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sumed that the “ancient copies” mentioned in the colophon had been located in a church on Mount Zion, one which Cyril of Jerusalem accounts
for in the mid-4th century (Catech. 16.4; Migne PG 33:924). According to
Schmidtke, the archetype of these MSS, which he dated to around 500
C.E., witnesses indirectly, through a number of marginal scholia, to a now
lost Judeo-Christian gospel (“Evangelistenausgabe Zion”) equal to the
Gospel of the Nazoraeans, referred to by Jerome.32 These marginal scholia
are introduced by the words τὸ Ἰουδαϊκόν, the Jewish (Gospel), which led
Schmidtke, followed by several other scholars, to connect the scholia with
this lost Zion Gospel.33
The τὸ Ἰουδαϊκόν scholia are present in various forms in five MSS: 4,
273, 566, 899 and 1424, i.e., two of those that have the Jerusalem colophon (039/566 and 899). None of them have all the scholia. In the Uppsala MS, for example, they occur in Matthew 12:40, 18:22 (Plate 3) and
26:74.34 In J. K. Elliott’s translation these scholia read:35
12:40: “The Jewish does not have ‘three days and three nights’ (in the
heart of the earth).” [This reference is uniquely preserved in 899.]
18:22: “The Jewish has, immediately after the seventy times seven: ‘For in
the prophets, after they were anointed with the Holy Spirit, there was
found in them a word [matter] of sin.’”
26:74: “The Jewish: ‘and he denied and swore and cursed.’”
Schmidtke thought that these scholia themselves went back to a commentary on Matthew by Apollinarius of Laodicea (ca. 310/320s–ca. 390), who
in turn had collected the variant readings from the Zion Gospel.36 Schmid32
One of the scholia, at Matt 18:22 is cited by Jerome, Contra Pelag. 3.2. See further Frey,
“Die Scholien,” 124–125, 128.
33
Frey, “Die Scholien,” 122–123, mentions the following scholars who accepted Schmidtke’s hypothesis: E. Meyer, H. Waitz, M. Dibelius, E. Klostermann, A. Huck, W. Bauer, P.
Vielhauer, E. Lohse, G. Strecker, A. F. J. Klijn, D. Bertrand, and J. K. Elliott (with caution).
34
A. F. J. Klijn, Jewish-Christian Gospel Tradition (VCSup, 17; Leiden: Brill), 34, erroneously omits reference to Matt 18:22.
35
J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 14.
36
For a critical evaluation of Schmidtke’s elaborate hypothesis, see Frey, “Die Scholien,”
122–137. Joseph M. Reuss’ attempt to reconstruct Apollinarius’ commentary on Matthew
has made Schmidtke’s assumption even more improbable. See Joseph M. Reuss (ed.),
Mattthäus-Kommentare aus der Griechischen Kirche (TU 61; Leipzig: Akademie-Verlag,
1957).
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tke made this connection to Apollinarius on the basis of another scholion
in 039 and 899 in the Pericope of the Adulteress (John 7:53ff), which refers to Apollinarius.37 However, in my examination of 899 I have found
that this scholion is actually not there; Schmidtke must have made a mistake. Nevertheless, new collations have shown that the scholion in question is present in six of the thirty-seven MSS with the Jerusalem colophon
(039 20 215 262 1118 1187).38 It should be noted, however, that this
scholion is not introduced by the words τὸ Ἰουδαϊκόν.
Thus, Schmidtke’s connection of the Jerusalem colophon in thirtyseven MSS with the τὸ Ἰουδαϊκόν scholia in Matthew’s Gospel, found in
five MSS, only two of which have the colophon, and, further, the connection to Apollinarius, based upon a scholion in John’s Gospel extant in six
MSS is untenable, more so since most of the thirty-seven MSS are not
even textually related in terms of their running New Testament text.39
In the end, only a single MS, 039/566, has all the three features: the Jerusalem colophon, τὸ Ἰουδαϊκόν scholia in Matthew, and the Apollinariusscholion in John (see Table 2). However, it is even possible that 039/566
shifts textual character from Luke onwards, i.e., the change of script to
uncial in Luke and John may coincide with a shift of exemplar, which
would completely undermine the genealogical connection between scholia
in Matthew and John (this question requires more research).
37
Schmidtke, Fragmente, 73 n. 1. More recently, Frey, “Die Scholien,” 127, imports the
error concerning 899 from Schmidtke, since Frey did not have access to the actual MS:
“Die Verbindung mit Apollinaris von Laodicea wird dadurch begründet, daß in Handschrift 566 und 899 auch zum Text des Johannesevangeliums, nämlich zu Joh 7,53 – 8,11,
ein Scholion begegnet, das unter anderem auf Apollinaris verweist.”
