Edition of the Arabic Text of the Coptic Difnar for the Twelve Months of the Coptic Year, from MS A (14th Century)

Basic data for this project

Description

The “Difnar” is, alongside the “Synaxarium”, the most important liturgical book of the Coptic Church and thus of one of the largest Christian communities in the Orient, from which hymns are sung and read in contemporrary worship services in continuation of a long tradition. Thus the Difnar’s encomia, which have been read for centuries in the congregations of the Coptic church, belong among the most important factors that have contributed to the survival of the Coptic Church and to the maintenance of its tradition. The present project aims to edit the Arabic text of the hymns from the Difnar for the twelve months of the Coptic liturgical year, from Tūt through Misrā plus Nasī, for the first time on the basis of a manuscript from the fourteenth century (“MS A”). This project is connected with another, which is currently running, to publish this manuscript’s Coptic text. Both projects are necessary because the as yet unpublished MS A from the Egyptian Monastery of Antony on the Red Sea, which is so far the oldest known manuscript of the Difnar, offers a much better textual basis than later manuscripts, and the previous publication of the Coptic text by De Lacy O’Leary (1926–1930) was based only on several manuscripts from the eighteenth century (and also contains many errors).