Note on Job 30:28 in the Complutensian Polyglot

Today, I'm finalizing my ETS/SBL paper reviewing Biblia Hebraica Quinta Job (2024) and its use and citation of the Greek versions. For the most part, the editor, Robert Althann, conservatively follows Ziegler's Göttingen Iob (noting the few places where prior scholarship already corrected Ziegler). But in one place that I found, he decided to go his own way and suggested that Ziegler's reconstructed text is actually the variant, and the text in the apparatus should be considered the Old Greek.

The text in just about every Greek manuscript and daughter version reads στένων πεπόρευμαι ἄνευ φιμοῦ, ἕστηκα δὲ ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ κεκραγώς “groaning without restraint I walked about, and I stood in the assembly crying out.” The Hebrew reads “I go about darkened, but not by the sun (בְּלֹא חַמָּה); I stand in the assembly and cry for help.” Rashi and the Targum confirm the reading of MT. On the other hand, Vulgate, Peshitta, and Symmachus (ἀθυμῶν) read חַמָּה “the sun” as חֵמָה “without heat, anger.”

In short, Althann proposes that the original translation had ἄνευ θυμοῦ “without anger” but was corrupted to ἄνευ φιμοῦ. The only evidence for this reading is the insignificant catena manuscript (Ra 523), Iulian's commentary, and the Complutensian Polyglot (!). As I was reviewing the Polyglot, I couldn't help but notice that the Vulgate's (sine furore) “without anger” was also the text of the newly prepared interlinear Latin translation of the Greek, which must have been corrected to read ἄνευ θυμοῦ “without anger.” Given the evidence, it seems the editor of the Comp Pol corrected the Greek of the Seventy towards the Latin of the Vulgate.

It turns out, Ziegler had already concluded similarly about the Comp. Pol. here and in Job 38:30 in his Einleitung (p. 57), “In his revision according to M, the editor consulted the Vulgate in several places.” Although the Greek manuscripts for parts of the Comp. Pol. are unknown, in the case of Job at least, we know that Cardinal Ximenes used the manuscript Rahlfs 248 loaned to him by the Vatican which had ἄνευ φιμοῦ.

Thus, the editors of the Comp. Pol. did not simply print the text of their manuscript. They made corrections towards the Hebrew, probably via the Latin Vulgate as well as the many marginal readings of the Three Jewish revisers in Rahlfs 248. Althann's suggestion, based on Schleusner's own proposal, is probably to be rejected in light of this evidence. But I'm always happy to entertain and investigate new proposals like these, especially ones based on a plausible and known Hebrew source as BHQ attempted to do in this case.

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UPDATE

BHQ followed Critique textuelle de l'Ancien Testament (vol. 5, p. 289) for this suggested correction to Ziegler's Iob. But CTAT does not engage Ziegler's Einleitung on the Complutensian Polyglot either.

Newberry Library webpage on the great polyglots

The Newberry Library in Chicago has a nice webpage introducing the great polyglot Bibles of the 16th–17th century. It gives helpful details for the Complutensian (1517), Antwerp (1571), and London (1657) polyglots with bibliography at the end. The comparison feature is a nice way to orient yourself to the layout and contents of each. Unfortunately, it looks like they only have a page from each one. Here is part of the website’s description:

The historical and cultural impact of the great polyglots is somewhat overlooked today. In large part, this is due to the fact that the massive collective effort behind these books is hidden by the printed page. This resource will draw back the curtain on the stories behind the three great polyglots in the collection of the Newberry Library: the Complutensian, the Antwerp, and the London.

In what follows, you will gain a sense of the individuals who helped create these great books.

ETC Interview with Thomas Hudgins

I’m happy to present another installment of our ETC interview series. Today’s interview is with Thomas W. Hudgins who is Assistant Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Capital Seminary and Graduate School. I first spoke with Thomas a little over a year go when he had just completed his doctoral thesis on the Complutensian polyglot and I thought readers here would be interested in that work. His most recent publication is a Festschrift for David Alan Black which includes a number of essays on text criticism from our own Tommy Wasserman and Maurice Robinson and others. You can learn more about Thomas at his blog or read his list of publications.

