriarch Cyril III ibn Laqlaq (r. 1235–1243). Mīṣāʾīl al-Baramūsī has given us an edition of this text, published in Cairo by Alexandria School (first in two installments in its journal, then as a book). In English, we now have an accessible (both in style and cost) introduction to the major Copto-Arabic liturgical manuals in A. Mikhail’s Guides to the Eucharist in Medieval Egypt: Three Arabic Commentaries on the Coptic Liturgy. Yūḥannā ibn Sabbāʿ, Abū al-Barakāt ibn Kabar, and Pope Gabriel V. Another contribution is Y.N. Youssef’s The Rite of the Consecration of the Myron, edited from two fourtheenth-century manuscripts —which details this important ritual in the life of the Coptic Orthodox Church, where even in the most troubled times the Coptic patriarch could be seen playing a life-giving role at the heart of the Church.
Church fathers and monastic teachers in Arabic20
17The bibliography offers numerous studies of the transmission of the specifically Coptic-language patristic and monastic heritage into Arabic, too many for individual mention. I should point out, however, important additions to the study of Arabic Shenoutiana. I have already mentioned S. Moawad’s critical edition (from eleven manuscripts!) of the Arabic Life of Shenoute,21 which replaces the 1888 edition of É. Amélineau —indeed, far exceeds it in its comprehensiveness (introduction; annotations; comparisons with the Sahidic fragments and Bohairic and other versions; and generous indices). S.J. Davis has found and edited an Arabic collection of Shenoute’s Canons that provides evidence for the translation of the Canons from Coptic into Arabic. And L. Agaiby has found material attributed to Shenoute in Bustān al-Ruhbān manuscripts from the Red Sea Monasteries. All this helps to establish the continuing relevance of the life and writings of Shenoute in Arabic-speaking monastic circles.
18Besides Shenoute, the bibliography points to Arabic versions (from Coptic, Syriac, or Greek) of sayings or treatises by a wide range of Church fathers and monastic leaders —some translations made by Copts, others used and adapted by Copts. Like Moawad’s introduction to his edition of the Life of Shenoute, A.M. Butts’ studies of Jacob of Serugh also consider the ongoing translation of materials from Arabic into Ethiopic.
19Several contributions drew my attention to the importance of the often overlooked (and understudied) pseudepigraphical homilies that were written in Coptic but which have been preserved —sometimes solely— in Arabic. I. Saweros has been studying the corpus of materials attributed to Saint Athanasius, in Coptic and in Arabic. Three pseudepigraphal texts were considered for an understanding of “what makes a Church sacred” —also in the absence of imperial authorization!— in chapter 6 of M.K. Farag’s monograph under that that name. And a body of eighth- and ninth-century pseudepigraphal texts provides evidence for early reactions to the Arab conquest and its aftermath in C. Palombo’s “The View from the Monasteries”22 —that is, views on “taxes, Muslims and converts” from Middle Egypt, beyond the ecclesiastical and administrative center.
Copto-Arabic authors, books and treatises composed in Arabic23
20The bibliography is rich with short studies and editions of treatises composed in Arabic. Here I will mention just a few book-length works, beginning with three authors of the Copto-Arabic “renaissance” of the thirteenth century.24 For the beginning of this remarkable period, J. Faragalla’s Simʿān b. Kalīl: Leben und Werk provides an invaluable introduction to the work of this civil servant turned monk and hermit, demonstrating, for example, that his remarkably popular work of spiritual and moral theology, Rawḍat al-farīd wa-salwat al-waḥīd (“The Garden of the Hermit and the Consolation of the Solitary”) quotes from Muslim philosophers including Ibn Sīnā and Miskawayh. The thirteenth-century Copts were very much participants in the inter-confessional “intellectual history of the Islamicate World.”25
21Būlus al-Bushī was a younger contemporary of Simʿān who was pulled into patriarchal politics (and who was appointed Bishop of Miṣr and a kind of supervisor over the patriarch in 1240), but who is remembered especially for his preaching. Bishop Epiphanius of the Monastery of St. Macarius prepared editions (from manuscripts of the monastery’s library) of Būlus’ Commentary on the Apocalypse (mentioned earlier) as well as a new edition of Būlus’ Homilies for the Dominical Feasts —well-known homilies, some of which were incorporated into Arabic collections of patristic homilies alongside the likes of John Chrysostom or Isaac the Syrian.26
22Participation by Copts in the intellectual life of the Islamicate world is again a leading feature in C.Z. Wellnhofer’s study Die Kalām-Theologie im Kitāb al-Burhān von Ibn al-Rāhib (13. Jh.). Wellnhofer provides a critical edition of chapters 28–39 of Ibn al-Rāhib’s theological compendium Kitāb al-Burhān (from about 1270) and pays meticulous attention to his sources and interlocutors, chief among them Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī in his Kitāb al-Arbaʿīn.
23The reception of Islamic material in Simʿān ibn Kalīl or Abū Shākir ibn al-Rāhib is respectful and constructive; indeed, for the most part, openly polemical material is rather rare in the Copto-Arabic tradition. A surprise since the Claremont Congress is the publication of editions of not one but two sharply polemical texts, both of which had ongoing influence in the Latin West. One is a work from the late tenth century, written by the convert (from Islam to Coptic Christianity) Būlus ibn Rajāʾ, called the Kitāb al-Wāḍiḥ bi-l-ḥaqq. David Bertaina has not only edited and translated the text (the title of which he translates as “The Truthful Exposer”) but has discovered that it was the source of the Latin Liber denudationis (“The Book of Exposing”), which played a major role in the formation of the image of Islam in the West. At about the same time, P.S. van Koningsveld published the preserved fragments of a book by an anonymous thirteenth-century Copt called al-Sayf al-murhaf (“The Whetted Sword”), and demonstrated that it was the chief source for Ramon Martí’s Quadruplex reprobatio. These books did not leave much mark in Egypt, at least as measured by quotation, imitation, or the number of preserved manuscripts. But they had a major impact —in Europe.27
Canons28
24In this last period, Fr. Athanāsiyūs al-Maqārī has continued to publish important studies and transcriptions of texts, including important canonical collections: the epitome of the Canons of Abū Ṣulḥ (or Ṣāliḥ) and the (two-volume) Nomocanon of Bishop Michael of Damietta. These, together with Fr. Athanāsiyūs’ earlier contributions to our knowledge of the Copto-Arabic canonical tradition,29 have done much to open up to the interested researcher what is still an under-studied field.30
Linguistics, lexicology31
25For many years, A.Y. Sidarus has been our major interpreter of the Arabic grammatical introductions (muqaddimāt) and vocabulary lists (salālim) by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century scholars, and he continues to play this role —joined in this Bibliography by A. Wadi with editions of grammatical introductions, and by an edition of al-Shams ibn Kabar’s Scala Magna or al-sullam al-kabīr (Bohairic-Arabic classified vocabulary), one of the manuscripts left behind by William Macomber upon his death in 2008 and now published in the CSCO. The grammatical introductions provide more material for studying the Copts’ participation in the intellectual life of “the Islamicate world”: their authors were seeking to preserve knowledge of Coptic, but they did so through the use of Arabic grammatical categories.
“On to Ethiopia”32
26At the Claremont Congress of 2016 I noted the need for students of Copto-Arabic text to pay attention to Ethiopic studies: so many of the Arabic texts familiar to us had another life further up the Nile, in Gəʿəz. This new section of the bibliography collects studies of texts that made this journey. I note in particular an important edition of the Mäshafä Sawiros by T. Abraha (two of three fascicles have appeared) —that is, the Ethiopic version of the widely known Kitāb al-Īḍāḥ by (or attributed to) Sāwīrus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ.33
Manuscript studies
27Section “Catalogues, libraries, manuscripts, copyists” of the bibliography mentions several manuscript catalogues, ranging from those of small collections (like that of nineteen manuscripts in a Middle Egyptian church by I.I. al-Bājūshī and Bījūl Unsī Isḥāq) to very large ones (like that of the Coptic and Arabic manuscripts in Dayr al-Suryān: four volumes of a Catalogue have appeared, from editors-in-chief S.J. Davis and Fr. Bigoul al-Suryānī). A similar large-scale project of documentation is under way at Dayr al-Anbā Būlā, by a team led by L. Agaiby. In addition to catalogues, this section includes a number of studies of individual manuscripts.
28My impression (and experience) is that many of us doing these manuscript studies have been learning as we go and could probably describe ourselves as self-taught. We have, of course, used existing manuals, notably F. Déroche’s Manuel de codicologie des manuscrits en écriture arabe (Paris, 2000) or A. Gacek’s Arabic Manuscripts: A Vademecum for Readers (Leiden, 2009). But these handbooks are largely based on the study of Islamic manuscripts. I am wondering: what kinds of tools for manuscript studies might come out of current projects (beyond catalogues, as important as these are, especially when supplied with extensive indices and illustrations)?34 Is it possible to think of creating a kind of supplement to the current handbooks, with an emphasis on Copto-Arabic manuscripts? Such a project could run simultaneously with other projects that study (and create guides to) paper types, watermarks,35 and handwriting. And with regard to handwriting: can we develop a coherent and consistent system for describing scripts?36 I wonder whether it might be possible to compile albums of dated scribal hands from particular locales, which could then be compared with others. It might then be possible to document trends in Copto-Arabic handwriting (and perhaps other scribal practices as well) over time, which, taken together with studies of paper and other material aspects of the manuscripts, could allow for greater accuracy in the dating of undated manuscripts.
Arabic-language scholarship in Egypt
29In Egypt, the volume of Arabic-language publication in the Copto-Arabic field, the number of contributors, and the range of local journals have been increasing —beyond the capacity of an occasional visitor to keep track.
30Well-established journals based in Cairo, such as the Bulletin de la Société d’archéologie copte or the Franciscan Center’s Studia Orientalia christiana collectanea, now regularly include articles in Arabic. Of the specifically Arabic-language journals, Madrasat al-Iskandariyyah (Alexandria School), which first appeared in 2009, is going strong and regularly features articles of importance to Copto-Arabic studies. In addition, the Alexandria School publishing house is producing a wide range of fine volumes, including some that have been highlighted in this talk.37
31A more recent arrival (since 2015) is the annual journal al-Turāth al-ʿArabī al-Masīhī (The Journal of the Arab Christian Inheritance) of the Centro Culturale Franciscano.38 These volumes often run to 500+ pages and are full of papers —from contributors ranging from newcomers to the field to experienced researchers— that exhibit tremendous energy and love for the Arabic Christian heritage; deep local knowledge (allowing for the study of manuscripts and scribal practices in local churches and monasteries); and a readiness to take advantage of online resources. Some of these contributors have limited access to European-language scholarship or resources, but many are gifted readers of the Arabic texts —and are not ready simply to accept what G. Graf or other authorities have said. And occasionally they show that these authorities have not read the texts as carefully as they might have.39
32For example, consider a recent book by S. Ramzī, Yūḥannā ibn Sāwīrus, al-kātib al-Maṣrī (no publication information other than the date, 2021). A second printing has now appeared, dated January 2025. The book offers an edition of Yūḥannā’s one preserved work, Tashīl al-sabīl fī l-ʿilm wa-l-ʿamal (Easing the Way: Knowledge and Works), or, more commonly, Kitāb al-‘ilm wa-lʿamal (Book of Knowledge and Works). Estimated dates for the work in the standard reference books have ranged from the 12th to the 14th centuries; but S. Ramzī has read the text carefully, taken note of all the allusions to named individuals, found that the one argument for a 12th-century date depends on a scribal over-identification in a single manuscript, and has concluded —convincingly, I think— that Yūḥannā wrote early in the 11th century. This interesting result means that Kitāb al-ʿilm wa-l-ʿamal is an early example of Arabic theological production by an Egyptian Christian —a little later than Sāwīrus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (who is mentioned in the work), but earlier than the projects that produced the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria or the Confession of the Fathers later in the 11th century. The text is, I think, an important witness to the intellectual and spiritual formation and ecumenical horizons of a member of the scribal class, and S. Ramzī has provided us with an edition that is well worth reading… Well worth reading, that is, if you’re aware of the edition and can find a copy!
33It seems to me that one can almost speak of two parallel worlds of scholarship – one centered in European and North American institutions with all their resources; and another one in Egypt, powered by love of one’s own tradition, profound local knowledge, and a lifelong engagement with the Arabic language. Each world would profit from being in closer contact with the other. These worlds do meet, of course, in individuals who are comfortable in negotiating each of them (many of them Copts who have trained in Western institutions and who live in Egypt or travel to Egypt regularly); their contributions to Copto-Arabic studies have long been of critical importance. But I also wonder about the places and forums where people and contributions from these worlds might come together. For example: can we imagine the creation of an online journal of Copto-Arabic studies specifically designed to be a meeting place, e.g., where significant contributions in a European language can be presented, in some detail, in Arabic —and vice versa; and where articles can be submitted in Arabic, but always with a summary (more than an abstract) in a European language— and vice versa? Such an online journal could be —to take examples from above— a place for an extensive English-language review of Yūḥannā ibn Sāwīrus, al-kātib al-Maṣrī, or an Arabic-language review of Die Kalām-Theologie im Kitāb al-Burhān von Ibn al-Rāhib (13. Jh.).
A concluding, personal word
34We have lost some good friends in recent years. I have already mentioned the tragic departure of a great scholar-monk and a friend and inspiration to many of us, Bishop Epiphanius of the Monastery of St. Macarius (d. 2018). In 2021, we lost Nikolai N. Seleznyov to Covid-19, just shy of his 50th birthday. (For years, with Grigory Kessel, Selznyov prepared the “Bibliography of Syriac and Christian Arabic Studies in Russian.”) Shortly afterwards, the Dutch Islamicist Sjoerd van Koningsveld passed away, not so long after his publication of the fragments of a mysterious Copto-Arabic text, discussed above. I’m sure there have been other losses in our community as well.
35We all get older. Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, one of the founders and (in a literal sense) animators of our field, is now retired from active scholarship. Fr. Samir presented the first-ever plenary report on Copto-Arabic studies for the IACS at the Louvain-la-Neuve 1988 Congress,40 and he reported on progress in the field twenty years later, at the Cairo 2008 Congress. We are all in his debt.
36It comes almost as a surprise to me that I have been compiling the Copto-Arabic studies bibliographies for the International Association of Coptic Studies for the past 25 years.41 I thank the Association for its trust in me. It is surely now time for the Copto-Arabic bibliography to be taken over by an individual (or a team) who can more fully negotiate the two worlds that I described in the last section.
37I am tempted to ask whether such a team could also manage an online journal… But perhaps it is best to think about one project at a time.
Bibliographie
The division of the bibliography into sections follows the pattern of the Copto-Arabic bibliographies presented at the Congresses since 2000. The categories have evolved over the years and some of the distinctions may be questioned – and I leave it to future bibliographers to rethink them.
I have often added brief annotations to the entries (in square brackets) that I hope will be helpful by specifying topics or identifying the manuscripts consulted. I have added references to book reviews when I have come across them; I do not claim my lists of reviews to be exhaustive.
As always, I plead forgiveness for my sins of omission. Given my own linguistic limitations, I continue to be grateful for the “Bibliography of Syriac and Christian-Arabic Studies in Russian” regularly published by G. Kessel and the late N. Seleznyov in the free online journal Hugoye.42
At the time of submission, the proceedings of the 2016 Claremont Congress had not yet been published. The version of “Copto-Arabic Studies: Bibliography 2008–2016” that will eventually be published goes beyond the draft posted on the IACS website. Entries added between the online and the published versions of the 2016 bibliography are included below with a superscript cross; for example, +Coptic Society indicates a collection that was not included in the online draft of the 2008–2016 bibliography, but which will be present in the published version.
I thank the many friends and colleagues who have helped me to compile this bibliography; omissions and mistakes are my own responsibility.
References marked with an asterisk in the following bibliography are listed in full in the general bibliography.
Generalia
Handbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies
Editors of BSAC, “Adel Yussef Sidarus, Curriculum Vitae et Bibliographie,” BSAC 55 (2016), p. 7–20.
