Passive verb with object in Acts of John 98

[Hortensius]

I am so confused about this sentence in Acts of John 98:

καὶ τὸν πεπηγμένον ἐξ ἀνεδράστων ἀνάγγη βιάβα καὶ ἁρμονία σοφίας·

so, ἀνάγγη, is the verb (aor.pass.ind.) and βιάβα might be predicative to the implicit subject of ἀνάγγη. What I don’t get is τὸν πεπηγμένον, which looks like the object of ἀνάγγη, but then I am a bit confused of a passive verb taking an object…

One translation renders the nexus and its object ἀνάγγη βιάβα τὸν πεπηγμένον as “the firm uplifting of things fixed..”

Can you help me with what is going on?

[mwh]

No wonder you’re confused. It’s completely unintelligible as it stands, and the Greek must be very wrong. The best I can make of it is τῶν (not τὸν) πεπηγμένων (not -νον) ἐξ ἀνεδράστων(?) ἀναγωγὴ(?) βιαία(?) καὶ ἁρμονία σοφίας.
That will mean something like “the forcible uplifting(?) of the fixed things from unseated things.”
I think your ἀνάγγη must be a noun not a verb, and then the rest makes sense of a kind, with τὰ πεπηγμένα arising from ἀνέδραστα (a privative derivative of ἕδρα).

Does this fit with the context at all? I’ve never come across this text, which looks pretty weird. Christian mysticism?

[jeidsath]

I had a very similar thought to mwh about its unintelligibility, and was casually trying to figure it out during the sermon at church this morning, having looked up the context on TLG just before. There appears to be a divine voice of some kind talking to John:

...φωνὴν δὲ οὐ ταύτην τὴν ἡμῖν συνήθη, ἀλλά τινα ἡδεῖαν καὶ χρηστὴν καὶ ἀληθῶς θεοῦ, λέγουσαν πρός με·

It says:

Ἰωάννη, ἕνα δεῖ παρ’ ἐμοῦ ταῦτα ἀκοῦσαι· ἑνὸς γὰρ χρῄζω τοῦ μέλλοντος ἀκούειν. ὁ σταυρὸς οὗτος ὁ τοῦ φωτὸς ποτὲ μὲν λόγος καλεῖται ὑπ’ ἐμοῦ δι’ ὑμᾶς, ποτὲ δὲ νοῦς, ποτὲ δὲ Ἰησοῦς, ποτὲ Χριστός, ποτὲ θύρα, ποτὲ ὁδός, ποτὲ ἄρτος, ποτὲ σπόρος, ποτὲ ἀνάστασις, ποτὲ υἱός, ποτὲ πατήρ, ποτὲ πνεῦμα, ποτὲ ζωή, ποτὲ ἀλήθεια, ποτὲ πίστις, ποτὲ χάρις. ται μὲν ὡς πρὸς ἀνθρώπους· ὃ δὲ ὄντως ἐστίν, αὐτὸς πρὸς αὐτὸν νοούμενος καὶ εἰς ἡμᾶς λεγόμενος, διορισμὸς πάντων ἐστίν· καὶ τὸν πεπηγμένον ἐξ ἀνεδράστων ἀνάγγη βιάβα καὶ ἁρμονία σοφίας· σοφία δὲ οὖσα ἐν ἁρμονίᾳ ὑπάρχουσιν δεξιοὶ καὶ ἀριστεροί, δυνάμεις, ἐξουσίαι, ἀρχαὶ καὶ δαίμονες, ἐνέργειαι, ἀπειλαί, θυμοί, διάβολοι, Σατανᾶς καὶ ἡ κατωτικὴ ῥίζα, ἄφες τῶν γινομένων προῆλθεν φύσις.

It would be nice to see what this came from. The ται μὲν ὡς is the first bit of weirdness there. But following the feminine nouns, maybe it's αὗται. ἀνάγγη looks like ἀνάγκη, and the need of something to govern τὸν πεπηγμένον ἐξ ἀνεδράστων makes me want βιάβα to be some form of βεβαιόω. Let's make it βεβαιοῦσα

αὗται μὲν ὡς πρὸς ἀνθρώπους· ὃ δὲ ὄντως ἐστίν, αὐτὸς πρὸς αὐτὸν νοούμενος καὶ εἰς ἡμᾶς λεγόμενος, διορισμὸς πάντων ἐστίν· καὶ τὸν πεπηγμένον ἐξ ἀνεδράστων ἀνάγκη βεβαιοῦσα καὶ ἁρμονία σοφίας

"These are what [this cross of light] is to men, and what it really is, itself considering itself and told to us, is definition of all things, and a necessity making firm the fixed thing from the foundationless, and a harmony of wisdom."

I'm not really happy with αὗται, ἀνάγκη, or βεβαιοῦσα. But that's one sermon's worth of thinking from me.

