Bryn Mawr Classical Review

This third edition of the Apostolic Fathers, edited and translated by Michael W. Holmes, traces its origins back to the bilingual edition of J. B. Lightfoot collected, edited, and published posthumously by J. R. Harmer in 1891. Holmes revised the Greek texts and English translations of this nineteenth-century work in 1992 and published an updated edition in 1999. The new edition under review here, however, has shed almost all vestiges of Lightfoot-Harmer and stands on its own as an independent critical edition of the Greek texts and English translations of the Apostolic Fathers.

The volume contains introductions to and editions and translations of the following works: First Clement, Second Clement, the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, the Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle to Diognetus, the Fragment of Quadratus, and Fragments of Papias. Apart from the new Greek-German volumes by A. Lindemann and H. Paulsen (Tübingen 1992) and J. A. Fischer, K. Wengst, U. H. J. Körtner, and M. Leutzsch (3 vols., Darmstadt 1984-1998), the most comparable edition of the Apostolic Fathers to the one under review is that found in the Loeb Classical Library. First appearing in 1912-1913 and edited by K. Lake, these Greek-English volumes have recently been updated in a completely new edition and translation by B. D. Ehrman (2003, review in BMCR 2004.03.53).¹ There are some advantages to the new edition by Holmes over those of his predecessors. The Loeb edition is bound in two volumes, while that of Holmes is conveniently bound as a single volume. Though Lindemann-Paulsen is also in one volume, the edition under review is both hardcover and of a more convenient size -- improvements too over the second, updated edition which it replaces. (Those who regularly work with early Christian literature will notice that its dimensions are virtually identical to the standard Nestle-Aland hand edition of the Greek New Testament.) And physically the book is well-produced -- a solidly bound hardcover sans dust-jacket but including a bookmark, i.e., a signet or "finding ribbon" bound into the volume.

I. General Introduction

After front matter that includes a list of abbreviations (xxi-xxiii) -- a feature found neither in Lindemann-Paulsen nor in the Loeb edition -- Holmes begins with a general introduction to the Apostolic Fathers (3-31). Whereas the introduction to the Loeb edition consists of an excellent discussion of the history and nature of the collection known as the Apostolic Fathers, in his introduction Holmes addresses much broader issues, setting the stage for the reader by explaining not only the collection, but also the historical setting in which the works were composed and the place of the Apostolic Fathers in the study of early Christian history.

Holmes naturally recognizes the artificiality of the corpus now known as the Apostolic Fathers. And he can be commended for condensing perhaps the most important century in early Christian history to a dozen pages. One could perhaps wish for slightly more nuance when using the phrase "the church" as though it were a single, unified, though very diverse community. And, regarding the transition to the so-called subapostolic period, one should ask what purported teachings of which apostles, as interpreted by whom, "defined the center" (12)? That is to say, "normative" should not be equated with "proto-orthodox" (12), in that most if not all forms of early Christianity would have regarded themselves as "normative", or at the very least, as Holmes avers, "legitimate" (11). One also reads the occasional infelicity: e.g., it sounds as though there were "eyewitnesses of the . . . resurrection of Jesus" (12), the Acts of the Apostles is perhaps too blithely referred to as "a history of the early church" (12), and certain gospels and acts are anachronistically called "apocryphal" (14). Apart from this, Holmes gives a circumspect and judicious description of the spread of Christianity, its relation to Judaism and Greco-Roman society, its theological diversity, and the raisons d'être of various early Christian works of literature and ecclesiological models. This is followed by a brief but good overview of the role the Apostolic Fathers have played in the history of research on early Christianity.

The general introduction is followed by a series of bibliographies: "Texts and Translations", "Guides to Early Christian Literature", "Collections of Other Early Christian Literature", "History of the Jews and Judaism", "History of the Early Church", "Early Christian Art and Archaeology", "Early Christian Doctrine and Practice", "General Works", "Dictionaries and Encyclopedias", and "Bibliographic Guides". When a work is available in an English translation, this is almost always given in place of the original-language edition. While this is helpful for the English-speaking reader, a reference to the original-language version would also prove helpful, especially when the translation does not represent the most recent edition of the work.² Though this remains a "Select Bibliography", it greatly expands those in the previous editions and far surpasses the "Select Bibliography" in the Loeb edition. There are nevertheless some works one would expect to see which are surprisingly absent.³ And, though an English edition was given in the list of abbreviations in earlier versions of this book, Holmes has removed the potentially helpful reference to W. Bauer's Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur, despite the publication of an English translation of the most recent edition (2000, review in BMCR 2001.06.01).

