The “Book of Ehud” – a modern apocryphon?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

As we consider Salvian’s letter 9, discussing why his Ad Ecclesiam was written under the name of Timothy, let us also include the following item, taken from the Private Eye Annual 2009, ed. Ian Hislop.  Private Eye is a British satirical magazine, and the “Book of Ehud” is an item that appears in very similar form whenever it feels the need to comment on Israeli affairs.

book_of_ehud_2009

OCR’d this gives the following text:

The Book of Ehud.

Chapter 94

  1. And, lo, it came to pass that the days were accomplished that the ceasefire should end between the children of Israel and the Hamas-ites, they that dwelt in the land of Gaza.
  2. And thus, as was foretold, the Hamas-ites once again sent forth into the land of Israel many rockets that are called Qassam and Faj-3 and BM-21 Grad, even unto the cities of Askelon, Ashdod and Beersheba.
  3. Then Ehud that is called Olmert waxed wroth, and summoned unto him Ehud that is called Barak, who waxed even wrother.
  4. And he also called Tzipi, the daughter of Livni, who waxed even wrother still.
  5. And they said among thmselves, “The hour is upon us. Now is the time for smiting, as we have done so many times before, to bring peace to the land of Israel.”
  6. And they wagged their heads wisely, saying, “Yea, as it worked before in the land of Lebanon, when we smote the Hezboll-ites, so it will worketh again.
  7. “Furthermore,” they muttereth privily, “there is an election coming up, and the children of Israel tendeth to choose the ones who do the most smiting.”
  8. And so it came to pass that, while the Gaza-ites were watching their televisions by night, behold, the skies were filled with a heavenly host raining bombs on them and singing “No peace on earth, ill will to men.”
  9. And, as the fire and brimstone decended on the Gaza-ites, they were slain in their hundreds, even men, women and children.
  10. And in the streets of the city of Gaza there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
  11. And Ehud cried aloud, saying, “Verily, that will teach you Hamas-ites to launch your rockets at the land of Israel.”
  12. And the Hamas-ites laughed him to scorn, and launched more rockets into the land of Israel where the people were also slain but not in quite the same numbers.
  13. If thou wouldst not know the score, looketh away now.
  14. Which is what most of the world did.
  15. The score was as follows: Gaza-ites – 400; Israel-ites – 4.
  16. Which is an good result.
  17. And Ehud said, “Behold, this showeth that the smiting is working. Never again will we see the rockets of the Hamas- ites darkening the skies of Israel… hangeth on, what is that falling from the heavens… ?”
  18. And as he spake there was an mighty boom, like unto the thunder that fills even the mighty Leviathan with dread as he slumbereth off the coast of Eilat (which currently offereth three weeks for the price of one, hurry, hurry, hurry, while Israel lasts).
  19. Then, as the smoke cleareth, Ehud saith, “Right. That’s done it. There is only one way to stop this kind of thing. More smiting!” And the children of Israel rejoiced, saying, “Too true, Ehud. For there be-eth only one language that these people of Gaza understandeth.”
  20. So Ehud sent forth a mighty army and tanks, even an hundredfold, to carry out the next round of smiting that would finally bring lasting peace to the land of Israel.
  21. Just as it hath done so many times before.
  22. And, lo, the war continued, even unto the twenty-second day.
  23. And Ehud looked upon it and saw that it was good.
  24. Then said Ehud, son of Olmert, “Let us now declare an cease-fire.
  25. “For, lo, we have achieved our objective.
  26. “Which was to get a quick war in before Obama cometh.
  27. “For Barack, son of Obama, may not looketh so kindly on our smiting as did Dubya, that is called the Burning Bush.”
  28. And so it came to pass that the smiting ceased.
  29. And the children of Israel said to themselves, “Great is Ehud for he hath prevailed over the Hamas-ites.”
  30. But the Hamas-ites, as ye mighteth expect, said to themselves, “Great is Hamas for we have prevailed over the might of Israel.”
  31. And all the nations of the world talketh amongst themselves, saying, “Something must be done – though quite what, we knoweth not what it is.”

(To be continued)

I trust that it is unnecessary to add that this is not an ancient text.  It is not intended to be part of the Old Testament.  It is not an apocryphon.  I believe that the authors of it never had the slightest intention to deceive their readers, or to lead them to suppose that it was really part of the Old Testament.

They had, as we may readily see, other motives.  The object in this case is satire, and a rather unworthy sneer at Israeli efforts at self-defence.

Whether all this would be entirely obvious — to a dull man — in 1,500 years I do not know.  I suggest that it is the contemporary nature of the events described that make all this clear to us now.

But when we come to look at Salvian’s Ad Ecclesiam, and the allegations of Bart Ehrman about it, it will be useful to have this current example to hand.

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Salvian, Letter 9, to Salonius: on why he used the name Timothy when writing Ad Ecclesiam

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In Forgery and counterforgery, Ehrman makes great play of the “confession” of Salvian that he forged a work in the name of the apostle Timothy.  Unfortunately he does not give the text of the letter in question.  The reference is to letter 9 in the collected letters, although it is not found in the unique manuscript of Salvian’s letters, but instead is found prefixed to the text of Ad Ecclesiam, the work in question.

Let us have the Fathers of the Church translation.[1]  I will discuss it, and E.’s treatment of it, in my next post.

*    *    *    *

LETTER NINE

Salvian to Bishop Salonius,[2] my lord and most blessed pupil, father and son, disciple by instruction, son through love and a father in honor.

You ask me, my dear Salonius, why the name of Timothy was signed to the little treatise To the Church, done recently by a certain author of our day. In addition, you add that unless I add a clear reason for using the name, while the surname of Timothy is affixed to the treatise, the books may perhaps be reckoned among the apocrypha.

I am most thankful to you for your judgment of me, by thinking that my faith is so zealous that I would not allow the authorship of a work on the church to be in doubt. Thus, a writing that is most salutary should not be lessened in value because its authorship is uncertain. I have already pointed out that the books deal with issues of today and that they were written by a man of our own day in his zeal and love for things divine. This alone could suffice for removing completely any suspicion of apocryphal composition. Those treatises which are recognized as not being Timothy’s are not suspected as apocryphal.

Perhaps someone is inquiring who is the author, if the Apostle is not the author? They are asking whether he signs his own or a different name to his books. That is true. Indeed, this can be asked, and rightly asked, provided that the inquiry can bring good to anybody. Besides, if the inquiry is useless, why is it necessary that curiosity go to all this trouble, when knowledge will not have any benefit from the curiosity?  In every volume, profit is sought more from reading the book than from the name of the author.

