Subject: Re: On "examples" and "proof"...

From: [email-masked] (Don Wilkins)
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 11:14:55 -0700 (PDT)

William L. Petersen said:

>PS:  Two more examples from Justin:
>
>Justin (Apol. 15.16) substitutes "nous" for "kardia" when citing Matt
>6.21/Luke 12.34.  The identical substitution is found in Clem. Al. Strom.
>7.12.77, QDS 17.1, and in Macarius, Hom. 43.3.  The QDS passage, like
>Justin, contains an interpolation tacked on as well:  it is the "nous tou
>anthropou" in both.  (Macarius is fourth cent., Syria/Mesopotamia, but Greek
>appears to have been the Homilies' original language).  (These readings are,
>incidentally, absent from the apparatus of the IGNT Luke, and demonstrate
>how careful one has to be when using it:  one STILL needs to manually check
>EVERYTHING via the "Biblia Patristica" volumes...)  Seems to me that this is
>a rather precise textual tradition, which circulated in the very early
>church, and was quoted identically by two of the earliest fathers....
>
>At Matt 5.16, where the critical text now reads "lampsato to fos humon,"
>Justin reads (at Apol. 16.2) "lampsato de humon ta kala erga" ("pur" has
>been cited earlier in Justin's text;  he has no "fos").  The "erga/opera
>[Lat.]" reading shows up in the following:
>
>A) Clem. Al., Strom. 3.4.36
>B) Clem. Al., Strom. 4.26.171
>        (gee, at least Clement is consistent....)
>C) Eusebius, Comm. in Ps., 28
>D) Tertullian, De cultu fem. 13
>E) Tertullian, De idolatria
>        (gee, at least Tertullian is consistent...)
>F) Origen, Ex. ad martyr. 18
>G) Origen, In ev. Ioan. 2.1.5
>        (hmmm...  Origen is consistent in his citation as well...)
>
>
>Eusebius (c. 300) is the latest of these sources;  Justin is the earliest
>(c. 150).  That means this variant had a lifespan of at least a century and
>a half, flourishing BEFORE the oldest of our uncials, and its genesis
>antedates ANY of the papyri (save P-52) by AT LEAST 25-75 years.  Only
>G)-Origen, In ev. Ioan., has a "fos" cognate ("fotos") in his citation...
>Again, an early variant, widespread (Latin, Greek;  Rome, Alexandria,
>Caesarea, Carthage), which is cited either verbatim or in a very similar
>form by all of the above.  Strikes me like a legitimate variant, the
>earliest version of the text we have, right?  (If anyone has an earlier
>citation/MS, please inform us....)

I regret not having had the time to read all the posts and consequently
being ignorant of much that has been said.  However, I would like to
comment on this postscript.  In many "citations" a textual variation seems
to be nothing more than a paraphrase of the autograph and hardly worthy of
being considered a true variant.  The substitution of nous for kardia
strikes me as an obvious example of this, so that its occurrence even in
early authors can probably be written off as coincidence.
        The case of lampsato ktl. seems more interesting, so I did a few
searches on the TLG.  It appears, first of all, that Justin's "lampsato de
humon ta kala erga" (with or without "de") occurs nowhere else.  Granted,
one can find variations on Matthew's "humon ta kala erga" with lampsato
elsewhere, but the more paraphrastic the form in the fathers, the more
tenuous the reference.
        I apparently don't understand the comment "gee, at least Clement is
consistent...." because in fact Clement has "lampsatw to phos humon" twice
in his Excerpta ex Theodoto (1.3.1 and 2.41.3), following Matthew exactly.
On the other hand, in Strom. 3.4.36 he has "ta agatha humon erga lampsato"
(different word order and agatha for kala) and in Strom. 4.26.171 he has
"lampsato gar sou ta erga".  These variations strike me as paraphrases,
especially in light of Clement's citations in the Excerpta.  Moreover, I
also did a search of "lampsato to fos humon" and found it to be
comparatively prolific: Clement (already cited), Gregory of Nyssa (at least
3 times), Basil (at least 4 times), Origen (Contr. Celsum 5.10, 3 times in
ev. Ioan., once in ev. Matt., and once in Frag....Corinth.), at least once
in Asterius (comm. in Psalmos, 4th cent), many times in Chrysostom, at
least once in Didymus the Blind (Frag. in Psalmos), at least 3 times in
Macarius (Sermones 64, Hom. spirit., and Epist. magna), at least twice in
John of Damascus, and at least 3 times in Theodoretus (Interp. in Psalmos,
Explan. in Cant., and Interp. in xii epist...Pauli).  These include some
later fathers, but not much later than the fourth cent. and in any case one
may ask why better examples of the lampsato...erga variation are not more
common.  Mr. Petersen's reference to Origen's Ex. ad martyr has "lampsanton
autou ton kalon ergon", which again could be viewed as mere paraphrase, and
I must either admit confusion or misunderstanding of his reference to ev.
Ioan. 2.1.5, where I find only "para to lampein autou ta erga emprosthen
ton anthropon photos".  This latter case has to be viewed either as a
conflation or (more likely) paraphrase as well, and I fail to see how it
contributes to the defense of lampsato...erga as a legitimate variant.
Unfortunately I do not have convenient access to Tertullian (who is not
included on the PHI disk), or I would have searched there as well.

If I have missed or oversimplified something I apologize in advance
(especially to Mr. Petersen), and hope that I have at least contributed
additional useful citations.

Don Wilkins
UC Riverside

Don Wilkins
UC Riverside

---

From: Alan Repurk <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 11:30:37 -0700

Anyone here ever heard of punctuation found in an Aramaic  
manuscript of this verse held by the Vatican ?

tia
-lars