The volume contains a critical review of data, results and open problems concerning the principal Greek and Coptic majuscule bookhands, based on previous research of the author, revised and updated to offer an overview of the different graphic phenomena. Although the various chapters address the history of different types of scripts (i.e. biblical majuscule, sloping poitend majuscule, liturgical majuscule, epigraphic and monumental scripts), their juxtaposition allows us to identify common issues of the comparative method of palaeography. From an overall critical assessment of these aspects the impossibility of applying a unique historical paradigm to interpret the formal expressions and the history of the different bookhands comes up, due to the fact that each script follows different paths. Particular attention is also devoted to the use of Greek majuscules in the writing of ancient Christian books. A modern and critical awareness of palaeographic method may help to place the individual witnesses in the context of the main graphic trends, in the social and cultural environments in which they developed, and in a more accurate chronological framework.

The incomplete state in which many Coptic writings have survived makes them difficult to assess, and the text studied in this book is no exception. Preserved in two fragmentary manuscripts, the Berlin-Strasbourg-Apocryphon - previously known as the Gospel of the Savior - has been wrongly identified as a second-century gospel which was bypassed in the formation of the Christian canon. Alin Suciu demonstrates that this misunderstanding of the text derives from an insufficient knowledge of Coptic literature. Rather, the Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon is one of the numerous "apostolic memoirs," a peculiar genre of Coptic literature which consists of writings allegedly written by the apostles, often embedded in sermons attributed to famous church fathers. These texts were composed following the Council of Chalcedon, as part of the attempt of the emerging Coptic church to mold its identity after the schism.

Shenoute of Atripe led the White Monastery, a community of several thousand male and female Coptic monks in Upper Egypt, between approximately 395 and 465 C.E. Shenoute's letters, sermons, and treatises—one of the most detailed bodies of writing to survive from any early monastery—provide an unparalleled resource for the study of early Christian monasticism and asceticism. In Monastic Bodies, Caroline Schroeder offers an in-depth examination of the asceticism practiced at the White Monastery using diverse sources, including monastic rules, theological treatises, sermons, and material culture. Schroeder details Shenoute's arduous disciplinary code and philosophical structure, including the belief that individual sin corrupted not only the individual body but the entire "corporate body" of the community. Thus the purity of the community ultimately depended upon the integrity of each individual monk. Shenoute's ascetic discourse focused on purity of the body, but he categorized as impure not only activities such as sex but any disobedience and other more general transgressions. Shenoute emphasized the important practices of discipline, or askesis, in achieving this purity. Contextualizing Shenoute within the wider debates about asceticism, sexuality, and heresy that characterized late antiquity, Schroeder compares his views on bodily discipline, monastic punishments, the resurrection of the body, the incarnation of Christ, and monastic authority with those of figures such as Cyril of Alexandria, Paulinus of Nola, and Pachomius.

This collection of studies in honor of Francois Bovon highlights the rich diversity found within early expressions of Christianity as evidenced in ancient texts, in early traditions and movements, and in archaic symbols and motifs.

This volume presents a first publication of the entire collection of literary Coptic manuscripts in the A. S. Pushkin State Fine Arts Museum in Moscow. This collection of Coptic mss. is the most important in Russia, leaving far behind those of the National Library and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The mss. were brought together between 1870 and 1907 by the distinguished Russian Egyptologist Vladimir Golenischev. The collection, comprising 61 items, derives in part from the famous White Monastery's Library near Achmim. It represents all the genres characteristic of Coptic literature: Vitae, martyrdoms, legends, encomia, homilies, didactic works, treatises, discourses, polemic works, poetical pieces, pseudepigrapha, as well as the Coptic versions of the Bible (fragments). Some of the mss. are of exceptional importance, such as a fourth-century fragment of Luke's Gospel and a cosmogonical theological treatise dealing with the symbolism of baptism.

The congresses organised every four years under the auspices of the International Association for Coptic Studies (IACS) are the main forum for scholars of Egyptian Christian life and culture through the ages. The proceedings of the seventh congress, which was held in Leiden in 2000, comprise ninety-nine papers, reflecting the growth and diversification of Coptic studies worldwide. They include valuable and sometimes groundbreaking essays in topics of, for example, Coptic language, literature, monasticism and archaeology. A particularly noteworthy and important feature of the present proceedings are the state-of-the-art reviews of current trends and achievements in the main fields of the discipline, written by invited experts and accompanied by extensive bibliographies. These review articles cover aspects of Coptic studies as diverse as papyrology, gnosticism, liturgy, Copto-Arabic and art history. They turn these two volumes into real reference books, indispensable for every scholar of early Church history, late antiquity and Near Eastern Christianity.

Compose originellement en grec vers la fin du IIIe ou le debut du IVe siecle, probablement a Alexandrie, ce traite reflete des traditions mythologiques qui sont exposees de facon plus ample et plus precise dans les textes appartenant au groupe des textes sethiens platonisants, notamment Allogene et Zostrien. La maniere dont Marsanes reprend ces traditions mythologiques permet de le situer au terme de l'evolution litteraire attestee par ces textes. Marsanes est l'un des plus mal preserves des cinquante-quatre traites de la bibliotheque de Nag Hammadi. L'intention du traite est d'etablir l'autorite de Marsanes comme prophete, voyant et chef spirituel de sa communaute, et de presenter un enseignement detaille sur les principes premiers de la theologie sethienne, notamment sur la nature et la destinee de l'ame. Ce qui est particulier a Marsanes, c'est son souci de reveler les 'appellations' correctes des anges et des dieux, ainsi que des puissances planetaires et cosmiques qui controlent la destinee de l'ame, d'ou un interet tres grand pour les categories grammaticales et astrologiques. D'autre part, le traite est parseme d'exhortations qui montrent bien la relation etablie par l'auteur entre la connaissance qu'il communique a ses auditeurs et leur acces au salut. Le traite Marsanes presente une dette tres grande envers la tradition grecque, qu'il s'agisse des theories grammaticales, des speculations astrologiques et arithmologiques ou de la philosophie. Sur ce dernier plan, Marsanes se revele etonnament proche de philosophes neoplatoniciens comme Jamblique et Theodore d'Asinee. Le present volume offre une introduction developpee au traite Marsanes, un texte copte nouvellement etabli, une traduction francaise, le premier commentaire a etre consacre a cet ouvrage, ainsi qu'un 'index verborum' complet.