Anthony Alcock has produced a modern translation of a Coptic text, The Repose of St John the Evangelist and Apostle. It was published originally in 1913 with a translation by Wallis Budge.
The new translation (with facing text) is here:
Roger Pearse
Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
Well, that’s a different one. First, you end up having an Enochian sort of Assumption, and second, you have a different sort of pit/grave story than the one in St. Isidore (On the Births and Deaths of the Fathers), with the ground subsidence seen as John “breathing” underground.* But it does agree about “he ordered them to dig out a grave for him and carry him there; and then, having made an oration saying goodbye to the brethren, he went into the tomb alive.”
* “And it happened that certain of them would assert him to be alive, not dead in the grave, and they would contend that he lay sleeping; mostly because the earth, slowly trickling up from the depths, pushed his grave up to the surface, and dust burst out above it, as if by a breath from the one resting below. But he rested in Ephesus on the 6th kalend of January.”
It must be a medieval text, I think.
I don’t have Mr. Alcock’s contact information. Would you encourage him to consider whether “with then” in the penultimate line on page 20 should instead be “with them” please?
-TurretinFan
Have forwarded your comment on. Thanks for the feedback!
Well, you know me. I like stories, and I like seeing them move around in time and space.
LOL. And why not? Hagiography and folk-story are supposedly very closely related. Although how anyone knows this, of course, I’m not sure.
Mr. Pearse, stumbled across your site researching some of the works of Eusebius. Eusebius’ works ie, the HE has fascinated me for some years.
I’m looking forward to reading the rest of your fine blog.
Best Regards,
Tim H.