[mwh]

It helps to have a bit of context. But it seems to me most likely that βιάβα represents βιαία as I suggested, and τὸν πεπηγμένον the genitive plural. Then the requisite changes are minimal. ἀνάγκη is the obvious guess for ἀνάγγη but doesn’t account for the translation’s “uplifting,” which is why I suggested ἀναγωγὴ.

[cb]

Hi all, this is mind-boggling to me as well, but my first reaction was that this might be a gloss interpolation (i.e. textual corruption caused by someone copying into the main text a marginal note). A further bit of context I noted was that this section 98 begins:

Καὶ εἰπὼν ταῦτα ἔδειξέν μοι σταυρὸν φωτὸς πεπηγμένον καὶ περὶ τὸν σταυρὸν ὄχλον πολύν,

Perhaps then someone wrote in marginal space at the bottom of the page, καὶ τὸν πεπηγμένον ἐξ ἀνεδράστων, giving a marginal note on πεπηγμένον, and a copyist then inserted that into the subsequent copy's main text by mistake. The rest of the text (including into section 99) seems to read fine if it just said διορισμὸς πάντων ἐστὶν [SNIP] καὶ ἁρμονία σοφίας...

That then leaves ἀνάγγη βιάβα which is unintelligible. It could be emended as others have proposed above, or it could be whatever else someone might have scrawled in the margin for whatever reason: a transliteration from another language, place names, etc. etc.

Just putting this into the mix. One would need to know textual criticism to work out the option set for the possible sources of corruption (and I don't know that).

Cheers, Chad

[Hortensius]

I am glad that it - which is uncommon - is really the text that is the problem and not the interpreter :-)
I will try to joggle a bit more. And does not help that both the content and the grammar is obscure!

[Hortensius]

Does this fit with the context at all? I’ve never come across this text, which looks pretty weird. Christian mysticism?

Yes, sort of, its a so-called AAA - apocryphal acts of the apostles with "John" as the main character. With much dualism/mysticism going on. The snippet I sought help for is a part of a longer sermon-revelation-riff where "John" tells about a hidden revelation from Christ, including a dance, a song and an episode, where Christ appears to this John on the night of crucifixion, and tells John that there was no suffering! The manichaeans apparently liked it. Not so much liked in Nicene and Chalcedonian circles :-)

[jeidsath]

καὶ τὸν πεπηγμένον ἐξ ἀνεδράστων ἀνάγει ἡ γῆ βεβαία καὶ ἁρμονία σοφίας

And the solid ground and jointure/"harmony" of wisdom uplifts the affixed [cross of light] from unstable [things; perhaps the list that follows].

[mwh]

A nice try Joel. Chad noted the cross was fixed (πεπηγμένος) at the beginning of the section, so there can’t be much doubt about τὸν πεπηγμένον here—a different conception from the walking talking cross of the Gospel of Peter, but evidently reflecting a comparable fetishization of the cross, complicated by sophia. I’m glad you’ve relinquished your earlier proposals, but it’s still quite a distance from ἀνάγγη βιάβα to your ἀνάγει ἡ γῆ βεβαία, which otherwise seems plausible enough. Are there no other texts of the passage, whether in Greek or in Latin?

[jeidsath]

Yeah, I had a post written up about the earlier πεπηγμένος, but happily Chad's post covered it first.

I can get closer to the spelling, if you'd like.

So αναγκη βιαια - irresistible necessity - would be great, but you would have to imagine a dropped verb. Even better to massage the slightly odd ἐξ ἀνεδράστων into something:

καὶ τὸν πεπηγμένον ἐξαναδρασσόντων (or ἐξανεδράσσαντο) ἀνάγκη βιαία καὶ ἁρμονία σοφίας

"And irresistible necessity and the harmony of wisdom must leave off their grasping at the affixed (cross of light)."

This is nice because it connects the following context, where he starts knocking on wisdom.

(cont.) ...σοφία δὲ οὖσα ἐν ἁρμονίᾳ ὑπάρχουσιν δεξιοὶ καὶ ἀριστεροί...

"...wisdom being in harmony consists of right and left..."

[cb]

Hi all, now that the weekend has come, I've had a chance to look up the underlying sources, and they lean heavily in favour of Michael's initial view (although not exactly the same). I've written up my notes below, in case of interest to others.

This problematic line is in a part of the Acts of John (secs 87 to 105) for which there is only one primary witness: a manuscript (‘C’) copied by a monk called John in 1319. Although there is a better witness for some extracts of this part of the text, from the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 (which condemned the text), unfortunately those extracts cut out at line 12 in sec. 98, just before this problematic line. So we are stuck with this sole witness C. I'm guessing the fact that the text was condemned at the Second Council of Nicaea as non-orthodox led to this dismal manuscript tradition (and is probably in turn the ultimate origin-story for this thread!).

Unfortunately C is full of errors. There are good notes on manuscript C in the critical edition (Acta Iohannis. Praefatio – Textus, ed. Junod and Kaestli, 1983): this critical edition was used by e.g. McCollum and Niedergall in their 2022 Greek text and English translation.

