Subject: Fathers (fwd)

From: Bart Ehrman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 15:54:17 -0400 (EDT)

I've now looked at Waltz's web page and understand it's allure.  It is
nice to have brief overviews of information so handily set out, and I
understand why he's getting some vocal support here.  But let me emphasize
that if the information provided is by the admission of its author
based on incomplete research and inadequate sources, and that it contains
to-this-stage-undetected inaccuracies, I still think it would be
better to *wait* until it is responsibly done before posting it for the
world to see.  That's what all of us have to do when we're publishing, and
I should think that this kind of minimal standard isn't too much to ask of
internet publication.

   Several other comments and queries:

	(1) For those who have access to a reasonably OK public or
college library, I'd suggest consulting not only the patrologies that Bill
Petersen mentioned, but also the standard reference tool (which is
thoroughly researched and highly accurate), _The Oxford Dictionary of the
Christian Church_, ed. by F. L. Cross and, now, E. A. Livingstone.  It
provides much briefer info on all of the important patristic than the
patrologies, more like Waltz's entries, and is for the most part
completely reliable (though there are places where each of us might put a
different spin on things here and there).   Anecdotally, I might add that
when I was a graduate student, Bruce Metzger told me that he kept this
volume on his desk, and that this is the one book he told graduate
students that they should buy if they could buy only one.

	(2) Several times Mr. Waltz has indicated that the info about the
Fathers that he provides (unlike the patrologies) is only that which is of
importance for textual criticism.  But I'm confused by this.  What
information about a father would *not* be of importance for textual
criticism?  

	(3) M. Johnson mentions that most information about Patristic
sources for textual criticism is in the journals.  No one has referred,
though, to the monograph series devoted to the subject, _The New Testaemnt
in the Greek Fathers_ (Scholars Press), started by Gordon Fee, which I've
edited for several years now (editorial board of Fee, Metzger, and Bill
Petersen).  Two issues:

	(a) If anyone -- now that we're on the subject -- has suggestions
for improving the seriest, I'd be good to know.  (I found V. Broman's
comments on Rod Mullen's contribution to be very useful, e.g.)  

	(b) There are several volumes "in the works" for the series,
including disssertations being finished or having been finished on Origen,
Athanasius, and Basil.  If anyone is interested in thinking about making a
contribution, please contact me.  The fields are white for harvest!

-- Bart D. Ehrman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:44:27 -0500 (CDT)

>I should think that this kind of minimal standard isn't too much to ask of

I'm going to shock some of you by agreeing, in outline, with Ehrman's
comment.

Certainly, if I/we decide to keep the page up, I am going to make
some immediate changes:

1. I will add a warning that the page is incomplete
2. I'm going to add information about my sources.
3. I made some misguided attempts to harmonize my sources. I will
   eliminate that.

And, of course, I will work to improve the entries.

But if the page is a good idea, then it seems to me worthwhile to
keep it up while we work on it. Why? Because it's the best way
to get feedback. Jean Valentin gave me some useful information
about Armenian fathers. Vincent Broman pointed me to some
useful work on Cyril of Jerusalem. Ulrich Schmid supplied
information about all sorts of topics.

There is a vast amount of TC knowledge on this list. If anyone
wants to help out, I will gladly give full credit. For example,
Ehrman knows more about the text of Didymus than I will ever
learn in my life. If he would write, say, 200 words on the
topic, I would be thrilled.

I would also point out that the *entire site* is inspired by
Rich Elliot's Encyclopedia. Eventually there *will* be a better
product. (Well, better on every subject except text-types and
mathematics, anyway. :-) In the interim, I am including as
much as I can. I think a TC Encyclopedia *requires* an article
on the Fathers. I would much, *much*, MUCH rather someone else
had written it. (Believe me, folks, writing te article was
not fun.) But I've opened my web space to others, and -- other
than the contributions mentioned above and -- no one has
come forward.

The offer is still open, BTW. If someone else wants to create a
similar article, of roughly equal length, I will happily convert it
to HTML and post it.

[ ... ]

>information about a father would *not* be of importance for textual

This is a good point, too. But I can think of a few examples. Take,
say, ethnicity. Obviously it matters that Ulfilas lived among the
Goths. And spoke their language, and translated their Bible, and
was their bishop, and was rather Arian. But does it really matter,
for our purposes, whether he was born a Goth or a Roman? I don't
see how.