Therefore, if there is profit in reading, and each author, no matter who he is, possesses the wherewithal to teach his readers, what matters to him a word which cannot help those who are seeking knowledge? Most worthily the saying of the angel can be answered to this inquisitive person: ‘Do you seek the family or the hired servant?’ Since there is no profit in a name, he who finds profit in writings unnecessarily seeks the name of the writer. As I have said, this is an adequate statement of the case.

I will tell you the more obvious facts because, my Salonius, my ornament and aid, I cannot refuse you anything In these books about which I am speaking there are three things which can be asked. Why did the author address his book To the Church? Did he use a borrowed name or his own? If not his own, why a borrowed name? If a borrowed name, why in particular did he choose Timothy as the name to be written? Here is the reason for writing the books To the Church.

The writer himself, as the very writings themselves testify is so concerned in his soul for the worship and love of God that he thinks nothing must be put before God, according to that saying of Our Lord: ‘He who loves his son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me.’ However, the lukewarm and negligent think this saying must be observed only in time of persecution.

As if, indeed, there is any time when anything should be preferred to God, or as though there are men who think that Christ must be considered more precious than all other things in time of persecution, but in all the remaining time He must be considered of less value. If that were the case, we would owe the love of God to persecution and not to faith. Then only will we be good when the evil persecute us. Actually, we owe a greater or certainly not a lesser love to God in times of peace than in adversity.

The very fact that He does not allow us to be afflicted by the evil is all the more reason why we should love Him. He acts toward us with the indulgence of the best and most gentle father, who wishes us, in peace and quiet, to show our faith more by works of religion than to prove our faith in persecution and bodily punishments. Therefore, if nothing is to be preferred to Him at the time when things are going badly with us, should He not also be preferred at the time when He deserves to receive more because of His indulgence? But these arguments are more fitting for another time. Let me now complete what I began.

The writer whom I have mentioned saw the manifold insidious diseases of almost all Christians and realized only that not all things did not stand in second place to God, but that almost all things were preferred to God. The drunken seem to spurn God in their drunkenness, the greedy in their greediness, the unchaste in their lust, the cruel in their cruelty.

What is more serious in all these faults is that not only are they committed with criminal violence over a long time, but they are not even corrected afterward by penance. Even in those who are said to be penitents the penance itself is rather a name than a reality, because names of things mean little if they do not possess reality. The name of virtue means nothing if it has no force.

Very many, in fact almost all, who abound in goods and are conscious of their misdeeds and greater crimes do not even deign to redeem them by confession and satisfaction, or, what is easier, by gifts and works of mercy. What is more irreligious, they neglect this not only in time of prosperity, but also in times of adversity, not only when they have security but when they are in poverty. So great is the religious disbelief of men and so grave the sloth of unfaithful souls that, when many leave their greatest wealth to their heirs, sometimes even to strangers, they think their only loss is what they donated for their own hope and salvation. Indeed, though this is serious in almost all, it is especially so in those whom even the profession of sanctity accuses of a like criminal lack of faith. This very malady is great among those who are not laymen, but it is especially so in those who arrogate to themselves the name of religious.

Thus, he who wrote this treatise saw that this evil was general and that this almost universal crime was common, not to worldly men only, but even to penitents and converts, to widows professing chastity, and to young girls consecrated at the holy altars. A sin to be reckoned as monstrous, as I have said, it has reached even to the Levites and priests and, what is much more deadly, even to the bishops. Because of this, many of those I mentioned above, who are without love and without offspring, who have neither families nor children, allot their wealth and goods not to the poor, not to the churches, not even to themselves. What is greater and more outstanding, they do not even allot it to God, but to men of the world, especially to rich men and strangers. Seeing all this, the writer’s heart was kindled, during the writing, with a zeal for God like a burning fire.

His marrow glowed with a sacred love, his zeal was unable to do otherwise in such warmth than to burst forth with a voice of sorrow. But nobody was seen more suitable than the Church, of which they who did these things were a part, to whom that voice could be directed. It is superfluous to write for one or for a few, where the case is general. Therefore, this reason convinced and compelled the writer that the books about which I am speaking be sent to the Church.

Now I speak about the second question: why the books are not titled with the author’s name. Though there is one special reason for this, I think there could have been many. First, there is that reason which derives from the mandate of God, by whom we are ordered to avoid the vanity of worldly glory in all things, lest, while we seek a little breath of human praise, we lose a heavenly reward. Consequently, God wishes us to offer prayers and gifts to Him in secret. He orders us to commend in secret the fruit of good work, because there is no greater devotion to faith than that which avoids the knowledge of men and is content with God as its witness. Our Saviour says: ‘Let not your left hand know what your right hand does, and your Father Who sees in secret will repay you.’

Therefore, this reason alone could satisfy the writer for withholding and concealing his name from the title, that what he had done for the honor of his Lord he would keep for divine knowledge only, and what shunned public acclaim would become more commendable to God. The writer must confess that his principal consideration was that he himself is humble in his own eyes and lowly in his own estimation. He thinks he is the least and the last, and, what is more important, he thinks in this manner in pure faith, not by the means of an assumed humility, but by the truth of an honest judgment.

Hence, rightly thinking that others must also evaluate him as he evaluates himself, he rightly inserted a strange name on his books, lest the insignificance of his person detract authority from his salutary statements. In a way, all things said are esteemed as much as is he who says them. Indeed, so weak are the judgments of our day and almost so meaningless that they who read do not consider so much what they read as whom they read, nor so much the force and strength of what is said as the reputation of him who speaks.

For this reason, the writer wished to be completely hidden and to keep out of the way, lest writings which contained much helpfulness should lose their force through the name of the author. This is the reason for anyone who inquires why the author assumed another’s name.

There remains an explanation of why the name Timothy was chosen. To answer this question, I am about to return afresh to the author, for he is the cause of all the questions which have been raised. As he excelled in humility when he assumed a strange name, so he excelled in fear and caution when he used the name of Timothy. Indeed, he is fearful and scrupulous, and sometimes he is afraid of ‘white lies’; he fears sin so much that sometimes he fears things which should not be feared.

