Note on the Text of Chrysostomâs Homilies on Genesis in the Patrologia Graeca
The subject of this research, John Chrysostomâs Homilies on Genesis (CPG 4409), is accessible in volumes 53 and 54 of the Patrologia Graeca (PG), first published in 1859. In itself, this text has no critical value. The surviving manuscript tradition containing all or parts of the series exceeds the staggering figure of 500 witnesses, some more complete than others. The text available in Migneâs PG represents a fraction of this and is based on a twofold adaptation process without solid methodology. The point first to consider is that of Migne himself, the editor of the PG. The Greek text of PG 53â54 is a reproduction of the text edited by Montfaucon (1718â1738). As for Montfauconâs variant readings, Migne pillaged them with a selective, if not arbitrary eye: there is no clearly stated methodology for which variants make it into Migneâs notes and which do not. But this brings us to the second adaptation of previous editions, that of Montfauconâs own edition. It cannot be called critical in the modern sense of the term. He did not present the riches at his disposal in an accessible way. With the resources of the then Bibliothèque royale available to him, this Benedictine scholar claimed to have consulted manuscripts not used by previous editions.1 Yet, his method of listing variant readings is unclear; he offers no procedure and does not list the manuscripts used. Where they are mentioned, variant readings or emendations do not refer to their sources in the manuscripts.2
Another feature of Montfauconâs edition is that he combines the efforts of previous editions. In 1612, the edition of Savile appeared and sometime shortly thereafter, du Duc made an edition with reference to Savile and other manuscripts. Montfaucon used both du Duc and Savile, thereby supplementing his text and apparatus with a different pool of resources without clear statement as to how and why. The resulting text in the PGÂ 53â54 is thus a combination of multiple renaissance editions whose precise layering and relationships are unclear.3
Despite this lack of a modern critical edition, there are grounds for confidence in a degree of faithful representation4 of the Migne text because it is based, ultimately, on Savile. Savile, the early seventeenth-century scholar who worked with the resources of the Bodleian, is clearer than his predecessors about which manuscripts he used. Even though he does not present his apparatus with critical annotation, Savileâs methodological transparency for establishing his text sets him apart from du Duc and Montfaucon. Savile explains that his edition is based on a collation of Novi Collegii 84 and 71, and Magdalensis 3. He also used an unknown manuscript to which he attributed great authority and antiquity, which he refers to as the emendatissimus.5 And herein lies another boon for Savileâs text. Fortunately, he chose relatively reliable manuscripts. Markowiczâs study of the manuscript tradition showed that Savileâs manuscripts dated likely to the eleventh century. Relative to two of the three groups Markowicz marks for the manuscript tradition of the Homilies on Genesis, the manuscripts that Savile used possess few errors.6 While these two factors, antiquity and relative accuracy, bode well for the reliability of the text established by Savile, we await the critical edition of In Gen. hom. 1â12 based on the doctoral thesis of Cyrille Crépey to place this conclusion in context and make steps towards clarifying the value of Savileâs work.7 In a private correspondence, Crépey has expressed cautious optimism about some of the pg text, but suggested that based on a coalition independent of Savileâs work, some significant corrections need to be made.8 This is a sign that work regarding our knowledge of Chrysostomâs exegesis and preaching may be done on the pg text while holding as a possibility that certain philologically based points may become subject to dispute and revision in the wake of Crépeyâs editionâa monumental task which deserves our praise and support.
For our present purposes, then, we proceed with a cautious use of the PG 53â54. Because we cannot at any given moment be certain which group this text represents, our study does not operate on the basis that the form in which we study the texts was the form in which they were delivered by John Chrysostom. This study approaches the texts as units intended for delivery as idealized conceptions of the dynamics between rhetoric and tradition. While chapter 1 demonstrates that the themes in the Homilies on Genesis fit amongst other works that can with greater certainty be dated to delivery in Chrysostomâs early Antiochene period, the arguments are not dependent on this being the case.
B. Mondrain, âBernard de Montfaucon et lââ¯Ã©tude des manuscrits grecsâ, Scriptorium 66.2 (2012), 289â291. An account of the origin and development of the manuscripts in the BnF is in P. AugustinâJ-.H. Sautel, Codices chrysostomici graeci, VII: Codicum Parisinorum partem priorem, der 80 (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2011), and this volume also describes many of the manuscripts that witness to the Homilies on Genesis.
W.A. Markowicz, The Text Tradition of St. John Chrysostomâs Homilies on Genesis and Mss. Michiganensis 139, 78 and Holkhamicus 61 (Diss. University of Michigan, 1953), 66â67; H. Amirav, Rhetoric and Tradition: John Chrysostom on Noah and the Flood, teg 12 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 56â57.
