The martyrdom of Apatil, an Egyptian (Coptic) soldier who was executed for his religion in the Diocletian great persecution in AD 303 is not mentioned in the Arabo-Coptic synaxarium, but his martyrdom is preserved in a Bohairic Coptic manuscript kept at the Vatican Library (Vat.Copt 66), ff. 156-171, which was one of the manuscripts smuggled out of Egypt by the Maronite Catholic priest Giuseppe Simone Assemani (1687 – 1768) in 1715.
In 1907, the Italian priest and writer Giuseppe Balestri (1866 – 1940) together with the Franco-American Coptologist Henry Hyvernat published the martyrdom of Apatil contained in Vat.Copt 62 in their first of two volume Acta Martyrum with other lives and martyrdoms of Coptic origin.
They published the Coptic text in pp. 89-109 of the second part of Tome I of Acta Martyrium which the reader can find here.
They translated the Martyrdom of Apatil into Latin, in the first part of Tome I of Acta Martyrium which the reader can find here.
No English translation existed for the Martyrdom of Apatil until the modern prolific Coptologist Anthony Alcock, who has translated into Coptic many Coptic manuscripts, translated the Bohairic text in Acta Martyrium. The reader can find that translation here, with an introduction and notes.
The reader may find the Martyrdom of Apatil interesting on not. Prejudice plays a great deal in putting some researchers off Coptic martyrdoms. But I find them fascinating and beautiful, and one can find, contrary to the scholars who despise Coptic manuscripts, many historical and geographical gems in them. But I have put links to the Coptic text of the Martyrdom of Apatil and then to the English translation by Alcock for another reason: it helps those who are studying Bohairic Coptic. The Coptic text is printed in the most beautiful font – it’s clear and easy to read.
