Subject: Re: Patristic statistics

From: "Dale M. Wheeler" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Nov 1996 08:13:40 -0800

>Mark Arvid Johnson wrote:
>I did some more digging and found some interesting statistics of patristic
>citations. The source is Wilbur Pickering, adapted from Kurt Aland. They
>are taken from Pickering's review of Kurt Aland's article "The Text of the
>Church":
>
>			Egyp	Both	Maj	Other	# Pass
>
>Marcion (160?)		23% 	10% 	18% 	49% 	94 
>Irenaeus (d. 202)	16% 	16.5% 	16.5% 	51% 	181 
>Clement Alex. (d. 215)	13.5% 	29% 	15% 	42.5% 	161 
>Origen (d. 254)	16.5% 	28% 	17% 	38.5% 	459 
>Hippolytus (d.235)	14.5% 	18% 	21% 	46.5% 	
>Methodius (280?) 	12.5% 	31% 	19% 	37.5% 	32 
>Adamantius (d.300)	11.5% 	21% 	31% 	36.5% 	29 
>Asterius (d.341)	0% 	40% 	50% 	10% 	30 
>Apst. Const. (380?)	3% 	33% 	41% 	23% 	46 
>Epiphanius (d.403)	11% 	30% 	22% 	37% 	114 
>Chrysostom (d. 407)	2% 	38% 	40.5% 	19.5% 	915 
>Severian (d.408)	3% 	37% 	30% 	30% 	91 
>Theod. Mops. (d. 428)	4.5% 	29% 	39% 	27.5% 	28 
>Marcus Erem. (d. 430) 	5.5% 	35% 	35% 	24.5% 	37 
>Hesychius (d. 450)	3.5% 	37.5% 	33% 	26.5% 	84 
>Theodotus (d. 445)	3% 	37.5% 	37.5% 	22% 	16 
>Theodoret (d. 466)	1% 	41% 	42% 	16% 	481 
>John Damascus (d. 749)	2% 	40% 	40% 	18% 	63
>
>Obviously, something happenned in the fourth century; the question is what
>was it. Several explanations have been advanced, from an official Byzantine
>recension, to the textual effects of the Arian controversy, to wider
>collation of MSS after the Edict of Milan.
>

I've not read Pickering's article, but when I read Aland's I think I had
the same question which lies behind Pickering's reordering of the 
statistics; a quick recalculation of the statistics showed a completely
different picture than the one being painted by Aland; namely, if anything
can be said about the early Fathers' quotations, its that they used a 
Byz Vorlage as often as an "Alex" one (whatever that might have been).

But that raised for me two additional questions. One was that Aland was
claiming that there was a high agreement with the Alex text, but I think
what he meant was ANY READING FOUND IN ANY ALEX TEXT that wasn't found
in Byz mss. I could be wrong here, but I don't recall him making any 
claification on the issue and that the presentation seemed to indicate 
that the reading only had to be found in Alex mss to be called Alex. 
It seems to me that was not very sound methodology.

The other thing that troubled me was that, when you look at where these
"Fathers" lived it isn't surprising that certain ones show tendencies to
one type of text as opposed to another; unless you assume--as I infer
Aland believed--that the text was basically the same everywhere in 
Christian communities throughout the world and that when it changed, it
changed with relative uniformity throughout the Christian world. Thus, if
we had early Byz Fathers, they would show the same evidence of using an
"Alex" text. Aside from it being an argument from silence, the textual
variety in Egypt makes me wonder about the validity of such an assumption.
BTW, I think that such an assumption lies behind the current interest in
the "growth" theory once again (?). 

I'd be interested to know what you all think about the supposed uniformity
of the text across all geographical boundaries at various stages of the
church.

Of course, with the high incident of Fathers (excluding Marcion) having
readings so far not found in any mss, one has to wonder about the validity
of the exercise at all ??  Esp., since Aland claimed they had culled out
all of the "Non-quotations" from the analysis.

***********************************************************************
Dale M. Wheeler, Th.D.
Research Professor in Biblical Languages        Multnomah Bible College
8435 NE Glisan Street                               Portland, OR  97220
Voice: 503-251-6416    FAX:503-254-1268     E-Mail: [email-masked] 
***********************************************************************

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 1996 12:12:23 -0700

>It seems to me that was not very sound methodology.

If what Wheeler says is true, this is indeed bad methodology.

It was Colwell who pointed out that a text-type is a collection of
*manuscripts*, not a collection of readings. We can only call a
reading "Alexandrian" if it is the clear reading of those manuscripts
and only of those manuscripts!

>of the text across all geographical boundaries at various stages of the

This will depend strongly on one's definition of text-types. I'll give
my examples from Paul, since I know it best. Most people would say that
the Alexandrian text consists of p46 Aleph A B C 33 etc.

However, Zuntz felt, and I agree, that p46-B and Aleph-A-C-33 are
*separate* text-types. Moreover, *both* were found in Egypt in the
fourth century (since B, Aleph, and at least some Coptic texts come
from that period). Egypt also had at least two distinct texts in
the third century: the p46/B text and the Origenic text (similar to
family 1739).

This phenomenon seems to carry across into other parts of the corpus as
well -- e.g. in Acts we have both Alexandrian and "Western" papyri; in
the Catholic Epistles we see p72 and Origen. In other words, not only
was the text not homogeneous *across* boundaries in the third century,
it was not homogenous *within* boundaries.

>all of the "Non-quotations" from the analysis.

Again, agreed. Good methodology should focus on a particular set of
*readings*, not on whatever passages the father offers data for.
This study seems very badly controlled.

Although, as Robinson pointed out, we really need to see the articles
to know exactly what is being claimed.

Bob Waltz
[email-masked]

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 00:05:08 -0500 (EST)

> Byz Vorlage as often as an "Alex" one (whatever that might have been).

This was precisely Pickering's point in his article, which simply viewed
the identical statistical data from within a pro-Byzantine perspective.

> It seems to me that was not very sound methodology.

This the readers of the list should determine for themselves by reading
Aland's original article.

> of the text across all geographical boundaries at various stages of the

I certainly would not concur with such a hypothesis, but would suggest an
overarching original Textform which heavily influenced and
semi-"controlled" the text in all areas at all times, but which did not
preclude localized variant texttypes and subtypes.

_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Professor of Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 00:13:08 -0500 (EST)

> and only of those manuscripts!

I differ on this point.  As I have previously noted a texttype is a
_pattern_ of readings which, when linked together and viewed as a whole,
is fairly clear and definable.  MSS which are part of a specific texttype
share readings from that pattern in a significant percentage amount. But
_some_ readings within that pattern may also be present in other MSS not
of that texttype, just as some MSS within that texttype may have a lower
percentage of agreement with the pattern than others.  MSS do not make
texttypes -- patterns of readings define texttypes, and MSS fit into such
patterns in various ways.