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.