Fortunatianus' Commentary on the Gospels

Fortunatianus was bishop of Aquileia in the middle of the fourth century. About him Jerome had the following to say (De Viris Illustribus 97 from here):

Fortunatianus, an African by birth, bishop of Aquilia during the reign of Constantius, composed brief Commentaries on the gospels arranged by chapters, written in a rustic style, and is held in detestation because, when Liberius bishop of Rome was driven into exile for the faith, he was induced by the urgency of Fortunatianus to subscribe to heresy.

 According to W.H. Fremantle (in Smith & Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography, vol. 2, p. 550) 'He persuaded Liberius, the bishop of Rome, who was ready to go into exile for his faith, that he might properly subscribe the formula of the council of Sirmium; and he even went so far as to consent to the condemnation passed upon Athanasius in the council of Milan.'

So Fortunatianus was obviously a bit Arian in Christology. But Jerome did value his commentaries, describing them in a letter requesting that Paulus of Concordia send him a copy, as 'the pearl of the Gospel, the words of the Lord, pure words, even as the silver which from this earth is tried, and purified seven times in the fire' (Jerome, Ep. X of AD 374, alluding to Matt 13.46; Ps 12.7).

Only a couple of fragments survive of Fortunatianus' commentary, .... or so we thought. Recently Lukas Dorfbauer has identified an anonymous commentary on the gospels (MS Köln, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibl. 17) as a copy of this commentary:  "Thus, Fortunatianus’ work becomes the apparently oldest commentary on the Gospels written in the Latin West which is still extant; it amplifies our knowledge of ancient Christianity and its literature in many respects." (CSEL web page)
For details see L. J. Dorfbauer, Der Evangelienkommentar des Bischofs Fortunatian von Aquileia (Mitte 4. Jh.). Ein Neufund auf dem Gebiet der patristischen Literatur, Wiener Studien 126 (2013), 177-198.

The manuscript itself is online here. (HT: Roger Pearse [with more details from Quasten]) [Looks like further confirmation of Head's rule.]

The Text of the NT in Contemporary Research, 2nd Ed., Now in Paperback

I'm happy to announce that The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research, 2nd edition (ed. Ehrman and Holmes; Brill, 2013 [2012]), is now available in a paperback edition, at a considerably more affordable price (€59, $76). (Details available here.)

Also, Larry Hurtado has posted a discussion of the chapter dealing with the topic of "original text" at his blog (here).

Conferences

Thought and Culture in Christian Egypt 284-641 AD (Cairo, 1-2 April 2014); already mentioned here.

An International Seminar in Coptic Papyrology (Barcelona, 6-13 July 2014): (deadline 15 March 2014): more info here or here. 

International SBL (Vienna, 6-10 July 2014): call for papers closes 5th Feb 2014. Info.

Tyndale Fellowship Study Groups (Cambridge): OT 7-9 July; NT 9-11 July. Info

Matthew Henry: The Bible, Prayer, and Piety (Chester, 14-16 July 2014): more information

SNTS (Szeged, Hungary; 5-8 August 2014)

British Patristics Conference (London, 3-5 Sept. 2014): Call for Papers and other Info.

From Egypt to Manchester: unravelling the John Rylands papyrus collection (Manchester, 4-6 Sept. 2014):

This conference aims to bring together scholars who are working or have recently worked on the John Rylands papyri. We welcome papers from any period and perspective based on papyri from our collection in any of the languages and scripts attested from the Ptolemaic to the early Arab period. Topics are open, and may include, but are not confined to: edition and commentary of texts, historical studies based on the Rylands papyri, connections with other collections, history of the collection, and archives and dossiers of individuals and institutions held or partially held in Manchester. We are particularly interested in papers offering new insights on the papyri considered and at the same time dealing with methodological questions related to the value of papyrus sources for the study of the past.Abstracts of about 300 words for papers of 30 minutes must be sent via email to Roberta Mazza (roberta.mazza@manchester.ac.uk) by 15 February 2013.

 British New Testament Conference (Manchester, 4-6 Sept. 2014). Not much info here.

