jakejonesiv

Hi All,

What are the extant manuscripts of the Ignatian epistles?
How is the short recension reconstructed?

Thanks,
Jake Jones IV

S.C.Carlson

You can begin by reading this page: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/richardson/....vi.ii.ii.html

Ben C Smith

Hi, Jake.

I have been collecting manuscript information for the apostolic fathers anyway, so your question prompted me to go ahead and list the Ignatian manuscripts on my site. Go to my page on the epistles of Ignatius to view the list.

The short answer to your immediate question is that neither the middle nor the long recensions of the epistles really have to be reconstructed as such. At least one manuscript exists which bears witness to each recension.

Ben.

jakejonesiv

Ben,

Thanks! That is tremendous!!! :notworthy:

Jake Jones IV

jakejonesiv

Stephen,

Thanks for supplying information concerning the background of the texts.

Jake

Roger Pearse

A good start to the list. But isn't it infuriating that the mss are not listed by contents, or that the many mss of the long recension are not listed?

One point not mentioned. We all know that Cureton found three letters extant in the very short epitomised form in Syriac. But reading Aphram Barsoum, "The Scattered Pearls", there are references to mss containing Syriac versions of the other 4 letters.

Barsoum was a monophysite patriarch in the first half of the 20th century. His book on Syriac literature is valuable for its references to mss in eastern libraries unknown to scholars. It has recently been translated into English.

The mention of Bart Ehrman and the manuscripts of the apostolic fathers reminds me of a curious episode. He came to the Oxford Patristics Conference in 2003 to publicise his then new Loeb Apostolic Fathers. There was a one-hour session allocated him in another college. He was introduced with extraordinary flattery, and then spoke for an hour, of which I remember little other than that he seemed a bit contemptuous of his subject. He disparaged the fathers for their emphasis on chastity, for instance. More interestingly he told us that Lake, who did the previous Loeb translation, made it apparently by lying on a sofa with the Greek text, and reading aloud a translation to a secretary. (I am experimenting with this using a digital dictation handheld this week) But at the end he talked about the manuscripts of the apostolic fathers and his text critical efforts. This gave me the impression that he had looked at and worked with them, which was impressive.

But I clearly wasn't the only one who was beginning to be irritated with Ehrman's attitude. When question time came round, an Oxford scholar who clearly knew something about these mss referred to them and the difficulty of access, and asked Ehrman directly whether he had actually worked with them. Ehrman coughed and mumbled that in fact, no, he had worked from the standard critical editions.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Ben C Smith

Yes, that is bothersome, to say the least. Even the SC editions use this kind of shorthand.

It also bothers me that the versions are just called versions, and not usually broken down by manuscript.

Ben.

jakejonesiv

Exactly. That is one of the things I am looking for.

Jake Jones IV