Paratexts Seeking Understanding: Manuscripts and Aesthetic Cognitivism
Abstract
:1. Paratexts, Knowledge, and Aesthetic Cognitivism
2. Digitally Editing CBL W 139
3. The Eusebian Apparatus and Taxonomy of Knowledge Domains
4. Eusebius and Understanding
5. Manuscripts and Aesthetic Cognitivism: Prospects and Avenues
6. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
- Allen, Garrick V. 2017. Textual History and Reception History: Exegetical Variation in the Apocalypse. NovT 59: 297–319. [Google Scholar]
- Allen, Garrick V. 2019. Paratexts and the Reception History of the Apocalypse. JTS 70: 600–32. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Allen, Garrick V. 2020. Manuscripts of the Book of Revelation: New Philology, Paratexts, Reception. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Andrist, Patrick. 2018. Toward a Definition of Paratexts and Paratextuality: The Case of Ancient Greek Manuscripts. In Bible as Notepad: Tracing Annotations and Annotation Practices in Late Antique and Medieval. Biblical Manuscripts. Edited by Liv Ingeborg Lied and Marilena Maniaci. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 130–49. [Google Scholar]
- Barrett, Justin L., Jean-Luc Jucker, and Rafael Wlodarski. 2014. ‘I Just don’t Get It’: Perceived Artists’ Intentions Affect Art Evaluation. Empirical Studies of the Arts 32: 149–82. [Google Scholar]
- Baumberger, Christoph. 2013. Art and Understanding: In Defence of Aesthetic Cognitivism. In Bilder Sehen: Perspektiven der Bildwissenschaft. Edited by Mark Greenlee, Rainer Hammwohner, Bern Köber, Christoph Wagner and Christian Wolff. Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, pp. 41–67. [Google Scholar]
- Becklen, Robert C., Charlotte L. Doyle, and Margery B. Franklin. 1993. The Influence of Titles on How Paintings Are Seen. Leonardo 26: 103–8. [Google Scholar]
- Blomkvist, Vemund. 2012. Euthalian Traditions: Text, Translation and Commentary. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Google Scholar]
- Butts, Aaron Michael. 2017. Manuscript Transmission as Reception History: The Case of Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373). JECS 25: 281–306. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Carbon, Claus-Christian, Helmut Leder, and Ai-Leen Ripsas. 2006. Entitling Art: Influence of Title Information on Understanding and Appreciation of Paintings. Acta Psychologica 121: 76–198. [Google Scholar]
- Carroll, Noël. 2004. Art and the Moral Realm. In The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics. Edited by Peter Kivy. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 126–51. [Google Scholar]
- Cerquiglini, Bernard. 1989. Éloge de la variante: Histoire critique de la philologie. Paris: Éditions de Seuils. [Google Scholar]
- Chartier, Roger. 1995. Forms and Meanings: Texts, Performances, and Audiences from Codex to Computer. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. [Google Scholar]
- Chatterjee, Anjan. 2014. The Aesthetic Brain: How We Evolved to Desire Beauty and Enjoy Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Chester Beatty Online Collections. n.d. Available online: https://viewer.cbl.ie/viewer/object/W_139/10/LOG_0000/ (accessed on 22 June 2020).
