Apparatus Criticus Research Articles

Публікації усноісторичних джерел з проблеми Голодомору в Україні (1932–1933): археографічний вимір

Despite huge massive of published collections of Holodomor oral sources, not much analysis is devoted exactly to archeographic aspect of publication that allows usage of this type of historical sources. The researchers mostly paid attention to content analysis of such sources. When we approach researchers who were at the same time editors of Holodomor oral history books, we can see that they focused on interviewers (who they were; what mistakes they did during field work) and the problems of writing down of narratives. For many years the authors had been working on the maps for the GIS-Atlas of the Holodomor. This project had made it possible to incorporate about 2,000 of oral history sources into the database. Much more oral history sources had been investigated for this project. Therefore, on the base of this work with this type of sources the author has managed to separate 10 groups of factors that influence final product: publication of collection of Holodomor oral history sources. Furthermore, for convenience the author divides these 10 groups into three units. For convenience – because these 10 aspects are interrelated. But for better representation of the problems such division into three units had been made. First unit includes problems tied directly with publication: absence of one united methodological center and integrated accepted recommendations. Such situation is caused by economic conditions and crisis of the humanities in 1990-s. Taking into account dual essence of oral history source, the author has suggested next two, second and third unit. Second unit is tied to a figure of a respondent (time of interview, taking into account passing away of Holodomor survivors’ generation, and traumatic experience of living through the Holodomor. The last one, third unit treats the problems of archeography of publication of oral history sources through the prism of interviewer (his/her professional background and preparation; fullness of a legend data, in particular, residence of a survivor during the famine; geographic disproportion of Holodomor oral history writing down; multiple location of archives that preserve oral history sources (in case of their transferring there at all); absence of such data for many collections of oral history sources at all. Suggested by the author specificity of archeographic culture of Holodomor oral history sources publication can be used for further preparation such collections of documents for publication and can improve their quality and widen source base of history science. Finally, the author suggests sample of collections of published Holodomor oral history sources (15 books and series of publications). Keeping in mind 10 factors analyzed above, the researcher analyzes level of archeographic culture of these books. She selects two of the latter: Holodomor oral history sources in Pereiaslav (2000) and Luhans’k (2008) area. These books, in comparison to others, could fill legends of published sources at maximum level and to compile apparatus criticus. Second edition, being compiled by a philologist, even reproduces language and dialect peculiarities of respondents.

Comparaison entre la Biblia hebraica stuttgartensia (BHS) et la Biblia hebraica quinta (BHQ)

For some years now, the new project of Biblia hebraica quinta (BHQ) has produced its first volumes. Up until 2022, eight volumes have been published: Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Judges, the Twelve Prophets, Proverbs, the Five Megilloth (the Song of Solomon, Ruth, Qohelet, Lamentations, and Esther), and Ezra-Nehemiah. This new edition of the Biblia hebraica series continues to use the Leningrad Manuscript B 19a as its base text. Compared to Biblia hebraica stuttgartensia (BHS), BHQ is distinguished by a/ a better reading of the manuscript where it is less legible, b/ the presentation, translation, and commentary on the Masorah, c/ an apparatus criticus in English which reflects recent research, in particular on the Dead Sea scrolls and other textual witnesses, d/characterizations of variant readings, e/ notes and commentaries on the Masorah and the critical apparatus. The comparison with BHS emphasizes what is new in BHQ.

Zu einigen Stellen in Plautus᾽ Miles

In this paper I will discuss four passages in the Miles gloriosus whose text isdisputed: Mil. 61–63 contains an unsolved riddle, 93 a corrupt verb, 115 an unusual colloquialexpression, and 450f. an indubitably corrupt noun. In this contribution I want to disencumberthe apparatus criticus of my edition of the play, which will appear in the editiones Sarsinates(Sarsina-Urbino).

Petrus Abaelardus: Sermones. Edited by L. J. Engels and C. Vande Veire

This book was not finished when L. J. Engels died in 2017; we owe its completion to the devoted work of a team from Brepols. It was able therefore to contain its own review. In a fine tribute to a scholar distinguished both for his research and for his services to Dutch universities, C. H. Kneepkens (p. vi) justly calls the edition a ‘model of acuity, precision, patience and sheer graft’. (I do not imagine that Engels was responsible for ‘Operus’ in the list of sigla on p. 2.) Engels lavished astonishing care and learning not only on the establishment of the text, but on the identification of Abelard’s sources. In three levels above the traditional apparatus criticus (see pp. lxxxii–lxxxiv), he gave references to the Bible, to patristic and later sources (Augustine and Jerome are naturally prominent here), and internally to similar passages in Abelard’s own works. The indexes...

