The Text of the De Virginitate of Athanasius

Extract

The edition of the “De Virginitate” of Athanasius by Eduard von der Goltz (Texte und Untersuchungen xxix, 1905) is one of the most important contributions made in modern times to the knowledge of the text of Athanasius, because of its full discussion of the variant readings of the manuscripts. The work, however, was handicapped by incomplete knowledge of the Patmos MS. (P), which von der Goltz regarded as the best, and by almost complete ignorance of the two Vatopedi MSS. quoted by him under the symbols W¹ and W², but in the present article designated A and K, since that nomenclature was adopted in the first article on their contents in the Journal of Theological Studies, vol. v, 1903, pp. 108 ff.

A visit to Athos and Patmos in 1925 has made it possible to build a little further on von der Goltz's foundation, and to correct some of the errors inevitable to the conditions under which he worked. We shall here give:

(I) A fuller account of P.

(II) A list of corrections to be made in von der Goltz's collation of P.

(III) A collation, with von der Goltz's edition, of the text of the two Vatopedi MSS. A and K, and of a third MS. in the same library, which we call Q.

(IV) Some discussion of the general problem of the text of the “De Virginitate.”