Bryennios List — a Source Less Known about the Old Testament Canon
The "Bryennios list" is a catalog of the Old Testament books. It is contained in Codex Hierosolymitanus, a manuscript discovered by Metropolitan Philotheos Bryennios (1833-1917). The list is written on folio 76a of the Codex and introduced by the title: "The names of the books among the Hebrews." This valuable document has remained unnoticed by Romanian Orthodox theologians, and there is no mention of it in the main Old Testament handbooks published in the Romanian Orthodox Church. In this article, I have set out to give a detailed but not exhaustive account of the Bryennios list. Both the Greek text and the Romanian translation in this paper reproduce the exact layout of the manuscript. Comments on the contents of the list, the order of the books, and their Semitic names are also provided. Although the origin and date of the Bryennios list are debated among scholars, there are good reasons to date it in the first half of the 2nd century or even earlier. Romanian Orthodox handbooks point to Melito of Sardis as the first Christian writer to transmit the catalog of the Old Testament books. In my opinion, this view has to be revised. The Bryennios list is based on a canonical tradition predating Melito of Sardis's list.