- Clivaz, Claire. 2019. Ecritures digitales: Digital Writing, Digital Scriptures. Leiden: Brill. [Google Scholar]
- Coogan, Jeremiah. 2017. Mapping the Fourfold Gospel: Textual Geography in the Eusebian Apparatus. JECS 25: 337–57. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Cramer, John A. 1844. Catenae Graecorum Patrum in Novum Testamentum. Oxford: Typographeo Academico, vols. 1–2. [Google Scholar]
- Crawford, Matthew R. 2015. Ammonius of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea and the Origins of Gospel Scholarship. NTS 61: 1–29. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Crawford, Matthew R. 2019. The Eusebian Canon Tables: Ordering Textual Knowledge in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Elgin, Catherine Z. 2002. Art in the Advancement of Understanding. Philosophical Journal 39: 1–12. [Google Scholar]
- Fascher, Erich. 1953. Textgeschichte Als Hermeneutisches Problem. Halle: Niemeyer. [Google Scholar]
- Franklin, Margery B. 1988. ‘Museum of the Mind’: An Inquiry into the Titling of Artworks. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 3: 157–74. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Friend, Stacie. 2007. Narrating the Truth (More or Less). In Knowing Art: Essays in Aesthetics and Epistemology. Edited by Matthew Kieran and Dominic McIver Lopes. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 35–49. [Google Scholar]
- Ganz, David. 2015. Buch-Gewänder: Prachteinbände im Mittelalter. Berlin: Reimer. [Google Scholar]
- Ganz, David. 2019. Clothing Sacred Scriptures: Materiality and Aesthetics in Medieval Book Religions. In Clothing Sacred Scriptures: Book Art and Book Religion in Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Cultures. Edited by David Ganz and Barbara Schellewald. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 1–46. [Google Scholar]
- Gaut, Berys. 2003. Art and Knowledge. In The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics. Edited by Jerrold Levinson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 436–50. [Google Scholar]
- Gaut, Berys. 2007. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Genette, Gérard. 1987. Seuils. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. [Google Scholar]
- Genette, Gérard. 1997. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Translated by Jane E. Lewin, and Richard Macksey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Goodman, Nelson. 1977. When is Art? In The Arts and Cognition. Edited by David Perkins and Barbara Leondar. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 11–17. [Google Scholar]
- Goodman, Nelson. 1978. Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. [Google Scholar]
- Grafton, Anthony, and Megan Williams. 2006. Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea. London: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Graham, Gordon. 2005. Philosophy of the Arts: An Introduction to Aesthetics, 3rd ed. New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar]
- Gurry, Peter J. 2017. A Critical Examination of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method in New Testament Textual Criticism. NTTSD 55. Leiden: Brill. [Google Scholar]
- Houghton, H. A. G., D. C. Parker, Peter Robinson, and Klaus Wachtel. 2020. The Editio Critica Maior of the Greek New Testament: Twenty Years of Digital Collaboration. Early Christianity 11: 97–117. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- John, Eileen. 1998. Fiction and Conceptual Knowledge: Philosophical Thought in Literary Context. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64: 331–48. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Kandel, Eric R. 2016. Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures. New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Karnetzki, Manfred. 1956. Textgeschichte als Überlieferungsgeschichte. ZNW 47: 170–80. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Knust, Jennifer, and Tommy Wasserman. 2018. To Cast the First Stone: The Transmission of a Gospel Story. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Kurzgefasste Liste. n.d. Available online: https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/liste (accessed on 12 June 2020).
- Lamb, William R. S. 2012. The Catena in Marcum: A Byzantine Anthology of Early Commentary on Mark. Leiden: Brill. [Google Scholar]
- Levinson, Jerrold. 1985. Titles. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 44: 29–39. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Lied, Liv Ingeborg, and Hugo Lundhaug, eds. 2017. Snapshots of Evolving Traditions: Jewish and Christian Manuscript Culture, Textual Fluidity, and New Philology. Berlin: de Gruyter. [Google Scholar]