II. Work-Specific Introductions

In addition to a general introduction to the Apostolic Fathers, Holmes provides individual introductions to each of the works in this volume. Issues such as the occasion, authorship, date, and text of each work are discussed. Though far better than those found in Lindemann-Paulsen, these contain generally less detail when it comes to standard introductory issues, summary, and historical context, and markedly less on the history of (especially older) scholarship and textual history than the corresponding introductions in the Loeb edition. Occasionally, more recent arguments that have failed to carry the day, while criticized, are allotted disproportionate or unnecessary attention.⁴

Unlike the less extensive ones found in the Loeb edition, the bibliographies given after the introductions to individual works are helpfully divided into "Commentaries" and "Studies", though a further subdivision of "(Text) Editions" would have been welcome. The bibliographies in Lindemann-Paulsen begin with "Textausgaben", and in his 1999 edition Holmes titles the first of these two subdivisions "Commentaries and/or Editions". An additional subdivision such as this would have allowed for the inclusion of important published text editions or textual witnesses which occasionally fail to appear either in the notes or in the bibliographies.⁵

III. Text and Translation

Where no Greek text is extant, the Latin is printed (see Polycarp to the Philippians 10-12 and 14 and most of Hermas 107-109 and 111-114). On the whole, the translations are natural, i.e., they read easily, and difficulties are generally addressed in the notes to the translation, unlike in Lindemann-Paulsen and in the Loeb edition, where such notes are all but non-existent. Moreover, Holmes presents an apparatus to his Greek text that is more comprehensive than that found in the Loeb edition. (The apparatus in Lindemann-Paulsen is also substantial, though -- like the text itself -- it has simply been taken over from the editions of Funk-Bihlmeyer and Whittaker.) The system Holmes employs to signal variants in the text parallels that used in the standard hand edition of the Greek New Testament and therefore marks a departure from the system used both in Holmes's earlier editions, in the Loeb editions, and in other editions of the Apostolic Fathers. A description of the system and the sigla used is found on pp. xxiv-xxv. This system allows one to see the presence, exact location, and extent of a variant while reading the text, before looking to the apparatus for the variant itself and supporting witnesses.

As regards his translation, Holmes has tried to make it gender inclusive where he takes that to be implied by the Greek and where it can be so rendered into English gracefully (x-xi). This is most frequently seen in the translation "brothers and sisters" for many, though not all, occurrences of ἀδελφοί, though see too the translations of 1 Clement 46:3, 62:3, Hermas 29:3, 34:7, 39:6, 42:1-2, 43:9 and 13-14, 68:1, and 70:2. No attempt was made at this in the Loeb edition, and it would have perhaps been better had Holmes not put himself in the difficult position of having to make decisions regarding the mind of the ancient author and the meaning of these terms in both ancient and modern cultures (especially when explicitly gender inclusive formulations do appear in the Greek of the Apostolic Fathers, i.e., at 2 Clement 19:1, 20:2, Barnabas 1:1, and Hermas 36:7-8).

IV. Back Matter

A "Thematic Analysis" of the Apostolic Fathers (775-779) reproduces the section headings used in the English translations. Extensive indices (781-799) include a portion of the "Index of Ancient Sources" that covers passages from the Apostolic Fathers (when cited in the introductions or notes) as well as other early Christian literature (796-799), a feature absent in the indices of the Loeb and Lindemann-Paulsen editions (though the latter does helpfully provide a separate index for each individual Apostolic Father). Two maps (803-805), one of the route of Ignatius and another showing the extent to which Christianity had spread in the Roman Empire of the first two centuries, also add a helpful resource not found in other recent editions of the Apostolic Fathers.