Manuscript C may have been transcribed via dictation (John listening to a priest called Alexios); ‘Cette hypothèse expliquerait en partie les très nombreuses fautes d’iotacisme et d’orthographe qui émaillent la copie de C … le texte établi sur la seule base de C reste souvent incertain, parfois même inintelligible …’ (Junod and Kaestli 1983, p. 27). The editors finish their attack on poor little John (the copyist) with a delightfully snarky finale: ‘On peut à bon droit se demander si le moine a relu sa copie … et si le texte ainsi transmis a été compris de beaucoup de lecteurs !’ (p. 29). Relevant here is the fact that, among John’s other frequent errors, he often confused ο and ω (ibid, p. 28).

So what does the sole witness (manuscript C) say here (line 14 of sec. 98)? τὸν πεπιγμένων, where the editors follow James’s emendation, producing τῶν πεπηγμένων. They emend the gibberish ἀνάγγη βιάβα, producing ἀναγωγὴ βέβαια. The apparatus gives lots of other possibilities, many of which were already summarised in the 1898 edition (which the TLG copy-typed, and which seems to have therefore become a common version online in the public domain):

https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_G4yd ... ew=theater

In the 2022 English translation, this then becomes: διορισμὸς πάντων ἐστὶν καὶ τῶν πεπηγμένων ἐξ ἀνεδράστων ἀναγωγὴ βεβαία καὶ ἁρμονία σοφίας ‘it is the boundary of all things, and of those that are fixed among the unsteady, a firm foundation and a harmony of wisdom’. (I take the first καί here as epexegetic, not adding a second item but explaining what a boundary of ‘all things’ actually means).

There is a good commentary on sections 94 to 102 (in which this problematic line falls) in the second volume of the 1983 edition (in French, sorry), pages 581 to 677. They note in particular that this part of the text has a different origin from the rest (p. 581), extensively uses parallelism based on synonyms or contraries (p. 584), and the use of special vocabulary throughout, reflecting its docetic and gnostic theme of denying Jesus’s suffering during the passion, despite the gospel account (which I have heard medical types say is a clear description of hypovolemic shock and pericardial effusion following massive blood loss – perhaps caused by the initial scourging by the Roman soldiers – explaining the gospel accounts of water flowing through his side wound, his thirst, etc.)

As an aside, another thought I was previously toying with was that the gibberish ἀνάγγη βιάβα words might be an interpolation of a lexicon reference. We know that there have been many Greek lexica over the centuries, focusing on unusual words (see Dickey 2007, pages 87 and following). Since ἀνέδραστος is not a super-frequent word, I was wondering whether ἀνάγγη βιάβα might be something like ΑΝΑΓΓ⊢ΒΙΑΒΑ (referring by way of headwords to a column of a Greek lexicon). ἀνέδραστος falls right between those, and so I was wondering whether ἀνέδραστος might be an entry in a lexicon column starting with a rare word like ἀναγγείωτος and finishing with a rare word like Βιαβάνα, where the reference gave the first 5 letters of each, with some symbol between that got corrupted to eta, and this got inserted into the text by way of gloss interpolation. However, I will always trust an editor’s view over mere speculation, and so I've dropped that thought-bubble in favour of the critical edition's reading.

Cheers, Chad

[jeidsath]

Credit to Michael for arriving at the same independently. (Though I didn't quite understand his comment about "the translation's 'uplifting'", lol.)

Maybe someone can post the exact manuscript text without all these (very very esteemed) editorial speculations?

[cb]

Hi Joel, I don't have a facsimile of the manuscript itself, but maybe it's online: if anyone wanted to track it down, the 1983 critical edition describes manuscript C as sitting in the National Library of Austria, ref. 'hist. gr. 63', dated 1319, on paper, being vol. 3 of a 3-volume series of 82 texts ('hist. gr. 61–63'.)

Cheers, Chad

[jeidsath]

[jeidsath]

Having read through a bit of the rest of the manuscript now, I think what we have is:

ὃ δὲ ὄντως ἐστίν· αὐτὸς πρὸς αὐτὸν νοούμενος· καὶ εἰς ἡμᾶς λεγόμενος· διορισμὸς πάντων ἐστίν· καὶ <εἰς> τὸν πεπηγμένον ἐξ ἀνεδράστων ἀνάγκῃ διάβα· καὶ ἁρμονία σοφίας...

Which, itself considering itself, truly is, and when being told to us, is the definition of all things, and by necessity is the passage to the fixed from the unfixed, and is the jointure of wisdom...

διάβα is a demotic word meaning δίοδος. With no verb, adding the είς is necessary, but the succession of διορισμός...διάβα...ἁρμονία works pretty well.

Given that the rest of the manuscript is pretty good, I suspect that βιάβα was a copyist's guess where διάβα in his original had a partially obscured δ (making it similar to the double-curly β)