I am pleased to introduce the reader to this volume, Sahidic Coptic Leviticus: Its Manuscript Witnesses and Its Text. I first met Antonia St Demiana in 2010 at the Institut français d’archéologie orientale library in Cairo where we were both undertaking research. She had learned coincidentally that I was at the IFAO and asked to meet me, and I have since followed her work with interest.
Like most Sahidic Coptic versions of the Old Testament books, that of Leviticus had not yet been the subject of a critical edition or systematic study. Antonia undertook this task for her doctoral dissertation, and the resulting book offers a detailed presentation of the manuscripts, an edition of the main witness with a critical apparatus, and an analysis of the characteristics of the Coptic translation.
There are ten witnesses of Sahidic Coptic Leviticus, six of which are proper biblical manuscripts. Given the fragmentary state of most of these witnesses—only one is complete—and their dispersion in numerous collections around the world, one can only admire the results obtained. To get an idea of the extreme dispersion of the manuscripts from the White Monastery of Upper Egypt, I direct the reader to plates 1–8, in Chapter 3: the main parts of several leaves are in Cambridge, while the inner bottom corners, restored to their original position by the author, are preserved in various volumes in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. This sheds light both on the brutality of the dismemberment process, which probably occurred, or was accelerated, in the last third of the 19th century, and on the complexities of the work carried out here.
Efforts to reconstitute the codices of the White Monastery began at the beginning of the 20th century, and the biblical manuscripts received particular attention. In this meticulous reconstruction, the author succeeds brilliantly in providing thorough documentation, supported by numerous tables and illustrations. Codicology enthusiasts will appreciate the exhaustive rigour of the descriptions. I would particularly like to emphasise the progress made in dating the manuscripts—a notoriously hazardous undertaking—thanks to the use of external criteria which makes it possible to envisage a chronology of the strictly biblical witnesses between the beginning of the 7th and end of the 10th centuries, as well as the identification of a ‘relay copyist’ situation in Codex C (where a second copyist takes over from the main copyist for almost an entire column of text).
The entire Sahidic Coptic version of Leviticus is attested by a complete manuscript kept at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York (MLM M566, Codex A in the edition). This codex, also containing Numbers and Deuteronomy, comes from a monastery in the Fayum, whose manuscripts did not suffer the same damage as those in the White Monastery. Although codicologically complete, its text displays numerous omissions and errors. In addition, in the parallel passages with the fragmentary witnesses, there are many differences, especially of a lexical nature, which often cannot be defined as better or worse. What type of edition should be chosen in such conditions? The author presents a semi-diplomatic edition of Codex A, with a sophisticated critical apparatus that gives access to the variants of the other witnesses. These variants do not detract from the unitary character of the Coptic translation. This semi-diplomatic edition will form the basis for a true critical edition, requiring a standardisation of spelling and language, as well as an assessment of the ‘best’ readings, but this probably remains in the realm of the ideal, given the state of the documentation. The author’s English translation, placed opposite each page, makes it easier to read a text whose content is austere, if not tedious, as Origen already recognised.
Antonia’s excellent analysis of the characteristics of this translation, using a highly effective theoretical arsenal, leads to a clear conclusion: “it can be said that Sahidic Leviticus is a reader-oriented, rather than source-oriented, translation, but literal in its representation of Greek phraseologies and idioms”. This is borne out by the large number of glosses, explanations and simplifications. Here again we see the perplexity of the translator(s) due to the multiple lexical derivations and elliptical syntax of Greek, which itself is translated from Hebrew with its fundamentally different genius. The index of glosses in Appendix 9 is particularly illuminating on this point. Moreover, the Sahidic translation had to be updated on several occasions. As the author notes, Codex A perhaps bears witness to such a type of revision activity that could be found in other biblical manuscripts copied in the same region at the same time; it is indeed an idea worth exploring.
Regarding a study of textual criticism leading to an assessment of the place of the Sahidic Coptic version in the Greek tradition, Antonia St Demiana points out that such an assessment is premature and requires a textual analysis that would be the subject of another volume. Here she provides not only the tools to do so, but also many avenues to explore. This monograph is a fine addition to the corpus of work on the Coptic Bible.
Anne Boud’hors
Directrice de recherche, CNRS (France)