The Catenae and the Septuagint

Abstract

During the time of Procopius (sixth century), the catenae arranged the sacred text in the same way as the Christian commentaries before them: the Septuagint is quoted verse by verse and occupies the first position; the commentary then comes below it. This layout can be called a full-page disposition. Sometime during the second half of the seventh century the full-page model began to be replaced by a marginal layout. The reference unit is not the single folio, but the whole surface constituted by two following folios facing one other: first a given even folio, second the corresponding odd folio. The biblical text is written in the centre of each of these two folios; and the fragments of the catenae are written around it, in the upper margin, the lateral margin, and the lower margin. This marginal layout developed out of the two-column layout, in which the left column gives the biblical text and the right one, the fragments. This layout comes from the scholia. It is preserved in a few manuscripts, such as the Coislinianus 360 and the Vaticanus Barberinianus gr. 455. Witnesses of the marginal layout are numerous in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. From the twelfth century to the end of Byzantium in the fifteenth, there was a return to the full-page layout. Besides the layout, the writing system emphasized the biblical text. Several arrangements are found, for instance the biblical text can be written with uppercase letters, whereas the catena uses lowercase. A most important aspect of these catenae is the form of the text of the Septuagint that is given in the catenae. As a rule, the compilers gave the text of the Septuagint in use in their monasteries or churches at the time of the compilation. But, in the extracts of the patristic authors, the quotations of the Scriptures are not aligned with this reference text. All in all, there are very few studies of the biblical text of the catenae. Much work remains to be done. Some of the compilers had a great interest in Biblical glosses, as well as in Jewish revisions. It is time for a new publication of Lexeis of the 150 Psalms, the first edition of Joseph Pasini is now dated (1749). And the catenae offer many unpublished readings coming from Origen’s Hexapla.