The History of the Episcopate of Alexandria (HEpA): Editio minor of the fragments preserved in the Aksumite Collection and in the Codex Veronensis LX (58)

The contribution offers the edition of the Ethiopic and Latin versions of a partially inedited text of ecclesiastical history, originally composed in Greek probably at the end of the fourth century AD. The text, to be distinguished from both the Coptic History of the Church and the Arabic History of the Patriarchs, testifies to a particularly ancient phase of the Patriarchate of Alexandria between the second and fourth centuries AD. The Ethiopic version, unknown until now, is preserved within a codex (siglum Sigma) containing a canonical-liturgical collection composed of translations which appear to belong to the Aksumite period (fourth-seventh centuries AD). The manuscript dates from the thirteenth century at the latest, probably earlier. The Latin version has already been known since the times of Scipione Maffei thanks to an old Latin uncial codex of the Biblioteca Capitolare in Verona (seventh-eighth century, Codex Veronensis LX [58], siglum V), the two tomes of which contain documents concerning the Church of Africa and a very rich and varied canonical collection, published more than once in the last two centuries. This history, which has been given the title of Historia Episcopatus Alexandriae (siglum HEpA), has been the subject of a long-term research by the authors of this contribution, presented in several papers, notes and articles since 2000. The present edition is at the same time an editio princeps and an editio minor because the Ethiopic and Latin texts are accompanied by critical apparatuses but not the linguistic, literary and historical commentaries which are under their final editing.