In the preface to his fourth volume of the works of Epiphanius, Dindorf quotes two fragments of the first part of Weights and Measures. The subjects and sources are as follows:
1. On the LXX translators and τῶν παρερμηνευσάντων . This was first edited by Montfaucon, in his Prolegomena ad Origenis Hexapla, from Codex Parisinus Graecus 146 (earlier called Regius 1807) and a certain Codex Vaticanus.
2. On the creation of the world. This was taken by Dindorf from Codex Venetus Marcianus Graecus 125.
The first three Greek manuscripts previously listed deal for the most part with the weights and measures per se in a very fragmentary fashion. Their text is in general agreement with the Syriac version in the discussion of the kor, lethekh, homer, bath, mnasis, medimnos, seah, and modius. But here divergence appears. The Greek material on all the remaining weights and measures is but a small fraction of what the Syriac has preserved. In his Quaestiones Epiphanianae Viedebantt lists various fragments containing material on weights and measures which is much the same as the concluding portions of the Greek manuscripts just mentioned. Some of these fragments are to be found in Lagarde's Symmicta I (Gottingen, 1877) 210-25. Others are in Fridericus Hultsch, Metrologicorum scriptorum reliquiae I (Lipsiae, 1864) 267-76. For his own material and for Hultsch's Lagarde has a convenient index in his Symmicta II 184 f. There is an old Latin fragment in Hultsch's second volume (pp. 100-106). |6 Viedebantt notes also certain Greek fragments perhaps not yet published. Besides the foregoing there is a considerable extract in the Karkaphensian manuscript belonging to Mar Severius, archbishop of Syria and the Lebanon, a photograph of which is owned by the University of Chicago (fol. 397a, 1. 23 - fol. 398a, 1. 16).
THE PRESENT EDITION
This is essentially an edition of the Syriac version of the Weights and Measures. Or. Add. 17148 of the British Museum is here reproduced photographically, following our translation. Then comes the collation of Or. Add. 14620, the Lagarde edition of 1880, and the unpublished fragment of Epiphanius in the Karkaphensian manuscript mentioned above. Square brackets in the translation indicate words supplied from the margin of the basic manuscript or from Or. Add. 14620. Parentheses inclose words required by the English idiom. Footnotes indicate the striking Greek variants as gleaned from the editions of Migne, Dindorf, and Lagarde. A single folio of Or. Add. 14620 which could not be conveniently collated appears as Appendix I. The translation of section 21 of the Greek forms Appendix II, and the fragmentary conclusion of the Greek manuscripts has been translated and appears as Appendix III. The weights and measures discussed have been summarized in Appendix IV.
SOME PROBLEMS
Anyone making a careful study of the Weights and Measures will find himself confronting some very puzzling problems, such as these:
1. How did the introductory three sections of the Syriac version arise? The Greek manuscripts have nothing like them, unless it be their curtailed conclusion dealing specifically with weights and measures. The first of these sections of the Syriac may well be in its original position, for in both the Ἀγκυρωτός and the Panarion an introduction gives the circumstances of the compilation. The two sections that follow here claim to be "a list in brief of the topics found in this treatise," but it is neither a complete nor an orderly list. It might serve as a |7 summary of most of the latter part of Weights and Measures, if the order of the two sections were reversed. Epiphanius prefixed a sort of summary to each volume ( τομος ) of the Panarion, and he may well have done the same for the two parts of Weights and Measures. If so, the summary of the first part was lost, or nearly so; for the fragment edited by Montfalcon, cited above, is called an epitome by Viedebantt. The curtailed portion of the Greek dealing with the weights and measures per se may be from the summary of that part. Just how the portion of the summary preserved in the Syriac found its present place, a part of it in reverse order, may never be determined.
2. How did the long interpolation in section 21 originate? This is a mere catalogue of measures and is unmistakably interpolated in the midst of the discussion of the kor in both the Greek and the Syriac. It must have been inserted by some clumsy scribe, and seems to be part of an index for Weights and Measures. In both word order and phrasing it is surprisingly like part of the summary prefixed to the Syriac version, and here Viedebantt would find its source.
