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Lucian and the Lucianic Recension of the Greek Bible1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
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Among the several scholars of the ancient Church who occupied themselves with the textual criticism of the Bible, one of the most influential was Lucian of Antioch. Though not as learned or as productive in a literary way as either Origen or Jerome, Lucian's work on the text of the Greek Bible proved to be of significance both in his own day and, to an even greater extent, during the centuries following. In fact, his recension of the text of the New Testament, with only minor modifications, continued to be used widely down to the nineteenth century, and still lives on in the so-called Ecclesiastical text of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
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1 This view, suggested earlier by Ceillier, , Fleury, , De, Broglie, and Oikonomos, , has been revived by Balanos, D. S. in VII (1932), 306–11,Google Scholar and by Gustave, Bardy, Recherches sur saint Lucien dˇAntioche et son école (Paris, 1936).Google Scholar
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1 Praetermitto eos codices quos a Luciano et Hesychio nuncupatos paucorum hominum adserit peruersa contentio: quibus utique nec in ueteri instrumento post septuaginta interpretes emendare quid licuit nec in nouo profuit emendasse, cum multarum gentium linguis scriptura ante translata doceat falsa esse quae addita sunt (edita sunt, ms. E), John, Wordsworth and White, H. J., Nouum Testamentum Domini Nostri lesu Christi Latine, I [Oxford, 1889], 2.Google Scholar There has been a curious reluctance among many scholars to admit that Jerome here refers to any more than the Lucianic text of the Old Testament. But, as Streeter, B. H. pointed out, ‘seeing that Jerome is writing a careful and considered Preface to a revised version of the Four Gospels, and that he only mentions the Lucianic and Hesychian versions in order to contrast their inferior text with that of the “ancient codices” he himself has used, I simply cannot understand why some scholars have raised doubts as to whether the Lucianic and Hesychian recensions included the New Testament as well as the Old’ (The Four Gospels [London, 1936], p. 591).Google Scholar As regards the much more nebulous figure of Hesychius, whom no Greek author mentions, the situation is different. Despite the popularity of Wilhelm Bousset's suggestion that the so-called ‘Neutral’ text is to be attributed to Hesychius, most scholars today are inclined to agree with SirFrederick, G. Kenyon, who concludes his study of ‘Hesychius and the Text of the New Testament’ (Mémorial Lagrange [Paris, 1940], pp. 245–50) with the words: ‘The title of “Hesychius” rests in fact upon what is little more than a shadow of a shade.’Google Scholar
2 Alexandria et Aegyptus in LXX suis Hesychium laudat auctorem; Constantinopolis usque Antiochiam Luciani martyris exemplaria probat; mediae inter has provinciae Palaestinos codices legunt, quos ab Origene elaboratos Eusebius et Pamphilus vulgaverunt (Migne, , P.L. XXVIII, 1392 A,Google Scholar and Friedrich, Stummer, Einführung in die lateinische Bibel [Paderborn, 1928], p. 239).Google Scholar
1 Lucianus, vir disertissimus, Antiochenae ecclesiae presbyter, tantum in Scripturarum studio laborat, ut usque nunc quaedam exemplaria Scripturarum Lucianea nuncupentur (de Viris lustribus, 77 [T.U. XIV, pp. 41f., ed. Richardson, E. C.]).Google Scholar
2 Illud breuiter admoneo, ut sciatis aliam esse editionem, quam Origenes et Caesariensis Eusebius omnesque Graeciae tractatores —id est communem—appellant atque uulgatam et a plerisque nunc dicitur, aliam septuaginta interpretum, quae et in codicibus repperitur et a nobis in Latinum sermonem fideliter uersa est (Epist. 106, §2, 2 [C.S. E.L. LV, p. 248, ed. Hilberg, ]).Google Scholar
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1 Theodor, Zahn dated this document not later than the fifth or sixth century; see his Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, II (Erlangen, 1890), 311.Google Scholar The text is printed in Migne, , P.G. XXVIII,Google Scholar col. 433 see also Dörrie's, H. discussion of the textual transmission of this passage in his article, ‘Zur Geschichte der Septuaginta im Jahrhundert Konstantins’, Z. N. W. XXXIX (1940), 79–87.Google Scholar
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1 For a discussion of the correct text of Jerome's comment on this interpolation, see Sutcliffe, E. F., ‘The “diversa” or “dispersa”? St Jerome, P.L. 24, 548 B’, Biblica, XXXV (1955), pp. 213–22. It is curious that elsewhere Jerome calls the Lucianic recension the text; see note 2 to p. 192 above.Google Scholar
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4 It may be mentioned here that Paul Wendland's careful examination of the Old Testament quotations in one of Philo's tractates, and his conclusion that in a large proportion of cases the text of Philo agrees with Lucian and seldom joins other manuscripts against Lucian, cannot be accepted without being re-examined (‘Zu Philos Schrift de posteritate Caini. Nebst Bemerkungen zur Rekonstruktion der Septuaginta’, Philologus, LVII [1898], 248–88).Google Scholar Wendland naturally made use of Lagarde's edition of the Lucianic text, but since this begins to be Lucianic only on p. 259, line 3, with Ruth, iv. 11Google Scholar (so Rahlfs, , Studien…Ruth, pp. 77 f.),Google Scholar a comparison of Philo's Pentateuchal quotations with this edition Counts for nothing. See Peter, Katz, ‘Das Problem des Ur-textes der Septuaginta’, Theologische Zeitschrift, V (1949), 19f.,Google Scholar and his monograph on Philo's Bible (Cambridge, 1950), p. 12, note I.Google Scholar
1 In Westcott, and Hort, , The New Testament in the Original Greek, vol. II, Introduction [and] Appendix, 2nd ed. (London, 1896), pp. 329–30.Google Scholar
2 ibid.
3 Evangelion da-Mepharresche, II (Cambridge, 1904), 224f.Google Scholar
1 Streeter, B. H., The Four Gospels (London, 1924), p. 119.Google Scholar
2 Ropes, J. H., The Text of Acts (1926), pp. cclxxxivf.Google Scholar Referring to the text of Acts, Ropes, says, ‘Apart from the “Western” readings found in the Antiochian recension, the Old Uncial base which the revisers used was evidently an excellent text’Google Scholar, ibid. p. cclxxxvii.
1 For further examples of distinctively Byzantine readings which are also found in 66, consult John, i. 32; iii. 24; iv. 14, 51; v. 8; vi. 10, 57; vii. 3, 39; viii. 41, 51, 55; ix. 23; x. 38; xii. 36; xiv. 17.Google Scholar
2 Despite Edward F. Hills's valiant attempt to do so in is essay, ‘Dean Burgon in the Light of Recent Research’, prefixed to the 1959 reprinting of Burgon, 's Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to St Mark, pp. 44–67.Google Scholar
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4 For example, it may be that in Luke, xx. 1,Google Scholar, supported by the Koine text alone, is to be preferred to, , imacr;ς supported by ℵ B C D L M Q R ⊖ fam i fam 13 it vg (cf., H. Greeven's cogent argument in N. T. S. VI [1960], 295 f.)Google Scholar. For a discussion of several Lucianic readings in Acts, which so sober a critic as James, Hardy Ropes was disposed to regard as original, see his Text of Acts (1926), p. cclxxxv.Google ScholarZuntz, G. has some stimulating things to say on this subject in his Text of the Epistles (1953), pp. 49–57 and 150–1.Google Scholar