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Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
The history of textual criticism is full of sometimes
surprisingly tortured debates over matters both of principle and of detail. Since
textual criticism aims at a point closer to pure science than does most research in
the humanities, opposing notions of what is the “right” analysis and what the
“wrong” may from time to time achieve a certain pointedness that other, greyer,
areas of research do not. Even textual criticism is not a pure science; an element
of creative judgement is sine qua non in the application of
its principles, yet its principles are based on sound logic, and false applications
of them can feasibly be detected and unmasked.
As early modern readers of Horace discovered to their cost, to reconstruct an autograph out of a tradition that is already corrupt at its outset, is at the very least an exercise in searching out tracks in a wilderness. The oasis is there somewhere, but the tracks have been so far obscured by the sands as to be discoverable only by the most tortuous methods. Those methods, however, are not unknown–they are the basis of the criticism of textual traditions and the descent of manuscript readings, and so the trackless waste is not a hopeless place. Good principles must be followed, and the evidence permitted to draw us where it will. Moreover, most textual critics are a good deal terser in expression than is the norm in the meandering ways of the more discursive branches of humanities. All the data is presented; but the reader must be willing to expend the effort to interpret it aright.
Some Syriac texts, especially the more technical philos-ophical translations from Greek originals, are so muddled that it is hard for the reader to judge whether an obviously faulty text should be ascribed to the incomprehension of an over-ambitious translator, the forgivable mis-readings of a confused scribe, or even the well-meaning but quite hopeless attempts at “correction” by the next tradent in the succession. In any case, the modern editor will be faced with some fundamental questions to which (s)he must offer some semblance of an answer, in order to produce something serviceable for future students. The only other option is simply to reproduce manuscripts, add a few remarks, and let readers make of the corrupt text what they will.
*
I am wholeheartedly thankful to Yury Arzhanov for the comments and observations that
he offers in the article preceding the present. To tell the truth, it is only when
editing a text for publication that one comes squarely face-to-face with its
problems and failings, and at this point the editor cannot avoid proposing solutions
to these problems unless (s)he would prefer to go and do something else instead.
This is why Arzhanov is especially well-suited to writing the article in question,
since it arises not merely from his own reading of my edition of Aristotle’s Categories, but out of preparations for his own digital
edition. The issues that he raises emerged quite naturally and organically from his
task, and for this reason they are to be welcomed. Through such a dialectical
process, we may all progress.
It must be stated clearly, however, that Arzhanov’s approach and aim as a textual critic are quite different to my own. He entered upon the business of producing a diplomatic edition of a corrupt ms, I of offering a critical edition. The former may be used with profit by those sifting through the textual traditions of the Syriac and Arabic versions, and by those who have the ability silently on their own to correct the many and egregious corruptions in the text; the latter, however, may be used by those who rely on an editor to make reasonable judgments about what the author actually wrote. The diplomatic text is, in my view, a defunct goal in today’s world of digitised and easily-available manuscripts; the critical reconstruction of a corrupt tradition, by contrast, is the only goal that can offer wider benefits in allied fields of research.
We are dealing then with a fundamental difference of principle. Arzhanov unfortunately often mistakes what are in fact matters of principle for mere issues of detail. He sincerely believes that he is critiquing some matter of detail because he has misconstrued the nature of that fundamental difference of principle that I am talking about. His article contains a number of fruitful corrigenda to my own edition, which I gladly receive and approve. But he too often appears to think that these testify to a failure of principle, or to confusion between different goals, whereas in reality the confusion is on his side of affairs. I shall lay out the evidence for this in the rest of this article, which thus presupposes at all points a close awareness of the issues raised by Arzhanov, and can only be read in close concert with his essay.
Let us begin with Arzhanov’s summary of Gutas’s
“principles”–they may not seem especially momentous comments, but their
significance will become apparent. Arzhanov somewhat misrepresents the
complexity of Gutas’s system. What Gutas says D. Gutas, Theophrastus On
First Principles (Known as his Metaphysics), Brill, Leiden
& Boston 2010 (Philosophia Antiqua, 119), p.99.
