Subject: Re: Eph 5:9

From: "William L. Petersen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 15:07:11 -0500

At 02:46 PM 4/3/97 +0100, Ulrich Schmid wrote:
>On Tue, 1 Apr 1997, Bill Petersen wrote (inter alia):

>The harmonizations/assimilations in Codex Bezae (D) are especially
interesting, 
>not only because of the outstanding number of occurences, but also because of 
>some rather peculiar features. However, up to now I do not feel the need to 
>account for them with reference to the Diatessaronic tradition. As far as I
can 
>see every Gospel MS displays some (some even more) harmonistic tendencies. 
>Granted that even Marcions Gospel seems to display a few harmonistic readings, 
>we may infer that harmonizations demonstrably happened earlier in time than
the 
>composition of the Diatessaron. Therefore, the sheer amount of harmonistic 
>readings in D in itself does not, in my view, somehow naturally point to
contact 
>with the Diatessaronic tradition.

You are quite correct in this:  harmonization--in and of itself--is, of
course, not proof of a link with the Diatessaron;  furthermore, as I pointed
out in that post (or an earlier one), and in an article in *NTS* in 1990,
harmonizations antedate the Diatessaron, most notably in the form of
whatever the harmonized gospel was which Justin used...  The special
circumstances which apply to Codex Bezae are, however, more complex.  A good
starting place is to look at the apparatus in Daniel Plooij's edition of
*The Liege Harmony* (Amsterdam 1929-70), which remains one of the more
impressive editions ever undertaken, with an exquisite apparatus.  The
apparatus includes numerous Diatessaronic witnesses, both east and west, as
well as relevant Greek, Latin, Syriac, etc.,  gospel MSS.  There seems to be
a high degree of agreement, throughout (not just in
harmonizations/assimilations, but also in variant readings), between Codex
Bezae and the Diatessaronic witnesses.  That--not the willy-nilly presence
of harmonizations--is why a link between Bezae and the Diatessaron has been
proposed.  What then follows, as a corollary, is that since the Diatessaron
was earlier and a harmony, then *some* of the harmonizations, and the
exceptionally high number of harmonizations/assimilations in Bezae, are
*probably* due to Diatessaronic influence.

>
>However, I am only a beginner in Diatessaronic studies. Being more familiar
with 
>the evidence from that fascinating part of tradition might shift my point of 
>view. BTW -- Bill, apart from the work of Chase, which I did not study yet,
what 
>else would you recommend? I read Vogels on that.  
>
>Ulrich Schmid, Muenster
>

In addition to Plooij's edition, his two monographs (*A Primitive Text of
the Diatessaron* [1923] and *A Further Study of the Liege Diatessaron*
[1925];  both rather slim volumes) are excellent introductions.  Ulrich, you
are already familiar with Vogels (I assume you are referring to his *Die
Harmonistik im Evangelientext des Codex Cantabrigiensis* [1910]).  This,
however, is only semi-useful for the Diatessaron connection.  Vogels'
*Beitraege zur Geschichte des Diatessaron im Abendland* (1919) is much more
useful and mature.  Chase's work is, however, probably the most direct
treatment of  this problem (and, although about a century old, perhaps the
most incisive).

--Petersen, Penn State Univ.