Dan Batovici, «Eriugena’s Greek Variant Readings of the Fourth Gospel.», Vol. 26 (2013) 69-86
In a 1912 note of less than two pages, E. Nestle presented a number of instances where Eriugena mentions several readings of the Greek text of the Gospel of John which did not survive in our manuscripts and which where not mentioned by Souter or Tischendorf. He stressed that such an example ‘shews that even so late an author deserves the attention of an editor of the Greek New Testament’ (596), before asking where these would fit in the manuscript tradition of John. This article will follow Nestle’s suggestion and re-examine the variant readings offered by Eriugena – all explicit quotations – in light of the post-1912 developments in textual scholarship on both the Greek text of John and on Eriugena’s works devoted to the Fourth Gospel.
82 Dan Batovici
Eriugena clearly mentions the reading ἐρήμῳ of Jn 1:23, and then
proposes an interpretation starting from this Greek word. Perhaps
unsurprisingly since it is in fact an OT quotation, this reading too has
wide support elsewhere, and is the text of NA28.
Jn 1:29 τῇ ἐπαύριον [βλέπει
Comm. I. xxxi. Altera die – uel, ut in graeco significantius scribitur,
alia die – videt Iohannes Iesvm venientem ad se. Alia, inquit, die,
hoc est alia cognitione. Prima enim cognitio fuit quando eum concu-
rrentibus ibidem populis manifestauit dicens: “Hic erat quem dicebam
uobis”. Nunc autem, ueluti secunda notitia, altera die, uel alia die,
videt Iohannes Iesvm venientem ad se.
‘The next day’ – or, as is written more meaningful in the Greek,
‘another day’ – ‘John sees Jesus coming toward him.’ He says ‘another
day’, which means another acquaintance. For the first acquaintance
was made when he showed him to the people who were gathering,
saying: ‘He was the one of whom I was speaking to you.’ And now, as
a second introduction, ‘the next day’ or ‘the other day John sees Jesus
coming toward him.’
Nestle mentions this ‘curious remark’ on Eriugena’s part concerning
a Greek variant which seems to be translated in Latin as alia die, as
opposed to altera die, and notes that “in Greek there is no variant for τῇ
ἐπαύριον.”37 Just like Tischendorf’s edition, the NA28 has τῇ ἐπαύριον
and no variant here.
Jeauneau does not think Eriugena’s remark is pointing to a genuine
Greek variant of τῇ ἐπαύριον. He proposes that Eriugena must have
considered alia die a better translation than altera die for τῇ ἐπαύριον.38
In this vein, Eriugena’s remark is to be regarded as a testimony for τῇ
ἐπαύριον instead, with the alia die variant being a mere product of
Eriugena’s idiosyncratic understanding of this particular Greek word.
We do have, as mentioned in the introduction, a considerable amount
of Greek text translated into Latin by Eriugena from Maximus the
Confessor and Pseudo-Dionysius; for my part, I could not find parallels
relevant for this situation. One might as well accept Jeauneau’s take on the
matter, a rather educated guess given his life-long experience of editing,
commenting and translating Eriugena. And even if it were to be regarded
as pointing to a Greek variant of τῇ ἐπαύριον, it does not stand on firm
37
Nestle, Eriugena, 596.
38
Jeauneau, SC 180, 168, n. 2.