translated by Bishop Herbert E. Ryle, in R. H. Charles's Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (1913)
The Prayer of Manasses is a short penitential psalm, only fifteen verses long, spoken in the voice of King Manasseh of Judah, the notorious idolater of 2 Kings 21 who, according to the Chronicler, was carried captive to Babylon in chains, humbled himself before God, and was restored to his throne. The Book of Chronicles says that Manasseh prayed and that his prayer was recorded — but does not quote it. This psalm is a later Jewish author's imagining of what that lost prayer might have said: an invocation of God's boundless power and mercy, a confession of sins beyond counting, and a plea not to be condemned along with them. It never entered the Hebrew Bible, but it found a home among the liturgical canticles appended to the Psalter in the ancient Greek church, and later among the apocryphal books of the Christian Old Testament.
Introductory Note (1913, Bishop Herbert E. Ryle)
§ 1. Description of the Book
"The Prayer of Manasses, King of Judah, when he was holden captive in Babylon," is the title of a short penitential Psalm. It is written in Greek, and contains thirty-seven στίχοι (lines). In Fritzsche's Libri Apocryphi Vet. Test. Graece it is divided into fifteen verses, and this division has been very generally adopted.
The Psalm consists of (a) an invocation of the Deity (vv. 1–7), (b) a confession of sin (vv. 8–10), (c) an entreaty for forgiveness (vv. 11–15).
§ 2. Its Origin
Its literary origin is obscure. There seems, however, to be little reason to doubt that the author was a Jew, that is, not a Christian. While, in the case of so short a fragment, it is difficult to decide with absolute certainty, it seems most probable that the Prayer was originally written in Greek, and that the existing Greek text is not, as has sometimes been maintained, a translation from the Hebrew or Aramaic. If this view be correct, "The Prayer of Manasses" should be classed with such writings as "The Song of the Three Children," and be regarded as, in all probability, the composition of a Hellenistic Jew, who in the interests of his people's faith wrote the penitential Prayer to suit the special circumstances under which the prayer, ascribed to Manasseh, King of Judah, in 2 Chronicles xxxiii. 18, 19, was supposed to have been uttered.
It will be convenient to quote the whole passage in which this mention of the king's prayer occurs, 2 Chronicles xxxiii. 11–13, 18, 19:
"Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh in chains (or, with hooks), and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. And when he was in distress, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And he prayed unto him, and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God. . . . Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer unto his God, and the words of the seers that spake to him in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, behold, they are written among the acts of the kings of Israel. His prayer also, and how God was intreated of him, and all his sin and his trespass, and the places wherein he built high places, and set up the Asherim and the graven images, before he humbled himself: behold, they are written in the history of Hozai (or, the seers)."
According to this account, a Prayer of Manasseh was reputed, in the Chronicler's time, (a) to have been preserved among "the acts of the kings of Israel," and (b) to be contained in the records of Hozai (or, the seers). Whether the Chronicler himself was acquainted with any such Hebrew prayer, or whether he is simply repeating a popular tradition, we have no means of determining. No such writing was ever contained in the Hebrew Scriptures, nor, if it ever existed, has it survived in any Hebrew or Aramaic form. The oldest non-canonical reference to the tradition of such a prayer is to be found in 2 Baruch lxiv. 8.
It is easy to understand that the Chronicler's story of Manasseh's repentance and prayer and deliverance from captivity must have produced upon the minds of devout Jews a profound impression. The record of his idolatry and of his persecution of the servants of Jehovah had stamped his name with infamy in the annals of Judah. But side by side with his wickedness were commemorated the unusual length of the king's reign and the quiet peacefulness of his end. The Chronicler's story of the repentance and conversion of Manasseh provided the explanation of a seemingly unintelligible anomaly. Henceforth his name was associated by Jewish tradition not only with the grossest acts of idolatry ever perpetrated by a king of Judah, but also with the most famous instance of Divine forgiveness towards a repentant sinner. What more remarkable example could be found of the long-suffering compassion of the Almighty, and of His readiness to hear and to answer the supplication of a contrite penitent?
Nothing would be more natural than for a devout Jew to endeavour to frame in fitting terms the kind of penitential prayer which, according to the tradition, Manasseh had poured forth when he was in captivity in Babylon. The sentiments embodied in such a form of petition might conceivably be appropriate to those of his countrymen who had fallen into idolatry, and who might yet be reclaimed from the error of their way.
