Journal of Theological Studies, 22 (1921), 163-4

A SUPPOSED FRAGMENT OF THE LOST CODEX FULDENSIS OF TERTULLIAN.

It is well known that the Fulda codex of Tertullian, containing the Apologeticus and the Adversus Iudaeos, was collated by Franciscus Modius with the printed edition of De la Barre (Paris, 1580), and that the collation was published in the edition of Franciscus Junius (Franeker, 1597). No trace of the manuscript has since been discovered.

In 1913¹ Emil Kroymann, one of the Vienna editors of Tertullian, claimed to have discovered that ten leaves of the Fulda MS are still preserved in the Paris manuscript B.N. 13047, and he published part of 7 the text of these leaves as such.²

Now, it is to be noted in the first place that B.N. 13047 is a Corbie book, which passed with very many other Corbie books to St-Germain-des-Pres in 1638. It is therefore fairly certain that it was at Corbie in Modius's time, and never was in Fulda at all. Further, if these ten leaves - as a matter of fact, there are eleven and a quarter - had been a part of the Fulda MS, which contained the whole of the Adversus Iudaeos, the fragment (chaps. vi-ix) would have begun at the top of the recto of the first leaf and ended at the foot of the verso of the last leaf. But what do we find? We find that the fragment begins near the foot of the verso of leaf 29 and ends near the foot of the verso of leaf 40, also that it follows immediately on a fragment of the Genesis of the Gallic poet Cyprian, which occupies the first part of the codex. ³ .After the Genesis fragment ends, about three-quarters down the page, f. 29 v., the fragment of Tertullian begins thus :

INCIPIT. ******

Itaque necessitas nobis incumbit ut quoniam ( = Tert. adv. Iudaeos c. 6, Oehler, tom. ii p. 712, l.1).

and ends thus :

non apperunt os suum (= Tert. adv. Iudaeos c. 9, Oehler, tom. ii p. 726 l.12).

This fragment is, then, no part of the Codex Fuldensis, but it is something even more valuable. It is another representative of the same type of text, and belongs to the latter part of the eighth or the early part of the ninth century. What I conceive to have been the case is that the Corbie library was in possession of venerable fragments of various works, and that the head of the scriptorium gave instructions to have these copied into one codex by various scribes at his disposal. We have a curious parallel to this in the case of the Zurich (Rheinau) fragments of the Apologeticus which I published in this JOURNAL (vol. viii [1906-1907] pp. 297-300). ⁴ Chapters xxxviii-xl of the Apology appear there in the Fulda type of recension.

A. SOUTER

References

1. Rheinisches Museum, Bd. lxviii p. 130 n. The statement is repeated by J. P. Waltzing, Le Codex. Fuldensis de Tertullien (Liege, 1914-1917) p. 11.

2. In Rheinisches Museum, Bd. lxx (1915) p. 362, he admits his error, as I discovered after writing this article; but I allow the article to pass into print, because it is based on an independent examination of the manuscript.

3. Cf. CSEL., vol. xxiii (1891) p. vii.

4. It is gratifying that at last the interest of these fragments has been realized, cf. Waltzing, op. cit.. pp. 483-487 . E. Lofstedt, Kritische Bemerkungen zu Tertullians.Apologeticum (Lund-Leipzig, 1918) pp. 13 f., 75-91.

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