The Greek forger had in fact also produced a parchment MS. of the Hermas, like those of Uranius and other authors; and this had been actually procured by Dindorf, who was taken in by it. This however was not all that Simonides had done. In the transcript of the Athos MS., which had passed into the possession of the Leipsic Library, he had introduced capricious emendations and unwarranted additions to fill up the lacunae of the original. To a large extent therefore the importance of the discovery became limited to the three original leaves; for the remainder of the Greek text, owing to the misbehaviour of Simonides, had lost more than half of its value, since scholars were unable to determine to what extent he had tampered with it. This unhappy state of things was not entirely obviated even by Tischendorf's subsequent discovery of the Sinaitic Codex; for only a small portion of the Shepherd was contained in it, namely from the commencement of the work to the end of the fourth Mandate; and even in this there were several lacunae. Accordingly the apographon of Simonides has continued to be studied, and the problem is still discussed whether there is any just ground for regarding it as a faithful copy of the original contained in the missing Athos leaves, or whether on the contrary it should be considered as wholly untrustworthy. Indeed the most recent editors of the Shepherd have not only presented in their apparatus criticus the readings of Anger, and also those of Tischendorf who collated the apographon afresh'; but have even taken the trouble to collate it again for themselves.

It is thus perfectly obvious that the tradition of the Greek text of one of the earliest Christian writers is in so defective a state, that its critical reconstruction has become a sort of guesswork, involving an appeal to the previously known Latin version, and even to the Ethiopic translation. Hilgenfeld, one of the editors, is fully justified in declaring that under these conditions the restoration of the Greek text of the Hermas is a task beyond the power of any single man. I may therefore confidently express my belief that the discovery of the original MS. from

1 Tischendorf edited the other apographon, which was subsequently extracted

which Simonides made his copy will be hailed by students of ecclesiastical literature with almost the same delight as was experienced by the learned world, when the Greek text first appeared and it was not yet known to how large an extent that text was untrustworthy.

In the summer of 1880 I was cataloguing the MSS. of the Athos libraries. By the help of my enthusiastic colleagues I had just finished the catalogue of the library of the small monastery of Gregory which contains only 155 Codices', when the Priest Victor who superintended it shewed me among other things six MS. leaves which were preserved with special care. They contained in extremely fine writing the Shepherd of Hermas. I confined myself at that time simply and solely to a description of this precious Codex for my Catalogue. But later on, when an opportunity presented itself in 1883, I took pains to procure a careful and exact copy of the whole of it. I engaged for this purpose one of my former pupils, who had been my colleague on the mission of 1880, Dr Philip Georgandas, a young man thoroughly skilled in palaeography, and experienced in making accurate transcriptions and collations. The result was that I was fully convinced that I had actually discovered the muchdesired original of the apographon of Simonides.

This MS. then of the Shepherd, which is thus preserved in the library of the monastery of Gregory, I numbered as 96 when I made my Catalogue of the Athos MSS. It consists, as I have said, in its present condition of six leaves, which to judge by the style of the handwriting must have been written in the fourteenth century. As I have already stated, the writing is extremely fine; so that each page contains on an average 72 lines, and each line about 90 letters. The following headings are written in red ink: ἀρχὴ σὺν θεῷ βίβλου λεγομένης ποιμήν,

1 See my Report to the Greek Chamber, in Rickenbach's translation; Besuch auf dem Berge Athos, Wien, 1881.

2 The leaves of the same мs. preserved at Leipsic are ascribed by Anger to the beginning of the fifteenth century: but Tischendorf thinks they were written in the fourteenth century. With the latter judgment coincides entirely the impression I myself entertained when I made my Catalogue, before I had observed the connexion of the Codex with these leaves, or had learnt the date ascribed to them by the above-mentioned German critics.

ὅρασις α', ὅρασις β', ὅρασις τρίτη, ὅρασις τετάρτη, ὅρασις ε', ἐντολὴ α', ἐντολὴ β', ἐντολὴ τρίτη, ἐντολὴ τετάρτη, ἐντολὴ έ, ἐντολὴ ἕκτη, ἐντολὴ ζ', ἐντολὴ γ', ἐντολὴ ἐνάτη, ἐντολὴ δεκάτη, ἐντολὴ ιά', ἐντολὴ ιβ ́. The initial capitals of the words which immediately follow these headings and commence each chapter are also always in red. So too is the superfluous heading ȧpxý, mentioned in the note on p. 126, 1. 4, of Gebhardt and Harnack's large edition, and the initial capital of the following word λéyw; as well as that of the word perà which commences Sim. IX., the heading of which is wanting in the Codex. At the first glance therefore the external features of the Codex would suggest that it belonged to the same MS. as the three leaves of the Shepherd preserved in the Leipsic Library: and a closer investigation leaves no room for doubt on this point. Not only is there a tradition among the monks in whose monastery it lies, that the missing leaves were abstracted by Minas Minoides (as they told me, confusing him no doubt with Simonides); but also the Leipsic leaves fit in exactly with those of the Athos MS.', so that all the nine leaves together must originally have formed one and the same Codex according to the following arrangement :—

1. From the commencement down to the words nμapτnKÓTES Kai éλOVTES (Gebh. and Harn. p. 42, 11. 2, 3) in the Monastery of Gregory.

2. From οἱ τοιοῦτοι οὐκ ἀπερρίφησαν to ἀθῶός ἐστιν· ὡς yap (p. 74, 1. 6) in the Monastery of Gregory.

3. From ἔλαβε παρὰ τοῦ κυρίου to ἀποστέρησις ψευδομapтupía (p. 98, 1. 12) in the Monastery of Gregory.

4. From évμía πovnρà to ¿yw yàp (p. 128, 1. 6) in the Monastery of Gregory.

5, 6. From ἔσομαι μεθ ̓ ὑμῶν to λέγει αὐτοῖς· ἕκαστος (p. 182, 1. 11) in the University Library at Leipsic.

