ROIG LANZILLOTTA, Lautaro & Jacques VAN DER VLIET, The Apocalypse of Paul (Visio Pauli) in Sahidic Coptic. Critical Edition, Translation and Commentary. With an appendix by Jos van Lent. «Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae» 178 (Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2023), X + 522 pp. ISBN: 978-90-04-52646-4

The volume under review contains the reprint, together with the English translation of the ancient Coptic version of the Visio Pauli, together with supplementary analytical material to which we will immediately refer.Visio Pauli is an interesting work that contains a series of visions of the other world by Paul, which serve to convey ancient conceptions of heaven and hell, along with the rewards and punishments that await human beings.The author was familiar with Jewish apocalyptic literature, as can be seen in many of the topoi contained in the narrative.This Coptic Apocalypse of Paul, an apocryphal work from the 4th century CE, derives from a Greek original of which only fragments have survived, and of which versions and recensions in other languages, e.g.Latin, Syriac and Ethiopic, have survived, as well as the probable influence on other works as far as Dante's Divine Comedy.The volume opens with a preface (pp.VII-VIII), the abbreviations (p.IX), and a list of figures and tables (p.X).This is followed by an introduction (pp.1-18) in which the authors provide the status quaestionis on the research about the texto of Visio Pauli (pp.1-16), while describing the contributions of the present work (pp.17-18).The introduction is followed by the five chapters that make up the study, edition, translation and commentary of the text.In the first chapter ("The Coptic Manuscript Tradition", pp.19-50), which consists of six sections, the authors provide a description of the extant manuscripts, together with other witnesses, as well as a Greek witness from Egypt edited by Kraus.The second chapter ("The Sahidic Version of the Apocalypse of Paul", pp.51-96), consisting of six further sections, serves the authors to describe and analyse various elements of the text: the lost title, the prologue of the work and the epilogue (the Mount of Olives), its compositional structure, the author's intentions and the final stages of Paul's journey: the third heaven, the heavenly paradise and Paul's throne.The chapter concludes with a recapitulation of the previous analyses and the ensuing conclusions.The third chapter ("The Apocalypse of Paul in Christian Egypt", pp.97-151) consists of three sections in which the text of the Visio Pauli is contextualised within the Egyptian apocalyptic tradition (pp.97-120), complemented by the influences on the Coptic monastic milieu from the Pacominian tradition (pp.120-150).This third chapter closes with the conclusions.Chapter four ("The Apocalypse of Paul: Time and Place", pp.152-164) contains two sections in which the authors discuss respectively the questions of the date and place of provenance of the text (pp.152-155), and the transmission experienced by the work in the