Skyscript Astrology Forum

In 1929 in Bruxell was published 8-th volume of Catalogus Codicum astrologorum graecorum(Catalogue of the Codices of the Greek Astrologers) known simply by its acronym CCAG.This book represents critical edition of Greek astrological texts and fragments stored in the Parisian libraries.The editor of this volume was the prominent Belgian scholar prof. Franz Cumont, recognised as the leading authority on Greek Astrology in this period of time .On the pages 163-171 Cumont published Greek text on transits( ingresses) atributed to Vettius Valens.This text is accompanied with comments from Cumont in Latin on pages 161-163(to make comments in Latin is a common practice in this field of science, same practice we can see in the comments in critical editions of Greek astrological books published by Teubner- Leipzig, Germany).

The title of this text on transits in Greek is :

??? ????????? ????????? ???? ??? ?????????? ??? ??????? ???? ???????? ??? ?????????

or in English:

The most segacious Valens on the ingresses of the stars in respect of the Chart and the Nativity

Later from the Greek text we understand that in this title ???? (tema)means solar return chart and ?????????(genethlios)means radix chart.In other words the author of the text explains the meaning of the transits over the solar return chart and over the radix chart.Only in two cases(Saturn and Venus) he speaks about transits over the sign of profected Ascendant.

But who is the author of this text: Valens or someone other ?
In his comments prof.Cumont answer to this question using linguistic analisys of both texts.Bellow are his arguments(CCAG, VIII.1, 161):


-First.He says that the language of Valens in the both texts: in the Anthology and in this text is same.He used ordinary language closer to the language of the people than to the scientists from this period.
-Second. Valens used rare and specific words in the both texts and he gives examples of these greek words
-Third.Cumont find same or similar phrases in the both text and gives many examples
-Fourth.He says: I can continue with this long list of same phrases, but I think that is enough.
-Fifth.At the end of his analysis he concludes:undoubtedly this text belongs to Valens.

But what we see in the critical editon of Valens done by prof.David Pingree(Vettius Valens, Anthologiarum libri novem, ed. David Pingree , Leipzig, 1986)??
?n his preface to the Greek text Pingree says that the text atributed to Valens in CCAG VIII.1 pp.163-171 is spurious(in this preface we see same common practice-all comments of Pingree are in Latin).In the other words this text according to Pingree does NOT BELONG to Valens.Nothing more, no arguments, no contra arguments against the thesis of Cumont, NOTHING!Only this statement: I doubt that the text belongs to Valens(same statement Pingree made about other Greek texts in CCAG).

Pingree continues in the same wrong way in the Appedix of the book where he published 27 different fragments of texts associated with Valens and his Anthology.But he DID NOT publish this text on transits in the Appendix!(W.Kroll also did not publish this text in his critical edition of Valens in 1907).

I think that what makes Pingree is not a science.It is manipulation and falsification!In the science this is considered as a very serious offense.See pls:prof.Robert Newton,The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.

Same situation as with this text we see with Antiochus(D.Pingree, Antiochus and Rhetorius, Classical Philology, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Jul., 1977), pp. 203-223) and in other places in the books and articles of Pingree.

How does one know the difference between an honest difference of opinion and a deliberate falsification?

zoidsoft wrote:How does one know the difference between an honest difference of opinion and a deliberate falsification?

That was what I was thinking too. Perhaps Pingree just made a mistake or found so many inconsistencies that he couldn't believe it was the same author.

In this light a quote of Jim Tester's 'A History of Western Astrology' could be useful.

Jim Tester wrote:I advise no one to read Mr. Bouch? Leclercq's account of the matter, L'astrol. greque pp. 299-303, unless he wants to be confused and misled'. Alas, though the misleading is Bouch?-Leeclercq's - he conflates and simplifies without enough reference to datable sources - the confusion was that of the ancients themselves.

Perhaps Pingree was mislead by the confusion caused by contradictionary texts.

