The Coptic Translation of Epiphanius of Salamis’s Ancoratus and the Origenist Controversy in Upper Egypt

Abstract

Abstract Two manuscripts from around the 9th and the 10th century bear witness to a Coptic translation of the Ancoratus, originally written in Greek by Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, in 374. Like his more famous sequel to this work, the Panarion, the treatise defends Nicene orthodoxy from perceived heretics, mainly Pneumatomachoi, Arians, Manichaeans, and Origenists. The latter are said to be present in Upper Egypt, where they deny the resurrection of this material body in favor of a spiritual body. The present article argues that the Coptic translation likely took place shortly after the composition of the Greek original, indeed the work was in part commissioned to be used against Origenist monastics in Upper Egypt, thus furnishing a valuable testimony to monastic diversity in the Thebaïd and the lead-up to the Origenist Controversy.