Editors of BSAC, “Anba Epiphanius (1954–2018†), Curriculum Vitae et Bibliographie,” BSAC 57 (2018), p. 11–18.
*L. Dabaghy, “Bibliographie de Samir Khalil Samir, S.J. de 2003 à 2018,” in Ž. Paša (ed.), Between the Cross and the Crescent, 2018, p. 3–40.
+*S.J. Davis, “History and Historiography in Coptic Studies, 2004–2008,” in P. Buzi et al. (ed.), Coptic Society, Literature and Religion from Late Antiquity to Modern Times, Leuven, 2016, p. 151–195.
*J. Faragalla, “Yūsāb, bishop of Jirja and Akhmīm,” in D. Thomas, J.A. Chesworth et al. (ed), Christian-Muslim Relations. Volume 18, 2021, p. 485–488.
*J. Faragalla, “Buṭrus Dinyāsiyūs,” in D. Thomas, J.A. Chesworth et al. (ed.), Christian-Muslim Relations. Volume 18, p. 563–565.
*J. Faragalla, “Ḥanna Maqār,” in D. Thomas, J.A. Chesworth et al. (ed), Christian-Muslim Relations. Volume 18, p. 618–621.
Y. Furman, “Nikolai N. Seleznyov (18.05.1971–13.05.2021),” Scrinium 17 (2021), p. 3–15. [With bibliography.]
*G. Gabra et al. (ed.), Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia, 2009– [A gradual expansion and renewal of The Coptic Encyclopedia.]
N. Hurvitz, C.C. Sahner, U. Simonsohn & L. Yarbrough (ed.), Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A Sourcebook, Oakland, 2020 [Includes: “A Monk Deploring the Assimilation of the Christians to the Hagarenes” (A. Papaconstantinou); “Conversion to Islam under the Fatimid Caliph al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh” (M.N. Swanson).]
+G. Kessel & N. Seleznyov, “Bibliography of Syriac and Christian Arabic Studies in Russian, 2010–2012,” Hugoye 16 (2013), p. 134–155
+G. Kessel & N. Seleznyov, “Bibliography of Syriac and Christian Arabic Studies in Russian, 2013,” Hugoye 17 (2014), p. 132–140.
+G. Kessel & N. Seleznyov, “Bibliography of Syriac and Christian Arabic Studies in Russian, 2014,” Hugoye 18 (2015), p. 125–145.
+G. Kessel & N. Seleznyov, “Bibliography of Syriac and Christian Arabic Studies in Russian, 2015,” Hugoye 19 (2016), p. 247–257.
G. Kessel & N. Seleznyov, “Bibliography of Syriac and Christian Arabic Studies in Russian, 2016,” Hugoye 20 (2017), p. 317–331.
G. Kessel & N. Seleznyov, “Bibliography of Syriac and Christian Arabic Studies in Russian, 2017,” Hugoye 21 (2018), p. 127–141.
G. Kessel & N. Seleznyov, “Bibliography of Syriac and Christian Arabic Studies in Russian, 2018,” Hugoye 22 (2019), p. 295–305.
G. Kessel & N. Seleznyov, “Bibliography of Syriac and Christian Arabic Studies in Russian, 2019,” Hugoye 23 (2020), p. 181–191.
G. Kessel & N. Seleznyov, “Bibliography of Syriac and Christian Arabic Studies in Russian, 2020,” Hugoye 24 (2021), p. 299–316.
*H. Miyokawa, “Yaʿqūb Nakhla,” in D. Thomas, J.A. Chesworth et al. (ed), Christian-Muslim Relations. Volume 18, 2021, p. 604–612.
*B. Roggema & A. Treiger, “A Bibliographical Guide to Arabic Patristic Translations and Related Texts,” in B. Roggema & A. Treiger (ed.), Patristic Literature, 2020, p. 377–418. [The contributions of the Copts are noted throughout, and there is a section on “Translations of Coptic Authors and Works” at p. 412–413.]
*D. Thomas, J.A. Chesworth et al. (ed.), Christian-Muslim Relations, 2015-2022 [The first five volumes of this reference work, for the years 600–1500, have proved an important tool for Copto-Arabic studies. The later volumes, for the years 1500–1900, have more occasional references to Copto-Arabic works, including articles by J. Faragalla, H. Miyokawa and C. Walbiner, cited in this section of the bibliography).]
+S. Uhlig et al. (ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, Wiesbaden, 2003–2014. [Many entries of interest to students of Coptic and Copto-Arabic studies.]
*C. Walbiner, “Buṭrus ibn Ghubrāʾīl,” in D. Thomas, J.A. Chesworth et al. (ed.), Christian-Muslim Relations. Volume 10, 2017, p. 172–173.
*C. Walbiner, “Patriarch Yuʾannis XVIII,” in D. Thomas, J.A. Chesworth et al. (ed.), Christian-Muslim Relations. Volume 12, 2018, p. 221–222.
Introductions and surveys
S. Rassi, Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamicate World. ʿAbdīshōʿ of Nisibis and the Apologetic Tradition (Oxford Oriental Monographs), Oxford, 2022. [Includes Copto-Arabic authors in its survey of Syriac and Christian Arabic apologetic literature.]
+*A.Y. Sidarus, “La littérature copte à la première époque arabe (viie-xie siècles),” in A. Boud’hors & C. Louis (ed.), Études coptes XIV, 2016, p. 193–221. [Notes translations into Arabic (and Ethiopic).]
*A.Y. Sidarus, “Littérature copte et copto-arabe au xive siècle,” in A. Boud’hors et al. (ed.), Études coptes XVI, 2020, p. 297–322. [See previous bibliographies for A.Y. Sidarus’s surveys that fall in between the two survey articles mentioned here.]
*M.N. Swanson, “Printing the Medieval Copto-Arabic Heritage: From the ‘Golden Age’ to the Printed Page,” in L. Agaiby et al. (ed.), Copts in Modernity, 2021, p. 106–133. [On medieval Christian Arabic texts printed by the Copts, 1871–1910.]
Copto-Arabic literature and “Middle Arabic”
P. La Spisa, “Cross Palaeographic Traditions. Some Examples from Old Christian Arabic Sources,” in D. Bondarev, A. Gori & L. Souag (ed.), Creating Standards: Interactions with Arabic Script in 12 Manuscript Cultures (Studies in Manuscript Cultures 16), Berlin, 2019, p. 93–109. [Points, in its conclusion, to the lack of in-depth comparative studies of “Middle Arabic” texts of, e.g., the Copts and the Melkites.]
Catalogues, libraries, manuscripts, copyists
E. Agaiby, “Naskh al-makhṭūṭāt fī adyirat al-baḥr al-aḥmar min khilāl dirāsat al-sīra al-ʿarabīyya li-l-qiddīs anbā Anṭūniyūs” [= “The copying of manuscripts in the monasteries of the Red Sea, through the study of The Arabic life of Saint Antony”], Majallat madrasat al-Iskandariyya 22 (2017), p. 243–260.
E. Agaiby, “A Codicological Overview of Manuscript St Paul Monastery (History) 53,” BSAC 57 (2018), p. 19–38. [And see also Chapter 6 in Agaiby 2018[a], cited below in section “Hagiography” in the bibliography.]
Sūzān F. ʿAyyād & Bāsim S. al-Sharqāwī, “Makhṭūṭ ‘Tārīkh 2’ bi-Kanīsat al-ʿAdhrāʾ wa-l-shahīd Abī Sayfayn bi-Kafr Salāma Ibrāhīm” [= “The manuscript ‘History 2’ in the Church of the Virgin and Saint Mercurios in Kafr Salāmah Ibrāhīm”], Majallat madrasat al-Iskandariyya 23 (2017), p. 137–166.
Isḥāq I. al-Bājūshī, “Fahrasat al-makhṭūṭāt al-qibṭiyya wa-l-ʿarabiyya” [= “Cataloguing Coptic and Arabic Manuscripts”], JACI 2 (2016), p. 15–62. [Presents a cataloguing methodology.]
Isḥāq I. al-Bājūshī & Yūstīnā al-qummuṣ Ṭāwaḍurūs, “Nussākh Bardanūhā wa-makhṭūṭātuhum” [= “The scribes of Bardanūhā and their manuscripts”], JACI 2 (2016), p. 89–106. [Provides a portrait of four scribes (with four others to follow).]
Isḥāq I. al-Bājūshī & Bījūl U. Isḥāq, “Fihris makhṭūṭāt kanīsat Mār Mīnā (Nazlat Ḥirz, Abū Qirqāṣ – al-Minyā)” [= “Catalogue of the manuscripts of the Church of Saint Menas in Nazlat Ḥirz, Abū Qirqāṣ – al-Minyā”], JACI 2 (2016), p. 63–88. [Catalogue of 19 MSS in a village church.]
Isḥāq I. al-Bājūshī & Bījūl U. Isḥāq, “al-Qiṭaʿ al-zajaliyya wa-l-tidhkāriyyāt fi l-makhṭūṭāt al-qibṭiyya wa-l-ʿarabiyya (makhṭūṭāt Samālūṭ wa-Ṭaḥā al-aʿmida namūdhajan)” [= “Poetic fragments and remembrances in Coptic and Arabic manuscripts (based on MSS of Samālūṭ and Ṭaḥā)”], JACI 3 (2017), p. 495–520. [Rich collection of scribal notes, often in sajʿ.]
S.J. Davis, “Cataloguing the Coptic and Arabic Manuscripts in the Monastery of the Syrians: A Preliminary Report,” Studia patristica 92 (2017), p. 179–185. [An introduction to what follows.]
*S.J. Davis & Bigoul al-Suryānī (ed.), Catalogue of Coptic and Arabic Manuscripts in Dayr al-Suryān. Volume 1, 2020.
* S.J. Davis & Bigoul al-Suryānī (ed.), Catalogue of Coptic and Arabic Manuscripts in Dayr al-Suryān. Volume 2, 2021.
S.J. Davis, Bigoul al-Suryānī & M.N. Swanson, Catalogue of Coptic and Arabic Manuscripts in Dayr al-Suryān. Volume 3. Arabic Theology (Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium 694), Leuven, 2022.
S.J. Davis, Bigoul al-Suryānī & M.N. Swanson, Catalogue of Coptic and Arabic Manuscripts in Dayr al-Suryān. Volume 4. Arabic Ascetic Discourses (Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium 697), Leuven, 2022.
L. Elhage-Mensching, “The Arabic Pen Trial in the Sahidic Holy Week Lectionary of the Bodleian Library,” JCoptS 22 (2020), p. 69–93. [On an instance of a formulaic scribal “pen trial” or tajribat qalam in the lower margin of a Coptic manuscript.]
+Nabil F. Fayez & J. Masson, “Catalogue des manuscrits coptes des Pères Jésuites au Caire,” BSAC 54 (2015), p. 59–150. [This collection of fifty-one items includes a number of Coptic-Arabic liturgical MSS.]
+A. Gacek, Arabic Manuscripts: A Vademecum for Readers (Handbook of Oriental Studies. The Near and Middle East 98), Leiden, 2009. [Oriented to Islamic studies yet very helpful —and perhaps a model for a similar project in Christian Arabic or specifically Copto-Arabic manuscript studies.]
Īrīnī Ī. Istafānūs, “al-Basmala wa-anwāʿuhā wa-dalālātuhā fī l-makhṭūṭāt al-qibṭiyya al-mudawwana bi-l-lugha al-ʿarabiyya min al-qarn 13–18 m.” [= “The types and significations of the basmala in Copto-Arabic manuscripts, 13th–18th centuries”], JACI 2 (2016), p. 137–160. [Draws attention to the variety of formulae and styles of writing them.]
+*Anba Martyros, “Ancient Manuscripts Folios Found in the Keep of Al Surian Monastery in Wadi al Natrun,” in P. Buzi et al. (ed.), Coptic Society, Literature and Religion from Late Antiquity to Modern Times, Leuven, 2016, p. 1073–1082. [On a trove of materials found in 1992.]
D.A. Morozov, “K čteniju čislitelʹnyh v datah arabo-hristianskih pamjatnikov” [= “Numerals in the Dates of Christian Arabic Texts”], Kapterevsky Readings 17 (2019), p. 212–226.
+*A.Y. Sidarus, “Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. arab. 104,” in P. Buzi & D.V. Proverbio (ed.), Coptic Treasures, 2012, p. 129–137. [An autograph from 1282 of Abū Shākir ibn al-Rāhib’s Kitāb al-burhān, richly described with bibliography and photographs. For descriptions of other Vatican MSS, see also A.Y. Sidarus’ contributions in section “Linguistics” of the bibliography.]
*A.Y. Sidarus, “Athanasius, Bishop of Abū Tīj,” in G. Gabra et al. (ed.), Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia, 1 March 2016, https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/cce/id/2138/rec/1. [On an important restorer of manuscripts.]
V. Six, Arabische Handschriften der Kopten. Die arabischen Handschriftenfragmente der koptischen Klöster Dayr Abū Maqār und Dayr Abū Pšoi der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Carl von Ossitzky, Hamburg (Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland 43), Stuttgart, 2017. [The collection consists of more than 5,000 leaves acquired in 1966, here described in two large volumes.]
C. Stewart, “The Digitization and Cataloguing Work of the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML),” BSAC 57 (2018), p. 165–174. [On an important and still developing resource for Copto-Arabic studies.]
C. Stewart, “Giving Voice to Ancient Texts: Manuscript Scholarship in the Digital Era,” IJMES 50 (2018), p. 119–123. [Raises questions also of importance for Copto-Arabic studies.]
*H.N. Takla, “The Manuscripts of the Monastery of St. Antony Preserved Abroad,” in G. Gabra & H.N. Takla (ed.), Christianity and Monasticism in Alexandria, 2020, p. 163–176. [Very helpful, could be a model for other such studies.]
Aḥmad ʿUmar, “Fihris al-makhṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya al-masīḥiyya bi-Maktabat al-Iskandariyya” [= “Catalogue of the Christian Arabic manuscripts in the Alexandria library”], JACI 3 (2017), p. 39–60. [Small but interesting collection; not many of Coptic provenance.]
Y.N. Youssef, “Coptic Church in the Time of Assemani,” Parole de l’Orient 48 (2022), p. 265–282. [Contains lists of manuscripts copied during the patriarchate of John VII (1676–1718).]
Wajīh M. Yūsuf, “Dirāsa taḥlīliyya li-makhṭūṭ Kitab al-burhān li-ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī al-maḥfūẓ fī Dayr al-Sharfah (Lubnān) – al-juzʾ al-awwal” [= “Analytical study of the manuscript of ‘Ammār al-Baṣrī’s Kitāb al-burhān preserved at Dayr al-Charfeh (Lebanon), Part I”], JACI 3 (2017), p. 357–364. [MS Dayr al-Charfeh 5/4 contains an epitome by the Copt al-Ṣafī ibn al-ʿAssāl of this important 9th-century text by an author of the Church of the East.]
+U. Zanetti, “Manuscrits de St-Macaire: Supplément no 2,” BSAC 54 (2015), p. 179–221. [Catalogues the arrivals in the monastery’s library (Suppl. 57–93) since the earlier supplement in BSAC 45 (2006), p. 153–195.]
U. Zanetti, “Le manuscript Vatican arabe 58,” Parole de l’Orient 47 (2021), p. 193–218. [Index of lectionary readings for the liturgical year with a remarkably ecumenical list of saints, written in Cairo in 1712 by one Yūḥannā b. Yusṭus b. Yūḥannā of Abū Qurqās.]
Language and history
At the Coptic-Arabic boundary
A. Delattre, B. Liebrenz, T.S. Richter & N. Vanthieghem, “Écrire en arabe et en copte : le cas de deux lettres bilingues,” CdÉ 87 (2012), p. 170–188. [Missed in the previous bibliography.]
*O. Livne-Kafri, “A Note on إنّما (innamā) in a Coptic-Arabic Translation of the Pentateuch,” in N. Bosson et al. (ed.), Labor Omnia Uicit Improbus, 2017, p. 483–491. [Continues a series of studies on the Coptic-Arabic MS Paris BnF copte 1.]
