A British Library Fragment from a Homily on the Lament of Mary and the So-Called Gospel of Gamaliel

Abstract

The article introduces British Library Or. 7027, f. 75, a previously unidentified fragment from the Sahidic version of a homily on the Lament of Mary, which is attributed in Arabic and Ethiopic manuscripts to the mysterious figure of Cyriacus, bishop of Behnesa. As parts of this text had been ascribed by some scholars to the so-called Coptic Gospel of Gamaliel, our paper reevaluates the dossier, pointing out that this apocryphon is just an imaginary text, which never existed in Coptic.