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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
One of the most important questions in ancient Georgian literature has to do with the old Georgian versions of the Bible. The problems in this field are very complex. Not only is the history of the translation of the Old Testament entirely distinct from that of the New, but in each of them the translations were made by various hands from different languages and different types of text.
1 The present article is a revision of an earlier one in Russian, in the Извѣстія Кавказскаго Отдѣленія Московскаго Археологическаго Общества, Выпускь VI, Тифлись 1921 г., entitled “О древнегрузинскихь версіяхь Ветхаго Завѣта ( по поводу Codex Z'ordaniae грузинскаго университета), pp. 1–40. The article was printed after the author had left the Caucasus, and ensuing political developments made the last revision of text and proof impossible.
2 For Žordania's account of his discovery and description of the codex, see below, pp. 296, 297.
3 To all inquiries Žordania replied that he did not know what had become of it, and the investigations of Professor N. Marr, Father Kekelidze, and others proved fruitless.
4 Hereafter designated by the letter M.
5 It is clear that the aim to write in connected cursive, which is foreign to the older Georgian MSS., arose from the influence of the contemporary Greek minuscule hand.
6 E.g., the adscription of the Abbot Paul of Iveron (s. XII fin.) in ‘at’onis iveriis monastris 1074 c. khelt'naceri krebuli,’ Tiflis 1901, p. 274, No. 167. A hand of the same type, but more conventionalized, occurs in Cod. Eccl. Mus. 677 (s. XII); other examples are to be found in the codices at Jerusalem.
7 Žordania, k'ronikebi, II, p. 39.
8 Similar paper appears in Ms. Eccl, Mus. 676 (s. XIII; Josephus), also from Gelat'i.
9 There are clear traces that at a fairly remote period the MS. was repaired and brought into order. The outer leaves which had been torn away were glued into place by long strips of whitish paper. At this time the quaternions were sewn together and possibly re-marked. (On this see below, p. 275.)
10 The last leaf of this group (f. 6/286) is only a fragment, and the bit found at Gelat'i (see above, p. 272) forms a part of it.
11 The numbers of the leaves in their present order have now been put on in red crayon.
12 The first original quaternion signature preserved is that of the sixth quaternion in the present state of the MS. which is marked ē (= 8). Thus two gatherings have perished at the beginning, and the MS. must have begun with Leviticus. Quaternion signatures are preserved as far as iē = 18 (f. 129v). If a similar text for Genesis and Exodus ever existed, it must have formed a separate volume. I was able to find no trace of quaternion signatures in the Prophets.
13 The variation in the total arises from two imperfect leaves.
14 In Jeremiah this text follows the Greek order and enumeration of verses, which is not the case with the other version (in O). In M the Hebrew order is followed, and the text has been accordingly rearranged.
15 See above, p. 272.
16 On this catena, see Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur2, p. 213. The catena was edited by Nicephorus Hieromonachus at Leipzig in 1772.
17 In the original draft of this article I included a long analysis of the catena. After receiving the photographs of the MS., however, I copied out the Book of Judges and, with the assistance of Professor G. F. Moore, established that the text of this book in the Georgian version of U was the same as that of the catena Nicephori. I have accordingly omitted that analysis in the present article.
18 See Professor Cornelius Kekelidze, Commentarii in Ecclesiastem Metrophanis, Metropolitae Smyrnensis, Tiflis 1920, Introd. pp. lv ff.
19 I cannot gather any MS. evidence for these omissions from Rahlfs, A., Das Buch Ruth griechisch (Stuttgart 1922), and presume they are only errors in U.Google Scholar
20 They are met with, for instance, in the commentary of Hippolytus on the Song of Solomon (p. 24, 11. 38/39 of text) aha lodisa mis carmogorvebulisa; see Marr, N., The Commentary of Hippolytus on the Song of Songs, St. Petersburg 1901, pp. liv f.Google Scholar
21 This curious word is apparently connected with the root 
to be, nasci. In the lexicon of Saba Sulkhan Orbeliani, the word sasumloba is adduced without any citation, although the lexicographer speaks of Boaz and Ruth, and cites them as an example.
22 T' Žordania, Opisanie rukopisei, etc., II, 35–41.
23 This is the other copy made in the fifties. A short notice is contained in the catalogue of D. Kariačsvili, p. 15.
24 A. A. Tsagareli, Svedeniya, etc., I, 1–25, 69–75.
25 Marr, N., Iz poiezdki na Athon (Žurnal Ministerstva Narodnago Prosveščeniya, May 1898, pp. 1 ff.).Google Scholar
26 The orthography is late, but this of course may be due to the modern scribe.
27 Described by A. A. Tsagareli and A. S. Khakhanov, op. cit.
28 Described by T'. Žordania, Opisanie rukopisei, etc., I, 40, 41.
29 According to Professor K. Kekelidze's manuscript catalogue of the Gelat'i codices which the author kindly allowed me to use. I myself examined the MS. in January 1920 and compiled a more detailed description.