3. Where did Epiphanius get his data on the Ptolemies and the Roman emperors? Most certainly from the Chronicle of Eusebius; for he expressly quotes that work elsewhere, and the reigns of the Roman emperors agree in remarkable fashion. But this is not the whole story. His figures do not exactly agree with any existing version of Eusebius (the original being long since lost), but there is one most interesting agreement with the Bodleian manuscript of Jerome's version. Cleopatra reigned 51-30 B.C., but Epiphanius says thirty-two years. All the versions of Eusebius say twenty-two except this manuscript of Jerome's. It read originally XXII, but someone has inserted another X and thus made it XXXII. Is it possible that this very error misled Epiphanius? He and Jerome were intimate friends, and one of his letters to Jerome is extant. Jerome called Epiphanius the "five-tongued," and Latin was one of the five.
4. Did Epiphanius complete his treatise on weights and measures, or did he leave merely a first draft of an unfinished work? This latter |8 is the view of Lagarde, who says: "ausserdem ist mir sicher, dass wir kein herausgegebenes buch vor uns haben, sondern die abschrift einer kladde, in welcher gleichwertige versuche, eine fassung zu gewinnen, gelegentlich nebeneinander standen: diese sind in den verschiedenen abschriften je nach belieben der kopisten gerettet worden." It would surely be strange for such a work as this, written in 392, to remain yet a mere first draft upon the death of the author eleven years later, in 403. When the character of the other works of Epiphanius is taken into consideration, there is no need to regard the original which lies back of the Syriac version as "die abschrift einer kladde." His style was far from elegant and was also repetitious. Moreover, in section 57 he seems to describe his method of procedure in the composition of this work. He says: "No one of those who have met with these weights and measures which have been mentioned by us for the second time can find fault, as though the writing were without purpose, instead of to teach accuracy; for although we spoke of them heretofore somewhat briefly, we have now set down for the sake of accuracy those things also that had been abbreviated." Perhaps there is here a reference to the fact that he wrote his summary first and later the more expanded form, as was the custom with ancient Greek writers. Such considerations lead Viedebantt to challenge Lagarde's statement and to conclude: "Quare nihil est causae, cur cum Lagardio non ab ipso Epiphanio librum editum esse sumamus." It ought to be added that, even in those sections for which no corresponding Greek is preserved, the Syriac shows in many places unmistakable evidence of a Greek original. This can be seen in the new translation here presented and in the footnotes.
THE "WEIGHTS AND MEASURES" AMONG THE SYRIANS
As early as A.D. 200 Galen, a Greek physician, often made mention of "those writing on weights and measures." Dardanius wrote about weights in the latter part of the 4th century, and Diodorus a little later. That this work by Epiphanius was thus by no means indispensable among the Greeks may account largely for the present state of the Greek text. It seems to have been neglected because not |9 recognized as of special value. But when translated into Syriac the work filled a larger need and found for itself a much more secure place. As late as 1272 Epiphanius is frequently quoted by Barhebraeus in his Awsar 'Raze or scholia on the Sacred Scriptures. The Syriac version of Weights and Measures was so highly treasured that an extract from it is even found in the Karkaphensian Massorah manuscript to which we have already referred.
[Notes to introduction moved to the end]
1. Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft VI (Stuttgart, 1909) 194.
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed., VIII (1878) 482.
3. Miscellaneous Coptic Texts in the Dialect of Upper Egypt (London, 1915) pp. 120-46.
4. "Die handschriftliche Überlieferung des Epiphanius" (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, hrsg. von Adolf Harnack und Carl Schmidt, Bd. XXXVI, Heft 2 [Leipzig, 1910] pp. 95-98).
5. Ibid. p. 57.
6. Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie VI 193.
7. Oscarius Viedebantt, Quaestiones Epiphanianae metrologicae et criticae (Lipsiae, 1908) p. 1.
8. Veteris Testamenti ab Origene recensiti fragmenta apud Syros servata quinque. Praemittitur Epiphanii de mensuris et ponderibus liber nunc primum integer et ipse syriacus (Gottingae, 1880).
9. Loc. cit.
10. Holl, op. cit. p. 94.