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Monday, December 10, 2018

Was Jerome Gay? When in Rome...

The Wikipedia entry on Jerome, as of 10 December 2018, has the following information at the beginning of its section on the saint's life.


The start of the second paragraph says that in Jerome's school days at Rome, "he engaged in the superficial escapades and homosexual behaviour of students there, which he indulged in quite casually but for which he suffered terrible bouts of guilt afterwards."

That was intriguing to me. I had never heard this before, though I have read some of Jerome and some scholarship on him. J. N. D. Kelly's authoritative biography mentions nothing about it. Kelly does summarize for us the evidence from Jerome's writings leading to the conclusion: "Jerome's student days were marked by sexual adventures to which he was afterwards to look back with loathing" (p. 21).

The Wikipedia entry fortunately provides a reference for the source of the information on Jerome's homosexual activities in Rome. Footnote 14 cites Robert Payne, The Fathers of the Western Church, originally published in 1951, pp. 90–92. Only one section of those three pages has anything whatsoever to do with Jerome's sexual adventures in Rome. I quote it below without comment.
A spare, pale youth with large eyes, country bred, he came to Rome only to meet the horrors he thought he had left behind. Sex tormented him. His friend Rufinus was baptized "pure as the driven snow," but of himself he said he had sinned "with unclean lips and with the eyes and with the foot and with the hand and with all his members," and he added that he deserved a second baptism of fire because he had defiled his baptismal robe, meaning simply that he had defiled his body, for in those days the candidate for baptism stood naked before the priest. Caught up in the gay activities of the students, he seems to have sinned quite casually and then to have suffered terrible bouts of repentance: at such times, like many others who were conscious of their sins, he would visit on Sundays the sepulchers of the martyrs and the apostles in the catacombs, and he remembered the horror of it when he was an old man. (p. 91)

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

The Prayer of Manasseh in Latin, and Stephen Langton

I recently came across this comment from Stephen Langton (d. 1228) in regard to the Prayer of Manasseh and its position at the end of the books of Chronicles: 
Hic oracio non est in Hebraica ueritate, nec in Regum nec in Paralipomenon, sed hic interserit eam Ieronimus (“this prayer is not in the Hebrew truth, neither in Kings nor Chronicles, but Jerome inserted it here”). 
Let me provide some context. 

The Prayer of Manasseh is one of those documents in the Vulgate Appendix. It was excluded from the biblical canon by the Council of Trent in 1546, even though it had occupied a place in biblical manuscripts and editions of the Vulgate prior to the Council. 

(Actually, I'm not exactly sure how we know that the Council excluded the Prayer. I mean, the Council doesn't mention it in the canon list, but then I don't guess you'd really expect the Prayer to get an independent mention if it's thought of as only an appendix to Chronicles. After all, Lamentations wasn't mentioned by the Council either, but I don't think anyone suspects that the Council intended to exclude Lamentations. It was just considered an appendix to Jeremiah. At any rate, the Prayer has not been considered a part of the Roman Catholic biblical canon established by the Council, while Lamentations has been so considered.) 


You can see that Gutenberg located the Prayer immediately after Chronicles (fol. 226r), though here it doesn't appear so much as an appendix as a separate work, similar to the way Esdras appears just afterwards. Same in this edition of the Vulgate edited by Jan Henten with a date of 1583 (first published 1547, described by Gordon and Cameron in NCHB 3, pp. 192–93). And in the Vatable Bible published by Stephanus 1545 (the link is to vol. 2; see vol. 1 here; described by Gordon and Cameron on p. 191).


On the other hand, here's an example of a Paris Bible (Beinecke Yale MS 793) from the thirteenth century, and the Prayer does appear without any break as the conclusion to Chronicles. The Prayer starts on fol. 210r, at the bottom right. You can see that someone later has marked the start of the Prayer, but originally its text was continuous with Chronicles. An explicit appears on the other side of the page after the Prayer, and an inicipit introduces Esdras (or, actually, Jerome's Prologue to Esdras, with the biblical text beginning on the next page). 

In this next example, Paris BNF latin 15467 from the year 1270, it is even harder to distinguish between the end of Chronicles and the Prayer. The Prayer begins in the middle of line 13 in the left column of image 220. Again, immediately after the Prayer, Jerome's Prologue to Esdras starts at the top of the next column.