Arzhanov appears on more than one occasion to want rather more from the editor
than I am willing to commit myself to. He always seeks clarity about the cause or
source of a particular textual error
or corruption, whether it be attributable to an otherwise unknown Greek variant,
or to a translation error, or to a scribal error within the Syriac transmission.
For him, it appears to be a failing of the edition not to commit itself to an
explanation.
Yet the simple answer is that, in the vast majority of cases, the precise cause of corruption is unknowable. The edition lays out the data; editors may offer an hypothesis as to the precise cause of corruption only when they are reasonably certain; otherwise they limit themselves to the presentation of the data. That is what I have done. To have done otherwise would be to go beyond the data. Of course, future students with greater acuity than I will take this data and themselves suggest possible causes of variants.
In this connection, two points must be carefully noted and emphasised:
1) that I only make emendations on the basis of extant
Greek readings known from Greek mss [i.e. I do not
imagine a Vorlage that is otherwise not extant]. This is a crucial principle.
Just as Gutas pointed out, having a good knowledge of the Greek tradition
does help in the recon-struction of
the original text of the Syriac translation, because it offers variants which
sometimes allow us to gain insights into the mechanism of error within the
Syriac tradition. Speculating that unknown Greek var-iants might once have
existed as a means of explaining errors in the tradition that are more easily
explained in other ways is fruitless. Examples are offered below.
2) that emendations to the text were made only in cases where I believed it was clear and obvious what the translator had written, and where the mechanism of corruption can be plausibly reconstructed. The fact that we have only a single ms witness to this text does not alter this principle.
This section of Arzhanov’s article announces its own superfluity from the outset, for he writes: “…these two points may poten-tially lead the reader of the book to confusion.” I suppose they may do so in the case of a reader prone to confusion of principles. But for the reader who is not easily confused, they will not. And I take it that a reader who has reached p.257 is probably not to be easily confused.
But, briefly, for the benefit of the confused: in the general commentary (pp.170-256) there is no need in principle to distinguish A from A* since the commentary presupposes the reconstructed form of the text, which can simply be labelled A. This is what is supposed (by a degree of subjective editorial emendation) to have come off the translator’s desk. In the textual notes (p.257-282), A* needs to be used as an additional siglum to indicate the evident differences between the reconstructed autograph (A) and the readings of the ms (A*).
To take briefly one of examples Arzhanov offers (p.498):
on p. 212 we read: “6b36-7 [80vb] A omits any equi-valent for δόξει.” Since A remains undifferentiated on these pages, it is unclear whether the commentary refers to the state of the manuscript (i.e. A*) or to that of the translator’s copy (i.e. A).
It is hard to conceive what could be unclear to him. “A” means only what it always means, viz. the reconstructed text of Anon as printed in the book. When I state that A omits any equivalent for δόξει, it means just that, that there is no equivalent in the edited text. I do not pretend to know the reason–hence there could be no A/A* distinction here. Because 1) the ms text makes sense as it is, and because 2) I can see no obvious mechanism of scribal corruption, there is no call for any conjectural emendation. A glance at the apparatus will make this much clear. My commentary is a commentary on the edited text and requires the reader to have the text open. Of course, a critic is most welcome to disagree with the editor’s judgement, but to say that “it leads to confusion in the analysis of stage 3” [to use Gutas’s terminology] will not be true for any reader who follows the required logic. The principles here in question are sound and in no way confusing. What I am thankful for is Arzhanov’s discovery of the occasional error–e.g. that the comment on p.178 relating to 1b8 ought to have been placed in the textual notes and not in the commentary.
