I’m still going through piles of photocopies, turning them into PDF’s and throwing the paper copies out. Occasionally I’m finding treasures. I had forgotten that I paid the rare books room at Cambridge University Library 16.51 GBP — about $25 — to make a copy of the latest (1842!) edition of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Eclogae Propheticae.
This curious work is three books of a now lost work, the General Elementary Introduction to Christianity, originally in 10 books. The eclogae is books 6-9, found in a Vienna manuscript, and consisting mainly of extracts from the Septuagint Old Testament prophesying Christ, and for some reason always known as Eclogae Propheticae. A few other scraps of the General Elementary Introduction exist; I suspect these will be fragments from catenas.
Gaisford’s edition is a little book, with a Latin introduction and no translation (drat the man). I’ve created a PDF, and uploaded it to the web at Archive.org, here. It’s about 28mb in size, although not searchable — I don’t have ancient Greek OCR capabilities!
There has never been a translation of this work into English. I am advised, tho, that such a translation would be very easy to make. I know of at least one person working on Porphyry who has translated a large chunk of it for his own purposes, and may complete the work. I seem to recall that someone else also has a projected translation.
If nothing emerges in a year or two, I may commission one.
I have ancient Greek OCR capabilities.
Can I help you?
Well perhaps. If you could download the PDF and run through OCR (no need to proof unless you want) and email me the file, I could upload the OCR’d text as well.
What happened with this in the end? Is there an English translation? I’m having trouble finding it if it exists…
No, nothing ever emerged, unfortunately.
Same problem. A translation could be of immense help in the study of Clement. To what extent did he accept the Apocalypse of Peter? I will see if I can solicit some help with translation. If you have any further news – please let me know. Thanks!
Gosh. That was 5 years ago, wasn’t it?
It would still be useful to have.
Hi Roger,
Almost as soon as I’d posted, I realized that you were not referring to the Eclogue Propheticae of Clement, but that of Eusebius! As it was one in the morning, I decided to call it a night. Clement’s is available here:
https://archive.org/details/FathersOfTheThirdAndFourthCenturiesPart4Vol.8OfTheAnte-nicene
However, the one by Eusebius would be useful, I agree! 🙂
ROFL! The perils of late-night posting…
Thank you anyway!
Any update with a translation here?
I’ve heard nothing. Irritating, isn’t it.
For those who can read French, there is a thesis published in 2000 that includes a translation of the work. According to the website below, it can be purchased for 37.50 Euros.
http://www.diffusiontheses.fr/36946-these-de-jaubert-philippe-monique.html
Wonderful – thank you! A couple of people have told me of their intention to make a translation, but nobody ever does. I sometimes wonder if any of these people say “Oh I’m working on a translation” just to reserve it for themselves, with no serious intention ever to actually publish one.
The Monique Jaubert-Philippe thesis is not online. The French National portal for theses is http://www.theses.fr/2000AIX10125; the “diffusiontheses” site is connected to this. Not merely do they want 37.50 euros for a copy, but they insist on printing it and posting it. Postage cost to France is free, but to the UK is 12 euros, and 15 euros across the ocean to the USA. Ouch.
That’s unfortunate. They need to get with the times.
I’ll think about that, but it’s a heck of a price.
Any word on that translation yet? This is one of the largest fragments of the Ante-Nicene fathers still unavailable. Even a Latin translation would be nice so I could at least throw it through google.
I know! But nothing ever appeared, to my knowledge.