V. First and Second Clement

Holmes has reverted to the titles "1 Clement" and "2 Clement" for these works; in his previous editions (following C. C. Richardson) they were "The Letter of the Romans to the Corinthians commonly known as First Clement" and "An Ancient Christian Sermon commonly known as Second Clement". This is a welcome change: what the traditional titles lack in historical exactitude they make up for in euphony and universal recognition. Questions of genre and authorship are, moreover, adequately addressed in the introductions to these works. Attention is also helpfully brought to 1 Clement's indebtedness to some Stoic concepts (37).

Although Holmes mentions only a single MS containing the Syriac translation of 1 and 2 Clement (39, 136), there is at least one additional MS in which a Syriac version of 1 Clement is found (Birmingham, Mingana Syr. 4).

VI. Letters of Ignatius

In all likelihood, Ignatius was taken to Rome and martyred, but to write that he was "presumably . . . thrown to the lions in the Coliseum" (167) goes a bit beyond his statements (and the reports in Eusebius) that he would be thrown to the beasts (Ephesians 1:2, Romans 4-5, Smyrnaeans 4:2; "lions" are explicitly mentioned first in Jerome, and Chrysostom is the first to allude to the Flavian Amphitheater). It's also a pity that A. Brent's Ignatius of Antioch: A Martyr Bishop and the Origin of Episcopacy (London 2007) appeared shortly before Holmes's volume and thus escaped the bibliography.

When discussing early Christian literature known to Ignatius, a footnote recognizing the limitations of what can be demonstrated given the nature of the ancient evidence states, in part, that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" (175, see too 273); while true, this could potentially send the uncritical reader down a very slippery historiographical slope in which positive, though unfalsifiable, claims are made -- something all too common among some historians of early Christianity and early Christian literature.

On the text of the letters Holmes writes, "both the Armenian and Arabic versions appear to have been translated from Syriac; of that version only three sets of fragments are known" (176). Albeit technically correct (the statement in the Loeb edition is not), this could stand some clarification: the known fragments of Syriac versions of the Letters of Ignatius do fall into three categories: 1) portions of the abridged "short recension" (in three MSS); 2) fragments of an unabridged version (in four MSS); and 3) the letter to the Romans as transmitted together with the Martyrdom of Ignatius (in four MSS). Part of the significance of the Armenian and Arabic versions is that they betray the existence of a complete Syriac version of the "middle recension". One should note too that neither Holmes nor the Loeb edition mentions that the "short recension" also contains fragments from Trallians 4 and 5 embedded in the excerpts from Romans.

As regards the order of the letters (177), though not mentioned, the sequence found in almost all ancient versions confirms the order found in G (with only the Armenian and Arabic transposing Trallians and Philadelphians).

VII. Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians and the Epistle of Barnabas

Holmes offers a good, sensible discussion on the integrity of Polycarp's letter (275-276). Reckoning Marcion, however, among the "emerging gnostic movement" (272) without further qualification is less straightforward, even if one accepts the category and despite his place in later 'genealogies of heresy'.

Twelve (not nine) Greek MSS dating from the 11th-17th centuries form a group of witnesses deriving from a common archetype designated by the siglum G (277, 376). All but one of these MSS contain a fused, incomplete text of Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians and the Epistle of Barnabas (Polycarp's letter is not extant in MS r). Holmes's decision not to include MS b is doubtless due to its being a mere transcription of MS t. The older grouping of the MSS into at least two distinct families is given only in the introduction to Polycarp's letter (277) as v o f p / c t[b] n a / s. This arrangement follows Lightfoot, 2.3.317, though Lightfoot's description of the MSS at 2.1.549 could also suggest the arrangement v o f p / c t[b] n s / a which appears in the Loeb edition.⁶ It is, however, surprising and disappointing that Holmes (as Ehrman before him) has overlooked not only the more recent and nuanced classification of the MSS by R. A. Kraft, but also that of F. R. Prostmeier (v o / f p / n t[b] c[s] a d r), including his description and collation of two previously unnoticed witnesses (d, Vatican gr. 1655 and r, Vatican gr. 1909).

Likewise, the only Latin MSS of the Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians listed by Holmes are the nine that were collated by Lightfoot (277); there are, however, at least thirteen Latin witnesses.⁷

Holmes also fails to mention the traces of the Epistle of Barnabas extant in Syriac.⁸

VIII. Martyrdom of Polycarp

Happily, although B. Dehandschutter's Polycarpiana (Leuven 2007) appeared at the same time as this volume, Holmes lists among the witnesses to the Martyrdom the recently rediscovered Codex Kosinitza (misspelled "Kozinitza", 302), a collation of which was first published by Dehandschutter in 2006. In Polycarpiana, Dehandschutter incorporated the readings of this MS into an updated apparatus for the Martyrdom, though the text there is merely reprinted from his 1979 edition and runs only through chapter 21 (i.e., it does not include the various colophons). Fortunately, as is mentioned in his Preface (xi) and can be seen in his apparatus, Holmes has utilized Codex Kosinitza in establishing his text of the Martyrdom. The text in Holmes diverges from Dehandschutter's older text at many points, and also occasionally differs from that in the Loeb edition (e.g., at 5:2, 9:2, 12:1-3, 14:2, 16:2, 17:3, 19:1, and 20:1-2). Holmes does not mention a ninth MS of the Martyrdom, Vatican, Ottobonianus gr. 92, though this is merely a copy of MS v.

It is also encouraging to see that Holmes mentions the as yet unpublished Old Church Slavonic translation of the Martyrdom of Polycarp (303) -- an independent witness (i.e., not relying upon Eusebius) made no later than the tenth century and found in four Russian MSS from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries --, reference to which is absent in the Loeb edition.

Of the Martyrdom, Holmes writes that it "is the oldest written account of a Christian martyrdom outside the New Testament" (298); this is true insofar as the Martyrdom of Ptolemaeus and Lucius, found in Justin and therefore perhaps earlier, does not actually narrate the martyrs' deaths.

IX. Didache

In his introduction to the Didache, Holmes succinctly and helpfully mentions the question of whether an internal coherence or logic might be found in the composite document (337), as well as models explaining its particular affinities to the Gospel of Matthew (338-339, though without citing the work of A. Garrow at that point). The 'two ways' topos, "a common Jewish form of moral instruction" (335), finds a prime example in the Community Rule from Qumran (1QS, 4Q255-264, and 5Q11), though Holmes does not mention this work.⁹

X. Shepherd of Hermas

After the introduction of consecutively numbered chapters in Whittaker's 1956 edition, the two systems for dividing the text of Hermas has caused some confusion. Both systems are employed in the Loeb edition, which combines them into a single running head and subhead in the text. The way in which the two systems are presented by Holmes is less confusing. In the running heads, the older system is found in italics towards the inside margin, and the newer chapter system in roman type towards the outside. In the text, the older system appears as italicized subheads, the newer chapter numbers as stickup or raised initials at the beginning of each chapter. Moreover, Holmes provides a table conveniently showing the correspondence of the two systems (450-451) and helpfully discusses the structure of the work in his introduction (445).

Among other things, Holmes also discusses the social setting reflected in Hermas (443), mentions the parallel between its similitudes and those in 1 Enoch (445), and lists its apocalyptic features (445; though oddly contrasting its concern for contemporary matters with apocalyptic, which merely veils these concerns with eschatology).

Missing from Holmes's description of the Greek witnesses to the text of Hermas are Giessen, Universitätsbibliothek Papyrussammlung, P. Iandanae inv. 45 (olim 4) (containing a fragment of 43:19-21 and 44:2-3); Birmingham, P. Rendel Harris 128 (containing 25:5 and 7); and Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, P. Berolinensis 21259 (containing a fragment of 14:3-4 and 6). Holmes also fails to mention the Georgian translation of Hermas; made from a now-lost Arabic version and containing Vision 5 and the Mandates, it is extant in a single MS (H-622) in Tbilisi. He does, however, list additional, recently-published Oxyrhynchus papyri not found in other editions (449).¹⁰

A few errors (some of which appear to have come directly from the Loeb edition, though originating in the first edition of Joly) are found in the information on the Greek textual witnesses to Hermas (448-449).¹¹

The translation "lady" for κυρία throughout the Visions, though also used in the Loeb edition, seems a bit too colloquial (as would translating κύριε "mister" instead of "sir"); "madam", used in Holmes's earlier edition, sounds better to my mind. Also, the translation of the first ἐπί in 38:2 is awkward (as it was in Holmes's previous edition); perhaps (altering his translation of γνωρίζω): "Let me know, sir, . . . in what things it is necessary", or (keeping his translation of the verb, though with an archaic use of the preposition): "Inform me, sir, . . . in what things it is necessary".

