The Seventh Method: the Notariac Exposition, and the Marks

On the Notariac Exposition — The Seventh Method

The Notaria, or Notariac, exposition is a Method which demonstrates the meaning of words, of sentences, and of latent senses, by means of certain marks — whether of characters, or of lines, or of points — either set beside, or inserted into, the divine Scriptures. ¹ Of these there was a most frequent use among the most ancient (especially the Greek) expositors, and chiefly in the old testament. Of these we have gathered a few, for example’s sake, from Epiphanius, Jerome, Stratonicus, Suidas, and Isidore, of which the sum is this:

Every exposition made by marks consists of a twofold variety of marks: ² of these, some are called Literate, others Illiterate; whose figures and names are these.

LITERATE MARKS:

1. A — apile
2. Γ — gehennon
3. Δ — diabolos
4. E — ecclisis
5. Z — zitima
6. M — mellon

ILLITERATE MARKS:

1. ✚ (cross) — stauron
2. ⚓ (anchor) — ancyra
3. (anchor-form) — ancyranos
4. ✳ (asterisk) — asteriscus
5. — (horizontal stroke) — obelus
6. ▽· — metobelus

(the mark-lists, continued from p174:)

LITERATE MARKS (7–16): 7. X — Xenion; 8. (digamma) — Uranion; 9. Π — Pneuma; 10. T — Tropos (the list misprints “Tdoros”); 11. Υ — Ypsilon; 12. Υ — Ypsilon ypogrammenon; 13. Χ — Character; 14. ΧΧ — Character diplos; 15. (ס) — Sagur [Hebrew, “closed”]; 16. (פ) — Pethach [Hebrew, “open”].

ILLITERATE MARKS (7–16): 7. (thunderbolt) — Ceraunion; 8. (dotted obelus) — Obelos agnostigmenon; 9. (lemniscus) — Limniscus; 10. (sub-lemniscus) — Subliniscus; 11. (C with dot) — Antigraphus; 12. (reversed C with dot) — Antisigma; 13. (C over triangle) — Cryphia; 14. (diple, ⟩) — Diple; 15. (diple with dots) — Diple periestigmene; 16. (diamonds/points) — [nekudot] (“Scilus nechudot” — the Hebrew extraordinary points).

On the Literate Marks

You now have the forms and names of the literate marks; now receive the individual significations and expositions of each.

A — Apile (that is, Threat) signifies that the prophecies of the prophets, to which this mark is prefixed, are not prophecies of an immovable and inevitable decree, but of a changeable outcome, ³ pronounced not for the sake of decreeing but of threatening — such as the prediction of Isaiah the prophet, saying to Hezekiah: [A] Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live; ⁴ and likewise the prophecy of Jonah crying to the Ninevites: [A] Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. ⁵

Γ — Gehennon marks places which, in the old testament, speak obscurely of the perpetual punishments of Gehenna — such as that in Isaiah: [Γ] Tophet is prepared from yesterday, prepared by the king, deep and wide; the nourishments thereof are fire and much wood: the breath of the Lord, as a torrent of brimstone, kindling it. ⁶

Δ — Diabolos, prefixed to sentences, indicates that they are to be understood of the devil — such as that which Moses wrote in Genesis: [Δ] And the serpent said to the woman: You shall not die the death; ⁷ and that in Job: [Δ] Behold Behemoth, whom I made with thee: he shall eat hay like an ox… he setteth up his tail like a cedar… he is the beginning of the ways of God. ⁸

E — Ecclisis (that is, Calling-out) shows a period speaking of the calling of the Gentiles, or of the Church of Christ to be gathered from the Gentiles — as that in Isaiah the prophet: [E] Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee; and the Gentiles shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising, etc. ⁹

Z — Zitima (that is, Question) denotes an abstruse and hidden sentence, wrapped in the greatest obscurity, and involved in most difficult questions — such as that pericope of Paul in the epistle to the Romans: [Z] When [the children] were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil (that the purpose of God according to election might stand), not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger; as it is written: Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? God forbid. ¹⁰

