Abstract
Abstract Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians (Pol.Phil.) is poorly attested. All extant Greek manuscripts (G) stem from one source, Vaticanus Graecus 859 (V), which preserves only a portion of the text. Accordingly, editors reproduce G, supplemented as needed with the old Latin translation (L), preserved in its entirety, and with Greek fragments preserved in Eusebius. I argue that L ought to be treated as a discrete witness to the epistle, and not merely as supplement to G. The paper proceeds in two parts: first, I offer a careful analysis of the translation, concluding that L offers a relatively faithful, literal translation and a comparably well-preserved attestation to the epistle. Second, I demonstrate that the well-known “division hypothesis” relies upon an incomplete analysis of L. In short, I contend that the construction of composite, polylingual critical editions of Pol.Phil. has occasioned textual problemata unreflected in the text’s individual manuscript traditions.
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