TWOGIG - Jan 31, 2024 - might be unchanged from above.
Fragmenta Frisingensia (301-700 AD)
Fragments of the Versio Itala of an Ante-Hieronymian Translation of the First Epistle of John
[Ziegler] The fragments summarized ...in the catalog are not of the same age and value, but fall into three
classes. Let's start with the less extensive ones. § 2. Pages 23 and 24, which contain 1 John 3, 8 up to the end
of the letter, form a class. Both are related and once formed the middle layer of leaves of a Quaternio. About a
third of sheet 24 has been cut away on the right side. The text is not divided into columns, but with the
exception of small spaces only here and there marked with a dot to separate the stoichiometrically written lines
of verse in the original without any division. The page comprises 32 lines, the line an average of 36 letters. The
form of the uncial script, individual orthographic and grammatical peculiarities point to an old age, at the latest
the seventh century? At the end of the letter is written in red:”....: CC.LXXIIII INCPEIUSDEM II".
[Ziegler] The words in front of the numbers fell victim to the knife; after the small traces, the last letter seems
to have been a ”O” with a slash. In addition to the usual Clause”I EXPL"“UERSUSNO”has to be added, so that
the number of lines of verse in the stoichiometrically written original codex would be indicated. This peculiarity,
as well as the shape of the letters, especially the already closed”e", the round, tailed”q”at the beginning of the
lines, the more frequent use of abbreviations, the rarity of the interpuncuation, the smaller format, the quality of
the parchment and the text itself, distinguish these Leaves very differently from the rest, with which they came
together only by chance. The content is a translation made before Jerome, which differs from the
citations of the Church Fathers as well as from the Vulgate, despite various echoes and agreement,
even in important points.
Ziegler, Fragments of the Versio Itala of the Epistles of Paul, with minute Portions of an Ante-Hieronymian
Translation of the First Epistle of John, 1876, p. 4)
Contents: Rom 14:10-15:13; 1 Cor 1:1-27; 1:28-3:5; 6:1-7:7; 15:1-1:43; 16:12-27; 2 Cor 1:1-2:10; 3:17-5:1; 7:10-8:12;
9:10-11:21; 12:14-13:10; Gal 2:5-4:3; 6:5-17; Eph 1:1-13; 1:16-2:16; 6:24; Phil 1:1-20; 1 Tim 1:12-2:15; 5:18-6:13; Hbr
6:6-7:5; 7:8-8:1; 9:27-11:7.[3] 1 John 3:8 - 5:9. (Frisingensia Fragmenta. Wikipedia.
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisingensia_Fragmenta>).
[Fragmenta Frisingensia. Freising Fragments] Volume / Number: 9 / 1286a; CLA 1286a; Script: Uncial; Date: VI² (551
- 600); Origen and Provenance: Written possibly in Spain, to judge by certain palaeographical peculiarities, but possibly in
Africa, to judge by the nature of the text and its relation to St Augustine. The leaves were taken from medieval bindings of
The Witness of God is Greater
Mike Ferrando Page 66
books from the Freising cathedral library. The Göttweig leaf comes from a manuscript of the Commentarii Notarum
Tironianarum acquired by Abbot Gotfried Bessel between 1742–1749. <Fragmenta Frisingensia. Freising Fragments.
Earlier Latin Manuscripts. <elmss.nuigalway.ie/catalogue/1778>)
[Wordsworth & White Latin NT] 23. r. Fragmenta Frisingensia s. V-VI. (Novum Testamentum Domini nostri Jesu
Christi latine, secundum editionem Sancti Hieronymi, Vol. 3. Actus Apostolorum; Epistula Jacobi; Epistula Petri Prima;
Epistula Petri Secunda; Epistula Johannis Prima; Epistula Johannis Secunda; Epistula Johannis Tertia; Epistula Judae;
Apocalypsis Johannis, edited by Wordsworth, 1889, vol 3, p. 338.)
[Review] We welcome the addition which Ziegler has made to our scanty remains of it [the Itala] by the
publication of these Fragments of the Pauline Epistles, and an important part of the First Epistle of John. We
owe the recovery of these Fragments to a fortunate accident. Collections of ancient MSS. have suffered
grievously at the hands of bookbinders, who, if they wanted a stout piece of parchment to stiffen their covers,
found ancient membranæ excellent material for their purpose. And they are fixed by preference upon the
oldest, as of least value. They have not always, however, been destructive; occasionally they have proved
conservative. When in the course of years the book required to be re-bound, the scrap of parchment
came again to light; and if it fortunately caught the eye of a paleographer and a scholar, its antiquity
has been recognized, its obsolete writing read and construed, its disjointed portions re-united, and its
lacunae ingeniously filled up. The carelessness of binders in placing together leaves belonging to
different authors, has frequently led to the apprehension that a portion had been lost. Such as we have
described has been the history of these Fragments of the Versio Itala. They have been recovered from
a volume now in the royal library of Munich, and formerly belonging to an ecclesiastical institution at
Freising, in Bavaria. The editor, Dr. Ziegler, calls them Fragments of the Versio Itala, by which he
means”antehieronymian", or anterior to the Vulgate of Jerome.
[Review] What gives special interest to the discovery of the Freisinger Fragment is that it contains, after the
Pauline Epistles and that to the Hebrews, a portion of the First Epistle of John, chap. iii. 8 to verse 9, just
including the text of the Heavenly Witnesses. In the days when the contest among critics over this famous
text still raged, what a sensation would have been occasioned by the discovery of a Latin MS., the text
of which belonged to the period before the Vulgate, containing 1 John v. 7”in the primary hand”(Latin: a
prima manu)! How would it have been hailed by the champions of orthodoxy as a providential event!
