While surfing Google books I came across a reference to myself. It turned out to be in the preface to one of these reprint series, appearing in limited preview; but one that I had never heard of. The press was Evolution Publishing, and they have half a dozen rare and uncommon texts in print in a “Christian Roman Empire” series. The books are also on Amazon, and via various agents.
In this case the editor had reprinted Evagrius, and probably made use of the scan of the Walford translation that I have online. This is pleasing — it’s always nice to see my efforts leading to wider circulation — and good luck to him and I hope he sells many copies. The more copies that circulate, the better for patristics.
Actually I was rather impressed by the look of these books, impressed enough to order their Possidius Life of Augustine. We’re all familiar with the bargain basement Kessinger Reprints; but Evolution had gone to some trouble to produce a professional-seeming book. They’d created a nice series cover design, at least, and it all looks quite professional. The marketing, in short, is good. It’s an interesting approach to print-on-demand, and shows what can be done with a little imagination. I wonder who they use? The books weren’t visible on Lulu.com, which is interesting.
When I come to publish the Eusebius Quaestiones volume, I think that I will take a leaf out of their book, at least in presentation and marketting. Well done, Evolution.
According to Quasten’s Patrology, other than fragments, only an epitome of Eusebius’s Quaestiones exists and it has never been translated into English. Are you making one yourself or have you found one that Quasten missed? Do you know if a complete copy of the original work has been found?
-Tom
The information in Quasten is correct. The work was originally composed in three volumes; this still existed in Sicily ca. 1600, but has since vanished.
However a substantial epitome of the work was discovered by Angelo Mai in a Vatican manuscript. This contains 16 ‘questions’ and their solutions; 12 to Stephanus, on the beginnings of the gospels, 4 to Marinus, on difficulties with the endings.
But in addition Greek medieval commentaries consisted of chains of verbatim quotations at length from the fathers. Among these are found large chunks of the full text of the [i]Quaestiones[/i], which supplement the epitome.
Finally Syriac commentaries also contain long chunks of the text.
This surviving material is what I am working on. I have hired two translators (one for the Greek, one for the Syriac). So far, my translator has completed the epitome; that leaves 40 chunks from the commentaries. Of the 12 chunks in Syriac, 6 have been translated so far.
The content is really interesting; things like why the genealogies in Matthew and Luke are different, why there are different endings for Mark. There’s a verbatim quotation from a lost work by Julius Africanus. What makes all this especially interesting is that it is Eusebius, in the 4th century, with much closer links back to the time of Christ.
I intend to self-publish the translation in book form, and see if I can sell printed copies online, and to institutions. If I can, then it should be possible to cover the cost of the translators. If this works, I’ll send the money round again on some new untranslated text.
It’s an experiment, in other words. Interested?
A French scholar named Claudio Zamagni is searching for manuscripts and fragments. There are bits all over the place. No sign of the lost Sicily ms, tho. But it wouldn’t be impossible that a copy might exist in some Greek monastery…
Yes that is all fascinating; I applaud your effort on furthering the study of patristics, this is precisely what the field needs and, from my perspective, what much of christian scholarship has been missing. I am very interested in this “experiment,” and though I doubt you need my assistance, let me know if I can volunteer any time to help. Unfortunately, my German has regressed to a point of being useless, but my Latin and Greek are still workable.
Tom
Thanks for the note! I’ll bear it in mind. I’m fine with Greek translators at the moment.
When we look at the Patrologia Graeca, it seems to me that it is quite extraordinary that most of it remains untranslated. There are loads of interesting texts out there which have never been translated into any modern language. I estimate that the whole lot could probably be translated commercially for the paltry sum of $10m. If I had that, I’d get it done myself.