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Home , Sirach

THE OF ECCLESIASTICUS

Maurice Gilbert, S.J. (Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome)

Scholarly research on the Old Version of the book called Ecclesiasticus is rare. From the end of the 19th century, the main publications are these. First, two articles of Ph. Thielmann deserves mentioning.1 His study—it must be noted—is previous to the discovery of the first Hebrew fragment of the book of , made by S. Schechter in May 1896. According to Thielmann, the original Latin version of Ecclesiasticus only comprised chapters 1‐43 and 51, and it was done by an African at the beginning of the 3rd century. The Laus Patrum was translated later by a European. The second study was published in Leipzig by H. Herkenne.2 In fact, Herkenne also used the Syriac version and the Hebrew fragments already published, those discovered in Cambridge by Schechter and in Oxford by A. Neubauer. In 1897, A.E. Cowley and A. Neubauer had published all of the fragments discovered up till then, but these covered only nine chapters of the book, from 39:15 to 49:11, all of them from the manuscript called B. The opinion of Herkenne is that the Vetus Latina of Ecclesiasticus was done on the basis of a Greek version—which had been corrected in the light of a Hebrew text of Ben Sira—and of which the Latin version of Ecclesiasticus remains the only witness. The third study is that by R. Smend in his commentary on Ben Sira.3 On pages cxviii‐cxxix, he suggested that the Old Latin version of Ecclesiasticus was done on the basis of a manuscript of the short text of Sirach, Greek I, but “a ms which retains far more traces of the influence of Gr II than any of the surviving Gr mss,” as C. Kearns puts it, in his dissertation.4

1 “Die lateinische Übersetzung des Buches Sirach,” Archiv für lateinische Lexicographie und Grammatik 8 (1893) 511‐61; “Die europäischen Bestandteile des lateinischen Sirach,” ibid. 9 (1894) 247‐84. 2 De Veteris Latinae Ecclesiastici capitibus I‐XLIII una cum notis ex eiusdem libri transla‐ tionibus aethiopica, armeniaca, copticis, latina altera, syro‐hexaplari depromptis (Leipzig: Hinrichs 1899, vii+268 pages). 3 Die Weisheit des Sirach erklärt (Berlin: Reimer 1906). 4 The Expanded Text of Ecclesiasticus (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute 1951, viii+309 pages), especially on page 21, where he refers to Smend’s pages cxviii and cxxiv. 2 MAURICE GILBERT, S.J.

This thesis of Smend was discussed by the Benedictine D. de Bruyne,5 who was preparing the Roman edition of the of Ecclesiasticus. He was able to use many more manuscripts than Thielemann and Herkenne, and he thought that the Vetus Latina of Ecclesiasticus was done during the second half of the 2nd century, earlier than the date proposed by Herkenne. De Bruyne considered that the Old Latin version of Ecclesiasticus

is based directly on a ms of Gr II; that the opposing readings of Gr I entered it only subsequently; and that it is thus the only known direct representative of Gr II, since fam. 248 merely represents Gr I with interpolations from Gr II, as Kearns summarized it on his page 21, referring to de Bruyne’s pages 41‐43 and 46. Then we have to wait till 1964 for the edition of the Liber Iesu Filii Sirach in the Roman publication by the Benedictine Fathers.6 For my purpose in this paper, I quote here in an English translation a few sentences written by P.‐M. Bogaert in his recension of this Roman edition:

The original Latin version of Sir. depends on a Greek text revised in accordance with the Hebrew one. Long before the Vulgate recension, this Latin text had already been disturbed by a revision done on the basis of the Alexandrian text, purer and not revised on the Hebrew one. The readings that are also found in Hebrew, in Syriac, in Clement of , in the Origenian recension of the , and in , may go back to the primeval Latin version. The others are peculiar to the Vulgate recension or are still later than it. In this latter case, they must be rejected. 7

Keeping in mind this global vision of the Latin text of Ecclesiasticus, we have to point out that the Roman edition offers the text of Ecclesiasticus as it was when it was inserted into the Vulgate, probably at the end of the 5th century or at the beginning of the 6th. One year after the Roman edition of the Vulgate text of Ecclesiasticus, J. Ziegler published his Greek version of Sirach.8 Here I will make two points. First Ziegler insisted on the necessity to keeping an eye on the variant readings of the Vetus Latina (p. 23). Secondly, in his critical apparatus, he noted the numerous occasions where the Vetus Latina has a text similar to the Hebrew one instead of the Greek. In 1977, O. Wahl published the first critical edition of the Sirach Greek text quoted in the Sacra Parallela.9 Smend already knew the importance of

5 “Étude sur le texte latin de l’Ecclésiastique,” RBén 40 (1928) 5‐48. 6 Liber Iesu Filii Sirach (Biblia Sacra iuxta latinam Vulgatam versionem, vol. XII, Roma: Typis polyglottis Vaticanis 1964, 105‐375 pages). 7 Bulletin de la latine (1955‐1973), n. 143, p. [34]. 8 Sapientia Iesu Filii Sirach (Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum XII/2, Göt‐ tingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1965, 368 pages) 9 Der Sirach‐Text der Sacra Parallela (FzB 16, Würzburg: Echter, 172 pages).