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Some Coptic Legends about Roman Emperors
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
I venture to call the attention of classical scholars to two legends about Roman Emperors gleaned amid the arid waste of theological nonsense which passed for literature among the Copts, in the hope that they may have better luck than I have had in tracing them to some classical source. The first is taken from MS. Par. Copte 131, fol. 40, a single leaf of what seems to be a geographical and historical encyclopaedia.1 The writer who is treating in a very discursive way of Ethiopia, states that Nero or Domitian—a strange pair to run in double harness—caused an island in the Red Sea to be watered with oil. The description of that island is mixed up with a mention of the original divisions of the Indians—a term which as usual in early days embraces both Indians and Ethiopians,—and their subsequent changes; and as that too may be of interest to students of ancient geography, I will translate the passage in full.
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page 218 note 1 Mr. W. E. Crum has kindly pointed out to me, since I wrote this article, that this leaf is a fragment of the De Gemmis of Epiphanius. The Coptic text, of which other fragments have been published by Crum (Catalogue of the Coptic MSS. in the Brit. Mus. No. 180) and Zoega (Cat. Codd. Copt. Borg No. 255), is very much fuller than the Greek text, and No. 255, is very much fuller than the Greek text, and No. 255, is very much fuller than the Greek text, and No. 255, is very much fuller than the Greek text, and in places fuller even than the expanded Latin version. This passage corresponds to coll. 296 (Gr. text) and 328–331 (Lat. text) of Migne's ed. of Epiphanius (Patr. Gr. 43). The whole passage about the Indians is omitted in the Greek.
page 218 note 2 The word used is the Greek adjective σνατ⋯γδινον.
page 218 note 3 Dittenberger, Orientis Gr. Inscriptiones sekctae (Leipz. 1903), vol. i. Nos. 199, 200.
page 219 note 1 Ammianus Marcellinus xxii., 7, 10.
page 219 note 2 They might however be compared with the Debae or Debedae who according to Diodorus. Siculus (iii. 44) were an Arab tribe inhabiting the coast of the Red Sea a little to the north of Mecca. The Latin text in one place reads Diberii, in another Dibeni; and instead of Lentibenoi it has Liberii.
page 219 note 3 Genesis ii. 11.
page 219 note 4 Ptol. vi. 7, 41 and Dillmann's Genesis.
page 219 note 5 Ptol. iv. 5, 29. Pliny, N.H. v. 9, 11 and xxxvii. 8, 108. The Latin text reads Alabastri.
page 220 note 1 Pliny N. H. vi. 33, apparently drawing his information from Juba, mentions only two islands in the Red Sea, Sapirine and Scytale. It looks as though Sapirine was another name for this island: but Ptolemy iv. 5, 35 notices as Σαπϕειρ⋯νη ν⋯σος, which he distinguishes from ’Aγ⋯θωνος ν⋯σος.
page 220 note 2 Geogr. Gr. Min. i. p. 170.
page 220 note 3 Strabo xvi. 4, 6. He too calls it ’Oϕιώδης.
page 220 note 4 According to the Greek and Latin texts it was oil turned green by preservation in copper vessels which was used to improve the colour of the stones.
page 220 note 5 An abstract of the life of Psote is given in Amelineau's Actes des Martyrs Copies. The encomium on Theodore (Vat. Copte 65 ff. 30–98) I hope shortly to publish myself. The story is also found in many of the martyrdoms published in Hyvernat's Actes des Martyrs de I'Egypte, and in the Ethiopic versions published by Pereira.
page 221 note 1 What emperor is a little doubtful. Kondelianus is the name given in the Acts of Psote, but other passages suggest Numerian.
page 221 note 2 Revue Critique, Annee 42, No. 41 (13 Oct. 1908), pp. 274–6.
page 222 note 1 The archbishop is generally nameless in the texts, though once or twice he is called Gaius or Acacius, neither of whom were archbishops at that date. Cyril must be intended.
page 222 note 2 Peeters in the Analecta Bollandiana (xxvii. Bruxelles, 1908, pp. 69–73) regards the story as an attack on the Chalcedonian clergy, though the events took place long before the council of Chalcedon.