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The Pachomian Monastic Lrbraryat the Chester Beattv Ltbnrvand the Bibliothèque Bodmer

fu James M. Robinson

The first Christian monastic order was founded inUpper Egypt by Pachomius early in the Fourth Cen-tury. What was left of its library was buried in theSeventh Century, to judge by the date of the latestmaterial produced (ac. 1494, item 6 in the Inventory ofPachomian letters, a small papyrus roll containing anarchival copy of Horsiesios' Letter 3 in Sahidic). Itwas discovered late in 1952 in Upper Egypt nearDishnà, and hence is referred to locally as the DishnaPapers, though it has been known to scholars up tothe present primarily as the Bodmer Papyri. Thisnomenclature has obscured the fact that much of thematerial is scattered among some seven other reposito-ries1, of which the Chester Beatty Library is the mostimportant. I would like to lay this fascinating storybefore you by describing first the Pachomian Monas-tery Library, then the Discovery and Marketing of theLibrary, then the Acquisition by Sir Chester Beattyand Martin Bodmer, followed by an Inventory of theapproximate contents of the Library. To the Endnotesis appended a Postscript describing how the basic factsabout the discovery and marketing of the library wereestablished.

'No one would do anything in the house withoutpermission from those in charge. not even visit abrother in his cell. In each house. the housemaster orthe second keeps all the surplus clothings locked in acell until the brothers need them to wash and put onagain those they are using. The books. which were inan alcove, were also under the care of these two. Thebrothers have no money, stil l less anything of gold:some of them died having never known such things.Only those entrusted with a ministry used money r andwhen they returned to the monastery they keptnothing with themselves for a single day and gaveeverything to the steward until they might go outagain. And all that government is written in detail inthe book of the stewards. '

What is here referred to as the book of the stewardsis apparently the extant Preceptsa where a rathermassive literacy program is envisaged and occasionalreferences to books and to the Library occur (PrecepÍ.s1 3 9 , 1 4 0 , 8 2 , 1 0 0 , 1 0 1 ) s :

'Whoever enters the monastery uninstructed shall betaught first what he must observe; and when, sotaught, he has consented to it all, they shall give himtwenty psalms or two of the Apostle's epistles, orsome other part of the Scripture. And if he is il l iterate.he shall go at the first. third, and sixth hours tosomeone who can teach and has been appointed forhim. He shall stand before him and learn very stu-diously with all gratitude. Then the fundamentals of asyllable, the verbs, and nouns shall be written for him,and even if he does not want to. he shall be comoelledto read. '

'There shall be no one whatever in the monasterywho does not learn to read and does not memorizesomething of the Scriptures. [One should learn byheart] at least the New Testament and the Psalter.'

'No one shall have in his own possession littletweezers for removing thorns he may have stepped on.Only the housemaster and the second shall have them.and they shall hang in the alcove in which books areplaced. '

'No one shall leave his book unfastened when hegoes to Íhe svnaxis or to the refectorv.'

l. The Pachomian Monasterl' Library

Right after the conversion of the Roman EmpirePachomius founded the first monastic order of Chris-tianity. It would be anachronistic to make inferencesabout its library from medieval monastic libraries. Butsomething can be inferred from the PachomianOrder's own legends and rules.

The First Greek Lfe oí Pachomius 63 gives someinformation about how books were viewed in thePachomian Order2:

'He [Pachomius] also used to teach the brothers not

to give heed to the splendor and the beauty of thisworld in things like good food, clothing, a cell, or abook outwardly pleasing to the eye.'

The First Greek L,fe of Pachomius 59 gives someimpression of a Pachomian Library3:

Manuscr ip ts o f the Midd le Eas t 5 (1990-1991) ! Te Í Lugt Press . Donkers teeg 19 .2312 HA Le iden. Nether iands . 1993 ISSN 0920-0401

JAMES M. ROBINSON. THE PACHOMIAN MONASTIC LIBRARY 21

'Every day at evening, the second shall bring thebooks from the alcove and shut them in their case.'

Official letters of Pachomius in Coptic were transla-ted into Greek and then in 404 C.E. translated byJerome into Latin. Only the Latin translation hassurvived, copied down through the centuries for theedification of European monks. The Coptic and Greekletters have not been seen since - until, at the sametime, from the same dealer, and (with but one excep-tion) at the same repositories as the Dishna Papers,they suddenly reappeared. The inference seems in-escapable that they were part of the same discovery.As a matter of fact, the site of the discovery near thefoot of the Jabal Abu Maná' was in full view of theheadquarters monastery of the Pachomian Order, atthe foot of the cliff to which funeral processionsmoved from the monastery, itself not above the inun-dation level, to bury their dead on higher ground,according to their records, and apparently to secretetheir Library or Archives as well. High up in the WádiShaykh Ah there is an overhang cut by a prehistorictorrent that is everywhere inscribed in scrawling redpaint with the graffiti of pious monks.

The holdings of the Chester Beatty Library thatcome from the jar at the foot of the cliff. and evenbefore that from the little alcove in the Pachomianmonastery where the tweezers were kept. give a directimpression of the primitiveness of some of the booksthat made up the Library.

The eight leaves of ac. 1390 (Inventory i tem 23)begin with a school-boy's Greek exercises in solidgeometry that rendered the rest of the quire of littlefinancial value. the kind of material a Pachomianmonastery might be able to afford. On the emptypages a few chapters of the Gospel of John in Copticwere written in a non-literary, cursive hand, beginningin the middle of a sentence. This may be explainableas the place where the mutilated text being copied hadbegun. Or perhaps ac. 1390 was one in a series ofcheap writing materials, the only one to have survived,onto which the complete Gospel was copied. Thepreceding (lost) writing surface on which the Gospelwas being copied would have ended in the middle of averse, which would explain why the text that hassurvived begins there, just where the other happenedto break off. Thus ac. 1390 may give some insight intothe limitations of the monastic effort to build itscol lect ion.

A similar impression of primitiveness may beconveyed by the largely uninscribed ac. 1499 (Inven-tory item 25) containing a Greek grammar and aGraeco-Latin lexicon for deciphering Pauline epistles.One of the uninscribed quires of this codex has leavesnot yet cut apart at the growing edge, like Frenchpaperback books used to be. This not only reflects thefact that this codex was never completed, but alsodocuments how unusual its construction had beenó.For the standard way to make a quire for a papyrus

codex was to cut a roll into a stack of sheets and foldthe stack down the middle, a procedure that producedno growing edges that needed to be cut apart. Thevery fact that this codex was not fully inscribed hasleft this aberration in the manufacturing procedureintact. The codex was apparently produced outside themain tradition of book manufacture. or in any casemade use of a technique that did not gain generalacceptance.

Another experiment at economy is ac. 2554 (Inven-tory item 28), a largely uninscribed and unboundfolded stack of sheets constructed by pasting face toface two used rolls and cutting them into the sheets ofa quire, on whose unbound leaves administrativerecords had begun to be inscribed. with the result thatsuch a makeshift quire, left stil l largely uninscribed,would provide writing material that would not havebeen expensive at all.

It may be no coincidence that much of the materialof the highest quality in the coilection is older than thePachomian Order itself, suggesting that it entered theLibrary as gifts from outside, perhaps contributed byprosperous persons entering the Order. This might bethe most obvious way to explain non-Christian textsin a monastic library. such as the Homeric andMenander material. But some such explanation is aisoneeded for such excellent early Greek New Testamenttexts as P. Bodmer I I (P 66, the Gospel of John,Inventory item 3), and P. Bodmer XIV-XV (P 75, theGospels of Luke and John, Inventory item 8), whereone might even think of Athanasius living in hidingwith the Order while in exile as the source of suchgifts.

The bulk of Christian codices date from the firstcentury of the Pachomian Order's existence, namelythe early Fourth to the early Fifth Century, and oftenpresent the competence of a trained scr iptor ium,though without adornment. But there is no specificindication that they came from a single scriptorium orthat such a scriptorium belonged to the Order.

Some texts in the collection. such as some of thearchival copies of letters from Pachomian Abbots.again suggest, in the primitiveness of the materialemployed, that the usual standards of a scriptoriumwere lacking. Ac. 1486, an archival copy of a Copticletter from the Pachomian Abbot Theodore (item 4 inthe Inventory of Pachomian letters), was written in theFifth or Sixth Century on a long thin irregular skin,obviously the leg of an animal that could not be usedto produce leaves for a codex. Chester Beatty Ms. W.145 (item 3 in the Inventory of Pachomian letters)makes a similar impression. It is a Fourth Centurycopy of a letter of Pachomius.

The presence of relatively unskilled products along-side of relatively professional codices may indicate aplurality of places of origin, and perhaps a contrastbetween what was produced within the Order andwhat came from outside.

28 MANUSCRIPTS OF THE MIDDLE EAST 5 ( I990-I99I)

If discipline relaxed and the demand for readingmaterial waned with the passage of time, as the centerof Coptic learning shifted downstream to the WhiteMonastery of Shenouda at Sohag, such a Pachomiancollection could have become more a geniza than anactive library. The identity of increasingly fragmentaryitems in the collection would be lost from sight,especially in the case of the old non-Coptic material, ifone may assume that the Greek House did not retainits original vigor at Fáw Qiblï, once the Order had amonastery near Alexandria where Greek-speakingmonks would be more at home. It would have beenenough that the remains represented the veneratedrelics of the beginnings of the Order, worthy to beincluded along with copies of official letters of theearly Abbots (about the only thing they continued tocopy), in a jar no doubt intended to rescue for poste-rity the surviving symbols of continuity with theOrder's legendary past.

This is il lustrated in another way by the fate of theexcellent early third-century copy of the Gospel ofLuke and John (P 75, Inventory item 8) in the Biblio-theque Bodmer (P. Bodmer XIV-XV), from whosecover new and still unpublished fragments of Johnhave recently been recovered: This very valuable oldcodex was rebound in late antiquity, by pasting frag-mentary leaves of the quire together as cartonnage tothicken the leather cover, and by sewing the bindingthongs through the inner margin of the quire so nearthe writing that the codex could not be opened wideenough to be actually read. One is inclined to thinkthat the codex had become a relic, the Library aMuseum. or, in view of the copies of official Pacho-mian letters. an Archive.

Except for the copies of official Pachomian letters.datings as late as the Fifth Century are not stronglyrepresented. For it is usually mentioned by editors inthe spectrum of Fourth or Fifth Century. In thecourse of the Fifth Century the source of supply seemsto have been drying up, or new production was beingattracted to the White Monastery. But when one turnsto the archival copies of letters of Pachomian Abbots.the situation is the converse. Whereas the earliestmaterial is by the nature of the case no earlier than theFourth Century, only one text (item 3 in the Inventoryof Pachomian letters) has been dated simply to theFourth CenturyT, and only one (number l) to theFourth or Fifth Centurys. One (number 5) is datedsimply to the Fifth Centurye, and two (numbers 8 and9) to the Fifth or Sixth Centuryl0. Three (numbers 2,4 and 7) are dated simply to the Sixth Centuryll, andone (number 6) to the Seventh Century12. Thus it isclear that the letters of the Pachomian Abbots conti-nued being copied much later than did the literarytexts themselves, and represent the clearest indicationof the narrowly limited interest of those responsiblefor the preservation of the Library or Archive in itsIatest period and hence presumably for its ultimateburial 13.

Perhaps these relics were buried for safe keeping inthe period of decline following the imposition ofChalcedonian orthodoxy on the traditionally Mono-physite order, as the dating of the latest material in theSeventh Century might suggestla.

2. The Discovery and Marketing oJ'the Librarl'

The discovery of the Dishna Papers was made byHasan Muhammad al-Sammán and Mulrammad Kha-lí al:Azzin both of whom come from Ab[ Manà''Bahn.' This hamlet is on the right bank of the Nile inthe area of Upper Egypt where it flows from east towest, and hence literally on the north bank. Ab[Maná' lies some 4 km from the river's edge, near thefoot of the cliff Jabal Ab[ Maná' . which is 12 km eastof the cliff Jabal al-Tárif where the Nag HammadiCodices were discovered. It is 5 km northeast and infull view of Fáw 'Qibli, ' ancient Pabau (Greek), Pbawor Pbow (Sahidic), or Phbow (Bohairic), the site of theheadquarters of the Pachomian Monastic Order. Putin more modern terms. the site is 5.5 km northwest ofDishná, the larger town at the river with a railroadstation, which thus played the role of regional centerin this discovery corresponding to that of the townNag Hammadi in the case of the Nag HammadiCodices. Abu Maná' i tsel f is 10 km east of HamrahDlm, the hamlet that controls the site of the discoveryof the Nag Hammadi Codices. much as does AblManá' in the case of the Dishna Papers. This wholeDishná Plain. important already in prehistor ic t imes,seems to have been an important center of Egypt ianChristianity.

Hasan and Muhammad were digging for sabakh(fertii izer) some 300 meters out from the foot of thecl i f f Jabal Ab[ Maná' at al-Qurnah ( ' the corner ') .when Hasan uncovered a large earthen jar containingthe books. He broke the jar with his mattock. leavingthe sherds where they fell. Some fragmentary parts ofthe find were burnt on the spot. and others were givenaway to passersby, who incidentally terrified Hasanwith the mythic idea that they were books of monsters.Yet he carried the bulk of the discovery home in hisjallabï.vah, the typical peasant ground-length robe.Mulrammad took for his part a wooden plankvariously interpreted as a book cover, a mirror, or acatalogue of the library's contents.

Hasan lived in his wife's family home, presided overby her father 'Umar al-Abbádi. Her brother, Abd al-À1, trafficked in the books, unsuccessfully at first,since they could not even be bartered for sugar. Someleaves of a large papyrus book were crushed up andused as fuel to light their water pipe; parchment burntlike an oil lamp. (Rural electrification reached thehamlet only in 1980.)

Abd al-Àl worked in the Dishná jewelry shop of thegoldsmith Subhi Qustandr Dimyán, to whom he solda book. $ubfi showed it to the Dishnà priest 'al-

JA\, IES M, ROBINSON. THE PACHOMIAN MONASTIC LIBRAR\ 29

Qummus' ManqaryDs, who was related to the priestlyfamily of al-Qasr through whose hands Nag Hammadimaterial had passed, to inquire if it were equallyvaluable. 'Al-Qummus' Manqary[s told him it wasworthless, hoping thus to be able to acquire it himself.But Subhr's son Jirjis taughr at the same Copricparochial school at Dishná as did a member of thepriestly al-Qasr family, Rághib Andaráwus 'al-eiss'

Abd al-Sayyid, who had sold Nag Hammadi CodexIII to the Coptic Museum in Cairo for Ê 250. Jirjisshowed his father's book at the Coptic Museum.where i t was conf isca ted and he th rea tèned u i th ja i l .until a powerful friend persuaded the Museum toreturn his book and press no charges. Jirjis sold thebook to Zaki Gháli, an antiquities dealer in Luxor. fora price said to be f 400.

Abd al-Rahim Ab[ al-flájj, 'Umar's nephew, was a

village barber going from house to house to ply histrade, as well as a share-cropper working fields be-longing to a Dishnà goldsmith, Riyád Jirjis Fám.Riyád began dirt poor, the son of a peasant who ekecJout a living making baskets from reeds taken from theedge of the Nile, but scrounged his way up to the roleof the ruthiess strong-man of Dishná. When he heardof the discovery, he took another goldsmith with him,

lMnsá Fikri Ash'ïyah. and went to the house of Abd

lai-Rahim in Ab[ Manà'. The latter was afraid of the

laccompanying stranger and refused to deal with them,

lbut on a subsequent visit when Mlsá Fikn was not

lpresent sold Riyád three or four books.

| 'Al-Qummus' Manqaryus became involved with

lRiyád's acquisi t ions, along with M[sá Fikn and ano-

l:her goldsmith, ShaÍIq Ghubrïyál. They thus creared

l;ome kind of partnership, the priest providing a semr,l:ducated assessment, ecclesiastical connections. and alnaven free of police searches. whereas the goidsmithsfiro doubt provided the capital and Riyàd also theentrepreneurship.

Accompanied by his son Nushr. Riyád returned to[Ab[ Maná' and went directly to the house of 'Umar

Fl-Abbàdr. where he bought out the resr of whar thefamily held. He was able to leave the hamlet u'ith theloot thanks only to the armed escort of 'Umar's

sonsas far as the paved highway. He went straight to thehome of 'al-Qummus'

Manqaryus, where he countedout to him 'thirty-three books.' Though this figurerecurs repeatedly in the telling of the story, it is notrlear whether it is meant to include the books Rivàdtad already acquired, and whether it included materialrsually distinguished from the 'books.' nameiy tenmall rolls the size of one's finger, three or four large'olls some 25 cm or more high, and a few triangular-haped leaves some 15 cm high. In spite of suchLmbiguities. the figure does tend to indicate roughlyhe extent of the discovery, perhaps some three timeshat of the thirteen Nag Hammadi Codices.

Muhammad, irritated at having been excluded fromhe sales and profits, had reported the discovery to the

police, who had found concrete evidence with MasriAbd al-Masrh N[h, the person who acquired thewooden board from Muhammad. He implicated theothers. Charges were not brought against the priest,but Riyàd and Musà Fikn were charged. And. by acase of mistaken identity, ShaÍ-rq Muhàrib was chargedinstead of Shafiq GhubriyáI. Also charged were Hasanand the brother of Abd al-Ài. as wel l as Ab[ al-WaÍàAhmad Ismà'rl. who had acquired a triangular parch-ment leaf. By a combination of threats and bribesRiyád prevented them from testifying against him intheir ef fort to exonerate themselves. His defenselawyer, Hilmi Bandan, argued unsuccessfully beforeJudge Rabà' TarvÍiq that the possession of antiquitieswas not il legal, that they were ignorant of what theyhad acquired, and that there was no incriminatingevidence. All eight were sentenced to a year in jail.Engaging as their attorney Ahmad Alï All[bá 'Pasha,'

a Conservative Party politician from Cairo, Riyádappealed the case at the Court of Appeals in Qiná. Sixwere acquitted, but two were sentenced to sir monthsin jai l ; Masn's sentence was suspended and onlyHasan served time.

During this try ing t ime 'al-Qummus' Manqaryuswas concerned that his house might be searched. Forthe books were being kept in his home. no doubt onthe assumption that a police search of a priest's homewas less likely than of a goldsmith's home. The box inwhich they were kept was hidden at times under thef loor. no doubt the dir t f loor of the pat io, at t imesbehind rafters in the ceiling. But as the pressuremounted, he secreted them in a cubboard built underh is d ivan , and asked h is ne ighbor . Sa ' id D i ryásHabashï, i f he could sun the divan in his pat io, wherethere was more sun than in his own. to free it of fleas.When he recuperated the divan, he found the bestbook missing. Sa' id Diryàs denies havrng taken i t .saying he was unaware of the divan's contents. other-wise he would have taken them all. Riyàd traced thebook to Fáris, a tailor of Dishnà. who is reported tohave paid f 30 for it and then to have sold it for f 700to Phocion J. Tano, the distinguished Cypriote anti-quities dealer of Cairo who had acquired most of theNag Hammadi Codices. where Riyád later saw ir.

Riyàd retrieved the rest of the material from 'al-

Qummus' Manqaryls, apparently except for a fewfragments. For Distinguished Professor Emeritus AzïzSuryál Atïyaht of the University of Utah has reportedthat the priest's son 'al-Qummus' Tànyls showed hima fragment at his home in the fashionable Cairosuburb Maadi. And Sa'id Diryás has reported that aSpanish priest obtained some material about 1966from the priest's son'al-Qummus' Tányus. The parishdiary of the Franciscan Church adjoining the SugarFactory near Nag Hammadi records that a José O'Cal-laghan Martinus of Barcelona (and the PontificalBibical Inst i tute in Rome) with passport number95912 came 'to look for papers' on 14-20 xi 64 and for

MANUSCRIPTS OF THE MIDDLE EAST 5 ( I990-I99I)

a second visit beginning I ii 65. The widow of 'al-

Qummus' Manqaryls thought there were fragments in

the home when I interviewed her on 18 xii 76, but she

could not f ind them.Riyád was under virtual house arrest. For he was

not permitted to go as far as Cairo, but was limited in

his movements to Upper Egypt, the region from

Luxor to Sohag, for trips up to ten hours, and then

only with police permission. So he turned to a lifelong

friend, Fathalláh Dá'[d, who had gone on pilgrimage

to Jerusalem with him in 1945 (as their almost identical

tattoos validate), to take books to Cairo to market'

Though Fathalláh Dá'[d was instructed to report to'al-Qummus' Manqary[s, M[sà Fikrr and ShaÍ iq

Ghubrïyál a lower price than he actually received, so

that their proportion of the profit would be correspond-

ingly less. he actually told them the truth. Having his

own profit thus appreciably reduced, Riyád plotted

revenge to recuperate his loss. He hired members of

the Ab[ Bahbth family to break into Fathal láhDá'[d's house and kidnap a son to be held for the

equivalent ransom. In the dark of night they by

mistake took a daughter, S[s[. Rather than paying

the ransom, Fathalláh Dá'td appealed by telegram to

President Nasser. Within a week police sent from

Cairo secured the release of Sls[ unharmed. Riyád

himself seeks to put a good (or less bad) light on the

incident by maintaining that the Ab[ Bahblh family

was planning to kill Fathalláh Dá'[d for their own

reasons, but Riyád had talked them out of that unpro-

fitable venture in favor of a slightly less (?) inhumane

and in any case more profitable procedure.

Riyád then made friends with the two police guards

posted at his home, plying them with alchohol on

Saturday evenings until they were in a drunken stupor

in time for him to catch the midnight train to Cairo.

There he would take a few books at a time to Tano's

home, receiving profits he has reported to be in the

thousands of pounds, and return Sunday night in time

to get into his home under the cover of darkness

before dawn Monday. The death of Riyád's son Wasfi

in a brawl some years later, which Fathallàh Dá'ud

interpreted as divine retribution, led Riyád to move to

Cairo. where he lives on the top, fifth floor of a large

modern duplex apartment house in Heliopolis which

he has purchased.Photographs supplied by Emile TawÍÏq Sa'd, the

son of an Alexandrian antiquities dealer named by

Isháq Ayyfib Isháq, Inspector of the Department of

Agricul ture for Dishná, as having acquired some'Dishna Papers,' were identified as Papyrus Bodmer

XXIV (the Psalms in Greek, Inventory item 15) and

Papyrus Bodmer XL, the unpublished Coptic Song of

Songs (Inventory item l9). This then led to the identi-

fication of the 'Dishna Papers' with the famous disco-

very known in academic circ les as the 'Bodmer

Papyri . 'This identification of the Dishna Papers with the

Bodmer Papyri has then been variously confirmed.

The contents as described by the peasants fit quite well

the Bodmer Papyri, including such details as the bal-

led-up condition of P. Bodmer XXII : Mississippi

Coptic Codex II (Inventory item 13) stuck in the

bottom of a piriform jar. The same dealer Tano, who

according to Riyád had funded a clandestine excava-

tion of the site, has also been identified as their source

by the main repositories of the materials in Geneva,

Dublin and Cologne. The time frame of the discovery(1952\ and that of the arrival of the material in Europe(P. Bodmer I, Inventory items 1-2, was published in

1954, and the bulk was acquired in 1955-56). given the

trying circumstances, is what one might expect. And

the site of the discovery, initially stated by the publica-

tions of the Bodmer Papyri either to be unknown or to

be variously and vaguely located somewhere between

Panopolis (Achmim near Sohag) and Thebes (Luxor).

has finally been conceded to agree with our investiga-

tions in the most recent of these publications. This

identification of the site has subsequently been located

also in the Registry of Accessions of the Chester

Beatty Library, on a typed slip of paper appended at

ac. 1390. apparently written by Tano himself, to judge

by the English:'Small village DESHNA just after NAGHI HAMADI about

2 hours before LUXoR by train. Probably from the

Library of a Monastery. Found in a Jar in a ceme-

terv. ' 1 s

3. The Acquisitions ór' Sir Chester Beattv and Martir

Bodmer

Sir Chester Beattyló and Martin Bodmer were the

most dist inguished bibl iophi les in the period just

before and after World War II. It is hence under-

standable that both felt a sense of competitiveness, as

well as a sense of camaraderie rn the rarifled atmosphereof their shared hobby. This relationship was only

intensifled by the fact that both were long-standing

customers of Tano.Tano kept his collection in part in Cyprus, as he was

able to get it out of Egypt. He spent summers in the

family home at Nicosia, where he could correspond

freely about his business affairs and ship antiquities

and receive payment without difficulty. Tano was even

from time to time on the continent. Sir Chester had

known Tano personally during the winters he had

spent in the 'Blue House' aÍ Giza near Cairo' anc

when Sir Chester came to prefer Nice for his wintert

the personal contacts continued there. This relation

ship outside of Egypt was not only convenient fron

the point of view of customs and payments" but wat

also diplomatically advantageous, as is reflected in z

comment of Beatty in a letter of 2l March l95t

concerning ac. 2554 (Inventory item 28): 'We car

JAMES M, ROBINSON. THE PACHOMIAN MONASTIC LIBRARY J I

honestly say it was bought in Europe; we need not saywhere or when. '

Sir Chester had in fact been acquiring papyri andother antiquities from Tano for many years. Thefollowing may illustrate this relationship just prior tothe acquisitions with which we are concerned: On 8September 1947 he paid Tano f. 24 for four leavesfrom a codex, care of the Ottoman Bank, Famagusta,Cyprus. On l6 April 1948 Tano sent him four woodentablets through the good offices of his brother-in-law,William Acker, an officer in the n.c.r. In 1950 Beattyordered on approval Coptic materials offered by Tanofor f 235. That same year Tano wrote Sir Chesterfrom New York not to involve his American-basednephew Frank J. Tano in any transactions, but toremit directly to the Ottoman or Barcley Banks ofFamagusta, Cyprus. On 12 September l95l Tanowrote Beatty's secretary John Marsh in London:

'I asked to [sic] a friend in Paris to forward threw

[sic] you for Mr. Chester Beatty a collection of Copticparchemains [sic]. Please wen [sic] you receive them,kindly forward the parcel to Mr. Chester Beatty'saddress. '

On 25 March 1954 Beatty 's secretary John Wooder-son recorded in a memorandum:

'Mr. A. Chester Beatty asked John Wooderson tosee Mr. Tano and find out if he had any Coptic writingor vellum or pages of papyri in Greek; and if so, whatthey would cost, and if they could be examined inLondon.. . Mr. Tano said he had no stock in Cairo orCyprus at present but that he would write later if hefound anything interesting.'

But by this time Martin Bodmer had established abusiness relationship with Tano that seemed evenmore efficient. Bodmer had visited Egypt as early as1950, when he approached Tano to secure manu-scripts for his library. Father L. Doutreleau. S.J., oneof the editors of the series Sources Chrétiennes inLyon, was at the time stationed in Cairo, and hasdescribed Bodmer's acquisition procedure. For Dou-treleau had an arrangement with Bodmer to providehim with an expert assessment of manuscripts Tanoshowed Doutreleau for this purpose. Sometimes Tanogave him direct contact with a peasant who ownedmanuscripts, whom Doutreleau knew only as'the Beyof papyrus,' but who may well have been Riyád. Tanoreferred to the Dishna Papers as 'Nag HammadiTwo,' to designate the region of Egypt from whichthey came that would be more readily recognizable toforeigners and that would incidentally suggest a valuecomparable to that famous discovery. Tano exportedto Cyprus material at times through the diplomaticpouch, at times through a friend who worked at thecustoms office in Alexandria. From Cyprus he went toGeneva in September 1955. It was at that time that P.Bodmer II (the Gospel of John, Inventory item 3) andII I ( the Gospel of John and Genesis l : l -4:2, Inventoryitem 4) reached Geneva.

Bodmer himself was in Cairo at the end of January1956, returning from a trip to Indonesia as a diplomatfor the International Red Cross. On 8 October 1956

Gilles Quispel was told by Ludwig Keimer, an Austrianin Cairo who was close to Doutreleau and Tano, thatat the beginning of February 1956 Bodmer hadbought from Tano P. Bodmer XIV-XV (the Gospelsof Luke and John, Inventory item 8) and much ofXXV-N-XXVI (Menander, Inventory item 5). Thesecodices reached Geneva shortly thereafter. Bodmer'ssecretary, Odile Bongard, visited Tano in Cairo inMarch 1956. A rather steady stream of acquisitionsduring the subsequent months was interrupted by theSuez Crisis in October 1956, though a shipment didarr ive that month. Efforts by Ml le Bongard tocomplete the acquisitions were only successful to alimited extent. She was able to sift through Tano'sresidue of fragments and find a few belonging to P.Bodmer I I ( the Gospel of John. Inventory i tem 3).Also Tano showed Doutreleau several leaves ofMenander ( Inventory i tem 5) in 1958. They r.vere thendeposited at the Tunisian Embassy' in Cairo forexport, but the shipment was delayed several years bya breaking of diplomatic relations between Egypt andTunisia. When the shipment finally' reached Geneva.part of it was missing.

On 2 Apri l 1956 Sir Chester wrote his l ibrar ianJames Vere Stewart Wilkinson from Nice that he hadseen Tano and 'got some very interesting things fromhim.' In a letter of 5 April 1956 to Wilfred Merton, hispapyrological consultant in Dublin. Sir Chester wasmore specific about the 'very interesting things' he hadacquired. distinguishing the following items clearlyenough for us to identify them, in the light of laterinformation:

'The t'uvo books with the original bindings are veryinterest ing. One seems to be complete [ac. 1389, Inven-tory i tem 12] and the other was never f in ished. Abouthalf of the papyrus pages are blank [ac. 1499, Inven-tory i tem 251. '

A third i tem was described as fol lows:'It was evidently a scroil which was cut in pieces to

make it appear like a book. It must have been prettylong. because it is quite thick - it must be 2" at least

and the page is just the size of the section of ascroll. They just bend over, and I looked at a goodmany of the pages and they separate naturally, so I donot anticipate much trouble in having the properexperts separate them.' lAc. 2554, Inventory item 31.]

Sir Chester added: 'I will, of course, deliver them atonce to the British Museum when I arrive.' On 15April 1956 Wilkinson replied urging him to invitethe leading authority on book bindings, Berthe vanRegemorter, to come from Belgium to examine thebindings before the books were disassembled and theleaves glassed, a proposal with which he readi lyagreed. Mlle Van Regemorter had recently been at theBibliotheque Bodmer to examine the book bindings

)/- MANUSCRIPTS OF THE MIDDLE EAST 5 ( I 990 - I 99 I )

there. and had sent Beatty a report concerning her

findings. The ensuing discussion illustrates the way inwhich Bodmer and Sir Chester became involved infriendly competition for Tano's wares. For in a letterto Merton of 21 May 1956 Sir Chester commented:

'You have seen the memorandum that Miss VanRegemorter did on Bodmer's library. Apparently hegot some good things from Tano. I t was quite animportant purchase, and I imagine it was the Gospelof St. John that he bought. I do not think he ismaking a general collection of papyri, but I think hebought a few very important things from Tano.'

In a letter the same day to Wilkinson Sir Chesterconceded the loss to Bodmer but immediately beganthinking of future acquisitions he might make fromT a n o :

'He indicated to me that he had an important dealon with Bodmer. I imagine it is in connection withthat Gospels. Anyhow. I hope we will get some otherthings. and I wrote to him about early wooden bind-ings. I imagine Bodmer is not going in for those. andhe [Tano] may be able to clean up the market and getsomething Íine there.'

In a let ter of 24 Apri l 1956 to Merton. Sir Chesterdescribed his business procedure with Tano:

'You see. with the deal I had with 'X' [Tano], I payso much for the whole lot. and if I do not want to bu.vthe whole lot I pay another sum. I pay [ 800 if I takethem al l . but i f I do not take the whole lot I pay f 200.but I can pay this in sterling. In other rvords. the pricewas 10,000 Swiss francs. which is a little over f 800.and it is done on the normal exchange basis. Then Ihave the right to paf in sterling. Of course. it is a gooddeal like buying a pig in a poke. because he does notknow too much about them and I know nothing. They

look oid and they smell old, and I imagine they areold. That is the opinion of a real expert,'

All this tends to suggest that Sir Chester acquiredthe residue of what had been offered to Bodmer inSwiss Francs. items that presumably were not consl-dered 'world literature,' as Bodmer deÍrned the scopeof lls collectionlT. but rather were the kind of artifacts.such as book bindings, that interested Sir Chester. Theparadoxical outcome of this selectivity procedure isthat Bodmer tended to acquire items that entered thePachomian Monastery Library from outside. such asHomer. Menander, and the Greek Gospels, whereasSir Chester tended to acquire the mater ial moredirectly related to the Pachomian Order, such as themore primitively produced items and the bulk ofcopies of the official letters of Pachomian Abbots.precisely what was needed to identify the discovery asthe Archives of the Pachomian Monastic Order.

Sir Chester lacked the expertise provided to Bodmerin Cairo by Father Doutreleau, but was dependent onexpertise he received once he had taken an option tobuy and had directed the material to the British

Museum. In a let ter of 2l May 1956 to Merton, Sir

Chester wrote how he planned to reach a decision as

to whether to exercise his oPtion:'My idea is, soon after I arrive. to take the big

papyrus which is cut apart [ac. 2554. Inventory item 28]

and in that parcel there are two lots of loose leaves

one is supposed to be agnostic [?] - and have them

identified at the British Museum. I will not do any-

thing beyond identification, because I do not want to

be forced to take the lot. in case the other two are of

no value.. . . I f she [Ml le Van Regemorter] can come over we

wil l take the other two books [ac. 1389, Inventory i tem12. and ac . 1499. Inventory i tem 251 to I I .E .S. ]Edwards and [T.C.] Skeat at the British Museum [so]she can study the bindings. In the meantime. we will

have the option [for: opinion?] about the first lot.'On 7 January 1957 Beatty wrote from Nice to

Merton of a second potential acquisition:'I received a letter from Bodmer's secretary [Mlle

Bongard] who had just come from Cairo, as he hadsent her to go through all the fragments that Tano hzrd

in the hope of finding a few little fragments which had

been overlooked of the St. John's Gospel. and shemanaged to find a few fragments. She told me that shehad certain things which Tano wanted me to have.and she told me the price was 4.000 Swiss francs. and Iasked her if she would leave them with me. as Iwanted to get a l i t t le inlormation on them. and Iwould probabl.v take them. There are 8 i tems, ofwhich 6 are papl'rus. and one. curiously enough. aperfect mass of small fragments. ln fact. they Írll asmall plastic box of about 4" long b1' 3 l 2" wide by2" deep. Then there is a roll otr vellum of somesermon which is quite early [ac. 1486. i tem 4 in theInventory of Pachomian let ters] . . . So when LadyPowerscourt went back. I sent samples of the find,with the exception of one item, to Edwards.'

On 16 December 1956 Sir Chester had wri t ten toEdwards a letter following up his shipment of sam-p les :

' I should be very pleased i f you would get theproper advice and find out if they are of any value. Ido not know what to make of these fragments. One lotthey say is from the same roll as the Greek papyrus wehave of the time of Diocletian [ac. 2554, Inventoryitem 28], and there are two big lots of fragments whichare stil l here and I will get to you later.'

On 2l January 1957 Edwards wrote Wilk inson that' the latest Copt ic documents.. . seem to me to be toofragmentary to be very promising.'

There was a third acquisition in 1958, again medi-ated through Mlle Bongard of the Bibliothèque Bod-mer. On l8 December 1957 Tano wrote to Sir Chesterin Nice:

'I wrote to Miss Odile Bongard to forward yousome papyrus which completes some you bought

JA\ , ÍES M- ROBINSON. THE PACHOMIAN MONASTIC L IBRARY -) -)

before. Also if she received a lot of parchments inCoptic. In case she did, please their pr ice send i t i fpossible in Cyprus pounds. '

On 19 Apri l 1958 Bodmer wrote Sir Chester: 'The

package Íiom Tano rs also ready to be delivered to-voul' The package seems to be an item distinct fromthe papyrus complet ing previous acquisi t ions, andpresumably contained the ' lot of parchments in Cop-t i c . '

Miss McGil l ighan of the staff of Sir Chester 'sl ibrary had wri t ten him on l0 Apri l 1958:

'I will be very pleased to go to Geneva and collectthe papyrus from Mademoiselle Bongard, as you sug-gest. i had planned to leave Paris for Dublin on Maythe l8th and so i t would be on May the 19th that Iwould go to the Bodmer Library and col lect thepapyrus. '

On 23 May 1958 Miss McGil l ighan wrote Beatty:' I col lected the package which contains some l iag-

mentar) ' leather bindings and l7 vel lum fol ios withsome fragments. one ui th a miniature. several withspiral ornamentat ion and several rv i th coloured ini-t ia ls. They are in fair lv good condit ion and Dr. Ha.vesthinks that the u'r i t ing ma1'be Greek. but I would optfor Copt ic. '

The papy'rus that complemented previous acquisi-t ions may wel l belong to the Dishna Papers. in that.for example. further fragments were added to ac. 1390(lnventor-v item 23) even after it had been conservedbetween glass panes at the Bri t ish Museum and senton to Dublin, necessitating a retum of the material lromDublin to London for a reconservation. But the vellumfolios can be identiÍied no doubt as ac. 1933. manuscript820, an i tem apparent ly no longer belonging to rheDishna Papers.

I f thus the competi t ion and assistance in acquir ingthe Dishna Papers by Sir Chester and Bodmer seemsto have reached i ts conclusion in 1958. the personalrelations between the two friends continued until nearSir Chester's death. Indeed on l7 October 1963 Bodmerwrote him a bold letter proposing they unite the rwocol lect ions under a single foundat ion. whi le leavingthem at the two separate repositories. Sir Chesterresponded on 20 November 1963 pol i tely decl ining theoffer18. In a previous let ter of 29 October 1963 to Dr.Hayes concerning Bodmer's proposal Sir Chester hadcommented:

'I do think we might work in very close co-opera-tion with him, and it might be well for you to go downand see the Bodmer Library sometime. We couldpossibly loan them items and they might loan usi tems, as we supplement each other extremely wel l . . . '

A striking instance of such a supplementing of eachother's holdings is the Pachomian Monastery LibraryArchives, which were brought together in a smallcupboard shared with tweezers for thorns at FáwQibli at the headquarters monastery in Upper Egypt.

then some three centuries later were buried at the footof the Jabal Ab[ Maná' for safekeeping for over amil lennium, then late in 1952 were discovered byHasan Muhammad al-Sammán of Abu Maná"Bahrï . '*'ere acquired by the strong man of Dishná RiyádJirjis Fám and then sold by him bit by bit to PhocionJ. Tano, who sold the bulk of the material in the yearsaround 1956 to Martin Bodmer and Sir Chester Beatty.A joint exhibit of the Archives of the PachomianMonastic Library would be a fascinating instance ofsuch close co-operation as Sir Chester had in mind.

1. Inventort

The contents of the discovery. including the quitefragmentar,v items and those listed only with hesita-tion. are as follows (they are Greek papyrus codices,unless otherwise indicated) :

1. Homer. Iliocl. Book 5 : P. Bodmer I. a roll onthe verso of a rol l of documentary papy'r i . P.Bodmer L.

2. Homer. Iliad. Book 6 : P. Bodmer I. a roll onthe verso of the same rol l of documentary papl ' r i . :P. Bodmer L.

3. Gospel of John : P. BodmerÍiom the Chester Beattv Librarv. ac.214. : P 66 .

4. Gospel of John and Genesis I : lr i c : P . Bodmer l l l

II + a fragment2555. + P. Kóln

4:2 in Bohai -

5. Menander, Sumia. Dvskolos. Aspis : P. BodmerXXV. IV. XXVI + P. Barc. 45 + Cologne inv. 904 :P. Kóln 3 + P. Rob. 38.

6. liativitt' ol Mar.t' : Apoc'al.t'pse o.f' Jantes (Prote-vangeliunt o./' Jante.;): Apocryphal Correspondence ofPaul with the Corinthrans: Ode.s rf' Solonton I l; theEpistle of Jude: Melito of Sardis On rhe Pussover', afragment of a liturgical hymn the Apolog.v o./' Phileas;Psalms 33-34: I and 2 Peter : P. Bodmer V: X: XI :VII; XIII I XII: XX (+ a fragment lrom the ChesterBeat ty L ibrary. ac. 2555) ; IX; Vt l I .

7. Proverbs in Proto-Sahidic on parchment : P.Bodmer Vi.

8. Gospels of Luke and John : P. Bodmer XIV-X V : P 7 5 .

9. Exodus l : l - 15:21 in Sahid ic on parchment :P. Bodmer XVI. (P. Bodmer XVII is general ly agreednot to come from the same discovery.)

10. Deuteronomy 1:1 10:7 in Sahid ic P.Bodmer XVIII.

1 1. Mat thew 14:28 - 28:20 + Romans I : l 2 :3.both in Sahidic on parchment. : P. Bodmer XIX.

12. Joshua in Sahidic : P. Bodmer XXI + ChesterBeat ty ac. 1389.

13. Jeremiah 40:3 - 52:34; Lamenrarions; Epist leof Jeremy; Baruch 1:1 - 5:5, al l in Sahidic on

-\+

parchment. : P. BodmerCodex I I .

} íANUSCRIPTS OF THE

XXII + Mississippi Coptic

14. Isaiah 47:l - 66:24 in Sahidic : P. BodmerXXIII.

15. Psalms 17 - | 18 : P. Bodmer XXIV.16. Thucydides; Suzanna; Daniel; Moral Exhorta-

t ions : P. Bodmer XXVII, XLV, XLVI. XLVII.17. A satyr play on the confrontation of Heracles

and Atlas. a papyrus rol l . : P. Bodmer XXVIII.18. Codex Visionum : P. Bodmer XXIX

XXXVIII. (For P. Bodmer XXXIX see the inventoryof specifically Pachomian material belorv.)

19. Song of Songs in Sahidic on parchment : P.Bodmer XL.

20. The Acts of' Poul. Ephesus Episode. in Subach-mimic. : P. Bodmer XLI.

21. Fragments of the lliad from a papyrus ro11 : P.Bodmer XLVIII.

22. Fragments of the Od-1'ssel from a papyrus roll: P . Bodmer XL IX .

23. Mathematical exercises in Greek: John 10 1 -l3:38 in Subachmimic : Chester Beatty ac. 1390.

24. The Apot'ulyp.se oí Eliah in Sahidic : ChesterBeatty ac. 1493 : P. Chester Beatty 2018.

25. A Greek grammar; a Graeco-Latin lexicon onRomans. 2 Cor in th ians, Galat ians. Ephesians :Chester Beatty ac. 1499.

26 . Psa lms 72 :6 - 23 . 25 - 76 : l : 71 : l - 18 . 208l :7 ; 82:2 - 84:14; 85:2 - 88:20 : Chester Beat tyac. l50l : P. Chester Beatty XIII : Rahifs 2149.

2 7 . P s a l m s 3 l : 8 - 1 1 : 2 6 : l - 6 . 8 1 4 . 2 : l 8: Chester Beatty ac. 1501 : P. Chester Beatty XIV: Rah l fs 2150.

28. Tax receipts of 339-1'7 A.D. from Panopolis(Achmim) in a largeiy uninscribed and unbound quireconstructed from two papyrus ro1ls with correspon-dence of the Strategus of the Panopol i tan nome of298-300 A.D. : P. Beatty Panopol i tanus : ChesterBeatty ac.2554.

29. Mel i to of Sardis On the Pussover:2 Maccabees5:2 '7 - 7 :41 ; ' l Pe ter ; Jonahr a homi ly o r hymn. :

The Crosby-Schoyen Codex ms. 193 o f TheSchoyen Collection of Western Manuscripts.

30. Scholia to the Odt'ssev I from a papyrus ro11 :

P. Rob. inv. 32 + P. Colon. inv. 906.31. Achi l leus Tat ios from a papyrus rol l : P. Rob.

inv . 35 + P. Co lon . inv . 901.32. Odvssey 3 4 from a papyrus roll : P. Rob.

inv. 43 + P. Colon. inv. 902.33. A piece of ethnography or a philosophical trea-

t ise from a papyrus rol l : P. Rob. inv. 37 + P.Colon. inv. 903.

34. Cicero. in Catilinarr; Psalmus Responsorius:Greek liturgical text; Alcesti.r, all in Latin except theGreek liturgical text, : Codex Miscellani : P. Barci-nonenses inv. 149-61 * P. Duke inv. L I [ex P. Rob.i n v . 2 0 l l .

35. Gospels of Luke; John; Mark. al l in Sahidic :P . P a l a u R i b e s l 8 l - 1 8 3 .

MIDD[_E EAST 5 i l 990 -1991 )

The totai quantity of material would involve whatremains of some 37 books. They consist of 9 Greekclass ica l papyrus ro l ls (numbers 1,2. 11,23.24,32-35)and 28 codices (numbers 3-16, l8-22. 25-31, 36, 37).The codices may be subdivided as follows: 21 are onpapy rus (numbers 3 -6 , 8 , 10 . 12 , 14 -16 ,18 . 20 . 22 ,25 -31 . 36 . 37 ) , 5 on pa rchmen t (numbers 1 .9 ,11 , 13 , l 9 ) .and of 1 the Bibliotheque Bodmer has not divulgedthe material (number 22). l0 are in Greek (numbers 3.5. 6 . 8 , 15" 16. 18. 28-30) , 2 in Greek and Lat in(numbers 27, 36). and I in Greek and Subachmimic(number 25) . 15 are in Copt ic (numbers 4, ' / ,9-14. 19-22.26.31. 37) , o f which l0 are in Sahid ic (numbers 9-14. 19. 26.31. 37) . I in Bohai r ic (number 4) , I inProto-Sahidic (number 7). I in Subachmimic (number20). and of I the Bibl iotheque Bodmer has not divul-ged the dialect (number 22). 2 are non-Christ ian(numbers 5. 30) . 2 l Chr is t ian (numbers 3.4,6-15, l8-21.26,28.29" 31,37) and 4 part ly each (numbers 16,25.21.36) . 1 l conta in someth ing f rom the Old Testa-ment (numbers 7. 9. 10, 12-16, 19, 28. 29') and 6something from the New Testament (numbers 3, 8, I l,21.25.37) and 3 something from each (numbers 4, 6,3 1 ) .

A distinctive part of this discovery consists of archi-vai copies of offrcial letters of Abbots of the Pacho-mian Monastic Order:

l . Pachomius' Letter l lb in Sahidic. a small parch-ment rol l . : P. Bodmer XXXIX.

2. Pachomius' Letters 9a. 9b. 10. 1lb. from a papy-rus codex. in Sahidic : Chester Beattv Glass Contai-ner No. 54 : ac. 2556.

3. Pachomius' Letters l -3. 7. 10. l la in Greek. asmall parchment roll in rotltl i formar. ChesterBeatty Ms. W. 145 + Cologne inv. 3288 : P. Kóln174 : three fragments lrom Letter 7.

4. Theodore's Letter 2 in Sahidic, a smal l parchmentrol l in rotul i format. : Chester Beatty Library ac.I 486.

5. A second copl of Theodore's Letter 2. a smal lparchment roll in rotuli format in an unidentifiedprivate German collection. pubiished by MartinKrause.

6. Horsiesios' Letter 3 in Sahidic. a small papyrusroll. : Chester Beatty Library ac. 1494.

7. Horsiesios' Letter 4 in Sahidic. a small papyrusrol l . : Chester Beatty Library ac. 1495.

8. Pachomius' Letter 8 in Sahidic, a small parch-ment rol l , : Cologne inv. 3286 : P. Colon. Copt. 2: P. Kóln ágypt. 8.

9. Pachomius' Letters l0-11a in Sahidic. a smal lparchment rol l , : Cologne inv. 3287 : P. Colon.Copt. I : P. Kóln àgypt. 9.

NorEs

1 One of these codices, originally acquired by the Univer-sity of Mississippi and named Mississippi Coptic Codex I(The Crosby Codex) has recently been acquired by MartinSchoyen. dist inguished Norwegian bibl iophi le. and has

JAMES M. ROBINSON. THE PACHOMIAN MONASTIC LIBRARY 35

been published through the Insiitute for Antiquity andChristianity: The Crosb,v-Scho1'en Coder. Ms 193 in theSchot'en Collection. Edited by James E. Goehring withcontributions by Hans-Gebhard Bethge. James E. Goering,Charles W. Hedrick. Clayton N. Jefford. Edmund S. Melt-zer , James M. Robinson and Wi l l iam H. Wi l l is . CSCO 521.Subsidia 85 (Leuven: Peeters, 1990).

2 Pachomían Koinonia l: The Life of Saint Pachomius,2:Pachomian Chronícles qnd Rules. tr. Armand Veil leux (Cis-tercian Studies 45 and 46: Kalamazoo. MI: CistercianP u b l i c a t i o n s , 1 9 8 0 a n d l 9 8 l ) , 1 . 3 4 1 .

3 Pachomian Koínonia. 1.338-339.a Pachomian Koinonía. 2.414-415.s Pachomían Koinonía. 2.166.260-262.ó James M. Robinson and Alfons Wouters. 'Chester

Beatty Accession Number 1499 A Preliminary CodicologicalAnalysis.' Misc'el-lània Papiràlogica Ramon Roco-Puig en elseu t 'uíÍanÍè aniyersari. edited by Sebastià Janeras (Barce-lona: Fundacio Salvador Vives Casajuana. 1987). pp. 297-306. See also Alfons Wouters. The Chester Beatt.y Coder Ac1499: A Graeco-Lotin Lericon on the Pauline Epistels and aGreek Crammar (Chester Beatty Monographs No. l2; Leuvenand Par is : Peeters. 1988).

' Hans Quecke. 'Die Briefe Pachoms.' Zeitschrif ' t der

Deutschen Morgenlcindischen Gesellst'haí't. Supp. 2 1914 (:18. Deutscher Or ienta l is tentag 1972). p.98. n. 13. advocatesthe Fourth Century. and reports that the same date wasalready proposed by T. C. Skeat in a le t ter of 17 x i i 70.Quecke's edítio prínceps is Die Briefe Pat'honts; Gríechi.sc'lrcrText der Handschrift W. 145 cler Chester Beatty Librarl',eingeleítet und herctusgegeàen (Textus Patristici et Liturgici1 l ; Regensburg: Fr iedr ich Pustet . 1975).

8 Tito Orlandi. A. de Vogrié. Hans Quecke and JamesGoehring. Pachomiana Coptít 'a. in the press. The dating isfrom an early draft of the typescript b,v de Vogiié.

e Martin Krause. 'Der Erlassbrief Theodors.' Srudie.iPresented to Hans Jakob Polotikr'. ed. Dwight W. Young(Beacon Hi l l . East Gloucester . MA: Pi r t le and Polson,l98l ) , pp.220-38 and Plate 6. especia l ly p.221 'wi th everyreservation, the Fifth Century.'

10 Number 8: Dieter Kurth" Heinz-Josef Thissen andManfred Weber. Kólner Àgyptísche Papvri (P. Kótn àglpt.)1 (Abhandlungen der Rheinisch-Westfàlischen Akademieder Wissenschaften, Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia9; Cologne and Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. 1980).pp. 100-02. Hans Quecke, 'Die Br iefe Pachoms, 'p.97. c i teswith apparent approval the dating 'Fifth or Sixth Century'by Alfred Hermann in his very inadequate editio princeps(that Quecke in other regards corrected), 'Homilie in sahi-dischem Dialekt,' Demotísche und Koptische Texte (Papyro-logica Coloniensia 2; Wissenschaftl iche Abhandlungen derArbeitsgemeinschaft f i ir Forschung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalens; Cologne and Opladen, 1968), pp.82-85 andPlate 3, especia l ly p.82.

Number 9: Kurth, Thissen and Weber, Kólner Àg1,p-rische Papyrí (P. Kóln àSypt.) l, pp. 103-08. Hans Quecke.'Die Briefe Pachoms,' p.97, cites with apparent approvalthe dating 'Fifth or Sixth Century' as that of AngelicusKropp, O.P. in his very inadequate editio prínceps (that

Quecke also corrected in other regards), 'Ein Márchen alsSchreibr.ibung,' Demotísche und Koptische i"e,xte (Papyrolo-gica Coloniensia 2; Wissenschaftl iche Abhandlungen derArbeitsgemeinschaft f i ir Forschung des Landes Nordrhein-West fa lens; Cologne and Opladen, 1968), pp.69-81 and

Plates l -2. especia l ly p. 81, where Kropp wrote 'end of theFifth Century.'

11 Number 2: Hans Quecke, 'Ein neues Fragment der

Pachombriefe in koptischer Sprache.' OrienÍalía 43 (1974)66-72, especially p. 67, 'probably from the Sixth Century.'

Number 4: Hans Quecke, 'Ein Brief von einem Nachfolger

Pachoms (Chester Beatty Library Ms. Ac. 1486),' Oríentalia44 (.1915) 426-33 and Plate 42, especially p. 427.'probablyof the Sixth Century. '

Number 7: Tito Orlandi, 'Nuovi Testi Copti Pacomiani. 'Commandements du Seigneur et Liberation évangélíque (Stu-d ia Anselmiana 70 ' Rome: Edi t r ice Anselmiana, 1977).pp.24l-43, esp. p.242. where he referred to GuglielmoCavallo for a dating 'a bit older than that of the precedingroll ' (see the following note). Hans Quecke.

'Eine Handvollpachomianischer Texte.' Zeitschrift cler Deutschen Morgen-làndischen Gesellscha.ft. Supp. 3.1 19ll (: 19. DeutscherOr ienta l is tentag 1975). pp.22l -29, especia l ly p.222. l is ts theSixth Century.

12 Or landi . 'Nuovi Test i Copt i Pacomiani , ' p .241, c i tedGuglielmo Cavallo for a dating to the Seventh Century.Quecke.

'E ine Handvol l pachomianischer Texte, ' p .222:'The hand is a very artif icial uncial. which one would l ike toplace considerably later' [than a Sixth Century' dating. seethe preceding note].

13 Already Hans Quecke has recognized the non-acci-dental nature of the five Pachomian texts acquired by theChester Beatty Library. 'Eine Handvoll pachomianischerTexte.' p. 221: 'It is to be suspected that the five piecesbelong together. and thus. as it were. present a 'hoard' ofPachomian material. The five Pachomian pieces can indeedhardly have come together accidentally in the ChesterBeatty Library.' And Tito Orlandi. 'Nuovi Testi Copti Paco-miani. 'p.241. considers the material to come from'the l ibraryof a Pachomian rnonastery.'

1a For a legend about such upheavals see K.H. Kuhn. IPanegvric on Apollo Archinnnclrite of the Monastery, of'Isaac bt' Stephen Bishop o/' Herot'leopolís Magna (CorpusScriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Orientalium 394-95; Scripto-res Coptici 39-40; Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO.I 978 ) .

1s It was this identif ication of the remains of this codexas part of the Dishna Papers that lead to the decision topublish it through the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity:The Chester Beattl, Codex Ac 1390; Mathematical SchoolExercises in Greek and John l0;7-13;38 ín Subachmimir'.edited by Will iam Brashear, Wolf-Peter Funk. James M.Robinson and Richard Smith (Chester Beatty MonographsNo. 13: Leuven and Par is : Peeters. 1990 [1991]) .

1ó A.J. Wilson, The Ldè and Times of Sir Alfred ChesterBeatt\ ' (London: Cadogan Publications Ltd.. 1985), presentsan informed biography, including however all too few briefdiscussions of the bibliophile dimension of Beatty's activity.Brian P. Kennedy, Alfred Chester BeaÍt1' and lreland t950-1968: A Study in Cultural Politícs (Dublin: Glendale, 1988),reports considerably more about the founding of the Ches-ter Beatty Library. See especially pp.49, 125-27 concerningthe relation with Martin Bodmer.

17 Martin Bodmer, Eine Biblíothek der Weltl i teratur(Z i i r ich: At lant is , 1947).

18 Excerpts of the exchange of letters are quoted byKennedy, Alfred Chester BeatÍy and lreland 1950-t968,pp .126 -27 .

.1r) MANUSCRIPTS OF THE MIDDLE EAST 5 (1990 -199 I )

PostscRrpr

I t has taken more than a generat ion to establ ish theprovenience of the Bodmer papyri , the approximateextent of their contents beyond the holdings of theBibl iotheque Bodmer. and the detai ls of their disco-very and market ing. The course of this developmentcan be traced as fol lows:

Victor Martin, Puptrus Bodrner I, Il iade, churtts 5 eÍ ó(Bibliotheca Bodmeriana 3; Cologny-Geneva: Biblio-theque Bodmer. 1954t. p. 21. Isted Panopolis (Achmim)as the provenience on ïkre basis of the land regtster onthe recto of the rolls. Yet Martin recognized that oncethe land register was no longer in use. the rol ls couldhave been moved anywhere. in which connection hereferred to Eric C. Turner, 'Roman Oxyrhynchus. 'Journal o/ 'Egt 'pr iun Archeologt '38 (1952) 78-93. w'herematerial from other nomes is reported to have beenfound at Oxyrhynchus. See also Turner. 'Recto andVerso. ' JEA 40 (1954) i02-06. On l-5 December 58Mart in wrote to Wil l iam H. Wil l is: 'That they' werefound in Achmim. though probable. is b1 no meanscertain. ' Wi l l is. 'The Neu Col lect ions of Pap-vr i at theUniversity of Mississipi.' Proteetlirtg.s ol the IX' Inter-national Congress ol Puprrolog.r' (Os1o: NorwegianUnivers i t ies Press . 1961) . p . 383. n . 1 . u 'ho quotesMart in. took the comment to appl,v to the BodmerPapyri in general .

But one ma-y contrast Rodolphe Kasser. PaplrusBorlnter III. Evangile de Jean et Genè.se I-1V,2 enbohair ique (Corpus Scriptorum Christ ianorum Orien-tal ium 177-178. Scr iptores Copt ic i 25-26: Louvain:Secré tar ia t du CorpusSCO. 1958) . 111. i i i : ' . . . u i thoutthe exact provenience having been revealed thus far.One said that all the pieces had been found together inUpper Egypt, and that i t had to do u' i th a pr ivatel ibrary. We do not know an-vthing more. ' Simi lar l l 'Martin. Papt'rus Bodmer IL', Ménunclre: Le Dv.stolo.s(Cologny-Geneva: Bibl iotheque Bodmer. 1958 [19-s9]).p. 7. l isted the place of discoverl as 'unknown. ' ButKasser, Papt'rus Bodmer XL'[, Erode I-XV , 2 I ensah id ique (Co logny-Geneva: B ib l io theque Bodmer .l96 l ) , p .7 . repor ted tha t 'w 'e can admi t . as a poss ib i -l i ty i f not probabi l i ty. that these texts were copiedbetween Achmim and Thebes. and. by preference. inthe neighbourhood of the latter site. The irnportanceof Thebes is due to the Proto-Sahidic (previousll'called Proto-Theban) dialect Kasser identified in PapyrusBodnter VI, Livre des Proverbes (Corpus ScriptorumChristianorum Orientalium 194-95. Scriptores Coptici27-28; Louvain: Secrétar iat du CorpusSCO, 1960). anassociation made explicit by Michael Testuz, PapvrusBodnter VII-IX, r/II: L'Epítre de Jude; VIII: Les deuxEpítres de Pierre ; lX; Les Psuumes 33 et 34 (Cologny-

Geneva: Bibl iothèque Bodmer. 1959. p. 32. who hencesupported Thebes as the place of origin of P. BodmerVI I - IX .

Then Kasser. Papt ' rus Bodnter XXVIII , Esaie

XLWI, 1 - LXVI, 24 en sahidr4re (Cologny-Geneva:

B ib l io theque Bodmer , 1965) , p . T . n . I " s ta ted :'Various indicat ions. internal or external. would tendto or ient our research a bi t north of Thebes. ' But theinternal evidence. the dialects. is so variegated (Sahi-

dic. Bohair ic. Paleo-Sahidic. Subachmimic) as to makethem a conflicting and hence unreliable indication ofthe site of the discovery.

Kasser's remark in Papt'rus Bodnter XXI, Jo.rtté VI,16 .25 , V I I ,6 - X I ,23 , XXI I , 1 - 2 ,19 - XXI I I ,7 ,t5 - XXIr ' ,23 en suhit l ique (Cologny-Geneva:Bibl io-theque Bodmer. 1963, p. 7, n. I might have seemedpreferable: 'Of course an admission of uncertainty isworth more than the af l i rmation of a 'certainty ' ' basedon false information. '

The source of the external in lormation \ \as notident i f ied by Kasser. but by Ol ivrer Reverdin in hisPreÍàce. 'Les Genevois et Ménandre.' to ,líéncmclrt'. LuSuntíenne. translated into French and adapted liornthe Greek by Andre Hurst. as presented on theFrench- language Swiss rad io on l5 March 1975.pub l ished as a pamphle t in 1975. p . l : 'For a long t imeone had onl,v quite vague indicat ions about theirprovenience. Short l l beÍore his death. however. theant iqui t ies dealer r"ho had sold them l i f ted the secret.He revealed that these papl ' r i came Í iom a vi l lage nearNag Hammadi . . . I t i s to Mr . Rodo lphe Kasser . Pro-fessor o f Copt ic Language and L i te ra tu re a t theFaculty of Letters of Geneva. and editor oÍ ' a largepart of these papyri in the senes Prplrus Bodmer, LhaÍhe made his confession. '

Then. with the resumption of publ icat ion of themonograph series, Kasser and Guglielmo Cavallo.Pup.t'rus Bodmer XXIX, Vísion cle Dorotheos (Cologny-

Geneva: Foundat ion Mart in Bodmer, 1984). p. 100.n.2. reported: 'Various converging indications (among

them the dialects of the Coptic texts) make ver.vplausible the localization of this discovery in UpperEgy'pt. a bi i to the east of Nag Hammadi. '

In the context of his 1984 statement Kasser referredexpl ic i t ly to my having announced inappropiately inthe Bulletin of the Institute for Antiquity and Christian-i t - ' - . 7 .1 (March 1980) . pp 6-7 . the d iscovery o f theident i ty of the Bodmer Papyri with the Dishna Papers.On receipt of that Bulletin he had requested furtherinÍormation, and on 23 June 1980 I obl iged by mai l inghim a current draft of the relevant section of a book Ihad begun on the topic. Thus before announcing hisÍina1 decision as to the provenience of the BodmerPapyri (which agrees with the outcome of my investiga-tions). he had access to my published and unpublishedmaterial reporting basically the same facts as found inthe present essay, though no public acknowledgementis made to this effect.

Instead. in a recent art ic le, 'Status quaest ionis 1988sulla presunta origine dei cosiddetti Papiri Bodmer.'Aegyptus: Rit'istct italiana di egittologia e papirologiu68: l -2 (1988) . 191-194, espec ia l l y p . 192 and n . 9 .

J , { \ , ÍES NÍ , ROBINSON. THE PACHOMIAN MONASTIC T, IBRAR\ 3 7

Kasser has maintained that my invest igat ions werebased on no more than village 'rumor' rendered irrele-vant by the passing of 25 years. Though this cr i t ic ismis to be dismissed as simply not accurate. it does serveto indicate that i t would be relevant to pubi ish thesources of the information presented above in Section2 on the Discovery and Marketing of the Library.

My own investigation began as part of my efforts totrack down the discoverers and middlemen of the NagHammadi codices. Jean Doresse had referred to apriest he thought had seen the Nag Hammadi codices.Abunii Dá'[d, whom I found after church on 20November 1974 at the Deir al-Malák where he hadofficiated. near al-Qasr not far from Nag Hammadi.Another priest there. to whom he introduced me.mentioned that the discovered codices had been for atime in the possession of a Dishná priest namedManqaryus and his son Tányus. I added this second-ar i ly to my essay 'On the Codicology of the NagHammadi Codices.' Les Te.rÍes de l{ag Hammadi:Colloque du Centre d'Histoire des Religiort.y ( Stras-bourg, 23-25 octobre 1974), ed. by Jacques-É. Ménard(Nag Hammadi S tud ies VI I : Le iden: E .J , Br i l i . 1975) .p. 16. on the assumption that i t had to do with theNag Hammadi codices.

I t was in the process of fol lowrng up this lead that Iinterviewed the Inspector for Agriculture of the DishnáGovernorate. Isháq Ayylb Isháq. who told me aboutwhat he referred to as the Dishna Papers. He gave meon 12 September 1975 the name of an ant iqui t iesdealer in Alexandria. TawÍïq Sa'd. who. he said. hadacquired some of them. On 30 December 1975, hisson. a jewel ler in Alexandria. Émile TawÍïq Sa'd.showed me pictures of antiquities his deceased fatherhad sold. He even let me borrou the three picturesthat had to do with manuscripts. which were soonidentified as leaves of P. Bodmer XXIV (with the helpof Albert Pietersma) and XL (with the help of MarvinW. Meyer and Hans Quecke).

I interviewed, repeatedly and year after year (in theDishná area a lone : 18-21 November 1974: I I - l3January, 10-18 September. 25 November 20 De-cember 1975: 30 November 6 December. 18-30December 1976; 5-24 January 1978; 3-11 January, l5-20 December 1980), the principals in the story (listedin the order in which they occur in the narrative): thewidow of al-Quntmus Manqaryls (in Dishná) and hisson al-Qummus Tànyis (in Cairo), Rághib Andaràwusal-Qiss'Abd al-Sayyid ( in Dishná, Nag Hammadi andCairo). Riyàd Jirjis Fám and his son Nushr (both inHel iopol is), Mlsá Fikn Ash'ryah ( in Dishná), Ab[ al-WaÍà Ahmad Ismá'Il (in Fàw QiblI), Sa'id DiryásHabashr (in Dishná). and 'Azïz Suryál 'Atiyah (inClaremont. California).

These investigations ultimately located the discoverer,Hasan Muhammad al-Sammán. whom I interviewedat Ab[ Máná' 11 August 1981. During the interviewsomeone from the back of the crowd called out that he

too had been involved. I asked his name. He repl ied:'Abd al- 'Ál 'Umar. gi l ' ing in the customary Arab wayhis and his father 's name. I acknowledged the val idi tyof his claim by adding his grandfather 's name: al-'Abbádi. in this way incidentally accrediting myself assomeone with the basic facts alread-v in hand. whichhe then reported much as I had already heard morethan once. Obviously in such repeated interviews thereare minor f luctuat ions and contradict ions. at t imesprotestat ions of innocence and self-serving interpreta-t ions, but in the cross-examinat ion procedure the basicfacts were again and again confirmed.

Occasional details provided by Riyád Íit remarkablywel l the actual inventory as \ \ 'e know i t . The smal lrol ls the size of a f inger that Tano told him wereletters could wel l have been the archival copies oflet ters of Pachomian Abbots. Riyád described onebook as bal led up. as i f i t had been forced into thebottom of a pir i form jar. This corresponds to thebal led-up condit ion in which P. Bodmer XXIIMississippi Coptic Codex II was acquired. The approxi-mate size of the discovery and i ts var iegated contents.both rol ls and codices. both papyrus and parchment.were reported by the middlemen. though of coursethey were not able to report on the language of thetexts or their contents.

Written documentation. when available. has prorrdedstr ik ing conf irmation. such as the parish diary of theFranciscan Church near Nag Hammadi conf irmingthat Jose O'Cal laghan had been there ' to look forpapers' in 1964-65. as Sa'ïd Diryás Habashr hadmarntained. Wel l af ter mv invest iei i r ions in Egypt hadbeen completed, I located on l9 Januarl ' 1984. stapledat ac. 1390 in the Accessions Book of the ChesterBeatty Library, the typed note in Tano's woodenEnglish and unusual spelling that summarized theconclusions regarding the provenience to which myinvest igat ions had already led me.

I am heavi ly indebted to Father Louis Doutreleau.S.J.. who has wri t ten me over a period of years (1976-1980), with authorizatton to publ ish, detai ls of theacquisition process in Cairo. together with memo-randa he wrote in Cairo at the time and photographstaken in Cairo of materials he eramined there forBodmer that later became Bodmer Papyri. Kasser'srepudiation of Father Doutreleau (whom he has nevermet) as too senile to be taken seriously is valid neitherin terms of his age nor in terms of his detailed.intelligent letters and the earlier records he has sup-plied. I called to Kasser's attention a doctorate honoriscausa Father Doutreleau had recently received fromthe University of Cologne. When I visited FatherDoutreleau at the offices of Sources Chretiennes atLyon on 26May 1992,he took sat isfact ion in point ingout a second honorary doctorate framed and hung onhis wal l .

Confirmation has even belatedly come, as I searchedsecondary literature in this regard, from Kasser him-

38 MANUSCRIPTS OF THE MIDDLE EAST 5 ( I990-I99I)

self. In 'Fragments du livre biblique de la Genèsecachés dans la rel iure d'un codex gnost ique, ' leMuséon 85 (1972) 80, he reported: 'I have seriousreason to believe that they [the Bodmer Papyri] werefound, like the Gnostic codices mentioned above. in aplace near Nag Hammadi.' In 'Les dialectes coptes,'Bulletin de I'Institut Franqais d'archéologie orientale 73(1973) 81, he sharpened the identification: 'A bit tothe east (north-east) of Nag Hammadi.' However it isquite inaccurate to describe ('Status quaestionis 1988sulla presunta origine dei cosiddetti Papiri Bodmer,'p.192 and n. 7) my ident i f icat ion of the si te as an'echo' of his vague allusions to a site to the east ofNag Hammadi (the earliest of which he cites being hisessay'Le dialecte protosaidique de Thèbes,' Archiv fí)rPapyrusforschung 28 [1982] 77, n.2). For I turned tosecondary literature concerning the provenience of theBodmer Papyri only after I had discovered that theywere the same manuscript discovery that in UpperEgypt is known as the Dishna papers.

Kasser reported ('Status quaestionis 1988 sulla pre-sunta origine dei cosiddetti Papiri Bodmer.' p. 192)that Tano gave " 'Dabba" or "Debba" (al-Dabba,5 km to the east, s l ight ly north-east. of Nag Ham-madi)' as the location. This village is too near the Nileto have preserved manuscripts intact over the years, inview of the annual inundations flooding this area priorto the construction of the High Dam. But it is the firstrailroad station upstream from Nag Hammadi, recom-mended in the 1914 English-language Baedeker as thestation from which to visit the cliff area. It would be amore convenient point of departure for Ab[ Maná'than would be Dishná (and for the Jabal al-Tárif thanwould be Nag Hammadi), if one planned to go by footor donkey, but would have been replaced by Dishná(or Nag Hammadi) once a taxi came in question (al-Dabba lacks a taxi stand). It was in fact the first nameused to locate the Nae Hammadi codices (bv theAbbot Ét ienne Drioto-n, General Director 'of theDepartment of Antiquities, in a letter of 13 February1948 to Jean Doresse, reporting on an interview withthe same Tano, and referring to 'the discovery ofDaba'). Tano liked to associate the Dishna Paperswith the Nag Hammadi codices for financial reasons.But since the main middlemen trafficking in the DishnaPapers were located at Dishná, that has become thelocal designation.

Kasser reported ('Status quaestionis 1988 sulla pre-sunta origine dei cosiddetti Papiri Bodmer,' p. 192 andn. 6) having waited in publishing his own view aboutthe location of the discovery until Bodmer's secretary[Odile Bongard] revealed her view ('a few monthsago'). When it turned out to disagree with that ofKasser, the documentation I had entrusted to himmay have strengthened his hand in resist ing herconclusion. For I was, in response to his querry, ableto clarify for him that the Dishnà to which I hadreferred was, in spite of the divergent French spelling,

located in the area conformable to his rather thanMlle Bongard's view of the provenience. She had'affirmed in all certainty' (p. 193) that the site of thediscovery was near a village named Mina or Minia inthe Asyut region. Kasser was not able to identify therea village with any such name (p. 193, n. 12), and hencerejected her view. The only way that she has then beenable to reconcile her information with Kasser's alter-native is (according to Kasser) to the effect that theAsyÍt region may have been the provenience only ofP. Bodmer XVII, which is generally recognized toderive from a different discovery than that of the bulkof the Bodmer Papyri. In fact the local Copts of theDishná region offer the popular etymology to theeffect that Abrl Maná' derives from the name of theCoptic saint, Mina. which may help to explain thegarbled report by Mlle Bongard.

Kasser 's own view ( 'Status quaest ionis 1988 sul lapresunta origine dei cosiddetti Papiri Bodmer.' pp.191-192) is based on information given to him bvTano 19 years after the discovery. Kasser had pre-viously maintained (Papyrus Bodnter VI. Livre tlesProverbes. 1960, p. v i i i . n. 1) that such informationwas irrelevant: 'One knows the little credence one cangive to the reports of antiquities dealers when theycannot be confirmed by any archeological investiga-tion.' Kasser's revised position that his interview withTano was an exception to the usual unreliability ofdealers in antiquities, in view of a special 'friendship'

with Tano and the fact that Tano's death was immi-nent, needs to be taken cum grano salis. I interviewedTano about the Nag Hammadi codices the same day(20 December 1971. when Kasser and I were bothtogether in Cairo at a work session of the TechnicalSub-Committee of the International Committee forthe Nag Hammadi Codices and staying in the samehotel, the Garden City House). Tano seemed quiteaggressive in spirit and in good health for a person hisage. He died 9 February 1972. Dealers in antiquitiesassure all of us of special bonds of friendship ('Youare my brother!'), which one should not take tooseriously. But as a matter of fact over the years Tanowas telling the truth regarding the provenience with aremarkable degree of consistency to persons he trusted.Since he funded a clandestine excavation of the site ofthe discovery directed by Riyàd Girgis Fám, Tanoapparently had the correct information.

In his article on the Bodmer Papyri in The Coptic,Encyclopaedia (New York: MacMillan, etc., 1991) 8.48-53, esp. p. 49, Kasser has summarized his criticismof my results:

'Thus, there are nineteen codices if one considersonly the reliable information gathered by the BodmerFoundation at the time the Bodmer papyri came to beincluded in the library. There are some scholars who.on the basis of much later research (some thirty yearsafter the presumed date of discovery of the Bodmerpapyri), think that they can also include in the Bodmer

. lANíES \ ' f . ROBÍNSON. THf PACHOMIAn ' MONASTIC L IBRARY 39

papyri various other famous manuscripts such as theP. Palau-Ribes from Barcelona (the Gospels of Mark.Luke, and John in Sahidic Coptic. edited by H. Quecke).and, above all, various letters of Pachomius. one oÍ'which is preserved in the Bodmer Foundation but withnothing to indicate that it might be part of the Bod-mer papyri. Their suggestion is that the actual iibraryof the famous Monastery of Saint Pachomius at Faw

al-Qibli has been rediscovered. This hypothesis is cer-tainly very tempting, but the reltable inÍormationreferred to above tends to weaken rather than streng-then i t . '

Actually, information originally' available to theBibliotheque Bodmer seems to have been lost from

sight. On 26 July 1956 Father Doutreleau had wri t ten

to Victor Mart in: ' l t is qui te certain that this f ind ofsome thir ty codices ( in the region of Nag Hammadi.l ike the Gnost ic papyri) cannot remain the act of asingle individual. ' I f Kasser can ident i l , r ' only 19 at theBib l io thèque Bodmer . u 'here does he assume theothers are to be found? Apparentll ' he u'as simpll'unaware of some of the ' rel iable information gathered

by the Bodmer Foundation at the time the Bodmerpapyri came to be included in the librarl'. ' such as thecorrespondence of which Doutreleau gave me a cop)"

The totai quant i ty of mater ial u oulC invoh'e whatremains of some 35 books (plus the 9 copies of let tersof Pachomian Abbots). Thel consist ot ' 10 Greekc lass ica l papyrus ro l l s (numbers l . 2 . 11 . 21 .22 . 30-33)and 26 cod ices (numbers 3-16 . l8 -20 . 23-29 . 34 . 35) .The codices may be subdivided as Íol lous. l l are onpapyrus (numbers 3-6. 10. 12. 14-16. 18. 20^ 23-29.34.3 5 ) , a n d 5 o n p a r c h m e n t ( n u m b e r s 7 . 9 . l l . 1 3 . 1 9 ) . l 0a r e i n G r e e k ( n u m b e r s 3 . 5 . 6 . 8 . 1 5 . 1 6 . 1 8 . 2 6 - 2 8 ) . 2in Greek and Lat in (numbers 15. 31). and I in Greekand Subachmimici lycopol i tan (number 23). l3 are in

C o p t i c ( n u m b e r s 4 " 1 . 9 - 1 4 . 1 9 . 2 0 . 2 1 . 2 9 . 3 5 ) . o fwhich l0 are in Sahidic (numbers 9- 14. I 9. 24. 29, 35).1 in Bohair ic (number 4). I in Proto-Sahidic (number

7). and I in Subachmimic,Lycopolt tan (number 20).2are non-Christ ian (numbers 5, 28). 20 C'hr ist ian (num-

b e r s 3 , 4 . 6 - 1 5 . l 8 - 2 0 , 2 4 " 2 6 . 2 7 . 2 9 . 3 5 ) . a n d 4 p a r t l y

each (numbers 16, 23. 25, 34). l1 contain somethingfrom the Old Testament (numbers 7. 9. 10. 12-16. 19.26, 21),5 something from the New Testament (num-

b e r s 3 . 8 . 1 1 , 2 3 . 3 5 ) , a n d 3 s o m e t h i n g f r o m e a c h(numbers 4, 6" 29).

It is quite arbitrary to limit one's information aboutthe provenience and the contents of the discovery tothat of the Bibliothèque Bodmer. The amount offragments in one repository that belong to codices inanother link the materials in Barcelona. Cologne,Dublin and Mississippi just as firmly with the mate-rials in the Bibliothèque Bodmer as does Kasser'scomment @. a9) that 'not a single shred belonging tothe Gnostic library [of Nag Hammadi] has been foundamong the Bodmer papyri and vice versa' effectivelyserve to indicate that we have to do with two quite

dist inct discoveries. The reasoning is the same. and

hence consistent conclusions should be drawn in both

cases.Actual ly. Kasser 's l ist of l9 i tems does inciude two

not represented in the Bibl iotheque Bodmer ( i tems 29

and 34). precisely because Bodmer acquired fragments

of mater ial in Barcelona and Mississippi and was kindenough to turn them over to the repository that held

the bulk of the codex. Since Sir Chester acquiredÍiagments from Tano belonging to codices acquiredby Bodmer, i t would be reasonable to assume otheracquisi t ions by Sir Chester acquired at the same trmelrom Tano should. at least as a rvorking hypothesis.be considered part of the same discoverl ' . This

assumption has been conf irmed bv a note from Tanoin the Book of Accessions in the Chester BeattyLibrary ident i fy ing one i tem (ac. 1390) as comingfrom Dishná. u, i th the conjecture that i t was ' Í iom theLibrary of a Monastery. ' When Bodmer's assistantMl le Bongard was later pennit ted to sort throughTano's fragments for vest iges of Bodmer's acquist-t ions. i t was a matter of course that Bodrner madeavai lable to Sir Chester those that he did not ident i fyas belonging to his acquisi t ions. just as he gave toBarcelona and Mississippi f ragments of their acquisi-t ions he had unknowingly acquired.

Father Doutrcleau ernphasized to me rr l l ln\ \ ' is i tw i th h im in L lon on 26 May 1992 tha t Mar t i r rBodmer and Mlle Bongard knew hardly anythingabout the discovery and nt idcl lemen. and that the l i t t lethey knerv they had learncd t ' rom h im. Kasser 's' rel iable informatton' is thus a second-hand version ofthe information I received f i rst-hanci Í rom Doutreleauand the Copts who had been drr. 'ct l r involved.

To discredit such research as 'soÍ le thir t l ' I 'ears afterthe presumed date of the discoven' is nei ther accuratenor relevant. The discovery in 1952 preceded by 22

-years mv invest igat ions which began in 197'1. rvhichcompares not too unfavorably with the 19 y 'ears thatelapsed before Tano confided in Kasser tnÍbrmationabout the provenience that Kasser took at Íàce I 'a lue.Since my' research included interviews with the princi-pals. made use of the notes Father Doutreleau madeat the time of the acquisitions. and has been confirmedby wri t ten records where avai lable. i t is hard to seehow the presentat ion by Kasser. based on none ofthese sources. has a higher claim to be accurate. I t isnot as i f he had retraced my steps and come todifferent conclusions; he has simply used the authorityimplicit in his status as an editor of the material at theBibliotheque Bodmer to assert his view to be correct.as if he did not have to give the reasons for his claims.

In the case o f P . Pa lau R ibes 181-183. i t was pu t inlast place in my Inventory. as being least certain. Hans

Quecke had expressed skepticism to me in view of theconsiderably better condit ion of this codex comparedto that of the Bodmer papyri . Kasser may hence beright that it is from a different provenience. But his

MANUSCRIPTS OF THE MIDDLE EAST 5 (1990-I99I)

negative conclusion is reached without considering theinformation I received from the parish diary of theFranciscan Church near Dishná. to the effect that JoséO'Callaghan, who acquired the materials for the PalauRibes collection, was actively searching in 1964-65 'for

papers' in the Dishná region. and from Sa'id Diryás ofDishná to the effect that O'Callaghan had obtainedsome material from the local Dishná priest. When Iwrote O'Callaghan to inquire if he had secured anyNag Hammadi material (which was my interest at thetime), he replied that he had not, though he mighthave secured something from the same provenience asthe Bodmer papyri. Of course O'Callaghan may havehad something other than P. Palau Ribes 181-183 inmind. And of course these reports can be discredited.if one can establish reasons to do so. However theyshould not simply be dismissed out of hand, but rathershould be investigated as to whether there may besome truth in them. Kasser was apparently unawareof them.

To postulate an independent discovery of the archivalcopies of letters from Abbots of the Pachomian Monas-ter,v Order. which then by pure coincidence passedthrough the same canals to reach the same Europeanrepositories as those which obtained Dishná Papers atabout the same t ime. is of course theoret ical ly pos-sible, but hardly probable. After ail, the Coptic andGreek Pachomian letters had been completell' unattestedfor 1500 years. Riyád's report that Tano told him thatthe small rolls the size of a finger. among the manu-scripts Riyád had for sale, were letters. seems toconfirm the converse probability that the Pachomianmaterials belong with the Dishná Papers Riyàd wastraÍicking.

Part of the difficulty in carrying on such a discussion isthat Kasser's opinion is based on undocumented claims.He maintains that 'the reliable information referred toabove tends to weaken rather than strengthen' theview that one has to do with the archival remains of aPachomian monastic library. But he does not providethat information for consideration. Michel Testuz.Papvrus Bodmer VII- IX (Cologny-Geneva: Bibl io-thèque Bodmer, 1959). p. 9. speculated: 'The contentof this anthology shows that the book was producedby Christians of Egypt, probably on the order of awell-to-do member of their community, who intendedit for his own library.' Such pure speculation is not'reliable information'; if there is such. it should bemade public.

The Inventory presented here was also appended tothe following essays: 'The Manuscript's History andCodicology,' The Crosbl'-Schoyen Coder Ms 193 in theSchoyen Collection, 1990, James E. Goehring (ed.),CSCO 521, Subsidia Tomus 85 (Leuven: E. Peeters,1990 [991]), pp. xvi i -x lv i i , especial ly pp. xxvi i i -xxxi i ;'Introduction.' The Chester Beattv Codex At: 1390:

Mathematical School Exercise.s in Greek and John10.7-13.38 in Suhuchmrhic, edited by William Brashear.Wolf-Peter Funk. James M. Robinson and RichardSmith. Chester Beatty Monographs No. 13 (Leuvenand Paris: Peeters. 1990 [1991]). pp. 3-32. especial lypp. 6-9; 'The f i rst Christ ian Monast ic Library. ' in W.Godlewski (ed.)^ Coptit' Studies; Act.s o/' the ThirdInternational Congress o/ Coptir: Studies, Warsux', 20-25 August l9B4 (Warsaw: PWN-Panstwowe Wydaw-nictwo Naukowe, 1990), pp. 371-389. especially pp. 375-378.

Three unpublished items included in these earlierpublications were not mentioned by Rodolphe Kasser inhis article on the Bodmer Papyri in The Coptíc Ertt'.t'c,krpaedia. and for lack of confirming evidence. have aisobeen omitted from the present Inventory:

P. Bodmer XLII, '2 Corinthians in Coptic (dialect andmaterial unknown).' Wolf-Peter Funk has determinedthat it is in Sahidic on parchment. There may be someunstated reason to assume it is not part ttf the Dishnadiscoverv. Hence one ma!' ar.l 'ait lurther inlornration orits publication.

P. Bodmer XLII I . 'an Apocryphon in Copttc ( ident in.dialect and matenal unknown).' Kasser mentioned at ameeting on the Apocryphal Acts in Lausanne on l6 May1992 that this is only a lragment of no significance.Though there was no further elucidation. it may beomitted pending further information or its publication.

P. Bodmer XLIV. 'Daniel in Bohairic.' Wolf-PeterFunk has determined that it is in classical Bohairic onparchment. to be dated liom the 10th to the 12thCenturies. Hence it presumabll,does not come lrom theDishná discovery.

P. Bodmer I, from Íhe lliatl. the lcr.rr.r of P. Bodmer L.as well as the Homeric fragments P. Bodmer XLVIIIand XLIX, are also not mentioned by Kasser. no doubtbecause of the original ascription to a provenience atPanopolis (Achmim), in view of the fact that the landregister on the recÍo comes lrom there. But that does notdetermine where the ro11 was later kept and reused.Furthermore. this did not ori-einally deter Kasser fromconsidering P. Bodmer I as belonging to the samediscovery as the bulk of the Bodmer Papyri. For once hehad edited in 1960 Bodmer Papyrus VI, in the Proto-Sahidic dialect that he at that time localized in Thebesand hence called Proto-Theban, he simply merged thisTheban órientation with the Achmim orientation in 1965into the compromise 'between Achmim and Thebes.and. by preference, in the neighbourhood of the lattersite' (see above). This location proved to be more orIess correct. a location that he at that time concededcould have included material from Achmim. No furtherinformation has been subsequently reported as havingemerged to associate the provenience of P. Bodmer Iwith a different discovery. Hence Kasser's original inclu-sion of it in the same discoverv is here retained.