Anyway, from what I hear, the Prayer of Manasseh started to appear in Latin Bibles only in about the 13th century, so these Paris Bibles are early examples, at least as preserved. 
What about before the 13th century? 

Well, the Prayer was translated into Latin from Greek, of course. Now, if you pick up your Rahlfs(-Hanhart) edition of the LXX, you will not find the Prayer listed in the Table of Contents, but you will find a work called the Odes immediately after the Psalms. The Odes consists mostly of excerpts from other parts of the Bible: Ode 1 is the Song of the Sea (Exod 15), Ode 2 is the Song of Moses (Deut 32), Ode 6 is the Prayer of Jonah (Jonah 2), Odes 7–8 are the (deuterocanonical) Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men (Daniel 3). And Ode 12 is the Prayer of Manasseh. 

(The essential book now on the Odes is by Marguerite Harl (2014). The sequence of the odes is arbitrary, and differs according to manuscripts. The earliest surviving manuscript to include the Odes is Alexandrinus. You can take a look here = CSNTM's digital images of the nineteenth-century facsimile by Thompson. The Prayer is Ode 8 in Alexandrinus, and starts at the bottom right of what is labeled in the manuscript as fol. 567 = image GA_02_0557a.jpg.)

It was as part of a similar collection of odes (cantica) that the Prayer of Manasseh first came to be known in Latin. While we know that such collections of canticles were around in Latin from at least the fourth century, the Prayer of Manasseh is clearly attested only from the sixth century, in the commentary on the Canticles by Bishop Verecundus of Junca, such an important author that he merits two separate Wikipedia pages. 

But Stephen Langton thought that Jerome was responsible for locating the Prayer after Chronicles, as you can see from the quotation at the top of this post. Langton (main subject of only a single Wikipedia page) is most famous generally for his role in the situation leading to the Magna Carta, but he is also well-known to biblical scholars for popularizing our present chapter divisions. He wrote many biblical commentaries, of which few have been printed. But the beginning of his commentary on the Prayer of Manasseh has been printed by Beryl Smalley in G. Lacombe and B. Smalley, “Studies on the Commentaries of Cardinal Stephen Langton,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 5 (1930): 1–220, on p. 158 (available here). The comment I quoted at the beginning of this post can be found there.

I'm left with some questions? Did Langton not know about Bibles that excluded the Prayer? Did he not realize that it was only during his own lifetime that the Prayer came to be located after Chronicles? Or did he think that this recent habit restored a long-abandoned practice introduced by Jerome?

Just for the record, we have no evidence suggesting that Jerome was familiar with the Prayer of Manasseh.

Saturday, August 4, 2018

On Reading the Bible Wrong

If you read the Bible and it makes you feel warm and cozy inside, you may be sure that you are reading it wrong. 
--a comment attributed to James A. Sanders by Beverly Roberts Gaventa, When in Romans: An Invitation to Linger with the Gospel according to Paul (Grands Rapids: Baker, 2016), 26 n. 5. Gaventa says she heard Sanders make this comment while she was a student at New York's Union Theological Seminary in the 1970s. According to Wikipedia, Gaventa received her MDiv from Union in 1973. 

Friday, July 27, 2018

Did Jerome Designate Tobit and Judith 'Apocrypha' or 'Agiographa'?

This week I received the newly published Sources chrétiennes (no. 592) volume containing the Préfaces aux livres de la Bible by Jerome, edited under the directorship of Aline Canellis. Along with all of the Jerome's biblical prefaces—in both Latin and French—this volume contains a 200-page introduction surveying the context of Jerome's translation work. To give you an idea of the types of things she treats, here is a list of the major headings in the introduction.

Le contexte de l'entreprise hiéronymienne (pp. 53–76)
L'entreprise de Jérôme (pp. 77–201)
--Révisions et retour à l'Hebraica veritas (pp. 77–156)
--La méthode de traduction de Jérôme (pp. 157–64)
--Le genre des préfaces et les lecteurs visés (pp. 165–201)
Du travail de Jérôme à la Vulgate (pp. 201–25)
La présente édition (pp. 226–47)

The last major part of the section titled "Révisions et retour à l'Hebraica veritas" deals with Jerome's views on the biblical canon, a subject of interest for me. Most of Canellis' treatment of Jerome's views on the canon are standard and unobjectionable, and she provides a helpful overview with good French bibliography.

