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In a recent post I listed some manuscripts in languages of the Christian east for a homily on the burial of Jesus (CPG 3768), attributed variously to Epiphanius, Anastasius of Sinai, and Cyril of Alexandria. I included the rubric of the homily in a Georgian manuscript in the Borgia collection (№ 4) that Arn. van Lantschoot described in his article, “Le ms. Borgia géorgien 4,” Le Muséon 61 (1948), 75-88, here 80-81. Mainly for its vocabulary, which might be of use to the myriads of Georgian learners, here is the text again:

წმიდათა შოვრის მამისა ჩუენისა ეპიფანე კჳპრელ მთავარებისკოპოსისაჲ. საღმრთოთა ჴორცთა ოჳფლისა ჩუენისა იესოჳ ქრისტჱსთა დაფლვისათჳს: და იოსიფ და ნიკოდიმოსისთჳს: და ჯოჯოხეთს შთასლვისათჳს ოჳფლისა შემდგომად განმაცხოველებელისა ვნებისა მისისა რომელი ესე იკითხვების დიდსა შაბათსა: მამაო გუაკურთხენ:

[Homily] of our father among the saints, Epiphanius of Cyprus, archbishop, on the burial of the divine body of our Lord Jesus Christ, on Joseph and Nicodemus, and on the Lord’s descent into hell after his life-giving Passion, which is read on Great Saturday. Bless us, father!

Vocabulary

• მთავარებისკოპოსი archbishop
• საღმრთოჲ divine (the prefix სა- + ღმერთ- + suffix -ოჲ)
• ჴორცი flesh, body. NB “body” is a plural, as elsewhere, e.g. ხოლო იგი იტყოდა ტაძრად ჴორცთა მათ თჳსთა. (ἐκεῖνος δὲ ἔλεγεν περὶ τοῦ ναοῦ τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ)
 Jn 2:21 (Ad); მე ვნებანი იგი უფლისა იესუჲს[ნი] ჴორცთა შინა ჩემთა მიტჳრთვან (ἐγὼ γὰρ τὰ στίγματα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐν τῷ σώματί μου βαστάζω)
 Gal 6:17 (Xanm)]
• დაფლვაჲ burial
• ჯოჯოხეთი hell
• შთასლვისაჲ descent
• განმაცხოველებელი life-giving, quickening
• ვნებაჲ Passion (the same word, in a different sense, appears in the plural in the verse from Galatians quoted above)
• ი-კითხვ-ები-ს pres pass 3s კითხვა to read (PASS-SIroot-PASS-3SG)
• გუ-ა-კურთხ-ე-ნ aor 2s imv კურთხევა to bless (1PL.OBJ.-CV-SIIroot-2SG.IMP-PL.OBJ)

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A few years ago (2011), Alin Suciu pointed to some Coptic manuscripts of a homily for Holy Saturday attributed to Epiphanius of Salamis (see here). The Greek is at PG 43: 440-464 and some data is available for other versions at CPG 3768; Alin kindly provides PDFs for both of these in his post. I would like to add some more information on this homily — attributed elsewhere also to Anastasius of Sinai and even Cyril of Alexandria — in Gəʕəz, Georgian, Armenian, Syriac, and Arabic/Garšūnī; for all of these versions except Georgian and Armenian, there are manuscripts available through HMML.

(There are, of course, many pieces of art that cover the contents of this homily, from Joseph of Arimathea and the removal of Jesus’ body from the cross, his burial, and his descent into hell, even from the Brick Testament; there are, in fact, so many that I didn’t have time to choose any to include here, but for what it’s worth, here is a relatively unknown one from Sybil Andrews [d. 1992].)

Gəʕəz

There is no Gəʕəz in the CPG list, but there are at least four copies known to me; I have not, however, checked all the catalogs. In these four manuscripts, at least, it is attributed to Anastasius of Sinai, as in Vat. Syr. 369 (see below).

• BL Orient. 774 (15th cent.), ff. 91r-101r (Wright, Cat. Eth. BM, p. 228); in margin በዕርበተ ፡ ፀሓይ ፡ ፡ምንባብ። “Reading for the evening”
• BL Orient. 775 (18th cent.), ff. 108r-121v (Wright, Cat. Eth. BM, p. 229)
• EMML 2868 (late 18th cent., it seems), ff. 169r-end

ድርሳን ፡ ዘቅዱስ ፡ ወብዙዕ ፡ አንስጣስዮስ ፡ አቡነ ፡ ዘደብረ ፡ ሲና ፡ በእንተ ፡ ዘከመ ፡ ተቀብረ ፡ … ወርደቶ ፡ ውስተ ፡ ሲኦል ፡ ወበእንተ ፡ ዮሴፍ ፡ ዘአርማትያስ ፡ ረድኡ ፡ ለኢየሱስ።

Homily of Saint Anastasius of Mt. Sinai on how [Jesus] was buried and his descent into hell, and on Joseph of Arimathea, Jesus’ disciple.

Incipit: ይቤ ፡ ምንት ፡ ይእቲ ፡ ዛቲ ፡ አርምሞ ፡ He said: What is this silence…?

• EMML 4967 (20th cent.), ff. 141v-146v

Georgian

The information given at CPG 3768 for Georgian is very spare, so I’ll fill it out here. Only Michel Van Esbroeck’s book Les plus anciens homéliaires géorgiens (1975) is cited, yet without page numbers: the relevant ones are pp. 85-86. The title (with my ET) is

დიდსა შაფათსა. საკითხავი. თქუმული წმიდისა მამისა ჩუენისა ეპიფანე კჳპრელ მთავარებისკოპოსისაჲ დაფლვისა თჳს უფლისა ჩუენისა იესუ ქრისტჱსა და იოსების თჳს მართლისა.

