Download PDF | Panayiotis Tzamalikos - The Wisdom of Solomon and the Byzantine Reception of Origen (English and Greek Edition)-Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers (2023).
694 Pages
This is a critical edition of a newly discovered Greek manuscript: a full commentary from Codex 199, Metochion of the Holy Sepulchre, Constantinople, entitled “Wisdom of Solomon—an interpretation of Solomon's Book of Wisdom, by Origen, as they say. The book includes critical apparatus, commentary, and English translation.
The Introduction acquaints readers with the text, as well as its late Byzantine context. In the manuscript both the Biblical text (quoted lemma after lemma) and the commentary are presented in full, which makes the document a valuable one for Old Testament scholars, since it contains not only the full commentary, but also the entire text of the Book of Wisdom, which at points has some interesting variations from all extant codices of the Septuagint.
Intriguingly, Origen’s name is on the rubric, but as author Panayiotis Tzamalikos demonstrates, the most likely author is Nikephorus Gregoras. Study of Gregoras’ predecessors, architects of the Palaelogean Enlightenment such as George Acropolites, Theodore Metochites, and George Pachymeres, as well as Gregoras’ contemporary John Kyparissiotes, sheds further light on how Christian and Greek thought were received and interpreted in the East.
This book marks a major contribution to the field of Greek and Byzantine philosophical exegesis, and will be valuable for postgraduate classes on patristics, Biblical exegesis, and Byzantine and Greek philosophy.
Panayiotis Tzamalikos, MSc, MPhil, PhD, is Professor of Philosophy at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has written 17 books, as well as numerous articles. These include studies on Origen, ancient Greek philosophy, the newly discovered Cassian the Sabaite, and four critical editions of previously unknown Greek texts.
Preface
This is a commentary written during the period of the so-called Byzantine Enlightenment, when a keen interest in the old Hellenic lore made a distinctive mark — the same heritage which, during Byzantium’s period of acme, was exorcised as a daemon. This ‘Enlightenment’ was the era when a flurry of commentaries on works of Archaic, Classical and Late Antiquity appeared: scholia on Homer, Hesiod, Aristotle (but less on Plato), the three great tragedians, Aristophanes, as well as on Lucian of Samosata, Hermogenes, and others.
The present codex contains the entire text of the Book of Wisdom along
the commentary, without lacunae or missing points at all. The pattern is that of Origen’s having taken his cue from Alexander of Aphrodisias (notably, the latter's commentaries on Aristotle's Metaphysics, Prior Analytics, Topics, On Sense and Perceptible Things, Meteorologics, On the Soul, etc.): a short pericope of the prime treatise is quoted and then a comment follows; a next pericope is likewise copied and commented upon, and so on.
As a matter of fact, there are several points of the present commentary that can be associated with Origen’s pen, since there are distinctive versions of specific biblical terms that correspond to the scriptural text Origen used, as indeed there are variations of the text of the Book of Wisdom which, to biblical scholars, will appear novel, and sometimes intriguing.
Nevertheless, the commentary in its extant form is definitely much later: the vocabulary (especially flowery neologisms) is heavily drawn from that of PseudoDionysius the Areopagite (therefore, occasionally, from Proclus, too). The author makes his own contribution to the use of bombastic nouns and epithets, since it was a characteristic of the later Byzantine period to prefix nouns and epithets with prepositions, especially in relation to God, which add emphasis but in fact mean nothing new: to speak of God (@¢é¢) and styling Him tmép8eo¢ adds nothing. Likewise, when the commentator speaks of God and styles Him tmepaetpog instead of ‘infinite’ @eipoc), the addition of the preposition tnép adds to grandiloquence, but otherwise this is redundant. Similar cases of this kind abound throughout this text.
‘The author was a man who evidently wrote this commentary not in order to do theology (although at several points he does not refrain from doing so, too) as to edify, which becomes evident at specific expressive points, especially by the end of his commentary.
A study of this betrays the pen of Nikephorus Gregoras writing during a period of hot combative debate between the proponents of the so-called Hesychasm and its opponents. Scholars of both sides wrote extensive treatises or pamphlets, or delivered sermons, most of which naturally were polemical ones.
As it always happens in such cases, so also the Palamist and anti-Palamist parties used common stock of terminology, which means that philological analysis alone could not suffice to determine authorship of this commentary. ‘This is why it took also a study of the historical context and circumstances, and nonetheless critical consideration of some personal remarks by the author, which are illuminating indeed.