[Review] Martin, a zealous defender of this text, who maintains that the Arians had cut [these verses] out of
the Greek MSS. would have seen a special providence guiding the shears of the binder when he helped
himself to the Freisinger MS. For it so happened that he took away one-half of the 7th, 8th and 9th
verses, but left enough for the editor to supply with certainty the missing part. Restored, and
contractions extended, it reads:”Quoniam tres sunt qui testificantur in terra, spiritus et aqua et sanguis
et tres sunt qui testificantur in coelo, pater et verbum et spiritus sanctus et hi tres unum sunt.”Besides
the transposition of verses 7 and 8, the Freisinger Fragment varies from the Vulgate by
having”testificantur”for”testimonium dant”in the clause of the Heavenly Witnesses.
Review: Leo Ziegler, Italafragmente der Paulinischen Briefe nebst Bruchstücken einer vorhieronymianischen
Übersetzung des ersten Johannesbriefes aus Pergamentblättern der ehemaligen Freisinger Stiftsbibliothek. [Fragments of
the Versio Itala of the Epistles of Paul, with minute Portions of an Ante-Hieronymian Translation of the First Epistle of
John]. Marburg: Elwert, 1876 in The Theological Review: A Quarterly Journal of Religious Thought and Life edited by
Williams & Norgate, vol 13, p. 442-445.
[Review] The search for manuscripts which have preserved for us some remains of the old Latin versions of
the Bible, prior to that of Saint Jerome, has excited, since Nobilius (1530-1590), the zeal of a great number of
scholars. These first translations are in fact precious, not only for the history of the beginnings of the Church
and for philological science, but also, and above all, for the criticism of the biblical text. ...Much has already
been done in this field of science, but there is still more to be done. M. Léon Ziegler has just published an
important work, which will, it is to be hoped, be followed by several others, intended to fill in part of the
gaps which we have hitherto been reduced to needlessly deploring. He announces the publication of
The Witness of God is Greater
Mike Ferrando Page 67
several parts of the Pentateuch of which he has discovered old versions. What he gives us today
contains fragments of the epistles of Saint Paul belonging in a certain way to the famous version
known properly under the name of Italic. Saint Augustine teaches us that, in his time, there were a
large number of Latin translations of the Holy Scriptures, but that among them there is one, preferable
to all the others, which he designates under the name of Italic. This name of italic has since been given
to all the fragments of versions in the Latin language, prior to Saint Jerome, which have been
discovered. In reality, and strictly speaking, this title belongs to only one. The comparison of the parts
studied in the library of Munich, by M. Ziegler, with the quotations which one meets in the writings of
Saint Augustine, establishes that we have surely for the first time fragments of the true Italic. These
fragments come from Frisingensia, where the seat of the archdiocese used to be, transferred in 1818 to
Munich. They are written on twenty-four sheets of parchment, which had been used to bind other books, and
appear in the printed catalog of the manuscripts of this library under this heading: Clm. 6436 (Fris. 236),
member. in-4° s. VIII. 24 folia singula. S. Pauli epistolarum versionis antehieronymianæ fragmenta. Mr. Ziegler
has published them with the greatest care. (Polybiblion: Revue bibliographique universelle, November, 1876,
XVII, 25, p. 385-386)
Fragmenta Frisingensia (301-700 AD) BSB Clm 6436
f022r.line.024 ...hic est qui venit per aquam
f022r.line.025 et sanguinem ihs xrs et non i[n aqua solum sed]
f022r.line.026 in aqua et sanguine. et sps [est qui testificatur]
f022r.line.027 quia sps est veritas. quis tr[es sunt qui testimonium dant]
f022r.line.028 in terra: sps et aqua et sa[nguis et tres unum sunt quia]
f022r.line.029 tres sunt qui testimonium dant in caelo, Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus Sanctus. Et hi
f022r.line.030 tres unum sunt. Si testi[...]
<daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00110737/image_53>
HIT:
● [1 John 5:6,8,7] This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and
blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. Because there are three that bear
witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. For there are three
that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
○ Latin: hic est qui venit per aquam est sanguinem IHS XRS · Et non tatum in aqua sed in aqua et
sanguine ; et SPS est testificatur quia sps est veritas · quoiam tres sunt qui testificantur in terra SPS
et aqua et sanguis et tres sunt · qui testificantur in caelo pater et verbum et SPSSCS et hi tres
unum sunt (Bruyne, Les fragments de Freising, 1921, page 67, fol. 35 [transcription]; Ziegler,
Italafragmente der Paulinischen Briefe, 1876, p. 68 [facsimile])
Comments:
[Ziegler] This result, taken together with the foregoing discussion, gives certainty that verse 7 occurs in
manuscripts with pre-Hieronymian translations, that it first appeared in Africa, and here probably in the
province of Byzacena, where Vigilius and Fulgentius had their episcopal sees. (Ziegler, Italafragmente der
Paulinischen Briefe nebst Bruchstücken einer vorhieronymianischen Übersetzung des ersten Johannesbriefes
aus Pergament Blättern der ehemaligen Freisinger Stiftsbibliothek, 1876, p. 5)
Arius Speaks: A Great Fire Broke Out From This Small Spark (circa 325 AD)
The Arian controversy was a series of Christian theologi