The religious provenance of the Aquila manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah

Edmon L. Gallagher, 'The religious provenance of the Aquila manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah' Journal of Jewish Studies LXIV (2013), 283-305.

Abstract:

The Cairo Genizah yielded two palimpsest manuscripts of Aquila’s Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. For more than a century, scholars have commonly assumed, often without argument, that these manuscript fragments derive ultimately from Jewish circles. This in turn has led to citations of them in arguments regarding the Jewish reception of Greek scripture in Late Antiquity and the origins of the system of contractions known as nomina sacra . However, the opinion that these are Jewish manuscripts cannot claim universal scholarly assent, though doubts in this regard have not often been noted. This article surveys the use of these Genizah manuscripts in arguments concerning the Jewish use of Greek scripture and the nomina sacra and then examines the evidence to hand regarding their religious provenance. It concludes that the general assumption of a Jewish provenance remains unproven.

 I would say that this article is more interesting than it sounds. Broadly speaking it is a reminder that some things we think we know (i.e. that LXX texts with the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew characters reflect a Jewish provenance) are not necessarily absolute. Among other things Gallagher argues that there is evidence for Christian scribes attempting to preserve the representation of the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew square letters within copies of the Greek Old Testament (p. 303 - so the Mercati Hexapla [Rahlfs 1098]; other evidence, e.g. Marchalianus [Rahlfs 2125] and TS 12.182 [Ralhfs 2005] show the Greek letters PIPI being used in some contexts, which may have become conventional); and even possibly that Christian scribes might attempt to preserve a form of the Tetragrammaton in palaeo-Hebrew characters (p. 304).
In this manuscript we have to reckon either with a Jewish scribe using nomina sacra or with a Christian scribe attempting to reproduce the Tetragrammaton in palaeo-Hebrew character. Gallagher suggests the latter.
[Up-dated from comments from the author and a second look at the article]

10 January 1514: Complutensian Polyglot New Testament

The New Testament volume of the six volume Complutensian Polyglot—Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine in Academia Complutensi Nouiter Impressum—has a colophon at the conclusion of the Apocalypse which dates its printing to 10th January 1514, five hundred years ago tomorrow. This of course makes the Complutensian Polyglot New Testament the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament.

This massively impressive collection is known after the ancient Latin name, Complutum, of the town and university of Alcalá de Henares, where it was produced under the direction of, and with funding from, the Spanish cardinal, Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros (1436–1517), archbishop of Toledo and primate of Spain (1495). Its publication, based on the best contemporary scholarship, was intended to reform and revive the Christian church, as Ximenes makes clear in his prologue (addressed to Pope Leo X), which reflects on the importance of both the original language of Scripture and the original text of Scripture:

There are many reasons, Holy Father, that impel us to print the languages of the original text of Holy Scripture. These are the principal ones. Words have their own unique character, and no translation of them, however complete, can entirely express their full meaning. This is especially the case in that language through which the Lord Himself spoke. The letter here of itself may be dead and like flesh which profits nought (‘for it is the spirit that gives life’ [2 Cor. 3:6]) because Christ concealed by the form of the words remains enclosed within its womb. But there is no doubt that there is a rich fecundity so astonishing and an abundance of sacred mysteries so teeming that since it is ever full to overflowing ‘streams of living water shall flow out from His breast’ [John 7:38]. And from this source those to whom it has been given ‘to behold the glory of the Lord with an unveiled face and thus be transformed into that very image’ [2 Cor. 3:18] can continually draw the marvellous secrets of His divinity. Indeed there can be no language or combination of letters from which the most hidden meanings of heavenly wisdom do not emerge and burgeon forth, as it were. Since, however, the most learned translator can present only a part of this, the full Scripture in translation inevitably remains up to the present time laden with a variety of sublime truths which cannot be understood form any source other than the original language.