M — Mellon (that is, Future) is prefixed to a sentence which, although it may seem to speak of the present, yet contains a foreknowledge of future times — as in Isaiah: [M] Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. ¹¹

X — Xenion (that is, a gift wont to be given to newcomers and guests) points out sentences which are to be interpreted of earthly and temporal gifts and promises, made especially to the Jewish people — as in Isaiah: [X] If you be willing, and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land. ¹²

V — Uranion (that is, Heavenly) brings forth a place in which the felicity of eternal life is described — as in the eighty-third Psalm: [V] How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! my soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord… Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord; for ever and ever they shall praise thee. ¹³

Π — Pneuma (that is, Spirit) signifies that the pericope is to be understood not carnally but spiritually — as in the Song of Songs: [Π] Arise, make haste, my love, my beautiful one, and come, my dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow of the wall: show me thy face, let thy voice sound in my ears; for thy voice is sweet, and thy face comely. ¹⁴

T — Tropos (that is, a mode of speech) warns that the subsequent saying is not to be understood according to the first and bare signification which the words present, but according to the customary speech of some nation. This mark the ancients used to indicate places of divine scripture expressed by Hebrew phrases, tropes, and idioms — as in Psalm 15: The lines are fallen unto me in goodly places ¹⁵ — which is as much as if you should say… [continues p176]

[continuing from p175] …[which is as much as if you should say,] “The best and most illustrious lot has fallen to me.” And in the third volume of Kings: [T] Naboth blessed God and the king, and therefore he was stoned — that is, because he cursed God and the king, he was killed with stones. ¹⁶

Υ — Ypsilon indicates that the sentence immediately following is to be expounded of the rejection and deposition of the Jewish people — as in this sentence of Isaiah: [Υ] I will show you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be laid waste; I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down; and I will make it desolate: it shall not be pruned, and it shall not be digged, but briers and thorns shall come up upon it; and I will command the clouds to rain no rain upon it. ¹⁷

Υ — Ypsilon ypogrammenon (that is, “underwritten with a line”) signifies that the sentence to which it is prefixed speaks of the rejection of the old Law according to the flesh. For example, when God says through Isaiah: [Υ] Offer sacrifice no more in vain; incense is an abomination to me; the new moon and the sabbath and other festivals I will not abide. My soul hateth your calends and your solemnities: they are become troublesome to me, I am weary of bearing them. ¹⁸

Χ — Character (that is, a stylus, a figure, or — as Gellius interprets it — a kind of speech peculiar to each author): with this mark, as Diogenes Laertius writes, the Platonists were wont to note, in the books of Plato, the phrases and locutions proper and more choice to Plato; ¹⁹ which also, of old, in the writings of Gregory Nazianzen, Stratonicus testifies (in his Collectanea) that certain zealous annotators of the “Gregorian character” were wont to do.

ΧΧ — Character duplicatus (the doubled Character): with this sign, as Diogenes reports, in the Platonic works, was employed to designate the opinions and dogmas proper to Plato, ²⁰ in which he entirely dissented from the other philosophers. This mark, in the volumes of Origen, Gregory Nazianzen and Basil placed, to indicate his peculiar dogmas that were discrepant from the common definition of the fathers.

ס — Segar (that is, “Closure”), inserted in the sacred codices of the Hebrews, signifies that the following narration coheres with the prior [a “closed” section].

פ — Petach (that is, “Gate,” or “opening”), in the same divine volumes of the Jews, shows that the following narration has a different subject from the prior [an “open” section].

