Month: October 2010

Yesterday I translated what the Sources Chretiennes volumes containing books 3, 4 and 5 of Irenaeus Adversus Haereses had to say about the tables of contents (or argumenta) in the manuscripts.  Chapter titles and divisions are also discussed.

Book 1 is covered in SC263, p.30-1.

The manuscripts C and V do not contain the Tabula capitulorum, suggesting that their archetype had lost this item.  This accident, probably caused by the age of the manuscript, but which took place in an era impossible to determine, will astonish none who are aware of the ease with which the first page of an old book  may deteriorate and then be lost.  Thus this does not have the significance that the intentional mutilation of the end of book 5 must have in the family A Q S ε (cf. SC 152, p.30).

But another problem arises in the interior of this second family itself.  Codex A is in disorder when compared to its relatives Q S ε: these begin with the tabula itself, preceded by a title which announces them: incipiunt tabula …, and are followed by the Praefatio of Irenaeus.  The Arundelianus reverses the order; first the Praefatio, then the Tabula.  Which is original?  In all the evidence, from Q S ε as well as from the manuscripts of the other books, the Tabula precedes the Praefatio, and this is so in C V as well.  

Why this reversal in A?

First we may remark that this manuscript — alone of those known to us — begins with the Prologue of Florus (title: Prologus) without any attribution, without the divisions marked by Pitra and Harvey who edited it.  But this page of introduction to the work of Irenaeus could not have disordered what follows, any more than when the copyist of Q, finding it in his exemplar at the Grand Chartreuse (which also had the Prologue of Florus), put it to one side and gave the rest in the exact order.  This is, therefore, an accident particular to A.

The author then uses this information to classify manuscripts, and on p.35 returns to “the capitula in the tabula“, saying that there are 35 and analysing the variants in the manuscripts, which he finds show disorder, which he believes is due to the Greek original.  Then he discusses the insertion at a later date of these into the body of the text.

This location [of the title] is unvarying from one manuscript to another, which should not surprise us because, in general, once a position for a title and its portions in red, and the amount of space to be left, and the large initial, was established in the text, then it doesn’t move an inch from copy to copy to copy, except where the scribe has a positive and pressing reason to change the arrangement in the copy before him.

The translator of the tabula can hardly, in my opinion, have also inserted them in the text.  He translated with discernment, and would not have tolerated the awkward disagreements between many of the titles and their content.  Be that as it may, the capitula were inserted very early, before the separation of the mss. into families, and before the suppression of the final millenarist passage.

Their distribution in the text does not reflect their appropriate place.  The scribe who took the initiative or who was responsible for it — the rubricator — was guided by two principles; to follow the order of the tabula, and to use proper names as a guide to position.  Otherwise, in passages not equipped with proper names, it seemed easy to him to read the text to find the coincidence of language.  In this way he sought to achieve an appropriate division of the text.

The result of this approach is lamentable, as the rubricator has added, to the disorder to the tabula, his own mistakes in placing the titles.  The first six titles have been placed correctly.  From no. 7, where the disorder starts, to no.19, the capitula have been placed by guesswork, and careful observation permits us to see the mistaken logic that resulted in the place of insertion.  Nos.20-32 are fine, apart from two accidents, i.e. the inversion of 32 and 33 and 30 being placed somewhat early, because of the presence of various proper names.  From 32 to the end each insertion is late.

He then tabulates the chapter divisions and says that he is not going to use them in his own text.  He also tells us that the tabula are numbered in C and V, and in A and S.  In Q the tabula are in capitals and unnumbered from 1-12, but thereafter in normal bookhand and with numbers.

SC293 deals with book 2 of Irenaeus, and once again has a lengthy section on tabula and capitula, p.51-69.  It is very welcome to see so much attention paid to these items, so often ignored, and also to the chapter divisions.  Would that all modern editions did likewise!  Much of it is detail of variants which is not of special interest here.

In book 2 all the mss. have a tabula at the head of the book, as they should; a numbered list in C and V, unnumbered in the other mss.[=AQS]  The case of Q with its Greek numbers is peculiar and we will deal with it in a moment. … It is an accident only that the numbers are missing in AQS. …

On p.56 he discusses the Greek numbers in manuscript Q.  I will abbreviate heavily here.

We have left to one side a curious phenomenon which we do not have enough evidence to discuss properly: the Greek numbering in ms. Q.  We will all the same describe them better than has been done so far.  Pitra made the attempt, and Loofs later, after him.  But both were trying to transcribe into the characters of the print-shop some very malformed Greek signs by a hand that Pitra described as “maleferiata”.  The printed outcome  was not very successful.

