17 "Koptische Didache-Fragment," 93. 2.888-89) on the topic of dialects and their influ
Introduction Sahidic source.18 Quite different is the opinion of Paul interpret this? Schmidt thought it was a "scribal exer cise" written on a "scrap of waste papyrus."13 Lefort pre sents the matter thus: "it is clear, as I. Bell remarked at the outset, that we have to do with an excerptum; proba bly someone, for a reason unknown to us, transcribed this passage from the Didache on the end of a roll that was otherwise free of writing."14 Why the scribe begins in the middle of the text (10.3b) and stops with equal abruptness (12.2a) is completely unclear. The manu script presents more puzzles than the editors admit.15
E. Kahle Jr., who writes, concerning the dialect of the text: "It was merely a later development of Middle
Egyptian proper under Fayyumic or Bohairic influence, and was superseded by Fayyumic in the second half of the fifth century."19 "The manuscript of the Didache is probably the latest text in this dialect, being written about the beginning of the fifth century."20 In my view, it remains an open question whether, in Or. 9271, we have a section from a Coptic source or an ad hoc transla tion from a Greek text.21
The location of this fragment within the linguistic his tory of the text is also problematic.16 Schmidt supposed that there was a Greek source.17 Lefort proposes the hypothesis that the orthographic oddities of the text may be explained if it was a Fayyumic version of a The text form presented by the Coptic is remarkable in many places.22 On the whole, it does not offer a better text than H. I consider the famous prayer for the stinoufi
(col. 1, 11. 15-20) to be a later addition to the Didache in the Nile valley north of Oxyrhynchus. It certainly must have been the spoken language in that neigh bourhood during the early Coptic period before it was superseded by Fayyumic" (Bala'izah, 226-27).
Of course, one should compare what Kahle has said, self-critically, in the addenda (Kahle, Bala'izah,
2.888-89) on the topic of dialects and their influ ence.
21 Adam differs ("Herkunft," 26-38). He attempts to give foundation to the idea that this is a translation not from the Greek but from a Syriac source. I would like to set aside the question whether the individual arguments Adam presents are com pelling. This deserves a separate investigation. In at least two cases I am very skeptical about the attempt to trace this text to a Syriac original: in Did. 11.11
(the supposed crux interpretum), the Coptic has its own text (col. 2,11. 30-32; on this, see below). Adam supposes that the striking ■napahoaiq goes back to Syriac ("Herkunft," 30). But it is a much more probable assumption that the Coptic text is corrupt at this point (due to misunderstanding of the Greek source?). Adam understands the disputed term ctMoyqi (col. 1,11. 16 and 18) as a translation of Syriac ■ or , which at this point would mean "agape celebration" ("Herkunft," 31-32). In contrast, see my explanation at 11.11
22 On what follows, see Niederwimmer, "Textprobleme," passim, and the individual pas sages in the commentary. Audet (Didache, 33-34) offers a complete collation of the Coptic with H. I will restrict myself to a few characteristics. [Ed. See now also Boudewijn Dehandschutter, "The Text of the Didache: Some Comments on the Edition of Klaus Wengst," in Jefford, Context, 37-46.] improbable. I tend to think rather (with Schmidt) that this is a writing exercise.
16 The page was presumably discovered in the neigh borhood of Oxyrhynchus, in the nome of Cynopolis. See Horner, "New Papyrus Fragment,"
225.
17 "Koptische Didache-Fragment," 93.
18 Lefort, Peres apostoliques, xiii-xiv. That a relatively early Sahidic translation of the Didache existed is an acceptable hypothesis, but the demonstration
Lefort proposes is fragile. The text from the Pachomiana that he adduces at p. xiii n. 5 (Ernest A. W.
Budge, Coptic Apocrypha in the Dialect of Upper Egypt [London: British Museum, 1913] no. VI: "The Instructions of Apa Pachomius, the Archimandrite,"
Br. Mus. Or. 7024, fol. 18a [p. 146, with English translation at p. 352]: "My son, listen. Make thyself wise, and receive the instruction of truth[?]. There are two ways [which thou canst follow]") is not a wit ness for the Didache, and is not even decisive for a literary dependence on the Two Ways tractate. The Arabic "Vita of Apa Shenute" (see above) next adduced by Lefort (Peres apostoliques, xiii n. 6) simply presumes the existence of a Coptic (Sahidic?) version of the Two Ways tractate, but not a Sahidic version of the Didache, as Lefort thinks. On the whole question, cf. also the cautious opinion of Audet, Didache, 29 n. 1, and 32.
19 Kahle, Bala'izah, 1.225. For Kahle, also, the ques tion of purpose in writing remains open, as long as / P. Mich. 3520 and 3521 have not been published
(Kahle, Bala'izah, 224-25). Kahle offers an analysis of the dialect used in the Coptic Didache fragment at 225-26.