But this post concerns a fairly minor point upon which I want to register disagreement: whether Jerome's Prefaces to Tobit and Judith refer to these books as apocrypha or as agiographa.

Canellis argues first that Jerome has two definitions for the term apocrypha (pp. 134–39). Sometimes he uses the word in a negative sense to refer to heretical books, and sometimes he uses it in a neutral sense to refer to useful books that are not in the canon. This latter sense appears—according to Canellis—in the Prologus Galeatus and in the Prefaces to Tobit and Judith.

I don't think so. I fully agree that Jerome often uses the term apocrypha in a negative sense to refer to heretical books. I would also argue (and have argued) that this meaning for the term apocrypha was very common in Jerome's day, the normal meaning. In fact, it is this usual definition of the term apocrypha that colors the way I interpret its appearance in the Prologus Galeatus. It seems to me that in that preface, Jerome could not be relying on some obscure neutral definition of the word, but rather he assumed the nearly universal negative definition, and that was the point: the books that were sometimes added to the Christian Old Testament beyond the Jewish canon were apocrypha, in the negative sense. It's a strong statement, polemical, pejorative, basically rhetorical, because Jerome didn't really regard these books—Tobit and Judith and Maccabees and Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon—as dangerous or heretical, but he was offering an exaggerated negative view of these books in order to make the point that they do not belong in the canon. I've developed these ideas further here and here.

As for the examples from Jerome's Prefaces to Tobit and Judith, I do not believe these examples are valid because the manuscript evidence strongly supports the reading agiographa in both prefaces over against apocrypha. I've posted on this issue before, and I've published an article on it. Both of the major editions of the Vulgate—the Roman edition and the Stuttgart edition—print the word 'agiographa' in the text, though Migne's edition from the mid-nineteenth century printed the word apcrypha. You can read about Migne in that post I mentioned.

Canellis prefers the reading apcrypha in these prefaces for two main reasons (pp. 139–41). (1) Jerome elsewhere uses the term agiographa only in reference to the third section of the Jewish canon, i.e., as the Latin equivalent for the Ketuvim or Writings (see, e.g., the Prologus Galeatus). Why would he use the same word in a different sense in the same sort of context (= discussions of scriptural canon)? (2) One can easily imagine a scribe confusing the Greek letters ΓΙ and Π, and thereby writing ΑΓΙΟΓΡΑΦΑ instead of ΑΠΟΚΡΥΦΑ. I'm not sure I really understand this argument. Is Canellis assuming that the Vorlage that created confusion for the Latin scribe had the Greek word in Greek characters in Jerome's Latin preface? I don't know. The preface to Tobit as it appears in Codex Amiatinus (ca. 700) does not use Greek characters (see here), nor does it in the Stuttgart edition of the Vulgate. On the other hand, the Stuttgart Vulgate does use Greek letters for this word in the Prologus Galeatus, as does Amiatinus (here), though neither of them use Greek letters for apocrypha in the Prologus Galeatus.

But she's right that if the word Agiographa appears in the prefaces to Tobit and Judith—as attested in nearly all manuscripts—then Jerome must have been using the word in a sense different from the one he used in the Prologus Galeatus, since we cannot think that Jerome meant that Tobit and Judith featured in the Jewish Ketuvim. But she seems to not remember that she has already proposed that Jerome uses the term apocrypha in two different senses. As far as I can see, either Jerome uses the term apocrypha in two different sense or he uses the term agiographa in two different senses, so we can't score points either way on Jerome's consistent terminology. But I think it more likely that Jerome varied in his meaning for the term agiographa simply because this word was much less common, without an established definition. Canellis points out that Jerome doesn't use the word outside his biblical prefaces, and I have pointed out before that Jerome is the first one to use the term in Latin, and it is slow to catch on.

Moreover, I would think that a scribe would be more likely to change the rare word agiographa to the much more common apocrypha, whether in Greek or in Latin.

So I still think it makes more sense to agree with the manuscripts and major editions of the Vulgate and retain the reading Agiographa rather than Apocrypha in Jerome's Prefaces to Tobit and Judith.