38
In private communication, Maurice A. Robinson, who has examined the pericope in all
the MSS, reports that these six MSS contain the scholion, which reads: τὰ ὠβελισµένα ἔν
τισιν ἀντιγράφοις οὐ κεῖται οὐδὲ Ἀπολιναρίου.
39
Although Schmidtke depended on Von Soden’s doubtful genealogical classifications, he
apparently realized some of the difficulties with the differing textual character of the MSS:
“Der Codex δ30 [Greg.-Aland 1424] ist nun das älteste und textlich unverdorbenste Glied
der kleinen Familie Φa, die auf einen ausgezeichneten, blutreinen Nachkommen von Z
[Zion edition] zurückgeht, der jedoch die Z-Subscriptionen gleich so vielen ganz sicheren
Zeugen der Ausgabe Z schon verloren hatte, während andere Vertreter der Φ-Gruppen sie
noch durchgerettet haben. Zwischen der in Ir und ε 370 f mündenden Z-Linie und der Form
von Φa besteht gar kein näheres Verwandtschaftsverhältnis. Wir treffen also den fraglichen
Apparat [the scholia] in den älteren Gliedern zweier Reihen an, die beide ganz selbständig
von der gemeinschaftlichen Basis Ur-Z ausgegangen sind” (Schmidtke, Neue Fragmente,
25). Apart from this explanation, Schmidte appealed to the gradual adaptation to the Byzantine standard text (ibid., 5).
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In conclusion, the transmission histories of the Jerusalem colophon, the
various scholia in Matthew and John, and the New Testament text itself
are distinct. Although they surely overlap in some cases, they can certainly not be traced back to one common ancient archetype, connected in
turn to a lost Zion Gospel.40 This does not mean that the fascinating τὸ
Ἰουδαϊκόν scholia in Matthew are not in themselves connected to a JewishChristian gospel.41
As for the intriguing Jerusalem colophon, regardless of its origin, it apparently became popular and was reproduced in varying forms in one or
more Gospels, sometimes independent of the text.42 I assume that it was
soon used simply to emphasize that the MS had been copied from and
compared with the best (ἐκ τῶν ἐσπουδασµένων) and most ancient MSS,
which, according to this tradition, were from Jerusalem.43 Perhaps this
popularity has to do with another tradition, recorded in many subscriptions, that Matthew wrote his gospel in the Hebrew dialect in Jerusalem.44
It is only the colophon in its full form that mentions Jerusalem, and it is
almost always placed after Matthew’s Gospel.
Another question concerns the meaning of the “holy mountain” that is
mentioned in the colophon. Kirsopp Lake proposed that it refers to Sinai.45
When Schmitdke launched the Zion theory, he pointed out that the phrase
“in Jerusalem” excluded Lake’s interpretation. According to another pro-
40
According to Frederik Wisse’s classification of MSS in Luke, the following MSS belong
to Group Λ: Λ (039), 164, 199, 262, 899, 1187, 1555 and 2586. Two of the MSS (199,
2586) do not have the colophon, which illustrates the partial overlap between ancestry of
text and colophon, respectively. See Frederik Wisse, The Profile Method for Classifying
and Evaluating Manuscript Evidence (SD 44; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 102.
41
Hence, Petersen, “Zion Gospel Edition,” 1098, points out that “all of the scholia can be
paralleled from much earlier sources connected with the Judeo-Christian gospel tradition.”
42
In an examination of a peculiar addition in the Gospel of John, also popular on Mt
Athos, I have likewise demonstrated that the history of readings is not synonymous with
the history of MSS, although the two categories overlap. See Tommy Wasserman, “The
Patmos Family of New Testament MSS and Its Allies in the Pericope of the Adulteress and
Beyond,” TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism (http://purl.org/TC) 7 (2002): par.
48.
43
For this usage of σπουδάζω, see LSJ s.v. σπουδάζω II.1. Cf. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 5.30.1,
ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς σπουδαίοις καὶ ἀρχαίοις ἀντιγράφοις (“in all the best and ancient manuscripts”).
44
See Hermann von Soden, Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments in ihrer ältesten
erreichbaren Textgestalt hergestellt auf Grund ihrer Textgeschichte (2 parts in 4 vols.; 2nd
unchanged ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1911–1913), 1:314; cf. Schmidtke,
Fragmente, 17.
45
Kirsopp Lake, “Texts from Mount Athos,” StudBib 5 (1902): 138–139; idem, “On the
Italian Origin of Codex Bezae,” JTS 1 (1900): 445.