M. Müller, Review of “U. Zanetti, Saint Jean, higoumène de Scété (viie siècle), Brussels, 2015,” JCoptS 21 (2019), p. 269–275. [Included here for its discussion of U. Zanetti’s section on the text’s translation from Coptic to Arabic.]
*T.S. Richter, “Arabische Wörter in koptischen Texten. Ein Überblick,” in P. Dils & L. Popko (ed.), Zwischen Philologie und Lexikographie, 2016, p. 137–163.
*T.S. Richter, “Borrowing into Coptic, the Other Story: Arabic Words in Coptic Texts,” in E. Grossman et al. (ed.), Greek Influence on Egyptian-Coptic, 2017, p. 513–533. [Survey updating T.S. Richter’s entry in the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics (2006).]
N. Vanthieghem, “Magie arabe dans l’ermitage d’un prêtre copte du viiie siècle,” JCoptS 18 (2016), p. 181–184. [8th-century amulet in Arabic.]
N. Vanthieghem, “Un document arabe de la région thébaine. Réédition de P. Liebrenz Quittung,” CdÉ 94 (2019), p. 206–212.
L. Zack, P. Pilette & J. den Heijer, “L’imāla finale en Égypte : une approche diachronique,” in N. Comolli, J. Dufour & M.-A. Germanos (ed.), Libellules arabes, sémitiques, italiennes, berbères. Études linguistiques et littéraires offertes à Jérôme Lentin par ses collègues, élèves et amis, Paris, 2021, p. 629–662. [See especially section 5, “Le bilinguisme copto-arabe (viie-xiiie siècles).”]
History and historiography
Isḥāq I. ʿAjbān, “al-Malik al-qiddīs al-rāhib Salmūn, malik al-Nūba alladhī iʿtazala l-mulk wa-ṣāra rāhiban” [= “King, saint, and monk Salmūn, the king of Nubia who abandoned the kingship and became a monk”], JACI 2 (2016), p. 115–126. [Surveys the sources for this 11th-century figure, especially HP.]
*Bigoul al-Suriany, “Important Manuscripts of Dayr al-Suryan for the History of Alexandrian Patriarchs,” in G. Gabra & H.N. Takla (ed.), Christianity and Monasticism in Alexandria, 2020, p. 157–161. [With emphasis on HPY.]
Naglaa H.D. Boutros, “Le ms. Paris arabe 303, témoin de la recension primitive de l’Histoire des patriarches d’Alexandrie : remarques préliminaires,” BSAC 55 (2016), p. 111–124.
Naglaa H.D. Boutros, “Al-Ḥākim dans l’Histoire des Patriarches d’Alexandrie,” unpublished PhD thesis, Louvain-la-Neuve, 2017. [With an edition and French translation of HP Lives 63–64.]
Naglaa H.D. Boutros, “Tārīkh baṭārikat kanīsat al-Iskandariyya (muqaddimāt)” [= “The History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria (Introductions)”], Majallat madrasat al-Iskandariyya 28 (2020), p. 195–212.
Marīnā Buṭrus & Kristīn Ghālī, “Mamālik al-Nūba wa-l-Ḥabasha al-masīḥiyya fī l-ʿaṣr al-ʿabbasī al-awwal min khilāl kitābāt al-muʾarrikhīn” [= “The Christian Kingdoms of Nubia and Abbyssinia in the First Abbasid Era through the Writings of the Historians”], JACI 6 (2020), p. 117–138. [See K. Ghālī & M. Buṭrus 2019 below in this section for Part 1 of this survey.]
J. den Heijer, “The History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church,” in A. Mallett (ed.), Franks and Crusades in Medieval Eastern Christian Historiography (Outremer 10), Turnhout, 2020, p. 283–312.
J. den Heijer, “Coptic Months in Islamic Years: The use of the Fiscal Year (al-sana al-ḫarāǧiyya) in Fatimid Egypt (969–1171 CE) against the Background of Arabicisation and Islamisation,” Bulletin de l’Académie belge pour l’étude des langues anciennes et orientales 10–11 (2022), p. 499–535. [Analyzes the evidence from HP.]
*M. Diez, “With Ibn Ḫaldūn in His Workshop: What He Read in Ibn al-ʿAmīd, What He Retained, and Why,” in M. Diez (ed.), History Writing, 2021, p. 196–232. [Sample case: how Ibn Khaldūn made use of al-Makīn’s history in his passage on the Achaemenids.]
J.-C. Ducène, “Constantinople chez Abū al-Makārim (m. ap. 1209),” in K. d’Hulster, G. Schallenbergh & J. van Steenbergen (ed.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras. Proceedings of the 23rd and 24th International Colloquium Organized at the University of Leuven in May 2015 and 2016 (Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta 278), Leuven, 2019, p. 45–70. [New edition and translation of HCME’s lengthy notice on Constantinople.]
G. du Roy, M. Makhoul & P. Pilette, “Le miracle du Muqaṭṭam à travers les siècles : origines et réinventions d’une légende copte,” AnIsl 52 (2019), p. 193–218. [Inter-disciplinary study which connects the early Copto-Arabic elaborations of the account with modern developments at the site. The material was developed as a video course, in the framework of the MOOC “Oriental Beliefs” (UCLouvain), “The Miracle of the Moving Muqattam Mountain,” which may be found on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKo5bvj57EU).]
*Sherin S. El Gendi, “Saint Mina Monastery in Arabic Sources,” in G. Gabra & H.N. Takla (ed.), Christianity and Monasticism in Northern Egypt, 2017, p. 21–32. [Especially HCME and al-Maqrīzī.]
*Anba Epiphanius, “The Patriarchs of Alexandria and the Monastery of St. Macarius: An Overview,” in G. Gabra & H.N. Takla (ed.), Christianity and Monasticism in Alexandria, 2020, p. 33–39. [Draws from a rich variety of sources including HP and The History of the Patriarchs attributed to Yūsāb (HPY).]
Kristīn Ghālī & Mārīnā Buṭrus, “Mamālik al-Nūba wa-l-Ḥabasha al-masīḥiyya fī l-ʿaṣr al-umawī min khilāl kitābāt al-muʾarrikhīn” [= “The Christian kingdoms of Nubia and Abbyssinia in the Umayyad era through the writings of the historians”], JACI 5 (2019), p. 85–102. [See M. Buṭrus & K. Ghālī 2020 above in this section for Part 2 of this survey.]
A.M. Ivanova, “Traits of Positive and Negative Discrimination of the Copts in Medieval Egypt as Described by the ‘History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria’”, Scrinium 16 (2020), p. 214–232.
+Majdī Jirjis, “Nuṣūṣ jadīda ḥawl al-qallāya al-baṭriyarkiyya bi-Ḥārat al-Rūm”, [= “New Texts on the Patriarchal Cell at Hārat al-Rūm”], AnIsl 48 (2015), p. 191–215. [Edition of documents from the library of the Coptic Patriarchate, with photographs, elucidating the history of the patriarchal residence in Ḥārat al-Rūm.]
Majdī Jirjis, “Qirāʾa fī tarikat baṭriyark qibṭī min al-qarn al-sābiʿ ʿashar” [= “Reading about the legacy of a Coptic patriarch from the 17th century”], AnIsl 52 (2019), p. 107–128. [Documents from the sharīʿah court concerning the legacy of deceased patriarch Mark VI (1646–1656) are best read in conjunction with Coptic sources.]
Manhal Makhoul, “La branche syrienne de l’historiographie d’Égypte : échanges textuels et culturels,” unpublished PhD thesis, Louvain-la-Neuve, 2017. [With edition and French translation of HP lives 2–13, 54–56, and 62 —which exist in a recension including transmission in karshūnī MSS.]
*M.S.A. Mikhail, “The Evolution of Lent in Alexandria and the Alleged Reforms of Patriarch Demetrius,” in N. van Doorn-Harder (ed.), Copts in Context, 2017, p. 169–180. [Demonstrates the intractable connections among Greek, Coptic, and Arabic texts.]
M.S.A. Mikhail, The Legacy of Demetrius of Alexandria (189–232 CE). The Form and Function of Hagiography in Late Antique and Islamic Egypt, London, 2017. [Gives the Copto-Arabic evidence its full due; see especially Chapter 7, “Arabic Recensions, Amendments, and Omissions: Emergence of the normative hagiography.”]
M.S.A. Mikhail, “Historical Definitions and Synonyms for ‘Copt’ and ‘Coptic’: The Construction of Communal Identity in Pre-Modern Egypt at the Nexus of Language, History, and Ethnogenesis,” JCSCS 13 (2021), p. 11–45. [The author asks: “Who is a ‘Copt,’ or what is ‘Coptic?’” The study draws from a wide range of Islamic and Christian sources, including HP and HCME.]
M. Mitri, “‘Then He Stabbed Me with a Spear’: Aggressive Sacred Images and Interreligious Polemics,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 34 (2022), p. 86–104. [Studies two stories of retaliating sacred images from HP (John the Deacon’s contribution).]
C. Palombo, “The View from the Monasteries: Taxes, Muslims and Converts in the ‘Pseudepigrapha’ from Middle Egypt,” Medieval Encounters 25 (2019), p. 297–344. [Studies a set of 8th- and 9th-century pseudepigraphical homilies as historical witnesses. Several are preserved in Arabic as well as Coptic, and two only in Arabic: the apocalyptic passage from the Arabic Life of Shenoute and Pseudo-Theophilus, In Honor of Peter and Paul.]
*M. Penelas, “Christian Sources in al-Maqrīzī’s Kitāb al-Ḫiṭaṭ and Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar,” in M. Diez (ed.), History Writing, 2021, p. 233–270. [The Christian sources include, in particular, the “Arabic Orosios” and the history of al-Makīn Jirjis Ibn al-ʿAmīd.]
P. Pilette, “Time, Cycles and Rewritings in Copto-Arabic Historiography: A Comparison between the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria and the Copto-Arabic Synaxarion,” in A. Bausi, A. Camplani & S. Emmel (ed.), Time and History in Africa, Milan, 2019, p. 33–52. [Raises interesting questions regarding the interrelationship of HP and the Synaxarion.]
*P. Pilette, “Nouvelles observations sur les manuscrits de l’Histoire des églises et des monastères d’Égypte (Paris arabe 307 et Munich arabe 2570),” in A. Boud’hors et al. (ed.), Études coptes XVI, 2020, p. 281–296. [Important study of HCME.]
P. Pilette, “Dilemmas in Editing Middle Arabic Texts: The History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria as a Case Study,” in J. Lentin & J. Grand’Henry (ed.), Middle and Mixed Arabic over Time and across Written and Oral Genres. From Legal Documents to Television and Internet through Literature. Proceedings of the IVth AIMA International Conference (Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA, 12–15 October 2013), Louvain-la-Neuve, 2022[a], p. 223–240. [Calls for new tools, i.e. a reliable reference system for the history of the Arabic language, including its dialects which would include a large number of written Middle Arabic texts.]
*P. Pilette, “Trouver ‘l’aujourd’hui’ d’Abū al-Makārim ? Étude des sources de la description du monastère Saint-Macaire dans l’Histoire des églises et des monastères d’Égypte,” in A. Boud’hors et al. (éd.), Études coptes XVII, 2022[b], p. 277–311. [More on HCME, based on an extensive case study.]
Sharīf Ramzī, “Sulṭat al-ḥukkām fī taʿyīn baṭārikat al-kanīsa wa-ʿazlihim” [= “The authority of rulers in appointing and removing the patriarchs”], Majallat madrasat al-Iskandariyya 28 (2020), p. 213–219.
Nīfīn J. Rushdī, “Al-ʿādāt wa-l-taqālīd fī l-aʿyād al-qibṭiyya fī makhṭūṭ Abī l-Makārim – al-mansūb khaṭaʾan ilā Abī Ṣāliḥ al-Armanī – ʿan kanāʾis al-wajh al-baḥarī wa-l-Qāhira” [= “Customs and traditions of the Coptic feasts according to the manuscript of Abū l-Makārim (attributed wrongly to Abū Ṣāliḥ al-Armanī) on the churches of northern Egypt and Cairo”], JACI 3 (2017), p. 343–356. [A study of HCME.]
*Adel F. Sadek, “Anba Ruways and the Cathedral of St. Mark,” in G. Gabra & H.N. Takla (ed.), Christianity and Monasticism in Northern Egypt, 2017, p. 93–107. [Includes a description of Dayr al-Khandak from HCM and other sources.]
*Botros Sadek, “Cyril III Ibn Laqlaq, Corpus of,” in G. Gabra et al. (ed.), Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia, 2 May 2021, https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/cce/id/555/.
*R. Seignobos, “Les évêchés nubiens : nouveaux témoignages,” in A. Łajtar et al. (ed.), Nubian Voices II, 2015, p. 151–229. [Lists of Nubian bishoprics are found in Coptic-Arabic Scala MSS as well as in HCME.]
R. Seignobos, “L’influence du Kitāb aḫbār al-Nūba d’Ibn Sulaym al-Uswānī sur l’Histoire des églises et monastères d’Égypte d’Abū al-Makārim,” Études et travaux 32 (2019), p. 199–216. [An important case study in how HCM treats its sources.]
N.N. Seleznyov, “Al-Makīn ibn al-ʿAmīd on Moses of Crete,” Scrinium 15 (2019), p. 321–327.
+A.Y. Sidarus, “Les sources multiples de l’encyclopédie calendaristique et graphique Kitāb al-Tawārīḫ d’Abū Šākir Ibn al-Rāhib (1257 A.D.),” CCO 13 (2016), p. 211–270. [Identifies 28 sources.]
A.Y. Sidarus, “Banū al-Muhadhdhib, a Coptic Dignitary Family from Twelfth/Thirteenth-Century Old Cairo,” BSAC 56 (2017), p. 153–162. [Rich detail on the extended family of Abū Shākir ibn al-Rāhib.]
*A.Y. Sidarus, “Abū al-Barakāt Ibn Kabar, historien copte (m. 1324), et le MS Ambrosiana C 45 Inf,” in M. Lafkioui & V. Brugnatelli (ed.), Written Sources about Africa, 2018[a], p. 147–172. [Ibn Kabar was the author of Mukhtaṣar al-akhbār preserved in the unique MS mentioned.]
A.Y. Sidarus, “Medieval Copto-Arabic Historiography (13th–14th c.),” CCO 15 (2018[b]), p. 157–183. [A new survey, including translations into geʿez.]
A.Y. Sidarus, “The Mamluk Historian al-Amīr Baybars al-Manṣūrī al-Dawādār (d. 725/1325) and his Coptic Secretary al-Qiss al-Shams Abū al-Barakāt Ibn Kabar (d. 724/1324) (A New Assessment),” American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research 4 (2020), p. 141–148. [A “good part of the writing” of the voluminous Zubda of Baybars al-Manṣūrī was due to Ibn Kabar.]
J. Stutz, Constantinus Arabicus. Die arabische Geschichtsschreibung und das christliche Rom (Islamic History and Thought 4), Piscataway, NJ, 2017. [Chapter 9 is dedicated to the Copto-Arabic historians Ibn al-Rāhib and al-Makīn.]
*M.N. Swanson, “Gabriel III, Patriarch,” in G. Gabra et al. (ed.), Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia, 7 August 2017, https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/cce/id/2154/rec/1.
M.N. Swanson, “Portraying the Religious Other in the Age of Pope Matthew I (the 87th Patriarch, 1378–1408),” Coptica 16 (2017), p. 81–92. [Surveys several texts from the period.]
*M.N. Swanson, “Reading the Church’s Story: The ‘ʿAmr-Benjamin Paradigm’ and Its Echoes in The History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria,” in N. van Doorn-Harder (ed.), Copts in Context, 2017, p. 157–168. [A study in “internal intertextuality” in HP.]
M.N. Swanson, “Scripture Interpreting the Church’s Story: Biblical Allusions in the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria,” in G. Tamer et al. (ed.), Exegetical Crossroads, 2019, p. 61–72. [Focuses on the part of HP going back to Archdeacon Jirja, scribe of Patriarch Simon I (692–700).]
