‘The Power of Michael Protected Him’: A New Fragment of the Coptic Martyrdom of Apa Nahroou

Authors

  • Hugo Lundhaug The Faculty of Theology

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5617/clara.v1i0.2959

Keywords:

Hagiography, White Monastery

Abstract

This article describes item C47704, a fragment of a Coptic parchment codex, which can be identified as White Monastery Codex ET, containing a hitherto unattested part of the Martyrdom of Apa Nahroou. It is argued that the codex was probably manufactured at the Touton scriptorium in the Fayum in the tenth century and used by the monks at the White Monastery in Upper Egypt. The preserved fragment is a part of the narration of the torture of Apa Nahroou at the hands of emperor Diocletian, and seems to fit in as the first of the series of presently identified leaves of Codex ET containing this text. The present fragment attests to a typical Coptic Martyrdom account, and to the prominence of Michael the Archangel in the Coptic literary tradition. The article includes an edition of the Coptic text of the fragment with an English translation.

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