XI. Epistle to Diognetus and the Fragment of Quadratus

After a brief overview of the challenges faced and strategies employed by the second-century Christian apologists, Holmes discusses only a few proposals regarding the authorship of the Epistle to Diognetus, but wisely declines siding with any of them. Though Eusebius's and Jerome's statements on Quadratus are mentioned, that of Paulus Orosius (c. 385-420), albeit to be read critically, is not.

XII. Fragments of Papias

Undoubtedly one of the most important features of this edition of the Apostolic Fathers is the presentation of a fuller array of primary material related to Papias than is found almost anywhere else, including not only the Loeb edition but also works dedicated solely to Papias.

A table (730) conveniently compares the numeration of the Fragments employed by Holmes with that of six other editions, including the recent edition by E. Norelli, Papia di Hierapolis (Milan 2005).¹² No other editor apart from Lightfoot includes Holmes's fragment 4 (the Pericope adulterae as found in Codex Bezae) among the Fragments of Papias, but Holmes does so since Papias knew one of two earlier stories that would later be combined into this "traditional" account (as argued elsewhere by Ehrman). Holmes has helpfully distinguished these constituent parts of the story by the use of italics and brackets in the text and translation of his fragment 4. Excluded from Holmes's collection are Norelli's fragments 20b and 23, though with good reason: his fragment 20b does not mention Papias and is, according to Norelli himself, difficult to date back to the second century, let alone to connect to Papias; and, though the name "Papias" appears before his fragment 23 as a sort of title, Norelli describes how it has been convincingly shown to be spurious. Compared to the texts in Norelli, Holmes presents slightly more abbreviated versions of fragments 2, 7, 9, 10, 13, 16, 17, 19, 21, 24, and 26, much more abbreviated forms of fragments 11, 15, and 25, and only one of two divergent forms of fragment 18; though compared to the Loeb edition Holmes gives not only many more fragments, but more extensive versions of fragments 3, 5, 6, 7, 11, 15, and 21. Naturally, Norelli is able to offer a far more detailed introduction to Papias than space allows Holmes, and one will therefore want to consult this, along with his "Nota introduttiva" and "Note di commento" on the Fragments and his several helpful appendices. But, the necessarily abbreviated nature of his presentation notwithstanding, Holmes's edition of the Fragments does improve upon Norelli's insofar as the texts preserved in Arabic (frag. 23), Armenian (frag. 24, 25, and 26), and Syriac (frag. 27 and 28) are not transliterated, but printed using the appropriate fonts.

In addition to the text from Irenaeus and Eusebius in fragment 14, parallel material is found in 2 Baruch, Hippolytus, the apocryphal Apocalypse of John, and Diaboli contradictio Jesu Christo β/B. Norelli mentions some of this material in the "Note di commento" on his fragment 1, but it would have been helpful had Holmes (and Ehrman) also referred to it.

Fragment 23 is found in the tenth-century Arabic World History or Book of Titles, by bishop Agapius of Hierapolis. The two published editions of this work (by L. Cheikho and A. Vasiliev) both rely upon the single MS preserving the portion of the book containing the Papias fragment (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana or. 132); the text in Holmes generally follows Cheikho's orthography, e.g., with the use of ligatures.

Armenian fragment 24 is linked to Greek fragment 11, which it replaces in the Armenian adaptation of Andrew of Caesarea's commentary on the Apocalypse of John. Since both fragments also discuss the 'fall of Satan', it has been suggested by F. Siegert that Armenian fragment 24 represents a continuation of Greek fragment 11 and was inserted here by the translator for this very reason.¹³ Unfortunately, the Armenian text reproduced by both Holmes and Siegert (and transliterated by Norelli) begins only with the explicit mention of Papias in the introductory formula to the citation from his work. The immediately preceding material is, however, translated elsewhere by Siegert, who also points to a virtually identical phrase in the Greek after Fragment 11 and at the beginning of the Papias citation in Fragment 24.¹⁴ Had Holmes reproduced the text immediately after Fragment 11 (like Norelli) and immediately before Fragment 24, the reader would be in a better position to evaluate both the relation of these two fragments and Siegert's observations.