Monday, July 23, 2018

The Vulgate Appendix

If you study much about the biblical canon in the Latin tradition, you will eventually run across a statement about how some books are in the appendix to the Vulgate. This type of thing is meant quite literally: if you get a hold of the standard modern edition of the Latin Vulgate, you can flip to the end (after the New Testament) and you will find an Appendix that includes the following books:

The Prayer of Manasseh
3 Ezra (= LXX 1 Esdras)
4 Ezra (= 2 Esdras in some English versions of the apocrypha)
Psalm 151
The Epistle to the Laodiceans

But, of course, these books did not constitute an "appendix" to the Vulgate in any ancient or medieval manuscripts of the Latin Bible. As far as I know, there was no such thing as an "appendix" to Latin biblical manuscripts. So, when someone talks about 3 Ezra as occupying a place in the appendix to the Vulgate, this could give quite a misleading impression. Such a statement is accurate only if the term "Vulgate" refers to a modern printed edition and not to anything that, for instance, Jerome would have recognized.

Where did the appendix come from? Well, I'm not completely sure, but I think that the Sixto-Clementine edition from 1592 was the first to include an appendix.

The Sistine edition from 1590 did not include an appendix. It's available here, all three volumes. Vol. 1 ends with Job, vol. 2 ends with 2 Maccabees, and vol. 3 contains the NT and ends with Revelation. No appendix.

The Sixto-Clementine edition is available here. After the NT, there's an appendix with the Prayer of Manasseh and 3–4 Ezra. And there's a preface to the Appendix:
Oratio Manassa, necnon Libri duo, qui sub libri Tertii & Quarti Esdrae nomine circumferuntur, hoc in loco, extra scilicet seriem canonicorum Librorum, quos sancta Tridentina Synodus suscepit, & pro Canonicis suscipiendos decreuit, sepositi sunt, ne prorsus interirent, quippe qui a nonnullis sanctis Patribus interdum citantur, & in aliquibus Bibliis Latinis tam manuscriptis quam impressis reperiuntur. 
The Prayer of Manasseh, as well as two books, which circulate under the name of the Third and Fourth Book of Ezra, are set aside in this place—that is, outside the series of canonical books, which the holy Tridentine Synod accepted, and determined should be taken up for canonical—lest they should perish completely, since they are sometimes cited by some of the holy Fathers, and they are found in some Latin books, both manuscript and printed. 
As this note suggests, it was the decree on the biblical canon by the Council of Trent (1546) that created the situation in which it made some sense to print the Vulgate with an appendix containing non-canonical books. For it was only at Trent that the biblical canon was definitively settled. Thenceforth, editions of the Vulgate for a Roman Catholic readership would need to conform to the canon approved by Trent, and so it would no longer be appropriate to print the Prayer of Manasseh and 3–4 Ezra among the other biblical books, as the Gutenberg Bible had done, for instance. An edition of the Vulgate could completely omit any non-canonical works, as the Sistine edition had done, but the editors of the Sixto-Clementine edition were concerned that these venerable though non-canonical books might no longer be available, even though previous generations of Christian authors had sometimes referred to them.

Thus was born the Vulgate appendix.

Monday, June 25, 2018

Later Canon Lists (Latin): Rabanus Maurus

By "later" in the title of this post, I mean later than the fourth century. As for canon lists in the fourth century and earlier, I have dealt with them before. Perhaps "later canon lists" will turn into a series of posts. We'll see. But as for this post, I'm presenting the canon list of Rabanus Maurus, the ninth-century monk who became the archbishop of Mainz.

The canon list of Rabanus appears in his work De clericorum institutione, which is "an instructional manual for clerics to ensure they would have a proper foundation for the studies that would enable them to fulfill their ecclesiastical duties" (Levy, p. 59).

There is a recent edition of De clericorum instituione, with a German translation, edited by Detlev Zimpel. I have been able to access the Latin text of this edition through the Library of Latin Texts (Brepols), but I don't have the printed books, so I don't have access to the German translation or any notes included. Of course, there is also Migne's text (PL 107), which is very close to Zimpel's text. The canon list appears in book 2, chapter 53, corresponding to Migne's columns 364–65.

Here's the Latin. By the way, the entire first paragraph is ripped straight out of Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis 1.11.1–3.

