Origen’s knowledge of (multiple) manuscripts of Mark

It is often noted that Mark’s Gospel is not well represented among our early manuscripts of the Greek New Testament or in citations and comments in the Early Fathers (see e.g. Head, 2012).

So I was interested in reading through Origen’s Contra Celsum (as one does - actually for a reading group here in Oxford) to come to the discussion of Celsus’ accusation that the followers of Jesus were all wicked tax-collectors and sailors (Book 1, #62). Origen explains that of the twelve only Matthew was a tax collector. He then says (reading Chadwick’s ET): ‘I grant that the Leves who also followed Jesus was a tax-collector; but he was not of the number of the apostles, except according to one of the copies of the gospel according to Mark.’

I thought it was interesting to see that by the time he wrote Contra Celsum (late in his life according to Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. VI.36.2, post AD 245) Origen could note such a divergence in the manuscripts at Mark 3.18, and could know this variant reading which we know as existing only in Codex Bezae among Greek witnesses (Lebbaion is read in place of Thaddion in Codex Bezae and a good number of Old Latin witnesses). [With Donaldson’s main point, but against her question as to whether this might relate to Mark 2.14, I think this must relate to the passage which numbers the twelve apostles, i.e. Mark 3.18 (as also Koetschau’s notes in the GCS edition)]

When I got back to the office, I thought I should check the Greek text (generally this is a good policy - and ideally before opening one’s mouth in an Oxford seminar):

Ἔστω δὲ καὶ ὁ Λευὴς τελώνης ἀκολουθήσας τῷ Ἰησοῦ· ἀλλ᾿ οὔτι γε τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ τῶν ἀποστόλων αὐτοῦ ἦν εἰ μὴ κατά τινα τῶν ἀντιγράφων τοῦ κατὰ Μάρκον εὐαγγελίου.

Now it seems that Chadwick’s translation is quite faulty in its definiteness (‘according to one of the copies ...’) and we should think that Origen’s comment is that a reading which includes Levi within the number of the twelve is found ‘in some of the copies’. Even more interesting.

Bibliography

• A.M. Donaldson, Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings among Greek and Latin Church Fathers (PhD; Notre Dame, 2009)
• P.M. Head,‘The Early Text of Mark’ in The Early Text of the New Testament (eds. Charles E. Hill and Michael J. Kruger; Oxford: OUP, 2012), 108–120. 
• B.M. Metzger, ‘Explicit References in the Works of Origen to Variant Readings in New Testament Manuscripts’ in J.N. Birdsall and R.W. Thomson (eds.), Biblical and Patristic Essays in Memory of Robert Pierce Casey (Freiburg: Herder, 1967), 78–95. Reprinted in B.M. Metzger, Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and Christian, New Testament Tools and Studies 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 88–103. [I couldn’t find my copy of this, but Donaldson notes that Metzger mentions this passage.]

Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings Among Greek and Latin Church Fathers

In December, Mike Holmes reported here that Amy Donaldson had successfully defended her thesis “Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings Among Greek and Latin Church Fathers,” in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Ph.D. degree at the University of Notre Dame.

Holmes expressed his hopes that the dissertation (the catalog, in particular) be published sooner than later. Apparently, the complete dissertation in two parts was made publicly available soon thereafter in the database University of Notre Dame Electronic Theses & Dissertations (HT Wieland Willker). We can be very thankful to Amy for sharing her significant work in this way. I hope the study will still be published in print. In any case I am sure that it will be widely cited in years to come.

Abstract
In his introduction to New Testament textual criticism, Eberhard Nestle stated a desideratum, later repeated by Bruce Metzger, for a collection, arranged according to time and locality, of all passages in which the church fathers appeal to New Testament manuscript evidence. Nestle began this project with a list of references; Metzger continued the work by examining the explicit references to variants by Origen and Jerome and expanding Nestle’s list. This dissertation picks up where Metzger left off, expanding and evaluating the list. The purpose is to contribute to patristics and New Testament textual criticism in two ways: first, by providing a helpful catalogue of patristic texts that refer to variant readings; and second, by analyzing the collected data with a focus on the text-critical criteria used by the fathers.

The dissertation begins by considering the social and historical backdrop of the early church, especially textual scholarship in antiquity and its patristic application to the Old Testament. The explicit references to variants are then examined, first by individual father (organized by Greek and Latin), then by variant (for the variants discussed by multiple authors). This information is then summarized in terms of literary genres in which the references occur and the criteria used to evaluate the variants. After a general assessment of New Testament textual scholarship by the early church (including recensional and scribal activity), patristic textual criticism is compared to modern practice to assess to what extent the church fathers engaged in textual criticism and what insights we can gain from them today.

The second volume contains the catalogue of explicit references to variants (each entry includes the variants and their textual evidence in modern critical editions, the Greek or Latin excerpt and English translation, and a brief discussion of the context). Passages that discuss textual problems but are not explicit references to variants are collected separately. In an appendix, the lists by Nestle and Metzger are compared alongside the list of texts in the catalogue, followed by another appendix on Bede, and a third appendix containing a brief biography and bibliography for each father cited in the catalogue.

Congratulations to Amy Donaldson

Congratulations to Amy Donaldson, who today (Dec. 3) successfully defended her dissertation on “Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings Among Greek and Latin Church Fathers,” in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Ph.D. degree at the University of Notre Dame (her dissertation committee included Brian Daley (chair), Robin Darling Young, David Aune, and Michael Holmes). In addition to a discussion of many individual passages and variant readings that are mentioned by one or more of the Greek and Latin fathers, the dissertation includes a very comprehensive catalog of explicit references by fathers up through the time of Augustine in the early fifth century (although later works are sometimes included when they contribute significantly to the discussion). In short, the desideratum wished for by Nestle and Metzger has now been accomplished. It is to be hoped that the dissertation (the catalog, in particular) will be published sooner than later (though university requirements and other circumstances may delay matters somewhat).

Hearty congrats and best wishes to Amy for this accomplishment.