Jérôme: Commentaire sur Daniel. Introduction, text, translation, notes, and index by Régis Courtray

Régis Courtray is undisputed master of those that know about Jerome’s commentary on Daniel. He published a fundamental book on the subject, Prophète des temps derniers: Jérôme commente Daniel, as long ago as 2009, and he has published on many aspects of the topic both before and after that. This Sources chrétiennes volume (which remarkably completes the series of Jerome’s works) summarizes all the earlier research, as well as providing a revised Latin text and a French translation. It must be frustrating for Courtray that, though he years ago investigated the manuscript tradition and in 2004 published conclusions on it very different from those of F. Glorie, the Corpus Christianorum editor (CCSL 75A, 1964), he is prevented by the newly devised rules of the series (rules I continue to deplore) from printing a proper apparatus criticus below his new text. What masquerades as an apparatus, itself unhelpfully negative, is...

The Text and Transmission of Felix’s "Life of Guthlac"

This paper argues that Bertram Colgrave drew a mistaken stemma of the manuscripts of Felix’s Life of Guthlac. In particular the second hyparchetype should be represented not by c (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 389) but by H (London, British Library, Harley 3097), many of whose excellent readings Colgrave ignored. The consequences of this reassessment are illustrated in a series of textual discussions of individual passages. Appendix A gives samples of a new apparatus criticus, in two versions, the second more austere than the first. Appendix B gives new information on Felix’s sources; one item shows that the Vita was written after the completion of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica in 731.Keywords: St Guthlac, Felix of Crowland, Anglo-Latin, Transmission of texts, Stemmatology

Mehr als nur ein Text. Erwägungen zu Lehr-/Lernpotentialen neutestamentlicher Handschriften am Beispiel des Codex Boernerianus

Using the Dresden manuscript Codex Boernerianus as an example, the paper discusses a range of didactic possibilities to incorporate (New Testament) manuscripts into higher education in Biblical studies. It focuses on overcoming the association of man-uscripts with a barren form of textual criticism that very much limits itself to read-ing the apparatus criticus. Instead the present article exemplifies a holistic view on manuscripts as complex historical artifacts. This view does not only encompass using manuscripts to illustrate text critical and tradition historical phenomena, but also rec-ognizes their physical and optical features as well as their paratexts and side contents, all of which offer their own specific teaching and learning potentials.

SOME NOTES ON THE ‘NEW APULEIUS’

In 2016 Justin Stover published an important editio princeps of a fragmentarily preserved text that was originally discovered by Raymond Klibansky in the first half of the twentieth century: a kind of Summarium librorum Platonis which Klibansky took as a Latin translation of a lost Greek original, whereas Stover argues it was written by Apuleius, namely as the third book of his De Platone. The following notes deal primarily with details pertaining to the constitution of the text, but I will start with one remark on a detail of Stover's translation and close with a discussion concerning the alleged medieval reception of the so-called ‘New Apuleius’. Chapters, pages, Latin text, apparatus criticus entries, and translations are quoted according to Stover's edition; all bold highlights are mine, as are all translations from works other than the ‘New Apuleius’ if not indicated otherwise.