A. Tsuji, “Survival Strategies of the Copts in the Medieval Period: Migration to Greater Syria and Beyond,” in Y. Kondon (ed.), Survival Strategies of Minorities in the Middle East: Studies on Religious and Politico-Social Minority Groups in Middle Eastern Societies, Tokyo, 2021, p. 7–25. [Makes a variety of important observations, including on the place of Acre and Cyprus in the transmission of texts (in both directions) between Latin and Copto-Arabic.]
Y.N. Youssef, “The Vision of Benjamin Revisited,” Coptica 17 (2018), p. 79–86. [Identifies two quotations in HCME from the Book of the consecration of the sanctuary of Saint Macarius.]
*Y.N. Youssef, The Interpretations of the Theotokias, 2020. [The introduction includes a number of Arabic sources for the life of Patriarch John VIII Ibn Qiddīs (the 80th patriarch, 1300–1320), including his funeral oration (from a manuscript in the Coptic Museum).]
Scripture, canonical and noncanonical literature
Bible
S.J. Davis, T.C. Schmidt & S. Talia (ed.), Revelation 1–3 in Christian Arabic Commentary: John’s First Vision and the Letters to the Seven Churches (Christian Arabic Texts in Translation 1), New York, 2019. [English translation of passages from the Apocalypse Commentaries of Būlus al-Būshī and Ibn Kātib Qaysar.]
N. Edelby, Le commentaire de l’Apocalypse de Būlus al-Būšī (évêque du Caire en 1240 AD). Étude, édition critique, traduction et index exhaustif (Corpus de recherches arabes chrétiennes 8), Beirut, 2018.
Anba Epiphanius, Tafsīr Sifr al-ruʾyā (al-Abūghālamsīs) li-l-Anbā Būlus al-Būshī usquf Miṣr [= Commentary on The Revelation (The Apocalypse) by Būlus al-Būshī, bishop of Old Cairo], Cairo, 2017. [Based on MS Saint Macarius Comm. 22 (= Zanetti 317; 14th century).]
G. Khawam, Review of “N. Edelby, Le commentaire de l’Apocalypse de Būlus al-Būšī (évêque du Caire en 1240 AD). Étude, édition critique, traduction et index exhaustif (Corpus de recherches arabes chrétiennes 8), Beirut, 2018,” OCP 70 (2020), p. 387–391.
Amir K. Malek, “The Symbolism of Noah’s Ark in the Allegorical Commentary on the Book of Genesis of Marqus Ibn Al-Qunbur (12th Century),” BSAC 57 (2018), p. 115–124. [Revisits S.K. Samir, “La symbolique de l’Arche de Noé dans le commentaire allégorique de Marcus Ibn al-Qunbar (xiie siècle),” in A. Chahwan & A. Kassis (ed.), Bible et patrimoine de l’Orient : mélanges offerts au P. Paul Feghali, Beirut, 2002, p. 265–317. Watch for the author’s forthcoming volume on this work.]
Jāk ʿA. Naṣīf, “al-Mazmūr 151 fī l-kanīsa al-qibṭiyya al-urthūdhuksiyya. Riḥlat kashf al-ghumūḍ bayna naṣṣihi al-ʿibrī wa-tarjamatayhi al-yūnāniyya wa-l-ʿarabiyya” [= “Psalm 151 in the Coptic Orthodox Church: A journey shedding light on obscurities between its Greek and Arabic translations”], JACI 2 (2016), p. 223–238. [Includes a manuscript list and illustrations from MSS of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate.]
T.C. Schmidt, The Book of Revelation and its Eastern Commentators. Making the New Testament in the Early Christian World, Cambridge, 2021. [The commentators include Būlus al-Būshī and Ibn Kātib Qaysar.]
S. Schulthess, Les manuscrits arabes des lettres de Paul. État de la question et étude de cas (1 Corinthiens dans le Vat. Ar. 13) (Biblia Arabica 6), Leiden, 2019. [See Part Two, “Les manuscrits arabes des lettres de Paul,” for a survey including important Copto-Arabic witnesses.]
A.Y. Sidarus, “L’Ouvrage d’exégèse biblique : Kitāb al-Shifāʾ d’Abū Shākir Ibn al-Rāhib (Égypte, xiiie siècle),” CRJCS 7 (2020), p. 115 [Page numbering according to the European language section. Not seen.]
J. Verheyden, Review of “S. Schulthess, Les manuscrits arabes des lettres de Paul. État de la question et étude de cas (1 Corinthiens dans le Vat. Ar. 13) (Biblia Arabica 6), Leiden, 2019,” Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 73 (2021), p. 133–135.
R. Vollandt, “Tanqīḥ al-tarjamāt al-ʿarabiyya li-l-Tawrā. Tafsīr Saʿdiyā al-Fayyūmī min minẓār qibṭī wa-ākhar yahūdī” [= “Refining the Arabic translation of the Torah: the Tafsīr of Saʿdiyā al-Fayyūmī (Saadiah) under examination by a Copt and a Jew”], JACI 3 (2017), p. 521–546. [Includes an edition of the preface from MS Paris ar. 1.]
*R. Vollandt, “Flawed Biblical Translations into Arabic and How to Correct Them: A Copt and a Jew Study Saadiah’s Tafsīr,” in D. Bertaina et al. (ed.), Heirs of the Apostles, 2019[a], p. 56–92. [The Copt who participated in this text critical project in 1242 was probably al-Asʿad ibn al-ʿAssāl. Includes an edition and English translation of the preface, with MS Paris ar. 1 as base.]
R. Vollandt, “Saʿadia Gaon’s Translation of the Torah and Its Coptic Readers,” in M. Polliack & A. Brenner-Idan (ed.), Jewish Biblical Exegesis from Islamic Lands: The Medieval Period (Bible and Its Reception 1), Atlanta, 2019[b], p. 75–87.
V. Zaki, “The ‘Egyptian Vulgate’ in Europe: An Investigation into the Version That Shaped European Scholarship on the Arabic Bible,” CCO 18 (2021), p. 237–259. [On the Arabic version of the Pauline epistles found in 3 MSS from Egypt: Vat., Ar. 23; Leiden, Or. 217; and Leiden, Acad. 2.]
Apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, and other edifying literature and legends
Isḥāq I. al-Bājūshī, “Nuṣūs manḥūla: Ṣalāt al-ʿayn wa-l-naẓra” [= “Apocryphal texts: Prayer of the eye and sight”], JACI 3 (2017), p. 487–494. [With an edition and photographs of the text, from a MS in a private collection.]
+*F. Doufikar-Aerts, “The Copto-Arabic or Quzman Version of the Alexander Romance and Its Religious Muslim-Christian Hybridity,” in P. Buzi et al. (ed.), Coptic Society, Literature and Religion, 2016, p. 1033–1043. [On the version of the Copt Yūsuf ibn ʿAṭiyya, known as Quzmān, found in 4 MSS.]
I. Miroshnikov, “The Acts of Andrew and Philemon in Sahidic Coptic,” Apocrypha 28 (2017–2018), p. 9–83. [A good example of a complete Arabic version being indispensable for understanding the narrative flow of the apocryphon, fragmentarily preserved in Sahidic Coptic.]
I. Miroshnikov, “The Coptic Martyrdom of Andrew,” Apocrypha 29 (2018), p. 9–28. [Translated into Arabic and Ethiopic, with summaries – along with the Acts of Andrew and Philemon – in the Synaxaria.]
I. Miroshnikov, “The Coptic Versions of the Acts of Andrew and Matthias (CANT 236), with an Edition of IFAO Copte Inv. 132,” Le Muséon 132 (2019), p. 259–290. [Reviews the dossier and locates the Arabic translation.]
J.P. Monferrer-Sala, “An Egyptian Arabic Witness of the Apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans Preserved in the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate (Cairo),” JCoptS 18 (2016), p. 57–83 [A translation from Latin, perhaps from the Andalusi Christian Arabic tradition, in the late MS Cairo, Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate Codex 17–7 (Bible 215).]
M.N. Swanson, “Alexander the Great among Medieval Copts: Some Comments on the Uses of Alexander-Materials in Copto-Arabic Literature,” Coptica 15 (2016), p. 81–88.
*M.N. Swanson, “The Church and the Mosque in Wisdom’s Shade: On the Story of ‘Alexander and the Hermit Prince’,” in D. Bertaina et al. (ed.), Heirs of the Apostles, 2019, p. 284–309. [On a Copto-Arabic sermon in MS Paris BnF ar. 4761, with attention to parallels in Islamic sources and the preacher’s expansions.]
Tāwaḍurūs M. Thābit, “al-Ābāʾ al-rusul wa-karāzatuhum fī l-maskūna, min makhṭūṭ Kanīsat Abī Qirqāṣ, al-Minyā” [= “The apostles and their preaching throughout the world, from a manuscript in the Church (of Saint Theodore of Shotep) in Abū Qirqāṣ, al-Minyā)”], JACI 4 (2018), p. 151–158. [Description of the MS 6 Theol. and outline of the text.]
Apocalyptic, heavenly visions
J.P. Monferrer Sala, Apocalipsis del Pseudo Atanasio [ApPsAt(ar)II], Edición, traducción anotada y studio (Barcino Monographica Orientalia 4), Barcelona, 2016. [Edition and Spanish translation from Vat. ar. 158 (base) and Par. Ar. 153. See GCAL 1, p. 177 (2).]
*J. van Lent, “The Apocalypse of Samuel,” in D. Thomas (ed.), The Bloomsbury Reader in Christian-Muslim Relations, 2022, p. 90-92. [English translation of passages from the famous apocalypse, based on MS Vat. ar. 158.]
*J.R. Zaborowski, “An Arabic Manuscript of the Visions of Anba Shenouda: Edition and Translation,” in D. Bertaina et al. (ed.), Heirs of the Apostles, 2019, p. 446–494. [Edition and English translation from MS Los Angeles, Saint Shenouda Society 116.]
Hagiography
E. Agaiby, The Arabic Life of Antony Attributed to Serapion of Thmuis. Cultural Memory Reinterpreted (Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity 14), Leiden, 2018[a], [Edition, English translation, and study of a decisive text for the image of Anthony among the Copts.]
E. Agaiby, “Manuscripts Containing the Life of Antony in Arabic,” Parole de l’Orient 44 (2018[b]), p. 15–35. [Locates 79 MSS containing a Life of Antony – thirteen the Athanasian version and sixty-six the (pseudo-) Serapionic.]
*E. Agaiby, “Synopsis of the Arabic Pseudo-Serapionic Life of Antony,” in G. Gabra & H.N. Takla (ed.), Christianity and Monasticism in Alexandria, 2020, p. 1–11. [Helpful summary with tables.]
*E. Agaiby, “Antony of Egypt, Saint: Arabic Life by Serapion of Thmuis,” in G. Gabra et al. (ed.), Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia, 7 August 2021, https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/cce/id/2173/.
Shurūq ʿĀshūr, “Dirāsa athariyya li-makhṭūṭ ʿAjāʾib al-sayyida al-ʿAdhrāʾ bi-Kanīsat Daqādūs – Muḥāfaẓat al-Daqahliyya” [= “Antiquarian study of a manuscript of The miracles of the Virgin in the Church of Daqādūs, al-Daqahliyya Governorate”], JACI 2 (2016), p. 279–308. [Includes thumbnail photographs of the MS and summaries of the sixty-six miracles.]
Athanāsiyūs al-anbā Makāriyūs, al-Shahīd Abāskhayrūs al-Qallīnī [= The Martyr Abaskhiron of Qallin], Dayr al-qiddīs al-ʿaẓīm al-anbā Makāriyūs, Wādī al-Rayān (al-Fayyūm), 2017. [A “free edition” (taḥqīq bi-taṣarruf) meant for edification, from MSS including MS Paris ar. 4775.]
Isḥāq I. al-Bājūshī & Shuhdī F. Kāmil, “Sīrat al-shahīd Yūḥannā al-Harāqalī fī l-maṣādir alʿarabiyya” [= “The Life of the martyr John of Heracleia in the Arabic sources”], JACI 4 (2018), p. 39–92. [By Constantine bishop of Asyūṭ. Includes the text from MS Cairo, Coptic Museum Lit. 83 (Simaika 208, Graf 88).]
+*D. Bumazhnov, “Ascetic Suicides in the Vita of St Paul of Tamma: An Egyptian Drama and Its Ethiopian Continuation,” in D. Nosnitsin (ed.), Veneration of Saints, 2015, p. 1–13. [Studies the Copto-Arabic and Ethiopic dossiers for this saint.]
+*R. Dekker, “The Encomium on Bishop Pesynthios: An Evaluation of the Biographical Data in the Arabic Version,” in M.F. Ayad (ed.), Studies in Coptic Culture, 2016, p. 77–91. [Reviews the Coptic and Arabic dossier of the work, and weighs the information found only in the Arabic version represented by MS Paris ar. 4785, ff. 97r–215r.]
Faltāʾus al-Maqārī, Qiddīsūn min Dayr al-qiddīs Anbā Maqār al-kabīr (mā bayn al-qarn al-rābiʿ wa-l-qarn al-thanī ʿashara) [= Saints of the Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great (from the 4th through the 12th centuries)], Cairo, 2016. [Collects materials from a variety of sources, including local manuscripts.]
A.W. Hanna, “Commemorations in the Coptic-Arabic Synaxarium,” Coptica 15 (2016), p. 29–53. [Tables of the contents of eighteen selected MSS of the Synaxarium.]
A.W. Hanna, “Commemorations in the Coptic-Arabic Synaxarium,” Coptica 16 (2017), p. 1–53.
P. Luisier, Review of “C. ten Hacken, The Legend of Saint Aūr and the Monastery of Naqlūn. The Copto-Arabic Texts, Leuven, 2019,” OCP 86 (2020), p. 322–326.
Makārī al-Bahnasāwī, Al-Anbā Bīshōī ḥabīb Mukhalliṣinā l-ṣāliḥ [= Saint Bishoi: Beloved of our good Savior], Dayr al-ʿAdhrāʾ wa-l-malāk Mīkhāʾīl (al-Bahnasā), Shubrā (Cairo), 2018. [This and the following entry are based on MSS of Dayr al-Baramūs, but polished (tanqīḥ —in language and content) for a pious lay readership.]
Makārī al-Bahnasāwī, Sīrat al-qiddīs Yuḥannis al-qaṣīr li-l-anbā Zakhāriyās usquf Sakhā [= The Life of Saint John the Little, by Zakharias, bishop of Sakhā], Dayr al-ʿAdhrāʾ wa-l-malāk Mīkhāʾīl (al-Bahnasā), Shubrā (Cairo), 2018.
S. Moawad, Die arabische Version der Vita Dioscori (Patrologia Orientalis 56.1), Turnhout, 2016.
S. Moawad, “Addenda zur Vita Discori, Patrologia Orientalis 246 (56.1),” OCP 83 (2017), p. 231. [Adds a footnote to the above work.]
*S. Moawad, “The Memory of St. Mark in the Coptic Church,” in G. Gabra & H.N. Takla (ed.), Christianity and Monasticism in Alexandria, 2020, p. 101–109. [Draws on a rich variety of sources (HP, HPY, saints’ lives and homilies) including the understudied sermon of Severus, bishop of Nastarawa.]
J.P. Monferrer Sala, Review of “S. Moawad, Die arabische Version der Vita Dioscori, Turnhout, 2016,” CCO 15 (2018), p. 251–252.
M. Müller, Review of “S. Moawad, Die arabische Version der Vita Dioscori, Turnhout, 2016,” JCoptS 21 (2019), p. 259–268.
C.A. Panchenko, Bulus al’-habis, koptskij novomučenik xiii v.: sud’ba na fone èpohi [= “Būlus al-Ḥabīs, 13th-century Coptic neomartyr”], Vestnik Pravoslavnogo Sviato-Tikhonovskogo gumanitarnogo universiteta. Seriia 3. Filologiia (2015), p. 61–69.
Ibrahim Saweros, “Sīrat al-shahīda Rifqa wa-abnāʾihā ṭibqan li-aqdam al-makhṭūṭāt” [= “The Martyrdom of Rebecca and her children according to the oldest manuscripts”], Majallat madrasat al-Iskandariyya 27 (2019), p. 229–256. [Edition from MSS Paris ar. 277 (base) and 4777 and MS Cairo, Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Hist. 40.]