- McGann, Jerome. 2001. Radiant Textuality: Literature after the World Wide Web. New York: Palgrave. [Google Scholar]
- McKenzie, Judith S. 2016. The Manuscripts. In The Garima Gospels: Early Illuminated Gospel Books from Ethiopia. Edited by Judith S. McKenzie and Francis Watson. Oxford: Manar al-Athar, pp. 43–66. [Google Scholar]
- Mink, Gerd. 2011. Contamination, Coherence, and Coincidence in Textual Transmission: The Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) as a Complement and Corrective to Existing Approaches. In The Textual History of the Greek New Testament: Changing Views in Contemporary Research. TCS 8. Edited by Klaus Wachtel and Michael W. Holmes. Atlanta: SBL, pp. 141–216. [Google Scholar]
- Nichols, Stephen G. 1990. Introduction: Philology in a Manuscript Culture. Speculum 65: 1–10. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Nordenfalk, Carl. 1938. Die spätantiken Kanontafeln. 2 vols. Göteborg: Isacsons. [Google Scholar]
- Novitz, David. 1987. Knowledge, Fiction and Imagination. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Nussbaum, Martha C. 1990. Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Plate, Brent. 2018. What the Book Arts Can Teach us about Sacred Texts: The Aesthetic Dimension of Scripture. In Sensing Sacred Texts. Edited by James W. Watts. Sheffield: Equinox, pp. 5–26. [Google Scholar]
- Reuss, Joseph. 1941. Matthäus-, Markus- und Johannes-Katenen nach den handschriftlichen Quellen untersucht. Münster: Aschendorff. [Google Scholar]
- Roby, Courtney. 2017. Framing Technologies in Hero and Ptolemy. In The Frame in Classical Art: A Cultural History. Edited by Verity Platt and Michael Squire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 514–43. [Google Scholar]
- Rowe, Mark W. 2009. Literature, Knowledge, and the Aesthetic Attitude. Ratio 22: 375–97. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Sickenberger, Joseph. 1901. Titus von Bostra: Studien zu dessen Lukashomilien. Leipzig: Hinrichs’sche. [Google Scholar]
- Sigismund, Marcus. 2020. Aus der laufenden Arbeit an der ECM der Apokalypse. In Studien zum Text der Apokalypse III. Edited by Marcus Sigismund, Darius Müller and Matthias Geigenfeind. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 3–21. [Google Scholar]
- Simotas, Panaiotis N. 1984. Νικήτα Σεΐδου Σύνοψις τῆς Ἁγίας Γραφῆς. Thessalonica: Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies. [Google Scholar]
- Snijders, Tjamke. 2015. Manuscript Communication: Visual and Textual Mechanics of Communication in Hagiographical Texts from the Southern Low Countries, 900–1200. Turnhout: Brepols. [Google Scholar]
- Tinio, Pablo P. L., and Jeffrey K. Smith, eds. 2014. The Cambridge Handbook of the Psychology of Aesthetics and the Arts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Turner, James. 2014. Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]
- von Soden, Hermann. 1902. Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren Textgestalt hergestellt auf Grund ihrer Textgeschichte. 1 vol. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. [Google Scholar]
- Wallraff, Martin. 2016. Paratexte der Bibel: Was Erasmus edierte außer dem Neuen Testament. In Basel 1516: Erasmus’ Edition of the New Testament. Edited by Martin Wallraff, Silvana Seidel Menchi and Kasper von Greyerz. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 145–73. [Google Scholar]
- Wallraff, Martin, and Patrick Andrist. 2015. Paratexts of the Bible: A New Research Project on Greek Textual Transmission. Early Christianity 6: 237–43. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Walsh, Dorothy. 1969. Literature and Knowledge. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. [Google Scholar]
- Winner, Ellen. 2019. How Art Works: A Psychological Exploration. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]
1 | See (Nichols 1990; Cerquiglini 1989; Chartier 1995). Of course, critical attention to manuscripts along these lines also runs much deeper in the tradition, finding parallels in Renaissance and ancient textual scholarship. See (Turner 2014, part I). |
2 | This is not to say that classical text critical approaches that emphasize textual reconstruction are illegitimate exercises. They remain foundational textual activities, and there is much work to be done on understanding the origins, early transmission, and textual history of many ancient works, not least the New Testament. |
3 | For a catalogue of Greek New Testament manuscripts, see the digital Kurzgefasste Liste (n.d.) on the New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room. |
