DCHindley wrote: ↑Fri Aug 17, 2018 9:21 pm
The translator of the 1867 translation (ch 58 & 59 in ANF vol. 1) had a ms (A) that he knew had a lacunae (a break in sense that suggests that some text had been lost of omitted) at the end of ch 57. The translator of 1896, using the newly discovered fuller ms (I) which had additional text between what the older translation had numbered 57 & 58, so the 1896 translation renumbered the chapters. Now, chapters 58-59 of the older translation become chapters 64 & 65 in the newer one. The recovered text is from the end of chapter 57 (there is still a lacunae there even in ms I) to chapter 63. This example is just at the end. The 1896 translator, as quoted above, indicates several other places where similar additional materials were found to be in the more recently discovered ms (I).
More head spinning stuff.
DCH
This is fascinating David - thanks again. The table presentation of the two translations is particularly helpful.
I'd like to follow up the two quotes I've bolded above.
1. ms A and the lacunae.
I'm not a professional scholar, so I'm unfamiliar with the term 'lacunae', but google tells me it's a gap in the text. You seem to suggest that in this MS the lacunae is a "break in sense" - could you explain what this means pls?
2. Additional materials in ms I
Given that additional materials were found in ms I, does this indicate that ms I has non-original materials, or is it more likely that ms A has had original materials removed?
A lacunae is a gap in the text. It is sometimes due to holes or tears in the leaves and sometimes due to copyists errors (loss of a few letters to whole lines). These lacunae in the first 56 chapters were small and could easily be reconstructed by context. The more recently discovered manuscript basically confirmed the earlier editors' conjectures.
However, at the end of ch 57 it got hairy. There was an obvious break in the last sentence of ch 57 followed by two concluding chapters. The more recently discovered manuscript had some extra text corresponding to chapter 57 (but still seems to contain a lacunae), plus another 6 chapters of moralizing sermons cast as a prayer, before concluding with the same two chapters as the previously known manuscript ended.
Whether these additional chapters were additions to a letter that lacked them, or the other way around, is unknown. My personal POV is that more complex and syrupy, the later it is. That could mean that the final 6 chapters in ms. I could have been an interpolation into a version that was much like ms. A. I had proposed that A was based on a core letter that promoted apostolic succession as practiced in the church of Rome, but embellished by all sorts of sermonettes and moralizations, usually straying from the point and attributing bad motives to the "youth leaders" that "revolted."
DCHindley wrote: ↑Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:28 pm
I want to turn my attention now to Dionysius bishop of Corinth. Per Eusebius's H.E., our only surviving source about him (I think):
H.E. 4.23.1, 8-10
Chapter XXIII.—Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, and the Epistles which he wrote.
1. And first we must speak of Dionysius, who was appointed bishop of the church in Corinth, and communicated freely of his inspired labors not only to his own people, but also to those in foreign lands, and rendered the greatest service to all in the catholic epistles which he wrote to the churches.
9. There is extant also another epistle written by Dionysius to the Romans, and addressed to Soter, who was bishop at that time. We cannot do better than to subjoin some passages from this epistle, in which he commends the practice of the Romans which has been retained down to the persecution in our own days. His words are as follows:
10. “For from the beginning it has been your practice to do good to all the brethren in various ways, and to send contributions to many churches in every city. Thus relieving the want of the needy, and making provision for the brethren in the mines by the gifts which you have sent from the beginning, you Romans keep up the hereditary customs of the Romans, which your blessed bishop Soter has not only maintained, but also added to, furnishing an abundance of supplies to the saints, and encouraging the brethren from abroad with blessed words, as a loving father his children.”
11. In this same epistle [addressed to Soter] he [Dionysius, Bp. of Corinth] makes mention also of Clement’s epistle to the Corinthians, showing that it had been the custom from the beginning to read it in the church. His words are as follows: “To-day we have passed the Lord’s holy day, in which we have read your [i.e., Soter's] epistle. From it, whenever we read it, we shall always be able to draw advice, as also from the former1 epistle, which was written to us through Clement2.”
This suggests to me that what he knew of this epistle of Clement to the Corinthians was read as edifying material, much like he enjoyed reading Soter's epistle addressed to his Church (not extant) ...
1 I wonder if former means a now-sidelined epistle?
2 Note the very last statement in 11 - "... from the former epistle, which was written to us through Clement."
n.b. "through Clement", not 'by Clement'.
DCHindley wrote: ↑Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:28 pm
If it is correct that Dionysius flourished ca 150 CE, I'd say that a letter purporting to be from the Roman Church to the Corinthian Church was known to him, but may or may not have included all the sermons. It certainly did have to do with accepting a uniform system of "apostolic succession" for appointing local church leaders.