When, therefore, he wished to withhold his own name from the title of the book and to insert another’s name, he was afraid of falsehood even in this change of names. He thought that the sin of falsehood should never be committed in the exercise of a holy work. Being thus placed in uncertainty and doubt, he thought it would be best to follow the most holy example of the blessed Evangelist, who, affixing the name Theophilus to both beginnings of his divine works, wrote for the love of God when he was apparently writing to men. He judged it most fitting that he direct his writings to the very love of God by whom he was impelled to write.

Thus this writer about whom I am speaking made use of this argument and counsel. The Evangelist, being conscious that he had done all things in his writings for the honor of God, just as he had done all for the love of God, wrote the name Theophilus. For a like reason did this writer write the name of Timothy. For, as love is expressed by the word Theophilus, so is honor of the divinity expressed by the word Timothy. Thus, when you read that Timothy wrote To the Church, you must understand thereby that it was written to the Church for the honor of God, even that the very honor of God directed the writing. Rightly he is said to have written through whom it happened that the book was written.

For this reason, therefore, the name of Timothy is inscribed in the titles of the books. Indeed, the writer thought it fitting that, since he was writing the books for the honor of God, he would consecrate the title to the very honor of the Divinity. You have, my Salonius, my dear one, you have what you demanded. I have fulfilled the work of an ordered task. There remains, since I have discharged my part, that you discharge yours; that is, that you pray our Lord God and, by praying, ask that the books To the Church, written only for the honor of Christ, may be as profitable with God to their writer as he desires them to be profitable to all. I think this desire is not unjust. It is a desire by which someone asks that they be as profitable for his own salvation as he hopes they will be profitable to all for the love of God. Farewell, my Salonius, my ornament and help.

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  1. [1]The Writings of Salvian the Presbyter, tr. by Jeremiah F. O’Sullivan.  Fathers of the Church, 1947.↩
  2. [2]Son of Eucherius and pupil of Salvian. Salvian dedicated the treatise
    On the Governance of God to him.↩

More on experimenting with Arabic and Ibn Abi Usaibia

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In this post I asked if anyone had access to the following texts:

B. L. Van der Waerden, “Die Schriften und Fragmente des Pythagoras,” RESupp. 10 (1965): 843-64; see also idem, Die Pythagoreer. Religiose Bruderschaft und Schule der Wissenschaft (Zurich: Artemis, 1979), 272-73.

A correspondent kindly sent me the latter item today.  A PDF is here.

What this is about is a passage in the medieval writer Ibn Abi Usaibia (translation here), not found in the Kopf edition, but referenced by Bart Ehrman in his recent book Forgery and counterforgery.  E. indicates that the version given by Van der Waerden is unreliable, but does not repeat it.  Naturally I wanted to see what it said.  The text begins on p.272.

The writings of the older Pythagoreans

Archytas [the Pythagorean] not merely wrote a lot himself, but he collected the writings of older Pythagoreans, and of Pythagoras himself, and combined them to form a corpus.  The most detailed report on this is found in a long fragment from a work by Porphyry, given by the Arabic physician Ibn Abi Usaibia in his dictionary of physicians (5).  Porphyry distinguishes between “authentic books”, written by Pythagoras himself and the “heirs of his wisdom”, and “false books” which “were placed in the mouth of the sage and written under his name.”  After he has noted the titles of twelve such forgeries, Porphyry tells us that there were 280 “books on which no doubt rests”, and that 80 were by Pythagoras himself, and 200 by the “mature men who belonged to the group of Pythagoras, to his party, and to the heirs of his knowledge.”  These books, so he says, in particular were collected by Archytas.  They were then “forgotten, until they regained their place in a host of ways, mainly by showing their instrinsic good intent and devotion.”

The quotations given in the preceding paragraph in translation from the Arabic I owe to Mr. Matthias Schramm of Tubingen.  The latter has explicitly endorsed the following interpretation of the testimony of Porphyry.

If I understand the report of Porphyry correctly, Archytas was the first to put together a collection of the books of Pythagoras and his students.  They were unknown in Greece at this time, but preserved in Italy.  Then they were lost, and then came “wise men” — probably the Neopythagoreans — who collected them once more.

That Porphyry understood that there were two different periods of collecting and assembling, the period of Archytas, and that of the “wise men”, is indicated by the fact that Ibn Abi Usaibia, according to a communication by Mr. Schramm, uses a different verb for the collecting activity of Archytas to that of the “wise men”.

The testimony of Porphyry agrees well with that which we know from other sources.  As we saw in chapter 1, Dicaearchus, who lived a century after Pythagoras, knew of no books by Pythagoras: the Pythagoreans, so he said, kept their teachings strictly secret.  The books of Pythagoras, as Porphyry rightly says, did not become known in Hellas.  That the books came to the fore again in Italy is suggested because the learned Roman Varro (60 BC) gives as representative the opinion that there had always been “Pythagoras of Samos and Occelus of Lucania and Archtyas the Tarentine”.  As Thesleff rightly remarks, Varro also knew a corpus of Pythagorean writings, containing the writings of Pythagoras, Occelus and Archytas.

I give the German as well, for the benefit of search engines.

Die Schriften der älteren Pythagoreer

Archytas hat nicht nur selbst viel geschrieben, er hat auch die Schriften von älteren Pythagoreern und von Pythagoras selbst gesammelt und zu einem Corpus vereinigt. Die ausführlichste nachricht darüber finden wir in einem längeren Fragment aus einer Schrift von Porphyrios, das der arabische Arzt Ibn Abi Usaybi`a in seine Ärztebiographie aufgenommen hat.(5)  Porphyrios unterscheidet darin «authentische Bücher», die von Pythagoras selbst und den «Erben seines Wissens» verfaßt wurden, von «falschen Büchern», welche «dem Weisen in den Mund gelegt und unter seinem Namen geschrieben» wurden. Nachdem er die Titel von zwölf solchen Fälschungen vermerkt hat, teilt Porphyrios uns mit, daß es zweihundertachtzig «Bücher, an denen kein Zweifel besteht» gegeben hat, und zwar achtzig von Pythagoras selbst und zweihundert von den «reifen Männern, welche zur Gruppe des Pythagoras, zu seiner Partei und zu den Erben seines Wissens gehörten». Diese Bücher, so sagt er, wurden besonders von Archytas zusammengestellt. Sie seien dann «in Vergessenheit geraten, bis sich ihre Existenz bei einer Schar von Weisen, denen guter Vorsatz und Frömmigkeit eigen war, ergab». Diese Weisen hätten die Bücher «zusammengefaßt, zusammengestellt und komponiert, ohne daß sie zuvor in Hellas bekannt gewesen wären; vielmehr wurden sie in Italien aufbewahrt».

