Roger Pearse

Many thanks indeed Stephen. Here's a hasty translation (corrections very welcome; it seems like easy Latin, tho):

After in fact we finished the exposition of the gospels, o our brother, on a grand scale and very clearly, we were prepared to attempt an explication of the Apocalypse of John the Evangelist. However you, dear readers, with those who incite spiritual petitions, please utter prayers on behalf of Dionysius the pilgrim, so that you also may be saved.

In the beginning of the text, we say that many masters have doubted concerning the Apocalpyse of John and said that it is not his. And this Eusebius of Caesarea expounds in the book The Church or The Church History. For Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria says: The Apocalypse is not by the apostle John, but by another John, a presbyter, who used to live in Asia; for they are not of the same type, that is species of text, in the Gospel and the Apocalypse. And John nowhere in the Gospel mentions his name; but here, at the start and end of the Apocalypse he gives his name. And we declare that we have received from our Lord his revelation, who wrote it. Bishop Irenaeus and Hippolytus of Bosra say that the Apocalypse is by John the Evangelist and was revealed to him at the end of the reign of Domitian. Also Eusebius of Caesarea assents to these things and immediately says: If anyone does not admit that the Apocalypse is by John the apostle, the evangelist, we say: therefore it is by John the presbyter, who lived in the time of John the apostle. And there are two sepulchers in Asia, one of the evangelist and the other of the presbyter John.

Hippolytus of Rome said : A man appeared, by name Caius, who used to assert that the Gospel was not by John, nor the Apocalypse, but that they are by the heretic Cerinthus. And against this Caius the blessed Hippolytus rose up and demonstrated that the teaching of John, in the Gospel and in the Apocalypse, was one thing, and that of Cerinthus another.

This Cerinthus indeed used to teach circumcision, and was angry against Paul, because he did not circumcise Titus, and he calls the apostle and his disciples in some of his letters “false apostles and workers-for-hire�. He also used to teach that the world was created by angels; and that our Lord was not born from a virgin, and the importance (?) of food and drink, and many blasphemies.

The Gospel and Apocalypse of John [both?] follow the plan of the Scriptures ; therefore they are liars who say that the Apocalypse is not by John the apostle. However we agree with Hippolytus. Also there testify that the Apocalypse is by John the evangelist: St.Cyril, and Mar Severus, and all the Doctors [of the church], who adduce witnesses in their books, but also [Gregory] Theologus in the valedictory oration adduces an argument from this and says: “In the way that John teaches me by his revelation: ‘take away the way from my people and these stones’…�, where he calls heretics and their doctrine “stones�.

(Cyril=Cyril of Alexandria, Mar Severus = Severus of Antioch, Theologus = Gregory Nazianzen).

This is very interesting stuff, and it is very good to have it -- thank you again Stephen. What is the next para about? (I.e. have we got all the good bits?)

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Ben C Smith

Thanks for that on-the-fly translation, Roger.

For my part, I have uploaded a page on Gaius to my site that links both to this thread and to the Gwynn article on your site; it also tabulates each individual datum of note with its respective source.

Ben.

Roger Pearse

Feel free to copy the translation -- I place it in the public domain. You might want to clarify that the portion concerned is only the introduction -- the next words are the start of chapter 1 of the work.

I've been up to Cambridge University Library again today, and obtained T.H.Robinson's article from the Expositor which I will scan and place online. I've also photocopied Sedlacek's version of the Commentary on the Apocalypse, which is actually quite a short work (hence why I know what is next), plus Prigent's articles which I haven't read yet.

I've also got and read copies of the relevant chapters of Hill and Brent, although the arguments of both seem a bit overstated to me too. (If anyone is contemplating reading either, they seem to me both so badly written that reading them is a struggle). I get the impression that Brent's book is a thoroughgoing piece of revisionism, debunking all the data; Hill less so except where he follows Brent.

I think your own page summarising the data will be more useful. Incidentally, it's probably worth making clear that Photius says that his information comes from a note in the margin of the ms he is looking at.

I also looked at D.Loftus 1695 translation of Dionysius. It is in fact only of extracts from the Commentary on Matthew. But he talks about his manuscript translation of the whole of the Commentary on the Gospels and says that he has finished it, and he hopes to publish soon. These are the two volumes in the Bodleian Fell Mss, no doubt. I've obtained bitmaps of the whole volume, but it is otherwise uninteresting.

I also went to see if I could find any publication whatever of the John portion of the Commentary on the Gospels, and failed. Loftus' Latin translation was never published, it seems; Sedlacek published the portions on Matthew, Mark and Luke (in 2 vols in the CSCO), with a Latin translation, and then died, and, according to A.A.Vaschalde who wrote a note in vol.2, publication of the work was suspended, and seems never to have recommenced.

This means, of course, that Loftus' ms Latin translation is still the only one. But I can't quite face the idea of trying to decypher 17th century handwriting.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Ben C Smith

Good. I think I will.

Your dedication to this little enterprise is inspiring.

Good point. I shall do that.

Thanks for all the footwork. I wish I lived closer to a research library (as it is, the nearest one is about 5 hours away from me, I think).

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Hmmm. On page 180 Hill writes:

Gwynn considered that the Hippolytan work in question must have been the Heads or Chapters against Gaius, a work mentioned for the first time in a catalogue of Hippolytan works compiled by Ebed-Jesu in c. 1300. That catalogue also included a work entitled Defense of the Gospel and Apocalypse according to John, which is also a close approximation of a title found engraved upon what has traditionally been regarded as a statue of Hippolytus of Rome....

However, the online copy of Ebed-Jesu has the following for Hippolytus:

Hippolytus, Bishop and Martyr, wrote a book on the Life and Actions of Christ, an Exposition of Daniel the Less and Susanna, also Sentences against Gaius, an Introduction on the Advent of Christ, and an Exposition of the Gospel of S. John.

The work Sentences against Gaius is the so-called Heads against Gaius, of course, but why does the only title on the gospel of John start with exposition instead of defense (απολογια), and why does it omit mention of the apocalypse? Is this a manuscript variant? Or is it a translational glitch? Hill gives the full title of the work as απολογια υπεÏ? της αποκαλυψεως και του ευαγγελιου Ιωαννου on page 184.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

BTW, Roger, did you happen to notice that you made it into one of the footnotes in Hill, The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church??

Page 201, last sentence of note 92: (Note the helpful annotations on early edns. by Roger Pearse, 'Early Editions 1450-1859', at www.tertullian.org/editions/editions.htm.)

Good show, man.

Roger Pearse

I obtained a photocopy of Robinson's article, or so I thought, but unfortunately omitted some pages (490-1) while doing so. However the main bit is that he explains more clearly the manuscript stuff; and he translates the whole of Dionysius bar Salibi's preface and the start of chapter 1 for us. I've added the first half of the article to the same page as Gwynn's articles:

T.H. Robinson, The Expositor, 7th series vol 1. (1906), pp.481ff

All the best,

Roger Pearse

PS: I'll probably have to fade out of this discussion/forum now, since other duties call, but I'd love to hear if there are further developments. Chasing down the raw *facts* available is precisely what I find interesting.

Roger Pearse

No I hadn't -- thank you for pointing it out! I feel very honoured. I knew that bookdealers have started to refer to that page (not least because I quote prices), but hadn't realised scholars did.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Not sure, but Robinson has something about exposition/apology.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Ben C Smith

Excellent. I have updated my page.

As fate would have it, starting tomorrow my 9-5 job will be taking considerably more out of my schedule than usual for about two weeks. So I was going to be fading myself.

It has been a real pleasure.

Ben.