Monasticism on the Southern Egyptian Frontier in Late Antiquity: Towards a New Critical Edition of the Coptic Life of Aaron

Abstract

In this article, a new critical edition will be announced of an important work in Coptic literature, the Life of Aaron, which contains stories about the lives of ascetic monks on the southern Egyptian frontier in the fourth and early fifth centuries, and was probably written in the sixth century. Even though the first edition of this work was already published by E.A. Wallis Budge in 1915, it remained virtually untouched until quite recently and a critical edition was required. The project announced in this article, which is being carried out in collaboration with Jacques van der Vliet (University of Leiden/Radboud University Nijmegen), will fulfil this desideratum. In addition to a brief discussion of the literary and historical significance of the text, a preview of one passage from the work is offered, which will give an impression both of what the edition will look like and to what extent it will be different from the first edition. At the end of the article, three as yet unpublished fragments of the earliest witness to the work, a sixth- or seventh-century manuscript on papyrus, will be discussed, and in particular their relation to the only complete, tenth-century manuscript of the Life.