20 Kahle, Bala'izah, 226. He continues, "If the dialect existed originally as a separate dialect, we should expect it to have been current outside the Fayyum
certainty. The translation as a whole has been lost, but parts of it (namely, Did. 8.1-2 and 11.3—13.7) have been preserved — not, however, as an independent writing, but (without designation of the source) as an insertion in the Ethiopian church order.28 In canons 49-52 there is an insertion, within which, in canon 52, a piece of the Didache appears, namely, Did. 11.3—13.7 (Horner, 54,20—
55,24). This is followed immediately by Did. 8.1-2 (Horner, 55,25ff.).29 We need not introduce a discussion here of how these portions of the Didache (and in reverse order) came to be included in the text of the Ethiopian church order.30 What is interesting is that the insertion of the Didache text occurs only in the Ethiopian version of the church order, not in the Arabic of the Canones ecclesiastici, and not in the Sahidic version of the Egyptian collection of laws. According to Audet's exhaustive investigations, the insertion (from the Didascalia and) from the Didache (both said to have been inserted by the same interpolator) must have happened soon after 350.31 "The fragment of the version of the Didache that Horner made known by his publication, in text.23 Since we also find a similar passage in Const. 7.27, both go back to a recension of the Greek text of the Didache that already had an interpolation at this point
(even though the Greek source of the Coptic makes, on the whole, a very different impression).24 I believe the repeated "Amens" (after 10.4, 5, 6a) to be liturgical addi tions.25 The omission of dexdrjrw w? Kvptoq in 11.4 (also in Ethiopic) is a corruption of the text; the famous crux at 11.11 was already misunderstood by the Coptic (or its source), perhaps deliberately; what we find here in the Coptic is a corrupted text. Characteristic of this textual corruption is also 10.6: the Coptic presupposes eXderw
6 Kvpioq [instead of H's x«ptg] koll TtapeXdeTw 6 noopoq ovroq. apr/p [H lacks "Amen"], woappa tw olkw Aavi8
[instead of ra dew Aavi8 in H] ... 6 Kvpcoq rjXdep [instead of papavador appp as in H]. But there are some passages in which the Coptic appears to be in the right when differing from H.26 In particular: in 10.4 we should probably read nepl itavTwv with the Coptic
(against irpo tuxptwp in H). The role of the Coptic text of the Didache can be compared with that of the so-called D text of the New Testament: in the Coptic, we must distin guish a few ancient readings from numerous later addi tions and alterations.27
1904, of the Ethiopic recension of the Apostolic Canons is an independent witness, detached from the rest of the tradition at a date that cannot be much later than the middle of the fourth century."32 b.The Ethiopic Version (Eth.) From the existence of part of the Didache tradition in the Ethiopian language (of which I will speak presently), we may conclude that there was a complete translation of the Didache into Ethiopic, drawing on either Greek or Coptic; the date of this translation cannot be given with The significance of the Ethiopic version for the estab lishment of the text of the Didache is small.33 This ver sion reveals a slight attraction to paraphrase, and the textual variants "are of unequal weight."34 For example, in 11.4 8exdr)Tw wq Kvpcoq is omitted in Ethiopic and in Coptic; 11.6 is entirely omitted; in 11.10 rrjp ctXpdeiap
23 On this, see below, pp. 165-67.
24 On this, see below.
25 Schmidt ("Koptische Didache-Fragment," 93-96) concluded that the Didache text underwent redac tion in Egypt.
26 In this connection, we should note 10.3 only in pass ing, because 'Irjaov, which the Coptic correctly offers, has been omitted from H only by a scribal error. The same is true of 10.4, where H reads bwaroq el ov [«c] r) bo^a, which Bryennios had already improved to bovaroq el• ooi f) bo^a, and this is confirmed by the Coptic. Also, the rrpog u/udq in the text that probably goes back to a Sahidic source, the text of which Audet wishes to place in the first half of the 4th century, and perhaps even in the 3d century.
28 Cf. George W. Horner, The Statutes of the Apostles or Canones Ecclesiastici (London: Williams and Norgate, 1904) 54-55 and 193-94.
29 For the English translation of Did. 11.3—13.7, see his pp. 193,7-194,23; of Did. 8.1-2: pp. 194,24-28.
Hugo Duensing gives a German translation in Adam, "Herkunft," 36-37.
30 The complicated process of tradition is discussed at length by Audet, Didache, 34-45; he also presents hypotheses about the origins of canons (49-52).
31 Audet, Didache, 41-42. Audet attempted to explain (Didache, 42) how, in particular, the interpolation of the Didache was supposed to have occurred.
32 Audet, Didache, 43. Horner ("New Papyrus
12.1, which is wrongly omitted by H in 12.1 (the correct text is in Coptic, Ethiopic, Georgian, and Apostolic Constitutions), is absent only because of a copyist's mistake.
