NEW HEXAPLARIC READINGS TO THE LXX 1 KINGS

Natalio Fernández Marcos

With the exception of the sensational discovery of the Palimpsest O. 39 in the Ambrosian Library of Milan by Cardinal Mercati,1 most of the Hexaplaric material, teste Field, has been recovered from isolated readings scattered throughout the manuscripts of the Septuagint. The transmission of the Hexaplaric text is intertwined with the transmission of the Septuagint. The Syro-Hexapla and some Greek manuscripts are especially rich in the transmission of Hexaplaric readings within the text or in their margins. Adrian Schenker has edited for the Psalms the Hexaplaric material of Vat. Graecus 752, Can. Graecus 62 and Ott. Graecus 398.2 The secondary versions are another source of Hexaplaric readings, especially the Armenian as Claude Cox has brilliantly demonstrated.3 In the Rich Seminar on the Hexapla (Oxford 1994), I tried to show how the Hexaplaric material can still be enlarged through the careful read- ing of the manuscripts transmitting the commentaries of the Fathers, particularly Theodoret’s quaestiones and responsiones to the Biblical text.4 The new Hexapla Project and the Hexapla Institute recently created at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary of Louisville (Kentucky) will contribute substantially to the production of a desideratum in the field of Septuagint studies: a new Field for the present century.

1 Giovanni Mercati, Psalterii Hexapli Reliquiae I: Codex rescriptus Bybliothecae Ambrosianae 0.39 Supp. Phototypice expressus et transcriptus (Rome: Vatican Library, 1958); Giovanni Mercati, Psalterii Hexapli Reliquiae I: Osservazioni; commento critico al testo dei frammenti esaplari (Rome: Vatican Library, 1965). 2 Adrian Schenker, Hexaplarische Psalmenbruchstücke: Die hexaplarische Psalmenfragmente der Handschriften Vaticanus graecus 752 und Canonicianus graecus 62 (OBO 8; Fribourg/ Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975); Adrian Schenker, Psalmen in der Hexapla: Erste kritische und vollständige Ausgabe der hexaplarischen Fragmente auf dem Rande der Handschrift Ottobonianus graecus 398 zu den Ps 24–32 (Studi e Testi 295; Rome: Vatican Library, 1982). 3 Claude E. Cox, Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion in Armenia (SBLSCS 42; Atlanta, Ga: Scholars Press, 1996). 4 Natalio Fernández Marcos, “The Textual Context of the Hexapla: Lucianic Texts and Vetus Latina,” in Origen’s Hexapla and Fragments (ed. Alison Salvesen; TSAJ 58; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1998), 408–20, especially 414–15. 392 natalio fernández marcos

Another fruitful source and repository of Hexaplaric readings can be found in the catenae manuscripts, a literary genre that has still not been studied in depth, especially as far as the Historical books are concerned.5 Over the last few decades, the contribution of Françoise Petit to the edition of the catenae for the Octateuch and the Historical books has been of special note.6 Among the material published in her last volume devoted to the last books of the Octateuch and the books of Kings, a good number of Hexaplaric readings for 1 Kings are reg- istered and these are worth commenting on in detail.7 This edition is a good example of the benefit that can be drawn from the catenae for the recovery of Hexaplaric material. For this material Françoise Petit refers to Field, ad locum, or to parallels of Procopius’s commentary on the Questions of Theodoret, edited by herself in the same volume. She does not, however, discuss those readings in depth, leaving the correct evaluation of the material to the Biblical scholars. I shall, therefore, comment on ten of these readings below, most of which represent material unknown until now and others which improve the reading of the text known or published throughout by Field or the Hexapla apparatus of Brooke-McLean-Thackeray’s edition. 1. Nr 208 to 1 Kings 6:8 αʼ Καὶ θήσετε ἐν τῷ λαρνακίῳ ἀπὸ πλαγίων αὐτοῦ σʼ Θήσετε ἐν ἀγγείῳ ἐκ πλαγίων αὐτῆς. However, in the parallels of Procopius’s commentary to the Questions of Theodoret (p. 101 of Françoise Petit’s edition) one can find as a comment to the lxx expression: ʼΕν θέματι βαεργάζ of this passage: Σύμμαχος οὗτως· θέτε ἐν τῷ λαρνακίῳ ἀπὸ πλαγίου αὐτοῦ. ̔Ο δὲ ʼΑκύλας· ἐν ὑφῇ κουρᾶς. It would seem that a good deal of confusion remains in the manu- script transmission of the sigla and the readings according to Field’s

5 Natalio Fernández Marcos, Introducción a las versiones griegas de la Biblia (2d ed.; TECC 64; Madrid: CSIC, 1998), 291–304. 6 See the last publication of Françoise Petit, Autour de Théodoret de Cyr: La « Collectio Coisliniana » sur les derniers livres de l’Octateuque et sur les Règnes; Le « Commentaire sur les Règnes » de Procope de Gaza (Texte établi par Françoise Petit; Traditio Exegetica Graeca 13; Leuven: Peeters, 2003). 7 It is worth emphasizing that Petit’s edition restores critically the genuine text of the catena, not the reading of a single manuscript. The collation of diverse manuscripts is very important to ascertain the right reading or correct attribution. 8 It is the reference number of Françoise Petit’s edition.