LXX Septuagint
MT Massoretic text
P Peshitta
r The symbol employed by Lagarde for Codex Rehdigeranus
SG Sprengling and Graham, Barhebraeus' Scholia on the Old Testament.
Part I: Genesis-II Samuel (Chicago, 1931) The letter @ is transliterated with j (e.g. in folio 60 d). The style of the collation here (pp. 119-33) is similar to that in SG, for which see details ibid. page xv. For other conventions see page 6.
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INTRODUCTION
THE AUTHOR
Among the Greek Fathers of the Christian church Epiphanius holds an important place. This is not because of his literary ability or his constructive achievements, but rather because of his great and far-reaching influence, in the main reactionary. In literary attainment he takes very low rank, but his influence was much greater. Jiilicher says that he converted Jerome from an admirer of Origen to an antagonist, and that it was essentially through his influence that after a.d. 400 the free scientific theology of Origen was outlawed by the church. And, again, "etwas Rätselhaftes behält die Stärke des Einflusses, den dieser überaus beschränkte Mann auf seine Zeitgenossen und die Nachwelt übte."
Epiphanius was born about a.d. 315 near Eleutheropolis in Palestine. He is thought to have been of Jewish parentage. While yet a youth he went to Egypt. The monastic movement was just getting under way, and he became a staunch adherent. At the age of twenty he returned to Palestine, and at this time he met Jerome and Rufinus and the three became firm friends, though the friendship with Rufinus was later lost in the dispute over Origen. Epiphanius founded a monastery and became its head. He was ordained a presbyter and rose to the rank of bishop. He attained fame for his piety and orthodoxy, and it was because of this fame that he was elevated to the bishopric of Constantia (Salamis), the principal city of Cyprus, where he remained from 367 until his death in 403. In Cyprus his two great ambitions were the establishment of monasticism and the uprooting of heresy. He planted monasteries throughout the island, and combated heresy both in personal disputations and in his writings. His first book was the Ἀγκυρωτός ("Anchored"), a discourse on the true faith. His second and most famous was Κατὰ αἱπέσεων (called also by the Latinized name Panarion), in which he undertook to refute eighty heresies, beginning as far back as the pre-Christian Samaritans, |2 Sadducees, and Stoics. In his enthusiastic heresy-hunting he came to believe that Origen was the source of practically all the later heresies, especially of Arianism. He brought Jerome to this view, and one of the last acts of his life was a combat with Chrysostom. The story of his final parting from the Bishop of Constantinople is not to be taken literally, but it reveals something of the spirit of Epiphanius and of his times. Having rebuked Chrysostom for harboring heretics, he expressed the wish that Chrysostom might not die a bishop. The latter is said to have rejoined with a wish that Epiphanius might not live to get home. Both these things actually came to pass. Epiphanius died at sea on his return to Cyprus, in 403.
Weights and Measures was composed in 392. Epiphanius also composed a treatise on the twelve stones in the breastplate of Aaron. This latter does not exist in its complete form, but it is most fully preserved in a Latin translation. Two of Epiphanius' letters have been preserved, one to Jerome, the other to John of Jerusalem. In 1915 Sir E. A. Wallis Budge published a Coptic version of a Discourse on the Holy Virgin by Epiphanius. There exists also the Ἀνακεφαλαίωσις , an abridgment of the Panarion. But this is little more than a compilation of the various epitomes prefixed by Epiphanius to the various volumes ( τομοι ) of the Panarion, and it is the opinion of Karl Holl that the Ἀνακεφαλαίωσις was put in its present form by someone else. The Migne edition of the Fathers gives other things with which the name of Epiphanius has been associated, but which are evidently not from his hand.