(I know, I know, we have no writings of Ulfilas other than the
Gothic Bible. But it's an example, OK?)

>edited for several years now (editorial board of Fee, Metzger, and Bill

While this is an important series to mention, I don't see that its
existence affects the Encyclopedia, or similar works, at all.
Obviously people who have those volumes should consult them, rather
than the Encyclopedia, for full details. On the other hand, how many
of you have the entire set on your desks?

And the very fact that the series is ongoing shows that people cannot
rely on it for everything. Obviously they can't rely on an encyclopedia
for everything, either. But let's not confuse the purposes of the
two.

Please note: I am not saying I will keep the Fathers page up (though,
right now, it's clear that a majority want it retained). The question
remains open. I just want the discussion to remain focussed on what
I consider the actual issue. :-)

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

                        Robert B. Waltz
                     [email-masked]

Want more loudmouthed opinions about textual criticism?
Try my web page: http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn
(A site inspired by the Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism)

---

From: Matthew Johnson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 19:42:25 -0700 (PDT)

On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Robert B. Waltz wrote:

> > [snip]

All excellent ideas!

> information about all sorts of topics.

Given your resolve to add the warning of its incompleteness, I agree that
this is a good idea, the volunteered info is a good example of why. 

> [snip]

Well, but even this example _could_ turn out to be important.  So, for
example, if he was born Roman learning Gothic only later in life, even
after many years of being their bishop he might still speak and write
Gothic as an obvious non-native.  Look at any immigrant church in the US
for many examples of such bishops.  This in turn would affect his choice
of vocabulary for translating passages with significant variants.  If I
recall correctly, the article reviewed at

http://shemesh.scholar.emory.edu/scripts/TC/vol02/Bakker1997rev.html

has an interesting example of this problem in the Slavonic translation
of "censum" in Acts.  The article itself is not on the web. 

> [snip]

One way in which its existence affects the Encyclopedia is that you could
compare your judgement concerning what information about the Fathers is
relevant to TC with the selection of information about the Fathers
actually used in the monographs. 

Now one difference this whole thread illustrates between the Web and a
peer-reviewed forum is that sometimes the best way to get feedback
comparable to peer-review is to put something out there and filter through
the resulting criticism to decide which is useful correction and which is
not.  I hope you will find my comments useful.  My first comment after
finally being able to connect is that I wish you had an indication of for
which of these Fathers a critical edition is available. This would
certainly be of great relevance to TC. 

The next omission I notice is that you seem to discuss the various Fathers
works only from the standpoint of _New_ Testament criticism, even when his
works are potentially useful for Old Testament (Old Latin & Vulgate)
criticism, such as Cassiodorus, who wrote a very complete commentary on
the Psalms.  Surely this in turn is significant for New Testament TC. 

Nor do I see mention of one of the very few Fathers who managed to write
commentary on the _entire_ New Testament, namely Theophylact.  True, some
of the commentaries on Paul and Acts are scarcely different from copies of
Chrysostom, but his works are still quite important for TC.  NA27 makes
frequent reference to him as well. 

Finally, since we are so lucky as to have a "terminus ad quem" for the
loss of Origen's Hexapla, I think it is worth mentioning when Caesarea was
burnt by invading Moslems, so that we know when the last date was (no, I
don't remember the date) that any other Father could have consulted
Origen's original manuscript (the copies were quickly corrupted to the
point of uselessness). 

Matthew Johnson
Waiting for the blessed hope and the appearance of the glory of our 
great God and Saviour Jesus Christ (Ti 2:13).

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 07:40:10 -0500 (CDT)

On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Matthew Johnson <[email-masked]> wrote, in part:

[ ... ]
 
>actually used in the monographs. 

Oh, agreed. I was just pointing out that the series is not a
substitute for the Encyclopedia, or vice versa.

>certainly be of great relevance to TC. 

Agreed. Unfortunately, I don't have enough information at my disposal
to do this well. If someone else does, again, I will include it.

>the Psalms.  Surely this in turn is significant for New Testament TC. 

Again I plead lack of knowledge and information.

I'd also ask a question. This is not an argument, I'm simply curious:
What is the significance of Cassiodorus's commentary on Psalms for
NT criticism? (Apart, of course, from any NT passages it cites.) Not
having seen the commentary, I feel like I'm missing something.

>frequent reference to him as well. 

