Reseña a Morani, La Tradición Manuscrita Del de Natura Hominis

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Nemesios, On the Nature of Man

La tradizione manoscritta del De natura hominis di Nemesio by Moreno MoraniReview by: Robert BrowningThe Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 32, No. 2 (1982), pp. 149-151Published by: Cambridge University Presson behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3063415.

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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 149in 362. 30-1, 363. 11-14, 364. 13-14 to the invalidity under Roman rule of some ofthetraditionaltopics al,d practicesof Greekepideicticoratorydeservesome discussion;p. 269-70: the enigmatic reference in 366. 26 ff. to the gathering of Jews at festivalsin Palestine is carefullydiscussed, and the suggestion is made that it is taken over froman earlier source. But may not Constantine s renewal of the ban by Hadrian on visitsto Jerusalem by Jews be due to its having ceased to be enforced?; p. 276: here andelsewhere a conjecture is commented on in the commentary (on 372. 2) but notmentioned in the apparatus; p. 278: 1Sea n 374. 1 is rightly pronounced suspect. CanMenander have used the poetic word lSpeia as a reminiscence of L1SpEi7roA,hoto(II. 16. 359)?; not even as sloppy a writer as Menander can have written 388. 3-6,which has no main verb; p. 345: Wilamowitz s palmaryconjectureZEtpijat for Ifrlpatat 433. 5 is explained at length, but no indication is given whereWilamowitz publishedthe conjecture.

Why were the treatises so successful in spite of their evident mediocrity?A thousandyears after their composition Joseph the Philosopher embodied one of them almostverbatim in his practically oriented encyclopaedia. Why, if they were standardtext-books, is there no sign of commentaries on them comparable with those onHermogenes and Aphthonios? Now that we have as good a text as we are ever likelyto have, a close and careful translation, and a helpful commentary we will be betterable to address ourselves to those and other problems suggested by Menander .Russell and Wilson have carried out their sometimes thankless task with scholarlyaccuracy, wide-ranging erudition, and balanced judgement, and so earned thegratitude of all present and future students of post-classical and Byzantine rhetoric.London ROBERT BROWNING

W.Nitsche,Der RhetorMenandrosnddieScholien uDemosthenesBerlin,1883).

NEMESIOS, ON THE NATURE OF MANMORENO MORANI: La tradizione manoscritta del De natura hominisdi Nemesio. Pp. xxi+ 224. Milan: Universita Cattolica, 1981. Paper,L. 40,000.The treatiseOnthe Natureof Manby Nemesios, Bishop of Emesa, is important in moreways than one. It provided a synthesis of classical and Christian anthropology whichdominated European thought throughout the Middle Ages. How much of thissynthesis is the work of Nemesios himself and how much is due to Origenis a complexproblem on which opinions are still divided. Whatever one may think of Nemesiosoriginality, his work is a quarry in which one may find fossilised fragments - thoughnot expressis verbis- of the doctrines of Hellenistic philosophers, especially Poseid-onios, and occasionally of Hellenistic doctors. The Greek text survives in numerousmanuscripts.There are translations into Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, and Latin, andtraces of one into Syriac. The indirect tradition is extensive; Nemesios was cited, withor without acknowledgement, by Maximus Confessor, Anastasius Sinaita, John ofDamascus, Meletios the monk, Michael Glykas, the story of Barlaam and Joasaph,an anonymous treatise on human nature preservedin a Bodleian manuscript, and theunpublished Summa Theologicaof Neilos Doxapatres, among others. The Greek text

THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 149in 362. 30-1, 363. 11-14, 364. 13-14 to the invalidity under Roman rule of some ofthetraditionaltopics al,d practicesof Greekepideicticoratorydeservesome discussion;p. 269-70: the enigmatic reference in 366. 26 ff. to the gathering of Jews at festivalsin Palestine is carefullydiscussed, and the suggestion is made that it is taken over froman earlier source. But may not Constantine s renewal of the ban by Hadrian on visitsto Jerusalem by Jews be due to its having ceased to be enforced?; p. 276: here andelsewhere a conjecture is commented on in the commentary (on 372. 2) but notmentioned in the apparatus; p. 278: 1Sea n 374. 1 is rightly pronounced suspect. CanMenander have used the poetic word lSpeia as a reminiscence of L1SpEi7roA,hoto(II. 16. 359)?; not even as sloppy a writer as Menander can have written 388. 3-6,which has no main verb; p. 345: Wilamowitz s palmaryconjectureZEtpijat for Ifrlpatat 433. 5 is explained at length, but no indication is given whereWilamowitz publishedthe conjecture.