Bāsim S. al-Sharqāwī, “Khabar naql dhakhāʾir al-shahīd Marqūriyūs (Abī Sayfayn) li-kanīsatihi l-qadīma” [= “The account of the transfer of the relics of Saint Mercurius (Abū Sayfayn) to his ancient church”], Majallat madrasat al-Iskandariyya 27 (2019), p. 207–227.
M.N. Swanson, “The Story of Fakhr al-Dawla ibn al-Muʾtaman: Priest’s Son, Muslim Grandee, Monk of St. Antony,” Coptica 16 (2017), p. 67–80. [On a figure who appears more than once in saints’ lives of the late 14th century.]
M.N. Swanson, “Shenoute in the Copto-Arabic Synaxarion: A Saint for the Ages?” Coptica 18 (2019), p. 43–59. [Traces the development of the image of Shenoute between the medieval text, 20th-century editions, and the Synaxarion of 2012.]
*M.N. Swanson, “From the Copto-Arabic Synaxarion: The Muqaṭṭam Miracle,” in D. Thomas (ed.), The Bloomsbury Reader in Christian-Muslim Relations, 2022, p. 83–85. [English translation of the Synaxarion entry for 6 Kiyahk.]
*H.N. Takla, “The Arabic Version of the Miracles of Apa Mina, Based on Two Unpublished Manuscripts in the Collection of the St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society in Los Angeles,” in G. Gabra & H.N. Takla (ed.), Christianity and Monasticism in Northern Egypt, 2017, p. 161–175. [A description of the two manuscripts, and a summary of the miracle stories (seventeen from what were probably twenty), from the Society’s MS 166.]
C. ten Hacken, “More about the Text ‘The Journey of St. Aūr’ and the Monastery of Naqlūn,” BSAC 56 (2017), p. 35–60. [An addendum to the next entry, adding the witness of MS Cairo, Coptic Museum 6487 to fill in lacunae in “The Journey of Saint Aūr.”]
C. ten Hacken, The Legend of Saint Aūr and the Monastery of Naqlūn. The Copto-Arabic Texts (Eastern Christian Studies 26), Leuven, 2019.
A. Tsuji, Koputo Seijinden kara mita 14 seiki Ejiputo Shakai [= Coptic Saints in Mamluk Egypt], Tokyo, 2016[a]. [On the Mamlūk era saints Ḥadīd, Yūḥannā al-Rabbān, Barṣaumā alʿUryān, Alam, Ruways, Murqus al-Anṭūnī, and Ibrāhīm al-Fānī.]
+*A. Tsuji, “The Depiction of Muslims in the Miracles of Anba Barsauma al-ʿUryan,” in M.F. Ayad (ed.), Studies in Coptic Culture, 2016[b], p. 65–75. [Introduction to the text, making reference to MSS Paris ar. 72 and 282.]
+*A. Tsuji, “Preliminary Report on Four Saints from the Mamluk Period: Ḥadīd, Yuḥannā al-Rabbān, Barṣauma al-ʿUryān, and ʿAlam,” in P. Buzi et al. (ed.), Coptic Society, Literature and Religion, 2016[c], p. 1153–1160. [Focuses on a set of late 13th- early 14th-century saints, little known except for Barṣaumā.]
*A. Tsuji, “The Veneration of Anba Hadid and the Nile Delta in the Thirteenth Century,” in G. Gabra & H.N. Takla (ed.), Christianity and Monasticism in Northern Egypt, 2017[a], p. 185–191. [An introduction to the Life and [thirty-two or thirty-three] Miracles of Anbā Ḥadīd (d. 1286), a local saint commemorated in the Synaxarion on 3 Baramhāt; the text is preserved in a number of monastic collections.]
A. Tsuji, “Wearing the Blue Turban Again: Christian Reconversions in Mamluk Egypt,” in K. Fukasawa, B.J. Kaplan & P.-Y. Beaurepaire (ed), Religious Interactions in Europe and the Mediterranean World. Coexistence and Dialogue from the Twelfth to the Twentieth Centuries, Abingdon, 2017[b], p. 209–220. [Draws from the Life and Miracles of Anbā Marqus al-Anṭūnī and the Life and Miracles of Anbā Ruways.]
T. Vivian & M.S.A. Mikhail (ed.), The Life of Bishoi. The Greek, Arabic, Syriac, and Ethiopic Lives, Cairo, 2022. [Mikhail presents the Bishoi dossier in the General introduction, and in Chapter 5 gives an English translation of the Arabic text based on MS Göttingen ar. 114, ff. 150v-180r.]
*A. Voytenko, “Le saint comme une ‘syntaxe’ : l’homélie de Pesynthios, évêque de Coptos, en l’honneur de saint Onuphre le Grand,” in A. Boud’hors et al. (ed.), Études coptes XVI, 2020, p. 263–280. [The Arabic translation is considered, esp. at pp. 271–272.]
+ʿAwad Wadi, “Les deux vies arabes de saint Pachôme traduites du copte sahidique et du copte bohairique. 4. Sorte d’un moine orgueilleux” [in Arabic], BSAC 54 (2015), p. 261–272. [Edition of a passage from the Arabic translation of the Bohairic Life, from three MSS.]
ʿAwad Wadi, “La Vita breve di Claudio Martire: 11 Bawunah (antico 5, attualmente 18 Guigno),” JACI 3 (2017), p. 365–376. [Edition of the text from MS Cairo, Coptic Museum, hist. 469.]
ʿAwad Wadi, “Vita di san Pietro Martire alla luce delle fonti greche, copte e arabe,” SOCC 50–51 (2017–2018), p. 33-54.
ʿAwad Wadi, “Les deux vies arabes de saint Pachôme traduites du copte sahidique et du copte bohairique. 5. Ascèse de Pachôme, sa vocation à bâtir un monastère et mort de Palamon” [in Arabic], BSAC 57 (2018), p. 269–278. [Edition from four MSS.]
ʿAwad Wadi, “The Arabic Life of Saint Latsun compared with the Synaxarion” [in Arabic], BSAC 58 (2019), p. 195–224. [The oldest of the MSS consulted: MS Cairo, Coptic Museum, Hist. 469 (Simaika 96, Graf 712), ff. 314v-318r (from 1360).]
ʿAwad Wadi, “I miracoli arabi di Maria,” [Italian translation by B. Pirone], SOCC 52–53 (2019–2020), p. 139–150. [This edition and translation of the Fourth miracle continues a project; earlier installments were in SOCC 46–47 (2013–2014) and 48–49 (2015–2016). Several MSS were used, the oldest being Paris ar. 69 (1334).]
Y.N. Youssef, “Mīkhāʾīl al-Jadīd wa-l-nuṣūṣ al-lītūrjiyya” [= “Michael ‘the New’ and the liturgical texts”], JACI 3 (2017), p. 377–388. [Liturgical texts provide some information about a neomartyr; e.g. MS Saint Macarius hag. 42 (= Zanetti 408).]
Y.N. Youssef, “A Homily on Saint Shenoute Ascribed to Saint Cyril,” Coptica 18 (2019), p. 73–84. [Introduces a homily found in MS Cairo, Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, Theol. 14 (13th–14th centuries) and MS Cairo, Coptic Museum, Hist. 823 (old register 5353, new no. 56; dated 1739.]
Liturgy
Aghūsṭīnūs Alfūns, “Nubūʾāt ṣawm Nīnawā wa-ayyām al-ṣawm al-arbaʿīn al-muqaddas. Dirāsat makhṭūṭ bi-kanīsat Mār Jirjis bi-Ṣafṭ al-Sharqiyya – al-Minyā, Miṣr” [“Prophecies of the fast of Nineva and the fast of the forty holy days: Study of a manuscript in the Church of Mār Jirjis in Ṣafṭ al-Sharqiyya (al-Minyā, Egypt)”], JACI 3 (2017), p. 151–162. [Manuscript of 1547.]
+Athanāsiyūs al-Maqārī, Sirr al-Rūḥ al-Quddus wa-l-Mīrūn al-Muqaddas [The Mystery of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Myron] (Silsilat Ṭuqūs asrār wa-ṣalawāt al-kanīsa 2.3), Cairo, 2006. [Gathers materials on the holy mayrūn. Missed in the 2008 bibliography.]
Nabil F.F. Awad, “Tartīb al-bayʿa (Ordination of the Church) according to the Manuscript: Coptic number 5898 British Museum, London” [in Arabic], BSAC 55 (2016), p. 195–268.
Nabil F.F. Awad, “The Eight Melodies according to Mikha’il, Metropolitan of Damietta” [in Arabic], BSAC 56 (2017), p. 177–224. [From MS Wādī al-Naṭrūn, Dayr al-Baramūs, qānūn 9.]
Nabil F.F. Awad, “The Signings of the Cross in the Liturgy according to MS Paris Copte 26” [in Arabic], BSAC 58 (2019), p. 171–194. [Edition of the Arabic liturgical instructions at the end of the MS.]
L. Elhage-Mensching, “The Praises in the Psalmody for the Month of Kiahk attributed to Pope Mark: Partial edition of Ms. Cairo, CM 292,” in E. Schlarb (ed.), Den Orient erforschen, mit Orthodoxen leben. Festschrift für Martin Tamcke zum Ende seiner aktiven Dienstzeit (Göttinger Orientforschungen. Syriaca 61), Wiesbaden, 2021, p. 165–177.
+Anba Epiphanius, al-Quddās al-Bāsīlī. Al-naṣṣ al-yūnānī maʿ al-tarjama al-ʿarabiyya [The Liturgy of Saint Basil: the Greek text with Arabic translation], Dayr al-qiddīs anbā Maqār, Barriyyat Shīhīt, Cairo, 2021. [This study of the Coptic Eucharistic liturgy of Saint Basil includes “the old Arabic translation” according to the Kacmarcik MS and MS Saint Macarius, Lit. 155 (= Zanetti 199); see p. 133–186.]
+Anba Epiphanius, al-Quddās al-Ghirīghūrī. Al-naṣṣ al-yūnānī maʿ al-tarjama al-ʿarabiyya [The Liturgy of St. Gregory: the Greek text with Arabic translation], Dayr al-qiddīs anbā Maqār, Barriyyat Shīhīt, Cairo, 2013. [This study of the Coptic Eucharistic liturgy of Saint Gregory includes “the old Arabic translation” according to the Kacmarcik MS, a MS of Paris, and MS Saint Macarius, Lit. 155 (= Zanetti 199); see p. 141–192.]
Anba Epiphanius, Al-Khūlājī al-muqaddas. Al-quddāsāt al-thalātha yūnānī-ʿarabī (ḥasab makhṭūṭ Dayr al-qiddīs Anbā Anṭuniyūs), Kacmarcik codex [= The Holy euchologion: The three liturgies, Greek-Arabic (according to the manuscript of the Monastery of Saint Antony), Kacmarcik codex], Heliopolis (Cairo), 2017. [Edition of the three Eucharistic liturgies according to an important 14th-century MS.]
Anba Epiphanius, “Ṭaqs al-inḍimām li-l-kanīsa al-qibṭiyya, bi-ḥasab makhṭūṭāt al-ʿuṣūr al-wusṭā al-ʿarabiyya” [= “The Rite of joining the Coptic Church, according to medieval Arabic manuscripts”), JACI 4 (2018), p. 9–18. [From MS 2 and 13 qānūn of the Monastery of Saint Macarius.]
P. Luisier, review of “R. Mikhail, The Presentation of the Lamb. The Prothesis and Preparatory Rites of the Coptic Liturgy (Studies in Eastern Christian Liturgies 2), Münster, 2020,” OCP 87 (2021), p. 556–558.
R. Mikhail, “Towards a History of Liturgical Vestments in the Coptic Rite. I. Minor Orders, Deacons, and Presbyters,” Coptica 15 (2016), p. 55–70.
R. Mikhail, “Towards a History of Liturgical Vestments in the Coptic Rite. II. Bishops and Patriarchs,” Coptica 16 (2017), p. 55–66. [Traces these matters through the medieval Arabic canonical and liturgical literature.]
*R. Mikhail, “A Magical Cure for Rabies: The Coptic Liturgical Service in Honor of Abū Tarbū,” in P. Bukovec & V. Tadić (ed.), Ritualia Orientalia mixta, 2017, p. 267–289. [A survey, with an extensive list of MSS in which the rite can be found.]
R. Mikhail, “The Liturgy Coram Patriarcha Revisted: The Prothesis of the Coptic Patriarchal Liturgy in Sources of the 15th-16th Centuries,” Le Muséon 131 (2018), p. 279–312.
*R. Mikhail, The Presentation of the Lamb, 2020.
* R. Mikhail [now as A. Mikhail] (ed.), Guides to the Eucharist in Medieval Egypt, 2022. [Accessible introduction to a genre of Copto-Arabic literature that has long remained a reserve of specialists.]
Mīṣāʾīl al-Baramūsī, “Dalāl al-mubtadiʾīn wa-tahdhīb al-ʿilmāniyyīn. Aqdam dalāl ṭaqsī li-l-kanīsa al-qibṭiyya” [= “Guide to the beginners and reformation of the laity: The oldest liturgical guide of the Coptic Church”], Majallat madrasat al-Iskandariyya 24 (2018.1[a]), p. 117–169.
Mīṣāʾīl al-Baramūsī, “Dalāl al-mubtadiʾīn wa-tahdhīb al-ʿilmāniyyīn. Aqdam dalāl ṭaqsī li-l-kanīsa al-qibṭiyya” [= “Guide to the beginners and reformation of the laity: The oldest liturgical guide of the Coptic Church”], Majallat madrasat al-Iskandariyya 25 (2018.2[b]), p. 115–157.
Mīṣāʾīl al-Baramūsī, Dalāl al-mubtadiʾīn wa-tahdhīb al-ʿilmāniyyīn. Aqdam dalāl ṭaqsī li-l-kanīsa al-qibṭiyya [= Guide to the beginners and reformation of the laity: The oldest liturgical guide of the Coptic Church], Cairo, 2020.
Mīṣāʾīl al-Baramūsī, “Notes on the Euchologion of the Hegumen ʿAbd al-Masīh al-Masʿūdī, 1902 A.D,” BSAC 57 (2018[c]), p. 125–146. [On a milestone in the Arabic-language study of the Coptic liturgy.]
Arsany Paul, “Approaching the Ecclesia in Medieval Coptic Cairo: Church Entrance Petitions from the Thirteenth-Century Copto-Arabic Manuscript Suryān Liturgy 383 (Folia 190r-194r),” Ecclesia orans 39 (2022), p. 143–173. [The MS was written by the monk and scribe Ghubriyāl who later became Pope Gabriel III (1268–1271).]
Mīlād Shahāta, “Qirāʾa ūlā li-kitāb al-Baraka al-muqaddasa bi-makhṭūṭ al-Qāhira, Maktabat al-Baṭriyarkiyya, Muqaddasa 190 (1801 m.)” [“A first reading of the book The holy blessing in MS Cairo, Patriarchal Library, 190 Bibl. (1801)], JACI 2 (2016), p. 339–342. [Introduction to an ongoing project. MS Cairo, COP Bibl. 190 = Simaika 148.]
*Y.N. Youssef, The Rite of Consecration of the Myron, 2017. [Edition and French translation with MS Cairo, Coptic Museum, Lit. 253 (Simaika 142) as base.]
Y.N. Youssef, “The Liturgical Texts relating to Saint Apater,” BSAC 58 (2019), p. 119–137. [Includes texts from the Coptic-Arabic MS Cairo, Coptic Museum Lit. 323 (Simaika 171).]
Jirjis I. Yūsuf, “Makhṭūṭ Khuṭab al-ṣawm al-muqaddas wa-āḥād Kiyahk wa-waṣāyā li-l-mutaʿammidīn” [= “A manuscript of Homilies for the holy fast and the Sundays of Kiyahk, and instructions for those receiving baptism”], JACI 2 (2016), p. 239–243. [Study of a manuscript from the Church of the Virgin in Nazlat al-Fallāḥīn - al-Minyā. Includes an Urjūza on Baptism by Marqus, bishop of Ziftā; see G. Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur, Vatican City, 1944–1953, 4: 129.]
