Coptica 15, 2016

60 Ramez Mikhail

study. Since the same vestment is prescribed for priests and deacons, it is likely that the diaconal version was simpler or less ornate. Coquin argued that the canons generally were a later insertion to the Book of Consecration . 20 Perhaps this would place the canons some time in the 8 th century. As I suggested previously, the practice of head covering by Scetis priests during the liturgy can be explained by reference to the influence of the Syrian tradition in that area. 21 In the Syrian tradition itself, head coverings are many and appear consistently in ordination manuscripts even for priests. 22 The evidence taken in its entirety suggests a relationship between the rise of head covering and the burgeoning Syrian monastic community in Scetis. Unlike the stand-alone version in which the ballīn appeared as an approximation or interpretation of the less known epomis , the text in the primitive recension of The History of the Patriarchs instructs the deacon to wear the apomis to cover the ballīn . 23 It is unlikely here that both vestments refer to a shoulder vestment. Rather, it seems that by the mid- 11 th c., or slightly later, deacons began to wear their own type of head covering, which the compiler of the text felt can also be described loosely as a ballīn . Finally, that a canon would order deacons to wear this rare vestment, the epomis , is a clear indication that by then the vestment had been largely abandoned. The evidence from the Book of Consecration in its various recensions is certainly instructive, and sheds light on the matter particularly during an era before our earliest liturgical manuscripts. Detailed information on Coptic liturgical vestments worn by each rank appears for the first time in the manuscript Coptic Museum 253 Lit. ( AD 1364). This manuscript contains the ordination rites for the ranks of reader, subdeacon, deacon, priest, hegumen, archdeacon, bishop, metropolitan, and patriarch. 24 The text is in two columns – Coptic/Greek and Arabic – and both the Coptic/Greek original and its Arabic translation will be referenced here as needed. Although the manuscript itself is from the 14 th century, there are strong reasons to believe the text dates many centuries earlier. The Codex Coptic Museum 253 Lit. ( AD 1364) 20 Coquin, Livre de la consecration , 44. 21 Mikhail, “‘And they Shall Stand Bareheaded’,” forthcoming. 22 The earliest manuscript analyzed by Innemée that includes Syrian priestly vestments is BnF Syr. 112 (13 th c.). Cf. Innemé, Ecclesiastical Dress , 61. 23 Christian Friedrich Seybold, Severus ibn al Muqaffa‘ alexandrinische Patriarchengeschichte von S. Marcus bis Michael I 61-767 nach der ältesten 1266 geschriebenen Hamburger Handschrift , Veröffentlichungen aus der Hamburger Stadtbibliothek 3 (Hamburg, 1912), 109. Cf. Coquin, Livre de la consecration , 155-156. 24 The manuscript was published in two parts in O.H.E. Burmester, The Rite of Consecration of the Patriarch of Alexandria: Text According to MS. 253 Lit., Coptic Museum (Cairo, 1960), and in O.H.E. Burmester, Ordination Rites of the Coptic Church: Text According to MS. 253 Lit., Coptic Museum (Cairo, 1985).