| Summary: | (CE:669b-671a) CYRIACUS, Bishop of al-Bahnasa (Oxyrhynchus), assumed author of eight homilies. We have no historical evidence of either the existence of this person or the period in which he lived. On the latter, opinions greatly diverge: G. Graf (1944-1953, Vol. 1, p. 475) thinks that if one accepts what is said by the Ethiopian Book of Aksum (Conti-Rossini, 1909-1910, CSCO 54, p. 5 [text], and 58, p. 5 [trans.]), Cyriacus would have had to have lived in the first half of the sixth century or the works that are attributed to him would be of the Islamic period. But Graf thought that the dating of these works to the eleventh century was without foundation. E. Galtier, who published the Martyrdom of Pilate (1912, p. 41), believed, while admitting his ignorance, that Cyriacus dated to the fourteenth century at the latest. G. Giamberardini (1974-1978, Vol. 2, p. 53) placed him in the eighth century, but did not support his own conclusion and remained hesitant about being too definite. P. Sbath (1938, no. 444, p. 57) indicated in laconic fashion the fifteenth century. No serious study of Cyriacus' vocabulary and syntax permits one to say if the Arabic text (there is no extant Coptic text) is a simple translation from the Coptic or an original composition in Arabic. Nothing in these works reveals the period in which he wrote. It is possible that any one of these works is in fact a redaction of an earlier document. Thus, of his two homilies on the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt, the first gives the impression of taking up the one attributed to the patriarch THEOPHILUS or that of ZACHARIAS of Sakha, while the second appears to be a plagiarizing of the first, the legend of the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt having crystallized at first around al-ASHMUNAYN (there is evidence of it from the fifth century) and then later having extended to al- Qusiyyah (Qusqam). One difficulty remains. What is the true spelling of his name? Were there perhaps two persons with this name? The name is often spelled H(e)ryaq(u)s, ...
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