On the Illiterate Marks

✚ — Stauron (in Greek; in Latin, Crux, the Cross) is prefixed to the clauses of the old testament which contain a prophecy of Christ — such as that in the twenty-first Psalm: [✚] They have dug my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones; ²¹ and in the sixty-eighth Psalm: [✚] They gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. ²²

⚓ — Ancyra (that is, an Anchor prefixed to a sentence) shows that in it mention is made of the new testament and of the Gospel — as in Jeremiah, chapter 31, where it is read: [⚓] Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant which I made with your fathers, when I led them out of the land of Egypt. And this shall be the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel: I will give my law in their bowels, and I will write it in their heart. ²³

ⳁ — Anciranos (that is, “the upper Anchor”) was placed both to the sacred reading and to the commentaries of the expositors, where some matter was especially to be observed and noted beyond the rest. Now, in the place of this mark, the Jurists have substituted a hand, which with extended index finger points out the place. ☞

✳ — Asteriscus (that is, an Asterism, or Star) shows words and sentences of divine scripture which the earlier interpreters omitted, but which the later Interpreters restored from the Hebrew truth. As, for example, in Jerome’s translation, at Hosea: the Asterisk shining before that sentence — Out of Egypt I called my son ²⁴ — marks that it was passed over by the Seventy interpreters, and was at last restored to its place by Jerome. In the works of Plato this mark was placed for the approval of dogmas.

— — Obelus (that is, a “Spit,” a lance, or a spear; or a “lying-down” [horizontal], or transverse pyramidal little rod) is prefixed to words or sentences of the divine codices superfluously repeated, or in those places where the reading seems adventitious, of uncertain, obscure, or ambiguous authority — so that by such a mark, as by an arrow, suspect and superfluous things may be transfixed. Thus Jerome says that, in the book of Daniel, he transfixed the histories of Susanna and of Bel ²⁵ (because they were not had in the Hebrew volumes) by prefixing the throat-cutting Spit, as narrations taken — beyond the Hebrew truth — from Theodotion’s edition. Epiphanius relates that Origen, first of all, applied to the codices of divine scripture the Asterisks (to illustrate what had been lacking before) and the Obeli (to cut the throat of superfluous things). ²⁶

▽· — Metobelus (that is, “after the spit”) is placed immediately after words or sentences that have been “throat-cut” [obelized], so that the obelized [words] may be distinguished by their wording from the rest that follow in the text. As, when in Psalm 21, according to the Septuagint edition, it is read: God, my God, look upon me, why hast thou forsaken me? — it appears that those two words, look upon me, placed between the obelus and the metobelus, are superfluous. ²⁷

Ceraunion (that is, a “thunderbolt”) is placed whenever many verses are disapproved, lest they be obelized one by one. With which sign Julius Africanus rejected the histories of Susanna and Bel, added at the end of the book of Daniel. In the Platonic books, the Ceraunion was taken up for the moral instruction of philosophy.

Obelus agnostigmenon (that is, “you have a point above” — the dotted obelus) is placed in those [passages] about which it is doubted whether they ought to be removed or added. For example, in the third chapter of Luke, the generation of Cainan — which the Evangelist interposed between the generation of Arphaxad and of Sale [Shelah], counting fifteen generations from Adam to Heber [Eber] — seems to be marked with an obelus dotted above: because in the tenth and eleventh chapters of Genesis, and in the beginning of the first [book] of Paralipomenon [Chronicles], from Adam to Heber, only fourteen generations are counted, and no mention at all is made of the generation of Cainan. ²⁸ [continues p177]

[continuing from p176] Limniscus (that is, a little rod lying between twin points — one above, one below) is placed on those [passages] which the various interpreters of sacred scripture translated with the same sense but with different words ²⁹ — as when, in the old psalter, in the seventy-first Psalm, according to the Septuagint edition, was placed And their name is honorable before him; immediately, a Limniscus (÷) being added, was subjoined In his eyes, according to another translation. Origen therefore interposed the Limniscus between these two translations, so that you might recognize that one sentence had been rendered by two interpreters in two different ways. This mark is taken from the surgeons, ³⁰ among whom a limniscus is a lint, or worn little linen cloth, made into a thin and long form, which is inserted into the two sections of an incised wound.

