The Difnar (Antiphonarion) of the Coptic Church

al-Difnār · Anonymous (Coptic Church) · medieval compilation; the oldest surviving manuscript used by Mekhaiel is dated to the 14… · liturgy · CMCL clavis 0782

Coptic · domain: liturgy · researched 2026-11-13

Why this is in the register

Coptic text edited by De Lacy O'Leary, 'The Difnar (Antiphonarium) of the Coptic Church' (London: Luzac, 1926-1930; https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/alma990064725420203941), catalogued with languages 'eng;cop' - the English element is the introduction and apparatus; the catalogue record does not establish a running translation. A Coptic-Arabic edition of the Upper Egyptian Difnar from MS Murjān M575 appeared in 2018 (https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/alma99153742213503941). The first edition with a complete translation is German: Nashaat Mekhaiel, 'Das koptisch-arabische Difnar: Edition und Übersetzung auf der Grundlage der ältesten erhaltenen Handschrift (14. Jahrhundert)', Jerusalemer Theologisches Forum 49 (Aschendorff, 2026) (https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/alma99162633355103941). English exists only for individual hymns: Anna Rogozhina, 'And from his side came blood and milk: The Martyrdom of St Philotheus of Antioch in Coptic Egypt and Beyond' (Gorgias, 2019), Appendix III translates the Coptic hymns in honour of Philotheus from the Difnar (https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/alma99155705780103941).

The Difnar is the antiphonary for the daily commemoration of saints, distinct from the Psalmodia. Recorded as 'partial' because English renderings exist for isolated hymns only; a complete English Difnar was not located.

Existing translations recorded

Electronic text

No open electronic text was verified for this work. The Greek/Coptic/Geʿez may exist only in a print or subscription edition (Migne, CSCO, TLG, CMCL).

Scanned witnesses

Scan search: no scan located. O'Leary's edition (3 parts, 1926/1928/1930, from the John Rylands manuscript) is not scanned anywhere reachable: IA creator:'O'Leary, De Lacy' = 30 items with no Difnar, title 'difnar' = 0, subject:(coptic)+title:(antiphonarium) = 0; IA full-text search for 'difnar' returns only incidental mentions (Koptische Hymnologie, Coptic Church dictionaries). HathiTrust has no record (catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/brief/oclc/4758434.json and /874378853.json both return empty records/items). BnF holds all three parts (cb32495873t, cb324958745, cb32495875h, series cb39416393m) with no digitisation. Coptic Scriptorium's OCR repo (7,774-file tree, checked via GitHub API) has no difnar path. Beta Masaheft is Ethiopic-only. No Coptic or Arabic Difnar print on IA ('دفنار' 0, 'الدفنار' only a software archive). e-rara returns a 'Verifying your browser' wall (HTTP 200, 12,560 B); MDZ's search returns 'An error occurred while serving your page' for every query (HTTP 200, 27 KB shell); ONB's Primo search is a JS-only shell (4,788 B); loc.gov returns Cloudflare 429.

Harvard Hollis

Hollis query: The Difnar of the Coptic Church — 8 record(s); match basis author_title_unquoted.

Sources checked

• HOLLIS record — alma990064725420203941
• HOLLIS record — alma99153742213503941
• HOLLIS record — alma99155705780103941
• HOLLIS record — alma99162633355103941

Cite: Tergwame, “The Difnar (Antiphonarion) of the Coptic Church” (coptic gap dossier), 2026. https://naxiai.com/christian/gaps/coptic-anon-difnar