Subject: Re: Old Latin

From: [email-masked] (William L. Petersen)
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 11:24:53 -0500

Regarding Ronald Minton's query about how the Old Latin is dated to 157 CE,
and Ulrich Schmid's post, it suddenly occurs to me that what *may* lie
behind the date is a reference from the *Acts of the Scillitian Martyrs*.
They were beheaded in July 180, and during their (gentle) questioning by the
Roman governor, they were asked what they had in a basket.  They reply "the
works/writings of a just man, Paul"  (I'm quoting from memory here, so don't
hold me to the exact wording).  Since the names of the martyrs are Latin,
and they are rustics (and Scilli was in the sticks), it is usually assumed
that these "writings of Paul" were in Latin translation, since the "locals"
probably wouldn't have been Greek-reading (or so the theory goes).  This
would place the translation into Latin before 180, certainly, at least for
part(s) of the Pauline corpus.  How one gets 157 *precisely* (and not 158 or
156) remains a mystery to me, however.

The Scilli evidence is mentioned (with refernces, discussion, and
literature) in virtually all of the studies of the NT Versions (Voeoebus,
Metzger, as well as the older ones [Kenyon, Souter, Gregory, etc.]), as I
recall.

--Petersen, Penn State Univ.