What is Coptology?
Eight years after Coptic studies was made an independent discipline at the
congress at Munster a proper definition of the field of study still eludes
academics, writes Jill Kamil
al-Ahram Weekly On-line
19 – 25 August 2004
Issue No. 704
The only absolute certainty is that ‘Coptic’ has to do with Egypt,” observed
Professor M Tito Orlandi of Rome’s University of La Sapienza in his
presidential address to the eighth International Association for Coptic Studies (IACS)
congress in Paris last week.
The astounding fact is that, apart from linguistics (which alone can be
clearly defined) there is neither an obvious character, nor can the limitations be
set, on all other fields of Coptic studies, whether history, geography,
literature or art. This vitally important subject concerning Orthodox Egyptian
Christianity has been conscientiously considered, deliberated on and studied in
depth at an international level for the last 30 years. But while there have been
specialised studies by scholars around the world, seven international
congresses and seminars in Egypt and abroad, its parameters are still being debated.
The IACS is an offshoot of the International Committee founded in 1976 for
the publication of the Nag Hammadi codices, and its congresses take place every
four years. This year Paris was the host city, following Rome, Warsaw,
Louvain-la-Neuve, Washington, Munster and Leiden. There were some 280 participants,
and the proceedings were conducted at two venues: L’Institut d’Art et
d’Archaeologie de la Sorbonne, and L’Institut Catholique, both not far from the
Luxembourg Gardens.
Ever since Coptic studies was declared a separate discipline at Munster in
1996 it has seemed unable, despite all efforts, to carve a niche for itself — a
claim to legitimacy. There remain so many imponderables on the “Copticity”
of, say, a work of art, its manifestation in literature, or as evidence of
architectural change or continuity, because it overlaps with other cultures,
whether Roman, Byzantine or Islamic. As a result the conference, rather than ironing
out the creases between the diverse cultures of the ancient Middle East and
establishing a distinct niche for Coptic studies, succeeded in doing just the
opposite, it fanned uncertainty and made the concept just as difficult to
define as it always has been.
Professor Orlandi had this to say: “After long mediation I have come to
believe that the following statements may be accepted, if considered without
prejudice and with a fair mind. First, it is important that Coptology as an academic
discipline be neither forgotten nor passed over in silence when it is
opportune that it be discussed. Second, that while it would be idle, indeed
irrelevant, to try and establish a precise definition which is valid for each
specialisation, we should recognise the nucleus, the core, made by a few disciplines,
as well as a group of others, equally important, whose legitimacy depends on
the existence of core studies. This blend,” he suggested, “would produce a
flexible but sufficiently consistent definition of Coptology.”
While admitting that Coptology could not, like Latin literature or Byzantine
art, be identified as a distinct discipline, Orlandi said that it must be
considered among a group of disciplines that share certain characteristics and
images, whether in archaeology, Christian theology, political history, biblical
philology or monasticism, “Coptic may be a part, but it lies within a
structurally and methodically coherent whole,” he said, stressing the desirability of
establishing whether there existed “a Copticity”, a kind of peculiar, spiritual
attitude or character that, when studied by Coptologists in religion,
literature, art, history, music etc, could be shown to create a common cultural
ground.
“I mean,” Orlandi amplified, “whether the word ‘Coptic’ may refer not only to
a historical period or geographical location but to one more or less
coherent, unifying spiritual factor. This I, for one, and possibly most of us, would
like to see clearly established.”
With the congress’s 280 participants presenting 20-minute papers on a wide
range of subjects, in five languages, in three lecture halls on alternate floors
of the Institute d’Art, the grand marble stairway graced by classical works
of art was packed with people hurrying up and down — because the single lift
was “un peu fragile” and it was recommended that only those not capable of
tackling the stairs should use it. The Tower of Babel must have been a little like
this — scholarly patriarchs with bearded chins slightly raised in disdain
when they discovered the microphone was not working, dignified monks in their
habits mingling with the crowds, eager young students palpably trembling with
excitement, Professor Godlewski with his body of devotees, and other
participants united in a common bond of Egypt’s contribution to Orthodox Christianity.
A certain panic ensued when lecture hall venues had to be changed at the last
minute because the equipment proved inadequate: a microphone did not work, a
power point linkup could not be made, or because of last minute cancellations.
But technical problems were quickly resolved and, unlike the babbling hordes
in the Tower of Babel, there were common languages and a spirit of
camaraderie.
Language did prove to be a problem, however. It was unfortunate that, unlike
at the recent seminar on Coptic studies at Wadi Al-Natrun, translations were
not handed out.
The presentations covered archaeology and art history, the Gnostics and
Manacheism, documentary sources including the Nag Hammadi codices, papyrus
collections, ostraca and specific inscriptions from various sources, discoveries of
wall paintings in abandoned hermitages and in a cave church, and studies on
Copts and Muslims in the Late Antique and early Islamic periods. Numerous studies
have been made in recent years on textiles, monasticism, theology and magic.
Four important and useful papers were given on the progress made in the
period 2000-2004: Research and Publications in Coptic Papyrology by Terry Wilfong
of the University of Michigan, Research and Publication in Coptic Art by Karel
Inemée, Actualitiés des Musées et Expositions by Dominique Benazeth, and
Copto-Arabic Studies by Mark Swanson.
The core disciplines referred to by Orlandi in his presidential address
included the study of the Coptic language in all its synchronic aspects, the study
of Coptic literature written in Coptic (although from the intertextual and
historical points of view it cannot be distinguished from respective contemporary
Greek, Arabic, and Demotic literature); the study of the Egyptian church in
all its aspects after the Council of Chalcedon in 451; the study of
paleography; the study of ecclesiastical and monastic Egyptian art after Chalcedon; and
the study of papyri and similar documents written in Coptic.
The sum total of knowledge in these areas is increasing, and thus Coptic
studies are becoming more and more specialised. But unfortunately this is not
leading to a clearer understanding of the subject. “The status of Coptic
literature still needs to be correctly understood, because of the tendency to extract
some of its branches to form independent fields,” Orlandi lamented. Such
fragmentation distracts from, rather than aids general historical assessment of
works of literature. He mentioned that biblical translations, Gnostic texts and
apocrypha were frequently considered separately from the development of Coptic
literature proper, with the result that “all is left in a vague environment,
where the sources of the texts are important, and not the form which they have
assumed in Coptic”. When it came to Coptic literature in the Arabic language,
this, due to linguistic competence, is set apart.
Ironically, Coptic studies has no beginning in Egypt. Here we have a strange
paradox. The Coptic church is one of the oldest in Christendom, brought to
Egypt by St Mark, the reputed author of the oldest of the four canonical gospels.
Yet the sad fact remains that owing to the integration of contrasting
configurations, whether Egyptian, classical, Greek-Egyptian, or Persian pagan motifs,
not to mention Byzantine and Syrian Christian influences, it is difficult to
identify. At the latter end of the scale it is now generally accepted that
Islamic influence on the Copts was slow to develop, but, at the beginning, the
slow and steady development of a distinctively Egyptian trait, a local identity,
is lacking.
This problem, Orlandi observed, had not been “extensively and seriously
debated”. As a result, he said, general introductions to “the Copts” were
unsatisfactory in many ways. He mentioned the works of Meinardus 1961-1977, Brunner-
Traut 1982, De Bourguet 1988, Cannuyer 1990 and 2000, all of which he described
as “very useful” but “often not in tune with the achievements of actual
research”. He did commend the works of R Bagnall 1993, Gerhards-Brakmann 1994,
Capuani 1999, and the collective books edited by Krause and Camplani in German and
Italian respectively, but pointed out that these covered only selective
subjects.
Among the major achievements of the past decades is The Coptic Encyclopaedia,
conceived and produced by Aziz and Lola Attiya. “But there is a need for a
kind of handbook on Coptic studies like that provided by O Montevecchi for
apyriology, the monumental Handbook on the Science of Antiquities of Munich, and
the Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi codices, their publication, translation
and commentary by J M Robinson and his group,” he said.