Why were the treatises so successful in spite of their evident mediocrity?A thousandyears after their composition Joseph the Philosopher embodied one of them almostverbatim in his practically oriented encyclopaedia. Why, if they were standardtext-books, is there no sign of commentaries on them comparable with those onHermogenes and Aphthonios? Now that we have as good a text as we are ever likelyto have, a close and careful translation, and a helpful commentary we will be betterable to address ourselves to those and other problems suggested by Menander .Russell and Wilson have carried out their sometimes thankless task with scholarlyaccuracy, wide-ranging erudition, and balanced judgement, and so earned thegratitude of all present and future students of post-classical and Byzantine rhetoric.London ROBERT BROWNING

W.Nitsche,Der RhetorMenandrosnddieScholien uDemosthenesBerlin,1883).

NEMESIOS, ON THE NATURE OF MANMORENO MORANI: La tradizione manoscritta del De natura hominisdi Nemesio. Pp. xxi+ 224. Milan: Universita Cattolica, 1981. Paper,L. 40,000.The treatiseOnthe Natureof Manby Nemesios, Bishop of Emesa, is important in moreways than one. It provided a synthesis of classical and Christian anthropology whichdominated European thought throughout the Middle Ages. How much of thissynthesis is the work of Nemesios himself and how much is due to Origenis a complexproblem on which opinions are still divided. Whatever one may think of Nemesiosoriginality, his work is a quarry in which one may find fossilised fragments - thoughnot expressis verbis- of the doctrines of Hellenistic philosophers, especially Poseid-onios, and occasionally of Hellenistic doctors. The Greek text survives in numerousmanuscripts.There are translations into Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, and Latin, andtraces of one into Syriac. The indirect tradition is extensive; Nemesios was cited, withor without acknowledgement, by Maximus Confessor, Anastasius Sinaita, John ofDamascus, Meletios the monk, Michael Glykas, the story of Barlaam and Joasaph,an anonymous treatise on human nature preservedin a Bodleian manuscript, and theunpublished Summa Theologicaof Neilos Doxapatres, among others. The Greek text