27 Audet (Didache, 32) assesses the text of the Coptic fragment thus: it represents an individual form of
Introduction possess of the Georgian version of the Didache,36 Peradse ("Lehre," 112-14) made some daring suggestions about the age of the Georgian version,37 but there is little rea son to rely on them.38 In reality, we are faced here with a very late, modern translation; nothing more in detail can be said about it. Nevertheless, Rordorf and Tuilier
{Doctrine, 115 n. 2) wish to suppose that the vanished Constantinople manuscript goes directly back to H. I do not think that is probable. Against it are the readings of the Georgian in 3.4 (beginning with avra fiAe-neiv rj anoveiv, against H, which contains only the first two words) and in 12.1 (-/rag be epxopevoq ivpdq upaq, with Coptic, Ethiopic, Apostolic Constitutions, against 7rag be epxopevoq in H).39 Instead, the Georgian version proba bly goes back to a recension of the Greek text that is closely related to that of H. is missing; in 12.3 kcll <payera is omitted, as is xptanavoq in 12.4; 13.2 is also entirely missing; 8.2 lacks auTov after evayyeAiw and the conclusion of the verse as well. There are major additions in 11.8 and 12.3, lesser in 12.4 (after rex^W add /tat ovk epyaperat), in 13.6 (after eAaiov add /cat peAiroq), and in 13.7 (after evToXpv add tou nvpiov). There are characteristic alter ations in 11.5 (where the stay of the traveling apostles may be extended to three days, if necessary), in 11.7, and in 11.11 (where the Ethiopic shows that the author no longer understood the Greek source). In 11.12 apyvpux is replaced by xpuaop (cf. 13.7), and in 13.6 the prophets are replaced by the poor. The Ethiopic text is important in three passages: it secures el prj in 11.5 and irpoq vpaq in 12.1 (together with the Coptic and Apostolic
Constitutions), and it shows that the gloss in 13.4 must be old (although the Ethiopic presupposes toj tttwxv)From Peradse's collation, we can observe the follow ing. The Georgian presents a complete text of the Didache (lacking only 1.5-6 and 13.5-7); the text is c. Appendix:The Georgian Version (Georg.)
We thus come to a somewhat dubious chapter in the Didache text tradition. In 1923, in Constantinople, a young Georgian named Simon Pheikrishvili copied the Georgian text of the Didache from a manuscript that contained, besides the Didache in Georgian, a number of other text^ in Georgian and Armenian. The manuscript from which he copied was, unfortunately, destroyed, but we are told that it was supposed to have come from the first half of the nineteenth century. G. Peradse saw
Pheikrishvili's copy in Paris, copied it, and collated it with the Greek text of the Didache as found in Harnack's large (German) edition.35 This collation is all that we inclined to paraphrasing additions (beginning even with the title); after 16.8 there is a brief and partly quite plau sible conclusion of the whole book (whereas the conclu sion is lacking in H: see above). I consider it excessive to omit the Georgian altogether from consideration in determining the reconstruction of the text, as Rordorf and Tuilier do. Nevertheless, in light of its late and dubi ous tradition, the Georgian version is not to be regarded as an equal witness. One may adduce it only in individ ual cases, and then with reservations. translated the Didache from a Greek source. Cf.
Peradse, "Lehre," 113. Peradse considers the colophon an interpolation, but wishes to retain the core of the information contained in it (p. 113 n. 5).
He identifies the translator with Bishop Jeremias the Iberian, who was a contemporary of the Council of Ephesus (p. 114).
38 Cf. Audet, Didache, 46-47.
39 It is possible that one could also adduce the conclu sion of the Georgian version. On the whole, it does not look like an ad hoc invention of the copyist (or his source), even though the talk about "holy right eousness" sounds strange in the framework of the Didache. The translator of the Georgian may, in any case, have possessed a complete copy of the Didache.
Fragment," xxxvi-xxxvii) gives a description of the mss. of the Ethiopian church order. The variants in the Ethiopic mss. for this portion of the text are list ed by Horner, "New Papyrus Fragment," 401-2, and reproduced by Audet, Didache, 44-45, who gives a collation of the deviations from H; cf. also Vokes,
Riddle, 15-16. In the following remarks I will discuss only those variants that are especially characteristic.
33 There is a characterization of the versio ethiopica also in Audet, Didache, 71-72.
34 Rordorf and Tuilier, Doctrine, 115.
35 Peradse, "Lehre," 111-16 (with the collation on pp.
115-16).
36 In 1932 Peradse was convinced that there were still a number of mss. of the Didache in Tbilisi ("Lehre,"
112).
37 In the colophon there is mention of "a certain Jeremias from Orhai," who is supposed to have