Quotes on Textual Criticism

As something of a companion to my post last week I present here four quotes from men of acknowledged acuity on the subject of textual criticism. The first quote, from St. Jerome's commentary on Isaiah may appear a bit opaque (and I apologize for any shortcomings in my rather hurried translation), but what I find interesting about it is the highly theological methodology he applies to a problem of textual criticism. The second quote, from John Calvin, addresses directly the problem of the story of the woman caught in adultery, and consequently other passages of scripture whose provenance we may be inclined to believe is unauthentic. The last two quotes, from medievalist Frederick Klaeber and novelist James Joyce, consider, each in their own way, what the psychology must be of those who delight in cutting ancient texts up into various strata of authorship and redaction.

1. St. Jerome (commenting on Isaiah 2:22)

Rest therefore from the man whose breath is in his nostrils: for he has been considered exalted. This the Septuagint has left out and in the Greek exemplars there has been added from Origen (in Aquila's edition) with asterixes what we read in the Hebrew...Where we have said "he has been considered exalted," Aquila has translated it "in which he has been considered." The Hebrew word Bama, is either ὒψωμα, that is, "exalted," which we read both in the book of Kings and Ezekiel, or perhaps "in which," which is written with the same letters Beth (B), Mem (M), and He (H). As to the nature of their arrangement, if we wanted to read "in which," we write Bamma; if rather "exalted" or "exaltedness," we read Bama. Therefore the Jews, because they do understand it to be a prophecy of Christ, have taken the worse reading, so that it appears not to praise Christ, but to have no real force. For what is the purpose of the words, and what logic or sense is there, if we say, when these circumstances were so, and the day of the Lord was to come, in which the whose state of Judea is to be overturned, and all things ground underfoot, "I warn and instruct you, that you rest from the man, who breathes and lives just as we humans do, because he is to be reckoned as nothing"? Who would praise any person in such a way, and say "Beware lest you offend him, who is altogether nothing."? Therefore it must be understood in the opposite way: "When these things are all to come upon you and are proclaimed by the spirit of prophecy, I warn and instruct you to rest from him who, although he is a manaccording to the flesh, and has a soul, and breathes and draws breath from his nostrils as we humans breathe and live, yet according to his divine majesty is also exalted and considered so and believed to be so. I rack my mind and I cannot find a reason why the Septuagint did not wish to translate so clear a prophecy of Christ into Greek. Now the others who translated it but drew the ambiguous phrase into an impious sense, it is no wonder why they interpreted badly, and did not want to say anything about the glory of Christ, in whom they do not believe, I mean the Jews and Semi-Jews, that is, the Ebionites. Yet because Christ is "highly exalted" or "the Most High," who is in another phrase called Elyon among the Hebrews, we read in the 86th [87th] Psalm "Shall not Zion say 'one man and another were born in her, and the Most High himself founded her.'" And in the Gospel "And you, O child, will be called prophet of the Most High." And, so that I don't draw too much line (for in the exposition of Holy Scripture we ought to follow truth and not controversy) Bama in this place is not read as "exalted" among the Hebrews, but "exaltedness," that is, "heighth" or "loftiness," as if we were to say of someone that he is not "divine," but "divinity," not the "creek," but the "spring," not a "human" but "humanity." Origen interpreted the passage in the following way: Because it speaks in the singular about one man, it can be referred also to our Lord the Savior. Thus the Prophet orders that they should rest from him who has been considered in some great matter, although he appears for the present to be a human being and to have breath in his nostrils, just as other human beings breathe.

2. John Calvin (commenting on John 8)

It is plain enough that this passage was unknown anciently to the Greek Churches; and some conjecture that it has been brought from some other place and inserted here. But as it has always been received by the Latin Churches, and is found in many old Greek manuscripts, and contains nothing unworthy of an Apostolic Spirit, there is no reason why we should refuse to apply it to our advantage.

3. Frederick Klaeber (Introduction to his edition of Beowulf)

It has been the fate of Beowulf to be subjected to the theory of multiple authorship, the number of its conjectural 'makers' ranging up to six or more. At the outset, in this line of investigation, the wish was no doubt father to the thought.

4. James Joyce (Chapter 4 of Finnegan's Wake)

Naysayers we know. To conclude purely negatively from the positive absence of political odia and monetary requests that its page cannot ever have been a penproduct of a man or woman of that period or those parts is only one more unlookedfor conclusion leaped at, being tantamount to inferring from the nonpresence of inverted commas (sometimes called quotation marks) on any page that its author was always constitutionally incapable of misappropriating the spoken words of others.