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150 THE CLASSICAL REVIEWwas first edited by Nicholas van Ellebode (Antwerp, 1565), thereafter by John Fell(Oxford, 1671: the edition was anonymous, since Fell was a Catholic bishop), andlastly by C. F. von Matthaei (Halle, 1802). K. E. Burkhard published a series ofimportant studies on the manuscript tradition between 1888 and 1910, but nevercompleted his projected edition. Interest in Nemesios has been lively in recent years,2and the urgency of a new critical edition is generally recognised.Dr Morani s study is a model of industry, thoroughness andjudgement, and a mineof information, the interest of which goes far beyond Nemesios. He takes account ofnearly 150 manuscriptsof the Greek text, the translations, and the florilegia in whichpassages of Nemesios appear, and has personally collated at least 36 of these. Bycareful identification of separative and linking errors he works out a provisionalstemma of the direct tradition, which turns out to be bifid. But Nemesios text offerslittle scope for Lachmannian criticism; quasi ogni variante ha la possibilita di esserepii antica del codice in cui si trova e di risalire a un antica lezione alternativa,trasmessasi come tale fino a un grado relativamente basso dello stemma (p. 174).Morani provides many illuminating examples of this process of contamination atwork, from the corrector of cod. Ven. Marc. 266, who strikes out numerous readingsin the text, replacing them with readings from another manuscript, then adding theoriginal readings as variants in the margin, to the Armenian scribe who notesvariants - in Armenian translation - from the lost Syriac version in the margin of histext. This universal contamination does not mean that Morani s labourin constructinga stemma has been wasted. The stemma enables many hypotheses to be eliminated.The Greek tradition is not only contaminated; it is also interpolated with scholiaand readers notes. However, the Armenian version, made about 725, provides accessto the tradition before this wholesale interpolation. The same is true in a less degreeof the Arabic version, made about 800 by Ishaq ibn-Hunain, son of a more famousfather. TheArabic text - which Moraniemendsin businesslikefashion beforeusing - isnot close enough to enable its original to be reconstructed with confidence. TheArmenianversion, however, like others made at the same period, is a painstakingwordfor word crib, which must have been virtuallyunintelligibleto a monoglot Armenian.It not infrequently agrees with the indirect tradition found in John of Damascus andAnastasius Sinaita. It is thus of great potential value in constituting the text. The Latintranslation of Nicola Alfano, Bishop of Salerno (1015/20-1085) shows many tracesof a similar uninterpolated text and often agrees with the Armenian version againstthe whole Greek tradition. Evidently old manuscripts of Nemesios survived inperipheralareaslike southern Italy. The lost Syriacversion, Morani argues,representsa distinct branch of the tradition, a few readings from which have found their wayas variants into the Greek tradition. The Georgian version of John Petritzi (earlytwelfth century) is the work of a scholar and philosopher, who may have had accessto manuscripts belonging to an otherwise unattested branch of the Greek tradition;but since he was capable of emending his Greek original, his evidence must be usedwith caution.Editing Nemesios, it is clear, is not an easy task. Morani provides a provisionalstemma of the Greek manuscriptsof the direct tradition on p. 179, and on p. 210 setsout the hypothetical prehistory of the tradition. All witnesses share certain commonerrors. Nemesios wrote about 400, but is neithermentioned nor quoted until the greattheological disputes of the seventh century, by which time only corrupt manuscriptsof his treatise were available. Textual criticismcan take us so far, but no farther. Therich store of material which Morani offers on the characteristics of the manuscriptsand the aims and habits of scribes and translators, and the clear path which he hacks



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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 151through thejungle of evidence markhim out as the ideal editor of Nemesios. It is muchto be hoped that his enthusiasm for his author has not been dampened by the longyears of painstaking work which this book represents.The few observations which follow are not intended to detract from the merit ofthis distinguished work of textual scholarship. P. 42: cod. Laur. Gr. 86. 6 (F) has anote at the end Trf3tAt ov NEOovrov jTi77Ppo.roALTouEeaUov, which, writes Morani,permette una collocazione geografica di F . But does it? Neophytos I was Metro-politan of Ephesus sometime in the fourteenth century, Neophytos II from 1467 to1477. Ephesus was captured by the Turks in 1304, and its citizens put to the swordor transplanted elsewhere. So both Neophytos I and Neophytos II were almostcertainlyabsentee bishops.3P. 205 ff.: Morani observes that the lost Syriactranslationpreservesgood readings known elsewhere only in two Greek manuscripts, and henceargues that it represents a distinct branch of the tradition. But preservation of goodreadings cannot constitute a separative distinction. And the evidence, turning largelyon scholia to the Armenian version, is consistent with other hypotheses, e.g.alternativereadingsin the archetypeor, in one case, emendation throughreminiscenceof Aristotle, De anima 413a, and other passages.Morani s study should be read not only by the limitedcircle of students of Nemesios,but by all interested in the transmission of texts.London ROBERT BROWNING

1 Moraniarguesconvincinglyhat Meletios usedcod. Dresd.gr. Da 57 or an apograph,and that he musttherefore edated n thelate twelfthorearly hirteenthenturynsteadof theninth (pp. 147-55).2 cf. inter alia G. Verbeke, Filosofieen Christendom n het mensbeeld vanNemesios vanEmesa(Brussels, 1971); A. Siclari, L antropologiadi Nemesio di Emesa (Padua, 1974); A. Kallis, DerMensch im Kosmos. Das Weltbild Nemesios von Emesa (Miinster, 1978).3 cf. S. Vryonis, Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process ofIslamizationfrom the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1971),pp.297 f.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF LATIN VERSEGIORGIO PASQUALI: Preistoria della poesia romana. Con un saggiointroduttivo di Sebastiano Timpanaro. Pp. 200. Florence: Sansoni,1981. Paper, L. 12,000.When C. Octavius Lampadio arrangedthe Carmenbelli Poenici of Cn. Naevius withone unit of rhythm to one column width he must have had some general notion ofwhat could and what could not constitute a unit. By Varro s time the unit wascommonly called a uersusSaturnius.2Whoevercoined this termwould have connectedthe verse with the aboriginalinhabitantsof Latium. By the time of CaesiusBassussomestudents dissociated it totally from the classical Greek measures, others claimed todetect it among the aavvdpr7-rot a-rTXO of Ionian iambus and Attic drama.3 Caesiushimselfgave it a Greek origin. Its basic form he describedas a catalectic iambicdimeterand an ithyphallic joined together but he (or perhaps rather his source) could findno perfectexample in the CarmenbelliPoenicior in those Capitoline inscriptionswhichappeared to be composed in the same kind of rhythm.4It is worth noting that eachof the five Latin Saturnianverses cited by Caesius consists of two distinct syntactical

THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 151through thejungle of evidence markhim out as the ideal editor of Nemesios. It is muchto be hoped that his enthusiasm for his author has not been dampened by the longyears of painstaking work which this book represents.The few observations which follow are not intended to detract from the merit ofthis distinguished work of textual scholarship. P. 42: cod. Laur. Gr. 86. 6 (F) has anote at the end Trf3tAt ov NEOovrov jTi77Ppo.roALTouEeaUov, which, writes Morani,permette una collocazione geografica di F . But does it? Neophytos I was Metro-politan of Ephesus sometime in the fourteenth century, Neophytos II from 1467 to1477. Ephesus was captured by the Turks in 1304, and its citizens put to the swordor transplanted elsewhere. So both Neophytos I and Neophytos II were almostcertainlyabsentee bishops.3P. 205 ff.: Morani observes that the lost Syriactranslationpreservesgood readings known elsewhere only in two Greek manuscripts, and henceargues that it represents a distinct branch of the tradition. But preservation of goodreadings cannot constitute a separative distinction. And the evidence, turning largelyon scholia to the Armenian version, is consistent with other hypotheses, e.g.alternativereadingsin the archetypeor, in one case, emendation throughreminiscenceof Aristotle, De anima 413a, and other passages.Morani s study should be read not only by the limitedcircle of students of Nemesios,but by all interested in the transmission of texts.London ROBERT BROWNING

1 Moraniarguesconvincinglyhat Meletios usedcod. Dresd.gr. Da 57 or an apograph,and that he musttherefore edated n thelate twelfthorearly hirteenthenturynsteadof theninth (pp. 147-55).2 cf. inter alia G. Verbeke, Filosofieen Christendom n het mensbeeld vanNemesios vanEmesa(Brussels, 1971); A. Siclari, L antropologiadi Nemesio di Emesa (Padua, 1974); A. Kallis, DerMensch im Kosmos. Das Weltbild Nemesios von Emesa (Miinster, 1978).3 cf. S. Vryonis, Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process ofIslamizationfrom the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1971),pp.297 f.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF LATIN VERSEGIORGIO PASQUALI: Preistoria della poesia romana. Con un saggiointroduttivo di Sebastiano Timpanaro. Pp. 200. Florence: Sansoni,1981. Paper, L. 12,000.When C. Octavius Lampadio arrangedthe Carmenbelli Poenici of Cn. Naevius withone unit of rhythm to one column width he must have had some general notion ofwhat could and what could not constitute a unit. By Varro s time the unit wascommonly called a uersusSaturnius.2Whoevercoined this termwould have connectedthe verse with the aboriginalinhabitantsof Latium. By the time of CaesiusBassussomestudents dissociated it totally from the classical Greek measures, others claimed todetect it among the aavvdpr7-rot a-rTXO of Ionian iambus and Attic drama.3 Caesiushimselfgave it a Greek origin. Its basic form he describedas a catalectic iambicdimeterand an ithyphallic joined together but he (or perhaps rather his source) could findno perfectexample in the CarmenbelliPoenicior in those Capitoline inscriptionswhichappeared to be composed in the same kind of rhythm.4It is worth noting that eachof the five Latin Saturnianverses cited by Caesius consists of two distinct syntactical

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Reseña a Morani, La Tradición Manuscrita Del de Natura Hominis

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