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  • From: "David C. Hindley" <dhindley AT csi.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Quotations in the Apostolic Fathers
  • Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 21:25:26 -0400


Stephen Carlson wrote:

>>There is a another possibility: this 19th century identification of
quotations
was far too ambitious to be taken seriously. Let's take the alleged quotation
of Tit. 3:1 as an example. 1 Clem. 2:7 says in the Loeb translation (by K.
Lake):

You were without regret in every act of kindness, "ready unto
every good work."

Although the quotation marks in the English translation and the marginal
cross-reference to Tit. 3,1 makes this appear to be a quotation, there
really is little basis for concluding so.

This quotation is not introduced as quotation in any way. The Greek
text, of course, does not have the quotation marks, and the so-called
quotation flows well in the sentence.

Furthermore, the Greek texts are not exact. 1 Clem 2:7 is hETOIMOI
EIS PAN ERGON AGAQON, but Tit 3:1 has PROS PAN ERGON AGAQON hETOIMOUS,
with a different preposition and a different word order.

A cursory glance at the other "quotations" indicates that most of
them are not so.<<

That is true, and not unrecognized. To compile the database, I did start with
the passages in the Ante Nicene Fathers which were within quotation marks, as
you correctly suspected. Like you, I noticed that the editors were fairly
loose in their interpretation of what constitutes a quote. At the time I put
it together, I did not own copies of the LCL Apostolic Fathers volumes, nor a
copy of Lightfoot's book. Believe me, I looked at every NT reference in the
index and footnotes, and tried to classify them as quotes, allusions or
fantasies of the editor. Their list of quotations was even larger than mine,
and I ended up eliminating about half of the passages they identified as
allusions!

Early on, someone had noted the fact that a single passage that was similar to
passages in the double and triple tradition of the synoptic gospels ended up
attributed as quotes from each of the gospels! They looked conflated to me,
and Koester seems to think these passages represented some early form of a
gospel harmony. In light of this, I presumed that the author(s) of 1 Clement
could have modified any NT texts available to him/her, and so if a passage
looked like it -could- have followed the NT text I accepted it as a quote.

Some day, when I am unusually motivated, I will update the program from a DOS
to a Windows version, and at the same time update the database based on the
LCL editions. While I will be in a better position to evaluate these
quotations or possible allusions in the Greek when I do so, I still have not
decided on a really good method for evaluating these conflated gospel
quotations (or whatever they are). BTW, if you ever feel unusually motivated
<g> I would like to hear any suggestions you may have to offer about how I
might attack such a re-write project, and how I could set up the program
interface to wring as much useful information as possible from the data.

Respectfully,

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA







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