This paper is an extended version of the Fourth Annual Henri Hyvernat Lecture, read at 5:00 p.m.
on March 26, 2015, in St. Thomas Aquinas Hall on the campus of the Catholic University of America
in Washington DC. It was agreed to retain the text for the most part as a lecture, instead of turning
it into an article, in order to retain the spirit of the event and honor the memory of the French-born
Henri Hyvernat (1858-1941), who became the first professor appointed to the university when it
was founded in 1887. The literature of the Copts was the subject of higher learning by far the closest
to the mind and heart of Monsignor Hyvernat. An overview of the subject is presented in the
present lecture. But it is not the lecture’s sole topic. There is a certain complexity in regard to how
the Copts and all that is Coptic fit into world history, all 5000 years of it, and clear definitions are
not easy to find. The lecture takes on the challenge of presenting the matter clearly and distinctly—and at the same time comprehensively, yet also succinctly. It concludes with some observations
on Hyvernat’s life and work as seen through the author’s personal lens.
References
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[2]
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Kasser, R. (2006). Kat’aspe aspe. In L. Painchaud, & P. H. Poirier (Eds.), Coptica—Gnostica—Manichaica: Mélanges offertes à Wolf-Peter Funk (pp. 389-492). Leuven: Peeters.
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