Markowicz, Text Tradition, 53â64 shows the variants between du Duc and Savile, noting that there is much agreement. F.J. Léroy, âLes manuscrits de Montfaucon et lââ¯Ãdition de s. Jean Chrysostome: notes sur quelques manuscrits du supplément grec, Bibliothèque Nationale, Parisâ, Traditio 20 (1964), 411â418, overviews Montfauconâs handling and categorization of mss and papers grouped under the rubric âJoannes Chrysostomusâ.
G. Bady, âLa tradition des oeuvres de Jean Chrysostome, entre transmission et transformationâ, RÃByz 68 (2010), 151â152, speaks of âdegrees of authenticityâ in the face of the likely impossibility of arriving at âthe originalâ of Chrysostomâs works. Nevertheless, he suggests that the âtextual stateâ reflected in the ninth- to eleventh-centuries resurgence of transmission of Chrysostomâs texts may provide a more epistemologically reliable foundation in comparison with modern editions made from manuscripts available at hand. Bady notes, further, that the textual tradition of the Homilies on Genesis stemming from these centuries is an example of a series which may âgain as much in antiquity as in reliabilityâ. Cf. G. Bady, âLes manuscrits grecs des Åuvres de Jean Chrysostom dââ¯après la base de données Pinakes et les Codices Chrysostomici Graeci VII: Codicum Parisinorum pars priorâ, Eruditio antiqua 4 (2012), 68 for a chart distribution of the antiquity of Chrysostomian manuscripts in Paris available in the Pinakes database, 16â¯% of which likely emerged from the Byzantine renaissance of the ninth- to eleventh-centuries. We await Crépeyâs critical edition of the Homilies on Genesis to deliver a more specific verdict as to the relative reliability of the text made available in the pg 53â54.
Markowicz, Text Tradition, 44â51.
Markowicz, Text Tradition, 260â261. Markowicz discerns three groups in the tradition: I, which represents an independent publication of stenographers; II, which represents Chrysostomâs corrections; III, which represents an attempted harmony of the two (ibid., 258). Notably, Savile used the 11th-century mss Novi Collegii 71. Markowicz recommended this manuscript as the basis for Group III of In Gen. hom. 31â67, as it contains the least errors relative to the other manuscripts in this family. Magdalensis 3 Markowicz recommends for Group I of this section of the Homilies. Concerning the division of the groups in the manuscript tradition, see ibid., 16â18 and Amirav, Rhetoric and Tradition, 57. The series division that Markowicz makes between In Gen. hom. 1â30 and 31â67 is not the same thing as the division of groups in the manuscript tradition. The series division, roughly between the first half and second half of the 67 homilies, is due to its size and the fact that a lengthy pause in the liturgical season (Holy Week) is mentioned in John Chrysostom, In Gen. hom. 33.1 (pg 53.306); see C. Crépey, âLes Homélies sur la Genèse de Jean Chrysostome: unité de la série, chronologie de la succession, provenance et datationâ, RÃAug 55.1 (2009), 90â101. Only rarely do we have a manuscript that contains all 67 homilies; New College 71 is one such manuscript, and so was, presumably, Savileâs emendatissimus. See J.D. Cook, Preaching and Popular Christianity. Reading the Sermons of John Chrysostom, otrm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 37â46 on transmission of Chrysostomâs homilies generally. Socrates, Hist. Eccl. 6.4.9 (gcs nf 1.316,12â13) mentions a distinction between Chrysostomâs homilies as taken down by stenographers when he spoke and âdiscourses that were given by himâ (á¼ÎºÎ´Î¿Î¸á½³Î½ÏÎµÏ ÏαÏá¾½ αá½Ïοῦ λόγοι). Following Mayer, Cook correlates these two versions to âroughâ and âsmoothâ recensions of Chrysostomâs works, and discusses the different possibilities for which audiences were intended by each recension. There is a deeper methodological problem, however. Bady, âLa traditionâ, 156 points out that in the case of many series, there is no evidence that Chrysostom himself âreworkedâ his texts; cf. W. Mayer, The Homilies of St John Chrysostom. Provenance: Reshaping the Foundations, oca 273 (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 2005), 361, who discusses this problem in relationship to the Expositions on the Psalms. Cook seems aware of this when he notes the possibility of scribal revision (33â34) in some cases.
C. Crépey, Jean Chrysostome: Homélies sur la Genèse (Diss. Paris IV-Sorbonne, 2004).
Dated 12Â September 2020, private email correspondence.