And speaking about Robert Newton. Some don't agree with his views. See for example Bernard R. Goldstein's review of the book. (Casting doubt on Ptolemy), in Science, New Series, Vol. 199, No. 4331 (Feb. 24, 1978), p. 872

goldstein wrote:Unfortunately Newton's arguments in support of these charges are marred by all manner of distortions, misunderstandings, and excesses of rhetoric due to an intensely polemical style.

Newton appears to have made some mistakes but his style might convince people.

Anyhow, belonging to the dead now and not being able to defend himself, Pingree deserves a fair trial.

''To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.''
Elbert Hubbard

Its one thing to suggest an academic has made some mistakes or misinterpretations. That kind of discussion is how we move forward in our understanding and is part of academic debate all the time. Nevertheless, I dont think it is very helpful to throw around terms like 'falsification'. That implies a deliberate aim to mislead. Considering that this renowned academic is now deceased and has no right of reply to your allegations it seems a rather unfair and emotive way to present your case.

Mark

astroart wrote:Nothing more, no arguments, no contra arguments against the thesis of Cumont, NOTHING!

He wrote an article about the MS tradition of Valens as "The Byzantine Tradition of Vettius Valens' Anthologies", Harvard Ukrainian Studies 7 (1983), 532-541. Perhaps it's the place where he clarified his views on the authenticity of various Valentian fragments; or I don't know. This journal is unavailable here, anyway.

astroart wrote:Same situation as with this text we see with Antiochus (D.Pingree, Antiochus and Rhetorius, Classical Philology, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Jul., 1977), pp. 203-223) and in other places in the books and articles of Pingree.

Particularly what do you refer to?

He wrote an article about the MS tradition of Valens as "The Byzantine Tradition of Vettius Valens' Anthologies", Harvard Ukrainian Studies 7 (1983), 532-541. Perhaps it's the place where he clarified his views on the authenticity of various Valentian fragments; or I don't know. This journal is unavailable here, anyway.

Thanks to "aqullo" I got an access to this article. Let's see what are the reasons of Pingree for rejecting this text as not belonging to Valens:

-First.Pingree's argument is that one sentence which is in the text on transits (CCAG, VIII.1, 161-171) published by Cumont can be found in other manuscript( Vat. gr. 1056) and in this second mansucript this sentence is atributed to Valens
-Second.Pingree don't say what is that sentence:only say-one sentence, nothing more
-Third.If in a text the origin of which is dated to II-th century and the author of this text is Valens and there is one sentence and if we find same sentence in another text dated to XII -th century and in a second text the author says that this sentence belongs to Valens, I personally don't see any problem.I see only problem in Pingree's logic.

About the second text, , Pingree says under line:for the date of the sources of X, see DOP 18 (1964): 138-39.
I managed to find this text.This is: David Pingree, Gregory Chionides and Palaelogans astronomy, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Harvard, Vol. 18, (1964), pp. 133-160

According to this article of Pingree this second manuscript(X or Vaticanus graecus 1056) contains two horoscopes:the coronations of Alexius I Comnenus in 1008 and of Manuel I Comnenus in 1143.So this Ms. can be dated to XII-th Century.

Conclusion.
I do not see in Pingree's article any serious argument in support of his tesis and no logical reason this text to be rejected and not to be published in the critical edition of Valens.

Particularly what do you refer to

I mean the Kit?b al-Ul?f (The Book ofthe Thousands) of Ab? Ma?ar and Pingree's commentaries on this book.This book, the Thousands, is the main source of the Hermes legend in Arabic, cited by numerous later historians and biographers. Unfortunately, the Thousands, survives today only in excerpts and in very much abbreviated summaries. David Pingree was able to reconstruct a good deal of its mathematical contents in his book "The Thousands of Ab? Ma'shar (1968).

