On the Possibility that GA 1506 May Not Have Omitted Romans 16:1–24 after All

The placement of the Romans doxology in GA 1506 has long created a good deal of confusion. This manuscript is a copy of John of Damascus’s edited collection of extracts from John Chrysostom’s Homilies on Romans. The biblical text is written in red ink, often very faint, especially in the microfilm images, while the commentary text is written in a darker ink that is much easier to read. 

The NA28 apparatus (in the variation unit on the doxology) tells us: “add p. 14,23 et p. 15,33 (sed om. 16,1–24) 1506.” This is also the reading provided in the IGNTP transcription, in Text und Textwert, and in the literature more generally. Some sources (e.g. Aland’s 1979 article “Der Schluß und die ursprüngliche Gestalt des Römerbriefs”) also point out that a blank space of half a page has been left for 16:1–24. 

Today, however, as I took another look at this “blank space,” I noticed something odd. Most of the text visible on the page is the result of ink bleedthrough from the other side of the folio. As such, the text is reversed. Yet in the margin, outside the block of transfer, a marginal note was visible, one in which the letters were facing the right direction and which therefore cannot be the result of ink bleedthrough or transfer: 

In examining other manuscripts of John of Damascus’s commentary (GA 2110 and GA 0150, identified by David Flood as members of the same family as GA 1506), I discovered that not only did they contain a form of this same marginal note but that this note was a gloss on the name Ἑρμᾶν in 16:14. 

Proportional to the overall length of 16:1–24, the placement of the marginal note in GA 1506 is about where it should be as a comment on this name, as it is in the other manuscripts. In other words, while it may be difficult (or even impossible) to identify any of the biblical text under the heavy ink transfer and ink bleed through with the microfilm images currently available, it is very likely that GA 1506, as originally copied, contained 16:1–24, just as do the other manuscripts of this commentary tradition. 

Therefore, rather than categorizing this as an omission, it is likely better classified as a lacuna due to illegibility (as Swanson already did). In any case, the presence of this marginal note at the correct place and in the same red ink used elsewhere for the lemmata makes it unlikely either that the exemplar of this manuscript was missing these verses or that the red ink used for the lemmata had run out (possibilities suggested by David Flood, “New Readings in GA 1506: A Fresh Analysis of Old Microfilm Scans”). 

The simplest explanation seems to be that the scribe did indeed copy these verses, but that the ink has now faded beyond recovery without better images. It may also be relevant that the page in question (330v) seems to be the final page of its quire, which could have resulted in more severe fading, either before the initial binding or at some subsequent rebinding.  

We really do need better images of the Athos manuscripts!