Moreover, wherever there is diversity in the Latin manuscripts or the suspicion of a corrupted reading (we know how frequently this occurs because of the ignorance and negligence of copyists), it is necessary to go back to the original source of Scripture, as St. Jerome and St. Augustine and other ecclesiastical writers advise us to do, to examine the authenticity of the books of the Old Testament in the light of the correctness of the Hebrew text and of the New Testament in the light of the Greek copies. And so that every student of Holy Scripture might have at hand the original texts themselves and be able to quench his thirst at the very fountainhead of the water that flows unto life everlasting and not have to content himself with rivulets alone, we ordered the original languages of Holy Scripture with their translations adjoined to be printed an dedicated to your Holiness. And we first took care to print the New Testament in Greek and Latin together with a lexicon of all the Greek expressions that can help those reading that language. Thus we spared no effort on behalf of those who have not acquired a full knowledge of the Greek tongue.

The NT volume contains a short preface in Greek and Latin, Eusebius’ letter to Carpianus (without any canons), Jerome’s letter to Damasus and a series of Jerome’s Latin prologues preceding each book. After the Gospels come the Pauline Epistles (themselves preceded by a range of Euthalian and other material), then the Acts, Catholic Epistles and Revelation (the whole is followed by some verses in praise of Ximenes, a list of proper names and a Lexicon of the Greek of the NT). The volume presents the Greek text on the left alongside the Latin Vulgate (in a slightly narrower column). Throughout the volume parallel passages, especially in the gospels, and the source of OT citations are given in the Latin margin (sometimes also unusual words are defined, or unusual verb forms are parsed). Since only standard Latin chapter numbering is used, along with an A, B, C or D, this is the system used in indicating parallel passages in the gospels (most of the information that could be gleaned from the Eusebian canons is therefore included beside the text at each point). A system of consecutive letters links Greek words to their Latin counterpart (where there is one). The Greek text is given without accents or breathings, on the grounds, according to the preface to the NT volume, that they were not part of the genuine text as seen in the most ancient copies. The Greek font for the NT volume, modelled on an unknown archetype of the tenth century, is often praised, in the over-blown words of R. Proctor, as ‘undoubtedly the finest Greek fount ever cut’. The volume also contains a list of names in NT order with an interpretation, a brief (one page) summary of Greek grammar and a lexicon of Greek words used in the LXX apocrypha and the NT, essentially a word list with Latin glosses, the first such lexicon.

There is no critical apparatus and only five marginal notes, these relate to readings at Matt 6.13; 1 Cor 13.3; 15.31; 15.51; 1 John 5.7f (we shall return to these in more detail in a few moments). Little information is offered as regards the textual basis of the Complutensian edition, although the editors claim to have used ‘very ancient and correct’ manuscripts (antiquissima emendatissimaque) supplied from the Vatican library by Pope Leo X:

Ordinary copies were not the archetypes for this impression, but very ancient and correct ones; and of such antiquity, that it would be utterly wrong not to own their authority; which the supreme pontiff Leo X., our most holy father in Christ and lord, desiring to favour this undertaking, sent from the apostolical library to the most reverend lord the cardinal of Spain, by whose authority and commandment we have this work printed.

Here is an image of a page of the Greek New Testament: 

Some bibliography:

• J.P.R. Lyell, Cardinal Ximenes: Statesman, Ecclesiastic, Soldier, and Man of Letters, with an Account of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible (London: Crafton & Co., 1917)
• F.J. Norton, A Descriptive Catalogue of Printing in Spain and Portugal 1501 – 1520 (Cambridge: CUP, 1978), 11-15.
• J.C. Olin, Catholic Reform: From Cardinal Ximenes to the Council of Trent 1495-1563 (new York: Fordham UP, 1990), esp. 61-64 for ET of Ximenes’ dedicatory prologue cited above. 
• E. Rummel, Jiménez de Cisneros: On the Threshold of Spain’s Golden Age (MRTS 212; Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1999).

R.I.P. Birger Gerhardsson (1926-2013)

During the holidays, on 25 December, one of Sweden's finest exegetes ever, Prof. em. Birger Gerhardsson, passed away at the age of 87. Gerhardsson was born in 1926 in Vännäs. He studied in Uppsala and became ordained priest in the Church of Sweden in 1953. During 1953-58 and 1961-64 he was teacher at Fjellstedtska skolan in Uppsala and in 1961 he received his PhD and docentur at Uppsala University, after successfully defending his thesis Memory and Manuscript; Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity. 