It is clear enough that much of this arises rather from Arzhanov’s personal
preference for the “security” of a diplomatic edition than from any failure
of principle on the part of my critical edition. The term “om[ittit]” has
throughout a purely functional role. A critical text prints the editor’s
reconstruction. The apparatus offers the wording of the ms collated against
it, hence, e.g., when “horse” must have been part of the translator’s
autograph (1b5), the apparatus must read “om.” since the ms does not read
“horse.” Arzhanov’s edition reads <
On p.497, Arzhanov asserts that I established a
dependency relation between the three versions. Dependency is a rather
slippery term and is not, in fact, one that I used. I described J and G as
“revisions” of Anon. On p.80 I provide evidence for this, especially some
interesting translational errors which J and G both took from Anon in the
early passages of the text and corrected further on. Of course, there is no
question that J and G are in many ways very different from Anon. Moreover,
it is abundantly clear that they both used Greek copies of
Categories different from that
which provided Anon with his Vorlage (not being an edition of J or G, this
book does not exhaustively treat the question of the Greek variants
represented in them), and it is equally clear that they used many quite
different expressions and translation equivalents. At the same time, I
believe it well-established that they knew Anon and made use of it. This
permits us to use the expression “revisions” but not “dependency” – it is
not clear to me quite what the latter term would entail in Arzhanov’s
schema.
What is of far greater moment, however, is that this relationship–whatever one calls it–does not in the slightest degree imply that J and G have become, for the editor, “additional witnesses to the textual tradition represented by Anon that help us to reconstruct the ‘translator’s autograph’ deriving from it” (p.497). How could they possibly have any such role? It would as absurd as using an incunabulum of Catullus to reconstruct the archetype of the Verona manuscript. J and G have significance only insofar as they reveal to us the lines of the reception of Aristotle in the seventh/eighth century. They in no way contribute to the reconstruction of Anon’s autograph. They do not have that role in my edition; nor, I think, in his.
Arzhanov’s unnecessarily long foray into J and G and their specific
characteristics concludes limply: “What a reader of the book finds is a
combination of the analysis of Anon with that of J and G, which makes an impression…that J and G are mere witnesses of the
Syriac text of Anon” (p.501, my italics). It is singularly unfortunate that
Arzhanov falls under such a false impression. In truth, neither J nor G are
anywhere used in any way to assist in the reconstruction of Anon, nor are
they used as a source of “good variants.” To have used them in such a way,
even a little, would have been a manifest transgression of principle, and I
never entertained it for a moment.
Arzhanov’s own analysis of the nature of the relationship between Anon and JG is reasonably accurate, and is more-or-less in line with my own conclusions; the actual (non-)role of JG in my own efforts to reconstruct the text of Anon is, on the contrary, abundantly clear. Just how my edition “does not allow the reader to distinguish between their witnesses, both in the analysis of A/A* and in reconstructing the Greek text behind it” (p.502) will remain a mystery to any reader willing to follow the logic of the case. The use of sigla allows the reader to make precisely those distinctions between witnesses that Arzhanov seems to find so difficult. He can offer no single example where my reading of JG has affected my conjectural emendations of the text of Anon. All that is left is his misplaced “impression.”
It would be wholly otiose even to embark upon a defence of my using the
Bekker referencing system for a text of Aristotle (p.502) – to have done
otherwise would have been pretentious and unnecessary. In the same
paragraph, he proffers the extraordinary suggestion that “the
commentary…creates a number of difficulties for readers who do not have the
Greek text of the Categories in front of them.”
Indeed I would be shocked if a reader of the commentary without the Greek text in front of them did not encounter very
many difficulties! Is a reader of a commentary expected now
not to have access to the text
itself?
In this section, Arzhanov suggests that the “edition does not always provide sufficient information on ‘what is known’” (p.503). However, this criticism is otiose–the emendations concerned are minor matters such as punctuation and syame points – it is quite normal in Syriac editions not to note in the apparatus these minor editorial interventions.
He further suggests the improvement of using “angle brackets <…> that would denote additions made to the text of the manuscript” (p.504). In fact, such a method would be misleading. Angle brackets usually indicate the filling up of an actual lacuna in the ms (e.g. words that are hard to read or where there is an illegible part of the page). On the other hand, angle brackets to indicate conjectural additions would give them a significance over and above other sorts of conjectural emendation, such as deletions and reordering, which would then become down-graded as against additions. Arzhanov is again offering nothing more substantial than a description of the difference between his own preferred ‘diplomatic’ method and my ‘critical’ method.
