Acknowledgements
In preparing this edition I relied on the help of a great many friends and scholars. I was particularly dependent on the collaboration of Wadi Awad and the advice and information generously provided by Salima Ikram and Nicholas Warner in Cairo, Noel Malcolm at Oxford, and Maurits van den Boogert and Arnoud Vrolijk in Leiden. My special thanks go to Alessandro Bausi, Asaph Ben Tov, Marie-Geneviève Guesdon, and Jan Loop, and I would also like to thank my editors at Brill, Franca de Kort and Renee Otto, as well as Tedros Abraha, Pierre Augustin, Jenny Boyle, Christopher Braun, Sebastian Brock, Charles Burnett, Colin Clement, Humphrey Davies, Nabil Farouk, Thomas Freller, René-Vincent du Grandlaunay, James Heidel, Bernard Heyberger, Robert Irwin, Rudolf de Jong, Michele Lamprakos, Kathrin Machinek, Jacques Masson, Delphine Mercuzot, Marleen de Meyer, Nicholas Michel, Simon Mills, Luitgard Mols, Maria Pia Pedani, Rosario Pintaudi, Giovanni Pizzorusso, Géraud Poumarède, Francis Richard, Cesare Santus, Maria Skordi, Sebastian Sobecki, Gerald Toomer, Joanna Weinberg and Harco Willems. For the preliminary work that this edition required I am deeply grateful to the Warburg Institute, to its former director Charles Hope for his advice and encouragement, and to Jill Kraye for the help she has constantly given me. My special thanks are also due to the library of the Nederlands-Vlaams Instituut in Cairo. For the final stages of this edition I benefited from the immense generosity of the American University in Cairo and the sponsors of the Chair of Coptic Studies.