COLUMELLA 10.101: TWO EMENDATIONS

Columella invites his readers to plant different flowers, including violets—which will be the main focus of the following discussion (10.94–102):uerum ubi iam puro discrimine pectita tellusdeposito squalore nitens sua semina poscet, 95pangite tunc uarios, terrestria sidera, flores:candida leucoia et flauentia lumina caltae,narcissique comas et hiantis saeua leonisora feri, calathisque uirentia lilia canis,necnon uel niueos uel caeruleos hyacinthos. 100tum quae pallet humi, quae frondes purpurat auro,ponatur uiola, et nimium rosa plena pudoris.96 pangite Heinsius: pingite SAR || 99 nitentia Gesner || 101 frondes SA: frondens R | purpurat auro ϛ: purpura tabo SAR: purpura et auro Ursinus: purpurat albo HeinsiusThis is the text of Rodgers's recent OCT, but with a somewhat modified apparatus criticus. For the purposes of my argument, it will be useful also to quote from the outset a related catalogue of melliferous flowers from another book of Columella's treatise (9.4.4): mille praeterea semina uel crudo caespite uirentia uel subacto sulco flores amicissimos apibus creant, ut sunt in uirgineo solo […] gladiolus narcissi. at in hortensi lira consita nitent candida lilia nec his sordidiora leucoia, tum Punicae rosae luteolaeque et Sarranae uiolae, nec minus caelestis luminis hyacinthus.There are a number of more general similarities, but the relevant point is that the two catalogues list many of the same flowers and describe them in similar ways, which means that one catalogue can serve as an interpretative guide to the other. The first two items in the prose list of garden flowers (nitent candida lilia nec his sordidiora leucoia) correspond to candida leucoia and calathisque uirentia lilia canis, similarly listed in the first half of the verse catalogue; nitent (lilia) can thus support Gesner's emendation nitentia for uirentia (lilia), unduly neglected by recent editors. The metaphoric periphrasis gladiolus narcissi can be compared with narcissique comas. Both texts describe the hyacinth as sky-blue, which seems to be otherwise unparalleled (nec minus caelestis luminis hyacinthus and necnon […] caeruleos hyacinthos: note also that in both cases the reference is introduced by a litotes). Finally, just like the prose list (tum Punicae rosae luteolaeque et Sarranae uiolae), Columella's poem groups roses with two varieties of violet (note also that both passages are introduced with tum):tum quae pallet humi, quae frondes purpurat auro,ponatur uiola, et nimium rosa plena pudoris.The prose version makes it all but certain that the poem should likewise refer to a yellow and a purple varieties of violet. While Columella's verse description of the former variety is fairly unambiguous (if not very informative), that of the latter raises questions.

The Epigrams of Crinagoras of Mytilene: Introduction, Text, Commentary ed. by Maria Ypsilanti

Reviewed by: The Epigrams of Crinagoras of Mytilene: Introduction, Text, Commentary ed. by Maria Ypsilanti Kathryn Gutzwiller Maria Ypsilanti (ed.). The Epigrams of Crinagoras of Mytilene: Introduction, Text, Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xi, 578. $130.00. ISBN 978-0-19-956582-5. More than a half century ago the field of Greek literary epigram was made accessible to a wider range of scholars and readers by two editions with basic commentaries: A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page, The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams (Cambridge 1965) and The Greek Anthology: The Garland of Philip and Some Contemporary Epigrams (Cambridge 1968). Scholarship made possible by these foundational collections has since advanced in two directions. One involves development of methods for reading epigrams as legitimate literary objects, particularly when treated in groups or in poetic contexts. The other involves publication of comprehensive commentaries on the epigrams of individual epigrammatists, which include textual issues and explanations of the finer points of poetry, as well as literary readings. The two approaches are complementary, and Ypsilanti's commentary on Crinagoras is an excellent example of blending traditional editorial subjects with literary interpretation. Crinagoras is a figure of note who should be better known to both Greek and Latin scholars. Inscriptions from Mytilene indicate that he belonged to a prominent family of Lesbos and that he made at least three trips to Rome on [End Page 233] official business between c. 48 and 25 bce. His literary output makes it likely he spent a significant amount of time in Italy, where he clearly received literary patronage from high-status Romans, including members of the imperial family. A fair number of his epigrams reflect these relationships, such as poems that accompany gifts (as later in Martial)—a silver pen, a toothpick, a bronze oil flask, and a garland of roses (3–6). Of particular interest are epigrams that concern a gift of Greek poetry: a box holding five books of Anacreon's poetry presented to Antonia (36 bce–37 ce) on a special occasion (7), and a copy of Callimachus' Hecale given to Marcellus, to encourage him to follow the example of the young Theseus (11), the latter epigram perhaps being Crinagoras' best known. The fifty-one epigrams that remain to us were preserved in Philip's Garland, intermingled with others of the Julio-Claudian era in a rough alphabetical order. Ypsilanti argues that Crinagoras' "preference for personal experiences and current events over the traditional topoi of the genre" led to a "'renovated' type of court-epigram" that breathed "new life" into the epigrammatic tradition (13). Although she does not say so, it is highly likely that Philip selected from a collection of epigrams made by Crinagoras himself, mirroring his own gifts of Anacreon and Callimachus. In her Introduction Ypsilanti presents the usual series of topics: life and work, language and style, meter, and manuscript tradition. Her presentation of the two main manuscripts from the Byzantine era is rather barebones, reasonably enough, however, since descriptions of these are available in other editions. She focuses rather on the lesser-known apographa of the Palatine Codex, manuscript copies of epigrams that were rediscovered at the beginning of the seventeenth century by Saumaise but first fully published only in Brunck's edition of 1772. The value of these apographa lies mainly in their marginal emendations, which have been but rarely acknowledged in modern editions. Ypsilanti's principal contribution to the topic is the attention she calls to Parisinus Coislinanus 352, which has escaped the notice of most other editors. She argues at length that this apographon, written c. 1633 and ascribed to Philaras, bridges the two branches of apographa, the French and the Dutch, and possibly derives directly from the famous lost copy made by Saumaise. Oddly, however, in her apparatus criticus she cites, in the traditional manner, the select apographa that were the basis for the first printed editions, when in my view it is better practice to cite the earliest apographon that contains a given reading. Quibbles with such a full and well-presented commentary are just that, and therefore I limit my examples. Three epigrams that are of doubtful authorship because of differing attributions...