U. Zanetti, “Récente… mais ancienne. Une prière copte de la fraction,” BSAC 55 (2016), p. 125–139. [Bohairic and Arabic texts of fraction prayer no. 29 (according to U. Zanetti’s inventory in *D. Atanassova & T. Chronz (ed.), Σύναξις καθολική, 2014, p. 760–800) from MS Saint Macarius Lit. 157 (= Zanetti 201).]
U. Zanetti, “Prière de la fraction sur la vision d’Isaïe (et autres),” BSAC 57 (2018), p. 205–217. [Gives the Arabic translations of fraction prayer no. 30 found in MSS Saint Macarius, Lit. 236 and 157; Paris copte 40.]
Theology
Church fathers and monastic teachers
L. Agaiby, “St. Shenoute the Archimandrite in Manuscripts of the Red Sea Monasteries,” Coptica 18 (2019), p. 1–15. [In addition to copies of the Arabic Life, the article identifies four passages attributed to Shenoute in Bustān al-ruhbān MSS from the 13th to 18th centuries.]
L. Agaiby & T. Vivian, Door of the Wilderness: The Greek, Coptic, and Copto-Arabic Sayings of St. Antony of Egypt. An English Translation, with Introduction and Notes (Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity 23), Leiden, 2021. [L. Agaiby’s chapters include seventy-four sayings of Saint Antony collected from twenty-five MSS of the Bustān al-ruhbān, dated from 1300 to 1923, in English translation.]
+Aghathon el-Antoni, “Philokalia: ‘Love of (Spiritual) Beauty,” BSAC 53 (2014), p. 11–26. [Notes an early form of the “Jesus Prayer” in a collection of sayings of Saint Antony: MS Monastery of Saint Antony, Theol. 177, f. 103v.]
Athanāsiyūs al-anbā Makāriyūs, “Risālat al-qiddīs Diyūnīsiyyūs, tilmīdh Būlus al-rasūl, taʿziyatan ilā l-qiddīs Tīmūthayūs…” [= “Letter of Consolation by Saint Dionysius, disciple of Saint Paul, to Saint Timothy…”], JACI 4 (2018), p. 19–30. [On the martyrdom of saints Peter and Paul, for 5 Abīb. From two MSS, including a 15th-century MS from Kanīsat al-amīr Tāwaḍurūs “in Upper Egypt.”]
+Bigoul al-Suryānī, “Ahrubās (Rūfus) usquf Shuṭb: ʿIẓa ʿalā qirāʾāt bākir yawm al-khamīs min al-usbūʿ al-thālith min al-ṣawm al-muqaddas” [= “Rufus, bishop of Shotep: Homily on the readings for matins for Thursday of the third week of the holy fast”], JACI 2 (2016[a]), p. 211–222. [Found in three MSS of Dayr al-Suryān, p. 223, 231, and 232 mayāmir.]
*Bigoul al-Suryānī, “A Copto-Arabic Text Ascribed to Rufus of Shotep,” in P. Buzi et al. (ed.), Coptic Society, Literature and Religion, 2016[b], p. 1013–1022. [Edition and English translation of Sermon no. 14 from MS Dayr al-Suryān, 231 mayāmir, ff. 39v–41r, with reference to two other witnesses.]
Bigoul al-Suryānī, “Iẓā ʿalā qirāʾāt bākir ayyām al-ṣawm al-muqaddas, mansūba ilā l-anbā Dīmitriyūs (Dīmitriyānūs) baṭriyark Anṭākiya (253–260 m.)” [= “Homily on the readings for matins in the days of the holy fast, attributed to Demetrius, patriarch of Antioch (253–260)”], JACI 3 (2017), p. 231–238. [Found in four MSS of Dayr al-Suryān, p. 223, 226, 231, and 232 mayāmir.]
+A.M. Butts, “The Christian Arabic Transmission of Jacob of Serugh (d. 521): The Sammlungen,” Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 16 (2016), p. 39–59. [Important study of collections of Jacob’s homilies (adding up to fifty-eight homilies, of which the author identifies fifty-six) found in a set of eighteen Copto-Arabic MSS (including the 13th-century MS Vatican Ar. 73).]
*A.M. Butts, “Diversity in the Christian Arabic Reception of Jacob of Serugh (d. 521),” in B. Roggema & A. Treiger (ed.), Patristic Literature, 2020, p. 89–128. [Jacob’s works were received into Christian Arabic through a diversity of channels, Copto-Arabic as well as Melkite or Syriac Orthodox.]
A.M. Butts & T. Erho, “Jacob of Serugh in the Ambrosian Homiliary (ms. Ambros. X.198 sup. and its membra disiecta),” Deltio Biblikōn Meletōn 33 (2018), p. 37–54. [Suggests that the Copto-Arabic text, which served as the Vorlage of the Ethiopic, likely goes back to a Melkite text.]
*S.J. Davis, “Evagrius Ponticus at the Monastery of the Syrians: Newly Documented Evidence for an Arabic Reception History,” in D. Bertaina et al. (ed.), Heirs of the Apostles, 2019, p. 349–394. [Presents eight Evagrian MSS from the Dayr al-Suryān library, MSS 174–178, 184–185, and 743 nusukiyyāt. See now S.J. Davis, The Gnostic Chapters: A Critical Edition and Translation of Evagrius Ponticus’ Kephalaia Gnostika in Arabic, ACTS 5, Leiden, 2023.]
*S.J. Davis, “The Arabic Canons of the Holy Father Anbā Shenoute: Introduction, Text, and Translation,” in A. Boud’hors et al. (ed.), The Rediscovery of Shenoute, 2022, p. 219–284. [From MS Dayr al-Suryān 185 and MS Dayr Abū Maqār hom. 41. Several parallels to Shenoute’s Coptic Canons.]
M.K. Farag, “Rewriting Scriptures as a Homiletic Practice in Late Antique Egypt,” JCoptS 23 (2021[a]), p. 47–61. [The central case study is Ps-Theophilus’ Homily on the Church of Mary at Koskam, composed in Sahidic but preserved in Arabic.]
M.K. Farag, What Makes a Church Sacred? Legal and Ritual Perspectives from Late Antiquity (Transformation of the Classical Heritage 63), Oakland, 2021[b]. [Chapter 6 focuses on three texts from the Copto-Arabic literature on the building and consecration of churches to the Virgin Mary: homilies of Ps-Basil (Philippi) and Ps-Theophilus (Koskam), and the story of the church in Athribis.]
+E. Lucchesi, “Un recueil d’homélies de Jean Chrysostome dans le Par. Ar. 4796,” Le Muséon 123 (2010), p. 36–37. [A collection of selected homilies of Saint John Chrysostom which exists in both Melkite and Copto-Arabic recensions.]
S. Moawad, Die arabische Version der Vita Sinuthii. Kritisiche Edition mit annotierter Übersetzung (Wissenschaftliche Schriften der WWU Münster), Hildesheim, 2022. [Critical edition, MS Monastery of Saint Antony, Hist. 139 (1307) serving as base, with German translation.]
*A. Roberts, “A Re-translation of Basil’s Hexaemeral Homilies by ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Faḍl of Antioch,” in B. Roggema & A. Treiger (ed.), Patristic Literature, 2020, p. 198–240. [Examines three Arabic translations of Basil’s work: one was made by a Copt at the Monastery of Saint Macarius in 1247/8; another (used by Ibn al-Faḍl) is well-attested in Coptic manuscript collections.]
Ibrahim Saweros, “ʿIẓa ʿarabiyya ʿalā ʿīd al-ʿanṣara mansūba li-l-bābā Athanāsiyūs al-rasūlī” [= “Arabic homily on the feast of Pentecost attributed to Pope Athanasius ‘the Apostolic’”], Majallat madrasat al-Iskandariyya 25 (2018), p. 231–242.
*Ibrahim Saweros, “The Arabic Corpus of Pseudo-Athanasius of Alexandria,” in G. Gabra & H.N. Takla (ed.), Christianity and Monasticism in Alexandria, 2020[a], p. 139–148. [A survey with four examples, including the homilies mentioned in the previous and following notes.]
Ibrahim Saweros, “ʿIẓa ʿarabiyya thaniya ʿalā ʿīd al-ʿanṣara mansūba li-l-bābā Athanāsiyūs al-rasūlī” [= “A second Arabic homily on the feast of Pentecost attributed to Pope Athanasius ‘the Apostolic’”], CRJCS 7 (2020[b]), p. 33–48.
*A. Treiger, “The Noetic Paradise (al-Firdaws al-ʿaqlī): Chapter XXIV,” in B. Roggema & A. Treiger (ed.), Patristic Literature, 2020, p. 328–376. [Notes the popularity of the work among the Copts, and the abridgement by al-Ṣafī ibn al-ʿAssāl (published by Andrāʾus al-Anṭūnī in 1912 from MS Saint Antony, Theol. 320).]
Y.N. Youssef, “Between Gregory the Theologian and Severus of Antioch,” Parole de l’Orient 44 (2018), p. 425–438. [Some references to their place in the Copto-Arabic tradition.]
Jirjis I. Yūsuf, “Maymar nuzūl al-Masīḥ li-l-Jaḥīm li-l-qiddīs Ibīfāniyūs, usquf Qubruṣ” [= “Treatise on the descent of Christ into Hell, by Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus”], JACI 4 (2018), p. 159–174. [Full text of the treatise, from a manuscript of the Church of the Virgin in Ḥārat Zuwayla, Cairo.]
Copto-Arabic authors, books and treatises composed in Arabic
Nabil F.F. Awad, “Funeral Oration Composed by al-Waǧīh al-Qalyūbī and read the day of the demise of Pope Gabriel III, 77th Patriarch of Alexandria (1268–1274)” [in Arabic], BSAC 57 (2018), p. 219–234. [From MS Vatican ar. 91.]
Nabil F.F. Awad, “ʿIẓa tuqāl ʿalā ʿīd al-mīlād, li-l-Wajīh al-Qalyūbī” [= “Homily for the feast of the Nativity, by al-Wajīh al-Qalyūbī”], CRJCS 7 (2020), p. 107–118. [From MS Vatican ar. 91, ff. 153v-156r.]
Isḥāq I. al-Bājūshī, “Al-qiddīs al-anbā Yūsāb al-Abaḥḥ usquf Jirjā wa-kitābātuhu” [= “Saint Yūsāb al-Abaḥḥ, bishop of Jirjā, and his writings”], JACI 3 (2017[a]), p. 93–134. [Includes extensive lists of MSS.]
Isḥāq I. al-Bājūshī, “al-Muʿallim Marquṣ Mishriqī al-Mallawānī wa-kitābātuhu (q. 18 m.), al-juzʾ al-awwal” [“Marquṣ Mishriqī al-Mallawānī and his writings (18th century), Part 1”], JACI 3 (2017[b]), p. 435–468. [Study of an 18th century author who responded to one Jirjis al-Qibṭī, who had joined the Catholic Church.]
Isḥāq I. al-Bājūshī, “ʿIẓa li-l-ābāʾ al-kahana, min qawl al-ab al-ʿālim al-anbā Sāwīrus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ” [= “Homily on the priests, by Sāwīrus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ”], CRJCS 7 (2020), p. 49–64. [Not seen. Perhaps this is the Homily on the Twenty-Four Elders of the Book of Revelation, as found in MS Paris ar. 49, ff. 204r-214v.]
D. Bertaina, “Būluṣ ibn Rajāʾ on the History and Integrity of the Qurʾan: Copto-Islamic Controversy in Fatimid Cairo,” in M. Beaumont (ed.), Arab Christians and the Qurʾan from the Origins of Islam to the Medieval Period (History of Christian-Muslim Relations 35), Leiden, 2018, p. 174–195. [A study of Kitāb al-Wāḍiḥ bi-l-ḥaqq.]
D. Bertaina, “The Arabic Version of the Liber Denudationis: How Fatimid Controversies Shaped Medieval European Views of the Qurʾan,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 31 (2020), p. 425–443. [Identifies Ibn Rajāʾ’s Kitāb al-Wāḍiḥ bi-l-ḥaqq as the Arabic source of an important Latin work of Christian-Muslim controversy.]
D. Bertaina, Būluṣ ibn Rajāʾ: The Fatimid Egyptian Convert Who Shaped Christian Views of Islam (Arabic Christianity. Texts and Studies 4), Leiden, 2022. [Edition and English translation of Kitāb al-Wāḍiḥ bi-l-ḥaqq, from three manuscripts.]
Binyāmīn al-Muḥarraqī, “Dirāsa li-naṣṣ al-faṣl al-awwal min kitāb Rawḍat al-farīd wa-salwat al-waḥīd li-Simʿān ibn Kalīl” [= “A study of chapter one of Rawḍat al-farīd wa-salwat al-waḥīd by Simʿān ibn Kalīl”], JACI 2 (2016), p. 197–210. [Theological reflections on the text.]
Binyāmīn al-Muḥarraqī, “Rawḍat al-farīd wa-salwat al-waḥīd… Dirāsat naṣṣ al-qawl al-thānī ‘Min ajl al-īmān bi-l-Wāḥid al-Qadīm al-Mannān’” [“Rawḍat al-farīd wa-salwat al-waḥīd… A study of chapter two: ‘On belief in the One, the Eternal, the Munificent’”], JACI 3 (2017), p. 193–203.
Anba Epiphanius, Mayāmir al-aʿyād al-ilāhiyya li-l-Anbā Būlus al-Būshī usquf Miṣr [= Homilies for the divine feasts, by Būlus al-Būshī, bishop of Old Cairo], Cairo, 2018. [Edition of the eight sermons for the dominical feasts, with different MSS of the Monastery of Saint Macarius serving as base.]
J. Faragalla, Simʿān b. Kalīl, Leben und Werk (Eichstätter Beiträge zum Christlichen Orient 8), Wiesbaden, 2019. [Study with an edition and German translation of the Introduction to the Psalms, MS Paris ar. 43 serving as base.]
*S. Griffith, “Use and Interpretation of Scriptural Proof-Texts in Christian-Muslim Apologetic Literature in Arabic,” in G. Tamer et al. (ed.), Exegetical Crossroads, 2019, p. 73–94. [Pages 86–92 deals with an apologetic treatise of al-Ṣafī ibn al-ʿAssāl.]
AriyānūsʿĀ. Isḥaq, Isḥāq I. al-Bājūshī &ʿImād Ḥ. Labīb, “Kitāb Nuzhat al-nufūs wa-muzīl al-khaṭāyā wa-l-ʿukūs, min makhṭūṭāt Dayr Jabal al-Ṭayr wa-l-ʿAwāyisa, Samālūṭ, al-Minyā, Miṣr” [= “The book Nuzhat al-nufūs wa-muzīl al-khaṭāyā wa-l-ʿukūs, from manuscripts of Dayr Jabal al-Ṭayr and al-ʿAwāyisa (Samālūṭ, al-Minyā, Egypt)”], JACI 3 (2017), p. 61–92. [Study of the text with a list of thirty-five MSS in Egypt, mostly in monasteries and churches.]
Ariyānūs ʿĀ. Isḥāq, “al-Ruʾūs al-ithnā ʿashar allatī waḍaʿahā Kīrullus al-muʿallim al-jalīl baṭriyark al-Iskandariyya” [= “The twelve chapters composed by the venerable teacher Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria”], JACI 4 (2018), p. 31–38. [The twelve Anathemas of Saint Cyril of Alexandria, from MS Cairo, Coptic Orthdox Patriarchate Theol. 111 (Simaika 273, Graf 640).]
J. Jabbour, “Le manuscript Arabe 202 de la Bibliothèque nationale de France et la découverte d’une nouvelle copie du Bayān al-aẓhar d’al-Rašīd Abū al-Ḫayr Ibn al-Ṭayyib,” Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph 67 (2017–2018), p. 505–518. [While incomplete, this adds another witness to al-Rashīd’s treatise on al-qaḍāʾ wa-l-qadar, in addition to Vat. ar. 119 and an excerpt in al-Muʾtaman ibn al-ʿAssāl’s Majmūʿ uṣūl al-dīn.]