Were these numbers written by the copyist of the rest of the text, or added later by someone wishing to display his knowledge of Greek?  Because they were written afterwards, and in single session.  But there is no doubt; the writing is that of the copyist.  In fact in the course of book 2 the copyist had to write in Greek those portions of the text left untranslated by the Latin translator (21,39; 22, 177).  However, as far as we can judge, while there was more application in those passages, the same incompetence is visible there also.  The κ, ε, and θ show the same ductus.  We shall not deceive ourselves if we attribute the numbers of the Tabula and the Greek lines of text to the same copyist.

But if so, it is necessary to accept that the [lost] manuscript of the Grand Chartreuse, from which Q was copied, also had this Greek numbering.  Why this ms, and not the others?  Is it handed down, or the result of some philhellenism along the way?  We think the latter, without following Pitra and supposing the intervention of Florus himself.  But we wonder whether this explains the absence of numbering in the Tabula in the family AQS.  Sirmond tells us that the Carthusianus contained the Preface of Florus, and A does also; but A does not reproduce this numbering, while it was reproducing in a secondary line of transmission of which only Q has come down to us.  S leaves them out.  …

It seems that the copyist of Q found in his model some Roman numbers.  In fact he has reproduced in the same column where they align with the Greek numbers the Roman number every 10th number. …

The capitula in the text.

In C and V the capitula are an integral part of the text, copied with their number, without discontinuity between the chapters.  But AQS either have no capitula or, where AQ seem to have them, they are not the original ones. 

The omission of the capitula in A is accidental, ancient, and inexplicable.  A later hand copied them into the margin with their number.  But since the same hand also added in the margin glosses from the Erasmus edition of 1526, these late capitula are based on the [artificial] ones of Erasmus.

Like A, Q bears an adventitious division and numeration.  In the continuous and regular text, a later hand has marked paragraphs in arbitrary places with a large paragraph sign, with a corresponding number in the margin, in large Roman numbers.  There are no titles.  This later division into paragraphs corresponds astonishingly with that of Erasmus, but not perfectly.  …

The late numbering of Q disguise another, sporadic and little remarked, but which seems to be in the hand of the copyist, in the body of the text.  [Some numbers in tiny letters have been written over with new numbers by the late hand].  However this primitive numbering corresponds exactly to that in CV. … [S also has the same numbering as CV, in tiny letters].

Thus there is no doubt.  Since Q and S, mss of the second family, agree with the first family, this is proof that the division of CV is that of the authentic transmission.   

The Greek text of the five books of Irenaeus Adversus Haereses is lost, aside from quotations.  A Latin version exists, created in antiquity, and also an Armenian version of books 4 and 5.  The French Sources Chrétiennes text contains some interesting statements about the tables of contents prefixed to each book, and chapter divisions.

In Sources Chrétiennes 100 (introducing book 4), p.42-3 we have the following statement by B. Hemmerdinger:

The Armenian version is not divided into chapters.  But book 4 is preceded by a summary, while book 5 is not.

In Latin, book 4 is preceded by a summary and divided into chapters [1], while book 5 has neither.  This implies that in Latin the chapters were created from the summaries, and that the Greek archetype of the Latin and the Armenian had a summary before book 4, but not before book 5.

This summary does not vary, either in the manuscripts or in the early editors from Erasmus to Grabe.  It is an innovation in the Latin version to copy these argumenta and insert them in the text as titles of chapters.  So there is no need for us to encumber the text of Irenaeus with these titles, which don’t belong there. 

[1] In 80 chapters in the manuscripts… 

On pp.186-191 there is a lengthy “Observation on the argumenta“.

…all the Latin manuscripts precede book 4 with a list of “argumenta”, which are then repeated in the body of the same book, a few variants aside, as titles for divisions of the text, divisions of very varying lengths.  The Armenian manuscript offers a list which is substantially identical preceding book 4, but, differing here from the Latin manuscripts, the “argumenta” are not reprised in the interior of the book.  This is the first piece of data which is imposed on whoever studies the “argumenta” in either version of the text.

This invites us to make a distinction between the list of “argumenta” on the one hand and the insertion of them in the body of the text on the other.  The list of “argumenta” preceding book 4 is therefore anterior to the Latin and Armenian translators, since both of them translated it.  Thus it belongs to the Greek tradition, even if, as seems certain, it does not go back to Irenaeus himself.   As for the introduction of “argumenta” in the body of the text, it is more recent.  Although it precedes the division of our Latin manuscripts into two families, it seems to be much later than the translation itself.  This is clear from the fact that it does not respect the periods and phrases of the text, as Pitra already noted in 1884.  The translator would hardly have brutally cut these in half, as in the case of V, XL, XLII, XLIV, XLVII, LVI, and LXXIV. … The insertion must be foreign to the Greek archetype common to the two versions, for otherwise it is inexplicable that there is no trace of it in the Armenian version.

