medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Bob,
did prof Tigay mean changes in the mss of classical authors? I doubt that e.g. in Plato mss. you would find such "corrections".
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"
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).
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".
I hope it helps.
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
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>>> [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
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http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html
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