The Text and MSS. of the Apocriticus
We do not now know the whereabouts of a single MS. The Athens MS., which was at first generally considered to be identical with the Venice MS. which disappeared in the sixteenth century, was fortunately collated by Foucart and Blondel while in the National Library at Athens, before it passed into private possession by being left by the curator Apostolides to his widow. It is a paper MS. of the fifteenth century, and is described by Duchesne as badly written, with many gaps. Its accuracy can only be tested by comparing it with the fragments which are quoted by Nicephorus and Turrianus, and a few MSS. containing fragments. In every case, many mistakes and corruptions are revealed in the Athens MS.1 And besides this, Blondel has had to alter obvious blunders on every page, or to note that they have been corrected by a later hand. Nor is the text always to be trusted in the form in which he has been content to leave it. In the translation which follows, I have suggested a few obvious emendations, but more remains to be done, and, as the MS. is necessary for the purpose, it is particularly unfortunate that its present whereabouts is so uncertain.
This side of the Apocriticus was discussed at length a few years ago by Schalkhausser, who confined himself to the textual problem, and did not touch the literary one.2 He carefully sets forth the quotations preserved in Turrianus from the Venice MS., to prove that it was not the Athens MS. which he had before him. After a very lengthy discussion of the problem, he adds a piece of evidence (p. 112) which, if it is to be relied on, is sufficient in itself to prove the point. It seems that the Athens MS., which only contains three out of the five books of the Apocriticus (and even they are mutilated at both ends), consists of one hundred and twenty-five leaves, but an ancient catalogue reveals the fact that the Venice MS., which was complete, contained only one hundred and four.
Schalkhausser also cites certain other MSS. which contain the famous chapter (iii. 23) on the Eucharist, which is the most familiar and oftenest-cited passage in the Apocriticus. At the end of it they add the story of the convincing of a doubting brother, which is plainly an interpolation. Linked by a colon or a hyphen to the final words of the chapter that "that which is eaten remains unconsumed," comes the abrupt commencement of a narrative. "A certain brother was in doubt concerning the things which were consecrated, saying that they were not the Body and Blood of the Lord, but types of these things." It proceeds to tell of the vision he had, while the deacon was reading the Gospel, of the heavenly Child slain and offered for food, of his inability to eat the flesh thus given, and of its being turned into bread as a concession to man's weakness. There seems no doubt whatever that the story is a mere insertion, of a later date than Macarius. Perhaps some one who reads this may recognise the source from which it comes. But the fact of there being such an interpolation adds point to my own suggestion with regard to the passage about the Trinity, where there is a sudden change of style, and the use of seemingly post-Nicene terms for "Person" and "Substance." If the Eucharistic chapter tempted some one to interpolate, the passage on Baptism in the name of the Trinity may well have done the same.
Footnotes:
1See J.T.S. of Jufy 1907, pp. 569-571.
2Georg Schalkhausser, Zu der Schriften des Makarios von Magnesia, Leipzig, 1907, being No. 4 of vol. xxxi. in Texte und Untersuchungen, etc.