Philonis Judaei Paralipomena Armena

for use, entirely on parchment: which in the year of our Lord 1296, the royal Notary Basilius copied with his own hand; at the end of the work, I will add a commentary on this. Since, however, such a Codex lacked certain pages or even an entire quire in some places, we arranged for what was missing to be supplied from another Constantinopolitan copy, which is for us Codex B. A symbol resembling a flourished cursive 'f'. The third, which we called C, A symbol resembling a 'q' or Greek 'eta' with a long tail. was in our possession. It partly displays traces of the 13th century, and was partly copied by another hand in the following centuries. Although in it one might miss the total perfection which the aforementioned Codex A exhibits to us, at times it seems capable of surpassing it. We name the fourth D. A symbol identical to C. This is the most recent, namely of the century just before last, and it contains separately only Philo's fourth book on Genesis. Indeed, as can be seen in the progress of the work, it helps very well, time and again, with genuine and sincere readings. Finally, Codex E, A symbol resembling a Greek 'nu' or lowercase 'v'. (a commentator, or a scribe of old solutions, outside of the margins) should rather be called the fifth in order; it is a copy of a most ancient glossary, from which certain passages must be confidently compared by us regarding all of Philo's works.

IV. Next, we would have to speak about the Armenian Translator, namely how much he cares to render word for word, being excessively faithful, and also how much antiquity he breathes, since he lived in the 5th century. But we gladly set these things aside, lest, since we already dealt with these matters in the Preface to the three published Discourses, we might perhaps appear to learned men to be doing what has already been done. There is one thing from the aforementioned matters that necessity compels us to repeat. If learned men compare among themselves the Armenian text of Sacred Scripture, which Philo's translator uses in the Philonian Questions and Solutions on Genesis and Exodus, with the Armenian of the Vulgate reading, they will perhaps wonder somewhat that it differs from the latter quite often. But they will immediately cease to wonder when they remember the times of both translations. For when that most holy Patriarch of ours, Isaac I, whom we all venerate as the principal Interpreter of the Armenians, was laboring greatly in Armenia on behalf of our Vulgate, his disciples in the meantime—ordered and compelled by him, one of whom was Philo's translator—were converting the works of the Ancients into Armenian use through various regions of the Roman-Greek Empire. Therefore, it was not possible for them to follow the Vulgate reading, which was not yet public law, but each one arranged his own translation according to his own capacity. Therefore, the translations of such disciples could hardly approach the most accurate version of the common, most learned master.

V. Regarding us, however, who are about to give back to the public a Philo brought back to life from Armenia, so to speak, such fidelity or, if you prefer, religious devotion took hold of us, that we always kept his Armenian Translator before our eyes, and followed and pressed upon his footsteps. So that this could be done by us more safely, here was the Armenian text of the Philonian translator, and there was the Greek text of the 70 Elders The Septuagint; looking at and comparing both;