Chapter 53, De libris duorum Testamentorum
Pronuntiantur autem lectiones in Christi ecclesiis de Scripturis sanctis. Constat autem eadem sacra Scriptura ex veteri lege et nova. Vetus lex illa est, quae data est primum Iudaeis per Moysen et prophetas, quae dicitur Vetus Testamentum. Testamentum autem dicitur, quia idoneis testibus, utique a prophetis scriptum est atque signatum. Nova vero lex Evangelium est, quod dicitur Novum Testamentum, quod per ipsum Filium Dei Christum et per suos apostolos dedit. Illa lex vetus velut radix est, haec nova velut fructus ex radice. Ex lege enim venitur ad Evangelium. Siquidem Christus, qui hic manifestatus est, ante in lege praedictus est, immo ipse locutus in prophetis, sicut scriptum est: 'Qui loquebar, ecce adsum', legem praemittens velut infantibus paedagogum, Evangelium vero perfectum vitae magisterium iam adultis omnibus praestans. Ideo in illa operantibus bona terrae promittebantur, hic vero sub gratia ex fide viventibus regnum caeleste tribuitur. Evangelium autem dicitur bonum nuntium, et re vera bonum nuntium, ut qui susceperint filii Dei vocentur.

Hi sunt ergo libri Veteris Testamenti, quos ob amorem doctrinae et pietatis legendos recipiendosque Ecclesiarum principes tradiderunt. Primi namque legis, id est Moysi, libri quinque sunt: Genesis, Exodi, Levitici, Numeri, Deuteronomium. Hos secuntur historici libri sedecim, Iesu Nave scilicet et Iudicum libri singuli, sive Ruth, Regum etiam libri quatuor, Paralipomenon duo, Tobii quoque et Hesther et Iudith singuli, Aezrae duo et duo Machabaeorum. Super hos prophetici libri sedecim sunt: Isaias, Hieremias, Ezechiel et Daniel libri singuli, Duodecim quoque prophetarum libri singuli; et haec quidem prophetica sunt. Post haec versuum octo libri habentur, qui diverso apud Hebraeos metro scribuntur, id est: Job liber, et liber Psalmorum et Proverbiorum et Ecclesiastes et Cantica canticorum sive Sapientia et Ecclesiasticus, Lamentationesque Hieremiae. Sic quoque complentur libri Veteris Testamenti quadraginta quinque. 

Novi autem Testamenti primum quatuor Evangelia sunt, Matthaei, Marci, Lucae, Iohannis. Hos quattuordecim Pauli apostoli epistolae sequuntur, quibus etiam subiunctae sunt septem catholicae epistolae: Iacobi, Petri, Iohannis et Iudae; Actus quoque duodecim Apostolorum, quorum omnium signaculum est Apocalypsis Iohannis, quod est revelatio Iesu Christi, qui omnes libros et tempore concludit et ordine. Hi sunt libri canonici septuaginta duo, et ob hoc Moyses septuaginta elegit presbiteros qui prophetarent; ob hoc et Iesus, Dominus noster, septuaginta duos discipulos praedicare mandavit. Et quoniam septuaginta duae linguae in hoc mundo erant diffusae, congrue providit Spiritus sanctus, ut tot libri essent, quot nationes, quibus populi et gentes ad perficiendam fidei gratiam aedifcarentur.

And here's an English translation.

And lections from the holy Scriptures are read in the churches of Christ. And the same sacred Scripture consists of the old law and the new. The old law is what was given first to the Jews through Moses and the prophets, which is called the Old Testament. Now it is called a Testament because it was written and sealed by suitable witnesses (testes), indeed by the prophets. But the new law is the Gospel, which is called the New Testament, which he gave through the Son of God himself, the Christ, and his apostles. That old law is like a root, this new one is like fruit from the root. For from the law one goes on to the Gospel. Now Christ, who has been manifested here, previously in the law he was predicted. Actually he spoke in the prophets, as it is written: "I who was speaking, here I am (Isa 52:6), sending the law beforehand like a pedagogue for children, but now supplying to all adults the Gospel, the perfect instruction for life." Therefore, in that one [= the Law], the good things of the earth were promised to those who worked, but here to those living under grace from faith a heavenly kingdom is offered. But the Gospel is called good news, and it really is good news, so that those who accept it are called sons of God.

So then these are the books of the Old Testament, which the leaders of the churches have handed down to be read and received on account of the love of doctrine and of piety. The first are five books of law, that is, of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Sixteen historical books follow these: Jesus Nave and Judges, single books, and Ruth, and four books of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, Tobit and Esther and Judith, single books, two of Ezra and two of the Maccabees. Beyond these there are sixteen prophetic books: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, single books, and also single books of the Twelve prophets, and these are prophetic. After these, there are eight books of verses, which are written among the Hebrews in a different meter, that is: the book of Job, and the book of Psalms and of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and Songs of Songs as well as Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Thus are completed the 45 books of the Old Testament. 

