Freethought & Rationalism Archive

hatsoff · 03-24-2009, 05:13 PM

Coleman-Norton, Paul R. "An Amusing Agraphon." Catholic Biblical Quarterly 12 (1950) 439-449.

That's the paper. I'm interested in finding a translation (and/or a transcription of the original Greek) of the Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum fragment Coleman-Norton claimed to have found. I don't expect it should be too long; it was reported to have come from a single page, after all.

Any help would be much appreciated!

+ + +

For anyone unacquainted with this paper, consider what Metzger said about it. The following text was copy-pasted from an OCR, so please excuse any errors:

Quote:

In 1950 the Catholic Biblical Quarterly published the Greek text, with an
English translation and philological commentary, of what the author, the late
Paul R. Coleman-Norton, at that time Associate Professor of Latin at Princeton
University, entitled, "An Amusing Agraphon."l According to the highly cir-
cumstantial account in the opening paragraphs of the article, in 1943 during the
Second World War the author was stationed with the U.S. armed forces at
Fedhala in French Morocco. Here one day in the town's Mohammedan mosque
he was shown an Arabic codex in which was "a single unnumbered page of
Greek, sandwiched between two tracts on materia medica." The contents of
the page, as was disclosed later when the author studied the transcript which the
imam had allowed him to make, turned out to be a fragment of a Greek transla-
tion of the Latin Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum, which is a collection of
homilies on chs. 1-13 and 19-25 of the Gospel according to Matthew. At the
conclusion of Matt 24:51, which in the canonical text refers to the judgment
when "men will weep and gnash their teeth," the fragment continues with the
question, raised by one of the disciples, how these things can be for persons who
happen to be toothless. Whereupon Jesus replies, "Teeth will be provided."
However amusing one may regard this account, there is no doubt at all that
the agraphon is a forgery-whether ancient or modern, opinions may differ.
For the present writer, at any rate, it is difficult not to think that it is a modern
forgery, for prior to World War II in a class of Latin Patristics Professor Cole-
man-Norton regaled his students (of whom the present writer was one) with a
witticism about dentures being provided in the next world so that all the damned
might be able to weep and gnash their teeth.

--Metzger, Bruce. "Literary Forgeries and Canonical Pseudepigrapha." Journal of Biblical Literature 91 (1972).

GakuseiDon · 03-24-2009, 06:04 PM

I don't know whether this is relevant or not, but the great Irish comedian Dave Allen used that joke in the 1970s. In fact, he used those exact words, "Teeth will be provided!"

Toto · 03-24-2009, 06:15 PM

Lost Christianities (or via: amazon.co.uk) By Bart D. Ehrman p. 69 refers to the incident, as a preface to a discussion of Secret Mark.

Could I ask why you are looking for the original Greek of a famous hoax?

In any case, it seems to have been reprinted in this post on bgreek

Quote:

Coleman-Norton continues:

Then appears the agraphon with this introduction, which to all indications seems to be scriptural:

KAI IDOU, TIS TWN MA(QHT)WN AUTOU EFESTOTWN AUTWi ELEGEN. 'RABBI, hO LEGETAI ME(QER)MHNEUOMENON DIDASKALE PWS DUNHSETAI TAUTA GENES(QAI), EAN WSIN ANODONTES; APOKRIQEIS DE hO IHSOUS EIPEN. OLIGOPISTE, MH SKULLOU. EI ARA TINWN hUSTERHSONTAI, hOI ODONTES PROSPARASKEUASONTAI.
[NOTE***]

Which is accompanied by a footnote reading:

This may be translated thus: "And behold, a certain one of his disciples standing by said unto him: 'Rabbi (which is to say, being interpretted, Master), how can these things be, if they be toothless?' And Jesus answered and said: 'O thou of little faith, trouble not thyself; if haply they will be lacking any, teeth will be provided.'" [p443]

(You can read some commentary on this in the posts that follow this one.)

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03-24-2009, 06:04 PM	#2
GakuseiDon Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 5,714	I don't know whether this is relevant or not, but the great Irish comedian Dave Allen used that joke in the 1970s. In fact, he used those exact words, "Teeth will be provided!"

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