Thursday, October 16, 2008

Hoskier on Greek scholars

While reading Hoskier's Concerning the Text of the Apocalypse, I came across a nice generalization made by Hoskier. Discussing min. 617 (his no. 74), he writes (Vol. I, p. 238):
This MS. is written by a Greek scholar, a thing fatal to the accurate transmission of the sacred text, it would seem.

Which reminds me of a statement once made by Erasmus (against Stunica, ASD IX-2, p. 200):
... no one corrupts books more, or more dangerously, than the half-learned or the learned even when they are for the most part careful. (... nulli magis aut periculosius depravant libros quam semidocti aut docti etiam partim attenti.)

In general, I find that Hoskier's work bristles with emotion, something one would not immediately expect from these hundreds of pages with manuscript descriptions and collations.

1 comment:

Wieland Willker said...

Cool, nice find!

Hoskier is at times funny to read.
He has found many interesting things in the mss, but his interpretation of the evidence is often weird.