Vetus Latina: Die Reste Der altlateinischen Bibel. 7/2: Judith, Fascicules 2–7. Edited by Pierre-Maurice Bogaert and Jean-Claude Haelewyck

The Latin tradition of the book of Judith is unusual, important, and fascinating. The two oldest surviving manuscripts, Codex Amiatinus and the Lorsch Palimpsest (Vatican, Pal. lat. 24), were both copied around the beginning of the eighth century and present Jerome’s version as included in the Vulga...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Houghton, H. A. G. 1976- (Author)
Format: Electronic Review
Language:English
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Published: Oxford University Press 2021
In: The journal of theological studies
Year: 2021, Volume: 72, Issue: 2, Pages: 922-925
Further subjects:B Book review
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:The Latin tradition of the book of Judith is unusual, important, and fascinating. The two oldest surviving manuscripts, Codex Amiatinus and the Lorsch Palimpsest (Vatican, Pal. lat. 24), were both copied around the beginning of the eighth century and present Jerome’s version as included in the Vulgate. From the ninth to the fourteenth century, however, no fewer than twenty-eight manuscripts survive with an Old Latin text of Judith, nineteen of which transmit the whole book. Such an abundant manuscript tradition is extremely rare for the Vetus Latina, and enables the editors to construct three text-types which are attested throughout. The earliest is C, the letter customarily assigned in this series to the ‘secondary African’ revision, probably from the early fourth century: its principal witnesses are the manuscripts VL 62 and VL 7, and it is found in longer citations from Augustine and Lucifer of Cagliari: the earliest form of the Canticle of Judith (from Jdt. 16:1-17), as seen in the Sinai Psalter (VL 460), also corresponds to this version. Type I is an Italian text from the latter half of the fourth century, attested by more than half of the surviving manuscripts and based on the same Greek text as C. Type F is a thorough revision of the Latin on stylistic grounds: although it is only preserved in the tenth-century Codex Complutensis I (VL 109), evidence in Ambrosiaster shows that it was circulating in Rome in the 370s. Its reference at Jdt. 8:6 to a written list of feast days may support a Jewish origin. Bogaert suggests that it is simply an accident that no direct evidence is preserved for a ‘primary African’ text translated around the year 200 (Type K), but it is likely to be found in the readings of types C and I: all the surviving material points to a single underlying Latin original (p. 53).
ISSN:1477-4607
Contains:Enthalten in: The journal of theological studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/jts/flab080