In November 2009 I compiled a list of questions I would like to ask from Quentin Quesnell, who had handled the manuscript of Clement's Letter to Theodore in 1983. During the year 2010 I did write to Quesnell, and even received a brief reply from him. Here are the questions (bold) and Quesnell's answers to them (cursive) with some [editorial] remarks:
1) Did you go to Jerusalem just for the manuscript, and can you recall the exact date (or month)?
Just for the manuscript... Date? June, 1983.
2) I assume you went to the Patriarchate library to see the manuscript. Did you have any trouble convincing the staff to let you take a look at it? Can you think of any reason why you succeeded to see the manuscript, while Thomas Talley failed in 1980? [Talley was told that the manuscript was being "repaired".]
Trouble? None. Reason for success? I don't know. Perhaps that I had written ahead. I don't recall encountering any staff except Kallistos. He was always with me.
3) Was it easy for the library staff to locate the manuscript?
Easy for them to locate? I don't know. It took only minutes to return.
4) Was the manuscript kept in a special case or in a restricted area of the library?
Special case? No. No restricted area. It stood on a simple wooden table on a reading stand. I was asked not to touch it. I had about two hours to examine the pages each visit. Everything seemed to be as one would have expected. Kallistos was extremely helpful. The manuscript was covered in plastic, removable.
5) You told me on the phone that the manuscript was already removed from Voss' book. Did you notice anything peculiar about the manuscript?
Peculiar? Apart from the general peculiarity of the whole situation? No.
6) Was there any discussion about testing the manuscript scientifically, e.g. doing an ink test?
Scientific, physical experiments? Yes, repeatedly. But he (they?) was immovable.
7) Can you recall the name of the firm that photographed the manuscript? Did you take the manuscript out of the library yourself? If you took the manuscript yourself to this firm, do you remember who gave you the permission to do that? Did you yourself return the manuscript to the library?
The firm? Garo. Kallistos took it to the firm and handled all arrangements with them. There were some discussions with people at the Ecole, I believe.
8) What happened to the colour photographs? Could they be the same photographs that Charles W. Hedrick and Nikolaos Olympiou published in 2000?
I have them.
P.S. Beyond the answers to your eight questions supplemental material will follow as soon as possible - also the Smith-Quesnell correspondence of 1983 etc., a contemporary (1983) narrative of my six weeks in Jerusalem in the form of letters to Professor Jean Higgins (Smith College Dept of Relig).
--
Sadly, as exciting as some of the answers above may sound, this was the last line of our correspondence. Over the following year, I kept sending Quesnell letters (three of them, one every four months), but never received another in reply. And no, I do not know what to make of this turn of events.
The studio, Photo Garo, exists still (http://photogaro.com/default.asp), but they have not answered to my emails, either.
The above is published in hoping that someone with better geographical positioning would be inclined to go on from here.
Posts
Philip Jenkins on Jewish-Christian Gospels
1 week ago
Very interesting. It seems like they knew exactly where the pages were kept and also kept good order. It makes you wonder whether the pages really were lost by accident. Perhaps Stephan Huller can shed some light on this issue.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, Quesnell's wife passed away last fall, so he may have been preoccupied.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear of Quesnell's wife, I think I spoke with her briefly on the phone late 2009.
ReplyDeleteWas an undergraduate student of Quentin Quesnell and his wife Jean Higgins in the late 70s. Extraordinary, wonderful man, mentor. Not only did Jean die in 2010 (and theirs was an exceptionally close marriage; I believe the grieving is unrelenting), but Quentin has health problems of some neurological nature which preclude easy reading and writing (must be totally frustrating to a life-long scholar). These, I'm certain, are why he hasn't followed through. You who are the next generation of scholars will have to pick up the torch...
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe that Quesnell had photos of the MS and was allowed to spend a few hours with it in 1983...and he told no one. For him not to have come forward with that info would in other contexts be considered criminal malpractice.
ReplyDeleteThere will be more details revealed about Quesnell's encounter with the manuscript in the future (I don't have them at the moment; otherwise I wouldn't hesitate to share them). To be quite exact, Quesnell did tell to a number of scholars about his handling of the manuscript already during the 1980s. But at that time no one thought much about it. I believe it is only because our perspective got shattered and built anew following Carlson's The Gospel of Hoax (2005) that such details as extra sets of photographs have become more important. Maybe that is the "other context" you refer to as, indeed, should someone knowledgeable of the debate happen upon the missing manuscript now, it would certainly be malpractice to withhold the information.
ReplyDeleteits really hard to lose your mind when you are such a brilliant person. but it. happens ....signed a caretaker.
Delete