Die im vorigen Absatz in Anführungsstrichen angeführten Übersetzungen aus dem Arabischen verdanke ich Herrn Matthias Schramm, Tübingen. Dieser hat der nachfolgenden Interpretation des Zeugnisses von Porphyrios ausdrücklich zugestimmt.

Wenn ich die Mitteilung von Porphyrios richtig verstehe, so hat Archytas zuerst eine Sammlung von Büchern des Pythagoras und seiner Schüler zusammengestellt. In Griechenland waren sie zu dieser Zeit nicht bekannt, sondern sie wurden in Italien aufbewahrt. Dann sind sie verlorengegangen, und dann kamen «weise Männer» — wahrscheinlich Neupythagoreer —, die sie von neuem zusammengefaßt haben.

Daß Porphyrios zwei verschiedene Perioden des Sammelns und Zusammenstellens voneinander unterscheidet, die Periode des Archytas und die der «weisen Männer», dafür spricht auch, daß Ibn Abi Usaybi’a nach einer Mitteilung von M. Schramm für die Sammeltätigkeit von Archytas ein anderes Verbum benutzt als für die der «weisen Männer».

Das Zeugnis von Porphyrios stimmt gut überein mit dem, was wir aus anderen Quellen wissen. Wie wir im Kapitel i gesehen haben, hat Dikaiarchos, der ein halbes Jahrhundert nach Archytas lebte, keine Bücher von Pythagoras gekannt: die Pythagoreer, so sagt er, hielten dessen Lehren streng geheim. Die Bücher des Pythagoras sind also, wie Porphyrios ganz richtig sagt, in Hellas damals nicht bekannt geworden. Daß die Bücher in Italien wieder zum Vorschein kamen, stimmt auch, denn der gelehrte Römer Varro (um 60 v.Chr.) führt als Vertreter der Ansicht, daß es immer Menschen gegeben hat, «Pythagoras von Samos und Okkelos den Lukanier und Archytas den Tarentiner» an. Varro hat also, wie Thesleff richtig bemerkt, einen Corpus von pythagoreischen Schriften gekannt, in dem Schriften von Pythagoras, Okkelos und Archytas vorkamen.

(5) Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopaedie, Supplement X, Sp. 862: Schriften des Pythagoras IV, Nachtrag.

This is useful, but not really concerned with the issue of whether the students of Pythagoras felt able to write in his name.  In particular the author is clearly concerned with something else.  Finally the quotations are just snippets, not even sentences.

The RE article is not simple to find.  Pythagoras in general falls in Band XXIV of the RE, p.172 f.  But in Supp. 10 (1965), column 862-3, there is a section “IV. Nachtrag”.  This discusses Ibn Abi Usaibia.  A PDF of these two pages is here.  It likewise mentions Mr. Schramm.  In fact it becomes clear that Van der Waerden’s text is almost word for word the same!  The RE gives a few more details, but the quotations are the same too.

All this is unsatisfactory.  What we want, of course, is the text of Ibn Abi Usaibia, with which Ehrman is disagreeing.  E., it will be noted, renders “heirs of his wisdom” as “inheritors of his sciences”.

Update: I have only just realised that the “other article” above in “RESupp” is in fact the RealEncyclopadie Supplement article!  The perils of abbreviations…

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The informer and the sycophant in Diogenes Laertius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m currently rereading Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Philosophers as my bedtime book.  This evening I came across a curious passage in the life of Plato (III, 24):

There is a story that he [Plato] pleaded for Chabrias the general when he was tried for his life, although no one else at Athens would do so, and that, on this occasion, as he was going up to the Acropolis with Chabrias, Crobylus the informer met him and said, “What, are you come to speak for the defence?  Don’t you know that the hemlock of Socrates awaits you?”  To this Plato replied, “As I faced dangers when serving in the cause of my country, so I will face them now in the cause of duty for a friend.”

I noted the words, “Crobylus the informer”, and I wondered what Greek word ‘informer’ represented.  For we think of informers — delatores — as a feature of Roman society.  So I looked across the page — I’m reading this in the Loeb edition — and was amused to read Κρωβύλος ὁ συκοφάντες – “Crobylus the sycophant“.

I had never associated sycophancy with tale-bearing and informing, but of course the link is an obvious one.

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Ehrman’s use of the term “forgery”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Before I go further in reviewing Ehrman’s Forgery and Counterforgery, it would be good to look at what E. means when he uses the word “forgery” — a word which he uses very frequently — and what we mean when we use the word, and whether the two are the same and of the same extent.

If we think of instances of contemporary use of the word “forgery” in current English, we may imagine a number of instances: a forged will; the forged “Hitler diaries”; a forged and discreditable letter from a public figure; or some form of forged financial document; or a forged bank note.

The man who forges a will intends to obtain property belonging to another; the man who composed the supposed “Hitler diaries” hoped to obtain money for them; a forged financial instrument is created and submitted to cheat another of money.  A forged letter from a public figure intended to discredit him is intended to steal reputation, to obtain power or influence by removing it from another.

Likewise the man who creates a forged bank note does so in order to use it to obtain goods, stealing them from his victim.  On the other hand, there have been artists who have created “art” based around an image of a bank note.  The intent, and still more the use of the item, determines whether it is a forgery, or something else.

A google search will quickly confirm that the term is morally as black as black can be, indicating a fraud, something created maliciously with the purpose of injuring others in some way, or, at the very least, indifferent as to whether others are injured.  It is not a neutral term, but has a considerable emotional loading.  As such, in any scholarly study, it must be used with care, and only for items where the forgery is generally accepted, and in which none of the readership has any personal, political, religious or emotional investment.  To do otherwise can have no other effect than to turn a book into polemic against those sections of the readership, whether intentionally or not.  The book ceases to be scholarship at that point.

The google search to which I referred will also quickly reveal the existence of a 1930 book by a certain Joseph Wheless, entitled Forgery in Christianity: a documented record of the foundations of the Christian religion, which consists of extensive quotations from patristic writers with the intent of proving that the early Christians were determined and persistent liars.  The book may be found here.  Hate-literature very frequently levels an accusation of this sort at the object of its venom, whatever this may be.

Wheless, who had been an attorney, defines forgery in his introduction, and we might usefully quote it, in order to see what a malicious person intent on harm might do with the word.

