Le Muséon, volume 136, issue 1–2 (2023).

CONTENTS INCLUDE

The Syriac Ignatian Canons: A Critical Edition
Dan BATOVICI and Madalina TOCA

This article offers a critical edition of a peculiar collection of excerpts from the epistles of Ignatius of Antioch in Syriac. The collection is shown to stand apart in the reception of Ignatius in as much as it was preserved in the same textual and paratextual configuration in twelve witnesses copied from the eighth through the twentieth century in Western Syriac canonical collections, which makes it the most successful selection of excerpts from Ignatius in Syriac.

Ignatius of Antioch in a Medieval Syriac Orthodox Treatise: On Divine Providence
Andy HILKENS

This article investigates a late example of the Syriac reception of Ignatius of Antioch and his letters. A medieval Syriac Orthodox treatise on divine providence, which builds upon a letter of Jacob of Edessa on this topic, includes a paraphrase of Ignatius’ Letter to the Smyrnaeans and a short biography, which is a summary of his Martyrdom, enriched with other materials. This article includes a new edition and translation of this Ignatian material, based on the earliest extant manuscript, a fourteenth-century manuscript from Tur Abdin that is now in the library of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate in Damascus, which was unknown to William Wright and Joseph Barber Lightfoot in 1889, when they published it on the basis of a later and corrupted manuscript in the Bodleian. Further, I investigate the value of this witness to the reconstruction of the earliest Syriac version of Smyrnaeans, based on comparisons with Arabic witnesses (translated from Syriac). The results seem to indicate that the biblical citations in the Syriac version were revised, perhaps on the basis of the Old Syriac gospels.

Ignatius' Epistle to the Romans as Transmitted in the Armenian Translation of the Martyrium Ignatii
Anahit AVAGYAN

The critical text of the Armenian translation of the Ignatian Epistula ad Romanos as preserved in the Martyrium Ignatii is prepared based on seven manuscripts. These represent two different recensions – one that corresponds to the Greek text of the letter (M 1522 [siglum: A], M 1524 [siglum: B], M 1520 [siglum: C], M 996 [siglum: D] and M 993 [siglum: E]) and an abbreviated form of the same translation (W 224 [siglum: G] and M 992 [siglum: F]). Four manuscripts of the unabbreviated recension can be grouped textually as follows: A with D and B with C. The latter two omit certain passages, especially in chapters 3-10, that are also not present in the short recension. E has its peculiar readings, but on balance it comes closest to A and D. Other manuscripts which preserve the Martyrium Ignatii together with the Epistula ad Romanos are listed (V 202, J 282, and J 3152) but not used for the critical edition. The critical text is published for the first time here, since previous editions feature interpolations which are not noted explicitly. Furthermore, only in some cases it is possible to identify the manuscripts on which the previous editions are based. A translation from Armenian into English is provided. The differences from the Greek original are discussed in the footnotes.

Les lettres de saint Ignace d'Antioch en géorgien
Bernard OUTTIER

The existence of a Georgian translation of the Letters of saint Ignatius of Antiochia is a fact not enough known. These letters have been translated from a Greek model by George the Hagiorite before his death in the year 1065. He translated the long collection. He is well known as a precise translator, so his translation, found in a manuscript from the 11th-12th century for the older manuscript known today, should be used for the research on the history of the text. All the manuscripts are briefly presented, as well as the traditions about saint Ignace’s martyrdom.

The Slavonic Tradition of Ignatius' Epistula ad Romanos (CPG 1025.4)
Lara SELS

The present contribution aims to introduce to Ignatian scholarship the largely ignored Slavonic evidence for the Letter to the Romans (CPG 1025.4) and for the Martyrium (CPG 1036) in which it is embedded. The corpus consists of eighteen manuscripts, dated between the early fourteenth and the seventeenth century, of both South and East Slavonic provenance, testifying to both the pre-Metaphrast (17 MSS) and the Metaphrast (1 MS) rendering of the Martyrium. A sample collation of the preface to the Letter is offered to illustrate (1) the intra-Slavonic textual relationships, (2) the interrelation of the Slavonic and the Greek tradition, and (3) the relation between the Graeco-Slavonic pre-Metaphrast and Metaphrast tradition. It is shown that all Slavonic variant versions ultimately go back on a single translation, made on the basis of a Greek text close to that in codex Taurinensis C.I.10 (Pasini 080, Cosentini 288). The importance for the Greek tradition of the (admittedly late and defective) Torino witness has been stressed by both Diekamp and Bihlmeyer, a.o. on the basis of parallels with the Latin ‘middle recension’, which lends interest to the Slavonic translation as well.

The Armenian Alphabet in Context: Some Remarks about the Reasons and Methods of its Creation
Nazenie GARIBIAN

The creation of the Armenian alphabet at the beginning of the 5th century provided the instruments for developing the national written language and laid the foundations for building the new Christian identity. The present paper offers a further reflection on the immediate reasons and methods for this invention trying to analyse it in the general context of the political and religious realities of the Sasanian Empire. According to the author, the creation of an original alphabet followed by the written translation of the Bible into Armenian should be considered as one of the measures in a broad strategic project of 'Salvation' undertaken by the Armenian secular and religious authorities in order to react against the Zoroastrian threat. In this respect, its idea and used technics could be seen in a direct relationship with the new alphabet created in Sasanian Iran – most probably at the very beginning of the 5th century – in order to render the Avestan language and to write down the Mazdean holy teaching. Unlike the Pahlavi one, this 'religion’s script' (din dabireh or din dabiri) clearly possessed a special sign for every vowel distinguished in the oral tradition, and no doubt has been inspired by the Greek model.

The Early Jerusalem Lectionary Tradition in Christian Palestinian Aramaic (5th-7th Century): Lections Containing Unattested Old and New Testament Pericopes in Unpublished Palimpsests (Sinai, Gr. NF MG 32; Georg. NF 19, 71)
Christa MÜLLER-KESSLER

The New Finds from 1975 in the Monastery of St Catherine, Sinai turned out to be a mine for the discovery of early Christian Palestinian Aramaic palimpsest manuscripts (5th-7th century AD). The finds unveiled unknown and unique texts as well as additions or missing text witnesses of the New and Old Testament as well as of hagiographic texts in this Western Aramaic dialect. Most interesting of all have always been these early palimpsest text witnesses for comparative Aramaic language study and Bible text criticism. The palimpsest manuscript codex Sinai, Gr. NF 32 MG and three other fragments from Georgian NF 19, 71 presented here are placed into context with all other surviving early sources of the Old Jerusalem lectionary in this Western Aramaic Dialect. This lectionary clearly predates the Armenian Jerusalem lectionary as the next earliest source after the missing Greek source by showing new Old and New Testament lections with unattested biblical pericopes under a martyrologion written in a Greek majuscule and under a Iadgari and a homily in Georgian script.