P. Luisier, Review of “J. Faragalla, Simʿān b. Kalīl, Leben und Werk (Eichstätter Beiträge zum Christlichen Orient 8), Wiesbaden, 2019,” OCP 87 (2021), p. 553–555.
Anba Martyrus, “Dirāsa ḥawl Maymar intiqāl abīnā l-ab al-baṭriyark anbā Mattāʾus wa-dhikr intiqāl awlādihi l-shuhadāʾ al-mustashhidīn fī zamānihi…” [= “Study on the Homily on the repose of our father Patriarch Matthew, with mention of the repose of his children the martyrs, who were martyred in his age…”], JACI 4 (2018), p. 283–292. [On Matthew the 87th patriarch, 1378–1408. Text from MS Dayr al-Suryān 272 mayāmir.]
S. Moawad, [here as Ṣ.Q. Muʿawwaḍ], Abū Shākir ibn al-Rāhib. Kitāb al-tawārīkh, al-juzʾ al-thānī, al-abwāb 48–51 [= Abū Shākir ibn al-Rāhib, Kitāb al-tawārīkh, Part Two, Chapters 48-51], Cairo, 2022. [Part I of this important edition, from 2016, appeared in the previous bibliography.]
B. Pirone, “Al-Muʾtaman e un suo riferimento a Elia di Nisibi,” Quaderni di studi Arabi 11 (2016), p. 25–40. [Passages with Qurʾān quotations in chapters 14 and 33 of Majmūʿ uṣūl al-dīn are strongly dependent on the 3rd and 2nd sessions (respectively) of Iliyyā’s Majālis.]
Sharīf Ramzī, Yūḥannā ibn Sāwīrus, al-kātib al-miṣrī. Ḥayātuhu wa-kitābātuhu [= Yūḥannā ibn Sāwīrus, Scribe of [Old] Cairo: Life and Works], [al-Minyā or Cairo?], 2021. [Important introduction to an 11th-century theologian with edition of Kitāb Tashīl al-sabīl fī l-ʿilm wa-l-ʿamal, taking MS Vat. ar. 117, ff. 289v-331v as base.]
Nīfīn J. Rushdī, “The book ʿIqd al-jawāhir al-masīḥiyya fī l-madāʾiḥ al-injīliyya (ca. 17th c.)” [in Arabic], JACI 4 (2018), p. 317–344. [Poetic presentation of the life and teachings of Christ, in twelve chapters. Study based on MS Cairo, Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Theol. 285 (Simaika 295, Graf 323), and MS Beni Suef, Dayr al-ʿAdhrāʾ–Bayāḍ, Theol. 16.]
ʿĪd Ṣalāḥ, Fī sabīl naẓariyya ʿarabiyya masīḥiyya li-l-tafsīr. Buṭrus al-Sadamantī namūdhajan – al-qarn al-thālith ʿashar al-mīlādī [= Towards an Arabic Christian hermeneutic: The example of Buṭrus al-Sadamantī (13th century)], Cairo, 2014. [On the introduction on tafsīr to Buṭrus’ al-Taṣḥīḥ.]
ʿĪd Ṣalāḥ, “Nuqṭat taḥawwul. Sāwīrus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, al-sīra wa-l-tafkīr al-lāhūtī” [= “A turning point: Sāwīrus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, life and theological thought”], JACI 6 (2020), p. 423–444. [Argues that Sāwīrus represents a new approach towards the wider society, one of al-indimāj rather than al-iʿtizāl.]
ʿĪd Ṣalāḥ, “Ḍarūrat al-tajassud fī l-kitābāt al-ʿarabiyya al-masīḥiyya. Kitāb ‘Mukhtaṣar al-bayān fī taḥqīq al-īmān’ al-shahīr bi-l-Ḥāwī l-Ibn al-Makīn namūdhajan” [= “The necessity of the Incarnation in Arabic Christian writings: The example of Mukhtaṣar al-bayān fī taḥqīq al-īmān, known as al-Ḥāwī, by Ibn al-Makīn”], al-Nusūr (2021), p. 16–27. [Theological study appearing in a publication of the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services.]
Ibrahim Saweros, “How Does the Copt Die? A Study of the Angel of Death in the Coptic Tradition Together with a Critical Edition of the Ninth Chapter of Kitāb ‘al-Īḍaḥ’ Attributed to Sāwīrus Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ” [in Arabic], BSAC 56 (2017), p. 225–275. [Edition from MSS Paris ar. 170 (base); Coptic Patriarchate, Theol. 92; and Saint Macarius, Theol. 28.]
+G. Schwarb, “Eine maimonidische Trinitätslehre? Zur Maimonidesrezeption in der koptisch-arabischen Literatur,” in L. Muehlethaler (ed.), ‘Höre die Wahrheit, wie sie auch spricht’: Stationen des Werks von Moses Maimonides vom islamischen Spanien bis ins moderne Berlin (Schriften des Jüdischen Museums Berlin 2), Göttingen, 2014[a], p. 40–53. [On the use of Maimonides in the Tiryāq of al-Rashīd Abū l-Khayr ibn al-Ṭayyib.]
+G. Schwarb, “The Reception of Maimonides in Christian-Arabic Literature,” in Y. Tobi (ed.), Ben ʿEver la-ʿArav. Contacts between Arabic Literature and Jewish Literature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times. Volume 7. Maimonides and His World: Proceedings of the Twelfth Conference of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies, Haifa, 2014[b], p. 109–175.
Bāsim S. al-Sharqāwī, “MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek or. 4183: A New Copy of the Treatise Fuṣūl mukhtaṣira fī Tathlīth wa-Tawḥīd by al-Ṣafī ibn al-ʿAssāl” [in Arabic], JACI 2 (2016), p. 161–196. [Adds a witness to the important apologetic text of al-Ṣafī.]
*A.Y. Sidarus, “Deux représentants tardifs de l’âge d’or de la littérature copto-arabe (al-Makīn Ibn al-ʿAmīd le Jeune et Athanase de Qous, xive siècle),” in Ž. Paša (ed.), Between the Cross and the Crescent, 2018[a], p. 299–316.
A.Y. Sidarus, “Monks’ Contribution to Medieval Copto-Arabic Literature,” BSAC 57 (2018), p. 175–185. [On Simʿān ibn Kalīl, Buṭrus al-Sadamantī, and Jirjis ibn al-ʿAmīd “the younger.”]
A.Y. Sidarus, “Textes hermétiques dans des sommes théologiques copto-arabes médiévales,” OCP 85 (2019), p. 217–225. [Passages from Hermetic texts, esp. The Rebuke of the Soul, in Abū Shākir ibn al-Rāhib, al-Muʾtaman ibn al-ʿAssāl, and Yūḥannā ibn Sabbāʿ.]
A.Y. Sidarus, Review of “C.Z. Wellnhofer, Die Kalām-Theologie im Kitāb al-Burhān von Ibn al-Rāhib (13. Jh.) (Syro-Arabic 8), Córdoba, 2018, CCO 16 (2019), p. 197–199.
M.N. Swanson, “Once Again on the 13th-Century Flowering of Copto-Arabic Literature: Introducing an Edition of Buṭrus al-Sadamantī’s Instructive Lives,” Coptica 17 (2018[a]), p. 25–42. [On a set of three edifying stories/ascetic discourses by Buṭrus al-Sadamantī, in the 2016 edition by Anba Epiphanius.]
*M.N. Swanson, “The Tell-Tale Rhyme: On the Original Language of Buṭrus al-Sadamantī’s Instructive Lives,” in Ž. Paša (ed.), Between the Cross and the Crescent, 2018[b], p. 317–334. [Buṭrus’s edifying stories are Arabic compositions, not translations from Coptic.]
M.N. Swanson, “Beyond Imitation? Paul of Sadamant (fl. 1260 CE) on ‘the best of works’,” Currents in Theology and Mission 47 (2020), p. 47–51. [A brief passage from the Story of Isaiah from Buṭrus al-Sadamantī’s Instructive Lives.]
Midḥat Ḥ. Tādurus, “Al-ʿālim al-lāhūtī al-Makīn Jirjis ibn al-ʿAmīd al-Aṣghar, wa-naṣṣ marthiyat taʾbīnihi sanat 1322 m” [= “The theological scholar al-Makīn Jirjis ibn al-ʿAmīd ‘the Younger,’ and the text of the funeral oration for him in 1322”], JACI 3 (2017[a]), p. 301–314, [G. Graf followed by many others have dated al-Makīn “the Younger” to the end of the 14th century, but the author presents evidence for a much earlier date, with an edition of the funeral oration of 1322 from MSS Monastery of Saint Antony 159 tārīkh and 466 ṭaqs.]
Midḥat Ḥ. Tādurus, “The martyr Yūḥannā al-Qalyūbī, monk of Dayr al-anbā Bshoi, and the deacon Ghubriyāl al-Miṣrī son of the martyr Yūḥannā al-Qalyūbī: Their literary works in the ecclesiastical fields” [in Arabic], JACI 3 (2017[b]), p. 419–434. [Casts light on important literary figures of the late 16th/early 17th centuries, the former a martyr (1581), the latter said to be a participant in the translation of the Chronicle of John of Nikiu into Ethiopic.]
Beshoy R. Tawadrous, “‘Un trattato che nega il dubbio e l’infedeltà dai cristiani monoteisti’ attribuito a Butrus al-Sadamantī: introduzione, traduzione e nota comparativa,” CCO 17 (2020), p. 223–245. [From Vat. ar. 126, ff. 239r-241r.]
Anṭūniyā B. Thābit & Bāsim S. al-Sharqāwī, “MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek or. 4183: A Study of Maqālah fī Īḍāḥ taqsīm tadābīr al-sayyid al-Masīḥ, min al-ḥabl bihi wa-ilā ḥīn al-ṣuʿūd ilā l-samāʾ” [in Arabic], JACI 3 (2017), p. 171–192; 4 (2018), p. 359–372. [This treatise on the modes of the divine saving economy in the life of Christ, from his conception to his ascension, is the second introduction to Buṭrus al-Sadamantī’s al-Taṣḥīḥ. The article adds a new witness, with an edition of the text based on it.]
P.S. van Koningsveld, An Arabic Source of Ramon Martí: Al-Saif al-Murhaf fî al-Radd ʿalâ Muṣḥaf (“The Whetted Sword in Refutation of the Koran”). Introductory Study with Text and Translation of its Surviving Fragments, Leiden, 2018. [Fragments of al-Sayf al-murhaf preserved in the refutation by Najm al-Dīn al-Ṭūfī, Kitāb al-Intiṣārāt al-islāmiyya fī kashf shubah al-naṣrāniyya. The author was a Copt, perhaps al-Rashīd Abū l-Khayr ibn al-Ṭayyib.]
*A. Wadi, “Butrus al-Sadamanti al-Armani (Peter of Sadamant ‘the Armenian’),” in G. Gabra & H.N. Takla (ed.), Christianity and Monasticism in Northern Egypt, 2017, p. 201–211. [Helpful introduction to an important 13th-century author, with extensive bibliography (manuscripts, editions, studies).]
C.Z. Wellnhofer, Die Kalām-Theologie im Kitāb al-Burhān von Ibn al-Rāhib (13. Jh.) (Syro-Arabic 8), Córdoba, 2018.
C. Yıldırım, Review of “C.Z. Wellnhofer, Die Kalām-Theologie im Kitāb al-Burhān von Ibn al-Rāhib (13. Jh.) (Syro-Arabic 8), Córdoba, 2018,” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 9 (2021), p. 376–379.
Pastoral letters, papal correspondence
*Magdi Awad, “A Correspondence between Rome and Alexandria in the Middle Ages: An Example from the Eighteenth Century,” in L. Agaiby et al. (ed.), Copts in Modernity, 2021, p. 39–55. [The correspondence between the papal delegate Bartholomew and Patriarch Yuʾannis XVIII (1769–1796) (represented by Yūsāb, bishop of Jirjā and Akhmīm), from MS Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Theology 138 (Simaika 308).]
I. Bcheiry, “The Table of Contents of a Copybook of Letters and Treatises by the Coptic Patriarch, John XIII (1484–1524): The Arabic Ms. 301 Theology, Coptic Patriarchal Library, al-Azbakiyyah, Cairo,” Oriens christianus 104 (2021), p. 187-208. [Table of contents of an important collection of correspondence and treatises: MS Cairo, Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Theol. 301 (Simaika 291, Graf 541).]
*Bigoul al-Suryānī, “A New Contribution to Understanding the Pastoral Care of Pope Peter VII (1809–1852),” in L. Agaiby et al. (ed.), Copts in Modernity, 2021, p. 56–80. [Includes an introduction to the patriarch’s Treatises, discourses, and letters in MS Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Theology 259 (Simaika 453).]
L. Elhage-Mensching, Pope Mark VII: Arabic Letters to Count von Zinzendorf and Yohannes III, Metropolitan of Abyssinia, with the ‘Sermon on the True Faith’ in an Appendix, Baden-Baden, 2020. [Mark VII was the 106th patriarch, 1745–1769.]
ʿĀdil Fakhrī, “Risāla li-l-bābā Yūʾanis al-thāmin ʿashara 107 (1760–1796 m), bi-ʿunwān: Min ajl amrāḍ al-jasad wa-l-nafs” [= “A letter of Pope John XVIII (the 107th patriarch, 1760–1796): On the diseases of the body and the soul”], JACI 3 (2017), p. 261–276. [MS Cairo, Coptic Patriarchate, Theol. 134 (Simaika 512), ff. 185r-187r. Study, text, and photographs of the MS pages.]
ʿĀdil Fakhrī, “Risāla li-l-bābā Yūʾannis al-thāmin ʿashara 107 (1760–1796 m), bi-ʿunwān: Min ajl alladhīna yatazawwajūn wa-hum ghayr mudrikīn” [“A letter of Pope John XVIII (the 107th patriarch, 1760–1796): On those who marry without reaching the age of maturity”], JACI 4 (2018), p. 219–230. [MS Cairo, Coptic Patriarchate, Theol. 134 (Simaika 512), ff. 206v-208r. Study, text, and photographs of the MS pages.]
L. Farag, “A Little-Known Episode in Coptic-Roman Relations: An Unpublished Letter by Anba Yūsāb, Bishop of Jirjā and Akhmīm (18th c.),” Coptica 15 (2016), p. 1–28. [From MS Monastery of Saint Macarius, Theol. 5 (= Zanetti 276).]
G. Haile, “Letter of Patriarch Mark VII (1745–1769). EMIP 687, Capuchin Friary 33,” Oriens Christianus 103 (2020), p. 222–252.
Zakkā F. Labīb, “Risālat al-baṭriyark al-Anṭākī Mār Mīkhāʾīl al-thānī ilā l-bābā l-Iskandarī Yuʾannis al-sādis” [= “The letter of the Antiochian patriarch Michael II to the Alexandrian pope John VI”], Majallat madrasat al-Iskandariyya 26 (2019), p. 173–190. [A letter of 1209, from the collection of patriarchal (and other) correspondence in MS Cairo, Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Theol. 291 (Simaika 217), ff. 64r-67r.]
Canons
Athanāsiyūs al-Maqārī, Majmūʿ qawānīn al-Anbā Mīkhāʾīl muṭrān Dumyāṭ fī l-qarn al-thānī ʿashar al-mīlādī, wa-nuṣūṣ baʿḍ muʾallifātihi l-ukhrā [= Canonical collection of Michael metropolitan of Damietta in the 12th century, with the texts of some of his other writings], Cairo, 2016–2017. [Edition of the Nomocanon of Bishop Michael of Damietta.]
Athanāsiyūs al-Maqārī, Mukhtaṣar qawānīn Abī Ṣulḥ b. Nānā yakshif ghumūḍ al-tārīkh al-lītūrjī fī l-uṣūr al-wusṭā [= The epitome of the canons of Abū Ṣulḥ b. Nānā, shedding light on the obscurity of the history of liturgy in the Middle Ages], Cairo, 2019. [Edition of the epitome of the Canons of Abū Ṣulḥ (Ṣāliḥ?) based on MS Paris ar. 252.]
