Early Witness Research Articles

Text-Fabric Dataset of the Samaritan Pentateuch

Abstract In this article, the authors present a dataset of the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch with word-level linguistic annotations. The Samaritan Pentateuch is an important early witness of the Pentateuch or Torah. This dataset is based on a transcription generally taken from manuscript Dublin, Chester Beatty Library 751 (Genesis 1:1–Deuteronomy 32:36) and supplemented from manuscript Nablus (Kiryat Luza), Samaritan Synagogue, Garizim 1, where the former manuscript has not preserved the text (Deuteronomy 32:36b–34:10). The dataset is a Text-Fabric dataset. Text-Fabric is a Python package for processing annotated text corpora, which means that the dataset comes with an app, where the text can be inspected and queried using the annotations. It is also easy to perform textual and linguistic research using Python scripts and to make comparisons with other relevant textual datasets with the same annotation conventions.

The Kassel Fragment from an Early South English Legendary

Abstract A print of Siliceus’s Arithmetica (Paris 1526), once preserved in the Landesbibliothek in Kassel, but now lost, contained a fragment of one parchment leaf until it was removed in 1904. The text, vaguely identified by Wiedemann (1994) as a “Vita Thomae Beket”, is here more precisely identified as part of the “Life of St. Thomas of Canterbury” from an early South English Legendary. I describe fragment and text in detail, and the text is analysed with respect to dialect and to its position in the transmission history. A diplomatic edition of the text preserved in this fragment makes this early witness of an important Middle English legendary available for the first time.

The Interpolation of 1 Cor. 14.34–35 and the Reversal of the Name Order of Prisca and Aquila at 1 Cor. 16.19

Transpositions of large sections of text in New Testament manuscripts occurred only when omissions and chronological problems were ‘corrected’. It is argued here that the words commanding that women be silent in 1 Cor. 14.34–35, which appear elsewhere in Western manuscripts, were interpolated, and the interpolator probably created a textual variant at 14.37 and transposed Prisca and Aquila at 16.19 so that a woman would not host a church. Textual variants at 16.19 in the Western manuscripts are explicable if Prisca originally preceded Aquila here, as she does elsewhere. Second Timothy 4.19 is an early witness to Prisca’s precedence in 1 Corinthians.

George Kiraz and Sabine Schmidtke, eds. Scribal Habits in Near Eastern Manuscript Traditions

George Kiraz and Sabine Schmidtke, eds. <i>Scribal Habits in Near Eastern Manuscript Traditions</i>

The Catalogus geometrarum from the Corpus Agrimensorum

Abstract The Catalogus geometrarum from the Corpus Agrimensorum, an early witness to the Aratean commentary tradition, names an author with mathematical interests as Euclid the Sicilian. If this individual is identical with Euclid the geometer, then we are able to move beyond the traditional biographies of Euclid, which rest on the problematic evidence of Proclus and Pappus, and consider an ancient case of mistaken identity which suggests that Euclid may even have been a Geloian by birth. This new identification raises questions about the status of Doric as a scientific language, and Alexandria’s role as a haven for those dislocated by war or civil strife, not merely as a magnet for scientific talent.

Obsequies of My Lady Mary (II): A Fragmentary Syriac Palimpsest Manuscript from Deir al-Suryan (BL, Add 14.665, no. 2)

This Syriac palimpsest manuscript with four remaining folios bound with others into one volume runs under the shelf mark Add 14.665, no. 2 in the British Library. It displays a well-executed 5th century Estrangela. William Wright in his Contributions to the Apocryphal Literature of 1865 offered only readings of some scanty passages. The text has been neglected ever since. Preserved in it are sections of an early witness for the Obsequies of My Lady Mary in Syriac (S1) covering the final part of the second book, the beginning of book three, and central sections of book five with the apocryphal History of Peter and Paul according to the Ethiopic five-book cycle. The textual diversity is at times considerable in comparison to the other early transmissions in Greek and Christian Palestinian Aramaic, and the much later Ethiopic one. It has been the first Syriac source to attest the central term for the palm tradition ܬܘܠܣܐ ‘palm-shoot’. The new and additional readings intend to fill some lacunae in the only partially preserved transmission of the early Syriac translation of the Dormition of Mary from Upper Mesopotamia.