What do these “argumenta” represent?  As F. Sagnard has justly noted (SC34, p.78), this is not a division into real chapters, but more an overview of subjects treated, of a series of landmarks punctuating a course of progress quite often alien to the development of the work.  Indeed rather than defining in a neat manner a step in the thought of Irenaeus, and seeking to summarise it personally, the author of the “argumenta” preferred, in a general fashion, to pile up this formula and that which struck him in the course of going through the text, and repeated them in compiling the list.  In consequence there are a good number of “argumenta” which echo phrases in the Adversus Haereses, but where we look in vain for any development of the idea (e.g. “argumenta” VIII, IX, X).  Hence also a certain daftness in the list.  The author dwells unduly sometimes on pages that do not demand it, and sometimes ignores material which deserved a special note.  All this shows that he had no intention of compiling a list of chapters in the modern manner. …

It does not follow that the list is thereby deprived of interest, and we believe that the too severe verdict of F. Sagnard should be revised.  …

He then goes on to point out that because it derives directly from the Greek text, it can be used as a guide to correct transmission errors.  Then there is discussion of the differences between the Latin and Armenian versions of the list, due to mistakes by the translator, or Latin or Armenian copyist errors, and substantial lacunas.

The comparison of the Latin and Armenian lists furnishes us a third piece of data.  The numbering of the items in one is quite independent of that in the other.  For the Armenian one can say that the numbering, made in the margin, seems to be the work of a later hand.  This tends to show that the numbering formed no part of the early Armenian text, and was just added ad-hoc later on.  Just by considering the numbering of book 4, we are driven to conclude that numbering did not form part of the Greek text.  However this conclusion is weakened if we step outside book 4, which is our present study.  For book 2, in fact, in Vaticanus 187 (Q), the “argumenta” are listed with a numbering in Greek numbers.  J. B. Pitra drew attention to this and reproduced it in his Analecta Sacra vol. 2 (1884) p.215.  Also the lemmas of three Syriac fragments, one of book 2 (Harvey II, p. 435, n. 1) and the first two of our book 4 (Harvey II, p.443, n.1; p.444, n.1) also attest to the existence of one and even many numberings, the origins and value of which we cannot discuss here.  These observations may support the idea of numbering in the Greek text.  But it must not be forgotten that book 5, in whatever version, manifests a kind of incompleteness in that it has no “argumenta”.  In the era in which translators and compilers were using the book of Irenaeus, the Greek manuscripts must have presented, in the fragile portion which the initial list is,  important lacunas and divergences, which the differences of the Latin and Armenian only reflect. 

The author adds two studies on the subject of the Armenian argumenta: A. Merk, Der armenische Irenaeus Adversus Haereses — IV. Das argumentum des 4. Buches, ZKTh 50 (1926), p.481-494; and J. A. Robinson, The Armenian capitula of Irenaeus Adv. haereses IV, JTS 32 (1931), p.71-4.

In Sources Chrétiennes 152 (introducing book 5), p.30-31 we find the following interesting statement:

A peculiarity of book 5 in the manuscript tradition is the absence of argumenta, and consequently of chapters.  The absence is a feature of the Armenian version as well as the Latin version, which suggests that the Greek copies which served as a basis for each were likewise devoid of argumenta.  Why?  Was it just laziness by the scribe originally charged with compiling them?  Or an accident to a Greek archetype?  It is not our intention nor within our power to pursue this question.  But it is worth knowing that editors have reacted very differently to this absence.

It is worth mentioning that book 5 does have a preface.

In Sources Chrétiennes 34 (introducing book 3) the discussion is on p.77-8.

It was stated earlier that the argumenta found at the start of the books are the same in all the manuscripts.  This is particularly so for book 3, where the list comprises 46 chapters.  Loofs has already demonstrated in tabular form the agreement of the lists found in the manuscripts.  However he made a mistake in assigning V a different numbering system.  The error is simple: the numbers initially appear before the title to which they relate, and so at the end of the preceding title, but later on, because of long titles covering more than one line, they appear at the end of their own title.

The scribes have made many errors, which are easy to spot.  …

The remainder of the comments are of a similar kind to those in SC 100, although he dismisses the titles as of no  value.

I also had a look at SC406, which publishes Irenaeus Proof of the apostolic preaching, extant only in Armenian and found in the same manuscript (Yerevan 3710) as books 4 and 5 of Adversus Haereses, which it follows.  The table of contents is mentioned for book 4 of AH, the lack of it for book 5, and no mention of one is made for the Proof.

I will perhaps look at books 1 and 2 tomorrow.

In the medieval manuscripts which transmit to us the text of Josephus Antiquities, each book is preceded by what looks to us like a table of contents.  These are present in the Loeb edition edited by Henry St. John Thackeray, who very properly includes and translates them, although they are at the back of each volume.