Forgery, in legal and moral sense, is the utterance or publication, with intent to deceive or defraud, or to gain some advantage, of a false document, put out by one person in the name of and as the genuine work of another, who did not execute it, or the subsequent alteration of a genuine document by one who did not execute the original. This species of falsification extends alike to all classes of writings, promissory notes, the coin or currency of the realm, to any legal or private document, or to a book. All are counterfeit or forged if not authentic and untampered.

How, then, does E. define forgery?  Verbosely and diffusely, unfortunately, or I would quote him directly, rather than in excerpts.

First he defines (p.29-30) as “pseudonymous” writings where the name at the top is not that of the person who composed it.  The name may be a pen-name, or it may be that of a “well-known person who did not, in fact, write it.”

He then divides the latter class into two; (a) works originally published without a name, or under a name which is the same as a more famous person, and later ascribed by copyists or whoever to the “well-known person”; and (b) works published under the name of a well-known person, by someone knowing full well that he was not that person.

E. states that (b) is ‘typically meant to deceive the reader … this kind of pseudepigraphy is what I am calling “forgery,” when an author claims to be someone else who is well known, at least to some readers.  Forgeries involve false authorial claims.’  He then wanders off into justifications of his usage, of no special interest now,  and all rather vague and discursive.  He’s said what he wants to say, and the rest is detail.

Many will feel rather uneasy with these definitions.   These are not conclusions, or useful ways to summarise, based on what a study of the material has revealed.  This is only chapter three, is introductory material.  Rather these are guiding principles, invented ex animo by E., for the purpose of classifying the materials he proposes to deal with.

To label every writing composed by a man under another name as “forgery” is very aggressive indeed.   Do we know this?  Do we know that, in every case, 2,000 years ago, the author intended malice, fraud and deception?  That he sat there intending to cheat the public?  It seems most unlikely.  So why use this loaded term?

But can we test E.’s definitions?  Is there a case, where we do know the background and the author’s intentions?

Let us consider the case of Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations.  These take the form of a dialogue between various persons.   We know quite a bit about the composition of the text from Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, in which he discusses it; but let us, for the moment, ignore this, and apply E.’s principles to the speakers in the text.

In the Tusculan Disputations, a number of speeches are atttributed to Scipio.  Did Scipio actually say this?  Let us say, after investigation, that the style is typically Ciceronian, and that Scipio did not write those words.  These, then, are pseudonymous.

Do these fit E.’s class ‘a’? — originally anonymous?  They do not.  The names of the speakers were always set forth as they are now.  So, by default, we come to the conclusion that Cicero was engaged in forgery, representing the opinions and words of Scipio when in fact they were his own.

Yet in fact no question of forgery arises; we learn from the Letters to Atticus that Cicero merely sought literary effect, that the speakers were all dead at the time he wrote, and that everyone understood that this was merely a literary convention.   In fact a reasonable man, reading the Tusculan Disputations, would not rush to judgement anyway.

It may be objected that speeches in a literary composition are not the same as a work transmitted independently.  This is quite true; we know from Justinus’ epitome of Pompeius Trogus that the speeches in Livy were so composed, for instance, and that this was acceptable.  It would be nice to be able to point to some similarly documented case of a whole work under another name; but none with such background comes to mind.  But the point here is that we have identified, very quickly, a case where ancient writers set forth material under the names of others, with no intent to deceive, and where no forgery is involved.  E.’s definitions fail as soon as we apply them to material where we do know quite a bit about the background.

Nor should we be surprised.  99% of ancient literature is lost.  Our knowledge of antiquity will often be rather tentative.  Our information about the authors and the process of composition of most ancient documents is minimal.  Anachronism is an ever-present danger.  Bad scholarship always starts by imposing a modern outlook onto the data.  A wise man will refrain from rushing in to denounce, to fingerpoint, to label, when he knows full well that five minutes in the company of the author would probably change his every assumption utterly.  To do otherwise is unscholarly.  Good scholarship avoids applying loaded terms to conclusions reached on the basis of little evidence.  Once emotion comes in, balance and judgement go out of the window.  Let the text speak; and let us walk warily.

Yet E. proceeds to apply these criteria of his own devising to texts where we have very little information.  He does so in order to brand the authors as forgers and – eventually – as liars.

Likewise E.’s purpose is to apply these categories, not to texts whose forgery is universally accepted and uncontroversial, but to the foundation documents of the Christian church, whose followers are everywhere.   This amounts to a direct religious statement on a matter of current controversy.  Indeed, as we have seen, he follows in the footsteps of a hate-writer in so doing.  At which point whatever scholarship E. brings to the subject is merely equipment for polemic.

This is a pity.  What it means is that, in the book as a whole, accusations of forgery will be thrown around without adequate evidence, in cases where the real position is actually unknown.  This is certain to render the book rather useless and misleading.

Finally we may reflect that E. has rather shot himself in the foot.  After all, someone who applied to E. himself the kind of black-and-white dogmatism that he proposes to apply to ancient texts might give him back some hard names at this point!  But a reasonable man would not.  E. no doubt intends no deception.  He has merely spent too much time brooding on a religious position that he does not share.   Such a process would make any man morose.

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Ehrman on the long recension of Ignatius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Some busy days have prevented me getting to grips with Ehrman’s Forgery and counterforgery.  My query about the Apollinarians earlier today led me back to it, as a Google link brought me to the Google Books version, where I found material on the long recension of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch.  I thought that I would review this section, therefore.

Pages 460-480 are headed “the pseudo-Ignatian letters”.   Let’s have a quick refresher on the background.

In the Greek manuscript tradition we find numerous manuscripts of a collection of 13 letters attributed to Ignatius of Antioch, the apostolic father.  This is known as the long recension; for 7 of these letters have reached us, but only just, in a handful of manuscripts in a shorter version, which we will refer to as the short version.  The differences between the two seem to relate to late 4th century theological arguments, with an Apollinarian or Arian tinge.  Finally there is a Syriac epitome of 3 of the letters, and I have seen a reference in Aphram Barsoum to Syriac texts of other letters.