Now of the New Testament, first are the four gospels, of Matthew, of Mark, of Luke, of John. Following these are the 14 epistles of Paul the apostle, to which also have been join seven catholic epistles: of James, of Peter, of John, and of Jude; and the Acts of the Twelve Apostles, and the seal of all of these is the Apocalypse of John, which is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, who concludes all the books in both time and order. These are the 72 canonical books, and for this reason Moses selected seventy elders who would prophesy [Num 11:25]; on account of this also Jesus, our Lord, commanded 72 disciples to preach [Luke 10:1]. And because 72 languages have been scattered in this world, the Holy spirit suitably provides that there are so many books as nations by which peoples and Gentiles might be edified for the grace of faith to be accomplished. 

Notes:

The NT canon = the usual list of 27 books, first attested by Athanasius, Epistle 39. No surprises.

The OT canon = the Jewish canon + Tobit, Judith, 1–2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach). And the books of Daniel and Esther no doubt include the deuterocanonical additions.

There is no mention of Baruch, which is the other deuterocanonical book accepted at the Roman Catholic Council of Trent. During Rabanus' days, Jerome's translation of Jeremiah was becoming dominant, so it is possible—I would say likely—that Rabanus read an edition of Jeremiah without Baruch. Of course, the edition of Theodulf did include Baruch, but the edition of Alcuin did not. On these editions, see here, and for much more on Baruch in Latin Bibles, start here. In this regard, it is interesting that Rabanus separates Lamentations from Jeremiah, putting it in the poetry section rather than the prophets section.

Rabanus says there are 45 OT books. Roman Catholics today count 46, but if you take away Baruch, you get the 45 of Rabanus. Augustine had counted 44 books, but he didn't name Lamentations, no doubt because he considered it a part of the book of Jeremiah. (Augustine probably also considered Baruch a part of Jeremiah.)

The next chapter (2.54) covers the authorship of the canonical books, and contains several interesting comments.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Theodulf Bibles

Theodulf (760–821 CE; see Ann Freeman's article) became bishop of Orléans (75 miles south of Paris) in 797/8. He wrote in many genres: poems, letters, theological and liturgical treatises. Charlemagne died in 814, and his son, Louis the Pious, accused Theodulf of political intrigue, which led to Theodulf's resigning his see in 817. He died in 821 and was buried in Angers (125 miles west of Orléans), where he had spent most of his last years. Apparently, his principal work was the unattributed Libri Carolini, a polemical response to the Second Council of Nicaea (787). This work, written for Charlemagne, concentrated on criticizing the supposed position taken at Nicaea in regard to icons. According to Wikipedia:
The work appears to have been very largely a polemic based on a misunderstanding of the actual position taken by the Byzantine church, which was quietly archived when this was realized, probably in Rome.
(For more on the Libri Carolini, see this other article by Ann Freeman.)

Theodulf's revision was not the first during the reign of Charlemagne (see this article).

There were also:
--Maurdramnus, abbot of Corbie (772–781). Five of twelve volumes survive at Amiens (90 miles north of Paris; BM Amiens, 67911 and 12). This is the first known example of the caroline minuscule.
--Angilram, bishop of Metz (d. 791), who produced a single-volume Bible, a single manuscript preserved at Metz (200 miles east of Paris; Bibliothèque Municipale 7), but destroyed in 1944.
--Alcuin of York (c. 735–804), abbot at Tours (796–804), who produced the edition that became the most popular. Tours is 75 miles southwest of Orléans. There survive 18 complete and 28 incomplete pandects from the scriptorium at Tours, copied in the first half of the ninth century. The earliest of these is: St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 75 (images). Another important one is the Bible of Moutier-Grandval, London, Add. 10546 (see here). Alcuin's revision concentrated on issues of Latin grammar and style.



Theodulf wanted to attain the original translation from Jerome, the hebraica veritas. Theodulf himself knew neither Hebrew nor Greek, but he had a good knowledge of the Latin manuscript tradition, and chose variants among the manuscripts. Variant readings he sometimes recorded in the margin. He continued this work of revision for the rest of his life. This is why the six preserved Theodulf Bibles each contains a different state of the revision. This fact also helps to establish relative dates for the six Bibles. 

