Early Manuscripts Research Articles

The Saint as Food, the Torture as Medicine: Some Aspects of Christopher of Mytilene’s Imagery in his Dodecasyllabic Calendar and its South Slavonic Translations

Christopher of Mytilene, a secular poet of the early 11th century, had embarked on a difficult task when creating his dodecasyllabic Christian Calendar, that is two-verse storytelling about saints and, mainly, about the tortures they died of. He accomplished it more than successfully, besides in quite a vivid and spectacular way, by means of various poetic and rhetorical techniques. Food and medicine imagery was just a minute aspect of his mastery, yet a powerful one, acquiring not only artistic and rhetorical, but also mnemonic functions. the poet used such images – just as he used e.g. Biblical allusions – as a way to convey a variety of details in succinct messages; the information thus compressed is unfolded by means of associations in the mind of the perceiver. These associations are related not only to Christianity, but also to many other aspects of the Byzantine cultured life, including certain elements from Antiquity. I will try to reveal this mechanism and to show the attempts of the 14th-century South Slavonic translators to render it as well as their decisions in cases of realia unknown to their audience. For this purpose, I have selected certain Greek verse memories (as given in the editions of Eustratiadis and Cresci & Skomorochova Venturini) from the Verse Synaxarion for the summer half of the year together with their two South-Slavonic correspondences of the 14th century (according to the two respective early manuscripts of the Slavonic Verse Prolog), again only for the months from March to August.

Is Joshua a Type of Christ in Hebrews 4.8? An Assessment of the Referent of Ἰησοῦς

AbstractThe referent of Ἰησοῦς in Heb 4.8 is traditionally understood to refer to Joshua son of Nun and frequently as a type referring to Jesus the Christ. I will argue against this reading and, instead, maintain that the referent of Ἰησοῦς is Jesus. Two lines of evidence are provided. First, analysis of the context demonstrates that the ‘Joshua’ option disrupts the author's argument, and that understanding the referent to be Jesus clarifies the argument. Second, the use of the nomina sacra abbreviations to refer to Jesus in the earliest manuscripts demonstrates that they interpreted Ἰησοῦς as referring to Jesus.

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The Kantian origins of Sergei Rubinstein's theory of moral improvement

The early and late texts of the Russian psychologist and philosopher Sergei Rubinstein focus on ethical issues. The unfinished and fragmentary nature of these texts has contributed to the limited exploration of the ideas they contain. Rubinstein's main concern was the possibility of human moral improvement, a concern that originated in the young Rubinstein's study of the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, and somewhat later, the early manuscripts of Marx. In this paper, I show the pivotal importance of Kantian ethics for Rubinstein's theory of moral improvement. By criticising Kant's doctrine of the intelligible character of the human being, Rubinstein revises the relation between subjects and their deeds and shows that, in this relation, subjects not only express but also determine themselves. On the same basis, Rubinstein formulates the principle of creative self-activity, which he proposes to place at the foundation of a renewed ‘Socratic–Platonist pedagogy’ that can reveal the intersubjective nature of self-consciousness and will. In his critique of Kant, Rubinstein relies, to a large extent, on interpretations offered by Cohen, Natorp and Rickert. Rubinstein also attempts to solve Kant's problem of the dual nature of the human being, and in justifying the need to reconcile duty and inclination, he follows the same critical path as Schiller. Adducing the categorical imperative in its ‘formula of humanity’, and the principle of human self-determination through action, Rubinstein places the concept of educating behaviour at the core of his theory of moral improvement.

The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, Volume 1: Early Manuscript Books. Ed. Jennifer Keith, with Claudia Thomas Kairoff.

<i>The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, Volume 1: Early Manuscript Books</i>. Ed. Jennifer Keith, with Claudia Thomas Kairoff.

The Two Different Endings of Sefer haMiddot

The final chapter of Sefer haMiddot – a popular ethical work by an anonymous late medieval author, and called Orḥot Tzaddikim in its printed versions – is Sha‘ar Yir’at Shamayim. An early manuscript restores the original conclusion to this chapter, followed by an epitome called Simmanei Sefer haMiddot. This material was lost for well over five centuries. Sha‘ar Yir’at Shamayim asserts a dualism in which the soul animates the body like God animates the cosmos. The soul takes clear precedence over the body. To appreciate this dualism leads to fear of heaven, which is God’s greatest treasure. This chapter, devoted to a theological doctrine, is unique within Sefer haMiddot. Simmanei Sefer ha-Middot is a natural continuation of Sha‘ar Yir’at Shamayim. It also sharpens a global theme throughout the book, which places middot (ethics) alongside mitzvot (commandments) as constituting the exoteric will of God in its fullness. This substitutes ethics for the older esoteric doctrine of the Ḥasidei Ashkenaz, and is what makes the book distinct in medieval Jewish thought. The substitution of ethics for esoteric doctrine does not depend upon the final chapter’s doctrine of the soul, and the book thus ends in two different ways. An Appendix presents the full conclusion to Sefer haMiddot – Sha‘ar Yir’at Shamayim followed by Simmanei Sefer haMiddot – in a Hebrew text based upon a full synopsis of the manuscripts and in an annotated English translation.

