Sefer ha-Middot: New Light from the Manuscripts

Sefer ha-Middot is a small, anonymous, late medieval Hebrew book about the virtues and the vices. It was composed c. 1400 as a traditional Jewish alternative to existing works in its genre, which were either philosophical in their outlook or not specifically Jewish in their origins or their tone.

With a single exception, all of the manuscript evidence for the text of the full body of the book dates from the late 15th century or afterwards. These manuscripts (along with the later printed editions under the title Orhot Zaddiqim) reflect a version of the book in which certain chapters are artificially conflated. In terms of smaller textual details none of them are excellent, but some are relatively better than others. The Adler manuscript, which contains the entire text from beginning to end and is relatively superior in its accuracy, would serve as the best base text for a critical edition.

The single exception is Ms. Warsaw, which is a copy of an abridgment of the full text from 1430. The abridged text in this manuscript seems to have no literary merit, and even its relative brevity is of little practical advantage to the reader. But the order and division of its chapters seems to reflect the original sequence of the book. It contains a synopsis called Simanei Sefer ha-Middot that is missing in other versions, as well as evidence that certain parts of the known version were rewritten by the author himself or by a later hand.