But according to Pingree this legend of Hermes was developed by Ab? Ma'?ar himself under the influence of his predecessor Ibn Nawbaht.Pingree characterized Ab? Ma'?ar as a charlatan attempting to foist a total fabrication, a ?brazen imposture,? on his contemporaries(The Thousands of Ab? Ma'shar, 1968, vii?viii).But this is not true and the roots of this legend can be found in "Book of Sothis" purporting to have been written by Manetho according to Syncellus.

Discussion of this topic can be found in: Kevin van Bladel, Arabic Hermes, Oxford, 2009, pp.121-164

Thanks to Agullo I got the article as well, and having compared it to the preface of the Valens edition I arrived at a different conclusion.

The text on ingresses which is equivocally attributed to Valens in both MSS, Vindobonensis phil. gr. 108 and Parisinus graecus 2419 are clearly derived from Valens, that's almost out of question. Observations on his particular usage of language clearly prove that.

Pingree, however, states in the preface of his edition that he intends to edit only tradition ? whose primary manuscripts are Vaticanus graecus 191 (and its derivative Oxoniensis Seldeianus 22 and 20, originally one codex) and Marcianus graecus 314. Tradition ?, which gives a shattered text, contains nine books that aren't earlier than the 3rd century with at least five appendices, possibly added in the 5th century. Of course, this tradition is by far not a pure source of Valens' words; rather it's better to be conceived as the most voluminous corpus from Valens' writings.

The so-called Valens edition contains only the remnants of tradition ? with some parallel sources, including ones deriving from it and ones not deriving but relating to it, to give a better understanding. The text on ingresses may have belonged to tradition ?, but as any parallels are missing in the primary MSS, this remains uncertain. Thus, along his editorial principles, it cannot be found in the edition.

Note that however audacious it may sound, he did plan another edition of Valens, which would contain Arabic fragments with their various translations. In fact, it would have been intended not an editio maior but a collection of passages attributed to him, no matter they are authentic or not. I'm almost sure that in this book the text on ingresses could have found its place.

If you don't mind, I'd like to add some personal thoughts. If we open a critical edition of an astrological author, we may think we are facing with an authentic text. But this is a trap, and we couldn't err more. Let me quote Pingree from his Antiochus and Rhetorius (p. 203):

David Pingree wrote:The manuscripts cannot be relied on to preserve the original compositions of ancient authors; Ptolemy's Apotelesmatika is virtually the only such text that seems to have survived relatively unscathed by the "improvement" of scribes, though the variant readings of Hephaestio of Thebes and of "Proclus" indicate that even its text is not completely pure. It is of the utmost importance for understanding the history of the transmission of the texts and the history of Byzantine scholarship in astrology that the various epitomes of each work be carefully distinguished and separately edited.

This utterance was a radical step away from the rather arbitrary editorial principles of the previous times to a philologically more founded approach. But since the editions themselves are titled as "The Anthologies by Vettius Valens of Antioch" or "The Astrological Poem by Dorotheus of Sidon" (itself a deliberately given title), one may be mislead thinking they are authentic works in their possibly most original form. No, they are not. Just let me give you some example.

"The Outcomes" by Hephaestio of Thebes. The three primary MSS are derived from an incomplete and defective codex of the Comnenian age, and while they retain the original three-book structure, there are some scattered chapters around and large portions of the text are missing. There are four different reworkings which sometimes help to establish the text, which can further be recovered from Ptolemy as well. However, it doesn't always give a chance to restore the original. The "edition" is thus a partially recovered text, and for its better understanding using the second volume, which contains the reworkings, is strongly advised.

"The Astrological Poem" by Dorotheus of Sidon. The text itself is from the Arabic translation of the Pahlavi reworking of the original poem whose title is unknown. Parallel Greek passages which are derived from the original or its prosaic version, mostly independently from the Pahlavi-Arabic version, clearly show Pahlavi alteration but themselves are imperfect to give an overall picture.