E. begins by stating more or less what I have told you, and then discusses the discovery in the 17th c. by Archbishop Ussher that the long version had been tampered with, and the recovery of the short version.  He then moves on to discuss the author, summarising the scholarship of Lightfoot and others, and including the recent (1975) work of D. Hagedorn suggesting that the interpolator is the same as the author of a commentary on Job attributed to Origen.[1]

E. usefully describes the argument that the commentary author may be an otherwise unknown Julian of Antioch, so named in 1 manuscript of a catena which sometimes ascribes the work to “Julian” — the abbreviated designations in catenae are a nuisance! — and whose name is, we are told, present in the prologue.  E. tells us that Hagedorn thought that the two works are by the same author, as well as the Apostolic Constitutions, a church order of the same period, introducing itself as from the apostles.  Usefully he tells us why the commentary and the AC should be associated: “…35 points of contact … precisely the same topics, using precisely the same somewhat unusual expressions” and then that verbatim similarities of wording show that the author of the long recension and the commentary must be the same.  The argument is, on the face of it, a reasonable one; although arguments based on similarities are notoriously subjective, and can easily give false positives.  The Arian nature of the Commentary is also explained — the author rejects both homoousios and homoiousios, which marks him plainly as an Arian.

However E. then goes on to address objections to the identification without actually making clear what those objections are.  The main objection is that the long recension is not markedly Arian, while the Commentary makes its loyalties quite clear.  This E. evades by appealing to the idea that the author might have developed his views.  So he might; but the reader deserves to have the objection stated plainly.  To his credit E. makes clear that there is anti-Arian seeming material in the long recension.

The next section is entitled “Purpose of the forgeries”.  It is hard to say why somebody composed the long recension, for the obvious reason that we know nothing for certain about the author (aside from the proposals of Hagedorn), and certainly not what his motivations were. E. proceeds to discuss this by suggesting that much of the material is written as if from a 2nd century outlook, and attack various heresies of the period, as listed in the stock anti-heretical treatises of the 4th century.  All this material is useful, and E.’s acknowledgement of Lightfoot is generous.

But at this point E.’s over-emphasis on “forgery! forgery!” causes the reader confusion.  E. tells us that the author must have wanted to put forward his own theological position.  This is probable enough, to be sure; but it tells us little, for the same is true of most authors, and we have already seen that we don’t know for sure what the author’s theology was, unless we accept Hagedorn’s theory.  Worse, it is speculation.  We don’t know what the author wanted: we can only infer.

Next he tells us that the author is:

… clearly engaged, consciously, in the act of forgery…

But surely we do not know this?  It is likely enough, again; but we actually know nothing about the origins of the long recension, nothing about its author, and treating theory as fact is for politicians, not scholars.

E. however believes that we know the author intended forgery because of the author’s “attempts at verisimilitude” and because some of his alterations to the genuine text are “highly significant”.  The logic is not easy to follow here.

The first point will make little sense to us unless we realise that E. is trying throughout his book to argue that small personal details in letters, far from being indications of authenticity, are in fact indications of forgery — he is, inevitably, thinking primarily of reasons to debunk the N.T. here.  Such broadbrush arguments are not impressive: if I write a letter, or a blog post, what I put in it depends on who I write to and what I have to say, and how I feel.  It would be unwise for E. to assign posts on this blog as “authentic” or “interpolated”, based on such a criterion.

The second point is left unclear; but E. then devotes a couple of pages to “important features” of the long recension, which is probably intended as explanation.  Unfortunately it is not easy to follow the argument, nor the connection to what precedes and follows it.  Lack of focus is a failing of this book throughout.  It makes it very hard to read a work critically, when the subject drifts off into points whose connection with the topic is tenuous.  Here E. has been poorly served by his publisher, who should most certainly have edited it more tightly.

He then moves onto some work of his own, looking for theological battle-cries in the text of the long recension (including changes to Ignatius’ own wording) and finding many phrases which sound a bit heretical, in one way or another, notably with a subordinationist flavour.  These ought to be tabulated, not left in the body of the text.  But this leads the reader nowhere; the text again loses focus and drifts off into a very vague discussion of whether the author might or might not be an Arian, and might be addressing somebody unknown rather like Marcellus of Ancyra.  This takes up most of the remainder of the section, and might perhaps be useful to someone interested in the long recension.  As E. rightly remarks, a thorough study would be nice to have.

One defect in this last section of the text is that E., on p.476, having already presented his data on fingerprint phrases on p.470-4, then starts to list further pieces of data.  This is very naughty.  Any critical reader will demand all of the data first; and then the theory later.  For to mingle the two makes it hard for the reader to evaluate the argument.  Indeed doing so is a trick of polemicists to shut down disagreement; and again the publisher should have caught this.

The discussion of the long recension is a bit waffly.  The bits that are good are mainly by others, and the bits that are original are not that well structured.  But on the whole it’s a useful summary.

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  1. [1]E. does not give the full bibliographic reference: it is Dieter Hagedorn, Der Hiobkommentar des Arianers Julian, Patristische Texte und Studien, 14, Berlin: deGruyter, 1975.↩

The “forgeries of the Apollinarians”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

This evening I stumbled across a book which few, perhaps, will have read: Georges Florovsky’s The Byzantine Fathers of the Sixth to Eighth Centuries.  Fortunately the book is accessible here, for it is otherwise quite uncommon.

What led me here was a question about the “forgeries” of the Apollinarians.  We know that in the 6th century, works were in circulation which were ascribed to Pope Julius I, Athanasius, or Gregory Thaumaturgus, but were in reality by Apollinaris or his followers.  We know this because of a dossier of quotations, assembled by Leontius of Byzantium as Adversus Fraudes Apollinistarum.  Indeed a correspondent kindly translated this text for us all, and it is accessible online.

Apollinaris of Laodicea lived in the second half of the 4th century A.D.  He wrote an excellent refutation of Porphyry’s anti-Christian work, and, when faced with Julian the Apostate, did what he could to frustrate the latter’s desire to prevent Christians acquiring an education.  However he must have found himself out of his depth in the increasingly vicious theological-political currents of the late fourth century.  The opinion now known as Apollinarism is given by the old Catholic Encyclopedia thus:

A Christological theory, according to which Christ had a human body and a human sensitive soul, but no human rational mind, the Divine Logos taking the place of this last.

“Apollinarism” was condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 381, or so the CE says.  After this point, it may well have been dangerous to circulate texts under his name.  In the circumstances those who still agreed with him chose to place the other names at the head of his and their works.  This had the unfortunate consequence that monophysite writers such as Cyril of Alexandria found themselves quoting Apollinaris when they believed that they were quoting Athanasius.  In the disputes of the 6th century, the supporters of Chalcedon made use of this to attack the monophysite position.

But did the Apollinarians intend fraud?  or merely to preserve their now illegal belief?  It would be extremely harsh, surely, to condemn them for the latter.  The later use of their works is nothing to do with them.