According to this hypothesis, the Psalm was composed for a practical devotional purpose.
§ 3. Its Literary History
"The Prayer of Manasses" makes its first appearance in extant literature, so far as is known at present, in the so-called Didascalia. This was an early Christian writing, composed probably in the second or third century, and incorporated into the Apostolical Constitutions, a work of the fourth or fifth century, of which the first six books consist of the Didascalia.
The author of the Didascalia was probably a member of the Christian Church in Syria, and wrote in Greek. In a long extract, apparently derived from some other writing, he records at length the narrative of Manasseh's idolatry and punishment, of his repentance and prayer, of his miraculous deliverance from captivity and restoration to Jerusalem. The object which the author of the Didascalia has in view is to illustrate God's mercy towards a repentant sinner. After briefly mentioning the classical instances of David's repentance at the rebuke of Nathan, of Jonah's repentance and the answer to his prayer uttered in the whale's belly, and of Hezekiah's supplication and the pardon of his sin of pride, he continues: "But hearken, ye bishops, to an excellent and apposite example, for thus is it written in the Fourth Book of the Kingdoms (that is, 2 Kings) and in the Second Book of Chronicles." There follow extracts from the Septuagint text of 2 Kings xxi. 1–18 and 2 Chronicles xxxiii. 1 ff., interwoven and expanded at four points by additional matter that has nothing corresponding to it in the Hebrew text: a description of Manasseh's imprisonment in fetters, kept alive on a meagre daily ration of bread and water mixed with vinegar; the text of "The Prayer of Manasses" itself, introduced where the Greek of Chronicles simply notes that "he prayed"; an account of how the Lord heard his cry, so that a flame of fire surrounded him and melted away his fetters and healed him of his affliction; and a statement that thereafter he served the Lord alone with his whole heart and soul all the days of his life, and was reckoned righteous.
§ 4. Its Preservation
The preservation of this short, disconnected Psalm may thus, with good reason, be ascribed to the accident of its occurrence in the Didascalia and the Apostolical Constitutions. There is no evidence to show that it was ever included in the Septuagint, the Judaeo-Greek Canon of Holy Scripture. But, very possibly, in consequence of the popularity of the Apostolical Constitutions, "The Prayer of Manasses" became well known in the Eastern Church, and it was a natural step to take, to detach the Prayer from its context and to insert it among the Canticles (ᾠδαί, Cantica) used and sung for liturgical purposes, and to be found appended to the Psalter "in certain uncial MSS. and a large proportion of the cursives" (Swete, Introd. to the O. T. in Greek, p. 253).
In the Codex Alexandrinus there are fourteen Canticles appended to the Psalter, in the following order: (1) the Song of Moses at the Sea (Exod. xv. 1–19), (2) the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy (Deut. xxxii. 1–43), (3) the Prayer of Hannah, mother of Samuel (1 Sam. ii. 1–10), (4) the Prayer of Hezekiah (Isa. xxvi. 9–20), (5) the Prayer of Jonah (Jonah ii. 3–10), (6) the Prayer of Habakkuk (Hab. iii. 1–19), (7) a second Prayer of Hezekiah (Isa. xxxviii. 10–23), (8) "The Prayer of Manasses," (9) the Prayer of Daniel's companions (Dan. iii. 23), (10) the Hymn of our Fathers, (11) the Magnificat, (12) the Nunc Dimittis, (13) the Benedictus, and (14) the Morning Hymn. Similarly, in the Codex Turicensis, the liturgical Canticles are appended to the Psalter, and "The Prayer of Manasses" appears ninth in the list. But the evidence of Codex Alexandrinus would alone suffice to show that in the Eastern Church the Prayer was in use for liturgical psalmody in the fifth century A.D.
§ 5. The Title
To the Psalm is prefixed the title "The Prayer of Manasses" in Codex Alexandrinus; "The Prayer of Manasses the son of Hezekiah" in Codex Turicensis; and, in the editions of the Vulgate, "The Prayer of Manasses, King of Judah, when he was holden captive in Babylon" (Oratio Manassae regis Iuda cum captus teneretur in Babylone).
There is no sufficient reason to call in question the correctness of the title. (1) The title is derived from the narrative in the Didascalia in which the Prayer has been incorporated. (2) There is no evidence to show that the Prayer had existed before its inclusion in this Manasseh tradition. (3) Though it is noteworthy that the Prayer contains no mention of any proper name of personage or place, by which the legitimacy of the title might be confirmed, there are nevertheless to be found in it allusions which are most naturally interpreted on the assumption that the Prayer is put into the mouth of Manasseh, King of Judah. Thus, (a) the speaker describes himself as "weighed down with chains" (ver. 10); (b) he dwells with emphasis upon his many sins in past time (ver. 9); (c) he makes particular mention of the forms of idolatrous sin whereby he had provoked the wrath of God (ver. 10).
The objection must be admitted for what it is worth that there is no reference to the Temple of Jerusalem or to the religious worship of Israel. But this omission is intelligible, if we are correct in assuming that the composer is concerned with the tradition of Manasseh's repentance in its religious rather than in its historical bearings.
§ 6. Date of Composition
It seems probable that the Didascalia (lib. ii. 21), in which the Prayer was preserved, was composed in the first half of the third century A.D. (F. X. Funk, Die Apostol. Konstitutionen, 1891, p. 50), and in Syria (ibid., p. 54). If we may assume that the author of the Didascalia borrowed from some Jewish, or Hellenistic, source the whole passage relating to Manasseh, then the Prayer, and the writing in which it stood, must have been well known in the beginning of the third century A.D. Its composition must be assigned to an earlier date than this.
The inclusion of the Prayer among the liturgical Canticles in the Codex Alexandrinus implies a high degree of estimation, and if those Canticles were copied from a yet earlier manuscript, we might be justified in inferring that its adoption for liturgical use had its origin not later than the fourth century, and that a considerable interval of time must have elapsed between its becoming known in the Eastern Church and its being transcribed for liturgical use in manuscripts of Scripture. Perhaps, however, we cannot say more than that (1) "The Prayer of Manasses" probably found its way into liturgical use after becoming known to the Church through the Didascalia; (2) that the citation, in the Didascalia, of the long extract in which the Prayer occurs, points to an earlier date for the period of its composition; (3) that the position of the Prayer, in a setting of passages cited from the Greek versions of Kings and Chronicles, suggests that the Prayer itself is of considerably later date than the translations which were used as a framework into which the penitential Psalm was inserted.
§ 7. Original Language
"The Prayer of Manasses" is too brief to admit of any degree of certainty in the reply to the question whether we have to do with a Greek original, or with a Greek translation from a Hebrew or Aramaic original. If it be a translation, it deserves to rank high. But the general impression produced by the flexible style and ample vocabulary favours the view that Greek is the language in which it was composed, and it receives further support from the consideration that the manner in which it is inserted in the Didascalia extract, among quotations from the Greek renderings of Kings and Chronicles combined with Greek "Haggadic" Additions, would suggest an originally Greek compilation.
The language may be described as a good specimen of the κοινὴ διάλεκτος (common dialect), and contains phrases which show the usual Semitic colouring. The occurrence of a number of uncommon adjectives, substantives, and verbs would suggest a freedom from the usual restrictions of translation, while the employment of phrases based on, or derived from, the Septuagint — echoes of Genesis, Joel, and the Psalms recur throughout — seems to indicate an acquaintance with the Greek version rather than the work of an independent translator. Several strange constructions likewise seem to indicate the freedom of one who wrote in Greek rather than the constraint of one who translated into it.
It has been strongly urged by Sir Henry Howorth that the current Septuagint version of 2 Chronicles should be identified with the work of Theodotion, and that as we have "a free rendering of parts of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah grouped round a fable (1 Esdras), and by the same hand a paraphrase of parts of Daniel, also with legendary additions" (Thackeray, Grammar of O.T. in Greek, p. 15), so we should be prepared to recognize in the Manasseh narrative, Prayer, and Additions preserved in the Didascalia a reproduction of the original Septuagint version, for which the more literal version of Theodotion was afterwards substituted. This view has been supported in Old Test. and Semitic Studies in Memory of W. R. Harper: Apparatus for the Textual Criticism of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, by C. C. Torrey (Chicago, 1908).
§ 8. The Theology of "The Prayer of Manasses"
The two main religious ideas which pervade the Prayer are (1) the infinite compassion of the Almighty, and (2) the efficacy of true repentance.
