Montgomery: Lucianic Rev.

Field (Hex., 1, p. lxxxiv seq.), corroborated by Lagarde, gave demonstration for the recognition of text of Lucianic origin. ¹ For the Prophets, including Dan., he selected as Lucianic HP 22 36 48 51 62 90 93 144 147 233 308. Most of these titles have been accepted by subsequent students of the Prophets. ²

The writer's independent study of the text of Dan. revealed a solid group of five MSS, often unanimous, often standing alone, obviously representing Lucian, namely the group 22 36 48 51 231. Of these all but 231 are contained in Field's list, while they are the ones which Cornill in his Ezechiel, p. 65 ff., signalized as Lucianic.

With this group are to be associated some others which run closely with it, esp. 229 (a MS of Theodoret's comm. containing most of the Bible text), and the Chigi Theodotion text, c. ³ As for 62 147 the theory advanced in ¶ 14 has defined them as primitive-Origenian, therefore pre-Lucianic, and as the basis on which Lucian worked.

The Gr. stylism of Lucian (Lu.) in Dan. is that so well known and often observed in other bks., and requires no further remark. An interesting phenomenon (also noted elsewhere, e.g., Driver Samuel, p. li) is the presence of doublets in the text, viz.: at Dan. 4:1, 5:22, 7:2, 8:11, 8:25, 9:24, 11:10, 11:35, 11:40, 12:7. Including these doublet corrections there may be noted not more than about twenty cases where Lu. exhibits variations representing a better translation or at least points of interest in interpretation. His actual contributions therefore are rather small. In two cases at least he follows a tradition which appears in G (LXX), at Dan. 1:11, 3:22 (q.v.), which presupposes original information local in Syria. In some cases his text has retained the original, correct form, which has been otherwise corrupted, e.g., Dan. 11:35, 11:10. We may have to allow that he made some contributions, but withal with most constant dependence upon Origen, whome he new in practially the shape of Or ^p. Accordingly he represents one fork from that master root, as Or ^c represents another, as has been argued above.

But another condition in Lu. has long since given rise to aggravated discussion, the appearance of 'Lucianic readings' in text antedating Lu.. These appear in OLat. par excellence, also in primitive Gr. texts of the 1st and 2nd centuries, perhaps going back to 'Ur-Theodotion'. These variations are all slight in value, nowhere exhibit Hexaplaric readings, or the plusses characteristic of Origen & Lucian. At times they offer more literal translations in word order, particles, etc., than we find in B.

As has been observed above, ¶12, c, the explanation must be that Lu. was following a form of text which was variant from that represented by B. We must put the historical Theodotion back into the first third of the 2nd cent. A.D. at least; we may have to carry the tradition of that text still farther back, and this stretch of time would have involved variations in different regions. A minute examination reveals the fact that Origen's basal text differed from B: Lucian's appears to have differed still more. We have then to postulate different types of text, as we may surmise, one in Egypt = B, one in Palestine = Origen's basis, and one in Syria = Lucian's. The correspondences with the Western texts, as observed at the end of ¶12, the OLat., would then have to be explained by a straight inheritance of the West from Antioch. It is a case similar to the 'Western Readings' in the N.T. ⁴

1. See the convenient summary of the bibliography by R. K. Yerkes, 'The Lucianic Version of the O.T. as illustrated from Jeremiah 1-3.' JBL 1918, 163.

2. See Yerkes, p. 171, for the selections propounded by Cornill, Klostermann, Nestle, Liebmann, Prosksch, Berlott. Cf. also Montgomery, JBL, 1925, 293.

3. See ¶ 10, 4 (1), and the writer's note in JBL n. s. This Chigi text is the only Lucianic text that has been edited and printed for Dan. The Lucianic doublets appear in it asterized; the text has many interesting features.

4. My conclusions are the same as those of Burkitt, Rules of Tyconius, cxvi seq., cf. his Fragments of...Aquila, pp. 26 ff.; s. also the writer, op.cit.JBL, 1925, 299f. As for the alleged possible influence of Lu. upon G (LXX), as suspected by Wright and Duval, the relation must be chronologically the reverse; see the next ¶. Parson's remarks on Lu., Pref. to vol. I, c. 1, ¶8, are noteworthy for their good sense.