CHAÎNE, MARIUS JEAN JOSEPH (1873-1960)

chaîne, marius jean joseph (1873-1960), French Coptologist. He was born at Tarascon, Bouches-du-Rhône, and was trained for the priesthood and later became an abbot. He studied under Joseph Halévy at the Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes. Among his numerous Coptic publications are Compendium morphologiae copticae (Rome, 1910) and Eléments de grammaire dialectale copte (Paris, 1933), which gave a simultaneous account of the four principal Coptic dialects, Bohairic, Sahidic, Akhmimic, and Fayyumic. Afterward he produced Notions de langue égyptienne, Vol. 1, Langue du Moyen Empire, and Vol. 2, Langue du Nouvel Empire, le néo-égyptien, ses rapports avec le moyen-égyptien et les dialectes coptes (Paris, 1938-1942). He also wrote La Chronologie des temps chrétiens de l'Egypte et de l'Ethiopie (Paris, 1925), Les Dialectes coptes assioutiques (Paris, 1934), Le Verbe copte (Paris, 1945), and Le Manuscrit de la version copte en dialecte sahidique des 'Apophthegmata Patrum' (Cairo, 1960). He died at the Cistercian Abbey of Sainte-Marie-du-Désert, Bellegarde-Sainte-Marie, Haute-Garonne.