To Gregoras, Solomon was not just a king: he was a wise king, and a prophet for that matter. The exegesis of the Book of Wisdom not only expounds what happened to the Egyptians because, due to their unwise king, they tormented and chased the people of God before and during their Exodus and march towards the Land of Promise: it also admonishes the man who was king when Gregoras’ wrote this commentary, namely, John VI Cantacuzenus, that the Book of Wisdom caveats that this ruler could incur severe punishment for persecuting and incarcerating a man of God such as Gregoras himself, whose only crime was that he maintained an infallible perception of Christian doctrine against the heresy of Gregory Palamas. This is the hub around which almost all of the author's analyses cluster.
nce again, my collaboration with Dr. Philip Dunshea, the erudite scholar and Editor of this series, has been sheer delight to me. Besides, my cooperation with Production Manager Jackie Pavlovic has resulted in a decent presentation of the text, for which I am grateful to them both.
Introduction
Hebrew and Creek 'Wisdom' The Hebrew word :J1JJ1n, which in Greek is rendered 'wisdom', was a polysemous one: it may suggest either dexterous craftsmanship or a political opinion or ability of fine discrimination. Nonetheless, it may mean cunningness or guilefulness or possession of the art of magic. The Hebrew 'wise' men are first and foremost interested in questions of order and duties to be observed throughout one's life. Sometimes, they attempt to consider an individual's fate, yet not by means of philosophical contemplation according to the Hellenic paradigm, but by mustering and considering sundry instances of experience.
The aim is not to change the world root and branch, but to instruct people how they should behave amidst the present real situation of the world, so as to effectuate for themselves a righteous and happy life. Since it is always possible for 'wisdom' to be used to either virtuous or evil purposes, prophets sometimes spoke of that scornfully.l Nevertheless, to Hebrew sages, the real wisdom comes from God and true wisdom is but piousness.
In reality, the only wise one is God, whose ineffable wisdom one can see in the Creation, yet it is not always possible to decipher this. 3 And when Solomon promised to bring wisdom to light,4 he meant the manifestation of this into the world, not God's wisdom per se. 5 In Job, 28, Wisdom is represented as a presence which is distinct from God, who is the sole one who knows where she is hidden. In Ecclesiasticus, 24, Wisdom is sent forth down to Israel from the mouth of God.
In Solomon's Book of Wisdom, 7:22-8:1, Wisdom is the breath of the almighty God and pure reflection of his light. In the prologue to the book of Proverbs (1-9), as well as in other biblical texts, the divine Wisdom appears as personified. In such texts, the Wisdom is a person6 created by God prior to the world;? she participates in God's creative act,S and is sent by God down to earth in order to reveal the secrets of the divine will to men. Nevertheless, similar adumbrations were used also in relation to the Spirit,' as well as for the Logos ofGod.lO The difference between the Hebrew and Hellenic mindset is all too obvious: to Greeks, the meaning of 'wisdom' was clear, and once Xenocrates formulated its definition crisply and sententiously, this came to be proverbialY Christian authors repeated this definition of wisdom verbatim, too.
However, the only author who considered Wisdom in both the sense appearing in Solomon and the Hellenic one was Origen. We will reply to this that, whether wisdom is thorough knowledge of divine and human things and of their causes, or (as the divine teaching defines it) 'a breath of the power of God, and a pure effluence of the glory of the Almighty' and 'the brightness of the everlasting light and unspotted mirror of the power of God and image of His goodness',13 no [sc. non-Christian] wise person would disown what is said by a Christian who is cognisant of the Christian doctrine, nor would he be led astray or impeded by it. 14
The Greek definition of wisdom that Origen uses (which includes 'knowledge of causes') was not actually the Stoic one, since the latter did not include 'knowledge of causes'.15 In fact, Origen quoted from 4 Mace. 1.16, which had been used by both Philo!6 and Clement of Alexandrial ? Subsequently, Origen,18 as well as later authors, used this, too.19 Nevertheless, Origen availed himself also of the definition which did not include reference to 'knowledge of causes', which doxographers reported as having been a Stoic one. 20 Stobaeus wrote that this was also a definition by the Pythagorean Archytas,21 whereas Albinus claimed that this was a Platonic one.
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