Otto von Gebhardt

The German scholar Otto von Gebhardt (-1905), who taught at the University of Berlin and held the position of University librarian of Leipzig, specialized in textual criticism of the literature of Early Christianity. Of his vast output of articles and editions of ancient texts, acts of the martyrs^[1] and other scholarly literature, his volume of Texte Und Untersuchungen Zur Geschichte Der Altchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig, 1882)^[2] is still consulted and was reissued in 1991.

Von Gebhardt did not neglect Old Testament studies: his Psalmoi Solomontos: Die Psalmen Salomos, Leipzig 1895 offered for the first time the Greek Septuagint text and history of the eight manuscripts upon which he based his redaction.

At times he worked in tandem with Adolf von Harnack. Together they discovered the sixth- or seventh-century Codex Rossanensis of the Greek Matthew and Mark in the library of the archbishop of Rossano in Calabria, in March, 1879; the codex It is beautifully written in silver letters on very fine purple-colored vellum; it was published by von Gebhardt and Harnack in 1880^[3].

Footnotes

1. ^ Two collections of select acts of the martyrs were published as Ausgewahlte Martyrer-acten und andere Urkunden aus der Verfolgungszeit der christlichen Kirche, Berlin, 1902
2. ^ the second and third volumes of this series of edited texts with introductions were published by Adolf von Harnack, and C. Schmidt, respectively.
3. ^ As Evangeliorum Codex graecus purpureus Rossanensis, (Giesicke. & Devrient, Leipzig 1880. See also Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. iv.83. (St. Benedict. St. Nilus. St. Romuald) on-line)