Books and Manuscripts 2020

Books and Manuscripts 2020

TO THE QUESTION OF SPACE ORGANIZATION OF BOOK ILLUMINATION OF LATE ANTIQUITY AND EARLY MIDDLE AGES (IV – VII CENTURY)

The article focuses on peculiarities of spatial organization of book miniature paintings of late antique and early medieval manuscripts (IV – VII centuries). The author analyses the problem of conveying illusion of depth in illustration in context of gradual transmission from roll to codex, which took place in antique book culture between the II and the V centuries. By analyzing survived fragments of illuminated rolls author displays characteristic features of their spatial organization and observes influence which had tradition of roll illustration on the development of codex. Nevertheless, precisely the miniatures of the codices that have come down to our time are in focus of the author’s attention. The stages of development of the text page, the peculiarities of interaction of text and images in codices are compared with the principles of space organization in miniatures. The article makes an attempt, relying on the monuments that have survived to our time, to consider the development of spatial constructions in the period of late Antiquity and early Middle Ages as a continuous process of evolution of the language of book painting. The author assumes that the development of spatial constructions in miniature painting does not imply sharp breaks or regression. Each new stage of the evolution arises from the previous one and makes it possible to expand the arsenal of artistic means which are necessary for solving artistic problems of the time. In accordance with this approach, the article concentrates not only on compositions in which a spatial illusion is created, but also miniatures that are in character more plane. As a result, the author reveals the main types of spatial constructions, considering all surviving monuments of miniature painting of that time. For each type of space organization, the author identifies the basic principles and artistic techniques that allow the artist to convey a sense of depth on the plane of page. The author pays special attention to the comparison of illusionistic tendencies in the late antique book miniature and “reverse perspective”, features of which are present in the monuments of the era. The author casts doubt on the need for a sharp contrast between these two approaches to space organization in the monuments of book miniatures of the era. He analyzes the reasons for the appearance of such features of space organization in miniature paintings of late antique and early medieval manuscripts, which are so important for the formation of artistic language of medieval book illumination.

Japanese Monks and Chinese Books: Glimpses of Buddhist Sinology in Early Tokugawa Japan

In the17th and 18th centuries, just as English scholars were reading and writing about their heritage in the continental prestige language of Latin, so too were Japanese members of the Buddhist clergy researching and publishing about the Chinese language heritage of their own religious tradition, drawing both on new printed books, often imported from China, and on much earlier manuscripts and printed texts preserved in their own country. The importation and reprinting of the canon by Ōbaku monks and the subsequent flowering of Zen scholarship is already well-known, but we should consider the efforts of Shingon monks in commenting on the heritage they received from China eight centuries earlier, and even the activities of Nichiren monks, who took steps to promote the legacy of Chinese Tiantai Buddhism. Critical reflection on the Buddhist tradition may not have emerged in Japan until the 18th century, but it did so in the context of a world of scholarship concerning an imported classical language that certainly stood comparison with that of the contemporary Anglophone world.

An Unknown Work about Boris Godunov from the Post-Petrine Era

This article examines a new early manuscript containing two works by an unknown compiler in the 1730s: the story of the “tyrant Ivan the Terrible” and Boris Godunov “greedy” for autocratic power. The manuscript is kept in the State Archives of Ryazan Region as part of the collection of the Ryazan Provincial Scientific Archival Commission. The study demonstrates that its brief archaeographic description was given in 1892 by Aleksey Vasilyevich Selivanov, one of the founders of the archival commission in Ryazan. Relying on watermarks, he dates the collection to about 1727; in 2001, the manuscript was described anew in a review of the manuscript collection of the State Archives of Ryazan Region. The authors analyse the part of the manuscript collection containing an essay about Boris Godunov; this essay has not been introduced into scholarly circulation previously. The article reveals the compiler’s sources, which turn out to be translations of notes taken by foreigners about Russia between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, more particularly the works of Jerome Horsey, Jacob Ulfeldt, Adam Olearius, and some others. Also, the authors single out a whole series of parallel pieces of news from Jerome Horsey’s notes in a little-known version of the publication in Old German about Tsar Boris’ character. The authors focus on which notes would have been available to the alleged compiler of the collection in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The article contains data revealing the provenance of the work. Additionally, an assumption is made about the possible author of the published source, who was probably related to the circle of victims in the case of Artemy Volynsky. Finally, the appendix to the article contains the previously unpublished text of the manuscript about Boris Godunov.

