A Eulogy to Abbaton, the Angel of Death (translated from Coptic, supplied with introduction and comments by E. Smagina)

Abstract

The article deals with the text in Coptic language, which occupies a rather specific place in the apocryphal literature. This is a eulogy to the Angel of Death called Abbaton. The text structure is a complicated multi-tiered «story-to-story» framework. The history of the making the Angel of Death the King of the living and dead is incor- porated into the legend of Adam and Eve, which dates back to the Jewish exegesis of the Book of Genesis, which is also widely represented in the early Christian literature. A significant place in the narrative is also occupied by the «myth of Satan» – the story of the fall of the supreme angel and his subsequent transformation into the spirit of evil. This myth is a kind of compromise between the monistic and dualistic concepts regarding the origin and nature of evil.