30 Described by T'. Žordania, Opisanie, etc., I, 259.
31 No published descriptions of these MSS. In addition we have two leaves in capitals containing fragments of Numbers in the binding of MS. 104 of the Society for the Extension of Literacy. Though old (s. ix–x), the text is exceedingly corrupt. I hesitate to assign it a place in the stemma (K).
32 This preface is generally lost from most copies of M, as is the case with the one in the author's possession. The above is taken from M. Γ. Джанашвили, Описаніе рукописеӥ церковнаго музея etc., III, Тифлись, 1908, pp. 223, 224.
33 ἐν ὀνόματι Κυρίου βασιλέως αὐτῶν Arm. MS. (Arm. ed. al. κατὰ τοῦ ὀνόματος).
34 — 68, 91, 97, 153, 228, 310, Ald.
35 Not omitted by any Ms. cited by Holmes and Parsons; most codd. have ὡς χοῦν: εἰς χοῦν as here, 87, 91, 97, 153, 228, Ald.
36 Not omitted by any MSS.
37 ἠμέραν ὀργῆς θυμοῦ Κυρίου 42, 68, 86, 87, 97, 147, 228.
38 Epexegetical in Georgian.
39 τὴν ὀργήν μου πᾶσαν ὀργὴν θυμοῦ μου, 22, 23, 36, 51, 68, 87, 95, 97, 130, 185, 225, 239, 310, 311.
40 —XII, 26, 49, 106, 130, 153, 198, 233, 311 Origen, Euseb. Theodoret; in other MSS Sub*.
41 Kekelidze declares that the Slavic Bible used by Wakhtang is the Moscow edition of 1663, which is presumably correct (K'art'uli literaturis istoria, Tiflis 1923, p. 461).
42 Described by A. A. Цагарели, Свѣдѣнія о памникахь грузискоӥ писменности, выпускь 2, Спб. 1888, pp. 1 ff. and by R. P. Blake, Catalogue des MSS. géorgiens de la bibliothèque patriarcale grecque à Jérusalem, Revue de l'Orient Chrétien, 3 ser., t. IV (XXIII), pp. 26 and 30 ff. of reprint. The author now possesses a full set of photostat prints of this codex.
43 Arm.
.
44 Arm. 
.
45 Arm. 
; č̣abukni of O is a corruption of νῆσοι into νεοί.
46 Arm. 
.
47 Denominal verb from Arm. 
.
48 Arm. 
.
49 From Arm. 
.
50 These are of the recensio scholiis Hesychii aliorumque patrum in prophetas addita ap. Th. Schermann, Prophetarum vitae fabulosae etc. Lips. 1907, pp. 102.26–103.4. These are associated with the vitae of Theodoret in a Laurentian MS.; cf. Schermann, l. c, pp. xxxi–xxxii.
51 Описаніе рукописееӥ Общества Распространенія Грамотности etc., 1, 720. Tiflis, 1902.
52 MS. Eccl. Mus. 87 (a. XI), pp. 771 ff.
53 Grigol Oškeli, in a paper read before the Georgian Society for History and Ethnography, December 15, 1918.
54 The ultimate relationship of this version with the Syriac and the Armenian I hope to deal with elsewhere.
55 T'. Žordania, K'ronikebi da skhva masalebi sak'art'velos istoriisat'vis, c. II, tp'iliss, 1897 c., pp. 36–39.
56 Dabadeba is literally Genesis, but is used in modern Georgian per synecdochen for the whole of the Old Testament, in place of dzveli aγt'k'ma.
57 It is unknown what manuscript Ž. had in mind here. At first it seemed probable to me that he referred to Cod. 570 of the Tiflis Ecclesiastical Museum, in which we have a few scholia, or rather hexaplaric readings from Aquila and Symmachus, which have been collected and published by M. Djanashvili in Nashromi 3, 37 ff. (Tiflis 1910), together with a short description of the MS. The expression amgvariani, ‘of this type,’ however, does not suit that MS., and I now think that we have not yet laid hands upon this second codex. It may be among the papers of Žordania. See above, p. 271.
58 In this instance we have undoubtedly to do with Cod. 646 of the Tiflis Ecclesiastical Museum. This codex is described in some detail, but with many errors and inaccuracies, by Žordania in his Описаніе рукописеӥ Гифлисскаго Церковнаго Муѕея карталино-кахетинскаго Духовенстѣа II, Тифлись. 1902 г., pp. 129–131, and also by M. Djanashvili, op. cit., pp. 38 ff. Only 10 or 12 folia are lost at the beginning, however.
59 F. 98 v; in a different ink from that of the body of the text and by a later hand.
60 See on this K. S. Kekelidze, Іоаннь Ксифилинь, продолжатель Симеона Метафраста, Христіанскіӥ Востокь I (1912), pp. 332 f., and Monumenta Hagiographica Georgica, I, Keimena (Tiflis 1918), p. x.
61 T'. Žordania, K'ronikebi, II, pp. 37, 38.