These are examples from Pingree's editions. Compared to them, the other editions are more faulty. For instance, the edition of the Olympiodorus commentary conflates different versions of the text, therefore it gives a text that has never actually existed.

So far it's only about philology. Certainly, from the viewpoint of astrologers we need editions and translations in order to be able to fully exploit the treasure of the ancients. It means that alternative editorial principles, like Dykes', who usually gives a single translation from Latin, occasionally updating from the Arabic, for a certain Medieval text, can be defended as practically satisfactory. But in the case of critical editions different decisions must be made for each text regarding what to publish with the primary text and what to be omitted for further utilization. This doesn't mean falsification, provided that we didn't misunderstand the principles.

Okay, Dimityr, he may have been unaware of the earlier accounts on the three Hermeses, and other scholars have to correct him. So what? Do you label it as falsification? I think it's simply the way how science works: new discoveries supersede old theories. Pingree himself also revised a lot of his earlier theories, so I feel this case doesn't justify your cutting remarks.

The logic of the thinking of Pingree is really very difficult to understand.But this is not only my problem, other people have the same problem.For exmaple prof.D.J.Toomer from Brown University in his review says about Pingree(Toomer, G. J., 1970. Review of The Thousands of Ab? Ma?shar by David Pingree, Speculum 45, 156?157):

?Anyone not already familiar with the subject matter would probably find most of it unintelligible. Even for the initiate the author?s allusiveness is baffling .?

Same words we can find in Kevin Van Bladel (PhD) from the University of South California(Kevin van Bladel, Arabic Hermes, Oxford. 2009, p.131):


?He argued, in what must be described as a convoluted manner....?

Let?s see what says Pingree in his article about this text on transits(The Byzantine Tradition of Vettius Valens' Anthologies", Harvard Ukrainian Studies 7 (1983), p.537). See please, the attached file from this article on my second post:

?Perhaps also from an ancestor of ? is the chapter on transits found in Parisinus graecus 2419, ....?

The ancestor of manuscript ? is a manuscript ?? according to Pingree.See please, the the genealogic tree of this manuscript(Vettius Valens, Anthologiarum libri novem, ed. David Pingree , Leipzig, 1986, page XII):
But why later in the next page(page XIII) of the critical edition he says that the text on transits perhaps too is doubtful (dubius- in Latin).See please second attached latin text in my first post.


A little later I will explain why this text on transits of Valens is so important for us, I mean for astrologers.

astroart wrote:The logic of the thinking of Pingree is really very difficult to understand. But this is not only my problem, other people have the same problem.

I know the feeling. The logic of the thinking of quantum physicists is really difficult to understand, and not only for me.

But apart from cheap jokes, this case, if any, seems to be clear.

Among the MSS the one which gives the lengthiest text is the 13th century Vatican MS (V), or rather (as it has been damaged) its apograph, Oxford Selden MS (S). It is closely related to the deficient 14th century Venice Marciana MS (M). He says in the article (p. 535):

David Pingree wrote:Since the text of M shares numerous wrong readings with V, both are clearly descended from a single source, which I shall dub ?.

Tradition ? is, therefore, the ancestor of V and M, which would provide the lengthiest text attributed to Valens.

If someone makes a critical edition, some decisions must be made in advance. Pingree's approach seems fruitful as he regularly chose the lengthiest surviving chunks to base his edition on (that's why the Dorotheus edition is based on ?Umar's translation or the Rhetorius edition will be based on Epitome III found in a Paris MS); in this case, tradition ? is this baseground. This is clearly formulated in the preface of his edition (p. V):

David Pingree wrote:Anthologiarum librorum novem a Vettio Valente anno fere 175 completorum traditio saeculo quinto incepta quam ? appellamus corpus lacerosum Graecum nobis tradidit; aliud corpus nunc dispersum interpolatumque cuius origo de versione Pahlavica pendet Arabicum existit. Hoc in volumine autem sola ? traditio continetur, quoniam fragmenta Arabica una cum translationibus Latinis, Byzantinis Hebraeisque Dorothei Rhetoriique fragmentis mediaevalibus coniuncta melius tractabuntur.

