Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 94/1 (2018) 151-157. doi: 10.2143/ETL.94.1.1.3281490
© 2018 by Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses. All rights reserved.
Hermas in Latin
Notes on a Recent Edition
Dan BATOVICI
KU Leuven
Written in Rome during the second century in Greek, the Shepherd of
Hermas has had two different translations in Latin. The oldest of the two,
the so-called Vulgata, is sometimes dated as early as the second century,
and the other, the Palatina, is usually dated to the fifth. A new edition of
the Palatine version appeared in 1994
1
. The Vulgata version was edited
again in 2014
2
, so that we now possess up-to-date critical editions of both
translations. The following considerations focus on the Vulgata.
Put briefly, in terms of contents the 2014 edition of the Vulgata text of
the Shepherd includes a thorough introduction followed by a clearly laid
out Latin text, accompanied by a robust and easy-to-use textual apparatus.
The volume is concluded with two appendices, one on the final infinitives
in the Vulgata, the other offering an interpretation of Mand. 6.2,6-8 in light
of the Vulgata rendition of the Greek text.
The introduction is informative, concise and well-argued. The editors
briefly present, in this order, the Greek manuscripts, the outline of the
story in the Shepherd, the highlights of its reception, the Latin manuscripts
and the other existing versions – Coptic, Ethiopic, Georgian and Middle
Persian. They rightly note, for instance, that the state of the Ethiopic version
is less than optimal, as we still have to rely on the Latin translation that
accompanies D’Abbadie’s edition of 1860
3
. A few new witnesses have
surfaced since then. Tornau and Cecconi mention a second Ethiopic manu-
script. In 2014 – presumably too late for inclusion in their account – a third
Ethiopic witness was made known
4
. The description of the Coptic manu-
scripts contains some inaccuracies: of the main Sahidic manuscript there
are 14 (not 13) leaves
5
, which are mounted separately in several modern
1. A. VEZZONI, Il Pastore di Erma: Versione Palatina. Introduzione di A. CARLINI,
Firenze, Le Lettere, 1994.
2. Ch. TORNAU – P. CECCONI, The Shepherd of Hermas in Latin: Critical Edition of the
Oldest Translation Vulgata (TU, 173), Berlin – Boston, MA, De Gruyter, 2014.
3. A. D’ABBADIE, Hermae Pastor: Aethiopice Primum Edidit et Aethiopica Latine Vertit,
Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1860.
4. T. ERHO, A Third Ethiopic Witness to the Shepherd of Hermas, in La parola del pas-
sato 67/5 (2012 [published 2014]) 363-370.
5. TORNAU – CECCONI, Shepherd (n. 2), p. 7. E. LUCCHESI, Compléments aux Pères
apostoliques en copte, in Analecta Bollandiana 99 (1981) 395-408, at 400-404, publishes