Another supposed Apollinarian forgery is the long recension of the letters of Ignatius.  Seven letters were interpolated, while a further eight were composed.  The identity of the interpolator is unknown, unless we accept the suggestion that it is an otherwise unknown Arian named Julian of Antioch, whose name appears as author of a Commentary on Job of the same period.  But the author of the long recension is not obviously Arian, any more than he is certainly Apollinarian.  His purpose in interfering with the text in this way is entirely unknown today.  It is entirely possible that it was for dishonest purposes, to put into circulation a text in order to make an argument based on forged evidence; but we do not know this.

At all events, I then came across Florovsky’s work, which includes a discussion of the Apollinarian forgeries:

One work ascribed to Leontius which may actually belong to him and which modern scholarship should consider carefully is Against the Frauds of the Apollinarians. In the history of Monophysitism the so-called “forgeries of the Apollinarians” played a major and fateful role. Many of Apollinarius’ compositions were concealed and “armored” under the forged inscription of respected and honored names. Faith in such pseudo-patristic writings very much hindered Alexandrian theologians in their dogmatic confession — it is sufficient to recall St. Cyril of Alexandria. Even if the work titled Against the Frauds of the Apollinarians is someday conclusively proven to be not that of Leontius of Byzantium, it is discussed here. Regardless of the authorship of this work — and it is very possible that it was Leontius of Byzantium — it was a significant work which deserves attention.

It is difficult to reconstruct the history of these “forgeries” but they became especially wide-spread in the Monophysite milieu. Even Eutyches in his appeal to Pope Leo at the Council of Constantinople in 448 refers to the forged testimony of Pope Julius, Athanasius, and Gregory the Miracle-Worker. He referred to them in good conscience, not suspecting any “forgery.” In his document to the monks of Palestine, Emperor Marcian observed that among the people books by Apollinarius were circulating which were being passed off as dicta of the holy fathers. Justinian also mentions some forgeries. The historian Evragius discusses the influence of these forgeries — the inscription of honorable names (Athanasius, Gregory, Julius) on Apollinarius1 books kept many people from condemning the impious opinions contained in them. At the famous “conference” with the Severians, which took place about 532 (between 531 and 533, in any case), Hypatius of Ephesus challenged a whole series of patristic references by pointing out their spuriousness, their the false inscriptions.

Under such circumstances the uncovering and demonstration of forgeries became a pointed and recurrent task of theological polemics. In performing this task, it is the author of Against the Frauds of the Apollinarians who occupies the most prominent place. The author gathered much material in this work. He adduces the false testimonies, and compares them with the original opinions of those persons to whom they are ascribed. (It is noteworthy that this same procedure is followed in the work Against the Monophysites, a work modern scholarship does not regard as that of Leontius of Byzantium). The author then collates these testimonies with the undisputed texts of Apollinarius and his followers and shows the points of correspondence between them. In this connection the author has to enter into a detailed critique of Apollinarianism. The author’s critical conclusions are distinguished by great precision and cogency.

Interesting indeed.

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Getting started with the Fathers

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Via Twitter I learn of this post at Triablogue, answering the question:

Jason, where would you recommend someone start with the church fathers, both in terms of primary and secondary reading? It seems such a dauntingly large field to a non-specialist…

The answer is worth reading, but inevitably I disagree profoundly!

If you are interested in history, and have some idea about Greeks and Romans, then I think that I would recommend the following.

First, read the Didache, or “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”.  It’s a first century work (one of the few not in the New Testament), which combines a Jewish moral manual (boring) with some practical instructions on how congregations should treat apostles and prophets! (very interesting).  I would suggest getting a modern translation; but a Google search will bring up others.  This is the only ancient text outside the New Testament to mention them.  It’s short.

Secondly, go and look at this page.  It’s the table of contents (sort of) for a massive collection of old translations of the Fathers, in chronological order.  It will give you a  bunch of names, and centuries, at a very high level.  You can click through and get the very olde-worlde translations too; but the main reason to look at this is just to get a high-level view of who wrote when.

Thirdly … get hold of a modern translation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Church History.  There is a Penguin edition, translation by G.A. Williamson, which is excellent (the older version with Williamson’s own notes is better than the one with Louth’s, in my opinion).  This was written around 325 AD.  It’s in 10 books (some 480 pages of English – sorry!), and it contains any amount of very early sources in quotation, which aren’t preserved otherwise.  This gives you a strong, primary source account of how the church rose and progressed, right down to the legalisation of the church in 313 and the first ecumenical council (of Nicaea) in 325 AD.  It will also tell you how the early church thought about the New Testament.

After that … I would suggest looking into the earliest literature, known as the “apostolic fathers”.  It’s all boring, but on the other hand it isn’t very extensive.  You should certainly read “1 Clement” (written ca. AD 90, and a bit of a follow-up to 1 and 2 Corinthians in the NT).  The martyrdom of Polycarp (you read about him in Eusebius) is good.  The letters of Ignatius are worth a look also.

But from here you can find your own way in the sources.  Generally you find that the Fathers have “lovely moments, and dreadful quarters of an hour”, as was said of Wagner.  You have to learn to skim-read.

Now, secondary sources.  What you need here, obviously, is an overview of what exists.  For this there is no better source than J. Quasten, Patrology.  It’s in 4 volumes; the first two of reasonable size, the last two both immense.  But it really does list all the works by all the writers.  And it gives them in chronological order — so you can read it from cover to cover –, it discusses what they thought, quotes some “good bits”, and it has a very useful reading list at the end of each small chunk, including where to find the texts, translations, and studies.  The only drawback is that vols. 1-3 are now 50 years old (vol. 4 is 20 years old), and so don’t include more recent stuff.  The main omission is the Nag Hammadi library, which only got into the hands of the public in the 1960’s.

This may be overkill; but I’m rather fond of such volumes.  Just skimming, you get a very, very good idea of everything that exists.

I have no suggestions for more recent studies, since I specialise in primary sources.  I would caution you against modern American scholarship, which pretends that all the heresies were Christians, and then sneers that early “Christianity” believed all sorts of unbiblical things.  The Fathers think different; as you will see.

Let me recommend a couple of personal favourites.

S.L. Greenslade’s translation of Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum – on the Prescription of heretics.  It can be found here.  It gives principles on arguing with heretics — liberals, in our day –, some pitfalls to avoid in using the bible in such arguments, and ends with a skit on the frequency with which heretics change their minds.  Chapters 1-8 and the last couple are the really good bits.