The concept of "Bishops" over large regions like the city of Rome may not have even existed when the anonymous Letter from the Romans to the Corinthians was first written. All that talk is about Presbyters (elders) appointed by the laying on of hands by Apostles and the elders appointed by them, not of Bishops.
However, I'll concede that Dionysius definitely felt that the apostolic appointment made one a Bishop (overseer), not just a Presbyter (still important, though, but not yet evolved into the "priests" as we know of since the middle ages), and *he* thought this was written by Clement, bishop of Rome.
DCH
Noted, though, as usual, I wonder if Eusebius was padding things out.
DCHindley wrote: ↑Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:28 pm
I want to turn my attention now to Dionysius bishop of Corinth. Per Eusebius's H.E., our only surviving source about him (I think):
H.E. 4.23.1, 8-10
Chapter XXIII.—Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, and the Epistles which he wrote.
1. And first we must speak of Dionysius, who was appointed bishop of the church in Corinth, and communicated freely of his inspired labors not only to his own people, but also to those in foreign lands, and rendered the greatest service to all in the catholic epistles which he wrote to the churches.
9. There is extant also another epistle written by Dionysius to the Romans, and addressed to Soter, who was bishop at that time. We cannot do better than to subjoin some passages from this epistle, in which he commends the practice of the Romans which has been retained down to the persecution in our own days. His words are as follows:
10. “For from the beginning it has been your practice to do good to all the brethren in various ways, and to send contributions to many churches in every city. Thus relieving the want of the needy, and making provision for the brethren in the mines by the gifts which you have sent from the beginning, you Romans keep up the hereditary customs of the Romans, which your blessed bishop Soter has not only maintained, but also added to, furnishing an abundance of supplies to the saints, and encouraging the brethren from abroad with blessed words, as a loving father his children.”
11. In this same epistle [addressed to Soter] he [Dionysius, Bp. of Corinth] makes mention also of Clement’s epistle to the Corinthians, showing that it had been the custom from the beginning to read it in the church. His words are as follows: “To-day we have passed the Lord’s holy day, in which we have read your [i.e., Soter's] epistle. From it, whenever we read it, we shall always be able to draw advice, as also from the former1 epistle, which was written to us through Clement2.”
This suggests to me that what he knew of this epistle of Clement to the Corinthians was read as edifying material, much like he enjoyed reading Soter's epistle addressed to his Church (not extant) ...
1 I wonder if former means a now-sidelined epistle?
2 Note the very last statement in 11 - "... from the former epistle, which was written to us through Clement."
n.b. "through Clement", not 'by Clement'.
Yes, that is an excellent point; the Greek word is διά. Compare the following:
1 Peter 5.12: 12 I have written to you briefly through [διά] Silvanus, our faithful brother (for so I regard him), exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it!
Peter (or pseudo-Peter, as the case may be) is the author, Silvanus the secretary. Dionysius' wording seems to imply the same sort of arrangement, with Clement as the secretary, which is exactly the state of affairs we find at the end of the Shepherd of Hermas. Hermas is the author, Clement the secretary, and as secretary he is charged with sending (copies of) the book to other cities.
But the "former epistle" mentioned by Dionysius has to be 1 Clement itself, I think, as compared with a more "current epistle" from Soter. No lost text is implied.
The exact phrase is "ὡς καὶ τὴν προτέραν ἡμῖν διὰ Κλήμεντος γραφεῖσαν" (EH4 23:11).
A rough crib translation might be "As-also-the-previous (one)-which-through-Clement-was written/authorized."
Dionysius was simply saying: "Your [Rome's bishop Soter's] letter to us was as edifying as the one previously written to us by/at the direction of Clement [the legendary bishop of Rome]." The edification could be in the same way, or in different ways. "Edification is - what edification does." Also, what subjects edified ancients and what edifies us my be quite different.
I cannot tell from that whether the edification was due to the subject matter (apostolic succession of leaders and preserving the doctrines that these leaders hand down in succession) or all the crazy sermons about the dangers of divisions fueled by envy, wrath, disobedience to authority and lust in 1 Clement as it has been preserved in those 2 manuscripts (A & I).
I'm inclined to think that the former is the case (it was about apostolic succession). The matter of a doctrine of "apostolic succession" and what constitutes approved doctrines handed own by these leaders was perhaps the "new orthodoxy" that was solidifying in Dionysius' day in Corinth.
The letter from Rome to the Corinthians, purportedly written at the direction of Roman bishop Clement that Dionysius refers to may have been some sort of "broadcast" propaganda (meant in its neutral sense) letter sent to a number of churches all around the East to promote that doctrine, which the Roman church had been the first to adopt as its standard.