The opening Invocation portrays in striking terms the omnipotence of the Deity, and this leads up to the consideration of the yet nobler attributes of His mercy and goodness (vv. 6–7). An effective prelude is thus furnished to the sinner's confession of his iniquities, the climax of which had been reached by his having set up idolatrous abominations. The glory of God and the abasement of the sinner having thus been set over against one another in sharpest contrast, the way is prepared for the ardent supplication for forgiveness which occupies the remainder of the Prayer.
The reader should take notice of the emphasis laid upon the Israelite patriarchs and their true spiritual lineage. The God of "our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" (ver. 1) is "the God of the righteous seed" (ver. 1) and "of the righteous" (ver. 8). The Patriarchs had not sinned against God (ver. 8). Those only were the righteous seed who had not yielded to idolatry. The range of view of the Psalmist is limited: it has regard to the sin of idolatry and to the pardon of the repentant idolater. But a warning seems to be conveyed against the notion that Divine acceptance was ensured by Jewish lineage. The same note is struck, though it may not ring so clear, as in Luke iii. 8: "Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father." Compare John viii. 39; Romans ix. 6, 7.
Other points, characteristic of Jewish religious thought and deserving of attention, are the following: (a) supernatural efficacy ascribed to the sacred Name (ver. 3); (b) the statement that "repentance" is appointed by God for certain persons, and not for others (ver. 8); (c) the representation of the under-world (Sheol, or Hades) as a region containing various grades of remoteness from the light of heaven (ver. 11); (d) the description of the angels as the "host of heaven" (ver. 15).
§ 9. Versions
"The Prayer of Manasses" was never included in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament Scriptures. Its position among "the Canticles" appended to the Psalter, in certain manuscripts, is due to liturgical reasons.
The Greek text was first printed by R. Stephanus in his edition of the Vulgate, following 2 Chronicles, with a short Preface stating that this Greek prayer of Manasseh, never before printed, was drawn from the library of Victorius. It does not appear in the majority of the printed editions of the Septuagint. In the Complutensian Polyglott (1514–17) it is printed in small type, in Latin, at the end of 2 Chronicles. It was not contained in the Sixtine edition (1586–7) of the Septuagint, nor does it appear in the editions of Holmes and Parsons, or of Tischendorf.
In Walton's Polyglott it is found in volume iv (the Apocrypha), placed before 3 Esdras, and is printed both in Greek and in Latin, with a note explaining that although the Greek was said not to survive, according to the preface of the Antwerp Vulgate of 1645, it had in fact been found printed in the Latin Bible of Robert Stephanus (1540), and was also preserved in Codex Alexandrinus among the Canticles after the Psalms; the variants of that codex are there recorded. On the other hand, it is found in three reprints of the Sixtine edition, and it was also included in Grabe's edition of the Septuagint, following Codex Alexandrinus, though a note there claiming it as found in some copies of 2 Chronicles xxxiii itself was without foundation and has led to a very general misapprehension: no ancient Greek manuscript of 2 Chronicles xxxiii exists containing the "Oratio Manassis."
As it was not extant in the Hebrew or the Greek Bible, the Prayer was not included in the work of Jerome, who in all probability was unaware of its existence — otherwise he would scarcely have failed to allude to it in the passage where he mentions Manasseh's repentance after captivity in Babylon and his naming a son Ammon, "eponymous," in token of the faith by which he had believed God (In Sophoniam, Liber I).
At what date the Latin version, which is a good specimen of translation, was made is not known; it is probably much later than Jerome. The Prayer is, however, very commonly found in mediaeval manuscripts of the Vulgate, immediately after 2 Chronicles, often under the title "Oratio Manassae." Nestle records that, so far as could be ascertained, no manuscript of the Vulgate containing the Prayer is earlier than the middle or first third of the thirteenth century; a list of fifteen such thirteenth-century Latin manuscripts in the British Museum was kindly furnished by Mr. J. P. Gilson of the Manuscripts Department. It remains an unsolved problem what influence, from the beginning of the thirteenth century, led to the common inclusion of the Prayer in the Latin Scriptures.
An eleventh-century manuscript of the Mozarabic Psalter gives a Latin text of the Prayer, under the title "Oratio Manasse Regis De Libro Paralipomenon," which differs considerably from that found in the later Latin Bibles.
