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  • From: Carlton Winbery <winberyc AT popalex1.linknet.net>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Quotations in the Apostolic Fathers
  • Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 08:53:48 -0500


>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.

Stephen is certainly correct in this statement. One good resource for
studying the NT in the Apostolic fathers is the Oxford Committee, The NT in
the Apostolic Fathers published early in this century. Though I think that
they also find quotes in questionable places, it is far better than earlier
works and they do rank the probabilities using a letter system similar to
those used in the UBS apparatus. I made use of the copy from Princeton
while I was working on papers for a canon seminar at New Orleans. It was
very helpful.

>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.<<

The problems in making such determinations are manifold as different
standards of exactness abound. But most are not very close if related at
all.

>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!

Comparisons in the Greek are very important and often show much more
descrepancy than one would suspect just seeing the English.

>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.

Dave, such an update would be very useful. You may want to get a copy of
the Oxford Committee work. The only copy I know about is in the Princeton
Seminary library. If someone else has a copy or has seen one in used books,
I'd like to know about it. I copied all references from this book but not
the texts involved.


Dr. Carlton L. Winbery
Foggleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
winbery AT andria.lacollege.edu
winberyc AT popalex1.linknet.net
Ph. 1 318 448 6103 hm
Ph. 1 318 487 7241 off






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