Cover Page. The handle holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation.

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1 Cover Page The handle holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation. Author: Hacken, Clara Elisabeth ten Title: The Legend of Saint Aūr and the monastery of Naqlūn : the Copto-Arabic texts Issue Date:

2 THE LEGEND OF SAINT AŪR AND THE MONASTERY OF NAQLŪN The Copto-Arabic texts In a country in the East a certain king kept a famous magician called Abrašīt at his court. This magician fell in love with the king's daughter, who bore him an illegitimate son whom she named Aūr. For eight years the queen kept the boy hidden in her apartments. When the king discovered his identity, Abrašīt was forced to take his two elder sons and Aūr and flee the court. Guided by the Archangel Gabriel they arrived at the Fayyūm in Egypt, where the family settled in the desert of Naqlūn and grew prosperous practising the arts of magic. The father died some five months after their arrival. Following miraculous appearances of the Virgin Mary and the archangels Michael and Gabriel they converted to Christianity and Aūr started building a church in honour of Gabriel. In the meantime the king of the country in the East had been succeeded by his son, who yielded to his mother s request for the return of her grandson Aūr. With great joy Aūr was welcomed at the court. After a stay of one month Aūr wished to return to finish building the church. Loaded with gifts Aūr returned to the mountain of Naqlūn, where he restarted building the church. The Archangel Gabriel defended its construction against the attempts by Satan to frustrate the building operations. On the 26 th of the Coptic month Baūna the new church was consecrated by the bishop of the Fayyūm, Anba Isaac, who at the same time ordained Aūr priest. On the death of this bishop the patriarch of Alexandria made Aūr his successor. Aūr built cells for the monks and houses for the pilgrims. As his death drew near, Aūr called to him the anchorite John and told him his story. This John, speaking in the first person, reports this last event and informs us that he is recording the story of Aūr for the use and benefit of the monks and to glorify the Archangel Gabriel. So far a summary of the legendary story about St. Aūr and the building of the church of the archangel Gabriel at the mountain of Naqlūn. The monastery of Naqlūn is situated in the province of the Fayyum, southwest of Cairo. The architectural remains surrounding the present-day monastery situate its foundation in the 5 th century. During its long history the monastery not only consisted of the central buildings representing the coenobitic type of monastic life, but also of a great number of hermitages cut into the rocks in the surrounding desert, which were inhabited by monks practising a semi-anachoretic style of life and which 1

3 were in use until the 14 th century. Central in the present-day monastery stands the church of the archangel Gabriel. This church had been erected in the 8 th century, but was renovated and redecorated in the first half of the 11 th century. Assumingly, the legend of St. Aūr is composed in this period, in which the monastery was flourishing. The text containing this legend, indicated as the Naqlūn homily, is the main subject of the first part of this study. In addition to the Naqlūn homily, four other homiletic texts and a hymn were identified, each related to the monastery of Naqlūn in a different way. The texts are contained in twenty-three manuscripts, kept in Egypt in monasteries and churches, the Coptic Museum and the Coptic Patriarchate, in Paris in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and in Chicago. The texts are written in the Middle Arabic language, a variant of Arabic. Until now no text in Coptic has been found, except the hymn, which is written both in Middle Arabic and in Bohairic Coptic. The principal aim of this study was to make the Naqlūn homily available for a scholarly audience in the form of a critical edition accompanied by an annotated translation in English. In addition to this philological work, the contents of the text have been studied from a literary, historical, and hagiographic point of view and commented upon, in order to do justice to the importance of the text in particular for the (literary) history of the monastery of Naqlūn and in general for the Coptic hagiographic tradition to which field it belongs. The text is also investigated for its particular linguistic features belonging to Middle Arabic. The second part of this study deals with the four other texts related to the monastery of Naqlūn. The Journey of St. Aūr, an incomplete text, describes in a vivid style two episodes of St. Aūr s life. The elaborate and detailed style and the consistent structure are characteristic for this text. The text entitled The Life of Anbā Isaac of the mountain of al-barambil, contained in three Arabic manuscripts kept at the monastery of St. Antony near the Red Sea, develops the theme of the relation between St. Antony and the Fayyūm. The text contains a passage dealing with St. Antony s visit at the mountain of Naqlūn and a prophecy about the coming of St. Aūr. The Life of Anbā Isaac depicts St. Antony as the spiritual father of the monks living in the south-eastern region of the Fayyūm, including most probably both Naqlūn and Qalamūn, as well as the monastery of al-ḥammām and assumingly the monastery of al- Maymūn, in the region east adjacent to the Fayyūm. The text, The origins of monasticism at the mountains of Qalamūn and Naqlūn, reveals how the origins of monasticism on these two desert mountains are intertwined with one another. These two monastic sites, Qalamūn and Naqlūn, were situated in each other s vicinity and maintained close relations in history. The text, assumingly composed in the 15 th 2

4 century, may be considered an attempt to restore the historical fame of the monasteries of the southeastern region of the Fayyūm in a period of decline, by giving them a new combined history, according to which Naqlūn developed from Qalamūn. Apart from the manuscripts containing the Naqlūn homily as a whole, two manuscripts were discovered that contain a homily in which a part of the Naqlūn homily is inserted. The text referred to as the Ḫandaq homily, concerns the consecration of a sanctuary of the archangel Gabriel in a church in al-ḫandaq in Cairo in the fifteenth century. In one of the two codices containing the Ḫandaq homily, a hymn on the archangel Gabriel is included, in which mention is made of the monastery of Naqlūn and St. Aūr. The hymn, which most probably dates to the 15 th century, is written in Bohairic Coptic and Arabic in parallel columns. This hymn is briefly discussed in appendix 1 and an edition and translation are presented. In addition to the manuscripts written in Arabic, a large number of manuscripts in Geʿez, i.e. Classical Ethiopic, dealing with the legend of St. Aūr and the monastery of the archangel Gabriel at Naqlūn were identified. A survey of these Ethiopic manuscripts is presented in appendix 2. The general conclusions present an overview of the preceding study of the texts related to the monastery of Naqlūn. The great variety of texts reveals the complexity of the literary tradition that developed from the eleventh century onwards, the period in which the monastery experienced a revival. The Journey of St. Aūr appears to occupy a central position in the literary history, but at a certain moment the Naqlūn homily obtained its dominant position and spread all over Egypt and to Ethiopia. Both the central theme, the building of the church of the archangel Gabriel, and the date of 26 Ba ūna characteristic of this literary tradition, kept a place in the Coptic liturgical calendar. The ensemble of the texts conveys a new view of the hagiographic landscape in which the monastery of Naqlūn occupies a central position. 3

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