Subject: Athanasius and the Text of the NT

From: "John Brogan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 22:54:37 EST5EDT

Members of the TC List,

Although I should be making final revisions to my dissertation
(either that or grading the mounds of papers and exams on my desk), I
felt I needed to respond to the requests for further information
concerning Athanasius and his influences on the transmission of the
NT.  I have recently defended my dissertation entitled "The Text of
the Four Gospels in the Writings of Athanasius" at Duke University.
As other dissertations, it will be copyrighted and distributed by
UMI on microfische (although I am uncertain how quickly it will be
available).  I also hope to submit it for review for publication in
SBLNTGF this month, but who knows how long that whole process will
take!

On Wed, 16 Apr 1997,  Bart Ehrman responded to Ulrich Schmid with
the following comments concerning "ideological and theological 
disputes in the early church" and their influences on the
transmission of the NT text...

> Ulrich,
>
>    [snip]
>
> ... More recently (just now, in fact) there have been two very
> interesting dissertations that I'm aware of, Kim Haines-Eitzen's
> study of the social location of early Christian scribes (not
> completed yet, but includes, e.g., a chapter on women scribes in
> the Greco-Roman world) and John Brogan's study of Athanasius, which
> argues for specific instances of the trinitarian controversies
> affecting his text, and further for some instances in which
> Athanasius's theologically related modifications entered into the
> MS tradition, specifically with some of the corrections in Codex
> Sinaiticus... 

The results of my study of Athanasius' text of the Gospels (stated
briefly) confirm that Athanasius preserves an Alexandrian form of
the text.  I used a full quantitative analysis (Colwell and Tune)
which showed that Athanasius displays a higher percentage of
agreement with Alexandrian witnesses than those from other groups.  
A Comprehensive Profile analysis (Ehrman) reveals that Athanasius'
text is more closely aligned to the "Secondary Alexandrians"  rather
than the "Primary Alexandrians." If anyone is interested, I would be
willing to send copies of my statistics to them (or post them on this
list if desired).   

Closer examination of the types of changes Athanasius made to his
text reveals that he corrupts his NT texts for polemical and
theological reasons.  For example, in his 39th Paschal Letter, when
citing Jn 5:39, Athanasius omits the portion of the verse "you think
that in them you have eternal life."  This omission is supported
only by a citation by Didymus.  In the case of Athanasius, I argue
that he omits this portion of the verse because it could appear as a
negative comment about scripture and would weaken his argument that
the canonical scriptures are "the fountains of salvation."  Several
other omissions, substitutions of words, additions, grammatical
changes, and conflations exist in Athanasius' references to the
Gospels.  These corruptions are made for rhetorical purposes.

Interestingly, Athanasius shows a peculiar affinity to the
corrections of Sinaiticus.  Within the text of the Gospels preserved
by Athanasius, there exists 25 units of significant variation
(non-singular readings) where Sinaiticus and its Correctors split.
Athanasius agrees with the Correctors in 23 instances (92%).
Comparative studies indicate that Athanasius' level of agreement
with AlephCor is much higher than any other witness or father.  This
shows that the types of changes attested, or in some cases even
produced, by Athanasius eventually make their way into the stream of
textual transmission.

Why is this the case?  As an important leader of the church,
Athanasius' writings and teachings influenced many of the nameless
Alexandrian scribes responsible for copying the NT texts.  In other
words, Athanasius was an influential member of the "interpretive
community" to which these scribes belonged.  As scribes read the
texts they were copying, they remembered how that text had been
interpreted in their community (e.g. what they had read or heard
leaders such as Athanasius say about the text).  In certain
instances, in copying the NT text, these scribes made it "read" what
they already knew it to "mean."  

As a final point, I would argue that the text of the NT was more 
fluid in the 4th century than most textual critics (e.g. Colwell and
recently Robinson) have been willing to admit.  The changes that can
be seen in the Alexandrian text supports this.  As theology and
canon became fixed in the late-4th and 5th centuries, the text also
became fixed (in the Byzantine text-type).  Thus, ideological and
theological disputes played an important role in the shaping and
transmission of the NT text.

I am open to comments and critiques...

John Brogan

====================================
John J. Brogan
Assistant Professor of Religion
Department of Religion and Theology
Calvin College
(616) 957-6322

---

From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:52:34 -0400 (EDT)

> transmission of the NT text.

This is the only part of Brogan's post which involves me, and I must say
that I basically concur with his observations and am not at all surprised. 

As I have mentioned in private correspondence to Bob Waltz, even the MSS
which most closely pertain to the Byzantine Textform are not all one nor
all alike, but individually contain many non-Byzantine readings. Looking
at this _de majoris ad minores_, it should be no surprise that the
Alexandrian witnesses from the fourth century onward might have been
particularly liable to corrective influence from non-Alexandrian readings,
whether theologically-based or manuscript-based.

However, I also must take exception to the claim that the Byzantine
Textform seems to become inviolably fixed after the 4th-5th centuries. The
"fluid" nature of readings and continued "mixture" clearly persists into
most MSS of the later minuscule era, even though not obliterating the
assignation of such MSS to the Byzantine Textform (the readings of a
certain minuscule designated by NA27 as "Byzantine" and a component part
of "M" happened to have been in view in my private discussion with Waltz).

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

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 97 17:26:27 +0100

Thanks to John Brogan for sharing very interesting results from his study on 
Athanasius' Gospel text. I would be delighted to get in touch with the concrete 
data.

>SBLNTGF this month, but who knows how long that whole process will

Congratulations and good luck!

[snip]

>Gospels.  These corruptions are made for rhetorical purposes.

Good point. Rhetorical purposes, in my experience, should be addressed more 
seriously when assessing Church Father testimonies, especially singular 
readings.   

>with AlephCor is much higher than any other witness or father.  

Now, this is extremely fascinating. I would love to have the readings.

>This shows that the types of changes attested, or in some cases even

What types of changes are involved? How can you assure that it was Athanasius 
who produced them? What correctors hand's readings of Aleph are involved and how 
are the datings? Fascinating stuff, indeed.

>they already knew it to "mean."  

Given the fact that there is substantial evidence to the claim that Athanasius 
or like-minded "interpretive communities" were indeed resposible for creating 
these readings, I would consider this a valuable hypotheses.
I really would love to have the whole argument rather than only the readings. 

>recently Robinson) have been willing to admit. 

Sorry, but I can't really deal with points like that. What does it mean "that 
the text of the NT was more fluid in the 4th century..." I suspect that we 
usually do not take into account the "fluidy" of some 9-14th centuries MSS 
despite of the relative stability of the text-type the vast majority of them 
displays. 

> The changes that can

Overall conclusion like this somehow sound both logic and exciting, but let's 
look at the evindence...

>John Brogan

Again, I would love to get in touch with the data as well as the whole argument. 
Thanks so far for stimulating bits and bites.

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster