Lighting Shabbat Candles III-Phantom Sources
Found throughout the literature which discusses whether a blessing is recited over the lighting of shabbat candles, there are a number of “phantom sources,” sources which aren’t found in the extant literature. The first example of a “phantom sources” is from Abraham ha-Yarhi’s Sefer Ha-Manhig. In Yitzhak Rafael’s edition this can be found on p. 146 and I have also added the word לברך, to bless, based upon other textual witnesses.
And Rabbi Aha of Shabha wrote that one needs [to bless] “to light the shabbat candle”…and Rabbi Aha also wrote that in the case of a shabbat candle [one needs] to bless…
Abraham ha-Yarhi is apparently referring to the Sheiltot which was written by Aha of Shabha. As pointed out by B.M. Lewin in Otzar Ha-Geonim, Shabbat, p. 27, and Y. Rafael in his edition of Sefer ha-Manhig, there is no such source in the version of the Sheiltot which is extant today. This does not mean that there never was such a source in the Sheiltot, just that today we have no textual witnesses for such a source.
A second source is first found in Sefer ha-Raviah, Aptowitzer ed. p. 263, and later in the Or Zaruah.
And the blessing on the shabbat candle is explicit in [the ninth chapter of tractate Berachot in the Jerusalem Talmud
As pointed out by Aptowitzer, there is no such source in the Jerusalem Talmud. This seems to be an example of a source from the infamous Sefer Yerushalmi and not from the Jerusalem Talmud itself.