I. THEOLOGICAL FRAGMENTS

1594. NEW RECENSION OF TOBIT xii.

A nearly complete leaf of a diminutive vellum codex, containing Tobit xii. 14-19 in a recension version or editorial arrangement of a text which is not extant. Another fragment of a novel version of this popular apocryphon a work of uncertain authorship or status, often excluded from the canon (ii. 2-4, 8) was published in 1076, but is later in date (sixth century) than 1594, which is written in a small neat uncial a style of script using rounded capital letters hand of an unusually early type, resembling the hands of 656 and 1007 (both Genesis: Part iv, Plate ii and Part vii, Plate i). 656 is probably earlier than A.D. 250 and likely to be somewhat older than 1007 and 1594, being written on papyrus and having no contractions, whereas in the other two fragments theos God is contracted; but, like 1007, 1594 was probably written in the second half of the third century. The leaf when complete was nearly square, and of approximately the same size as P. Ryl. 28 (Part i, Plate v), a fourth-century treatise on mantike divination: for other miniature codices of biblical texts cf. 842 and 1010. No punctuation is discernible, but a diaeresis a mark consisting of two dots over a vowel to show it is pronounced separately over an initial υ apparently occurs on the verso, which is much damaged and difficult to decipher. There are traces of what may be lines of ruling in the margin of the recto, which is probably the hair-side.

There are two main Greek recensions of Tobit, one represented by the Codex Sinaiticus (א), the other by the Cod. Vaticanus (B) and Cod. Alexandrinus (A). The recension of א, which is fuller and more picturesque than that of BA, is tending to be regarded as the earlier. Besides these two there is for chs. vi. 9-xiii. 8 a third Greek redaction represented by three cursive MSS., and from vii. 11 supported by the Syriac version, which before that point agrees with BA. This third recension occupies an intermediate position, being allied to א but less verbose, and is sometimes supported by the Old Latin version, which, like the Aramaic and earlier Hebrew versions, generally supports א. The view put forward in 1076 int., that 1076 belongs to the third Greek recension partially preserved by the cursives, was adopted in the latest and only fully equipped edition of Tobit, that of Mr. D. C. Simpson in Charles’s Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the O. T. i. 174 sqq.; cf. Journ. of Theol. Stud. xiv. 516 sqq.