The sermon In divini corporis sepulturam (CPG 3768; BHG 808e), attributed to Epiphanius of Salamis, is counted among the most curious Patristic works concerning the harrowing of hell. It was intended for liturgical reading on the Holy Saturday and is divided in two parts. The first of them is a praise to Joseph of Arimathea, who is presented as asking Pilate for the body of Christ in order to bury it. The second part recounts the harrowing of hell and contains a discourse of Jesus to Adam before the latter is released from Hades.

Although there is no argument for a genuinely Epiphanian authorship, the numerous versions in ancient languages shows the large diffusion that the work enjoyed in the Christian Orient. Clavis Patrum Graecorum lists various versions of this sermon in Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Arabic and Old Slavonic.

The Greek text is available in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca vol. 43, coll. 439-464 (= Homilia II in Sabbato magno). André Vaillant[1] translated into French the Old Slavonic version and his critical edition can be downloaded below. Supplementary bibliographical details can be found in R. Gounelle’s book concerning Christ’s descent into hell.[2]

The numerous Egyptian Arabic manuscripts in which the homily In divini corporis sepulturam is preserved, indicate that it must have been a quite popular text among the Copts. Besides, one of the cathedral homilies of the patriarch Mark III († 819 AD), which survived in a Bohairic manuscript kept in the Vatican Library,[3] is merely a reworking and a paraphrase of ps.-Epiphanius’ text; it shows that a Coptic translation of In divini corporis sepulturam must have been in use already in the very beginning of the 9^th century.

Indeed, some vestiges from a Sahidic copy of the homily in question can be found in two collections of Coptic manuscripts. They are the remnants of a dismembered parchment codex which belonged once to the library of the White Monastery, situated near Sohag. The codices of this monastery survived only as membra disjecta which are scattered today across the world.

To date, I have been able to find from ps.-Epiphanius’ sermon a leaf which is in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (call number BnF Copte 131⁵, f. 100), and two fragments from the British Library (BL Or. 6954[44]-[45]). The London fragments of In divini corporis sepulturam were mentioned by Bentley Layton in his catalogue of the Coptic manuscripts in the British Library as part of an “Apocryphal Work”.[4] It is possible that additional fragments will be found in the future.

The Coptic witnesses presently known parallel the Greek text of ps.-Epiphanius’ homily as follows:

Paris 131⁵, f. 100 = PG 43, coll. 448C-449A

London BL Or. 6954(45) = PG 43, col. 457A-B

London BL Or. 6954(44) = PG 43, col. 460C-D

The manuscript is today dismembered but enough of it survived to establish that In divini corporis sepulturam was followed in the same codex by a sermon on the Ascension of Christ, attributed to Athanasius of Alexandria (CPG 2198; Clavis coptica 0446), and by ps.-Chrysostomos’ first homily on the Pentecost (CPG 4536).

We are especially fortunate that the last leaf of this codex has survived, for it contains a colophon. The colophon mentions that the manuscript was copied by the scribe Matthew in the Touton scriptorium in the year 656 Era of the Martyrs (939-940 AD). The codex was donated later to the White Monastery.[5]

We have thus a 10^th century homiliarium patristicum which contained texts for three major moments of the paschal cycle: the Holy Week, the Ascension, and the Pentecost.