More on ps.Eustathius’ Hexameron

A small family emergency has brought me up to Cambridge again today, and given me the opportunity to examine Zoepfl’s monograph on the Hexameron of Ps.Eustathius of Antioch.  This is a lightweight 50 page thing, which does NOT contain the text.  Indeed it contains very little more than a list of manuscripts possibly available, not made very clear, and a list of contents, and a discussion of sources.  It does indicate that the title Hexameron – on the six days of creation – is woefully inappropriate for the contents, which are miscellaneous.

Interestingly one section is devoted to the genealogy of Jesus, from Matthew.  Since Eusebius in the Quaestiones spends quite a bit of time on the genealogies of Jesus, it makes sense that a volume might contain the two.

Zoepfl’s list of manuscripts is very limited; less than I got from a search of Pinakes.  I intend next to try to access the catalogue for the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples and see what I can find.

He also discusses the editions of the work.  There are precisely three; the editio princeps of Leo Allatius; a reprint of the Latin translation of Allatius in some series, and Migne’s reprint.  The edition of Allatius was made from a copy he made himself of a manuscript in Rome in a private collection, possibly the Barberini collection.  There are a  lot of typos in the printed text, it seems.  Allatius says that he just printed what he found in the mss., without changing it and added critical notes at the end.  Indeed from the sound of it the edition of Allatius is (a) very unsatisfactory, as might be expected in 1629 and (b) the best that the work has ever received.

The work is about 90 columns of Migne long, i.e. 45 columns of Greek.  I wish I knew a Greek translator whom I could just give money to and a translation would appear!