4 | A good example is the work on the pericope adulterae in (Knust and Wasserman 2018). Additionally, the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) fascicle for the book of Revelation takes into account a selection of manuscripts features specific to the tradition, embedding these features in the underlying extensible markup language (XML) of their digital transcription. For example, they encode the kephalaia of the Andrew of Caesarea commentary tradition, punctuation, accentuation traditions of some words that affect their morphology, and other marginalia. On their transcribing processes see (Sigismund 2020). |
5 | This abstraction is an explicit part of the text genetic eclectic method used to evaluate variation units for the production of the ECM. The approach is called the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method. See (Mink 2011; Gurry 2017). |
6 | This is how (Wallraff and Andrist 2015) define paratexts in their project that focuses on paratexts of the gospels: “all contents in biblical manuscripts except the biblical texts itself are a priori paratexts” (here p. 239). This definition has been fine-tuned in (Andrist 2018). |
7 | Gérard Genette, who provided the first descriptive taxonomy of paratexts using early modern printed French novels as a data set, even included items like author’s correspondence and interviews as forms of paratexts, items outside the book that he referred to epitexts. See especially (Genette 1987 (trans. Genette 1997)). On the usefulness of Genette’s taxonomy for ancient and medieval Greek manuscripts, see (Andrist 2018; Allen 2019, pp. 602–4; Crawford 2019, pp. 21–28). For discussion on the significance of material aspects of medieval manuscripts, especially their covers, see (Ganz 2015). |
8 | While aesthetic cognitivists emphasize the cognitive value of art, it is not the only possible measure of a work. Beauty, entertainment, and emotional expression continue to function as important aspects of a work’s evaluation. We do not want to reduce aesthetics to cognitive functions, but to highlight a common sense view that we often esteem artworks if we learn something from them. This approach is encapsulated well in the structure of (Graham 2005). |
9 | In some strands of aesthetic cognitivism, art is even placed on par with the sciences as modes of knowledge making. For example, see (Goodman 1978, p. 102): “the arts must be taken no less seriously than the sciences as modes of discovery, creation, and enlargement of knowledge in the broad sense of advancement of the understanding.” |
10 | Baumberger (2013) goes on to say that “understanding is holistic. Knowledge can be broken down into discrete bits” (p. 50) and that “striving for understanding is considerably more ambitious than acquiring knowledge.” See also (Elgin 2002), for whom understanding is defined by the assimilation and reorganization of new knowledge into large domains, especially when our preexisting systems are not ready to receive such information. |
11 | Two good examples of this type of research in the arts and psychology are (Winner 2019; Tinio and Smith 2014). Neuroaesthetics is also a burgeoning field that engages in discussions around aesthetic cognitivism and brain science, (e.g., Chatterjee 2014; Kandel 2016). |
12 | The images are also available on the Chester Beatty Online Collections (n.d.). |
13 | Each item in Table 1 not in bold print is a prefatory paratext of the gospels of one kind or another. |
14 | For a codicological taxonomy of paratexts in Greek gospel manuscripts see (Andrist 2018). |
15 | Anonymous, but attributed to Irenaeus in Athos, Iviron 56 (GA 1006). It is preserved also in Nicetas Seides’ Conspectus librorum sacrorum. See (Simotas 1984, pp. 272–73). |
16 | Preserved also in Nicetas Seides, Conspectus librorum sacrorum (Simotas 1984, p. 273). |
17 | Text preserved in (Cramer 1844, pp. 1.263–65). |
18 | An abbreviated form is catalogued in (von Soden 1902, p. 306). |
19 | Text preserved in Nicetas Seides, Conspectus librorum sacrorum (Simotas 1984, p. 273). |
20 | See (Sickenberger 1901, p. 143). |
21 | See (von Soden 1902, p. 306). |
22 | All images of CBL W 139 © The Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin. |
23 | From left to right the tabs are as follows: [B] Breaks, [C] Corrections, [D] Deficiency (damaged or difficult to read text), [O] Ornamentation, [A] Abbreviated text, [M] Marginalia, [N] Notes, [P] Punctuation, and [V] Verse Modify (change numbering for book, chapter, and/or verse). |
24 | Other marginal comments are attached to the liturgical apparatus, including introductory sentences from the lector. For example, on 40r the start of a new lection at Matt 5:20, a text addressed to Jesus’ disciples, we read in the left margin “[as] the Lord himself said to the disciples”. |