The Prayer was printed in the Latin Bible of Stephanus (1540) together with the Greek text, and again in Joh. Brentius's edition of the Vulgate (Leipzig, 1544), in parallel Greek and Latin columns. The Sixtine Vulgate of 1590 did not contain it, but the revised Clementine edition of 1592 inserted it, together with 3 and 4 Esdras, as an appendix after the New Testament — the preface explaining that these books, not numbered among the canonical books by the Council of Trent, and the Prayer of Manasseh itself, found in neither Hebrew nor Greek nor in any ancient manuscript, were placed outside the sequence of canonical Scripture. This form of words, as Sir Henry Howorth has shown, appears to derive from the Dominican Pagnini's revised Vulgate of 1527, which similarly placed the Prayer at the end of 2 Chronicles with a note that it exists neither in the Hebrew nor in the Greek.
In modern Greek Bibles "The Prayer of Manasseh" has a place immediately after the Books of Chronicles (for example, the St. Petersburg edition of 1876).
§ 10. Syriac Version
An account of the Syriac Version of the Prayer appeared in Hermathena, xxxvi, 1910, from the pen of Professor George Wilkins of Trinity College, Dublin, who published a collation of a Paris manuscript probably transcribed from a Vatican Syriac manuscript written by Sergius Risius, Maronite Archbishop of Damascus, about 1610. The Syriac Version of the Didascalia, in which the Prayer is embedded, is preserved, according to Professor Wilkins, in four manuscripts: a ninth-century Paris codex, an eleventh-century codex (Mrs. Gibson's Horae Semiticae), a thirteenth-century Cambridge manuscript, and a manuscript in the Museo Borgia at Rome.
§ 11. Other Versions
Armenian manuscripts of the Old Testament Scriptures contain the Prayer among the Canticles appended to the Psalter. It is also stated to occur in the old Slavonic Version. It is found appended to the Psalter in the Ethiopic Version of the Psalms (ed. Ludolf, Frankfort, 1701), and the Ethiopic Version of the Apostolical Constitutions (ed. Thomas Pell Platt, London, 1834) contains the Prayer as well.
§ 12. Text
The principal authorities for the text are (a) the two Greek uncial manuscripts, Alexandrinus and Turicensis; (b) the Latin and Syriac Versions; (c) the Apostolical Constitutions and Didascalia. The text of the cursive manuscripts containing the Canticles appended to the Psalter has yet to be critically investigated. The manuscripts of the Apostolical Constitutions are catalogued by Pitra; the edition of P. de Lagarde (Leipzig, 1862) contains a critical apparatus, and the older edition of Cotelerius (1672) is well worth consulting.
The principal problems presented by the text of "The Prayer of Manasses" are to be found in: (1) verse 7, the additional clauses found in the Latin and in the Apostolical Constitutions at the close of the verse; (2) verse 9, an additional clause found in the Syriac Version and in the Mozarabic Psalter; (3) verse 10, various readings arising from the obscurity of the verb rendered "to lift up"; (4) verse 10, a gloss added in Codex Turicensis and in the Latin.
§ 13. English Versions
"The Prayer of Manasses" was not included in Coverdale's Bible of 1535. But it appears in Cranmer's Bible (Grafton), 1539, given a place in the Apocrypha after "Bel and the Dragon" and before 1 Maccabees, and in the subsequent editions of 1541, 1549, 1562, and 1566. It receives the same position in the first edition of the Bishops' Bible, 1568. It does not appear in the Genevan version. In the Authorized (1611) and Revised versions it stands between "Bel and the Dragon" and 1 Maccabees.
In the Douai Bible of 1609 the Prayer precedes 2 Esdras and follows 2 Maccabees, headed by a note explaining that it, with the second and third Books of Esdras, though extant in most Latin and Vulgar Bibles, is placed after all the canonical books of the Old Testament because these are not received into the canon of Divine Scripture by the Catholic Church. In Luther's Bible it stands at the end of the Apocrypha, after the Additions to Daniel.
Summary of the Prayer
(1) The Invocation: (a) O God of Israel (ver. 1), Lord and Creator of the Universe (vv. 2, 3), infinite in power (ver. 4) and in anger against the sinner (ver. 5); (b) infinite also in mercy (ver. 6); Thou hast proclaimed forgiveness for repentance, and appointed me the sinner unto repentance (vv. 7, 8).