The Wyman Fragment: A New Edition and Analysis with Radiocarbon Dating

AbstractThe Wyman Fragment, or 0220, has been a chief and early witness to the text of Romans 4.23–5.3 since the initial publication of the recto in 1952. A 2005 edition of the verso, containing Rom 5.8–13, rendered most of that portion of the manuscript legible for the first time, but has not been widely circulated. In this article I present a new edition and analysis of 0220, a third- or fourth-century manuscript of Rom 4.23–5.13, in light of multispectral imaging and radiocarbon testing performed on the fragment. This edition resolves tensions between previous editions, contextualises the radiocarbon and palaeographic dates, transcribes previously illegible traces, securing additional lines of text, and reveals more work by a second hand than previously noted.

Jamāl al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Sulaymān’s Miʿrāj al-salāma and Miṣbāḥ al-ʿirfān: Edition (with Introduction) of Two Early Witnesses to the Incorporation of Avicennian Metaphysics into Imāmī Shiite Kalām

Abstract This article provides an editio princeps of two short philosophical treatises, Miʿrāj al-salāma wa-minhāj al-karāma and Miṣbāḥ al-ʿirfān wa-miftāḥ al-bayān, by the Imāmī Shiite thinker Jamāl al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Sulaymān al-Baḥrānī (d. ca. 670/1271). ʿAlī b. Sulaymān served to link Ibn Saʿāda and Ibn Maytham, who were fellow scholars from Bahrain and ʿAlī’s teacher and student, respectively. Like them, ʿAlī played an important role in introducing Avicenna’s philosophy to Imāmī Shiite theology.

CIRCE'S ETRUSCAN PHARMAKA: RECONSIDERING A FRAGMENT OF AESCHYLEAN ELEGY (FR. 2 WEST)

ABSTRACTThis article re-examines the sole surviving fragment of Aeschylean elegy alongside the available contextual evidence in an attempt to enhance our currently very limited understanding of Aeschylus’ elegiac output. The first section explores Theophrastus’ citation of this fragment in the Historia Plantarum to demonstrate what we can learn about the original Aeschylean poem from its use within the later writer's discussion. The second section examines how the Italian focus of the fragment fits into a wider historical and literary discourse of interactions between Greeks and non-Greeks in the west. The third and concluding section builds on these findings to examine the possible Sicilian performance context of the original Aeschylean poem to which the fragment belongs. Ultimately the discussion demonstrates that the fragment is an important and hitherto underappreciated early witness of the development of influential cultural concepts regarding interactions between Greeks and non-Greeks in the west, and that the possibility that Aeschylus produced a poem relating to the victory of Hieron I of Syracuse over the Etruscans at Cumae in 474 b.c.e. is worth serious consideration.

Another Fragment of the Old French Romance Meliacin, and Some Observations on Its Place among the Other Earliest Witnesses to the Text

This article presents a small fragment (only 42 x 138 mm) of a leaf from a manuscript of the Old French poem Meliacin, which once formed part of the stock of the manuscript dealer Erik von Scherling (1907–1956), and came to light in a private collection in 2009. Unknown to the present author, another similarly sized fragment from the same parent-codex, discovered in the binding of a printed book dated 1699, had been published in 2016 by Aurélie Houdebert and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín. The physical materiality of the fragment discussed here agrees with many of Houdebert’s and Ó Cróinín’s conclusions about the dismembered and otherwise lost parent manuscript, and perhaps takes further what we can say about that original codex, its place among the other early witnesses to the text and its intended audience or owners. Furthermore, this scrap of a leaf has more to tell us about the uses and reuses of manuscripts, as distinctive cuts and red ink staining show it to have been reused in early printing as a frisket, most probably in the sixteenth century, before a final reuse to strengthen a later book binding.

