Storyworlds in Transition: Coptic Apocrypha in Changing Contexts in the Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods

Project Information

APOCRYPHA

Grant agreement ID: 865971

DOI

10.3030/865971

Project closed

EC signature date 16 March 2020

Start date 1 August 2020

End date 30 April 2026

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 998 626,00

EU contribution

€ 1 998 626,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - APOCRYPHA (Storyworlds in Transition: Coptic Apocrypha in Changing Contexts in the Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods)

Reporting period: 2023-08-01 to 2025-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

A great number of apocryphal texts and traditions has been preserved in late-antique and medieval Coptic manuscripts from Egypt. Although the use of apocrypha was at times controversial, the surviving evidence indicates the widespread use of such literature in monasteries across Egypt throughout the entire period of Coptic literary production. Indeed, the manuscripts in which this literature has been preserved seem to have been almost exclusively produced in monasteries. The APOCRYPHA project investigates the contents, development, and functions of Coptic apocrypha over time in changing historical and socio-religious contexts, covering their production, use, and transmission.

This project studies Coptic apocrypha as transnarrative, transmedial, and transauthorial products of Egyptian Christianity. It approaches the material evidence using theories and methods inspired by a combination of material philology, literary and media studies perspectives, cognitive science, and digital humanities. In contrast with common and traditional approaches to apocrypha, this project treats Coptic apocrypha, across traditional chronological boundaries, as major contributors to dynamic and ongoing processes of world-building. The project looks at the processes by which the apocrypha extend, develop, and adapt the biblical storyworld in ways that were profoundly coupled with, and which had important ramifications for, the beliefs and practices of Egyptian Christians over a thousand-year period stretching from late antique and Byzantine times until the early Islamic period. This is thus the first systematic study of Coptic apocrypha covering the entire timespan of Coptic literary production.

The period covered by the project saw drastic changes in the religious landscape of Egypt, from a time when Christianity had a dominant position in Egypt, and Alexandrian Christianity was a leading voice in Christianity as a whole, through processes of marginalization following the council of Chalcedon in 451 and the Arab conquest of Egypt in the seventh century. The project investigates how the apocryphal texts and traditions developed and how changing historical and religious contexts are reflected in them. How did the apocrypha contribute to adapting the biblical storyworld to changing needs and circumstances? How did these texts and traditions change, and what functions did they have for their users throughout the period under investigation?

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project has so far been implemented according to plan. First and foremost, the project has achieved what is likely to be very close to a complete overview of all apocryphal works in the Coptic language and the manuscripts in which they have been preserved. Information on all manuscripts, texts, and works have been systematically gathered, and working definitions and typologies have been established, fine-tuned, and implemented. A database has been designed and established, and metadata entry on works, texts, and manuscripts are now close to complete. Advanced tools of data analysis (network analysis, statistical analysis, and data visualization) have also been implemented. Together, this work greatly facilitates the study of Coptic apocrypha on a hitherto unprecedented scale, enabling the comparison of a large number of manuscripts and texts across multiple centuries of literary production and circulation, as well as comprehensive analyses of the development of apocryphal texts and themes over time.

The gathering of content elements of the apocryphal texts is ongoing, including among other things information on biblical and non-biblical characters, as well as storyworld places and events, across the corpus. Analysis of various individual works, manuscripts, characters, events, genre structures, and shared features are also ongoing, and the project has studied and theorized the narrative structures of Coptic apocrypha and literary practices of pseudepigraphy and fictional references in them, focusing on reception, functions, and effects rather than on authorship or intentions. The project has also made progress with regard to charting the points where the apocryphal extensions and elaborations of the biblical storyworld intersect with and incorporate elements and structures from other religions, as well as instances of polemics both within and against apocrypha.

The project has moreover studied the contexts of production and use of Coptic apocrypha and has been able to establish that many apocryphal works were used, copied, and read in monastic contexts, and that they were read there during liturgical feast days. It has also been possible to show how magical practices and apocrypha were interconnected and influenced each other. It has been found not only that apocryphal works frequently describe magical practices, but also that magical texts make use of apocryphal materials. Moreover, it has been confirmed that the same monastics who produced apocrypha could also write magical texts.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project operates with a broad and innovative definition of apocrypha as texts and traditions that elaborate or expand upon characters or events of the biblical storyworld, and employs an unprecedented multi-methodological approach in analyzing them, combining Coptology, literary theory, media studies, cognitive science, and digital humanities. The design and contents of the APOCRYPHA database and the implementation of advanced data analysis tools and a unique typology of Coptic apocrypha have already moved the study of Coptic apocrypha well beyond the state of the art, and ongoing development promises to enhance this aspect even further as more information on the contents of the individual apocryphal texts is entered into the database. The way in which rich metadata and content data on the entire corpus has been systematized in the APOCRYPHA database ensures that it will be an indispensable tool for any research in this area for years to come.

The corpus of Coptic apocrypha that the project has been able to identify has turned out to be significantly larger than originally anticipated, comprising close to 20% of all known literary works in the Coptic language. The project’s work of identifying these works and the manuscripts in which they have been preserved is thus a significant achievement.

Moreover, breakthroughs made by the project when it comes to the conceptualization of the category of apocrypha and the ways in which these works are transnarratively connected to the canonical biblical texts in dynamic ways that make the resulting biblical storyworld understandable as a complex adaptive network, constitute major advances that also promise to significantly contribute to scholarship on apocrypha in general and not only Coptic apocrypha in particular.

In summary, the project already provides a far more complete overview of the extent of apocryphal literary production in Coptic Egypt than has previously been the case, and our understanding of the nature and function of apocrypha in monastic contexts in general, and in relation to liturgical, ascetic, and magical practices in particular, have been significantly enriched. The picture that will emerge by the end of the project, of the development of Coptic apocrypha over time, looks set to be far richer and should contribute significantly to our understanding of Egyptian Christianity and its relationship with the other religions of Egypt during this formative period.

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