25 | Reuss (1941) created taxonomy for gospel catena traditions, but his categorization does not account for the fluidity of the tradition. Lamb (2012, pp. 58–64) prefers to see the gospel catena traditions as “open books.” |
26 | The apparatus is ubiquitous, influencing even the shape of early print editions. See (Wallraff 2016). |
27 | The Letter’s Greek text can be found in Nestle-Aland28, 89*–90* and a recent English translation can be found in (Crawford 2019, pp. 295–96). I quote from Crawford’s translation. The versional witnesses to the letter differ sometimes substantially from the Greek text. See, for example, the Ethiopic and Greek version translated side by side by Francis Watson in (McKenzie 2016, pp. 221–27). |
28 | On Ammonius and his work see (Crawford 2015; Grafton and Williams 2006, pp. 29–32). |
29 | Matthew has 355 sections; Mark 233; Luke 342; and John 232. |
30 | This section in John is 98 in the edition of the canon in Nestle-Aland28, p. 92*. |
31 | The critical edition of this canon in Nestle-Aland28 (p. 92*) lists section 321 in Matthew once (//§201 Mark//§192 John). |
32 | Many codices preserve only parts of the system, sometime only the marginal notations, lacking canon tables and/or the Letter to Carpianus. |
33 | See (Crawford 2019, pp. 112–19), which includes a number of case studies that argue for the theological significance of the system’s juxtapositions. |
34 | This is similar to Graham’s definition of aesthetic cognitivism (Graham 2005, p. 71): it is “the belief that art can illuminate experience by making us more aware of it contains.” In other words, life imitates art. |
Folio | Item |
---|---|
1v | Icon of John Chrysostom (with Paul and Proclus) |
2r–4r | Decorated cruciform Letter to Carpianus |
4v–9r | Decorated Eusebian canon tables |
9v–11r | Matthew Kephalaia Table |
11v–12r | Preliminary Statement on the Gospel according to Matthew15 |
12v | Blank |
13r–21r | Synaxarion and Menologion (tables of liturgical readings) |
21v–22v | Note on the Dormition of the Mother of God (CPG 7924c) |
22v | Situation specific readings |
23r–24r | Lexical Commentary on Hebrew Words in Matthew |
24r–25v | Note on the Blessed Matthew the Evangelist (BHG 1227) |
25v–28v | From St. Maximus on the Writing of the Holy Gospels (excerpt CPG 7705.2; PG 91) |
29r | Blank |
29v | Icon of Matthew the Evangelist |
30r–119v | Matthew with Catena (Peter of Laodicea, CPG c111, ~Reuss Type B) |
120r–121r | Mark Kephalaia Table (with explanation on Hebrew names) |
121v | Preliminary Statement on the Gospel according to Mark (excerpt CPG 2249);16 Note on Mark the Evangelist17 |
122r | Blank |
122v | Icon of Mark the Evangelist |
123r–178r | Mark with Catena (CPG c125, ~Reuss Type A) |
178v–180r | Luke Kephalaia Table; Hebrew names list; ὑπόμνημα (the latter two as frame commentary)18 |
180v | Preliminary Statement on the Gospel according to Luke;19 frame commentary from the introduction of Titus of Bostra’s commentary to Luke (CPG 3576)20 |
181r | Blank |
181v | Icon of Luke |
182r–277r | Luke with Catena |
277v–278r | John Kephalaia Table with ὑπόμνημα21 |
278r | Explanation of Hebrew Names in John |
278v | Icon of John and Prochorus |
279r–378v | John with Catena (~Reuss Type B) |
Canon Table | Shared Material |
---|---|
I | Matthew, Mark, Luke, John |
II | Matthew, Mark, Luke |
III | Matthew, Luke, John |
IV | Matthew, Mark, John |
V | Matthew, Luke |
VI | Matthew, Mark |
VII | Matthew, John |
VIII | Luke, Mark |
IX | Luke, John |
X | Material unique to each gospel |
Canon IV, in which three agree | ||
Matthew | Mark | John |
18 117 117 150 161 | 8 26 26 67 77 | 26 93 95 51 23 |
161 204 204 216 216 | 77 115 115 125 125 | 53 91 135 150 128 |
216 216 277 279 279 | 125 125 159 161 161 | 133 133 8030 72 121 |
287 293 297 299 307 | 168 174 177 180 188 | 152 107 70 103 164 |
32131 321 323 329 329 | 201 201 203 207 207 | 180 192 183 185 187 |
333 | 211 | 203 |
End of Canon IV |
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Share and Cite
Allen, G.V.; Royle, A.P. Paratexts Seeking Understanding: Manuscripts and Aesthetic Cognitivism. Religions 2020, 11, 523. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11100523
Allen GV, Royle AP. Paratexts Seeking Understanding: Manuscripts and Aesthetic Cognitivism. Religions. 2020; 11(10):523. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11100523
Chicago/Turabian StyleAllen, Garrick V., and Anthony P. Royle. 2020. "Paratexts Seeking Understanding: Manuscripts and Aesthetic Cognitivism" Religions 11, no. 10: 523. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11100523