Colossians 1.12a: A Case for the Reading of the Earliest Witnesses

The evidence favoring the reading ἅμα τῷ πατρι in Col 1.12 is more compelling than is generally recognized. This variant is the reading supported by the earliest extant witnesses (P46 B), the more difficult reading, and the reading that best explains the origin of the other readings. Scholars who have viewed the reading as a palpable error are likely misreading the variant in the same manner that prompted early scribes to omit the ἅμα. This earliest attested reading supports Tischendorf's punctuation of the verse, the translation adopted by many major English versions, and the structure and exegesis of the passage affirmed by most recent commentaries. These versions and commentaries demonstrate how suitable this reading is in this context. Critical editions of the Greek New Testament should reconsider adopting this reading in their base text.

Rethinking the Historical Development of Caribbean Performance Culture from an Afro-Iberian Perspective

Abstract This article advocates for a new perspective on Caribbean performance traditions by adopting an Afro-Iberian perspective. It argues that we are able to acquire a better understanding of the historical development of some of the most enigmatic Caribbean performances, including Jankunu, by taking into consideration that many of those who built the foundations of Afro-Caribbean culture had already adopted cultural and religious elements rooted in Iberian traditions before their arrival in the Americas. A comparative analysis demonstrates a series of parallels between early witness accounts of Jankunu and Iberian calenda traditions. In order to explain this, the article points to Iberian dominance in the early-modern Atlantic and, in particular, Portuguese influences in Africa. It highlights the importance of confraternities and argues that it was in the context of African variants of these mutual-aid and burial societies that elements rooted in Iberian traditions entered Afro-Caribbean culture.

THE HISTORIA AVGVSTA BEFORE MS PAL. LAT. 899: LOST MANUSCRIPTS AND SCRIBAL MEDIATION

AbstractThis article re-evaluates the role of the manuscript tradition of the Historia Augusta in debates over the original contents and authorship of the text. Evidence for physical disruptions to the text before our oldest surviving manuscripts points to an earlier manuscript distributed across multiple codices. A multi-volume archetype eliminates critical arguments against the author's claims about lives missing before the Life of Hadrian as well as in the lacuna for the years a.d. 244–260. Other multi-volume codices of the eighth and ninth centuries show that loss of an initial volume would have disrupted the textual tradition for the index, titles and authorial attributions. Comparison of our most complete early witness, Pal. lat. 899, to the independent branches of the textual tradition shows discrepancies between these paratextual elements as expected in a disrupted tradition. Ultimately, this article concludes that the current debates on authorship and the original scope of the Historia Augusta rest on paratextual elements from a single branch of the manuscript tradition, raising doubts about the centrality of these controversies to understanding the work.

Neither Leaven nor Honey by Fire

Neither Leaven nor Honey by Fire G.C. Waldrep (bio) A distant mourning—my mother's argumentwith time dreams it slinks from tree to treein the orchard, gaffing, grafting, splinting scionsonto resistant stock, their hopeless patrolwounded with starlight's merciless talc.The porcelain bed cracks in its debt of spineas one might have expected, really—theftbeing, of course, a limited, advance engagementnot subject to Empire's spasms, its piacularrecrudescence, turtled hives adrifton the midnight floodwaters. Ruin makes usknow the names others call us, the nonhumanothers, e.g. stones, bacteria, ghosts.Someone lights a fire. I have spent the lastof my uncles' violence on this box of paints.That the door in my dreams always appearsas dark wood, bound in iron, is immaterialin the strictest sense. Oh vein, I cannot touchyou, you are so near. It's true, the sunis alarming when seen from space, orfrom inside music's chipped, acrylic mug.It won't hurt long is what I actually sayto her, my mother, to anyone, are you listening,froth of rye in the spring fields—my fatheris, after all, still living, poured out like wet ashonto some beaten ground, Elgar's panegyricto Nashville and every useful art. What we haveleft is our mutual love of flame rather than,say, mirrors, which we use to signalothers, my mother for instance, this, yes, thiswas the flesh, let it shudder and cauterize,hem and stoke. Such is the legible confession.We will be clothed with daughters elsewhere. [End Page 9] G.C. Waldrep G.C. Waldrep's most recent books are The Earliest Witnesses (Tupelo/Carcanet, 2021) and feast gently (Tupelo, 2018), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Poetry, Paris Review, New England Review, Yale Review, Colorado Review, The Nation, New American Writing, Conjunctions, and other journals. Waldrep lives in Lewisburg, Pa., where he teaches at Bucknell University. Copyright © 2021 Pleiades and Pleiades Press