TWO TEXTUAL NOTES ON CICERO, DE OFFICIIS

(1) 1.21: ex quo, quia suum cuiusque fit eorum quae natura fuerant communia quod cuique obtigit, id quisque teneat; †e quo si quis† sibi appetet, uiolabit ius humanae societatis.The base text cited is that of Winterbottom. After discussing the origin of private property, Cicero asserts that it should be maintained as distributed (id quisque teneat). Of the matter marked corrupt, e quo (sometimes written ex quo or with a letter deleted after e; see Winterbottom's apparatus criticus) is likely to be a repetition of the preceding ex quo and therefore intrusive (as Winterbottom suggested ad loc.: ‘fort. delendum’). si quis evidently requires supplementation. Müller (after marginal corrections in printings of Lambinus's edition) inserted quid after quis, but in that case one would expect a further specification (quid alienum or the like). The better candidate for the supplement after quis is perhaps plus, the reading of the two fifteenth-century Munich codices 7020 and 650 (M and S respectively), an easy error. Cf. Cic. Leg. agr. 3.13: cum plus appetat quam ipse Sulla …; Sull. 84: ut ego mihi plus appetere coner quam quantum omnes inimici inuidique patiantur.

THE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE REFOUNDATION OF THEBES: A NEW EPIGRAPHIC AND HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

In the context of our ongoing work on the new corpus of Theban inscriptions (IGVII2, 4), we had the opportunity to study the famous inscription that records the contributions for the refoundation of Thebes after 315bc. The inscription consists of two fragments, the first of which has been known since the nineteenth century, whereas the second was published very recently by Professor Buraselis. Following Buraselis’ publication, the two fragments were physically joined in the Archaeological Museum of Thebes, where the inscription is currently on display. Our article provides the first ever full epigraphic edition of both fragments after autopsy. It is accompanied by detailed epigraphic notes, new supplements, apparatus criticus and a full historical analysis. By combining the study of abundant literary and epigraphic sources, we have attempted to place the inscription in its historical context, correcting certain earlier scholarly assumptions, making new suggestions about the motivations of the numerous contributors, and examining the modalities of the refoundation of Thebes.

Порівняльний аналіз філософських курсів Теофана Прокоповича і Ґеорґія Кониського на прикладі розділу «Про нескінченність»

Theofan Prokopovych and Georgiy Konyskyi are the most prominent professors of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in the 18th century. Their courses (1707-09 and 1749/51) are well regarded among the researchers and translated into Ukrainian in 1980 and 1990 respectively. Both texts generally have been considered as original. However, after a careful examination, it possible to notice a strong influence of Prokopovych on Konyskyi. This publication provides a comparative critical edition of a section from both courses on the same topic, on the infinity. The section is published together with the available Ukrainian translations. The four text are synchronized, so it is easy to track the same passage in all the texts. Since the texts of both authors are based on several manuscripts, the publication is accompanied with the apparatus criticus. Because there is no tradition of publishing critical editions of Latin texts in Ukraine, a detailed explanation of the rules of apparatus criticus is provided here. At this stage, it is too early to give a full account of the connection between Konyskyi’s and Prokopovych’ courses; nevertheless, based on the published section, it possible to say that Konyskyi used Prokopovych text mostly verbatim. He made some structural rearrangements, added some comments and clarifications. His text sounds more logical and more easily to apprehend. Considering the main goal of teaching activity – to pass a common knowledge, clarity of explanation is a higher value, than originality.

