DOI Artikel:
Kenyon, Frederic George: Progress of Egyptology: graeco-roman Egypt
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12053#0080
61
Peogeess of Egyptology.
Classical Texts, which has been undertaken by the administration of the
Museum.
Another literary publication which rises above the average of most years
is that of a papyrus Psalter at Leipzig, which has been edited by Dr.
Heinrici.4 It is the longest Biblical papyrus in existence (slightly exceed-
ing both papyrus 37 of the Psalter in the British Museum and that of
the Minor Prophets at Heidelberg), and it is also relatively early in date.
It is written on the verso of a papyrus roll, and the accounts which occupy
the recto bear a date in a.d. 338, which forbids us to assign an earlier date
to the Psalter; but it cannot be much later than the middle of the fourth
century. The roll, when intact, measured about 13t feet in length, and
contained Ps. xxx.-lv.; the first six columns are now considerably
mutilated. The editor remarks that it is the first example of a sacred
text being written on the back of a secular document; but it has quickly
found a companion in the Oxyrhynclms MS. which has the epitome of
Livy on the recto and the Epistle to the Hebrews on the verso. The text
of the Leipzig papyrus is nearer to that of the large London Psalter than
to any other extant MS., but it differs considerably from all; the editor
regards it as an example of the free handling of the text of the Sep-
tuagint in the days before Origen's Hexapla,—an observation which may
usefully be borne in mind with reference to New Testament textual ques-
tions. Two remarks may be permitted. The editor has confused two
papyrus Psalters in the British Museum, a fact which accounts for the
date- assigned, on Prof. Wilcken's authority, to the longer and more
important, bat later, of the two. Prof. Wilcken's opinion, as he has been
kind enough to inform me, applies to the other MS. (Brit. Mus. Pap. 230),
of which alone a facsimile was submitted to him. Also it is a mistake to
describe Swete's edition of the Psalter as a critical recension of the texfus
receptus; it is simply the text of the Codex Vaticanus (or of the
Sinaiticus where the Vaticanus is defective), with the variants of the
other principal MSS. in the critical apparatus.
The Leipzig collection also includes part of a leaf of another Psalter,
assigned to the third century, containing portions of Ps. cxviii. [cxix.]
17-63. It is published by the same editor, being oddly printed as columns
36 and 37 of the other papyrus, with which it has properly nothing to do.
In the Arcliiv fur Papyrusforschung Cronert publishes Pap. 186 of the
British Museum,3 a hopelessly mutilated fragment of a drama on the
subject of Medea and Jason, which he identifies on very slight grounds
with the Medea of Neophron. Another dramatic fragment is published by
Mr. H. E. Hall, a schoolboy's very incorrect copy of Euripides' Phoen.
Peogeess of Egyptology.
Classical Texts, which has been undertaken by the administration of the
Museum.
Another literary publication which rises above the average of most years
is that of a papyrus Psalter at Leipzig, which has been edited by Dr.
Heinrici.4 It is the longest Biblical papyrus in existence (slightly exceed-
ing both papyrus 37 of the Psalter in the British Museum and that of
the Minor Prophets at Heidelberg), and it is also relatively early in date.
It is written on the verso of a papyrus roll, and the accounts which occupy
the recto bear a date in a.d. 338, which forbids us to assign an earlier date
to the Psalter; but it cannot be much later than the middle of the fourth
century. The roll, when intact, measured about 13t feet in length, and
contained Ps. xxx.-lv.; the first six columns are now considerably
mutilated. The editor remarks that it is the first example of a sacred
text being written on the back of a secular document; but it has quickly
found a companion in the Oxyrhynclms MS. which has the epitome of
Livy on the recto and the Epistle to the Hebrews on the verso. The text
of the Leipzig papyrus is nearer to that of the large London Psalter than
to any other extant MS., but it differs considerably from all; the editor
regards it as an example of the free handling of the text of the Sep-
tuagint in the days before Origen's Hexapla,—an observation which may
usefully be borne in mind with reference to New Testament textual ques-
tions. Two remarks may be permitted. The editor has confused two
papyrus Psalters in the British Museum, a fact which accounts for the
date- assigned, on Prof. Wilcken's authority, to the longer and more
important, bat later, of the two. Prof. Wilcken's opinion, as he has been
kind enough to inform me, applies to the other MS. (Brit. Mus. Pap. 230),
of which alone a facsimile was submitted to him. Also it is a mistake to
describe Swete's edition of the Psalter as a critical recension of the texfus
receptus; it is simply the text of the Codex Vaticanus (or of the
Sinaiticus where the Vaticanus is defective), with the variants of the
other principal MSS. in the critical apparatus.
The Leipzig collection also includes part of a leaf of another Psalter,
assigned to the third century, containing portions of Ps. cxviii. [cxix.]
17-63. It is published by the same editor, being oddly printed as columns
36 and 37 of the other papyrus, with which it has properly nothing to do.
In the Arcliiv fur Papyrusforschung Cronert publishes Pap. 186 of the
British Museum,3 a hopelessly mutilated fragment of a drama on the
subject of Medea and Jason, which he identifies on very slight grounds
with the Medea of Neophron. Another dramatic fragment is published by
Mr. H. E. Hall, a schoolboy's very incorrect copy of Euripides' Phoen.