The Circulation of Sciences in Europe, or Peter the Great’s ‘Greek project

In his famous speech of 1714, Peter I depicts Europe as a single organism with Greece as its heart: it is from here that “the sciences,” like blood, once flowed and along the homeward path they run, having first gained a firm foothold in Russia. The18th century perceived this comparison as a real political program: the similarity was supposed to imply that the European culture should be brought back to Greece on Russian bayonets. This rendering was born with the utopian “Greek project” of Catherine II and lasted until the end of the century. Neither confirming nor contradicting it, the 19th century prefers to see in Peter’s words pride in the successes of the Russian enlightenment which was introduced during the two decades of his reformist activity. The 20th century, burdened with the baggage of literary associations, interprets this image as commonplace for baroque rhetoric, a routine metaphor for translatio studii with little or no actual political meaning. Undoubtedly authentic, transmitted by several early witnesses, the speech became part of the ‘Petrine myth,’ but, surprisingly enough, was never the subject of critical source analysis. Thus, its historical context and intended meaning remained largely obscured. A comparative study leads to the conclusion that all its renderings originated from a common literary source. The archetypal version was that of F. Chr. Weber, while the other variants are more or less remote copies containing deliberate amendments. A closer look at the relevant paragraphs of Weber’s notes reveals the true pathos of the speech. Peter’s rhetoric, prompted by his immediate concerns, boils down to an admiration for the culture of Western Europeans. The historical context clarifies what motivates the central image of the simile — Greece as the heart of European enlightenment: shortly before the episode, the tsar was treated to a Greek speech delivered by the six-year-old son of the learned Moldavian prince Dimitrie Cantemir who was one of Peter’s principal allies.

An Eleventh-Century Eastern Masoretic Codex of the Pentateuch

Abstract The Washington Pentateuch consists of an eleventh-century Pentateuch codex, and a small group of 1141 CE replacement folios. The former presents another early witness to the Masoretic Text. The text in the second hand is very close to the Aleppo Codex, but the section division exhibits several variants as compared to the Aleppo codex. The layout of the Song of the Sea and the lines before are like in the Aleppo codex, but not so the lines after the song. The 1141 CE folios are another witness to the Masoretic Text. The text is very close to the Aleppo Codex, but here, too, there are a number of section variants (which later continued in the Ashkenazi codices). The Song of Moses, though differing from the Aleppo codex, follows an alternate standard layout of 70 lines, and 6 lines before and 6 lines after the Song (later found in Sefardi manuscripts).

«Soprascripti de le lettere missive cominciando a magiori principi spirituali e temporali». Riflessioni sul paratesto nell’epistolografia del ’400.