The section ends with a list of errors in the apparatus. These are welcome as corrigenda. They are not, however, errors of principle, as Arzhanov seems to think, and these errors would still be errors under any other principle of editing. They are corrigenda pure and simple, and can be corrected in any future edition.
Here we come to what may be the clearest evidence of how Arzhanov and I differ rather substantially in our approach to the critical treatment of a corrupt tradition. This evidence shows how he is both more reticent in his editorial method (for he prefers to print the ms rather than to offer emendations) and yet also more reckless (for he offers as possible causes of error some extremely improbable suggestions and on this basis retreats into a thoroughgoing skepticism).
A rather anodyne example will make the general point clearly enough. Arzhanov writes (p.528):
104.26ܐܢܐ ms :ܐܢܬ ed. — The editor’s variant is based on the fact that the transmitted Greek text has 2nd person sg. However, it remains possible that the Syriac translator 1) had another variant in his Greek copy, or 2) preferred to change it for some reason.
In fact, these two alternative suggestions are barely worth a moment’s
consideration. All known Greek witnesses read ΕΡΕΙΣ (you
say). Moreover, this is a standard piece of Aristotelian style which
offers the translator normally no difficulty and he elsewhere always translates
it correctly. Arzhanov’s suggestion (1) that the translator had a different
Vorlage is extremely unlikely (ΕΡΕΙΣ > ΕΡΩ is a most unlikely error; and I do
not believe in speculating Greek variants not otherwise attested in the
tradition, although Arzhanov seems happy to posit a new Greek variant for almost
any reason to exculpate the Syriac scribes). The suggestion (2) that it was a
deliberate alteration on the part of
the translator is even more absurd, since no conceivable reason for this can be
imagined and in no other location does he make any comparable alteration. Hence
any editor would come to the same, rather obvious, conclusion as I did, viz.
that this is most plausibly understood as a scribal error.
What should become at once apparent from this somewhat insignificant, but still
telling, example, is that Arzhanov is much the more
speculative editor of the two of us. I have opted for the most likely
explanation, viz. scribal error, and emended the text accordingly; he speculates
about unknown Greek variants and deliberate translational alterations, both
without any evidence; and then decides to leave the text as it is on the basis
of the consequent uncertainty regarding the source of the error. In my view,
this is at once to over-speculate about the unknown and to surrender the
responsibility of the careful editor.
Here follow a selection from the other examples that he offers (pp.508-512), demonstrating in each case the basic soundness of the principles of my edition, and the superfluity (sometimes absurdity) of his doubts:
104,33 a priori, far more likely caused by an uncomprehending
scribe than by a translator who certainly
did understand what he was
translating. Moreover, the
mechanism of error is clear once one
sees the (not-in-dispute) Vorlage–this is to follow Gutas’s principle of using
our knowledge of the Greek text wisely and critically.
106,10
106,24
110,11 better explanation for the corrupt
trans-mitted text than inner-Syriac scribal error. He suggests the evidence is
not decisive – that there are other possibilities. Naturally no evidence will be
wholly decisive in the case of a corrupt tradition, but the question at hand is
one of the balance of probabilities. Any critic is more than welcome to differ
in the application of the critical principles–but the principles themselves
remain secure.
116,33 (not 32) confer simply means “take a look at”) – it in no way implies that I am
using JG as a basis for the emendation. The reason for the emendation is the
same as in all the other cases, viz. that the text is corrupt. The Greek surely
read τούτων δὲ οὐδέν…, and elsewhere this would always, by this translator, be
rendered as
118,14
120,8
140,5
144,6
150,23 always uses the loan word for
ἀπόφασις. There is a close visual similarity between text and conjecture, a
clear mechanism of corruption, and the translator’s normal equivalents are
well-established. In my judgement, there is an almost zero chance that the
transmitted text is what the translator wrote.
162,25 Not to place the emendation in the
text would be a total abdication of editorial responsibility and a retreat to a
quite different principle, namely that of reproducing the ms with only the most
minor alterations, i.e. the diplomatic edition that Arzhanov prefers and which
he prepared for Hunaynnet.