Further Notes on the Apparatus Criticus

This article is intended to contribute to an emerging debate regarding the proper contents and shape of a digital apparatus criticus. I argue that Keeline (2017) offers what are in fact two very different proposals for such an apparatus, one of which will likely serve our interests as a profession far more effectively than the other. Keeline treats the general contemporary tendency to disregard the critical apparatus in printed texts as a problem that must be corrected. I suggest that it is better understood as a reasonable response to the enormous intellectual expansion of the field of classical studies over the last few generations, and that it is accordingly unlikely to respond to changes in the architecture of the critical apparatus in any format.

Comment on “Chelyabinsk, Zond IV, and a possible first‐century fireball of historical importance”

Comment on “Chelyabinsk, Zond <scp>IV</scp>, and a possible first‐century fireball of historical importance”

SEVEN TEXTUAL NOTES ON SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

The following notes concern textual problems in the prologue and parodos of Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes. The text and apparatus criticus are based on those of M.L. West, Aeschylus: Tragoediae (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1990; corrected edition, 1998).

Olimpiodoro d'Alessandria: Tutti i Commentari a Platone trans. and ed. by Francesca Filippi

Reviewed by: Olimpiodoro d'Alessandria: Tutti i Commentari a Platone trans. and ed. by Francesca Filippi Harold Tarrant Francesca Filippi, editor and translator. Olimpiodoro d'Alessandria: Tutti i Commentari a Platone. Introduzione, traduzione, testo greco a fronte e note. Volumes 1 and 2. Sankt Augustin, Academia Verlag, 2017. Pp. lxxviii + 390 and lxxvi + 504. Paper, €49.00 and €59.00. For those of us who do not idealize Proclus's contribution to Platonic scholarship, which is influenced excessively by the conviction that Orphic and Chaldaean texts are working within the same system, the commentaries of Olympiodorus can represent a substantial [End Page 555] step forward. The range of issues tackled in his commentaries is often much closer to that expected of a modern commentary than those of his illustrious Athenian predecessor. This is not entirely new, since much the same could be said of Hermias, working within Syrianus's school as Proclus did, and of Damascius when commenting on the Phaedo or Philebus rather than on the Parmenides. Yet our picture of so-called neoplatonism remains dominated by the more striking examples of Plotinus and Proclus, both of them atypical. Working within sixth century Alexandria, Olympiodorus was constrained by the practical requirements for anybody trying to present Plato to a predominantly Christian community in which education was subject to official oversight. His predecessor Ammonius had to make concessions, and specialized rather in Aristotle, but it is less clear that Olympiodorus saw himself as making compromises. His surviving work includes commentaries on two complete Platonic texts (the only case of this from antiquity), a partial commentary on the Phaedo, and commentaries on Aristotle's Categories and Meteorologica (a surprising work to find him tackling). Commentaries are typically records of his actual lectures, and have occasionally suffered from the ineptitude of the recorder. The surviving, but anonymous, Prolegomena to Plato's Philosophy is usually connected with the school of Olympiodorus and, while interesting differences can be discerned between this text and the commentaries, the same might be said of the seemingly early Gorgias commentary and the other two. Since Olympiodorus perhaps taught from the 520s through to at least the 560s, his career lasted long enough to explain various changes of stance and emphasis. The present two-volume text and translation must be welcomed, first, as a relatively inexpensive way of acquiring the four texts relating to the teaching of Plato, all with a fluent modern translation, and, second, as an exercise in reading the earlier part of the Alexandrian Platonic corpus in the exact order that students encountered it. First came prolegomena to the study of Plato, the Alcibiades, then the Gorgias, and then the Phaedo. While it is salutary to have these works all together and arranged in curricular order, two in each volume, one should be aware that the sequence does not always seem perfect. The Alcibiades commentary contains a life of Plato and a little other general prefatory material, indicating that separate prolegomena had not preceded this course of lectures. The Gorgias commentary is much less rich than the Alcibiades commentary, and seems to date from a time when Ammonius was viewed as an authority rather than Proclus and Damascius, both of whom have a high profile in the Alcibiades commentary. Finally, the lectures on the Phaedo treated only 61c to 79e, so that all the important preliminary material that would have treated Olympiodorus's approach to the work as a whole is missing. Treated with caution, however, curricular order is highly desirable. The introductory material covers an appropriate range of topics relevant to these texts, with little overlap between volumes and regular attention to the literature. The Italian translation reads well and should not be too demanding for those with only modest Italian. Since Michael Griffin's Alcibiades commentary (2015, 2017), all four works are already translated into English in five separate volumes; for the Prolegomena, the Budé (L. G. Westerink, Jean Trouillard, and A. P. Seconds, 1990) remains useful; and there is already an Italian translation by Anna Motta (2014). In this volume, we remain dependent, as usual, on the text of Westerink, and no apparatus criticus is provided. Textual matters do not feature prominently in...