Er -- that turns out not to be the case. If you look on pp. 74*-76* in
the NA27 introduction, you'll see an (allegedly) complete list of fathers
cited. (I say "allegedly" because it contains a couple of minor errors --
e.g. it does not list the Pseudo Dionysus, who is quoted, I think, twice).
Theophylact does not appear in the list.

The list of fathers for whom I provided entries was chosen according to
a very simple principle: If the author is cited in NA27 or Merk, I
included him. Otherwise, no. I know there are some important sources
omitted -- Ignatius springs to mind. But I had to have some principle.
And I decided that the lists in UBS4 and (even more so) Souter were
too much work. If enough people want me to add the fathers cited in
UBS4, I guess I'll try -- but the results won't be as good. (I refuse
even to consider trying to add everyone in Souter. Some of those I
can't even figure out the official English name for. :-)

Incidentally -- it turns out that Merk's list of Fathers cited
is very inaccurate. I haven't finished going through the gospels
yet, but I've already found three (I think it was) authors he
cites who do not appear in his list, and several more whom he
cites under the wrong abbreviation. So that's one more thing to
be added to the article.... :-)

Bob Waltz
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 97 15:57:56 +0100

On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Bart Ehrman wrote (inter alia):

> No one has referred,

>From my own experience with the series as well as with patristic testimonies in 
general I would like to add three suggestions for (IMHO) improving the series:

1) It is absolutely vital for readers of the series to have exact information on 
which readings are judged to be part of the body of readings subjected to 
quantitative analysis. When working, e.g., with Bart Ehrman's *Didymus the 
Blind* it takes a lot of stupid, even confusing work to make your way through 
the aparatus in order to figure out the units of variation judged to be 
genetically significant. I do not claim that this is impossible, but it's 
boaring and prone to error. Just as a service for the reader, why not 
highlightening the units of variation judged to be significant within the 
aparatus itself or adding lists?

2) Quantitative analysis requires _complete_ collation of all witnesses included 
in the pool. To perform this task is relatively easy, though not without 
occasional problems, as long as we are solely dealing with MSS. As soon as 
Church Father testimonies are involved we face the problem of insecure 
ascriptions of readings due to loose citation or allusion. In case of exploiting 
allusions, which no doubt is a tricky business, one would like to know why out 
of a possible range of variant units only one or two are accepted while others 
are rejected. For example, in *Didymus the Blind* (p. 88) out of an allusion 
judged to refer to Mark 4:10 only the variation unit TAS PARABOLAS was accepted 
while the possible unit ERWTWSIN has been passed with silence. I have no doubts 
that Bart Ehrman had his reasons for this judgement. However, I simply wished he 
would have told us, for, in order to arrive at the conclusion presented, a set 
of highly complex individual decisions had to be made. The more difficult 
judgements are involved the more transparency is appreciated.

3) Somehow related to point 2) is the quest for how to assess what is judged to 
be a "genetically significant" unit of variation. G.D. Fee (in a review, 
published in CBQ 53 [1991] 320f) made the important point that what might be 
considered genetically significant when dealing with MSS, must not be 
automatically considered genetically significant when Church Father testimonies 
are involved. Fee suggests that within patristic testimonies (especially 
allusions) addition/omission of particles, articles, exchange of tempora, 
singular/plural, synonymic prepositions/conjunctions are suspect to be "textual 
trivia" (Fee's expression), displaying no genealogical relationship. Granted 
this point has at least some merit, it seems vital to address this issue within 
a broader scope, thus giving it a more prominent role in future studies on 
Church Fathers' texts. It may well turn out that the Fathers can not be treated 
all the same, for some, e.g., may well prefer to adjust their own argument to 
the biblical text over the opposite attitude for which we have plenty of 
evidence. Some may even change their attitude towards the biblical text when 
writing in different genres or addressing different audiences (c.f. Clement of 
Alexandria's Protreptikos vs. Paidagogos + Stromateis). However, this has to be 
assessed, documented, and applied to the evaluation of the evidence.

To sum up: In my mind, increasing transparency on various levels is appreciated 
to improve the series. A lot has already been done. Nevertheless, still more 
could be achieved.

Ulrich Schmid (Muenster)

---

From: Vincent Broman <[email-masked]>
Date: 28 Jul 1997 20:11:41 -0000

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

[email-masked] wrote:
> If anyone -- now that we're on the subject -- has suggestions
> for improving the series [tNTitGF], it'd be good to know.