7. From τὰς ἰδίας ῥάβδους to οὗτοι οὖν οἱ λίθοι (p. 204, 1. 18) in the Monastery of Gregory.

1 The length of the Athos Codex is 21,5 centim., and the breadth 14 centim.: the length of the written portion of each page is 18,5 centim., and the breadth

8. From απρεπεῖς ἦσαν to δή[λωσόν μοι] (p. 228, 1. 1) in the Monastery of Gregory.

9. From [δή]λωσόν μοι to οὐδεὶς αὐτῶν μελανίσει...δὲ (p. 254, 1. 29) in the University Library at Leipsic.

It is clear from the above table that even after the discovery of the Athos Codex the Greek text of the Hermas is not yet complete; as we are still without the concluding portion (Gebh. and Harn. p. 256, l. 1—p. 270, l. 13), which is only known to us through the versions. This still missing conclusion occupied only a single leaf of the Athos Codex, if we reckon by the amount contained in each of the leaves which are now known. The leaf however must have been already lost when Simonides discovered the Codex; otherwise he would certainly have made a copy of it, if he could not have carried it away with him.

After these preliminary remarks I may go on to give an accurate collation of the transcript of Dr Georgandas, which I have made with the large edition of Gebhardt and Harnack'. I may here remark in general that from this collation it will be seen :

(1) First, that the Codex, which even in Simonides' time was in certain places very worn and consequently illegible, is now still more injured, so that such gaps are proportionately greater than before:

(2) Secondly, that Simonides in his apographon did not always mark as such the gaps which then existed, but filled them up for the most part of his own caprice:

(3) Thirdly, that, generally speaking, his transcript was both inexact and unscrupulous, in consequence of his arbitrary alteration of the text in many places. Besides this, it appears that Simonides desired to put his hand even to the original. There are on the margin of the Codex certain notes written by a later hand and in larger writing, which according to the tradition of the monks are due to him; for here again the name of Simonides has been interchanged with that of Minas Minoides. These marginal notes, which in any case are worthless, are in parts torn away with the margin itself, so that I did not think it worth while to have them copied out.

1 Hermae Pastor Graece, addita versione latina recentiore e codice Palatino, recensuerunt et illustraverunt Oscar de Gebhardt, Adolfus Harnack. Patrum Apostolicorum Opera, fasciculus II. Lipsiae, J. C. Hinrichs, 1877.

II.

The Athos Codex has many points of divergence from the edition of Gebhardt and Harnack in the use of the euphonic v, and also in the accentuation of enclitics: sometimes the Codex is right, and sometimes it is wrong. These places I enumerate here; and I may mention that I have only omitted to register such discrepancies as I have thought it worth while for special reasons to include in the Collation which follows.

The euphonic v is wanting in the Codex before a consonant in the following places:

ἔθνεσι 20, 9 ; 78, 20.

πᾶσι 18, 18, 20, 8; 26, 3 ; 74, 2 (bis); 80, 12; 194, 5. čσTi 10, 10; (ovk) 24, 4; 128, 6. ẻσTì 32, 11. ẻoti 24, 4; (onμi) 32, 4; 48, 2; 62, 13; 64, 8, 21; 72, 16; 78, 16; 80, 18. eio 4, 2; 38, 5, 6, 11; 44, 4; 48, 5, 6. noi 24, 5; 30, 4, 24; 32, 9; 36, 13; 64, 21 ; 90, 21. φασὶ 204, 25. 15; 36, 4; 42. 12; 46, 7 (sec.).

44, 10; 46, 8; 48, 9; 56, 5, 20; δίδωσι 72, 17. ἔχουσι 32, 14, μeтavоoûσi 46, 3; 80, 12. μετανοοῦσι

ποι

οὖσι 56, 2. ταλαιπωροῦσι 44, 22. μεταδιδοῦσι 50, 20. ἀποδώσουσι 74, 3. ἁρμόσουσι 46, 9. δοξάσουσι 38, 7. ἕξουσι 46, 7. κατισχύσουσι 22, 14. τίσουσι 74, 5. ἀπέστειλε 64, 3. ἀπῆλθε 66, 12 (bis). ἐγνώρισε 16, 18-19. ἔδειξε 60, 2. ἔθηκε εἶπε 10, 5. εἶχε 54, 10 ; 62, 6, 11; ἔλαβε 4, 3, 30, 11 ; 68, 6, 74, 6.

82, 14. εἴασε 32, 1, 2. 64, 18. ἐκάθισε 10, 4.

ἕστηκε 56, 25 ; 10, 3; 30, 15. σέσωκε 22, 12.

ἐμέλησε 22, 9. ἐνέφραξε 64, 4. ἔπραξε 80, 16. 58, 14. ἤκουσε 58, 9. ηλέησε 12, 2. ἦλθε ἤρεσε 16, 6. ἠρώτησε 24, 7. προσῆλθε 30, 12. ὑπεμειδιάσε 46, 18. ὤμοσε 20, 16. γινώσκωσι 34, 29. метаνοήσωσι 20, 4; 194, 5. τηρήσωσι 16, 1. βασανισθῶσι 46, 9— 10. ἀκούσασι 64, 15-16. ἀπεγνώκασι 8, 14.

The euphonic v is wanting in the Codex before a vowel in the following places:

ῥήμασι 126, 2. σTI 38, 17; 70, 4; 94, 1; 122, 4 (pr.). elor 38, 1; 42, 2 (pr.). pnoì 68, 3; 76, 1; 80, 11; 84, 5.