pachorn~an ko~nonla - Alin Suciu

4 Pachomian Koinonia 111 Introductzon 5
wtentag in Liibeck in October 1972, where he also announced the
discovery in the Chester Beatty Library of a Greek parchment of
the fourth century containing the Greek translation of letters 1, 2,
3, 7, and 10.lS That communication was published only in 1974,
but a new translation of letters 8 and 10 from the Coptic text of
Cologne was published by Hans Quecke in 1973.14 In 1974 he
published a new discovery: fragments of letters 9a, 9b, 10, and llb
as well as a cryptogram, all from Coptic fragments from the same
Chester Beatty Library.15
In 1975 Hans Quecke published the Greek text from the Chester
Beatty Library (Ms W. 145) with a long and very careful analysis of
all the related problems. An appendix gives all the known Coptic
fragments.'@ This book, therefore, gathers in a practical format all
the documents discovered during the preceding years.
Lately a new Coptic fragment has been discovered among the
Bodmer Papyri (n. XXXIX), giving the full text of letter llb.
That text is still unpublished, but Hans Quecke had the kindness to
provide us with a photocopy of themanuscript, along with his tran-
scription of the Coptic text and a German translation.
In our translation we have kept the numbering assigned these
letters by Jerome; but the Coptic manuscript tradition knows thir-
teen letters instead of eleven, both Jerome's ninth and eleventh let-
ters being divided in two distinct documents.
Hans Quecke has dedicated a full chapter of his Die Briefe Pa-
choms. Gnechzscher Text. . to the questionof the authenticity of
these letters. They certainly existed in Coptic at a very early stage,
for we have a Greek translation preserved on a parchment of the
fourth century. From a comparison between Jerome's version and
the Coptic and Greek texts, we can deduce that Jerome had before
his eyes a Greek text very similar to the one preserved in the Chester
Beatty Library, although he paraphrased it at times, as he often
did in his other translations. Jerome attributed these letters explic-
itly to Pachomius, and Hans Quecke does not find any positive rea-
son to doubt that affirmation although none of the letters, either in
Greek or Coptic, bears a title attributing it to Pachomius. Per-
sonally we consider that one is left here with the same uncertainty
as prevails regarding the Pachomiana latzna in general.
A difficnlt aspect of these letten is the use that many of them
make of a mysterious language, or rather, their mysterious use of the
alphabet. All efforts made to decipher them remain unconvincing. l7
Hans Quecke has made a very thorough study of all the aspects of
this problem, but has been unable to find any clear answer.
The nature of these letters still escapes us, but it is perhapsmuch
less complicated than we think it is. It probably has something to
do with the traditional love of the Egyptians for cryptograms, to
which old Egyptian hieroglyphs lent themselves so well. The use of
series of vowels and nonsense syllables is not rare either in the gnos-
tic documents discovered in 1946 at Nag Hammadi, near the great
basilica of St Pachomius at Phbow, and there could be some simi-
larity or affinity between the two.LB
In our translation of the letters, we have followed the Coptic text
when it existed. When it did not, we have translated from the
Greek for the letters existing in Greek. Otherwise we have followed
the Latin version of Jerome.
C. Fragments
Two Coptic folios identified by Zoega (CLXXIV) were first published
by E. Amelinea~.'~ L.T Lefort has made a newer edition.Po
These folios belong to a series of miscellanea from an eleventh century
manuscript. The third of the three fragments they contain is
also found in the collection of Apophthegmata in Coptic, Greek,
and Latin.2'
To these three fragments we have added a fourth which has been
attributed by L.T. Lefort to Horsiesios, but which must be
restored to Pachomius.PP It is found on the recto of a folio on the
verso of which we read the Prologue to the P~aecepta et Institutu
that L.T. Lefort had also attributed to Horsiesios and that was
identified by Heinrich Bacht as part of the pachomian Rule.P1