DOI Artikel:
Kenyon, Frederic George: Progress of Egyptology: graeco-roman Egypt, 1907-8
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12423#0057
Graeco-Boman Egypt.
47
scale of the work is against it. There is least to be said against Cratippus,
partly perhaps because so little is known of him. Nearly all the arguments
pro and con are fully and impartially set forth in the editors' admirable
introduction; in addition, mention may be made of the articles by Mr.
Walker (Klio, viii. 356) and Mr. Underhill {Journal of Hellenic Studies,
xxviii. 277).
The two remaining texts are not new, but they are of great length, and
in an ordinary year they would have attracted much attention. One
contains 26 columns (about half the entire work) of the Symposium of
Plato; the other, portions (sometimes very small) of the same number of
columns of the Pancgyricus of Isocrates. In each case, according to the
calculations of the editors, the complete roll would have been about
24 feet in length. The Plato is assigned to the end of the second or
beginning of the third century; the Isocrates is about a hundred years older.
As usual, the papyri do not agree exclusively, or nearly exclusively, with
any of the families into which the vellum codices are divided. There are
a few good new readings in the Plato, hardly any in the Isocrates. In
general, they support the conclusions to which all the evidence from the
papyri points : namely, that our textual tradition is sound in the main, that
modern criticism has rightly discriminated between the superior and
inferior families of MSS., but that it is by no means safe or legitimate to
assume that the truth is to be found in one family alone, and that
conjecture, except on a very limited scale, is rarely successful.
These two volumes represent by far the most important discoveries
which have been published during the past year, or for several years
previously; but another of great interest has been announced, and a
foretaste given of its contents. This is a group of Biblical MSS. which
were acquired in Egypt in the winter of 1906-7 by Mr. (j. L. Freer, of
Detroit, and the publication of which has been entrusted by him to the
University of Michigan, and to the editorship of Prof. H. A. Sanders. A
preliminary account, with specimen facsimiles, has been published by
Prof. Sanders,3 and has been amplified bj Prof. C. E. Gregory.4 The first
MS. contains the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua, in a fine hand,
probably of the sixth century. The second is a complete copy of the four
Gospels, in a hand resembling that of the Akhmim fragment of the Book
of Enoch, which may perhaps be as early as the fifth century. The text
promises to be of great interest and importance, especially in the Gospels
of St. Luke and St. John, while the last chapter of St. Mark contains an
apocryphal addition between verses 14 and 15, hitherto only partly known
through a mention by St. Jerome. The third MS. is a Psalter, and the
47
scale of the work is against it. There is least to be said against Cratippus,
partly perhaps because so little is known of him. Nearly all the arguments
pro and con are fully and impartially set forth in the editors' admirable
introduction; in addition, mention may be made of the articles by Mr.
Walker (Klio, viii. 356) and Mr. Underhill {Journal of Hellenic Studies,
xxviii. 277).
The two remaining texts are not new, but they are of great length, and
in an ordinary year they would have attracted much attention. One
contains 26 columns (about half the entire work) of the Symposium of
Plato; the other, portions (sometimes very small) of the same number of
columns of the Pancgyricus of Isocrates. In each case, according to the
calculations of the editors, the complete roll would have been about
24 feet in length. The Plato is assigned to the end of the second or
beginning of the third century; the Isocrates is about a hundred years older.
As usual, the papyri do not agree exclusively, or nearly exclusively, with
any of the families into which the vellum codices are divided. There are
a few good new readings in the Plato, hardly any in the Isocrates. In
general, they support the conclusions to which all the evidence from the
papyri points : namely, that our textual tradition is sound in the main, that
modern criticism has rightly discriminated between the superior and
inferior families of MSS., but that it is by no means safe or legitimate to
assume that the truth is to be found in one family alone, and that
conjecture, except on a very limited scale, is rarely successful.
These two volumes represent by far the most important discoveries
which have been published during the past year, or for several years
previously; but another of great interest has been announced, and a
foretaste given of its contents. This is a group of Biblical MSS. which
were acquired in Egypt in the winter of 1906-7 by Mr. (j. L. Freer, of
Detroit, and the publication of which has been entrusted by him to the
University of Michigan, and to the editorship of Prof. H. A. Sanders. A
preliminary account, with specimen facsimiles, has been published by
Prof. Sanders,3 and has been amplified bj Prof. C. E. Gregory.4 The first
MS. contains the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua, in a fine hand,
probably of the sixth century. The second is a complete copy of the four
Gospels, in a hand resembling that of the Akhmim fragment of the Book
of Enoch, which may perhaps be as early as the fifth century. The text
promises to be of great interest and importance, especially in the Gospels
of St. Luke and St. John, while the last chapter of St. Mark contains an
apocryphal addition between verses 14 and 15, hitherto only partly known
through a mention by St. Jerome. The third MS. is a Psalter, and the