Cyprian and Justina of Antioch Acts and Martyrdom Anthony Alcock The legend of Cyprian and Justina seems to have arisen in the 4th cent. and became so popular that the section dealing with Justina found its way into the 13th cent. text known as the Legenda Aurea, 1 and from there into modern literature, where Cyprian the magician became the model for Faustus. In addition to the Acts and Martyrdom there is also an autobiographical memoir, the Confession, a 1st person narrative in which the saint has an opportunity to relate the errors of his youth before discovering the true path of Christianity. 2 The present unscholarly translation has been made from the Greek text edited in M. Dunlop Gibson Apocrypha Arabica (1901) pp. 64-78. The Acts occupies pp. 64 to 71 and the Martyrdom pp. 71-78, a parallel text of which cited by Dr Gibson in the footnotes to her text. 3 Throughout both texts Justina or Justina is referred to often as the 'holy virgin' and only occasionally by her name, whereas Cyprian is named throughout. I have from time to time referred to the Arabic version, pp. ٨١ - ٦٨ , which seems to cover the same ground as the Acts and Martyrdom. The page numbers in brackets throughout the translation are those of Dr Gibson's publication. The Ethiopic text of the Martyrdom has been edited and translated by E.J. Goodspeed 'Martyrdom of Cyprian and Justa' American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 19 (1903) pp. 65-82, which seems to be quite different from the Greek and Arabic versions. I have not consulted it. An English translation of a Syriac version can be found in A. S. Lewis Select narratives of holy women Studia Sinaitica 9 (1900) pp. 185-203 (cited as Lewis), which is also quite different from the translated here. There are also texts and fragments of text in Coptic, the most complete being the two in Pierpont Morgan Coptic Ms. 609 (metanoia and marturia), which as far as I know have not yet been published. I have, however, been able to read the first and last two pages of the metanoia. 4 It will be seen that the opening page is close to the Greek text but the final two pages are quite different. What follows is a translation of those three pages. 1 J.G. Grässe Legenda Aurea (1850) no. 142 pp. 632-635 2 Ryan Bailey The Confession of Cyprian of Antioch (2009). 3 In the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum vol.7 September (1760), cited as ASS. 4 I am grateful to Alin Suciu of Göttingen for providing me with photographic copies of these texts, the beginning and end of the Confession. 1