[121] relating to Isaiah, had been taken from the Hexapla itself, and had been compared with another volume of the Hexaples; but as for what pertains to Ezekiel, the exemplar of Apollinarius, transcribed from the Hexapla, had been corrected according to the Tetrapla, which had been amended and illustrated with scholia by the hand of Origen himself: to which scholia Eusebius of Caesarea had added other scholia in the same exemplar, and Pamphilus and Eusebius had corrected that very exemplar. There is no doubt that this exemplar existed in the library of Pamphilus, by whose hand it had been amended. Moreover, we learn all these things from the notes of the Marchalian codex, now in the possession of the Reverend Fathers, the Jesuits of the College of Louis the Great, which we cited above (col. 00). That codex, from about the eighth century, as is judged from the form of its characters, is thought to have been copied according to the exemplar of Apollinarius.
The Tetrapla, therefore, and the Hexapla of Origen himself were kept in the library of Pamphilus at Caesarea, where they perished along with the library itself, whether when the city was captured by the Persians under Chosroes, or not long afterward, when, having fallen into the power of the Arabs after a long siege, it was despoiled of these and all other ornaments. But because, as we said above, very few copies had been made of them, these very ones perished through the length of time and the injuries of the ages, so that not even a trace of them, as they had been organized by Origen, has remained.
CERTAIN ANECDOTA.
NOTICE.
We have thought that no place is more suitable than this for certain Anecdota which pertain to the ancient interpretations of Scripture. The first is by Origen, and it comes from the Royal codex, no. 1807, of excellent quality, of the tenth century, to which a codex in the Vatican library is completely similar and written by the same hand, in which not only the pages but even the individual lines always end in the same word. In neither codex, however, does the name of the author appear in this short work. But that it is Origen’s is most certain: for Jerome provides a not insignificant part of its end in his letter to Marcella, which is contained in the latest edition, vol. II, p. 706, where Jerome says: "But if it does not seem burdensome to you, I will interpret word for word what Origen thought about the *Diapsalma*: because you despise new must, at least let yourself be led by the authority of old wine." *Saepe quaerens causas*, etc., as below.
But in the book *Against Rufinus*, p. 363: "Certainly, Origen also names the patriarch Huillus, who was in his times: and he concludes the thirtieth volume on Isaiah, at the end of which he discusses: 'Woe to you, city of Ariel, which David besieged,' with that exposition of his: and although he says that he previously thought otherwise, having been taught by him, he confesses that which is truer." And the eighty-ninth psalm, which is inscribed: *A Prayer of Moses, the man of God*: and the remaining eleven, which do not have titles, he thinks are also Moses’, according to the exposition of Huillus: nor does he disdain, while interpreting Hebrew Scripture, to expound section by section what the Hebrews think. But by these final words he refers to the other part of the short work fragmentarily, but clearly. However, in this matter he differs from Origen, in that the latter calls the patriarch of the Jews *Iullum* (Jullus), while the former calls him *Huillum*: but that is a very small matter. However, that he attributes to Huillus what he learned from another learned Jew who was then, as Origen says, with Huillus, matters not at all: for Jerome could have attributed to Huillus what another had said in his presence and with his approval.
The second short work of Origen was transcribed by me from the Vatican codex no. 754, with this title: Ὑπόμνημα Ὠριγένους εἰς τοὺς Ψαλμούς, *Hypomnemata*, or *Commentary of Origen on the Psalms*. It is mutilated in the middle: and it seems to have been a prologue to his *Commentaries on the Psalms*. It deals with the titles of the Psalms, and fragmentarily with those who collected the book of Psalms.
The third short work of Origen is a fragment from the Royal codex, no. 1818, of the tenth century, which is a *Catena on the Psalms*. It discusses there the ancient Hebrew characters, which he says were different from the modern ones, namely, those of his own time. It exists in Latin in the *Catena* of Daniel Barbaro, hitherto unnoticed.
The fourth short work is by Epiphanius, *On the LXX Interpreters*, καὶ τῶν παρερμηνευσάντων, which signifies literally, *Of those who have interpreted perversely, or, of those who, in interpreting, have adulterated Scripture*. It is an epitome of those things which Epiphanius narrates in his book *On Weights and Measures* about the various interpreters; and it differs more than once from that more detailed narrative, concerning which matter we treated above where we spoke of Symmachus. Whether this Epitome was organized by Epiphanius himself, or by another, is not so easy to determine. However, be that as it may, this short work comes from two codices, namely the Royal 1807 and the Vatican, which both seem to have been described in the tenth century and by the same hand, as we said above.
(The latest Benedictine revision of the Works of Origen, which has been revived in our own, exhibits the *Origenian Fragments*. See our twelfth volume, the second of Origen. The short work *On the LXX Interpreters* exists among the Works of Epiphanius yet to be edited. EDIT. PATR.)