Laudator Temporis Acti

Robert Renehan, Greek Textual Criticism: A Reader (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 134, on Euripides, Orestes 665-667:

Cicero somewhere has written of the scientia iuris: res enim sunt parvae, prope in singulis litteris atque interpunctionibus verborum occupatae. Delete the prope and you have a fair description of the matter of textual criticism. Whether Euripides wrote δεῖ or χρή in a given passage is hardly of metaphysical import. But we must assume that he made a choice between them. This is sufficient justification for concerning ourselves with the problem. It made a difference to the poet; it should make a difference to us. This planet, I do not doubt, shall never want for people to despise such problems and those who try to resolve them. Such contempt is founded upon the remarkable premise that one who manifests a concern for minutiae must of necessity be both indifferent to and unequal to profound problems. The Greeks, on the contrary, in their simplicity had contrived a word to express this reverence before even the smallest truth; and that word is φιλαλήθεια. The sacred writer speaks not idly when he reminds us that ὁ ἐξουθενῶν τὰ ὀλίγα κατὰ σμικρὸν πεσεῖται.

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Notes:

1. Scientia iuris = knowledge of the law
   
2. The Cicero quotation is from Pro Murena 25 (tr. C.D. Yonge): For they are but small matters, conversant chiefly about single letters and punctuation between words.
   
3. Prope = chiefly
4. δεῖ (deî) = one ought
   
5. χρή (chré) = one must
   
6. φιλαλήθεια (philalétheia) = love of truth
   
7. The sacred writer is Sirach 19.1: He that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little.