Armenian fragment 25 preserves comments about what Papias wrote (presumably, as in this fragment, in the context of a discussion about the anointing of Jesus' body after his death), though not necessarily a quotation as such. Siegert (followed by Norelli) presents a fuller text than that found in Holmes, and also observes that the Geography by Moses of Chorene alluded to here contains virtually identical statements with no reference to the New Testament or to Papias. This fragment may therefore reflect a combination of two originally discrete traditions, one of which consisted of a comment by Papias on the anointing of Jesus' body for burial in the Gospel of John. An evaluation of the traditions represented in this fragment would have been aided had Holmes printed the fuller text.

Following Lightfoot, Holmes also includes some fragments from Irenaeus relating "traditions of the elders" which some have regarded as coming from Papias. As to the origin and use of these fragments, Holmes rightly remains agnostic and cautious.

XIII. Miscellanea

There are a few misspellings, stylistic inconsistencies, typographical errors, and other mistakes throughout the book.¹⁵ In addition, a handful of bibliographical entries either contain errors or are not up-to-date.¹⁶ And a spot check of the indices also revealed some inconsistencies, mistakes, and omissions.¹⁷

XIV. Conclusions

Many of the critical observations in this review apply equally to other editions of the Apostolic Fathers (including the Loeb edition), though in some areas, Holmes offers marked improvements upon these. The serious student will still need to consult Lightfoot for fuller discussions and textual evidence.¹⁸ Moreover, more detailed introductions will have to be sought elsewhere: either in the Loeb edition, in the (recent or recently augmented) Sources chrétiennes volumes, or in commentaries on individual Apostolic Fathers (especially those in the Kommentar zu den Apostolischen Vätern series). Holmes has nevertheless met the need for a reliable, single-volume critical edition of the Greek texts of the Apostolic Fathers with English translations. His revision commends itself in many ways as the standard hand edition of this corpus.

