Putting the Smoke Back in the Gun (Sort of), pt. 2

Trying to prove that one work influenced another can be a tricky business.

In his 1960 Archaeology article "Monasteries and their Manuscripts", Morton Smith does use an interesting phrase that resembles Hunter’s words in the novel The Mystery of Mar Saba. We read that

Almost all the material is of the seventeenth century and later. The earlier manuscripts were carried to Jerusalem in the mid-nineteenth century, by order of the Patriarch, and now form the well known Mar Saba collection in the central library of the Patriarchate. (“Monasteries”, p. 177)

Here we see Smith again using “almost all”, but in a different context: he is describing the date of the material, not its fate. It’s still possible that the “-most” in “almost” finds its source in Hunter’s novel, but it would more likely seem that the phrase “almost all” is just a particular reflex of Smith’s personal syntax. To be fair, Watson himself does not draw a comparison with this phrase. And the remainder of this sentence does not indicate any similarity with Hunter’s novel, so there is no evidence of influence here.


However, earlier in the article, there is an interesting phrase which does resemble Hunter’s words. We read that

Some 275 manuscripts have come to light in them since the publication, early in this century, of the major catalogues of Athonite manuscripts, and undoubtedly more are yet to be found. (ibid, p. 172)

We also read, towards the end of the article:

Here, as in archaeology and papyrology, a great deal of comparatively worthless material must be gone through in the hope of finding a few things of value. (“Monasteries”, p. 177)

Now compare to Hunter:

Ever since the discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus by Tischendorf at the monastery of St. Catherine, it has been felt by many authorities that other manuscripts of equal value may yet be found. (Mystery, p. 166)

The phrase “yet be found” in Hunter closely resembles “yet to be found” on p. 172 of Smith, and the longer phrase “manuscripts of equal value may yet be found” in Hunter resembles the phrase “finding a few things of value” on p. 177 of Smith. Both are written in the context of a work describing manuscript-hunting in the monastery of Mar Saba. Indeed, Smith’s article even briefly mentions Tischendorf, just as Hunter’s novel does. Does this indicate direct influence? According to Watson’s criteria, it would seem so.

But not so fast. First, Tischendorf is the great paradigm of manuscript-hunting, and it is not surprising that both Hunter and Smith make mention of him. No doubt both were aware that he had in fact visited Mar Saba himself. In Smith’s case, he had searched among the monasteries of Greece just like Tischendorf, and indeed that is the context in which he mentions him in the “Monasteries” article.

Next, it turns out that the phrases “yet (to) be found” and “[manuscripts] of [-] value” are commonly used in scholarly works on the subject of manuscript-hunting, that both Hunter and Smith would be likely to have read, or that their peers and colleagues would have been likely to read. For example (all emphases added by myself), in Vol. I of The Catholic University Bulletin (1895), we read under the heading “The Manuscripts of the New Testament":

However we ought to hope that some manuscripts of the Sacred Text from this first period of its history may even yet be in existence, and will yet be found stowed away unknown or uncared for in the libraries or the treasure-chests of Oriental monasteries... (p. 410)

Or compare Edwin Pears’ The Destruction of the Greek Empire (1903):

The discovery by the present bishop of Ismidt of the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles...in 1883, in the library of a monastery on the Golden Horn bound up with other manuscripts, the first of which only was indexed, gives hope that others of value may yet be found. (p. 412 n.4)

(Notice the additional parallel to Smith in "hope")

Or Sanford’s A Concise Cyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (1912) in the “Codex” entry:

There are, according to Mr. Scrivener, 1,583 Codices of the New Testament known to exist. Probably others will yet be found in out-of-the-way Eastern monasteries. But very few of these MSS. contain the whole of the New Testament....One of the most valuable, the Codex Sinaiticus, was found by Tischendorf, in the monastery on Mount Sinai, in 1859. (p. 199)

(Note the additional parallel to Hunter in "others". It seems plausible that Hunter would have been familiar with this resource, and that Smith could have known it, too.)

Or the first edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) in the “Vulgate” entry:

It would seem, therefore, that at that time some portions of these precious codices were in existence. It is possible of course that other portions may yet be found in other bindings.

(Note the additional parallel to Hunter in "may". Indeed, Hunter was not a scholar, and so would be likely to have drawn his information from encyclopedias, as these last two pieces of evidence indicate. Of course, Smith might also have read the well-known Catholic Encyclopedia; my point is that it could easily serve as an independent source for both authors.)

Or even Henry Holland’s Travels in the Ionian Isles (1815)

The plan of our journey did not allow us time to visit the greater monastery of Meteora, which, however, we should have done, had not previous examination rendered it almost certain that no manuscripts of value exist here. (p. 239)

(It is not too far-fetched to imagine either Hunter or Smith reading such an early but classic work, particularly in the case of Smith, who traveled to Meteora to search for manuscripts.)

And of course Curzon’s Visits to Monasteries in the Levant (1849, republished throughout the 19th and 20th centuries):

He failed to get either; but he did secure some manuscripts of value (p. 11) 

and

As I saw it was not a copy of the Gospels, I thought it might possibly be historical; but the monks would not sell it. The only other manuscript of value was a copy of the Gospels in quarto, containing several miniatures and illuminations of the eleventh century (p. 255)

(Naturally both Hunter and Smith would be certain to have read this very well-known and classic work, and of course Smith *did* read it: see Clement of Alexandria, p. 288.)

And these are only examples from public-domain works. Who knows what else lies in harder-to-search copyrighted material?


Phrases like “manuscripts of value” and “yet to be found” are common currency in scholarly works on biblical text-criticism and manuscript-hunting. It would not be surprising if both Hunter and Smith independently placed them into their individual vocabularies. Hence, it should also not be surprising that we can find one or two similar phrases shared by Hunter and Smith in their works related to Biblical manuscript-hunting among monasteries. The larger lesson here is that not all common phrases are created equal, and hence not all are evidence of influence.