"Theodulf's text was continuously revised during his lifetime, and was conceived as an accessible reference work, and so he chose a very small, three column 61-line format, with quires of five leaves" (Ganz, p. 53). 

Each of Theodulf's six Bibles (except for the Le Puy Bible) is available in online digital images; references given below. 

In chronological order: 
  1. Stuttgart, Württemburgische Landesbibliothek HB II, 16, deriving from the Konstanz Cathedral. This Bible lacks Gen 1:1–Lev 23:32; Josh 2:11–7:23; Baruch 6; Lamentations; Job; Psa 1:1–144:21; 2 Par 32:26–35:20; Sir 31:33–37:17; 1 Mac 1:27–3:56; 2 Mac 15:30–end. In the NT, all that remain are Paul's letters (including Hebrews), the letter of James, and 1 Pet 1:1–4:3. Digital images here.
  2. Saint-Hubert Bible (abbey of Saint-Hubert), now in London, British Library Add. 24 142. Lacks: Gen 1:1–49:6; most of the Minor Prophets (Hos 6:8–Mal); 1 Pet 4:3–end of the NT (which would include Acts and Rev). Digital images here
  3. Le Puy Bible, Trésor de la Cathedral (at the Le Puy Cathedral).
  4. Orléans Bible (Paris, BnF, lat. 9380) = Codex Mesmianus, because it was at one point acquired by the family of Mesmes. Digital images here. This Bible has variants from Alcuin.  
  5. Saint-Germain Bible (Abbey of Saint-Germain-de-Prés), now Paris, BnF, lat. 11 937. This manuscript is preserved only from Gen 18:20–Psa 92:5. The evidence for marginal readings attributed to the Hebrew Bible in this manuscript has made it the object of study by Graves (231–41) and Candiard and Chevalier Royet. "It seems that the purpose of these Hebrew scholia was to indicate to the Latin reader what the Hebrew contained according to the strictest and most literal understanding. They were presumably meant as a study tool for the reader interested in Hebrew" (Graves 231–32). Graves' comprehensive study of the Hebrew marginal notes in 1 Samuel is based on the apparatus in the Roman Vulgate (232n48). Digital images here. Jerome's prologue to Samuel begins on what is labeled on the manuscript as fol. 62, but the digital image is given the number 72. The text of Samuel begins at image 73, the right inside column. According to Candiard and Chevalier-Royet (21 with n30), in these last two manuscripts Theodulf is no longer chiefly concerned with comparing Latin manuscripts: the marginal glosses (numbering around 2000 in the Saint-Germain manuscript) are almost always preceded by an 'h', signaling a reading based on the Hebrew text, whereas there are only a few notes preceded by 'al' (= alii), signaling a reading derived from another Latin witness. 
  6. Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek NKS1, previously at the Carcassonne Cathedral. This Bible exists in fragments: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Dan 1:1–6:5. This Bible also presents abundant marginal notes offering comparisons with the Hebrew Bible. Digital images here
(See also another fragment here.)

The first four Bibles were produced around 800, the fifth and sixth one later on. Only the Le Puy and Orléans Bibles are complete. At least three other Theodulf Bibles are known to have once existed. 

Theodulf began his work on the biblical text only after he became bishop, and his work was interrupted by his deposition. 

The Theodulf Bibles were much more scholarly than Alcuin's with their marginal notes and concern for the Hebrew text, but they were also harder to use and presented no unified text. Alcuin's more straightforward and more magnificent volumes predominated, aided by the rapid production rate at Tours (about 2 Bibles per year for the first half of the ninth century). 

Friday, June 8, 2018

Gabler on Theology: Bibliography

The German theologian Johann Philipp Gabler (1753–1826) is often given credit for distinguishing biblical theology from systematic theology, which he did in his inaugural lecture as professor at the University of Altdorf. This university was founded in 1578 in Altdorf bei Nürnberg (i.e., near—15 miles east of—Nuremberg). It's a small town, current population around 15,000. The university closed in 1809.

