Reading Coptic Texts

online course

This course offers an introduction to Coptic literature through direct readings of original material written in the Sahidic dialect of Coptic (and some closely related dialects). Each class session will focus on a particular Coptic text representative of its genre.

This is not an introductory grammar course and therefore a prerequisite is required. Students wishing to take this course must have confidence with the comprehension of simple Coptic texts.

Students can take the course entirely online. The weekly in-class session will be livestreamed through Zoom and archived online for viewing at the students’ convenience. Students viewing the live feed will be able to participate and ask questions. Online course materials will include additional readings, links to online content, bibliography, and supplementary material to help engage the students in the study of Coptic language, history, and culture.

There are no required books for this course. All materials related to the Coptic readings will be provided by the instructors.

Module: Teachings of Silvanus (NHC VII,4), 9 hours
This writing was probably composed in Greek in Alexandria in the fourth century. It is preserved only in a Coptic translation in the Sahidic dialect. It has the character of a wisdom teaching with many Jewish and early Christian traditions. As such, it is a witness for a fourth century wisdom theology from Alexandria.
Instructor: Jens Schröter
Jens Schröter is professor of New Testament and Ancient Christian Apocrypha at Humboldt University Berlin, Germany. His research areas include the historical Jesus, Paul, the Acts of the Apostles, the formation of the New Testament canon and the ancient Christian Apocrypha.

Module: The Hermetic Thanksgiving Prayer (NHC VI,7) and salvation, 2 hours
During the session the Thanksgiving Prayer, from Nag Hammadi, will be read and translated, with an analysis of how this prayer participates to the way of Hermes, a way of salvation which is focused on the Logos and on gnôsis.
Instructor: Anna Van den Kerchove
Anna Van den Kerchove is holding the chair of ancient church history and Patristics in the Institut Protestant in Paris. Among her principal fields of research are the Hermetic and Valentinian texts of Nag Hammadi and Manichaean texts, particularly those preserved in Coptic.

Module: Manichaean (Berlin) Kephalaia, 6 hours
The Coptic Manichaica is introduced, by offering a reading seminar on selections from the Kephalaia (Chapters), a scholastic compendium of Manichaean dogma.
Instructor: Dylan Michael Burns
Dylan Burns is assistant professor of the History of Western Esotericism in Late Antiquity at the Universiteit van Amsterdam. Co-editor of Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, his research focuses on ancient Gnosticism, later Greek philosophy, and Manichaeism.

Module: Gospel of Thomas (NHC II,2), 8 hours
The Gospel of Thomas is an early Christian gospel comprising 114 sayings and parables of Jesus organized into a simple list: roughly half of the sayings in Thomas are also found in the synoptic gospels. Some sayings assert a strong interpretive framework holding much affinity with other early Jewish wisdom theologians, especially those oriented to Plato, such as Philo of Alexandria.
Instructor: Andrea Annese
Andrea Annese is Senior assistant professor (RTD-b) in History of Christianity at Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna. He specializes in the Gospel of Thomas and other texts from Nag Hammadi.

Module The Life of Hilaria, 9 hours
The Sahidic Coptic legend of the Emperor’s daughter Hilaria has repeatedly been object of scientific interest, as its account is supposedly dependent on an Old Egyptian narrative and the figure of a princess clothing and behaving like man for religious reasons is addressing gender issues. The text will be read on the base of Drescher’s 1947 edition of the only complete manuscript testimony.
Instructor: Lothar Vogel
Lothar Vogel is teaching Church History in the Waldensian Faculty of Theology in Rome. His doctoral thesis was in the field of early medieval hagiography. He takes part in the Coptic Studies Working Group of the Waldensian Faculty of Theology.

Conferences
Attendance to the following four conferences, open to public participation and given in English by a specialist of Coptic literature, is an integral part of the Coptic Summer School Programme:

ERIC NOFFKE
5 July 2022, 6:00 PM CET, Live in Rome + Online via Zoom
The mystery of God and the human being. Rethinking Gnosis and Gnosticism in the light of recent discoveries and new patterns in research
Eric Noffke is New Testament professor at the Waldensian Faculty of Theology in Rome. He studied Theology in Rome, Heidelberg and Princeton. PhD at the Faculty of Theology in Basel. He’s married with two children. His specialization fields are Middle Judaism, political readings of the New Testament and Paul’s letters and theology.

PAOLA BUZI
7 July 2022, 6:00 PM CET, Live in Rome + Online via Zoom
An Archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature
Paola Buzi is professor of Egyptology and Coptic Studies at Sapienza University in Rome. She is principal investigator of the project "Tracking Papyrus and Parchment Paths: An Archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature". She currently works on behalf of the Akademie der Wissenschfaten zu Göttingen at Hamburg University cataloguing the Coptic manuscripts preserved in the German collections.

ANNA VAN DEN KERCHOVE
12 July 2022, 6:00 PM CET, Live in Rome + Online via Zoom
Rituality in Valentinian Groups: from Cosmology to Anthropology
Anna Van den Kerchove is holding the chair of ancient church history and Patristics in the Institut Protestant de Théologie in Paris. Among her principal fields of research are the Hermetic and Valentinian texts of Nag Hammadi and Manichaean texts, particularly those preserved in Coptic.

ALBERTO CAMPLANI
14 July 2022, 6:00 PM CET, Online Only via Zoom
Religious pluralism and the origins of Coptic literature
Alberto Camplani is professor of Early Christian Literature at the Sapienza University of Rome. He also teaches courses on Syriac literature and Greek Patristics at the Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum. A member of the “International Association for Coptic Studies”, his research focuses on early Christianity in Syriac and Coptic language, episcopal institutions in Late Antiquity, Gnostic and Hermetic texts, Marcionism in the East.

Course leader

Jens Schröter, Anna Van den Kerchove, Dylan Burns, Andrea Annese, Lothar Vogel, Eric Noffke, Paola Buzi, Alberto Camplani

Target group

Qualified students, scholars and people passionate about ancient religious history.

Course aim

The course Reading Coptic Texts involves actually reading and exploring a selection of Coptic works, ranging from Nag Hammadi Library to Manichaean and ancient hagiographical texts.

Credits info

6 EC
The certificate grants 6 ECTS credits (European Credit Transfer System) and recognizes 150 hours of didactic activity. Total teaching activity amounts to 50 hours: among these, 44 hours are dedicated to class activities such as lectures, discussions and workshops, while the remaining hours are spent in guided visits to specific sites of special cultural interest. An additional amount of 100 hours is calculated for the study of the bibliography given to the students and the materials made available in the web platform.

Fee info

EUR 250: The regular tuition fee is 300 EUR.
For all the students regularly enrolled in an academic year of a recognized University, the tuition fee amounts to 250 EUR. To be entitled to such a reduction, they must enclose a University Proof of Enrollment.
EUR 300: The regular tuition fee is 300 EUR.
For all the students regularly enrolled in an academic year of a recognized University, the tuition fee amounts to 250 EUR. To be entitled to such a reduction, they must enclose a University Proof of Enrollment.

Scholarships

No scholarships are available.