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PG: I understand you have two doctorates, the first one in education (EdD) and the second in New Testament (PhD). Most people who teach New Testament in U.S. seminaries only have the second, so what led you to do both?

TH: Explaining the PhD at the Complutense is a little easier since the PhD is the norm. I love the New Testament and wanted to study it for the rest of my life and help others do so as well. But why an EdD and a PhD? The easy answer is I am a glutton for punishment—or so people often say when they hear I did two. But there’s actually a better answer. An opportunity arose for me to enter the EdD program at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and at the same time assist a seminary start-up in Central America. I had taken plenty of classes on the biblical languages, book studies (e.g., Isaiah, Mark), and theology, but despite having an undergrad degree in biblical studies and an MDiv, I had never taken a single course on education (and homiletics courses don’t count). That’s pretty remarkable if you ask me, especially considering the church is in part an educational institution (“teaching them...” Matt. 28:20).

I don’t know how many hours the average PhD program (for biblical studies) requires of instruction in the field of education, but I know it’s not a lot. The opportunity to study in the education department at Southeastern really changed my life—personally and professionally. It was the first time I was ever challenged to think about education. Even though I entered the Doctor of Education program, I was able to work with a faculty member outside of the department. I knew I wanted to do something different from what you would generally find with an EdD dissertation. I wanted to study the New Testament and education. So, I applied to study with David Alan Black (yes, Dave has a separate application to work with him). Working with him was one of the best experiences of my life.

A few months after I started teaching New Testament and Greek full-time at Capital Seminary, another opportunity arose for me to study in the PhD program at the Complutense University in Madrid, Spain and work with another world-renowned New Testament scholar, Antonio Piñero, on a topic that few had engaged in recent years (even though the subject’s quincentennial was rapidly approaching). Who could resist, right?

Why the Complutensian Polyglot Did Not Use Greek Accents for the NT

John 1.1-14. Note the dot under the
superscript ‘c’ before εγεννηθησαν
in the second line from the bottom.

From John Lee’s translation (emphasis added):

So that you may not be surprised, diligent scholar, or be displeased with us that in the present Greek printing of the New Testament, in a way different from that of the Old, only the letters, without the breathings and accents, have been set in print and published, we have thought it important that the reason for this be made clear to all at the outset. It is as follows.

That the most ancient of the Greeks were accustomed to write with out these points (κορθφαί) on the letters is too clear to need many testimonies. For certain old copies (ἀντίγραφα), not a few in number, clearly show this, such as poems of Kallimakhos and the verses of the Sibyll, and carvings of great age on stone in the city, engraved simply with letters alone. So it is quite evident that, in that first bringing into being of the Greek language, the placing on of these small strokes and marks was not devised, nor contributed to the full completeness of the said language in any way.

Since also all acknowledge that the whole New Testament, apart from the Gospel according to Matthew and the Epistle to the Hebrews, was written down in the Greek language from the beginning just as it was imparted by the Holy Spirit, we too decided piously to preserve the archaic antiquity and majesty therein of the same language, and to publish the book without the least addition whatever, in the manner of the ancient writings, so that we may not seem to have introduced novelty into something so holy and full of revered lofty thought, by means of alien and new operations imposed on it. Moreover, if the truth be told, the lack of breathings and accents could cause no obstacle to those with any training at all in Greek letters. I mean this with reference to the pure thought of what is said.

Instead of accents, the editors used “a simple mark” (κεραία) in polysyllabic words to show where the accent would go if it had been included. This is to aid pronunciation.

Interestingly, the vocabulary referencing system between Greek and Latin includes small dots under the reference letter to indicate ambiguous Greek meanings. See the dot under the ‘c’ before εγεννηθησαν in John 1.13.

The translation above is from John A. L. Lee, “Dimitrios Doukas and the Accentuation of the New Testament Text of the Complutensian Polyglot,” NovT 47, no. 3 (2005): 250–90.

For more on the Complutensian Polyglot, see here.

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).