Sublimniscus (that is, a Simple line having a point beneath it) signifies that the sentence to which it is placed was translated by two or three interpreters with the same sense, and in the same words.

Antigraphus (that is, a Semicircle facing right, and holding a point within itself) signifies that in the translations there is a sense either different among the translators themselves, or dissenting from the Hebrew truth itself — as that place of Genesis which in Hebrew is read, And Joseph accused his brothers to their father of a most wicked crime, ³¹ which Aquila rendered with a sense not only different from our edition, but plainly diverse from the Hebrew scripture itself: His brothers had accused Joseph to their father of a most wicked crime.

Antisigma (a reversed C) is placed at those lines and verses of divine scripture whose order is to be transposed — as it is also found placed in the ancient authors. For example, when in the Greek edition of the Gospel according to Matthew (which Chrysostom used and expounded) “the beatitude of those who mourn” is placed before “the beatitude of the meek,” the “beatitude of those who mourn” is to be marked with the sign (·), so that the reader may know that the true order of the two beatitudes has been transposed. ³² Jerome, in the place of this sign, in his translation of the book of Esther, employed the first eight letters of the Greek alphabet — written in red, from alpha to theta — so that from their position he might restore the order of the Hebrew history, which had been tossed up and down by the Seventy interpreters.

Cryphia (that is, “Concealment” — the lower part of a circle, containing a point within itself) is placed in those places where a doubtful and obscure question could not be opened or solved. Which mark some of the most ancient fathers prefixed to the words of Paul in the eleventh chapter to the Romans, O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! ³³ — wishing by this sign to indicate that that question, about the election of the Gentiles and the reprobation of the Jews (attempted by the Apostle in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters), was not solved by him. The same mark the old expositors used in their commentaries, where they left an arduous difficulty undecided.

Diple (⟩): writers placed this in the books of ecclesiastical men, to separate or point out the testimonies of the holy scriptures, lest they be confounded with the words and reading of the commentaries. Now, in the place of this mark, this mark » has succeeded.

Diple peristigme (that is, “with twin points”): the ancients placed this on those [verses] which Zenodotus of Ephesus had wrongly added to, or removed from, the Homeric poems. The ecclesiastics used it on those [passages] which the interpreters had added to, or taken from, the Hebrew truth.

Scilus nechudoth [shalosh nekudoth, “three points”] — these three points, placed over any letter — are in use among the Kabalists, the Jewish expositors, whenever, through the individual letters of some word, they wish individual words to be understood. For example, when in the third Psalm it is said, Many rise up against me, ³⁴ the Kabalists, expounding this of the Jewish people, ask: who are the רבים (rabim), that is, the “Many,” who rise up against the people of Israel? And they answer: These are those four peoples which David signifies by the four letters of the word רבים Rabim — that is, ר (resh), the Romans; ב (beth), the Babylonians; י (Iod), the Ionians, or Greeks; מ (mem), the Medes, or Persians. For these four words the letters, marked above with points, show. There are also very many other marks of this artifice; but these are more than enough for an example of the present discipline. Diogenes Laertius, in the third book On the Lives of the Philosophers, testifies that many of the aforesaid marks were placed in the books of Plato ³⁵ — which I judge Origen took thence, and transferred to the illustration of the divine volumes.

Besides these already-described marks, there are also certain characters by which those seven famous translations of the old testament are noted, namely:

• Ο signifies the edition of the seventy-two interpreters [Septuagint]; for which character the Latin expositors frequently put LXX, the number “two” being omitted, for brevity’s sake. ³⁶
• ΑΚ connotes the translation of Aquila.
• Σ designates the version of Symmachus.
• Θ shows the interpretation of Theodotion.
• ε (small epsilon) demonstrates the fifth Greek edition, found by Origen in the city of Jericho, in Palestine.
• ϛ (called Episigmon, for so this mark is named) shows the sixth Greek edition, found by Origen on the Actian shore, near Nicopolis, in jars.
• Λ designates the seventh edition, published by Lucian the martyr.