[B-Greek] How Novatian understood the Greek of Phil 2:6

Yancy Smith Y.W.Smith at tcu.edu
Tue Mar 21 10:19:08 EST 2006


In my opinion Jerome and Novatian are very close, interpreting the  
Greek relative clause of their underlying Greek text, which was  
apparently the same at this point, with present participle hOS ...  
hUPARCWN in two of the several ways it may be translated.
qui cum ... may be temporal, "who, when ..." (it may, however, be  
concessive/adversative, as Novatian more clearly reads it)  
"although" (quamvis). Novatian reads the relative pronoun as simple  
third person pronoun and add ERGO to link the quotation and his  
following discussion with what he sad previously.

Origen makes abundant use of Phil 2 and weaves in comments on Phil  
2:6 in many places. His near contemporary, "Hippolytus," both the  
writer of Refutatio and Contra Noetum, (I think the writer of the  
commentaries and the writer of Ref. are different authors who were,  
however, part of the same "school") have several citations and  
interesting interpretations of Phil 2:6. I found multiple references  
in Hippolytus in  Biblia Patristica, vol. 2, Letroisième siècle  
(Origène excepté) (Paris: Éditions du centre national de la recherch  
scientifique, 1977), 413-15.  A few other references should be added  
to those in the Biblica Patristica, for example, in the quotation of  
the "Gnostic" Naasene Hymn is an important allusion to Phil 2:7, Ref.  
5.10.2.3-4.

Yancy Smith
Y.W.Smith at tcu.edu
Brite Divinity School
Texas Christian University






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