We have taken as representative of the ‘Italian’ texts. The facts which a minute ex- amination of long sections in Mt, Mk, and Lk brings out are of the kind we might expect. ‘There is, apparently, a great mixture of elements in the underlying Greek. One of the most noteworthy of these is represented by Cod. L, itself a very mixed text, containing early readings mingled with ‘Alexandrian,’ ‘Western,’ and ‘Syrian’ elements. Cod. C is also prominent, which again is composed of most various forms of text. As invariably, D is still an important factor, while A also appears to have lost little ground. x and B have not regained the place they oceupied in the * African’ group. In Ac, as we have seen, we can at least distinguish between the ‘ African’ and
* OL Bibl. Texts, ii. Append. i. pp. 95-122.
LATIN VERSIONS, THE OLD
LATIN VERSIONS, THE OLD 6ὶ
‘European’ texts, represented most typically by the Fleury Palimpsest (the text of Cyp.) and the Gigas (the text of Lucif.) respectively. From Corssen’s investigation* it is plain that the former depends on a ‘Western’ text even more uniform than D. The latter, so far as a rough survey of its readings can reveal, has a very mixed character. D is a prominent factor in it, perhaps the most pro- minent. Of the other more important uncials, E, and at some distance A and C, seems the best re- Pocontedst One has the impression of a text be- onging to a time of revision. And the phenomena found here appear to justify Berger’s query as to whether, in Ac, there is any distinction between ‘European’ and ‘Italian’ readings.¢ Space for- bids any further examination of the NT books except that we may point out that the chief of OL versions of the Epistles§ (except Freis. Fragg.) seem to depend for their text mainly on D and G, whether separate or combined, and often on the group DGKL.|| The Freis. Fragg. have a far greater mixture of elements, bene eee ney revised from MSS such as C A καὶ L (while their basis isDG). In the Apoc. the text of Primasius seems 7 to approach closest to that of Andreas of Czesarea, and Cod. P; but there remains an important element peculiar to himself.**
As regards the Gr. text underlying the OL of the OT, our statements must be even more general and provisional. For the leading uncial MSS of the LXX have never been grouped, and we cannot, with any definiteness, state their mutual relations. And the cursives, which in the LXX are of unique importance, have received little investigation. Hence there are few ascertained data on which to base any reasonable hypothesis. Certainly, the classification into families of texts, and the marking olf of stages in their history, would be a difficult task. ‘or this tr> must have undergone from first to last the most varied treatment. The original Gr. VS, the rival tr™ of Aquila, Theodo- tion and Symmachus, the attempt of Origen to
urify the text, the subsequent recensions of
Jusebius, Lucian, and Hesychius, all have con- ppd to produce a chaos in the MSS of the LXX. his has a bewildering effect on the comparison of the OL with the underlying Gr. No doubt we may say that the earliest Lat. VS of the OT must have been made from the pre-hexaplar Gr. text which was in common use.}+ But we know little of its history. It must also have been subjected to various forms of corruption. We cannot identify it with the genuine LAX. Weare also unable to state definitely the relation borne to it by the great extant uncials and those groups of cursives which are assumed (with more or less reason) to be particular recensions. seoordingty, the following notes must be somewhat vague and hypothetical.
In the books which apparently preserve a fundamentally ‘African’ text, such as Sirach, we might expect to find a relatively pure Gr. text at their base. Nor are we, on the whole, disappointed. This OL text shows a close rela- tion to Cod. 248, which is here, perhaps, the best representation of the original Gr. text.t{ But,
* Der Cyp. Txt ἃ. Acta Apost., Berlin, 1892. See esp. p. 18 ff.
+ The Fleury text has a very intimate connexion with it, while it shares many readings also with the text of Aug. and with that of the Vulgate.
t Unancien texte . . . des Actes, p. 18.
§ Codd. Claromont. and Berner. and the texts of Victorinus and Ambrosiaster.
4 In this group they are often joined by Jerome in his Com- mentaries. See Corssen, Epist. ad Galatas, pp. 52, 53.
“| This result is provisional, as our investigation only embraced two or three chs, of Apoc. See Bousset, Textkritische Studien,
p. 1-44. Pee See Haussleiter, Zahn's Forschungen, iv. pp. 207-224.
+t Designated by the Fathers ‘ uulgata editio’ and xoi*.
$1 See Ryssel in Kautzsch’s ‘Apokryphen,’ pp. 244-249, and Herkenne, De Vet. Lat Eccles, Capp. i.-xliii., Leipz. 1899.
in the words of Lagarde,* ‘all the MSS of the Gr. tm of the OT are either directly or indirectly the result of an eclectic procedure.’ This is the key to the phenomena of the OL version of tha OT.+ When we come to examine the large group of OT texts which we have designated either ‘ European’ or ‘Italian’ (and the boundary be tween them is, at least, a fluctuating one), the result is most confusing. In the Hezateuch, as already observed, there appears an almost in- definite amount of mixture. It is, perhaps, useless to ask to which of the great uncials the leading MSS are most nearly related. For other elements intrude continually. Here and there, indeed, a definite relationship reveals itself, as, e.g., in Exodus where Cod. Wirceb. has a distinct connexion with the group AF. But, asa rule, both in it, in Cod. Lugd., and in Cod. Monae. there are constant traces of Hesychian} and Lucianie readings, as well as relations of an undefinable kind to the leading uncials.