164,2
The comments about the use of square and angled brackets (p.512) shows a lack of understanding of how these instru-menta work. Arzhanov expects that angled brackets would be used to indicate conjectural additions (I have explained above why this ought not to be the case) and seems to be under the illusion that square brackets are used to indicate textual conjectural additions as well. In fact, in line with most English cribs of Syriac texts, square brackets indicate words added to ease the flow of a translation and have nothing to do with the critical work on the Syriac text itself.
Throughout these examples, the paradox of Arzhanov’s position is that his
non-emendations require far greater speculation than my own conjectures–for he must always be forced either to invent a Greek variant
without attestation to account for a strange Syriac translation, or else he must
posit a translator who had little idea what he was doing and simul-taneously a
scribe or scribes who had a rather better idea. By contrast, I never make
emendations based on imaginary Greek readings, and I emend what may be adjudged
to be scribal errors wherever the mechanism of error can be discerned, minor
errors in transmission being prima facie more likely than
imagining a translator who knew even less Greek than he did Syriac.
“Anon turns out to be a highly unstable version that frequently changes its use of terminology and translation technique; its author (or authors) seems frequently to have had difficulties in grasping the precise meaning of the Aristotelian text; and it seems to be possibly based on an imperfect copy of the Greek text” (p.513).
Not at all. There is no evidence that the translator’s Greek copy was any more
defective than any normal ms would have been. Arzhanov offers no evidence to the
contrary. Moreover, as I demonstrated in the book, the translator had a good
understanding of a difficult text. He did not yet have a stable tradition of
Syriac renderings with which to work, and this is the explanation for his
inconsistencies–they are the inconsis-tencies of an experimenter, not those of a
confused tyro. This would suggest that, far from being the product of a
pre-existing pedagogical tradition, this translator was working in something of
a vacuum. He was inventing a field largely de novo, and
was remarkably successful.
Finally, Arzhanov offers a beneficial analysis of the tradition of Jacob’s translation, something I only touched upon in the book by way of an appendix. A future analysis needs, however, to check again that the errors of MV are also found in BP. There are (see p.287) a few shared MV errors; this “should” mean that these errors are found throughout the tradition back to [ω] and hence “must” be in BP as well. If BP have any right readings where MV are in error, then the stemma will need further rethinking. But this is only a minor suggestion.
Housman pointed out that “people come upon this field
bringing with them prepossessions and preferences; they are not willing to look
all facts in the face, nor to draw the most probable conclusion unless it is
also the most agreeable conclusion.” A. E. Housman, “The Application of Thought to
Textual Criticism,”
Proceedings of the Classical Association 18
(1921), 67-84, at p.71.Categories would have been always to
assume that the translator was at fault and that the text as transmitted,
barring only the most obvious errors, is in all major particulars the text that
came off the desk of the translator. Were it so, we could confidently
reconstruct his Vorlage and also describe in some detail his technical failings.
However, it was not so. The text was poorly treated in the years between
original translation and extant copy. The translator, albeit that he was an
experimenter and a pioneer, had a strong grip on his task and executed it
remarkably well. This places the onus on any editor to make every effort to
present to the wider reading public, and especially to editors of the Greek
Aristotle, the actual words that the translator most likely wrote, and this
requires more conjectural emendation than is found in many other Syriac texts.
An editor who surrenders that responsibility might as well just publish an
online digital copy of the manuscript.
Nonetheless the presentation of the material does not, in the event, rely upon this conclusion. The text presented in the edition is, as with any critical edition, a reconstruction based on editorial judgement. The data needed to analyse this editorial work is all present in the footnotes, tersely yet clearly laid out. Where there are errors in the edition, corrigenda are to be welcomed. They are not errors in the principles being applied. Editors such as myself also warmly welcome variant judge-ments on individual emendations–indeed this is how knowledge progresses.
But Arzhanov has mistaken one species of criticism for another. Having found my
critical edition a difficult
instru-mentum for the realization of his own goal of producing a
diplomatic edition of the same text,
he has misread both its principles and their application.