According to Wikipedia:
Gabler is widely considered to be the father of modern biblical theology because of his 1787 inaugural address at University of Altdorf: On the Correct Distinction Between Dogmatic and Biblical Theology and the Right Definition of Their Goals [citing Köstenberger]. Gabler sharply distinguished between biblical and dogmatic theology. For him, biblical theology was simply historical investigation into the beliefs of the biblical authors as they stand in the text. It is purely descriptive and uninfluenced by the viewpoints of modern thinkers. On the other hand, dogmatic theology is a systematized construction, built on the foundation of biblical theology and contextualized — applied to the context or era in which it is to be proclaimed.
Of course, the address was delivered and published originally in Latin, and the Latin title is De justo discrimine theologiae biblicae et dogmaticae regundisque recte utriusque finibus (Altdorf bei Nürnberg: Monath, 1787). The original publication is available here. (On the Roman numerals used in the date notation, see Wikipedia.)

An English translation and commentary was produced by theologian John Sandys-Wunsch and the medievalist Laurence Eldredge: “J. P. Gabler and the Distinction between Biblical and Dogmatic Theology: Translation, Commentary and Discussion of his Originality,” Scottish Journal of Theology 33 (1980): 133–58. The full text of their article is not available freely online, but the brief introduction and the entire translation has been made available here.

This translation is not based on the original publication, which was unavailable to Sandys-Wunsch and Eldredge, but rather on the reprint in Gabler’s (posthumously published) collected works (vol. 2, pp. 179–98, here).

According to Sandys-Wunsch and Eldredge (149n2), Gabler was recognized as the patriarch of biblical theology first by D. C. G. Cölln, Biblische Theologie, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Barth, 1836), 1.22–23 (here), and the first biblical theology to mention Gabler’s inaugural address was W. M. L. de Wette, Lehrbuch der christlichen Dogmatik I: Biblische Dogmatik Alten und Neuen Testaments (Berlin: Realschulbuchhandlung, 1813), available here, p. 30 (point c).

Monday, June 4, 2018

Naḥal Ḥever Minor Prophets Scroll: Digital Images

Digital images of the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Naḥal Ḥever are available at the Leon Levy DSS Digital Library website here, but (as with all the digital images there) they can be a little hard to navigate because there's no index. Each image does contain a plate number that corresponds—not to the plate numbers of the DJD edition, but—to the inventory number of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, which are noted in parentheses on the plates of the DJD edition. These numbers were a help in matching the digital image to the corresponding DJD plates.

I have been able to find in the digital images every piece of the scroll represented on the plates in the DJD edition, except for fragments 1–5 of the Additional Fragments on Plate XX, though I didn't expend much energy searching for these additional fragments. I have gone through all 111 images available at the website, though I ignored some small pieces in the images that I couldn't readily identify in the DJD plates.

The following index is arranged according to the plates in the DJD edition (vol. 8, ed. E. Tov, 1990). I am not sure why there are so many high quality images available online for certain fragments and not for others. Personally, I would much appreciate better images for column 2.

Plate 1: col. 2–4 (B&W)

Plate 2: Col. 2, Jonah 1:14–2:7


Plate 3: Col 3, Jonah 3:2–4:5


Plate 4: Col. 4, Micah 1:1–7


Plate 4: Col. 5, Micah 1:7–8


Plate 5: Col. 6, Micah 2:7–9; 3:4–6


Plate 5: Col. 7, Micah 4:3–5


Plate 6: Col. 8, Micah 4:6–10, 5:1–4


Plate 7: Col. 9, Micah 5:4–7


Plate 7: Col. 13, Nahum 1:13–14


Plate 8: Col. 14, Nahum 2:5–10, 13–14; 3:3


Plate 9: Col. 15, Nahum 3:6–17


Plate 10: Col. 16, Habakkuk 1:5–11


Plate 11: Col. 17, Habakkuk 1:14–2:8


Plate 12: Col. 18, Habakkuk 2:13–20


Plate 13: Col. 19, Habakkuk 3:8–15


Plate 14: Col. 20, Zephaniah 1:1–6


Plate 15: Col. 21, Zephaniah 1:13–18


Plate 15: Col. 22–23, Zephaniah 2:9–10 \\ Zephaniah 3:6–7


Plate 16: Col. 28–29, Zechariah 1:1–4 \\ Zechariah 1:12–14


Plate 17: Col. 30–31, Zechariah 2:1–4; 2:7–12 \\ Zechariah 2:16–3:2; 3:3–7


Plate 18: Col. 17–23 (color, upside down)

Plate 19: Col. B1–2, Zechariah 8:19–21; 23 \\ Zechariah 8:23–9:5


Plate 20: Additional Fragments


Fragments I can’t find in the DJD plates: