Martina Vercesi: Rev 19-21 in North African authors: chance for reconstructing the most ancient text?

The aim of this paper is to attempt to shed new light upon the early text of Rev 19-21. It is known that the book of Revelation has played a very particular role in the history of the text of the New Testament; while it was contested by many Christian authors of the East part of the Empire, it presents a significantly tradition in the West part, above all in North Africa. One of the reasons of its difficult acceptance was the passage related to the millennial kingdom of Christ and the coming of the New Jerusalem (Rev 19-21). The peculiar history of Revelation interpretation has influenced the scarcity of witnesses that we have nowadays; the most ancient one that retains the Greek text of these chapters, in fact, is the Codex Sinaiticus (IV century). As far as the Old Latin text is concerned, we preserved a continuity tradition in North Africa, but the earliest direct witness at our disposal, the Fleury Palimpsest, stops at Rev 16:5. In this critical situation, this research would propose the study of North African authors’ quotations of Rev 19-21 in order to try to establish, when possible, the early Latin text of these chapters which influenced the exegesis of the early Christian communities. This research could also allow us to make some considerations on the Greek text and to deal with the still actual debate concerning the possibility of recognizing a “Western” text type of Revelation.