MOLECULAR INCOHERENCE, CONTINUITY, AND THE PERFECTION OF THE LAOZI

AbstractThe Laozi is a well-loved and oft-translated ancient text, whose popularity with interpreters and translators seems to have hardly ebbed in over two thousand years. This is attested in part by the number of bamboo and silk manuscript versions of the text unearthed in recent years from the Warring States (475–221 b.c.e.) and Western Han (221–206 b.c.e.), such that few transmitted Chinese texts have so many corresponding manuscript versions. The Laozi's popularity and relative abundance have also made the text instrumental in shaping theoretical approaches to book formation in early Chinese manuscript culture. In particular, the Laozi has been central to the study of how books were assembled out of pre-existent, stable, coherent molecules of text, or zhang 章 (chapters). Emerging from a case study of Laozi chapter 13, in which interpretive problems of the written commentarial tradition are shown to be continuous with those in manuscript culture, this article re-examines the theory of molecular coherence in the Laozi's formation, showing ultimately that the textual and rhetorical patterns by which zhang cohere internally are created by the same forces that deposit zhang in proximity to one another. Moving from the molecular to organismic level, the article also examines the use of conjoining phrases in Peking University's Laozi manuscript to demonstrate how editors, compilers, and interpreters may sacrifice coherence at one level of organization to achieve perfection at another.

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Crucial Development: Criticality Is Important to Cell-to-Cell Communication and Information Transfer in Living Systems.

In the fourth paper of this Special Issue, we bridge the theoretical debate on the role of memory and criticality discussed in the three earlier manuscripts, with a review of key concepts in biology and focus on cell-to-cell communication in organismal development. While all living organisms are dynamic complex networks of organization and disorder, most studies in biology have used energy and biochemical exchange to explain cell differentiation without considering the importance of information (entropy) transfer. While all complex networks are mixtures of patterns of complexity (non-crucial and crucial events), it is the crucial events that determine the efficiency of information transfer, especially during key transitions, such as in embryogenesis. With increasing multicellularity, emergent relationships from cell-to-cell communication create reaction–diffusion exchanges of different concentrations of biochemicals or morphogenetic gradients resulting in differential gene expression. We suggest that in conjunction with morphogenetic gradients, there exist gradients of information transfer creating cybernetic loops of stability and disorder, setting the stage for adaptive capability. We specifically reference results from the second paper in this Special Issue, which correlated biophotons with lentil seed germination to show that phase transitions accompany changes in complexity patterns during development. Criticality, therefore, appears to be an important factor in the transmission, transfer and coding of information for complex adaptive system development.

The “Egyptian Vulgate” in Europe: An Investigation into the Version that Shaped European Scholarship on the Arabic Bible

This paper explores part of the history of those Arabic Bible manuscripts that traveled to Europe in the early modern period, focusing on Arabic manuscripts of the Pauline Epistles. These manuscripts played an important role in European scholarship about the Arabic Bible, Arabic teaching and learning in Europe, and textual criticism. When one looks at early European scholarship on the Pauline Epistles in Arabic in the 16th and 17th centuries, it is very noticeable that, by and large, it restricted itself to an examination of a single version. In this paper, I reconstruct the history of the three earliest manuscripts of this version to be studied in European scholarship: MS Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ar. 23; MS Leiden, Universitaire Bibliotheken Leiden, Or. 217; and MS Leiden, Universitaire Bibliotheken Leiden, Acad. 2. By tracing the history, I analyze the impact of this version, and it becomes clear how this version became, for a while, a standard version, what we might call the “Vulgate” of the Arabic Bible in Europe.

“Then I Wouldn’t be Unneighborly Neither”: A Reading of Cormac McCarthy’s The Orchard Keeper in Light of the Influence of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Ethan Brand”

ABSTRACT Archival evidence in an early manuscript of Cormac McCarthy’s The Orchard Keeper reveals that not only Hawthorne in general, but also Hawthorne’s tale “Ethan Brand” in particular, was in McCarthy’s mind during the process of composition. This essay provides a reading of The Orchard Keeper that takes into account the influence of Hawthorne’s accomplished short story. Both Hawthorne’s classic tale and McCarthy’s debut novel are preoccupied with the question of technological progress and its toll on the natural world and human community, an estimate of poor moral character as defined by acts of unneighborliness and hard-heartedness against others, and a measure of upright moral character as defined by neighborliness, wholeheartedness, and a reverence for nature. Understanding McCarthy’s debt to Hawthorne helps readers to appreciate anew the themes and moral concerns of his first and perhaps most underappreciated novel.

Revealing Artists’ Collaboration in a 14th Century Manuscript by Non-Invasive Analyses

In the last decades, the working methods of late medieval illuminators have been widely discussed by art historians and codicologists. Non-invasive analyses are able to characterise the painting methods of illuminators as well as investigate artistic collaborations among them. The aim of this study was to characterise the painting palettes and techniques of different artists who illuminated two leaves from an early fourteenth century manuscript. The analyses were carried out with non-invasive and portable techniques such as Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (ED-XRF) spectrometry, Fiber Optics Reflectance Spectroscopy (FORS) and Raman spectroscopy. The paper highlights the differences among three rich and varied palettes and examines the pigments ultramarine, azurite, verdigris, earths, orpiment, red lead, vermillion, lead white, yellow lake, indigo, brazilwood and lac, used independently or in mixtures. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of non-invasive analyses as a tool to differentiate hands of artists who have worked on the same page. Furthermore, the comparison with analyses carried out on leaves attributed to the workshop of Pacino di Bonaguida allows to investigate in-depth the production of the main illuminators active in Florence at the dawn of the Renaissance.

Two Carolingian Redactions of Isidore’s Etymologiae from St. Gallen

The Abbey of St. Gallen was the foremost centre for the study of the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville in the Carolingian period. Not only can more than twenty early medieval manuscripts transmitting material from the Etymologiaebe associated with Carolingian St. Gallen, but its scriptorium also produced two scholarly redactions of Isidore’s encyclopaedia in the second half of the ninth century. The prototype codices of these two redactions survive today in Swiss libraries, one as Zofingen, Stadtbibliothek, Pa 32, the other as St. Gallen,Stiftsbibliothek, MS 231 – 232. The first redaction represents an attemptto enrich the Etymologiae by incorporating Isidore’s De natura rerum into the encyclopaedia. The second redaction is the result of a collation of four sets of manuscripts of the Etymologiae, some of which survive today and bear collationmarks and variant readings inserted into the margins. While none of the many hands that were involved in the collation and copying of the two redactions can be attributed to any of the known scholars active at St. Gallen in the ninth century, the redactions seem to have been produced over the course of several decades under the auspices of the praepositus and later abbot Hartmut. Keywords: Isidore of Seville, the Etymologiae, St. Gallen, Carolingian manuscripts, Hartmut of St. Gallen, medieval textual criticism, critical signs, Carolingian scholarship

Jennifer Keith, Claudia Thomas Kairoff, Jean I. Marsden, Rachel Bowman, and Molly Hand (eds.). The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea: Volume 1: Early Manuscript Books; Volume 2: Later Collections, Print and Manuscript

Jennifer Keith, Claudia Thomas Kairoff, Jean I. Marsden, Rachel Bowman, and Molly Hand (eds.). <i>The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea: Volume 1: Early Manuscript Books; Volume 2: Later Collections, Print and Manuscript</i>

The Prophet Muḥammad’s Covenant with Yūḥannah Ibn Ru’bah and the Christians of Aylah

This article examines the Prophet Muḥammad’s covenant with Yūḥannah, Prince of Aylah, and illustrates the role it plays in understanding religious pluralism and civil rights as envisioned in Prophet Muḥammad’s dream of a “Muslim Nation”. The article also briefly makes use of other covenants contracted between the Prophet and other Arab Christian tribes. The covenants reveal Prophet Muḥammad’s desire for religious pluralism and the granting of rights to all people, regardless of religion, creed, or personal practices. Although Prophet Muḥammad’s covenants with the Christians of his time are used as a framework of analysis in this article, these documents have not received as much attention as they deserve, as few researchers in our time have shown interest in them. Early manuscripts and historical sources, both Arab and Western, are referenced in order to explore the circumstances and consequences of these early correspondences between Islam’s final Prophet and contemporary Arab Christians. The findings of this investigation are significant in that the covenants serve as critical milestones and reminders in light of current discussions about relations between Muslims and Christians. The contents of the covenants can also be used as models for improving relations between Muslims and Christians in religiously diverse communities the world over.

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