The books of this work were certainly subdivided in antiquity, because Cassiodorus refers to portions of the text by number in his Exposition on the Psalms, as I verified a post or two ago.  Polybius added tables of contents to his history, at least initially, as we learn from the introduction to book 11, and other writers followed.  Divisions of literature into numbered sections are found in papyri.  So it seems clear that the tables of contents in Josephus are ancient, and probably authorial or — since this is a work so much the work of secretaries — from the original team of authors and editors.

But Thackeray points out one piece of evidence that suggests otherwise.  In Niese’s edition, at the end of the table of contents / prographe for book 1 is a reference to the Chronicon of Eusebius.

Of course that could not be a first century piece of text.  But Thackeray points out that it is not actually found in most of the manuscripts.  There is also an ancient Latin version of Antiquities, which also has these tables; and it is not found in there either.  Here is the apparatus from Niese, showing this:

This variation tends to suggest that this piece of text has a different textual history to the rest.  Perhaps we may surmise that it is a later addition.  No such details are found under the tables for other books.

There seems no real convincing reason to suppose that these titles are not part of the original book, and they should be printed as such.  Birt indeed opined that such tables were originally written on the outside of the roll, and Polybius confirms that copyists tended to ignore them.

These tables exist for some works where the text has been lost.  The prologoi of Pompeius Trogus exist, but the whole history by this contemporary of Livy has vanished apart from a 2nd century AD epitome by Justinus.  So these items had a life of their own, and might circulate by themselves.

Perhaps they were of service to booksellers also.  Is it possible to imagine these things being hung up on columns in the book-sellers’ shops?

I referred a while back to Matthaeus Gesner’s opinion, delivered in 1787, as to why chapter divisions were not authentic.  Diana Albino gives him as her first reference on why there is a habit of treating such things as inauthentic.

Prior to his chapter 21, which I translated there, he makes the following remarks:

Commode hic nobis accidit, & commodius multo lectoribus accidet, illa capitum quae vocantur & titulorum in minora segmenta divisio, iam a Schoettgenio instituta, quae etiam ad parallelismum, quem vocant, indicandum, unum optimum interpretandi libros quoscunque instrumentum, apprime utilis est, ut mirer, rem ita facilem, & olim cognitam, negligi fere in splendidis librorum antiquorum editionibus, praesertim cum metus non sit, ne ea similia bonis libris vulnera infligat, qualibus capitum illa divisio occasionem dedit.

XX. Hic locus est plura de infelici illa capitum divisione, conjunctis ei rei lemmatibus disputandi; qua de re visum est hic uno loco ita dicere, ut totam complecti aliquis animo possit, ac tum in his, tum in aliis libris eorum, quae hic disputata sunt, meminisse. Jam ipsos antiquos scriptores uno fere tenore & continuatione libros scripsisse, satis constat, ut non tantum historias in unum perpetuum & undique cohaerens corpus redigerent, sed ea etiam, quae diversitatem aliquam habent, arte quadam inter se devincirent, latentibus, ut in Corinthia columna, membrorum finibus, aut in statuarii opere commissuris, & subtiliter permixtis, velut in pictura extremis partis cujusque lineis. Cujus rei nescio an clarius & mirabilius exemplum exstet Ovidiano Metamorphoseon opere: quod qui uno quasi spiritu legere volet, ille demum poetae ingenium mirabitur, qui mille partes dissimillimas ita inter se coagmentaverit, ut uno solido factum marmore totum illud templum videatur. Ita quam apte Plinius ille naturae historicus transitione res saepe diversissimas connectit? ut unum voluisse illum librum uno quasi protelo percurrere appareat. Quae cum ita sint, dissecuisse antiquos, quae scripsissent, in partes libris ipsis minores, non est probabile: qui librorum ipsam divisionem ad voluminum & chartarum modum necessitate quadam attemperaverint.

Well, quite so.  He argues that ancient books are all written in a single piece to join together diverse materials, like a Corinthian column, and even Pliny the Elder in his Natural History does the same.

Of which I do not know whether a clearer and more admirable example exists than the Ovidian work Metamorphoses: because he who chooses to read it as if in one spirit, he will marvel at the ingenuity of the poet, who has joined together a thousand utterly dissimilar pieces in such a way, that it seems made like a temple out of one solid marble. So Pliny, the historian of nature, often joins together the most diverse materials by an appropriate transition, so that it appears that he wanted to run through that one book as if in one go. This being so, it is not probable that the ancients divided, what they had written, into smaller parts than the books themselves, when that division into books was only forced on them by the necessity of the medium of rolls and papyrus.

Unless I am quite misunderstanding the argument, this is merely a subjective opinion.