Secret Alias wrote:Let's start with how much more natural it is to add to Scripture than subtract large sections of text over and over and over again. The sheer scale of "subtraction" would be overwhelming.
First... scripture? Please explain your calling of the Ignatian epistles scripture. Second, abridgement is a very common literary procedure. There exists an "abridged version" of many, many works. Finally, the putative additions on the thesis of Syriac priority are of exactly the same extent as the putative subtractions on the thesis of the middle recension's priority. Therefore, one can with all justification affirm that "the sheer scale of the addition would be overwhelming." The same exact range of text is at stake in both instances.
And then for what purpose?
That is a good question, and I may have more to say about that later.
When it's only a few paragraphs long why not just forge something from scratch (like 3 Corinthians)?
The "why not" argument may actually cut the other way in this case. What we call the Syriac recension is not all that we possess in Syriac of the Ignatian epistles. There are extracts, in Syriac, from all four of the epistles that the Syriac recension of three lacks. Lightfoot has this to say on pages 293-295 of Apostolic Fathers (part 2, volume 1; underlining mine):
It has been shown above..., that there existed in the early centuries a Syriac version of the seven Vossian letters, to which were appended the six additional spurious Ignatian letters. From this Syriac version the extant Armenian translation was made at a comparatively early date. It has been proved also... that this Syriac version was intimately connected with the Curetonian letters that where they cover the same ground, the two are identical that this identity is such as to preclude the supposition of accidental coincidence; and that therefore the only conclusion is the alternative, either that the Curetonian letters are abridged from the Syriac version of the Vossian letters, or that the Syriac version of the Vossian letters was an expansion from the Curetonian letters made by filling in the missing parts with the aid of the Greek. Which is the more probable supposition?
The abridgment theory is a very simple postulate. The abbreviator had only to run his pen through the passages which he wished to omit, to substitute here and there an epitome for a longer passage, to supply here and there a link of connexion, and to transcribe the whole. He need not even have taken so much trouble as this. He might have performed the work of abridging as he went on, currente calamo. A very few hours would serve to complete his task.
On the other hand the expansion theory is full of difficulties. We must suppose that some Syrian had before him the Curetonian letters in Syriac, and the Vossian letters in Greek that he carefully noted all the passages which were wanting or transposed or different in the former that he produced conformity by translating from the latter, supplying omissions, inverting transpositions, and altering divergences and that he did this in such a way as to produce a harmonious Syriac whole corresponding to the Greek whole which he had before him. If any one will take the trouble to compare the Vossian letters with the Curetonian, he will see what enormous labour and care such a work would involve. The relation is not one of simple curtailment or simple expansion. It is one either of careless, rough, and capricious manipulation, if the Curetonian letters be an abridgment of the Vossian, or of elaborate and consummate literary artifice, if the Vossian letters be an expansion of the Curetonian. This being the relation between the two forms, it will be seen at once how great must have been the labour of the Syrian who set himself to fulfil the task here supposed. Any one for instance, who will compare in the two recensions the 19th chapter of the Ephesians or the opening salutation of the Romans will be able to judge for himself. Or we may take the close of the Epistle to the Romans in the Curetonian Form, which incorporates two chapters from the Vossian Epistle to the Trallians, and try to imagine the amount of care and attention which would be required for such a task. Indeed it would have cost much less time and trouble to have translated the whole three letters direct from the Vossian Greek, than to have undertaken this elaborate piecing of the Curetonian Syriac. Moreover there is, I believe, no appreciable difference in style (so far as it can be inferred from the remaining fragments and from the Armenian translation) between the portions taken on this hypothesis from the preexisting Curetonian Syriac and the portions—whether isolated passages or whole letters—supposed to have been supplied by this second translator some centuries after. Yet it is not the uniformity of literalness for this version has a rough freedom characteristic of itself.
Note that this is not a generic argument from the ease or difficulty of expansion versus abridgement overall, in a hypothetical sense. It is an argument that follows specifically from the observation that, where the general Syriac and the Curetonian Syriac overlap, they are the same recension. This means that the middle Syriac recension, if I may so call it, was not a fresh translation from the Greek; rather, it absorbed the shorter Syriac version whole and added from the Greek only what what was lacking. The "why not" turns around completely at this point: indeed,
why not simply translate afresh for such short works?
The question of why not to forge something anew that is so short, such as 3 Corinthians, has a ready answer in the antiquity of the Ignatian corpus; the motive to retain the good and most useful stuff from antiquity is strong. It really requires little explanation or justification.
Ben.