Origen’s Contra Celsum is very long, but certainly the opening chapters are worth reading.  Henry Chadwick’s translation is the one to use.

The opening few chapters of Evans’ translation of Tertullian, Adversus Praxean, here, are well worth reading.

Don’t work at it; just potter around, and look at stuff you find interesting!  And … good luck!

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Doesn’t every library look like this? If not, why not?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A photograph of the old Cincinnati Public Library, sometime in the 1870’s, from here (via here).  Impractical; but fun!

cincinnati_public_library

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Ibn Abi Usaibia – the GAL entry, and the manuscripts

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have finally managed to find some hard information on Ibn Abi Usaibia (translation here), the two editions of the text, and the manuscripts of both.  What follows may be hard going; but it is almost entirely hard data.

A google search turned up this site.  It gives, thankfully, the GAL reference for Ibn Abi Usaibia, which means that, at long last, I can find the entry.  Here is the reference on the website.

BROCKELMANN KARL (1868-1956), Geschichte der arabischen Literatur. Weimar, Berlin 1898 ; Leipzig, C. F. Amelang 1901 [vi-265 p., 23 cm]; Leyde, E. J. Brill 1943 [2e sup.] ; Leyde, E. J. Brill 1996 [augm. et préface de Just Witkam] (I) p. 325-326; (sup. I) p. 560.

I.e. p.325-6 of volume 1 of the 1st edition, plus p.560 of vol. 1 of the supplement.

Here are the corresponding pages (p.397-8) from vol. 1 of the 2nd edition (which has the page numbers of the 1st ed. in the margin):

brockelmann2_vol1_397brockelmann2_vol1_398

And from the supplement:

 brockelmann2_suppl1b_560In the interests of googleability, here’s a transcription, with a few extra line breaks to make the detailed info more comprehensible.

10. Muwaffaqaddin a. ’l-`Abbās A. b. al-Q. b. a. Usaibi`a as-Sa`di al-Hazragi, geb. nach 590/1194 in Damaskus, wo sein Vater Augenarzt war, studierte Medizin in seiner Vaterstadt und am Nāsirischen Krankenhaus zu Kairo; besondere Anregung verdankte  er dem bekannten Arzt und Botaniker b. al-Baitār (S. 492). 631/1233 wurde er von Salāhaddin an einem neugegründeten Krankenhause zu Kairo angestellt, ging aber schon 632 an den Bimāristān an-Nuri zu Damaskus und 634 als Leibarzt des Emirs ‘Izzaddin Aidamur b. `Al. nach Safad. Dort starb er im Gum. I, 668/Jan. 1270.

Wüst. Gesch. 350, Leclerc II, 187/93. `Uyun al-anbā’ fi tabaqāt al-atibba’ (noch Patna II, 317,2469), in zwei Recensionen, einer v. J. 640/1242 und einer jüngeren mit manchen Zusätzen.

Hsg. v. A. Müller, Königsberg (Kairo) 1884.

Vgl. dens. ZDMG 34, 471, Travaux du VIe congr. intern, d. or. à Leide II, 218 ff., SBBA, phil.-hist. Cl. 1884, S. 857 ff.

and from the supplement:

10. Muwaffaqaddin a. ‘l-`Abbās A. b. al-Q. b. a. Usaibi`a (1) b. Halifa as-Sa`di al-Hazragi, geb. nach 590/1194 in Damaskus, wo er 632/1234 am Bimaristān an-Nuri angestellt wurde; 634 ging er als Leibarzt des Emirs `Izzaddin Aidamir b. `Al. nach Sarhad und starb dort im Gum, I, 668/Jan. 1270.

Nallino, `Ilm al-falah 64ff. K. `Uyun al-anba’ fi tabaqat al-atibba’, Hdss. noch Münch. 800/1, Wien 1164, Leid, 1062/4, Paris 2113/7, 5939, Nicholson JRAS 1899, 912, Fātih 4438, Top Kapu 2859/60, Sehid `A. P. 1923, Yeni 891/2, Köpr. 1104, Dämäd Ibr. 935, Kairo2 V, 275, Mosul 25,42, XIV, 26,78, Rampur, I, 642,176, Bank. XII, 786, Abkürzung Paris 2118.

S. noch Hamed Waly, Drei Kapp, aus der Ärztegeschichte des b. a. Us., med. Diss., Berlin 1911.

(1) So die Hds. Brit. Mus.

This is the origin of the “two recensions” story; there is one made in 1242 AD, and a “younger one, with some additions”.  The details may be found in Müller, Arabische Quellen zur Geschichte der indischen Medizin, in the ZDMG 34, starting on p.469 f., which may be found online here.  This also gives a list of manuscripts of the two recensions.

The JRAS (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society) article is online, and consists of a list of Arabic manuscripts owned by orientalist Reynold A. Nicholson.  The Ibn Abi Usaibia ms. was copied in Constantinople in 1136 A.H. (=1758 A.D.), and has the inscription, “E. Libris Theodori Preston Coll. S. S. Trin. Cant. Socii Damasci 1848”, and a note stating that Mr Preston purchased it in Damascus for 900 piastres.  I wonder where his manuscripts are now.

The supplement gives a further list of manuscripts — supplemental to that in the ZDMG article –, as does the webpage with which we started:

  • Ms. Cod. Arab. 800, Berlin, Staatsbibliothek preußischer Kulturbesitz
  • Ms. Cod. Arab. 801, Berlin, Staatsbibliothek preußischer Kulturbesitz
  • Ms. 715, Universitätsbibliothek, Leipzig
  • Ms. 4781, Dublin, Chester Beatty Library
  • Ms. Ar. 2113, Paris, Bibliothèque de France
  • Ms. Ar. 2114, Paris, Bibliothèque de France
  • Ms. Ar. 2115, Paris, Bibliothèque de France
  • Ms. Ar. 2117, Paris, Bibliothèque de France
  • Ms. Ar. 2118, Paris, Bibliothèque de France
  • Ms. 2859/1, Istanbul, Topkapi Saray
  • Ms. 2859/2, Istanbul, Topkapi Saray, daté 1334

So we’re getting some real, useful information at last here.  Curious that the GAL mentioned a British Museum manuscript in the footnote as the source of the author’s full name, but does not give the shelfmark for it!  It is, no doubt, British Library Add. 7340, an exemplar of the longer recension, mentioned in the ZDMG article.

The Muller edition of Ibn Abi Usaibia is only in my hands in a rather rubbish-looking reprint, which I suspect is incomplete.  I wish the original was online!

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