THE "WEIGHTS AND MEASURES"
The complete Weights and Measures exists in Syriac only. In fact, it is not known what was the original title, if it had one. Not one of the older Greek manuscripts has the title from the hand of the original scribe. The Codex Parisinus Graecus 835 has the title Περὶ μέτρων καὶ σταθμῶν , added by a later hand. Codex Vindobonensis suppl. gr. |3 91 has some of its material disarranged. Weights and Measures is divided into two parts, and there is no title for the first. At the beginning of the second part someone has added the foregoing Greek title in the margin. The text of this part begins: Περὶ τῶν ἐν ταῖς θείαις γραφ -
αῖς
ῶν (sic) σταθμῶν τε καὶ μέτρων καὶ ἀριθμῶν δηλώσαντες . The oldest Syriac manuscript has the title: @@. It is readily apparent that the title is inadequate, for the work is really "die Urform eines Bibellexikons," as Jülicher well says. Viedebantt says: "Librum enim non ab ipso Epiphanio ita inscriptum esse inde luce clarius apparet, quod mensurae et pondera exigua tantum libelli parte continentur, cum ceteras paginas varia rerum materies expleat." Indeed, the work contains much material that has no relation to weights or measures, and it could much more appropriately be called a Bible handbook.
THE MANUSCRIPTS
As stated above, the Weights and Measures in its complete form exists in only the Syriac version, of which there are two manuscripts, both in the British Museum. The Museum has numbered them Or. Add. 17148 (the older) and Or. Add. 14620. According to the colophon at the end of the older, it was written between a.d. 648 and a.d. 659. The colophon is partly gone and no longer gives the month or the last figure in the year number. But this is certainly the oldest known manuscript of Epiphanius. The other Syriac manuscript is thought to be from the 9th century. Both are on vellum. Hitherto the Syriac text has been published only by Paul de Lagarde. He attempted to reconstruct the original text on the basis of the two manuscripts mentioned, giving his collation in footnotes. But no Syriac type was available at Gottingen, and the result is a most unusual specimen of Syriac printed in Hebrew letters. The Pauly-Wissowa Real-Encyclopädie says it is "sehr schlecht ediert."
In the original language Weights and Measures is preserved in a mutilated form only, in five principal manuscripts and a number of fragments. Manuscripts important for other works of Epiphanius are not considered here except incidentally. The five major manuscripts are:
1. Codex Jenensis (ms. Bose 1), a bombycine manuscript dated 1304. Holl says this comes from Codex Urbinas 17/18, a manuscript of the 12th or 13th century no longer containing anything about weights and measures. This manuscript came into the possession of Dindorf, who issued his edition of Epiphanius in 1859-62. But as early as 1543 Janus Cornarius had published a Latin translation of the manuscript; Joannes Oporinus published the Greek itself in 1544.
2. Codex Rehdigeranus 240 (Breslau) is a parchment of the 15th century, said by Holl to have been derived from Codex Jenensis. Dindorf says, "ab codice Jenensi non discrepans nisi in rebus levissimis." Lagarde used this manuscript in his edition of the Greek text.
3. Codex Parisinus Graecus 835, a paper manuscript of the 16th century. Holl says it was derived from Codex Rehdigeranus 240. Dindorf pronounces it to have been copied from a codex very much like ("simillimus") Codex Jenensis. This manuscript was the basis for Weights and Measures in the edition of Epiphanius published by Dionysius Petau, or Petavius, in 1622. Dindorf used the edition of Petavius, and Lagarde used the edition of Oporinus, as one of his main sources.
4. Codex Vindobonensis suppl. gr. 91, a paper manuscript which Dindorf attributes to the 14th century. He adds: "Ipse quoque Jenensi est simillimus, propria vero sibi habet vitia orthographica imperiti librarii diphthongos et vocales pronunciatione similes saepissime confundentis, quod raro commisit antiquior et peritior codicis Jenensis librarius." Holl calls it a descendant or a twin of Codex Urbinas 17/18, from which Codex Jenensis also is said to have come. |5 Viedebantt says of this manuscript: "Lectiones nusquam adnotatae sunt."
5. Codex Laurentianus VI 12, a bombycine codex of the 14th century, of the same ancestry as Codex Jenensis according to Holl. So far as the writer is aware, this last has never been used in any edition. The known Greek manuscripts containing material on weights and measures thus seem to be very closely related.
FRAGMENTARY MANUSCRIPTS