Orlandi pointed out that there was no spirit of competition, let alone active
collaboration, between learned associations comparable to the IACS, even with
those, such as Egyptologists and papyrologists, that included Coptic studies
in their scope. Indeed, in any publication of assorted studies on various
topics in late antiquity or Byzantium most of the articles will be on
Constantinople, Syria, Armenia, Gaul, North Africa and Palestine, with Egypt mentioned
only in passing. “I would call it something like a tacit and benign mutual
neglect,” he said, adding that it was a field where more could certainly be done in
the future.
There is considerable evidence of Coptic roots within the Pharaonic
inheritance. For example, it is generally accepted that Christian icons owe a great
deal to mummy portrait painting, and the discovery and study of the Nag Hammadi
codices reveal that Egypt exerted an appreciable sway upon the entire
Hellenistic world in which Christianity took root. In spite of such substantial
evidence Coptic studies usually commences with the Council of Chalcedon in 451, and
classical antiquity still provides most of the source material for European
accounts of the Copts in Egypt. It is unfortunate, therefore, that from the
abundance of literary evidence that has survived in dump heaps, Greek, Latin and
Arabic texts have been translated at the expense of Demotic and Coptic.
Countless publications from the past century — studies, monographs and lecture series
— lay bare Egyptian society under Byzantine rule, but insufficient effort
has been made in translating those texts which might locate the roots of
Egyptian Christianity within the Pharaonic inheritance. They continue to lie in boxes
in museum storerooms around the world, including the Coptic Museum in Cairo.
Among the congress presentations that remain in my mind are Father Daniel
Al-Suriani’s valuable study of the function of a group of bronze objects in the
daily life of the monastery, Gawdat Gabra’s description of the discovery of an
interesting underground monastic complex at Mansuriya with surviving wall
paintings, and Elizabeth Bolman’s preliminary results of the remarkable wall
painting conservation project in the Red Monastery near Sohag. Mention must also be
made of Magdalena Laptas’s description of the newly-discovered murals of the
Polish expedition at Banganarti in Sudan, since excellent use was made here of
a “power point” presentation with appropriate zooming in of the site plan
with different locations of surviving wall paintings, along with details of each.
There are now institutions that give more or less regular courses of
Coptology in 47 countries around the world, including Australia, Great Britain,
Canada, Germany, Jerusalem, Spain, Switzerland and the United States, but there are
none in Egypt. A rotating chair of Coptic studies was opened at the American
University in Cairo in 2002 but its future is uncertain; apparently funding is
not yet sufficient to establish an endowment capable of supporting a
year-round, full-time position. No department of Coptic studies is yet to be found in
any of Egypt’s national universities; since 1976, when the IASC was
established, it has been a tradition to send a telegramme to the minister of higher
education and the president of Cairo University on the need to establish such a
department in the land of the Coptic heritage, but so far nothing has been
achieved.
And so, while confusion remains over the use of the very word “Coptic”, with
philologists referring to the last phase of the Egyptian language, theologians
to the Egyptian faith, and art historians, until recently, describing as
“Coptic” anything that did not fit into other well-defined parameters, the
situation looks bleak. “I could not say whether the academic teaching of Coptology
has improved in the last 30 years,” Orlandi admitted, “or even by how much,
because there is no assessment of previous activity”.
Although Professor Orlandi ended his address on an optimistic note, recalling
important achievements in the last three decades with particular mention of
an encyclopaedia, grammatical, historical atlas, handbook of liturgy, and a
minor but total edition of the Coptic Bible, a history of Copto-Arabic literature
as well as ongoing excavation of archaeological sites and diverse studies,
when we observe the overall picture it would appear that the congress, for all
its scope, may not have been the success it should have been. Gaps between
different disciplines seem to be widening rather than diminishing, and still open
to question is a definition of Coptic and the broad parameters of Coptic
studies.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress