L'Histoire des Patriarches d'Alexandrie : une tradition textuelle ouverte : essai méthodologique, édition critique et traduction des Vies 17 à 26

This PhD dissertation focuses on the study of the manuscript tradition of the Arabic text of the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria (henceforth HP). It aims, for the first time, at provinding the critical edition of a significant part (Lives 17 to 26) of the primitive recension (older version) of the text. The text of the HP is thus to be defined as an Arabic compilation based mainly on the works of earlier Coptic-writing authors, then adapted and translated into Arabic, and continued by later chroniclers writing directly in Arabic, from the 11th century onwards. The result of this process, i.e. the text of the HP, consists of a series of biographies, or Lives, of successive bishops, or patriarchs, of Alexandria. The HP is generally regarded as the most important text within Coptic-Arabic historiography, as the main source for Coptic history and, in a larger context, it has also gained recognition as a major literary source for the history of Egypt and the Middle East at large. Indeed, within this biographical framework, the text describes various kinds of events, from the first century AD onwards In the framework of this PhD dissertation, a new methodology is developed, based on an empirical approach of the text and on a reevaluation of theories of textual criticism. A detailed analysis of the manuscript witnesses, both from a textual and from a material point of view, is combined with an analysis of the Coptic sources of the text. Moreover, this new and specific method of edition aims to provide guidelines for the ICAHP project, whose goal is to prepare a critical edition of the entire text of the HP. Furthermore, the study of the manuscript transmission, linked to the identification of a new manuscript, results in a new interpretation of the textual transmission of the text: it should now be considered as an “open” tradition, i.e. transformed on purpose over the centuries during the copy process.