One consideration that I hope will receive due attention in the
forthcoming works will be the question of how accurately the text of
the Pater is transmitted to us in the extant MSS and critical editions,
since so much patristic literature is preserved only in late medieval copies.
This relates to two concerns, which I can illustrate from the work on Cyril
of Jerusalem by Mullen that I just reviewed.

The reliability of the biblical text reconstructed from quotations
varies from verse to verse, even from syllable to syllable, because of
variations in the opportunity or temptation to paraphrase,
variations in the consensus of the Pater's MSS, in how many times a
phrase gets quoted, etc.  The Gospel of John was one of the books where Cyril's
text leaned most heavily in the Byzantine direction, and I wondered whether
that might be related to the fact that the Sermon on the Paralytic,
which supplied many quotations from John, wasn't represented in the oldest
MS of Cyril.  Unfortunately, there was no easy way for me to find out
how good the attestation for the Sermon was, or how much effect that it
had on the statistics for John.

It occurred to me that one way for Ehrman and Fee to compromise on the use
of textual evidence that was likely to be compromised by the quotation
process (substitution of introductory conjunctions, adjustment of tense,
et al) would be to introduce some kind of weighting scheme,
so that in points of variation where the quoted evidence has impaired
credibility it is given a smaller numerical weight, and in points
where explicit reasoning in the commentary or repeated use by the Pater
give more substance to the text, it is given redoubled weight.
Compared to the approach of discarding everything but the gold, you
would have more usable data to draw on, and compared to the use-it-all
approach, you would rely most strongly on the data you judge to be best.
Of course, you would want the critic to attach the weights first to the
abstract causes of credit/discredit, instead of to the points of variation
directly, for the sake of transparency.

My other concern is a kind of circularity that I see all the time.
The editors of the critical editions of Cyril, by policy, discarded variant
readings in the NT quotations that matched a Byzantine text, because
of the overwhelming magnetic pull of the Greek Vulgate thought to operate
in the minds of copyists of the Pater's text.  Mullen made some additional
suggestions of Byzantine variants that he would discard.  Still, when
we approach the bottom line, we find that Cyril of Jerusalem's NT text
contains a very substantial Byzantine element, and Mullen said that
not much conformation by copyists to a Byzantine standard seems to have
actually occurred after all.  Now I wonder whether we need to rethink
the critical edition of Cyril without the assumption that anything Byzantine
is a late/foreign intrusion into the text of the Pater.  I'm reminded of the
old-fashioned analyses of texts that only counted variations from the TR.

Hoping to avoid such problems, I wonder what patristic literature IS
preserved in early MS sources, say pre-ninth-century?  Any specifics?
I can think of Ephrem Syrus and Didymus the blind for whom we have
fifth century MSS.  We have some Apostolic Fathers in early MSS like
Sinaiticus, which are mostly useful for OT quotations, because of
their free attitude toward the NT text.  Chrysostom, hugely popular
as he was, has only fragments that are early, if I recall correctly.
Others?

Vincent Broman         Email: [email-masked],[email-masked]     =   o     
2224 33d St.             Phone: +1 619 284 3775                    =  _ /- _   
San Diego, CA  92104-5605  Starship: 32d42m22s N 117d14m13s W     =  (_)> (_)  
___ PGP protected mail preferred.  For public key finger [email-masked] ___

---

From: Matthew Johnson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 20:42:12 -0700 (PDT)

> >> >edited for several years now (editorial board of Fee, Metzger, and Bill

I am glad Ehrman mentioned this source, but I have not found it listed
in either GRACE at GTU or MELVYL at University of California.  So either
it is in the periodicals database (in which case I did not err by much
in calling it a "journal") or even these libraries do not yet have a
copy.  If the latter, I hope people will put pressure on the publisher
to market the book more seriously.

> Again I plead lack of knowledge and information.

Quasten has much of this sort of information.  You will find yourself
pleasantly surprised at how much you can learn by spending even only a few
hours reading it. 

> having seen the commentary, I feel like I'm missing something.
My reasoning was something like this:
   1) This list is concerned with OT as well as NT criticism, so why
   restrict yourself to NT?

   2) The psalms are themselves heavily quoted in the NT, so any
   imrovement in the knowledge of the history of the text of the
   psalms has the potential to lead to an improvement in the
   knowledge of the history of the text of their citations in the
   NT.