Great [i.e. Holy] Saturday, reading: Homily of our father, Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus, archbishop, on the burial of our Lord Jesus Christ and on Joseph the Just.

The title in Borg. Geo. 4, where the homily occupies ff. 14v-28r (see Van Lantschoot, “Le ms. Borgia géorgien 4,” Le Muséon 61 [1948], here 80-81), is different and fuller:

წმიდათა შოვრის მამისა ჩუენისა ეპიფანე კჳპრელ მთავარებისკოპოსისაჲ. საღმრთოთა ჴორცთა ოჳფლისა ჩუენისა იესოჳ ქრისტჱსთა დაფლვისათჳს: და იოსიფ და ნიკოდიმოსისთჳს: და ჯოჯოხეთს შთასლვისათჳს ოჳფლისა შემდგომად განმაცხოველებელისა ვნებისა მისისა რომელი ესე იკითხვების დიდსა შაბათსა: მამაო გუაკურთხენ:

[Homily] of our father among the saints, Epiphanius of Cyprus, archbishop, on the burial of the divine body of our Lord Jesus Christ, on Joseph and Nicodemus, and on the Lord’s descent into hell after his life-giving Passion, which is read on Great Saturday. Bless us, father!

The incipit (from Van Esbroeck) reads

რაჲ არს ესე დღეს დუმილი მრავალი ქუეყანასა ზედა რაჲ არს ესე დუმილი

What is this thorough silence today on the earth? What is this silence?

“La tradition géorgienne est surabondante,” he says, citing eleven manuscripts in addition to Athos 11.

Armenian

For Armenian, too, CPG points to Van Esbroeck’s study, again with no page references. At the end of the section on this homily, he lists Venice 201 and 227, and Matenadaran 993, № 106, where the homily is attributed to Cyril of Alexandria.

Syriac

In Vat. Syr. 369, № 37 (see Sauget’s art. cited in CPG: OCP 27 [1961], p. 420), it is attributed to Anastasius of Sinai. It is not clear how the text referred to by Sauget corresponds with the following two late copies:

• MGMT 33 (d. 1969), pp. 1-8
• SOAH 16 (d. 1969), pp. 537-540 (The text here corr. to PG 43: 444c-452c.)

Arabic (see Garšūnī below)

In addition to the note in CPG, with reference to GCAL I 357 (see lines 11-23), we mention these:

• Monastery of St. George, Homeira, Syria (HMIR) 16 (d. 1682/3), ff. 53v-67r
• DIYR 121 (18th/19th cent.), ff. 332r-340v
• BzAr 118 (d. 1820), ff. 139v-151r

 

HMIR 16, f. 53v

Garšūnī

• SMMJ 170 (d. 1596), ff. 279r-282v
• CCM 345 (d. 1678/9), ff. 34v-44r
• CFMM 286 (16th/17th cent.), pp. 95-109
• SMMJ 169 (18th cent.), ff. 111r-118v
• CFMM 292 (18th/19th cent.), pp. 88-97

SMMJ 170, f. 279r

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Others have noted that this homily, whoever wrote it, was obviously popular in several languages. There is, I think, no English translation from the Greek or any of the versions, so a monograph on one or more of these versions, with English translation, is an obvious desideratum.

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For some time the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has very generously made available PDFs of its great store of books in Egyptology, Assyriology, archaeology, history, etc. Very recently the accessibility of two books of definite interest for Syriac scholars have been announced:

• Martin Sprengling and William Creighton Graham, Barhebraeus’ Scholia on the Old Testament, pt. I, Genesis-II Samuel, Oriental Institute Publications 13 (Chicago, 1931).

This is part I, but that is all that appeared. The only complete edition is that from the Bar-Hebraeus Verlag, 2003. Full information on manuscripts, editions, and studies will be found in Hidemi Takahashi’s always handy Barhebraeus: A Bio-Bibliography (Piscataway, 2005), 147-173.

• James Edward Dean, Epiphanius’ Treatise on Weights and Measures: The Syriac Version, foreword by Martin Sprengling, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 11 (Chicago, 1935).

Lagarde, with his interest in the Greek versions of the Hebrew Bible had worked on this Syriac text before and published it (as he did for other works) in Hebrew script (see here for bibliography of Epiphanios in Syriac). I cannot refrain from quoting Sprengling’s humorous report (p. ix) on Lagarde:

…our last predecessor in a similar undertaking [work on the Syriac Bible], the curious Paul de Lagarde of Göttingen. Lagarde had therefore undertaken an extensive study and a series of editions of this Epiphanius material. In his usual fashion he scattered this work around in a series of odd publications, many of them in small editions. These are not easy to get and, when obtained, generally not easy to use. The Syriac text, for example, he printed in Hebrew letters, because there was no Syriac type in Göttingen. His translation into German is curious. In various notes voicing his disgust and alleging (a thing Lagarde does not often admit) his incompetence, he shows that this was to him no labor of love. Jülicher’s statement in Pauly-Wissowa that the text is “sehr schlect ediert” by Lagarde is, indeed, too harsh a judgement. But a better, more easily accessible, more usable, and in every way more definitive edition than that of Lagarde, dated 1880, was clearly called for.

Hence the book by Dean, now eminently accessible after not being so for many years.
The Greek fragments of Epiphanios’ work (CPG 3746, cf. 3747) are not all that remains in addition to the Syriac: Georgian (CSCO 460-461, by M. van Esbroeck) and Armenian (CSCO 583, by M. Stone and R. Ervine) witnesses have also been published since the time of Dean’s Syriac text. In this work, interesting in and of itself, we have another opportunity for cross-linguistic comparison.

So, hats off to the OI for sharing its resources!