Biblical material in the Latin Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles

107 Pages·2011·0.8 MB·English

Biblical Material in the Latin Apocryphal Acts
of the Apostles

Evina Steinová
3427021

Supervised by: Dr. Els Rose, Utrecht University

Utrecht University
2011
Evina Steinova 2
Biblical material in the Latin Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
Evina Steinova 3
Biblical material in the Latin Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles

Acknowledgment

This thesis was written within the NWO project The Dynamics of Apocryphal Traditions in Medieval
Religious Culture led by Dr. Els Rose from Utrecht University. I would like to thank to all members of
the project team, especially to Maarten Prot, Maaike Rietrae and Valentina Covaci, for their help and
encouragement during my thesis research. My special thanks belong also to my supervisor, Dr. Els
Rose, who provided me with ample support and material to work with. My additional thanks belong
to prof. Marco Mostert, who is the second reader of this thesis.
Evina Steinova 4
Biblical material in the Latin Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
Evina Steinova 5
Biblical material in the Latin Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles

Contents

Abbreviations ....................................................................................... 7
Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................ 9
The method ..................................................................................................................... 10
Overview of the collection ............................................................................................... 12
Survey of the manuscripts ............................................................................................... 14
Chapter 2: Material ............................................................................. 16
Definition ........................................................................................................................ 16
Description ...................................................................................................................... 18
Distribution ..................................................................................................................... 19
Presentation .................................................................................................................... 21
Chapter 3: Typological Analysis ........................................................ 22
Theoretical background ................................................................................................. 22
Linguistic aspect ............................................................................................................................................... 23
Semantic aspect ............................................................................................................................................... 24
Formal aspect ................................................................................................................................................... 25
Acknowledgment ............................................................................................................................................. 26
Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 27
Quotations ....................................................................................................................................................... 27
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 34
Minor types ...................................................................................................................................................... 37
Memory as the vehicle of referentiality .......................................................................................................... 39
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 41
Chapter 4: Material Analysis .............................................................. 44
Theoretical background ................................................................................................. 44
Conservation of biblical material in the Virtutes Apostolorum ....................................................................... 44
Transmission of Scripture in the early centuries of Christianity ...................................................................... 46
Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 48
References in the prototexts ........................................................................................................................... 49
Pure excerpts ................................................................................................................................................... 50
Hybrid excerpts ................................................................................................................................................ 54
Quotations ....................................................................................................................................................... 55
The Place of Gregory of Tours and Rufinus in the collection ........................................................................... 62
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 64
Evina Steinova 6
Biblical material in the Latin Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles

Chapter 5: Process Analysis ............................................................... 67
Theoretical background ................................................................................................. 67
Definitions: Processes, agents, layers .............................................................................................................. 67
Types of layers and agents ............................................................................................................................... 69
History of the transmission of the material of the Virtutes Apostolorum ....................................................... 71
Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 74
Narrative perspective: the Acts of Peter .......................................................................................................... 75
Process perspective: Harmonization and Contamination ................................................................................ 79
Manuscript perspective: Bamberg 139 ............................................................................................................ 83
Global perspective: the same scriptural passages referred to in different narratives .................................... 86
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 89
Chapter 6: Conclusion ........................................................................ 92
The nature and the structure of the collection .............................................................. 92
Manner of the usage of scriptural books in the Virtutes Apostolorum and their
presentation ........................................................................................................................ 94
Canonicity and authority of Scripture ............................................................................ 95
Material background of the collection ........................................................................... 96
Methodological concern ................................................................................................ 97
Further venues for the research ..................................................................................... 97
Bibliography ....................................................................................... 99
Primary sources .............................................................................................................. 99
Secondary sources ......................................................................................................... 100
Evina Steinova 7
Biblical material in the Latin Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles

Abbreviations

BHL Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina
CBL Collectanea Biblica Latina
CCSL Corpus Christianorum Series Latina
CHL Comentationes Humanarum Litterarum
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
GCS Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica
PL Patrologia Latina
SC Sources chrétiennes
Evina Steinova 8
Biblical material in the Latin Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
Evina Steinova 9
Biblical material in the Latin Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles

Chapter 1: Introduction

This thesis was born out of the NWO project The Dynamics of Apocryphal Traditions in Medieval
Religious Culture led by Dr. Els Rose of Utrecht University.1 The subject of the project is a corpus of
early medieval Latin apocryphal Acts of Apostles (Virtutes Apostolorum, formerly known as the
collection of pseudo-Abdias), a complex body of texts related to the deeds (virtutes) and martyrdom
(passiones) of twelve apostolic figures - Peter, Paul, Andrew, John, James the Great, James the Less,
Thomas, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew and Simon with Jude. Little is known about the period and
place of origin of the collection, its sources, authors, redactors and compilers, audiences and users,
original functions and early usage, and about the environment in which the collection was composed
and used. Extrinsic and intrinsic evidence indicates that the collection was present in the Latin West
by the end of the sixth century,2 although the earliest manuscripts survive from the early ninth
century. We don’t know what happened to the Virtutes Apostolorum in the first three centuries of their
existence, nor whether the form in which the collection came down to us is its original shape or a
result of reworking. We possess some of the material that served as the prototype for the individual
stories, in particular the so-called Ancient Greek Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. In other cases,
we have no vestiges of the texts that are supposed to pre-date the collection. This makes almost five
hundred years that need to be accounted for, if we wish to understand how the collection came into
being and was used by Christian communities. This effort is also related to the enterprise of
providing a modern critical edition of the collection based on 25 selected manuscripts transmitting
the whole textual corpus.
This thesis focuses on one aspect of the collection - the usage, transmission and
transformation of scriptural material in the Virtutes Apostolorum. In combination with the analysis of
other traits of the collection, such as its language or formal aspects, this research seeks to contribute
to the assessment of the period, the place and the environment of origin of the collection and to the
understanding of the conditions of its use, authors and audiences. The individual virtutes centering on
homines Dei, the Apostles, contain numerous references to Scripture. This implies the existence of
scriptural sources that can be in part reconstructed and identified. Using our present-day knowledge
of the Bible, we can place the collection into a concrete material context. Moreover, the manuscript

1 The description of the project is based on Rose (2012). See also Rose (2004: 115-38).
2 Kaestli (1981: 52).
Evina Steinova 10
Biblical material in the Latin Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles

evidence discloses also the transformations up to the ninth century (and beyond, in the case of
younger manuscripts). This later development is equally valuable for the collection as the period of
composition, since the transmission mechanisms were as important for the state of the text as the
creative activity of the authors. Finally, by examining the scriptural material in the Virtutes
Apostolorum we can study the medieval perspectives on referentiality and usage of the Scripture.
Some of the conclusions may be applied to textual material other than the Virtutes Apostolorum or
apocryphal texts and be helpful for research into the medieval usage of the Bible and intertextuality.
The analysis of the material background of the scriptural references; the analysis of textual
transformations; and the analysis of the manner of referencing are the underlying objectives of this
thesis. I believe that even though I have not covered these fields of research completely, I have
provided points valuable for the contemporary state of research. The last objective of this thesis is
methodological - to provide a method of examination of biblical material in medieval texts that can
help us to set them better into their material context and understand their composition and
transformation.

The method
The central data pool of this research is a corpus of biblical material extracted from the
Virtutes Apostolorum on the basis of three manuscripts - Vienna ÖNB lat 455, Dublin Trinity College
737 2 and Bamberg Msc. Hist. 139 (description provided below). Where necessary, other project
manuscripts were consulted. This corpus is described in chapter 2. This chapter likewise provides
the theoretical basis for the selection, i.e. definition of the terminology, boundaries and limitations of
the research, and outlines perspectives from which the material may be approached. In the following
chapters, three of these approaches are used in order to assess the material from different
perspectives: a) typological analysis; b) material analysis; and c) process analysis.
Typological Analysis (chapter 3) focuses on examinations of the patterns of referentiality that
occur in the Virtutes Apostolorum. Scholars have previously used terms such as quotation, reference,
and allusion to speak about intertextuality, but have done so vaguely and inconsistently.3 I define
these terms on the basis of three textual aspects - the language, the meaning, and the form - that
may be used to describe the relationship of the referential material to Scripture. I also provide an
analysis of traits that different types of material share in common and of their functions.

3 Cfr. Bovon (2009: 217-18); and Genette (1997: 2).