DCHindley

avi,

Think of fragments as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Based on the recoverable vocabulary, one can check Greek concordances for various works until one can fit it into known texts. They may have recognized the words as belonging to one of the gospel accounts of the baptism of Jesus. KAI EIDEN TO PNA QU KATABAINON WS = "and he-saw the spirit of-God descending as ..." They know how many and which letters from the possible passages (Mat 3:16, Mk 1:11 & Lk 3:22) would fit in the missing or illegible portions of the fragment.

They would also know that the words at the beginning and end of the fragment do not match any of the 3 gospel passages, so they may feel they have a quotation, and look for passages from church writers that cite one of these passages, and it wouldn't require a rocket scientist to match it to Irenaeus AH III.9.3, even in Latin. Bingo, a Greek fragment of AH III.9.3!

Why did he not cite the complete verse? Versification wasn't invented until the middle ages, and he cited only what was pertinent to his discussion, which was the nature of Jesus Christ. The whole passage preserved by the fragment covers the following (in English):

Irenaeus Against Heresies Book 3:9

2 ... sought Him not." 3 And then, [speaking of His] baptism, Matthew says, "The heavens were opened, and He saw the Spirit of God, as a dove, coming upon Him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." For Christ did not at that time descend upon Jesus, neither was Christ one and Jesus another: but the Word of God--who is the Saviour of all, and the ruler of heaven and earth ...

DCH

andrewcriddle

Hi Avi

The Florilegium is not on line (nor has it been published in full in any book or journal). However, I've tracked down a paper about it: Quelques Nouveaux Fragments Des Peres Anteniceens et Niceens by Marcel Richards. Symbolae Osloensis 1963 volume 38 pps 76-83.
According to this paper; although the Florilegium in its present form is late, it is composed of 20+ chapters which are based on (mostly different) older works. The Ireneus extract we have been discussing comes from chapter 2 which is based on an Anti-Nestorian treatise probably written between 500 and 550 CE. The extract was relevant because it appeared to uphold the unity of Jesus Christ as God and Man. (Which Nestorius was seen as denying.) Andrew Criddle

avi

Thank you very much, a welcome reply.

Yes, I agree with this idea, I am certain that is precisely what Ben was doing.

Here's my stumbling point with regard to POxy3.405:

Those well educated folks who commence this undertaking by comparing the fragment's symbols to the Latin AH, are, it seems to me, already committed to identifying the papyrus fragment's author.

My starting point is not AH. My starting point is the fragment.

From page 32 (not 43!!) of the PDF file, one reads this

Footnote 2: Fine.

However, that's not what I see on the fragment itself.

Here's what I see: αωεο

What do you observe?

Ben described this text: Ανεω

Codex Sinaiticus also has precisely this same text: ανεω

Am I then, the only person with such poor vision, that I cannot read the same letters as everyone else?

I don't see ανεω, rather, I observe αωεο. Is this merely some sort of grammatical distinction/rearrangement?

I believe we FIRST need to clarify precisely what is, or what is not, written on the papyrus, THEN we can attempt to fit those components to an earlier wiring diagram.

avi

avi

Thank you Andrew, very well written. I appreciate your reply. I believe that I have the inklings of an understanding of why this particular quote should have been regarded in the Thirteenth century, as worthy of inclusion in the Florilegium.

A much needed explanation. Thanks again.

avi

DCHindley

avi,

Presumably, you mean what you see on the image below?



I see (your green) "οϲ ανεω" and here is why: "οϲ" = the -OS from Matthaios, and that letter after "α" alpha cannot be an "ω" omega. An uncial omega has curved shape (see the ones elsewhere in the image) and actually looks like a bigger version of the minuscule "ω" used in academic publications (not the English "W" used in ASCII transliterations). You'll notice it has straight angles, which would be found in an uncial "nu" which looks like an English "N". There is a fault or hole in the papyrus just above that letter and the straight line that looks to you like an angular downstroke of an "omega" is probably the left half of the vertical downstroke of a "nu," the other half of which survives on the other half of a tear that extended down from the fault, and distorting the "nu" into a shape resembling an English "W". the final green letter is clearly a rounded omega the second half of which is preserved in distorted form just left of the edge of the fragment, and is not an omicron. Keep in mind that this picture is low definition.

DCH

avi

Thanks DCH, very clear explanation. Helps a lot.

avi

avi

Yes, you are correct, and I am wrong.
What I had thought was omega, is nu. The fourth letter, which I had thought was omicron, I realize now, thanks to your patient explanation, represents the left half of the letter omega, with the right half damaged....

Now, I must turn my attention to paleography,to learn why this bit of papyrus dates from the late second/early third century, and not later than that....

What is really needed is a feature detection program such as is used by astronomers studying Martian terrain, or one similar to that used by robotic vision systems in manufacturing.

With such a program, one could feed hundreds of ancient documents into a scanner, digitize the images, and perform analysis with less prejudice.

There would still be arguments, of course, as to which parameters of the image ought to be measured, how accurately, and with which degree of insistence upon reproducibility. The additional dilemma of analyzing a manuscript which had been forged, will also throw a monkey wrench into such a testing algorithm. The same problem will exist for large codices with multiple scribes, each with his/her own unique writing style.

Here's a reference from Italy:


avi