Scrivener reconnaît lui-même que les faits paléographiques ne fournissent pas de donnée bien sûre et les arguments qui le portent à attribuer notre texte au sixième siècle sont précisément basées sur l'étude de la langue et je n'ai pas besoin de dire qu'un romaniste de l'année 1924 n'est pas tenu à accepter les opinions linguistiques émises en 1864 par un théologien quoique M.A. Nous avons donc le droit de nous servir de nos constatations pour essayer de fixer la date approximative à laquelle notre ms. aura été composé. A vrai dire, nous ne savons pas grand'chose de l'époque à laquelle les voyelles finales autres que a sont tombées en provençal. Si on peut citer le Glossaire de Reichenau aussi pour le Sud de la France, la chute a eu lieu avant ce texte, qui est du viiie siècle, puisqu'il connaît déjà le changement de a final en e, phénomène postérieur à la perte des autres voyelles finales. Puis, il est probable que la voyelle s'est effacée un peu plus tôt après une liquide, donc dans amanno de amando plus tôt que dans vento par exemple. On peut donc admettre que des formes comme insilien ont pu exister vers la fin du septième ou au commencement du huitième siècle et c'est par conséquent à cette époque que le scribe qui a copié le Codex Bezae aura vécu. Finissons par répéter que je présente ces conclusions comme purement provisoires et que des recherches plus approfondies sont nécessaires pour arriver à des résultats plus sûrs. THE TRADITIONAL BURIAL OF MOSES ON BY J. RENDEL HARRIS, M.A., LITT.D., D.THEOL., ETC. IN N the January number of the BULLETIN a suggestion was thrown out that the traditional burial of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai was an attempted coincidence between the post-mortem fortunes of the Saint and those of the great Hebrew legislator, Catherine having in her last moments prayed that her body might never be found, while of Moses it is recorded that, 'no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day,' although in general terms the place of sepulchre is said to be on Mount Nebo. On the foregoing supposition the discovery of Catherine's body on the summit of Mount Sinai, and its ultimate deposition in the chapel of the Burning Bush are due to a misunderstanding of the terms upon which the angels were sent to remove her from Alexandria. The parallel that was here drawn between Catherine and Moses received an accession of interest from the discovery that at some period in the history of the Convent on Mount Sinai the monks held the belief that Moses was actually buried in their neighbourhood, and not, as the book of Deuteronomy suggests, in the land of Moab. Such a local tradition would make parallelism at once between the two obscure funerals, and would on the page of history, as well as on the map of geography, place Jebel Mousa and Jebel Katherin in close contiguity. It becomes interesting, then, to trace the new tradition for the Mosaic burial. The matter came to light in an article in the ByzantinischNeugriechische Jahrbücher for Sept., 1923, written by Mr. F. H. Marshall of the Birkbeck College, London, to whom I am indebted for the transcripts and interpretations that follow. The subject of the article is a MS. in modern Greek of Georgios Chumnos, recently acquired by the British Museum, and containing a metrical paraphrase of Genesis and Exodus. From an inscription in the MS. it is clear that it was formerly in the Library of Mount Sinai, and there is a good round curse on the unknown person who removed it from thence. The passage referring to the death and burial of Moses runs as follows: Ορίζη, κάτω σκάφτουσι πρὸς τὸ σινὰ τὸ ὅρει, which is, being interpreted : "He gives command, and they dig down into Mount Sinai to the proper depth, and Moses went and entered it to test it. And the Lord sends a cloud to cover him. So He covered him and Moses was lost, and all the people was agitated with fear." There can be no doubt that we are dealing with a genuine Sinaitic tradition. Mr. Marshall tells me further that there are three illustrations to this episode of the burial of Moses: they show (1) Moses directing a man who is wielding an adze within an open sarcophagus on the mountain; (2) Moses lying within the open sepulchre (inscribed ἐθάφη ὁ μωϋσῆς ; (3) the sarcophagus closed (inscribed κιβώρι τοῦ μωϋσῆ). How old may we assume this tradition to be? For Chumnos himself is not earlier than about A.D. 1500. He incorporates in his poem a good deal of legendary matter, which is evidently Midrash of a much earlier period. Mr. Marshall points out concurrences in such legends with the Ἱστορία παλαιοῦ published by Vassiliev in Anecdota GracoByzantina for 1893, and suggests that in some cases this concurrence may mean dependence upon Andreas of Crete († ca. 730). It will be sufficient, for the present, to remark that there is not the least reason for depressing the new Sinaitic tradition of the time of Chumnos or to the modern Greek literature. It must belong to a much earlier time. How much earlier? That is what we should like some further information about; perhaps the closer study of the Chumnos MS. may tell the tale. SOME SUMERIAN TABLETS IN THE JOHN TH BY THE REV. T. FISH. HE nine tablets here copied belong to the Bedale collection of Sumerian tablets presented to the John Rylands library by the relatives of the late Rev. Charles Bedale, who, at the time of his death, was Lecturer in Assyriology in the University of Manchester and a Governor of the John Rylands Library. The collection contains about 600 tablets, all dating from the last dynasty of Ur (i.e. c. 2400 B.C.), and at least 400 of them come from Drehem. Hilprecht describes Drehem as "halbwegs zwischen Nippur und Suk-el-'Afez, in kurzer Zeit (Stunde) mit dem Boote von Nippur zu erreichen. Er repräsentiert eine ziemlich grosse Ruine, die der Ausgrabung wert ist" (quoted in Rev. d'Assyr., Vol. VII., p. 186, 1910). Excavations of the mound have been conducted privately by natives and have yielded large quantities of tablets. The first specimens were published by Thureau-Dangin, Rev. d'Assyr. 1910. Since then about 1500 others have been published either in copy or in transcription, in Italy, France, England and America. A list of the publications in which Drehem texts occur would take up two pages of the BULLETIN ! The vast majority of Drehem texts are concerned with animals, wild and domestic, their food, their skins and their use in sacrifices, at Nippur, Ur, Erech, and other Sumerian shrines. Occasionally tablets record the receipt of barley and other products, or precious stones and objects in various metals. The tablets here copied are uncommon and provide much that is new and interesting. The copies reproduce the proportions and condition of the tablets exactly. J.R. 501.-1197 salaries (á = kisru) of slaves (gim) for one day. kin-gi-a-aš-aš occurs only here on Drehem texts. Aš-aš (= didli) is a plural suffix. Cf. Legrain TRU. 379R where Ku-li is again concerned with salaries. A-na-na is a common name on Drehem texts. Date 42 + x of Dungi. |