"The so-called tradition ? of the nine books of Vettius Valens' Anthologies, completed around 175 and originated from the 5th century, gives the bulk of the text deficiently in its Greek form. However, there is another corpus in Arabic, derived from a Pahlavi version, which is dispersed and interpolated. But this volume contains only tradition ?, since Arabic fragments could be better treated together with Latin, Byzantine Greek and Hebrew translations, and with the fragments of Dorotheus and Rhetorius."

It's noteworthy that tradition ? still means the common ancestor of our less deficient MSS, perhaps from the Comnenian age. It is ultimately stemmed back to the 5th century; that is labelled ?'. Still, ? is deficient, and while some texts belong to this tradition somehow (or at least they are related), some don't. In the latter case, the reason may be that the text is misattributed, or it's simply a translation from Arabic, or it doesn't belong to tradition ?. See p. XIII:

David Pingree wrote:Multa sunt opuscula Byzantina Vettio Valenti attributa; multa quoque sunt opuscula quae silentio verba Valentis incorporant; et multae sunt citationes nostri auctoris in compendiis tractatibusque a Byzantinis compositis inventae. In hoc volumine plura capitula primarum duarum classium quae e traditione ? pendent includuntur; alia vel dubia (ut ea in CCAG 4; 146-149 et etiam fortasse in CCAG 8, 1; 161-171; cf. quoque CCAG 8, 1; 249) vel ex Arabico translata (ut CCAG 5, 3; 110-118) mihi videntur.

"There are many Byzantine writings attributed to Vettius Valens, and there are many other writings that incorporate passages from him without referring to his name. Moreover, there are many quotes from our author may be found in compendia and treatises made by Byzantine scholars. In this volume more chapters from the first two classes (i.e. texts with direct and indirect attributions - my remark) are included, which are derived from tradition ?. The others seem to me either dubious (as the texts in CCAG 4; 146-149 and perhaps also CCAG 8, 1; 161-171; cf. also CCAG 8, 1; 249) or translated from Arabic (as CCAG 5, 3; 110-118)."

I think it's clear: attributed and unattributed passages are included in the edition, provided that they belong to tradition ?. The text in CCAG 4 is judged to be dubious, i.e. misattributed, and it might be the case with the text on ingresses. But even if it's genuine, it doesn't belong to tradition ?, thus it's excluded from the edition. There are other texts that are clearly not derived from ? but they are related and cast light on the obscure passages of ?: this is the tradition of Rhetorius, whose parts are helpfully published along with the main text. That can't be said about the text on ingresses which are unparallelled in tradition ?. And it has nothing to do with the questions if this passage is genuine or has any practical value for astrologers.

Yes, I agree with you that this text does not belongs to ?-it is clear from the article.?ut if the text belongs (maybe) to ?'(according to the opinion of Pingree in the same article), ie to the predecessor of ?, why this text was not included in the appendix of the critical edition.This is what I can not understand.Maybe because I think from the astrological point of view, and Pingree thinks from the philological point of view.

Some words about the language of Pingree, which I think is unclear and equivocal .In initial reading of this text(Preface to the critical edition of Valens, page XIII) I realized that Pingree wrote that the text is dubious in the sense of belonging to Valens , no in the sense of belonging to ??. I think that Robert Schmidt understood the text in the same way when he says(Dorotheus, Orpheus, Anubio & Pseudo-Valens-teachings on transits,Greek track, vol.IX, 1995, p.14):

"Although the manuscipt attributes this writing to Valens, Pingree considered it spurious and did not include it in his critical edition of Valens."

Therefore Schmidt called the author of this text pseudo-Valens, not just Valens.And all these problems come from the vague language of Pingree which implies ambiguity in interpetation.