medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I apologize for the delayed response, but there is more to be said on at least
the Philo example.
> did prof Tigay mean changes in the mss of classical authors? I doubt that e.g.
> in Plato mss. you would find such "corrections".
Yes, he certainly is interested in any such modifications (see his question
and the example he cites).
> But monarchic theologians did change polytheistic texts in quoting them.
>
> Eg. Philo De ebriet. 150 quotes the classic line from Hesiod Erga 289
> "tes d'aretes hidrota theoi (!) proparoithen ethekan"
> as
> "tes d'aretes hidrota theos (!) proparoithen etheken"
This is a tough call. I don't have a critical edition of Hesiod at hand, but I
do have Philo, and of the four Greek MSS/families known to Cohn and Wendland,
one (H) has the plural QEOI ... AQANATOI in this passage while the others (UFG)
have QEOS ... AQANATOS. The verb in all these witnesses (including H)
apparently is in the singular (EQHKEN), while the Hesiod passage has the
similar plural form (EQHKAN), as noted above.
According to TLG, the Hesiod line 289 is also quoted by more than 20 other
authors with QEOI ... EQHKAN (seldom followed by AQANATOI, which begins the next
line), and only a couple of times apart from Philo with QEOS ... EQHKEN --
Nicolaus Mesarites (12-13th c) and Joannes Siculus (11th c). But perhaps a
closer look at the manuscript evidence for all these authors would uncover other
adjustments between plural to singular among the manuscript witnesses. A modern
editor faced with a choice here is likely to go with the plural as the correct
text.
What did Philo write? If he used the singular QEOS ... EQHKEN AQANATOS, a later
copyist spotted the divergence from other known versions of the popular quote
and corrected it (except perhaps for the verb) to the plural. If Philo
originally wrote the plural construction, a later copyist or copyists changed it
to the singular. Note that in Greek uncial writing, confusion between and iota
and a sigma would not be unusual in some hands (especially if combined with
other factors such as theological conditioning), and -KAN / -KEN variation is
also easy to imagine in such circumstances.
In short, Philo may actually have quoted accurately. But in any event, it is a
good example for Professor Tigay's purposes, since someone modified the material
in the direction of monotheism.
> Same in the famous speech of Paul on the Areospagus, Acts 17,23
> where he changes to "theooi agnostooi"
> what was plural on the inscripition of the altar: "diis ignotis (et
> peregrinis)" (details in Norden, Agnostos theos).
Didymus of Alexandria and Jerome already make this claim (that Paul changed the
plural to singular), so even if it is not true (and there are arguments both
ways), there was already suspicion in antiquity that such things happened.
> Now I think, but I do not have a good edition with apparatus at hand that no
> scribe would have corrected Hesiod's plural to singular in the text itself.
> Think of the absurd case of Homer would present to a scribe with such
> intentions, despite the fact that Homer (like Hesiod) was part of the
> undergrad syllabus in Byzantium. Basileios would have surely objected to the
> practice "ad usum Dolphini".
> An interesting case to look at - it occurs to me now - would be Euripid, since
> he was generally considered as a precursor of monarchic theology.
> In the case of the Eisagoge, however, which was not a "classic", but a logic
> textbook, I can easily imagine that a scribe did not feel constrained by the
> authority of Porphyry.
> As a general observation, however I would add that the LXX has "gods" (in
> various cases) around 150 times ... I think of eg. Ps 82,1 LXX , since it is
> quite clear Who is the "god of gods" Deut 10, 17 and Ps 84, 7. :)) In these
> cases "gods" used to be interpreted as "angels".
And, as I already noted (and as Professor Tigay well knows), even changed the
text (or created a text) to read "angels"! These sort of phenomena in the making
of translations also bear close scrutiny.
> I hope it helps.
Very much so. Thanks!
Bob Kraft (also for Jeff Tigay)
> Best,
> George
>
>
> G. Gereby
> associate professor
> Ancient and Mediaeval Philosophy Department, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest
> recurrent associate professor
> Medieval Studies Dept.
> Central European University
> Budapest V.
> Nador u. 9.
> H-1051 Hungary
> [log in to unmask]
> + 36.1.3273046 office
> >>> [log in to unmask] 09/08/05 2:21 AM >>>
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> My colleague, Jeff Tigay, has posed the following question, which I'm forwarding
> to the MEDTEXTL and MEDIEVAL RELIGION lists (further crossposting is
> encouraged). I will relay relevant replies to Prof. Tigay.
>
> A similar phenomenon is well known from the Septuagint manuscripts of Genesis
> 6.1-4 (sons of god // angels), and perhaps elsewhere in those materials. But
> Prof. Tigay is especially interested in "pagan" texts and their variants.
>
> Bob Kraft, UPenn
>
> Forwarded message:
> > Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2005 20:17:28 -0400
> > To: Robert Kraft <[log in to unmask]>
> > From: Jeffrey Tigay <[log in to unmask]>
> > Subject: question
> >
> > A question: In some mss of Porphyry's Introduction to Aristotle (Isagoge),
> > instead of "the gods" the text reads "angels." The usual assumption is that
> > a Christian copyist cleaned up the text to avoid the polytheistic
> > reference. It occurred to me that this can hardly be the only instance of a
> > monotheistic revision of some such expression in a pagan text. Have you
> > ever come across this in Christian copies/translations/paraphrases of Greek
> > works?
> >
> > Many thanks,
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > ___________________________________________________________________________
> >
> > Jeffrey H. Tigay ([log in to unmask])
> > Ellis Professor of Hebrew & Semitic Languages & Literatures
> > Graduate Chair, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
> > University of Pennsylvania
> > 847 Williams Hall, Philadelphia PA 19104-6305
> > Tel. 215-898-6339 (department: 215-898-7467). Fax. 215-573-9617
> > http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jtigay
> > ___________________________________________________________________________
--
Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827
[log in to unmask]
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html
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