Ghost Abstract 1: Schott, “Byzantine Textuality and the New Testament: Commentary and Catenae”

Jeremy Schott

This paper explores the ongoing tradition of biblical exegesis in the Byzantine world after the eclipse of the biblical commentary as a literary form in late-antiquity and the Middle Byzantine period (roughly 7th-11th centuries CE).  Focusing on several manuscripts of the Pauline epistles, I reflect on how New Testament texts were experienced as part of a web of intertextuality among late-antique and Middle Byzantine intellectuals.
Catenae and the New Testament texts to which they are linked have traditionally been studied in isolation, with New Testament text critics working out the stemmata of New Testament texts and Patristics scholars plumbing catenae for fragments of lost commentaries of the Fathers.  In the Middle Byzantine period, however, commentary and base-text were frequently transmitted and read together.  Indeed, the pages of Middle Byzantine manuscripts were often designed so as to facilitate the inclusion (even proliferation) of catenae and other marginalia. Byzantine codices of the New Testament brought together previously distinct genres and forms (e.g. commentary, base-text, cross-referencing, kephalaia) in a complex literary technology.  Middle Byzantine manuscripts and their catenae thus offer an excellent source for exploring several key dimensions of Byzantine textuality, from theories of authorship and authority to theories of meaning.  

S23-112 Book History and Biblical Literatures
Friday, Nov 23
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: 349 - Convention Center