Coptica 15, 2016

58 Ramez Mikhail

Coptic canonical tradition. Likewise, the Canons of Pseudo-Athanasius prescribe white vestments for all clergy [ al-kahanah ]. 11 The final canonical reference to white-colored vestments appears in the Canons of (Pseudo-)Basil . Although a collection of 13 canons attributed to Basil of Caesarea appears in Arabic Melkite sources, 12 our particular canon is part of an expanded collection of 106 canons appearing only in the Copto-Arabic tradition. The text for Canon 96 reads:

The vestments [ thiyāb ] appropriate to the priesthood or dedicated to the altar should be white vestments not dyed with colors. 13

ثياب ت ليق بالكهنوه او متصله بالمذبح تكون ثياب بيض ليست مصبوغه بالوان

This is the only canon of those presented thus far that makes a clear prohibition against colored vestments. In fact, it seems that the use of white garments for the liturgy was popular in Egypt even among the laity. Examples of this practice abound in Coptic literature. In the life of St. Hilaria, the alleged daughter of Emperor Zeno ( AD 474-91), we read that the saint travelled to Alexandria hoping to make the monasteries of Scetis her final destination. In the morning after her arrival, she saw the multitude, “wearing white garments, making their way to the patronal church, for it was the feast of St. Mark the Evangelist.” 14 Another reference points at least to special garments the laity wore to partake of the Eucharist. This is mentioned in the Encomium of Theodosius on Michael the Archangel attributed to Patriarch Theodosius I ( AD 536-67). During a famine, a pious family is said to have lost all their possessions, except, “the garments wherein they partook of the sacrament.” 15 The Book of the Consecration of the Sanctuary of Benjamin (7 th -11 th c.) The so-called Book of the Consecration of the Sanctuary of Benjamin provides valuable information on liturgical vestments, and is perhaps one of the earliest Coptic sources on the matter, strictly speaking. Surviving in an isolated recension as well as part of the biography of Pope Benjmin ( AD 11 Wilhelm Riedel and W.E. Crum, The Canons of Athanasius of Alexandria: The Arabic and Coptic Versions (Oxford, 1904), 24-25 (Arabic), 31 (English). cf. Wilhelm Riedel, Die Kirchenrechtsquellen des Patriarchats Alexandrien (Leipzig, 1900), 230-231. 12 J.B. Darblade, La Collection canonique arabe des Melkites (XIII e -XVII e siècles) , Fonti, Ser. 2, Fasc. 13 (Lebanon, 1946), 150-153. 13 BnF Ar. 251 (AD 1353), fol. 185r. Cf. Riedel, Die Rechtsquellen, 273. 14 James Drescher (ed.), Three Coptic Legends: Hilaria, Archellites, the Seven Sleepers , Supplément aux Annales du Service des antiquités de l’Égypte 4 (Cairo, 1947), 3 (Coptic), 72 (English). 15 E.A. Wallis Budge (ed.), Miscellaneous Coptic Texts in the Dialect of Upper Egypt (London, 1915), 369 (Coptic), 921 (English).