In 1965 Gerhardsson became professor in New Testament exegesis at Lund University; a position he held to his retirement in 1992. However, he continued to be very active in the research seminar for many years to come. Thus, I had the occasion to learn to know Gerhardsson as a scholar and friend during my own studies at Lund University in 2003-2006. I remember his encouragement and advice, and the several personal letters he used to write on various occasions, e.g., when I had presented him a copy of my dissertation.

In relation to my own special area, textual criticism, and my extensive collations of Greek MSS, I particularly remember him sharing about his own ordeal as doctoral student, when Prof, Harald Riesenfeld assigned him to collate and study a lectionary MS in Uppsala (Uppsala Gr. 4 = Gr.-Al. L1256). "In order to study Greek MSS, you need a lot of 'sittfläsk' ['butt flesh']." Gerhardsson's patient collation work and "sittfläsk" resulted in the article,  “Ein griechisches Lektionar,” Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok 24 (1959): 72-88. Incidentally, Riesenfeld and Gerhardsson have both been presidents of Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (SNTS) in 1968 and 1990, respectively.
 
In Gerhardsson's 1992 farewell lecture (available in Swedish here) he gives a retrospective view of his research, listing his favorite subjects: tradition and transmission, the role played by Israel's confession of faith (the Shema) for Jesus and Early Christianity, New Testament Ethics, and the Gospel of Matthew. These areas are reflected in Gerhardsson's many publications (see selected bibliography below), but of course Gerhardsson is most well-known for his work in the first area.

In a 2009 tribute to Gerhardsson,  Jesus in Memory: Traditions in Oral and Scribal Perspectives (ed. S. Byrskog and W. Kelber; Waco: Baylor, 2009) — a volume of essays which gives an excellent overview and evaluation of Gerhardsson's groundbreaking research — his student and successor at Lund University, Prof. Samuel Byrskog writes in the introductory chapter (p. 4):

Few scholars have influenced New Testament scholarship in the areas of orality, memory, and tradition more profoundly than Birger Gerhardsson. Today, as these topics have again become important in biblical scholarship, his pioneering work takes on a new light. . . . The discussion of his ideas, even when there is disagreement, is a manifestation of the crucial importance of his work.

Gerhardsson will be missed not only by his family, but by many colleagues and friends in Sweden and all over the world.


Selected bibliography

In this bibliography I list some of Gerhardsson's studies, primarily as they are now available in reprints and translations.

Tradition and transmission
Memory & Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity with Tradition & Transmission in Early Christianity (Dove and Eerdmans, 1998)
This is a reprint of the revised edition of Gerhardsson's thesis (1961), augmented with the follow-up booklet Tradition and Transmission in Early Christianity (1964), and a signficant foreword by Jacob Neusner (who refers to it as "an act of penance" since Neusner had reviewed Gerhardsson's original study three decades earlier "in an uncomprehending and unappreciative, indeed dismissive way.").

The Origins of the Gospel Traditions (Fortress and SCM Press, 1979) 
= Die Anfänge der Evangelientradition (Brockhaus, 1977).

The Reliability of the Gospel Tradition (Hendrickson, 2001)
A revision of the The Origins of the Gospel Traditions

The Gospel Tradition (Gleerup, 1986)
Also published in The Interrelations of the Gospels (ed. D. L. Dungan; Peeters, 1990), 497-545.

The Shema and New Testament Ethics
Hör Israel! Om Jesus och den gamla bekännelsen [Shema] (Liber, 1979)

The Shema in the New Testament: Deut 6:4-5 in Significant Passages (Novapress, 1996).
Seventeen studies written over a period of 30 years collected in one volume.

The Ethos of the Bible  (Wipf & Stock, 2005)

The Gospel of Matthew
The Testing of God's Son: (Matt. 4:1-11 & PAR), An Analysis of an Early Christian Midrash (Wipf & Stock, 2009; originally appeared 1966)

The Mighty Acts of Jesus according to Matthew (Gleerup, 1979)
  
The parables
The Good Samaritan — the Good Shepherd? (Gleerup, 1958)

Jesu liknelser [the parables of Jesus]: en genomlysning (Novapress, 1999)