Ancient Coptic manuscript reveals sermon that spurred violence against Jews

[Pelican Press 0]

Ancient Coptic manuscript reveals sermon that spurred ********* against Jews

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, an important early ********** book containing five distinct texts all copied by the same scribe, is going

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

at Christie’s in London. If you have a spare £2–£3 million, don’t miss this opportunity to own a key example of the birth of ********** culture and literature.

Most news coverage of this 1,700-year-old book focuses on claims that it includes the oldest complete text of two biblical books:

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. But the ancient manuscript is all the more fascinating if you look at the other documents it includes, the social and political context that produced it and the theology it reveals.

The

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, currently owned by Norwegian collector Martin Schøyen, contains 104 pages and was

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

among some other manuscripts ******* in a jar in the sand. The book is made of papyrus and written in

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, an Egyptian language in which

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

are preserved.

It was likely produced in one of the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

in the vicinity of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, near Dishna in eastern Egypt. These monasteries were operational in the 4th century AD. This matches the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

carried out on the manuscript, as

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

by ********** literature academic Hugo Lundhaug. Author and academic Brent Nongbri suggests a

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

for the text. This makes it the oldest book privately owned and not held by a museum.

What makes the codex so remarkable, apart from its age and completeness, are its contents. Together, the works preserved in the the Crosby-Schøyen Codex shed light into a fascinating, dynamic ******* of early Christianity that indelibly marked the religion’s theology and culture.

A unique window into early Christianity

The book contains five different texts originally composed by five completely different authors. The oldest is the biblical

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, found among the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Jonah was an important figure for early Christians because he was famously swallowed by a huge fish (

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

in the authorized version) while reluctantly heeding ****’s call to deliver his prophetic warning to the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Ninevah is depicted as a very wicked city, but Jonah’s message of repentance is successful. This is taken as an example of divine mercy, referenced again in New Testament texts such as Matt 12:41 and Luke 11:30-32. The three days Jonah spent in the belly of the fish was

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

by early Christians to foreshadow the time between *******’s ****** and resurrection.

A portion of the apocryphal book

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

is also preserved in the codex. The section reproduced details of some vignettes of ******* resistance to the oppression by Antioches IV Epiphanes, who tried to force Jews under his rule to give up their ancestral customs.

In this account, vulnerable people like old men and mothers and their children boldly choose ****** rather than violate the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

—******* laws—hoping for resurrection as their reward.

In contrast to Judaism in the 3rd and 4th century AD, Christianity had developed a reverence for martyrs, perhaps especially in the aftermath of the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, which ended with Constantine’s

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

in 313 AD. The ******* martyrs in II Maccabees would therefore be attractive early examples of martyrdom for early Christians.

1 Peter, one of the many letters in the New Testament, also appears in the codex. While it’s

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

that Peter himself composed the letter, it nevertheless became an important document for early Christians.

It gives encouragement and advice for Christians whose withdrawal from non-********** public life made them targets, not necessarily for state persecution, but certainly for social isolation. It’s easy to see how such a letter would appeal to those living a monastic life.

Rise of antisemitism

While one of the texts in The Crosby-Schøyen Codex is an otherwise unknown piece –perhaps a sermon—another is notorious:

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

homily on Passover (known as Peri Pascha). Originally composed between 160 and 170 AD in

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, this chilling sermon spares no detail in its

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

hatred and disgust for Jews. It is explicit in identifying Jews as responsible for the crucifixion of ******.

Beyond this, it argues that Judaism should be destroyed outright in light of the new covenant, Christianity. This text represents the earliest example of a ********** accusing the Jews as a people of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

—the antisemitic belief that Jews murdered ****.

The charge of deicide spurred ********** ********* against Jews for centuries after Melito’s sermon, with far-reaching consequences from

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, to

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

from Europe (including England) and even current antisemitic campaigns.

That this document is included in the codex is curious until we recall that at the time it was constructed, Christianity had been legal for perhaps a decade or two, and in the next few decades was about to become the official religion of the Roman empire.

Antisemitism had been growing for some time as Christianity gained more and more gentile (non-*******) followers, and Romans were no longer the “bad guys.”

Another scapegoat, other than Rome, needed to be found for the ****** of ******. Antisemitic ideas like Melito’s vicious accusations about Jews solved that problem for many ********** communities, as it seems to have for whoever compiled these diverse texts into a single book.

What the Crosby-Schøyen Codex gives us is a unique window into the social and theological world of 4th-century Christianity. It preserves a compilation of texts which all speak to the huge changes taking place in the Mediterranean world at that time.

From persecutions to the legalization of Christianity, to the construction of the earliest monasteries, early Christianity was undergoing rapid transformations. This priceless book preserves a true moment in time.

Provided by
The Conversation

This article is republished from

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

under a Creative Commons license. Read the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Citation:
Crosby-Schøyen Codex: Ancient Coptic manuscript reveals sermon that spurred ********* against Jews (2024, June 2)
retrieved 2 June 2024
from

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Science, Physics News, Science news, Technology News, Physics, Materials, Nanotech, Technology, Science
#Ancient #Coptic #manuscript #reveals #sermon #spurred #********* #Jews

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

For verified travel tips and real support, visit: https://hopzone.eu/