Attiri Book of Michael

Liber Michaelis

Standard abbreviation: P. Attiri 1–2

Other titles: none

Clavis numbers: ECCA 424

Category: Pseudo-Apostolic Memoirs

Compiled by Alexandros Tsakos, University of Bergen.

Citing this resource (using Chicago Manual of Style): Tsakos, Alexandros. “Attiri Book of Michael.” e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha. Accessed DAY MONTH YEAR. https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/attiri-book-of-michael/.

Created April 2019. Current as of March 2024.

1. SUMMARY

The Book of Michael is extant in two non-contiguous pages (numbered 64/65 and 87/88) of an Old Nubian manuscript found in the remains of a house on the island of Attiri in Lower Nubia. The extant text features several narrative voices and much of the text is fragmentary, so the contents are difficult to reconstruct. On the first page, Michael the “Great Ruler” is called upon to “come to [the Church of] the Three in order to touch me.” The speaker could be a priest or lector and the church likely commemorates the Three Children in the Oven from Daniel 3:8–30, who were saved by an angel, identified in Coptic sources as Michael (and called the “Great Ruler” in Dan 12:1). Texts from Qasr Ibrim mention a Church of the Three and another is known a Banganarti, a village in Sudan. The speaker immediately changes, perhaps to Jesus, who seems to be cast as an eschatological revealer in saying, “I came in order to tell you all that has been made silent for man in the completion of times.” Then follows some remarks about the “hateful one” rising and Michael protecting “these children of mine.” Michael’s role is to gather the angels who fight and worship God. He is said also to be the helper of God until the resurrection of “all of us whom the holy Michael and his God have saved.” The section includes a brief statement about the Incarnation: “…the father, the one who has sent, pitying the entire world, his born child (and) son who has become flesh for us; all the saints who have ruled over us; the one who has had life; (and) the virgin who is the mother.”

On the second leaf, an unidentified speaker recalls his time “tossing and turning in the depth of depths.” The editor of the text thinks this may be Paul, who was shipwrecked three times (2 Cor 11:25) and who, in the Coptic Acts of Andrew and Paul, meets Judas on the sea as the prisoner of the devil in Amente. The speaker changes again, perhaps back to Jesus, and says the devil acted against God concerning “my angels.” He asks rhetorically, “Who among the angels bears conquered mankind?” and answers: Michael. Then follows several honorifics of Michael: “It is he who overcomes the powerhungry. It is he who secures the big-hearted inside,” etc. The seemingly regular structure of all the clauses on P. Attiri 2.ii, their more or less equal length (twelve units, i.e., a dodecasyllable or Alexandrine), as well as a few curious orthographical features, suggest that their prosodic structure might have been similar, and thus the possibility that these lines may have been chanted or rhythmically recited.

Named Historical Figures and Characters: devil, Jesus Christ (unnamed), Mary (Virgin), Michael.

Geographical Locations: none.

2. RESOURCES

3. BIBLIOGRAPHY

3.1 Manuscripts and Editions

3.1.1 Old Nubian

Khartoum, National Museum of Sudan, P. Attiri 1–2 (SNM 23045)

Oei, Vincent W. J. van Gerven, Vincent Pierre-Michel Laisney, Giovanni Ruffini, Alexandros Tsakos, Kerstin Weber-Thum, and Petra Weschenfelder. The Old Nubian Texts from Attiri. Dotawo Monographs 1. California: Punctum Books, 2016 (text, translation, notes, and plates, pp. 30–54).

3.2 Modern Translations

3.2.1 English

3.3 General Works

Tsakos, Alexandros. “The Liber Institutionis Michaelis in Medieval Nubia.” Dotawo 1 (2014): 51–62 (esp. 58–60).

Tsakos, Alexandros, Christian Bull, Lloyd Abercrombie, and Einar Thomassen. “Miscellanea Epigraphica Nubica III: Epimachos of Attiri: A Warrior Saint of Late Christian Nubia.” Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 9 (2012): 205–23 (see pp. 209–10).