Studies on the mythological commentaries attributed to a certain Nonnos on four sermons by Gregory of Nazianzus with a representative text and apparatus criticus of the Commentaries on Sermons 4 and 5

Abstract

The thesis consists of five chapters and eight Appendices. The first four chapters contain studies on the text and manuscript tradition of the Pseudo-Nonnos Commentaries; the last, Chapter V, provides a representative text of, and apparatus criticus to Commentaries IV and V, 1 - 35.Chapter I supplies an analysis of the literary and religious background of the Commentaries, their relationship with the sermons of Gregory of Nazianzus, their origins and those of their author, and the links between them and other literature of the same type. They are shown to have been composed as an entity, and it is suggested that they derive from the methods of exegesis followed in the schools.In Chapter II the original list of 134 manuscripts of the Commentaries printed by J. Sajdak in 191U is revised, and the loss or misidentification of some witnesses noted. This is followed by a supplementary list of other manuscripts of the Commentaries, which have either been discussed by other scholars after 1914 or have been noted in the catalogues and other publications by the present writerChapter III gives an account of the previous work on the text and tradition of the Commentaries. All modern studies of this are based on the conclusions of E. Patzig, published in 1869/90.In 1922, Th. Sinko printed a series of notes on various aspects of the contents of the Commentaries and on some of the manuscripts in which they appeared. Although an edition of the Armenian Version of the Commentaries was published in 1903 by A. Manandian, this was not translated into English until 1971. Then S.P. Brock added a collation of this to his translation and edition of the Syriac Versions of the Commentaries. The Greek tradition of the Commentaries is also given prominence in the last-mentioned publication, which includes an edition of the Greek text of Commentary XXXIX. Finally, J.H. Declerck has, since 1976, written a series of articles on the tradition of the Commentaries in text and translation, and provided editions of the texts of Commentaries XLIII and V, 36 - 40.Section 1 of Chapter IV analyses the 154 extant manuscripts of the Commentaries by their dates, and lists the Commentaries found in each. Of the 88 which contain a substantial portion of the text, over half date from the fifteenth century onwards. Host of the remainder are pre-thirteenth century, and copies of these have been obtained by the writer. Section 2 gives a survey of their contents. Section 3 employs the information so provided (and that obtained by a comparison of it with the translations of the Syriac and Armenian Versions and the use made by Cosmas of Jerusalem of the Commentaries) to give a more detailed account of the parts of the Greek tradition than has previously been attempted. The long-established division of the tradition into two parts (here denoted m and n) is redefined, and a hitherto unnoted sub-division within m identified. It is also argued that the Syriac (and Armenian) Versions may depend on Greek text(s) that have been subject to interpolation. A discussion of the manuscripts involved in the production of the representative text and apparatus criticus in Chapter V completes this chapter.In Chapter V the text is based on that of a witness in n. Below the text is placed one apparatus criticus containing the readings of witnesses in m and those of the translation of the Syriac and Armenian Versions, and a second apparatus with the variants in n.The Appendices include a full list of the manuscripts of the Commentaries, their contents as they are found in both parts of the Greek tradition and in the works of Cosmas of Jerusalem, and an account of the editions of the Commentaries from 1569 until 1977