The Canons of Apa John the Archimandrite

One of the most important Coptic heritages preserved from the first millennium AD until today is the library of the so-called White Monastery in Sohag, Upper Egypt, also known as the Monastery of Apa Shenoute (ca. 361/62- 465). The White Monastery library is highly important for Coptic Studies due to its large quantity of Sahidic parchments (ca. 10 000 leaves), their literary richness and the variety of manuscripts dating back to the time between 9th and 12th c. The present project focuses on the works of a less known Coptic author, Apa John the Archimandrite, who is supposed to be a successor of Apa Shenoute and Apa Besa, the most famous Archimandrites of the White Monastery. Apa John`s canons are preserved on parchments from the 10th -11th c. from the White Monastery library. The aim of the project is to identify, edit, translate and study the canons of Apa John the Archimandrite. For this purpose, the scattered leaves and fragments of Apa John`s canons in diverse libraries all over the world will be examined to ascertain whether or not they belong together. At the moment there are 200 known pages with works of Apa John and the page number is expected to increase significantly. The virtually regathered leaves of a MS will be prepared as a diplomatic edition and commented upon, the palaeographical or textual specifics will be placed as footnotes on each page. Each manuscript will be translated into English indicating the Greek loan words and commented upon, considering the biblical citations or quotations of Coptic or Greek authors (e.g. Apa Shenoute or Athanasius of Alexandria). Last but not least, the works of Apa John will be investigated to find out more about the person who stands behind the name Apa John the Archimandrite, and about his writing style. The codicological analysis of the main sources, an index of the Coptic vocabulary divided into two parts for those words of Egyptian origin, and for those of Greek origin, as well as a register and the relevant bibliography should complete the study. For designation of the manuscripts the project uses the sigla of the Corpus dei Manoscritti Copti Letterari, Rome (= CMCL), directed by Tito Orlandi. The project will make a contribution to the investigation of the canons of Apa John the Archimandrite and to the structure and language of the genre "canon" in Coptic Christian literature of the first millennium. For the first time it will provide a complete diplomatic edition with an English translation of these canons. It will help to explore, preserve and illuminate the heritage of the White Monastery as well as the Coptic tradition as a whole. The research institution is the Department of Biblical Studies and Ecclesiastical History of the Paris-Lodron- University of Salzburg.

One of the most important Coptic heritages preserved from the first millennium AD until today is the library of the so-called White Monastery in Sohag, Upper Egypt. The White Monastery library is highly important for Coptology due to its large quantity of Sahidic parchments (ca. 10, 000 leaves), their literary richness and the variety of manuscripts date back to the time between the 8th and 12th centuries. The present project focuses on the works of a lesser known Coptic author, Apa John the Archimandrite, who is a successor of Shenoute and Besa, the most famous archimandrites of the White Monastery. Archaeological and liturgical sources let assume that Apa John led the monastery either in the 6th or the 7th century. He addressed the members of the monastic community with his canons which contain threats of punishment and warnings of judgment for sinners. Some of them made prayer, fasting, and obedience a subject of discussion, while others opened with a list of virtues by which Christs reward may be received. There are no extant witnesses to his discourses or his letters. This situation most probably reflects the insufficient stage of preservation of the manuscripts. Apa Johns canons are preserved on parchment manuscripts from the 8th-11th centuries from the White Monastery library. Discovered to date are 206 surviving leaves and fragments. They belonged to five codices for which designation the project uses the sigla of the Corpus dei Manoscritti Copti Letterari (Tito Orlandi) MONB.FA, MONB.OD, MONB.XQ, MONB.YI, MONB.ZK. The parchment codices MONB.XQ and MONB.ZK are from the ca. 8th-9th centuries, while the parchment codices MONB.FA, MONB.OD, and MONB.YI can be dated approximately into the 10th-11th centuries. The project makes a contribution to the investigation into the canons of Apa John the Archimandrite and to the structure and language of the genre canon in Coptic Christian literature of the first millennium. It will provide a first complete diplomatic edition with an English translation of these canons. It helps to explore, preserve, and illuminate the heritage of the White Monastery as well as the Coptic tradition as a whole. Last but not least the project delivers important data for Digital Humanities in Coptology. The diplomatic edition of the canons can be now accessed online: http://coptot.manuscriptroom.com/web/apa-johannes/codices. The results of the research will be used in two other Coptic project linked to the Digital Humanities:Coptic Scriptorium http://copticscriptorium.org and KELLIA http://copticscriptorium.org/kellia. The research institution that carried out the project from 2011 until 2015 was the Department of Biblical Studies and Ecclesiastical History of the Paris-Lodron-University of Salzburg.