‘Promise and fulfillment’, ‘Verheissung und Erfüllung’, is a familiar phrase in New Testament theology. It has furnished the title for at least one notable book, and occupies considerable sections of other works in the New Testament field. It is a well-known fact, too, that, in some senses at least, it belongs also to the Old Testament scene. It is possible, as an article by W. Zimmerli illustrates, to tell the Old Testament story under the same title.

Most modern editions of the New Testament have in Mark x. 46 the following reading: καὶ ἔρχονται εἰς ’׀εριχὼ καὶ ἐκπορευομένου αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ ’׀εριχὼ καὶ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ καὶ ὄχλου ἱκανοῦ ὁ νἱÒς Τιμαίου Bαρτίμαιος, τυφλὸς προσίτης, ἐκάθητο παρὰ τὴν ὁδὸν I do not think that there is any reason for not accepting this reading as the original one (although we can never be quite sure). But several variants are as I think of great interest for the history of the text. To begin with, D supported by 61 258 481 and Origen (partly) has ἔρχεται instead of ἔρχονται and this reading is also presupposed in many Old Latin MSS. (a b d ff i r: uenit). This alteration, which has many analogies, corresponds with the following ἐκπορευομένου. More important, however, is the continuation. There are many witnesses which instead of ἀπὸ ’׀εριχὼ have ἐκεῖθεν. This variant is also to be found in D and Latin MSS (a b d f ff i q r: inde), and is moreover supported by ϴ and 700, although these MSS have ἐκεῖθεν in another place, namely not until after the words τῶν μαθητῶν (αὐτοῦ). Another MS with many interesting readings, 565, has first ἀπὸ ’׀εριχώ and then later, in spite of this, ἐκεῖθεν. This last text is obviously a contamination of two readings, the original one with ἀπὸ ’׀εριχώ and a revised one with ἐκεῖθεν. For it is surely evident that ἐκεῖθεν was put in as an amendment, in order to avoid the repetition of the town-name. The presupposition then of course is that the Vorlage had this repetition. That is of some interest, as the words καὶ ἔρχονται εἰς ’׀εριχώ are missing in B prima manu (and 63). The revised text with ἐκεῖθεν thus can even help us to reconstruct the original text, as it can be booked here as a witness against B. How the text of B* is to be explained is another question, but it is near at hand to think that this is another amendment in order to avoid the repetition and to get a more apt beginning for the pericope.

In the autumn of 1947 Togo Mina, Director of the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo, showed to Jean Doresse a Coptic manuscript acquired the previous year, which we today call Codex III. Doresse recognized its gnostic character and its importance, and began inquiries as to whether there were other manuscripts in the same find, a find dated ‘about 1945’. Parts of one other codex—today called Codex I—were located in the possession of a Belgian antiquities dealer Albert Eid. This incomplete codex was subsequently taken out of Egypt and, via America and Benelux, emerged in Zürich, where it was purchased for the Jung Institute by Mr George H. Page and named the Jung Codex. It was presented to Jung as a birthday gift, and is not, as one usually infers from the literature, the possession of the Jung Institute, but rather of the heirs of C. G. Jung. An agreement to return it to Egypt after its publication has been made in principle. The Gospel of Truth (1, 2) has been turned over to the Egyptian Embassy in Berne, and from there wad returned to the Coptic Museum; however, the tractate On the Resurrection (1, 3), though published, ahs not been thus far returned. What is still in Zürich is in the Leu Bank.