   3) The commentary (aside from the history of its own text) tells
   us much about how people of Cassiodorus's own time and earlier
   thought about the psalms.  This in turn influences what sort
   of modifications they made to the text, whether by accident or
   in a recension.  Besides, you will find his method of explaining
   away the Old Latin translation gaffes quite amusing (e.g. "omnis
   homo mendax" which should really be "omnis homo fallax").

> Theophylact does not appear in the list.

My copy of NA26 (yes, it is 26 not 27) is 40 miles away as I write this,
so I cannot double check where I saw this but it was either NA26 or UBS
where I saw him referenced on Heb 2:7 "KhWRIS TOU THEOU" instead of
"KhARITI TOU THEOU", which Theophylact, like Oeconomicus, assumed was a
Nestorian tendentious alteration. 

> omitted -- Ignatius springs to mind. But I had to have some principle.

The omission of Ignatius seems particularly serious, more so than that of
Cassiodorus or Theophylact, since he is such an important witness to the
(possibly pre-recensional readings of the) Western text-type. 

> be added to the article.... :-)

This sounds more tedious than using the list in UBS4!

Matthew Johnson

PS: Quasten also lists bibliographical references for critical editions of
the Fathers.  Of course, by now his list is rather incomplete, but it
would at least give you a start on including some info in your own page
about which Fathers have critical editions available.  For more up-to-date
info you could try "HELLENIKE^ PATROLOGIA" by Christou Panagiotis (1974). 
If you can read NT Greek, Christou's Katharevousa shouldn't be too hard!

---

From: Matthew Johnson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 20:52:04 -0700 (PDT)

In my previous reply, the reference to Theophylact should be on
verse 2:9 in Hebrews, not 2:7.

M.J.

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 08:12:00 -0500 (CDT)

On Tue, 29 Jul 1997, Matthew Johnson <[email-masked]> wrote, in part:

[ ...many things on which I have no comment omitted... ]
 
>   1) This list is concerned with OT as well as NT criticism, so why

The Encyclopedia is devoted to NT textual criticism. I'm imitating
the Encyclopedia. If you want it broadened, talk to Rich Elliot. :-)

Seriously, I have not devoted any space to OT topics elsewhere at the
site, for the good and simple reason that I don't know enough. (I
freely confess I have no Hebrew.)

[ ... ]

>Nestorian tendentious alteration. 

This was, of course, corrected to Hebrews 2:9 in another post.

And based on the data in UBS4, the above is presumably correct.
But it's not in NA26 or NA27. For CWRIS QEOU (no TOU) NA26 and
NA27 give the evidence 0243 (listed as 0121b in NA26) 1739*
vg-ms Or-mss Ambr Hier-mss Fulg. I doubt that anyone would claim
that this is a complete list of witnesses (e.g. 424** also supports
the reading) -- but it's what NA says.

I went back and checked the list of fathers in the NA26 iontroduction
also. No Theophylact. Remember that I also recently tallied every
citation in NA27. If Theophylact is cited, I missed it.

Is it possible that this goes back to NA25?

>(possibly pre-recensional readings of the) Western text-type. 

Why do you think I mentioned him? :-)

But remember, this is an encyclopedia, not a patrology. The idea is
to help people using NA27 or Merk. As it turns out, Ignatius is not
cited in NA27, Merk, or UBS4. So any articles on him belong in a
different reference.

>This sounds more tedious than using the list in UBS4!

It is. :-)

On the other hand, although Merk is incredibly inaccurate (remember that
the apparatus is basically taken from von Soden, with mistakes of its
own added), it offers many things not found in any other pocket edition.
To begin with, it has a *full* critical apparatus. The number of variants
is much higher than in NA27. Also, it includes the (Clementine) Vulgate
with a significant critical apparatus (much fuller than the two-manuscript
version in the bilingual Nestle).

Now the simple truth is that Merk's apparatus can never be relied on;
there are some manuscripts (e.g. 330) where it almost seems it would be
more accurate to cite the inverse of his readings (yes, it's that bad),
and others (e.g. 1739) which aren't that bad but which have errors on
almost every page. But as a catalog of readings, there is nothing
currently available to replace it. Hence my decision to make it one
of the foundations for my article. But also my decision to try to
show how reliable it is.

Bob Waltz
[email-masked]