70 Dan Batovici The following will take on Nestle’s suggestion and re-examine the Greek variant readings of John offered by Eriugena – all explicit quotations, as will be shown – in the light of the post-1912 developments in textual scholarship devoted to the Greek text of John, as well as to Eriugena’s works on the Fourth Gospel. The analysis is prefaced by some considerations on Eriugena’s biblical exegesis, inasmuch as it is relevant for the subject matter. Subsequently, for each Greek reading – inclusive of, but not limited to, those signalled by Nestle – the question will be whether they are produced by mere scribal error, by Eriugena’s idiosyncrasies as a translator from Greek, or by Greek manuscripts that he might have had at hand that we simply do not have anymore. Since Nestle’s article there have been significant developments regarding the methodology of assessing the Patristic evidence for the purposes of New Testament textual criticism.4 One of the most significant results so far stemming from such methodological developments are the volumes published in the SBL New Testament in the Greek Fathers series,5 which apply throughout a series of “parameters” designed in parallel by Fee and Ehrman: 1) a brief presentation of the Patristic author’s life and writings, with a discussion of the type of his NT citations, 2) the presentation of the relevant Patristic texts starting from solid critical editions, 3) an apparatus of the Patristic author’s text collated against relevant NT manuscripts, 4) an assessment of the textual relationships of these readings with other available witnesses, and 5) an assessment of the historical results of the study, with regard to its relevance for a better 4 A recent survey of past research and discussion is available in G.D. Fee and R.L. Mullen, “The Use of the Greek Fathers for New Testament Textual Criticism,” in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis: Second Edition (ed. B.D. Ehrman and M.W. Holmes; NTTS 42; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2013), 325- 373. See also W.L. Petersen, “Patristic Biblical Quotations and Method: Four Changes to Lightfoot’s Edition of Second Clement,” Vigiliae Christianae 60/4 (2006) 389-419, and B.D. Ehrman, “The Use and Significance of Patristic Evidence for Textual Criticism,” in his Studies in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (NTTS 33; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2006), 247-266. See also the recent discussion of the limitations of Patristic evidence in A.M. Donaldson, “Explicit References to New Testament Textual Variants by the Church Fathers: Their Value and Limitations,” Studia Patristica 54 (2013) 87-97. 5 B.D. Ehrman, Didymus the Blind and the Text of the Gospels (NTGF 1; Atlanta: SBL, 1986); J.A. Brooks, The New Testament of Gregory of Nyssa (NTGF 2; Atlanta: SBL, 1991); B.D. Ehrman, G.D. Fee, and M. Holmes, The Text of the Fourth Gospel in the Writings of Origen (NTGF 3; Atlanta: SBL, 1992); D.D. Hannah, The Text of I Corinthians in the Writings of Origen (NTGF 4; Atlanta: SBL, 1997); J.-F. Racine, The Text of Matthew in the Writings of Basil of Caesarea (NTGF 5; Atlanta: SBL, 2004); C.D. Osburn, The Text of the Apostolos in Epiphanius of Salamis (NTGF 6; Atlanta: SBL, 2004); R.L. Mullen, The New Testament Text of Cyril of Jerusalem (NTGF 7; Atlanta: SBL, 1997); G.J. Donker, The Text of the Apostolos in Athanasius of Alexandria (NTGF 8; Atlanta: SBL, 2010); C.P. Cosaert, The Text of the Gospels in Clement of Alexandria (NTGF 9; Atlanta: SBL, 2008).