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10-06-2005, 09:46 AM | #1 |
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Victorinus quote & Luke's Intro (split from "Lukan priority..."
[The earlier discussion is here, http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=137978 ]
Greetings, all, Here is Victorinus (mid-third century) quoting the opening verses of Mt and Mk. Matthew: "Book of the generation of Jesus Christ _son of God_ son of David son of Abraham; this (is) the face of a human." Mark: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ as it was written in Isaiah" (Above translations from Latin by Carlson.) Carlson remarked, "More interesting from a text-critical perspective, however, is that Victorinus joins with Aleph (first hand), Theta, 28, and Origen in not having "Son of God" in Mark 1:1." Ben Smith remarked, "[Victorinus] also seems to conflate Matthew 1.1 with Luke 3.38 in inserting 'son of God' into the former in conjunction with the genealogy." Yuri now remarks, Yes, both of these text-critical observations are quite interesting. In regard to the omission of "Son of God" in Mark 1:1, I would also add that, actually, lots of other Church fathers likewise omit "Son of God" here (as listed in GNT/UBS). Syrian Palestinian versions, as well as some Georgian MSS likewise omit. Now, in regard to the apparent conflation by Victorinus of Mt 1:1 with Lk 3:38, as noted by Ben, in my view, this is even more interesting. As far as I know, no edition of Greek NT lists this particular variant. But here, it seems, would be one more argument for Mt originally being dependent on Lk... (After all, this particular feature in Victorinus is quite similar to what is happening with the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, where there are _hundreds_ of apparent 'conflations' with Lk. The point being that the Western/Peripheral texts of Mt -- and not just HMt alone -- typically seem to 'conflate' Mt and Lk.) Now, let's compare the above quotes from the 'genuine' Victorinus with the later rewriting of Victorinus by Jerome. Matthew (according to Jerome): "Book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham" Mark (according to Jerome): "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet" So we see that Jerome actually corrects Victorinus' citation of Mt, by dropping "son of God" from his citation. Yet Jerome leaves Victorinus' citation of Mk alone, in so far as he didn't insert "Son of God" into Mk. Nevertheless, I can also note here in passing that the 'genuine' Victorinus said simply "Isaiah", rather than "Isaiah the prophet", like we find in Jerome, as well as in the canonical text. (This is another significant variant in Mk 1:2, but I'll not get into it now.) So it looks like Jerome corrected both citations, after all... So all this just goes to show that, even as late as in mid-third century, Victorinus is still apparently using some rather early texts of the gospels, that seem like pre-canonical texts... All in all, in the above quotes, Victorinus features at least 3 variants from the canonical text. Jerome corrects 2 of them, and leaves one uncorrected. YET ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE READING! And here's yet another very interesting variant in Victorinus that I can now point out. Here Victorinus discusses the story of Zacharias in Lk 1, (Genuine Victorinus) "[W]hile Luke reckons from the priesthood of Zacharias offering a sacrifice for the people and with an angel appearing to him" (According to Jerome) "Luke, in narrating the priesthood of Zacharias as he offers a sacrifice for the people, and the angel that appears to him" But the phrase "offering a sacrifice for the people" is not found in any canonical text of Lk... Actually, this phrase seems to be quite significant, because the "people" here are clearly the people of Israel. (As we can see above, Jerome leaves this particular feature of Victorinus' citation alone.) So it would be quite significant IMHO that the opening of the Gospel of Luke would contain a prayer for the Jews. Hence, one wonders, where did Victorinus get this turn of phrase then? Could it perhaps be... from the Magdalene Gospel? Magdalene Gospel http://www.globalserve.net/~yuku/mgtext.htm (MG 2:3) ... And while alone in the Temple, he [Zacharias] entreated God for the salvation of the people. (MG 2:5) And the angel comforted him, and said that the supplication that he made for the people was heard before God... And so, in the Magdalene Gospel, in the passage that is parallel to Lk, the entreaties for the Jews are mentioned not just once, but twice! It's quite possible IMHO that this was the early text of Lk, which was later changed for political reasons (i.e. anti-Jewish feelings). All the best, Yuri. |
10-08-2005, 06:16 PM | #2 | |
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Another point. Those Jewish-Christian gospels do not stop at conflating, as it were, only the primitive portions of Luke. The Ebionite gospel to which Epiphanius had access, for example, conflates what it calls the gospel of Matthew with part of the infancy narrative of Luke, which section you have already stated was probably added to Luke only later, and was therefore not a part of the primitive gospel text. If, then, we know that conflation did indeed happen, how do you go about distinguishing in any mixed text, as it were, conflation from dependence on a primitive text? Your comparison of the sacrifice in Victorinus with that in the Pepysian text, on the other hand, seems rather a different sort of animal, and much more directly supportive of your thesis, since conflation of the sort I am talking about can be safely ruled out. Ben. |
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10-09-2005, 11:42 AM | #3 | ||||||
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Mt was definitely the most popular gospel among Christians at least from the 2c onwards. So if you want to claim that some manuscripts of Mk were later conflated with Mt, or that some manuscripts of Lk were later conflated with Mt, then I can understand it. But why would anyone, from 2c onwards, want to conflate Mt with _Lk_? This just doesn't make any sense, sorry... I wasn't really going to use this single example from Victorinus as any sort of a big argument for anything. Hey, anything can happen with just one passage... But when you talk about HMt, with its _hundreds_ of conflations with Lk, then we really have something very significant on our hands, that needs to be investigated further. And if we establish that a great many of these 'conflating' passages in HMt are in fact very ancient (i.e. with lots of ancient MSS support), then a very solid case will be made. Quote:
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Thus, Epiphanius may well be preserving some earlier Nativity passages, that can tell us something important about those earlier stages of textual development of these passages. Quote:
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Yes, I guess, in this case, the crucial question is, Where did Victorinus get this idea that Zacharias was praying _for the people_? He probably got it from somewhere, I'd say. So, in order to solidify this case, some other instance of this in some other patristic witness would be very useful. I've a felling that it may well be out there somewhere, and I might even try to take a look sometime... All the best, Yuri. |
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10-11-2005, 06:40 AM | #4 | ||
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In some regions or for some of the fathers John appears to trump all three synoptics. I may well be completely mistaken about the relative popularity of each gospel; it would be nice to have some hard stats on the matter. Quote:
Ben. |
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10-11-2005, 07:09 AM | #5 | |
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10-11-2005, 09:18 AM | #6 | |
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Origen also appears to maintain a similar (approximate) ratio. It is in the third century and later, apparently, that my impression breaks down, with Matthew far outweighing Luke. Thanks a ton. Ben. |
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10-11-2005, 11:34 AM | #7 | |
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Thanks to Vork for providing for us the hard stats about the relative usage of the gospels in various periods.
This is consistent with what I remember from my own research. Quote:
My question remains, Is there any reason why anyone in later times (perhaps even in medieval times?) would have made a great effort to 'conflate' the Hebrew Matthew with Lk? It is obvious that Lk was not nearly as popular in later times as it was in early times (i.e. prior to 200 CE). So it seems like this is a good argument for the early status of HMt -- any way you look at it. All the best, Yuri. |
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10-11-2005, 11:40 AM | #8 | |
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10-11-2005, 01:48 PM | #9 | |
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That 1400 figure for Mark seems awfully high, but it might be all right if much of it is due to the Diatessaron. How much of the 1400 references/allusions to Mark before 215 is not due the Diatessaron (or Secret Mark)? Stephen |
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10-11-2005, 01:55 PM | #10 | |
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