Latin Literature

Latin Literature

IRONY AND THE TEXT OF CAESAR, BELLVM GALLICVM 5.31.5

The sentence that comprises 5.31.5 in Caesar's Bellum Gallicum has long been felt to be problematic. It was deleted entirely by H. Meusel. A. Klotz posited a lacuna after quare. Others sought smaller adjustments. Yet, the defence of the text as transmitted also drew advocates (T. Rice Holmes, A. Ernout, O. Seel) and the debate quietened. The current Teubner edition, by W. Hering in 1987, prints the transmitted text and does not acknowledge the debate in the apparatus criticus. I propose a new solution, one that reinterprets the sentence in context and requires a small textual change from et to nec. I will first set the context and identify problems with the conventional understanding of 5.31.5.

Nonnus of Panopolis. Paraphrasis of the Gospel of John XI by Konstantinos Spanoudakis

Reviewed by: Nonnus of Panopolis. Paraphrasis of the Gospel of John XI by Konstantinos Spanoudakis Filip Doroszewski Konstantinos Spanoudakis Nonnus of Panopolis. Paraphrasis of the Gospel of John XI Oxford Early Christian Texts Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 Pp. 424. £120.00. The ambitious project aimed at providing a new commented edition of Nonnus's Paraphrase (Par.), which was launched over 25 years ago by Enrico Livrea, has recently moved one step nearer to completion. Spanoudakis's edition of Par. 11 is the 14th volume of the project and the first one to have been published in English. The book is divided into three main parts: the Introduction, Text and Translation, and Commentary. The Introduction starts with an overview of the current status quaestionis of Nonnus and his works (1–5) then continues with a detailed section on the poet's impressive literary inspirations that ranged from Homer to patristic writings, as well as on later poets that were inspired by Nonnus (5–22). Next Spanoudakis traces the passages of Par. 11 that carry Neoplatonist and theurgist overtones (30–40), following by a section juxtaposing Lazarus's resurrection as depicted in the Par. with the resurrection-like scenes in the Dionysiaca—with special attention paid to Tylus's revival (41–52). Spanoudakis then looks at the elements of Nonnus's contemporary world that are reflected in Par. 11, especially the late antique topography of Bethany and the visual arts of the period (52–68). The following pages shed light on the vast arsenal of interpretive and narrative techniques that were adopted by Nonnus to maximize the impact of his poetry (68–87). Subsequent sections prepare the reader for the rich variety of interpretations as offered by Nonnus for the Lazarus miracle (87–96), discuss the unclear question regarding John's text as followed by the poet (96–100), provide an in-depth overview of the meter in Par. 11 (100–107). The last three sections [End Page 475] of the Introduction deal with the transmission of the Par. and the lectiones that are not included in the edition's critical apparatus (107–13), an eighth-century prose paraphrase of the Par. (an edited Greek text of its chapter 11 is included; 113–119), and the rules Spanoudakis follows in his edition of Par. 11 (119–21). The central part of the book is a critical edition of Par. 11 (123–46). The apparatuses include fontes and similia, imitationes, and an apparatus criticus that is both positive and selective. The unlikely conjectures are gathered in an appendix at the end of the edition. The original text is accompanied by an English translation as well as by the Greek text of John. The last and longest part of the book contains the Commentary (147–358). The comments are two-fold and complement each other: one, which is more general, refers to whole line(s); the other refers to the specific part of the line. Since Spanoudakis's book is the first volume of the Livrea project that has been published in English, an important advantage of the Introduction is that it does not restrict itself solely to Par. 11 but may serve as a short yet comprehensive Einführung for all those taking their first steps in the world of Nonnus's biblical epic. The unquestionable highlights are the sections that allow the reader to look at Nonnus's verse through late antique eyes and thus make the poem truly accessible to modern minds. They show, on the one hand, how deeply Par. 11 was influenced by contemporary art, architecture, and spirituality and, on the other, how enormously it must have appealed to an audience that was well acquainted with these. Compared to Mark Prost and Lee Sherry, i.e. the authors of the two previous English translations of Par. 11, Spanoudakis as a translator is more accurate than the former author and less bombastic than the latter, thus providing the academic reader with the most balanced English rendition of the chapter so far. The Commentary skillfully guides the reader through the different aspects of Par. 11. It decodes intertextual references, as in line 22 in which the message to Jesus about...