‘Why don't you sing, Thomas?’ The manuscript tradition omitting the Hymn of the Bride in Acta Thomae

Abstract

AbstractThe so-called Hymn of the Bride is found in Chapters 6–7 in the first Act of the apocryphal Acts of Thomas. The manuscripts containing it show a particular history of the text which does not always coincide with that of the rest of the Act. For instance, family gamma (Γ) often presents a summarized version of the first two Acts, thus heavily shortening the Hymn.A study of the text is essential to establish a new edition with translation, which is the aim of the project in which this study is embedded. However, analysis of the manuscripts omitting or summarizing the Hymn is also relevant for other goals, such as a proper understanding of the interrelationships between the different manuscripts and of the interest in the text, and its use by early Christian communities and by later readers.Consequently, in this paper, I will analyse the particularities of such a textual tradition and offer a few conclusions that will, in turn, contribute to the broader analysis of the Acts of Thomas.