Mirfat T. Ṣalīb, “Qawānīn al-qiddīs Yūḥannā Fam al-Dhahab” [= “The Canons of Saint John Chrysostom”], JACI 3 (2017), p. 315–332. [Study based on the texts in MSS Paris ar. 251–252 and Vat. ar. 150.]
A.Y. Sidarus, “Les Canons d’Athanase et leurs versions copte et arabe (CPG 2302, CPC 0089),” Le Muséon 133 (2020), p. 31–41.
Linguistics
W.F. Macomber, The Scala Magna of Shams al-Riʾāsah Abū al-Barakāt (Corpus scriptorum christianorum Orientalium 684–685), Leuven, 2020.
+*A.Y. Sidarus, “Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Borg. Copt. 133,” in P. Buzi & D.V. Proverbio (ed.), Coptic Treasures, 2012[a], p. 109–116. [Introduces the Sahidic grammar of Athanasius bishop of Qūṣ, Qilādat al-taḥrīr, and complements the following entry.]
+*A.Y. Sidarus, “La philologie copto-arabe médiévale et le Vat. copt. 71,” in P. Buzi & D.V. Proverbio (ed.), Coptic Treasures, 2012[b], p. 85–107. [The MS, containing five grammars and two lexical works, is a compendium of 13th–14th centuries Copto-Arabic achievement in these fields. This provides an occasion for a rich introduction and bibliography.]
+*A.Y. Sidarus, “Une introduction arabe médiévale à l’alphabet et à la phonologie coptes,” in P. Buzi et al. (ed.), Coptic Society, Literature and Religion, 2016, p. 1361–1374. [The medieval collections of Bohairic grammars are regularly introduced with such an Introduction, described here in some detail.]
*A.Y. Sidarus, “Nouvelles données concernant la Scala gréco-copto-arabe Liber Graduum,” in A. Binggeli et al. (ed.), Manuscripta Graeca et Orientalia, 2016, p. 563–581. [Studies the Scala of MS Paris copte 44 in wider context.]
*A.Y. Sidarus, “Yuhanna al-Samannudi, the Founder of National Coptic Philology in the Middle Ages,” in G. Gabra & H.N. Takla (ed.), Christianity and Monasticism in Northern Egypt, 2017, p. 139–159. [Detailed introduction to a great figure of the Copto-Arabic “Renaissance.”]
A.Y. Sidarus, “The Arabic Model in Coptic Grammar: An Approach to the Copto-Arabic muqaddimāt of the Middle Ages,” Coptica 17 (2018), p. 11–24. [Introduction to the medieval Coptic grammars and their use of Arabic grammatical terms and categories.]
A. Wadi, “Préface à la grammaire de la langue copte dite ‘al-Kifāyah’ (la Suffisante) de al-Waǧīh al-Qalyūbī” [in Arabic], BSAC 55 (2016), p. 269–298. [Edition from MSS Vatican copt. 71; Coptic Patriarchate, misc. 9.]
A. Wadi, “ʿAlam Ibn Kātib Qayṣar (xiiie siècle) : préface à la grammaire de la langue copte dite ‘al-Tabṣirah’” [in Arabic], BSAC 56 (2017), p. 277–303. [Edition from MSS Vatican copt. 71; Paris copt. 50; and Coptic Patriarchate, misc. 9.]
A. Wadi, “al-Muqaddimāt wa-l-salālim” [“Grammars and lexica”], JACI 4 (2018), p. 345–352. [Helpful introduction in Arabic.]
On to Ethiopia
T. Abraha, Mäṣḥafä Sawiros zä-Esmunayn. La versione geʾez del Kitāb al-īḍāḥ di Severo di Ašmūnayn (x/xi sec.). Omelie I-III. Introduzione, edizione del testo etiopico con traduzione italiana annotate (Patrologia Orientalis 56.2), Turnhout, 2017[a]. [Edition and Italian translation of the Ethiopic version of a very popular text of the Copto-Arabic tradition.]
T. Abraha, “Sāwīrus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ in Gəʾəz Literature: A Provisional Reappraisal,” Le Muséon 130 (2017[b]), p. 421–444.
T. Abraha, Mäṣḥafä Sawiros zä-Esmunayn. La versione geʾez de Kitāb al-īḍāḥ di Severo di Ašmūnayn (x/xi sec.). Omelie IV-VIII. Introduzione, edizione del testo etiopico con traduzione italiana annotate (Patrologia Orientalis 57.2), Turnhout, 2020.
A.M. Butts, K. Heal, G. Moseley & J. Witztum, “Notes on the History of Joseph (CAVT 113, 114) and the Death of Joseph (CAVT 116, 117),” Apocrypha 28 (2017), p. 233–237. [Discusses the (Copto-)Arabic versions of these two texts, known in Ethiopic.]
A.M. Butts, “From Syriac to Arabic to Ethiopic: Loci of Change in Transmission,” in R.B. Finazzi, F. Forte, C. Milani & M. Moriggi (ed.), Circolazione di testi e superamento delle barriere linguistiche e culturali nelle tradizioni orientali (Orientalia Ambrosiana 7), Milan, 2021, p. 21–57. [Notes the importance of the Ethiopic versions for editions of Christian Arabic texts (p. 56, n. 113).]
*D. Elagina, “The Chronicle of John of Nikiu: Its Arabic Vorlage and Its Afterlife in Ethiopia,” in M. Diez (ed.), History Writing, 2021, p. 271–291. [Composed in Coptic and preserved in Ethiopic, what can be said about the lost Arabic intermediary?]
A.Y. Sidarus, “Ethiopian Translations of Medieval Coptic Arabic Historiography: New Insights and Future Tasks,” JACI 2 (2016), p. 369–380. [Helpful survey with generous bibliography.]
A. Suciu & A. Tefera, “The Ethiopic Version of Stephen the Theban’s Sermo Asceticus,” Le Muséon 132 (2019), p. 475–507. [Edition of the text with analysis. Originally written in Coptic; the Ge’ez is translated from Arabic.]
+*U. Zanetti, “The Ethiopian Short Life of John of Scetis (Seventh Century),” in D. Nosnitsin (ed.), Veneration of Saints, 2015, p. 221–232. [Study of the epitome in MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Or. fol. 117; includes evidence of its translation from Arabic.]
Notes de bas de page
1Vatican Library: DVL digvatlib, https://digi.vatlib.it.
2Bibliothèque nationale de France, Gallica: https://gallica.bnf.fr.
3Hill Monastic Manuscript Library: https://www.vhmml.org.
4For example, as I learned from Pilette 2020 (see section “History and historiography” in the bibliography): images of MS Munich, BSB Cod.arab. 2570, critical for the study of the History of the Churches and Monasteries of Egypt, are available at the website of the Munich Digitization Center (MDZ): https:///digitale-sammlungen.de.
5Universität Bonn, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek: https://digitale-sammlungen.ulb.uni-bonn.de —a collection without which an article such as Swanson 2021 (see section “Introductions and surveys” in the bibliography) would not have been possible.
6E.g., Codicologia, CNRS, IRHT (Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes): https://codicologia.irht.cnrs.fr.
7See, e.g., E.C. Kropf, “Will that Surrogate Do?: Reflections on Material Manuscript Literacy in the Digital Environment from Islamic Manuscripts at the University of Michigan Library,” Manuscript Studies 1.1 (2017), p. 52–70; L.W.C. van Lit, Among Digitized Manuscripts: Philology, Codicology, Paleography in the Digital World (Handbook of Oriental Studies 1.137), Leiden, 2020, https://brill.com/display/title/56196.
8Most of the bibliographical entries are accompanied by a brief note in brackets that provides information supplementing the title.
9See section “History and historiography” in the bibliography.
10I have been told that a one-volume edition is planned.
11Mikhail 2017 (section “History and historiography” in the bibliography), chapter 7. The quotation is from p. 88.
12See section “Bible” in the bibliography.
13An English translation of Bishop Epiphanius’ edition has now been published: Bulus al-Bushi, Commentary on the Apocalypse, translated by Shadi K. Nessim (St. Macarius Press, 2023). This volume is one tribute, among others, to a beloved monastic leader, teacher, and scholar. Bishop Epiphanius (1954–2018) is represented by several items in the bibliography (in sections “Bible,” “Liturgy,” and “Copto-Arabic authors, books, treatises composed in Arabic” in the bibliography).
14See the website Biblia Arabica: The Bible in Arabic among Jews, Christians and Muslims, https://biblia-arabica.com.
15Listed in section “Copto-Arabic authors, books, treatises composed in Arabic” in the bibliography.
16See section “Hagiography” in the bibliography.
17And on St. Paul the Hermit. Agaiby provides an edition and English translation of the Copto-Arabic Life of St. Paul the Hermit (attributed to Athanasius of Alexandria and to be distinguished from Jerome’s Latin Life) in Chapter 9 of Agaiby 2025.
18See section «Liturgy» in the bibliography.
19See pp. 77–116 in this volume.
20See section “Church fathers and monastic teachers” in the bibliography.
21In section “Hagiography” in the bibliography.
22See section “History and historiography” in the bibliography.
23See section “Copto-Arabic authors, books, treatises composed in Arabic” in the bibliography.
24See my remarks in my 2016 report.
25I used this phrase, which is the name of an online Brill journal, in my Claremont Congress report.
26See J.-M. Sauget, Une collection d’homélies pour les Fêtes du Seigneur : étude comparée des mss. Vatican arabes 81-82 et Beyrouth 509 (Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 371. Memorie Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche ser. 8, 17.7), Roma, 1974; S.K. Samir, “Un nouveau témoin de la ‘Collection arabe d’homélies pour les Fêtes du Seigneur’, le codex Le Caire, Musée Coptes, Théologie 395,” Muséon 89 (1976), p. 91-95.
27Note other references to translations from Arabic into Latin in the bibliography: the Arabic Life of Antony attributed to Serapion of Thmuis (ed. L. Agaiby; see section “Hagiography” in the bibliography) was translated into Latin and influenced the West’s image of the saint; while A. Tsuji considers the place of Acre and Cyprus in the transmission of texts between Latin and Copto-Arabic (in section “Language” in the bibliography.).
28See section “Canons” in the bibliography.
29Several volumes are included in previous bibliographies.
30It would be wonderful if someone could create an introductory volume for Copto-Arabic canonical literature parallel to A. Mikhail’s introduction to Copto-Arabic liturgical literature in his Guides to the Eucharist in Medieval Egypt (see section “Liturgy” in the bibliography.).
31See section “Linguistics” in the bibliography.
32See section “On to Ethiopia” in the bibliography.
33T. Abraha strongly supports that this is a genuine work of Sāwīrus; Abraha 2017b.
34S.J. Davis poured much labor into the indices of the Catalogue of Coptic and Arabic Manuscripts in Dayr al-Suryān, and the many photographs provide a wealth of material for study.
35I am happy to note the (Australian) University of Divinity-funded project “Watermarks: The Key to Dating and Validating Manuscript Production” as a part of St. Athanasius College’s St. Paul’s Monastery Manuscript Project, under the direction of L. Agaiby; Koinonia: The News of SAC 10 (December 2022), p. 30, https://sac.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/SAC-Koinonia-2022.pdf.
36I know from my own experience: terms like naskhī or naskh can be used so frequently (for just about any Arabic Christian hand other than the ninth-eleventh century Kūfī-like scripts from Sinai and Palestine) that they are almost meaningless; and then my temptation has been to qualify this with adjectives that are somewhat speculative (“practiced,” “professional,” “scribal”) or descriptive but not very well defined (“fluid,” “cramped,” “elegant”). How can we do better? I note that V. Six occasionally used technical terms such as rayḥānī, nastaʿliq, taʿlīq etc. to describe the handwriting of manuscript fragments, but with the qualification that these designations “sind nur ein grober, genereller Hinweis auf den Schriftcharakter…;” Six 2017, vol. 1, p. 40.
37Mīṣāʾīl al-Baramūsī 2020 (see section “Liturgy” in the bibliography); Moawad 2022 (see section “Copto-Arabic authors, books and treatises composed in Arabic” in the bibliography).
38Other journals that have come to my attention that may have articles on Copto-Arabic topics include Majallat al-Ṣakhrah al-Qibṭiyyah (CRJCS, since 2014, from the Monastery of St. Macarius in al-Fayyūm); the Bulletin of Abba Athanasius for Christian Studies (BACS), from 2019 —I have only seen volume 1.1— from the bishopric in Beni Suef; and Coptica Alexandrina, since 2021, from the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. The Center for Middle Eastern Studies of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo (CMES – ETSC) is planning a new journal, Awrāq Sharqiyyah.
39Here, by the way, I would like to express my appreciation for the work of ʿA. Wadi, who has long been reading texts carefully and offering corrections to details given in the standard reference works.
40S.K. Samir, “Bibliographie copte à l’époque médiévale (1982-1988),” in M. Rassart-Debergh & J. Ries (ed.), Actes du IVe Congrès Copte, Louvain-la-Neuve, 5-10 septembre 1988, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1992, vol. 2, p. 82–85.
41See the Bibliography, footnote 1, for a list of my bibliographies.
42Kessel and Seleznyov 2010–2016 (1.1). For a remembrance of Nikolai Seleznyov (and bibliography), see Furman 2021 (1.1).
Auteur
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Mark Swanson
Mark N. Swanson is the Harold S. Vogelaar Professor of Christian-Muslim Studies and Interfaith Relations at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. His areas of expertise include Islam and Christian-Muslim relations as well as Copto-Arabic literature. He is the author of The Coptic Papacy in Islamic Egypt (641–1517) (2010, 2022) and he produced bibliographies of Copto-Arabic studies for the IACS now covering a quarter century (1996–2022). He co-edited the Christian Arabic section of the Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History (vol. 1–5, 2009–2014).
Mark N. Swanson est titulaire de la chaire Harold S. Vogelaar en études islamo-chrétiennes et relations interconfessionnelles à la Lutheran School of Theology de Chicago. Ses domaines d’expertise comprennent l’islam et les relations islamo-chrétiennes, ainsi que la littérature copto-arabe. Il est l’auteur de The Coptic Papacy in Islamic Egypt (641-1517) (2010, 2022) et a produit les bibliographies d’études copto-arabes pour l’IACS depuis un quart de siècle (1996-2022). Il a co-édité la section consacrée à la littérature arabe chrétienne de l’ouvrage Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History (vol. 1-5, 2009-2013).
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
D’Homère à Érasme
La transmission des classiques grecs et latins
Leighton D Reynolds et Nigel G. Wilson Luigi-Alberto Sanchi et Aude Cohen-Skalli (trad.)
2021
Magikon zōon
Animal et magie dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge
Jean-Charles Coulon et Korshi Dosoo (dir.)
2022
Une autre histoire
Histoire, temps et passé dans les Vies et Passions latines (IVe-XIe siècle)
Marie-Céline Isaïa
2023
Voies et voix de la philologie classique
Éditer les textes anciens : comment et pour quel public ?
François Bougard, Dario Mantovani et Luigi-Alberto Sanchi (dir.)
2025
Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Coptic Studies (Brussels, 11–16 July 2022)
Volume I. Plenary Papers
Alain Delattre, Élodie Mazy, Perrine Pilette et al. (dir.)
2025
D’Homère à Érasme
La transmission des classiques grecs et latins
Leighton D Reynolds et Nigel G. Wilson Luigi-Alberto Sanchi et Aude Cohen-Skalli (trad.)
2021
Magikon zōon
Animal et magie dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge
Jean-Charles Coulon et Korshi Dosoo (dir.)
2022
Une autre histoire
Histoire, temps et passé dans les Vies et Passions latines (IVe-XIe siècle)
Marie-Céline Isaïa
2023
Voies et voix de la philologie classique
Éditer les textes anciens : comment et pour quel public ?
François Bougard, Dario Mantovani et Luigi-Alberto Sanchi (dir.)
2025
Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Coptic Studies (Brussels, 11–16 July 2022)
Volume I. Plenary Papers
Alain Delattre, Élodie Mazy, Perrine Pilette et al. (dir.)
2025