1.   Individual Greek-French volumes (some reissued with addenda and corrigenda) have appeared in the series Sources chrétiennes for Clement (1971/2000), Ignatius and Polycarp (1969/1998), the Didache (1998), Barnabas (1971), Hermas (1958/1968), and Diognetus (1965/1997).
2.   As is the case, e.g., with Döpp's Dictionary of Early Christian Literature (22), Hennecke-Schneemelcher's New Testament Apocrypha (23), and Harnack's Mission and Expansion of Christianity (25).
3.   Harnack's Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius, Musurillo's Acts of the Christian Martyrs, Lietzmann's Geschichte der alten Kirche (which has been translated into English), the Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie (DACL), Elsner's Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph, and Bradshaw's Search for the Origins of Christian Worship, as well as VanderKam's Introduction to Early Judaism and Nickelsburg's Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah.
4.   Compare the discussion of recent arguments against the authenticity of the Ignatian epistles (172-173) with the brief mention of the authenticity of the "middle recension" (171-172), where the more recent corroborating evidence of the Armenian and Arabic versions is passed over in silence; see too the discussion on the occasion of the Epistle of Barnabas (374-375) and the hypothesis that the Martyrdom of Polycarp is a mid-third-century forgery (301).
5.   One misses, e.g., the significant publications on the Arabic version of Ignatius by Basile, the Georgian text of Hermas Vision 5 by Outtier, and even Lefort's Les Pères apostoliques en copte and the edition of the Latin version of Barnabas by Heer.
6.   J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers: Part II. S. Ignatius. S. Polycarp, 2d edn (London 1889).
7.   Not listed are Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek/Bibliothèque royale, MSS 1034 and 905, olim Bibliothèque royale des ducs de Bourgogne MSS 703 and 20132 (copies of b); Charleville-Mézières, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 173; and Arras, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 281, olim 51.
8.   These are found in Cambridge University Library add. 2023, consist of extracts from 19:1-2, 8, and 20:1 (though not 1:1, as one finds in the Loeb edition), and may or may not reflect a complete Syriac translation of the work.
9.   Also, the commentary by G. Visonà, Didachè: Insegnamento degli Apostoli (Milan 2000), including an introduction, text, translation, and notes, has unfortunately been overlooked in the bibliography.
10.   Holmes also writes that "fragments" of a Middle Persian translation of Hermas have been discovered (449); by way of clarification: the single extant Middle Persian fragment (M 97, discovered in Turfan, China, and now in Berlin) contains multiple extracts from the long, ninth Similitude.
11.   The first fragment in the florilegium Paris gr. 1143 should be "51.8-10"; the fragments in the Amherst Papyrus should be "2.2-3.1; 20.3, 21.3-4; 44.1, 3; 79.1-2, 4-5; 89.2-3, 5; 94.1, 3-4; 107.1-2, 3-4"; the contents of Berlin Papyrus 13272 should be "54.5-55.2, 4-6"; and POxy 1828 should contain "65.3, 5". In addition, the current inventory numbers for Michigan Papyri 129 and 130 are, respectively, 917 and 44-H, and the former dates to the third century, not (unfortunately) to the second.
12.   Körtner's fragment 22, corresponding to Norelli's fragment 23, is, however, overlooked. Norelli offers a more complete table of this sort, in which the systems of numeration in twelve editions are compared (though even it lacks Holmes's fragments 2 and 5).
13.   See F. Siegert, "Unbeachtete Papiaszitate bei armenischen Schriftstellern", in New Testament Studies 27 (1981) 605-614.
14.   In J. Kürzinger, Papias von Hierapolis und die Evangelien des Neuen Testaments (Regensburg 1983), 129.
15.   E.g., the series should be "Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller" when written with the article (20, 453), "Apostolischen Vater" is printed for "Apostolischen Väter" (21), the publisher is "Crossroad" not "Crossroads" (22), R. Lane Fox's Pagans and Christians is alphabetized as though his surname were "Fox" and not "Lane Fox" (28) (though it is indexed correctly [787]), "Milano" should be anglicized to "Milan" like other places of publication (177, 340, 691), "Ephemerides Theologicae Lovaniensis" is written for "Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses" (303), "Martyrium Polycarpi" appears as "Marytrium Polycarpi" (304), the publisher is "Ophrys" not "Orphys" (342), "mediate" is written for "meditate" in Barnabas 21:7 (translating μελετάω, 441), "Cahiers Revue Biblique" should be "Cahiers de la Revue Biblique" (452), quotation marks fail to resume between "replied" and "grief" in Hermas 42:3 (539), "Wiederaufnahme" is spelled "Wideraufnahme" in the subtitle of Brändle's dissertation (692), and "traduizione" is printed for "traduzione" in the subtitle to the recent edition of Papias (729).
16.   S. J. D. Cohen's From the Maccabees to the Mishnah is now in its second edition (2006) (23), E. M. Smallwood's Jews under Roman Rule was published in Leiden in 1981 (it was merely reprinted as a paperback in 2001) (24), a revised edition of H. Chadwick's The Early Church appeared in 1993 (24), E. Ferguson's Backgrounds of Early Christianity is now in its third edition (2003) (27), the 1998 corrected edition of Camelot's Ignace d'Antioche should be noted (278, 303), and the place of publication for Fortress Press (in 2005) should be "Minneapolis" (341).
17.   Given names in the author index are abbreviated except under a few entries (Draper, Gregory, McKechnie, and McKinion, 786, 788) and two sets of different entries ("S. Giet"/"St. Giet" and "Paulsen"/"H. Paulsen") each refer to one person (786, 788). And, e.g., Vardan is mentioned on p. 765, not 396 (784); W. Schneemelcher is also cited on pp. 20, 723, and 731 (789); and Anastasius of Sinai's Hexaemeron 1 is cited on p. 749, not 479 (798).
18.   J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers: Part I. S. Clement of Rome, 2d edn (London 1890), Part II. S. Ignatius. S. Polycarp, 2d edn (London 1889).