(2) The Confession: my sins are innumerable; I am unworthy to look upwards; I am justly punished, loaded with chains, in misery (vv. 9–11).
(3) The Entreaty: I beseech Thee (ver. 11); I acknowledge all (ver. 12); grant pardon; consume me not; nor let Thine anger burn for ever (ver. 13).
(4) The Ascription: Thou, the God of them that repent, wilt graciously save me (ver. 14); and I will praise Thee for ever.
(5) Doxology: Angels hymn Thy praises; Thine is the glory for ever (ver. 15).
1 O Lord Almighty, which art in heaven, Thou God of our fathers, of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and of their righteous seed; 2 Thou who hast made the heaven and the earth, with all the array thereof: 3 Who hast bound the sea by the word of thy command: who hast shut up the Deep, and sealed it with thy terrible and glorious Name; 4 Whom all things do dread; yea, they tremble before thy power: 5 For the majesty of thy glory cannot be borne, and the anger of thy threatening against sinners is unendurable: 6 Infinite and unsearchable is thy merciful promise; for thou art the Lord Most High, of great compassion, long-suffering and abundant in mercy, and repentest thee for the evils of men. 7 Thou, O Lord, according to thy great goodness hast promised repentance and forgiveness to them that have sinned against thee; and in the multitude of thy mercies hast appointed repentance unto sinners, that they may be saved. 8 Thou, therefore, O Lord, that art the God of the righteous, hast not appointed repentance unto the righteous, unto Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob, which have not sinned against thee: but thou hast appointed repentance unto me that am a sinner; 9 For the sins I have sinned are more in number than the sands of the sea. For my transgressions were multiplied, O Lord: my transgressions were multiplied, and I am not worthy to behold and see the height of heaven by reason of the multitude of mine iniquities. And now, O Lord, I am justly punished and deservedly afflicted; for lo! I am in captivity, 10 Bowed down with many an iron chain, so that I cannot lift up mine head by reason of my sins, neither have I any respite: because I provoked thy wrath, and did that which was evil in thy sight. I did not do thy will, neither kept I thy commandments: I set up abominations, and multiplied detestable things. 11 And now I bow the knee of mine heart, beseeching thee of thy gracious goodness. 12 I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, and I acknowledge mine iniquities. 13 But, I humbly beseech thee, forgive me, O Lord, forgive me, and destroy me not with mine iniquities. Neither, in thy continual anger against me, lay up evil in store for me: nor pass thou sentence against me, when I am in the lowest parts of the earth. 14 For thou, O Lord, art the God of them that repent; and in me thou wilt show forth all thy goodness: for thou wilt save me, unworthy that I am, according to thy great mercy. 15 And I will praise thee for ever, all the days of my life: for all the host of heaven doth sing thy praise, and thine is the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Colophon
Prepared from R. H. Charles (ed.), The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, Vol. 1: Apocrypha (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), translation and introduction by Bishop Herbert E. Ryle. Source: archive.org item apocryphapseudep01charuoft (University of Toronto copy). This edition's per-verse textual-critical apparatus — the numbered notes keyed to individual Greek words and phrases, comparing the readings of Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Turicensis, the Apostolical Constitutions, and the Syriac, Latin, and Mozarabic witnesses — is omitted from this transcription; it survives complete in the 1913 printed edition and in the cited scan. Two mechanical appendices to the introduction are likewise omitted here: Note A, a list of fifteen thirteenth-century British Museum manuscripts containing the Prayer, and Note B, a transcription of the Mozarabic Psalter's variant Latin text of the Prayer; their substance is described briefly in §§9 and the notes above rather than reproduced in full. A lengthy footnote to §7, in which the General Editor argued at length in Greek and Hebrew for a possible Semitic original underlying verses 4 and 7, is omitted as textual-critical apparatus in substance if not in form. The asterisked passages within the translation (the second half of verse 7, the extra line inserted between verses 9 and 10, the line "I did not do thy will, neither kept I thy commandments" in verse 10, and the word "all" in verse 14) mark readings that Ryle included from the Latin, Syriac, Apostolical Constitutions, or Mozarabic Psalter rather than from the two Greek uncial manuscripts alone, following his own editorial practice of flagging supplementary or variant material within the running English text; they are retained here exactly as printed. No word of the translation proper was illegible in the scan.
Prepared for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church with AI-assisted transcription and editorial work.
🌲