‘Ηννσται καί τετέλεσται: An Echo from Traditio I

In the medieval Latin translation of the two Liturgies of Constantinople — ‘St. Basil’ and ‘St. John Chrysostom’ —published from the twelfth-century Paris MS, Nouv. acq. lat. 1791, in 1943, the concluding prayer of the first of these two formularies, “‘Ηννσται καί τετέλεσται, contains a clause which, as was noted at the time, had not been found in any Greek MS. Now, after more than twelve years, two Greek MSS have been discovered — Sinait. 961, of the late eleventh or early twelfth century, and the liturgical roll No. 2 of the Laura, of the early years of the fourteenth century — neither of which indeed contains the interpolation of the Latin version in its entirety, but sufficient to warrant publication and study, for we have here the first trace — and more than a mere trace — of the clause, Si quid dimisimus, which has for so long been a baffling problem. Not unnaturally, this discovery has been the occasion of a re-examination of both the Latin version and the attempted reconstruction of the Greek original, with the result that more than one textual problem overlooked in the preparation of the first edition now stands out more clearly defined. This is especially true of the interesting rendering, ‘nutrimentum’ concerning which more is said below (Text, line 11 and Note 5).