The Armenian Textual and Interpretive Traditions of Philo’s De Decalogo

The major thrust of this paper is to underscore the Armenian variant renditions of the Greek text of Philo’s De Decalogo. Although Cohn accounts for these variants in the apparatus criticus of his edition of the Greek text, he does not seem to allow the Armenian text any favorable reading to help emend likely corruptions in the Greek. There are instances where Colson has rightly questioned certain of Cohn’s readings of the Greek text. Taking up these instances as initial cases for consideration, the paper assesses the validity of Cohn’s other, possibly questionable readings. It concludes with a brief reflection on the Armenian text’s outright departures from the original Greek, with some remarks on the Armenian reception history of this work of Philo.