Despite the surge in epistolary studies in recent years, little attention has been dedicated to 15th century treatises. However, thanks to the publication of some important catalogues, i.e. Medieval and Renaissance Letter Treatises and Form Letters (Polak, 1993-2015) and the ISTC database, there is good reason to believe that this trend will soon change. As for texts written in the vernacular, the catalogues have made it possible to identify what may well be the first printed manual, the anonymous Trattato de li ditamini (ISTC it00427400), and with regard to manuscripts, the catalogues have traced one of the first ars epistolandi treatises from the Quattrocento (cod. 2333, Biblioteca Statale di Lucca) and identified a new early witness of Bartolomeo Miniatore’s well-known Formulario di epistole missive e responsive (cod. Harley 4168, British Library). Enlisting the Polak catalogue, this article examines a collection of headings written in the vernacular in and around Bologna in the last quarter of the 15th century. This type of treatise has been particularly neglected by critics, though such works can shed precious light on a key phase in the history of Renaissance epistle writing, i.e. that of the developments in the 14th and 15th century salutatio, one of the most theorised upon sections in mediaeval artes. From this short treatise (trattatello), in fact, there emerged a new form of epistle writing which differed from that traditionally used in manuals from the 13th and 14th centuries, one which in various ways resembles forms still in use today. This article offers a detailed description of the Soprascripti, providing an extensive extract in the appendix.

Bellwort

Bellwort G. C. Waldrep (bio) Watauga County, North Carolina Everything comes first from the mind of God, which is the hand of God,the thinking hand.Did you want the destruction to take place before the beauty, or after.According to the doctrine of signatures. According to the flattened treadleof the wild gingerbeneath my feet. Make us strongis not the proper invocation, here. Form that seems to pierce itself,that seems to emergethrough the act of piercing. Or, in rebuttal, to enlist itselfin the smallest & most silent of wars. I am asking, what is the purposeof voice,the muscling voice. When nothing is, at root, interchangeable.Not the sound of this particular water over this particular stone,which is my body.A lie, a lie, matter in the hands of matter.Take something slowly, as from a color wheel. Nothing has to wantyou, or any part of you. Let's thinkabout the thinking hand, its tapered fingers mottling in the breeze.Then will I find myself more or less aloneat the summit of my impunities,my thrum & tare. I clasp what I did not make to the gibbet of my eye. [End Page 88] G. C. Waldrep g. c. waldrep's most recent books are The Earliest Witnesses, forthcoming from Tupelo Press and Carcanet Press in 2021, and feast gently, published by Tupelo Press in 2018, winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Poetry, the Paris Review, and other journals. Waldrep lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where he teaches at Bucknell University and edits the journal West Branch. Copyright © 2020 University of North Carolina Wilmington

Burying the Emperor's Son: Valens and the Legacy of Basil in a Syriac Funerary Sermon

One of the most famous aspects of Gregory of Nazianzus's panegyric for Basil of Caesarea is his account of Basil's confrontation with the emperor Valens. On the eve of exiling the bishop, the latter had called on Basil for aid for his ailing son. Basil's intercession ultimately failed to save the boy's life; later historians, however, remembered the incident as a dramatic, if temporary, turning point in the relationship between bishop and emperor. This episode forms the backdrop to a homily for a departed child and was transmitted in two Syriac manuscripts. Both attribute the homily to Basil, with the earlier witness presenting it as preached on the occasion of the funeral of a king's son. This description suggests the possibility either of recovering a funerary oration preached by Basil, now lost from his Greek corpus, or of a Syriac funerary sermon attributed to Basil in light of his encounter with Valens. This article examines both possibilities with an eye towards the content shared between the manuscripts—an extended exposition of children's nature and fate after death—and its resonance with the genuine works of Basil, his Greek contemporaries, and Syriac Christian authors from the centuries preceding the homily's earliest witness.

THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

After defining the concept of canon, the article provides a survey of early witnesses to the Old Testament canon (Jesus and early Jewish and Christian texts) that shows a broad consensus about the numbers of books to be included in the Old Testament. The rabbinic discussions at Jamnia are not so much the establishment of the canon as they are the acknowledgment of its reality. The principle to establish the canon is more internal (the structure of its authority and the notion of prophecy). Protestants together with Jews, in contrast to Catholics, do not accept the Old Testament Apocrypha as canonical. (These, written between the Old and New Testaments, are briefly reviewed.)