§ 3. GREEK MSS. AND PAPYRUS

These fall into three groups, representative, along with the versions mentioned in § 4, of three distinct recensions. Their interrelation constitutes a problem of such extreme intricacy and length as to preclude little more than a bare statement of the main conclusion to which the present writer has come. A full statement of his reasons and further details, with a résumé of the modern treatment of the problem, he is therefore compelled to publish elsewhere.2

1. Codex Sinaiticus (א). This MS. presents the longest and clearest text, with only two lacunae of great importance1 and eight slight and practically unimportant ones,2 a comparatively trustworthy orthography of proper names,3 only one or two additions to the original text,4 and only a few—mostly natural—cases of internal textual corruption.5 All the evidence, as will be seen, points to the comparative originality of the recension of Tobit contained in א, which stands in a few cases alone, but is supported especially by the Old Latin, very frequently by the Aramaic, often by the Münster Hebrew, and—by no means rarely—by the recension of the Greek which we shall term Rc. Some of those scholars, who regard א as only secondary, have described it as the B text, or simply B, a nomenclature which, apart from prejudging the problem, at least introduces considerable confusion since B is universally recognized as the symbol for Codex Vaticanus, which, according to these scholars, along with Cod. Alex., represents the A text.6 In the following pages, therefore, we have avoided this begging of the question and much confusion by referring to the text of א and its auxiliaries not as the A text (as we believe it to be) but as Rs, i.e. the Sinaitic recension, the nearest approach which can be made to the original text whether the latter first appeared in Greek or in a Semitic language. It is this text which has been translated and commented upon in the following pages.7 The corrector denoted by אca began to emend the first scribe’s text of א, but seems to have recognized that it was essentially divergent from the later one better known in his time and abandoned the task.

2. Codex Vaticanus (B) and Codex Alexandrinus (A) give the second type of text. It is accepted in some quarters as more original than א. In the following pages it is referred to as Rv, i.e. the recension best preserved in Cod. Vat. A number of minuscules8 belong to this class, but their practical unimportance, except in one or two isolated cases,9 is admitted by all scholars. The differences between Codd. A and B are comparatively few,10 and the Syriac, when it follows Rv, follows it practically unerringly and continuously, as do some other versions mentioned below.11 On the other hand, the differences between Rv as a whole and Rs in its original form are extraordinarily numerous and important in spite of the number of points in which they agree. When Rs faithfully records an incident in detail, Rv summarizes; when Rs retains the poetic and aesthetic beauty of the original, Rv ruthlessly substitutes a brief prosaic narrative. That the text of Rv was finally settled in the reign of Antoninus Pius, not in Christian but in Jewish circles of the Diaspora in touch with the official heads of the Jewish Church in Palestine, is more than sufficiently proved by its general presuppositions and ideas, historical background, and its religious and theological developments in comparison with Rs. Rv, moreover, in spite of its own internal solidity, presents a much corrupted text with the proper names badly written, its grammar that of the vernacular and its style abrupt. A minute analysis of these and many other indications of its inferiority as compared with Rs can be seen in the critical apparatus (or, as it might be better described, synopsis) of the differences in the case of each verse and often each word which is printed below the translation of Rs in the following pages.1

3. Between 6:7 (8) and 13:8 The Minuscules 44 (Cittaviensis) 106 (Ferrariensis) and 107 (Ferrariensis, written c. 1337, agreeing almost entirely with 106), furnish a fragment of a third type of text.2 Before 6:7 (8) and after 13:8 these cursives follow Rv, but it has now been demonstrated by the discovery of the Oxyrhynchus Papyrus No. 10763 that Rc commenced at any rate as early as ch. 2.4 Rc presents a few characteristics avowedly late, and it is noteworthy that we have no contemporary evidence for the use of a single reading peculiar to it prior to 2 Clem. ad Cor. 16:16, which presupposes the recension of Rc in Tob. 12:8. Dr. Rendel Harris5 has argued that, since this admittedly finer version—at least from the Christian standpoint—of Rc in 12:8 was known to the author of 2 Clem., it is consequently the original text, though differing from both Rs and Rv But, if any argument as to the date or originality of the verse can be based on 2 Clem., it is surely that its use in 2 Clem. is evidence for its existence not at an early time but at a period later than Rs, even if it was more or less contemporary with Rv. Moreover, at Alexandria Rv was still in use in the time of Clement of Alexandria, and it is not till the sixth century6 that the Oxyrhynchus papyrus witnesses definitely to the existence of Rc in Egypt. On the other hand, individual readings in Rc, not now extant in א or BA, may conceivably go back to a considerably earlier date, if not to the original writing, if they are supported by a version which is either itself admittedly ancient or known to contain a text which—on independent grounds—follows Rs in the great majority of cases. Accordingly in 2:8 it has been possible to restore the original reading of Rs from Rc as preserved in the papyrus, owing to its agreement with the invaluable Old Latin MSS. α and β which so constantly, if not invariably, attest א’s general trust-worthiness. Rc in fact is a mediating redaction, representing a compromise between Rs and Rv. A sentence is preserved in part as it appears in the former, and in part recast in the mould of the latter. It would appear that Rv was in general vogue at the time when Rc arose, but, while the brevity and other characteristics of Rv appealed to its readers, the extent and character of its deviations from Rs precluded its complete popularity everywhere. Rc is therefore an attempt to combine the improvements of Rv with the ancient and well-established Rs.