Month: September 2009

Hunain ibn Ishaq – update

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve had another delivery of the English translation of the short treatise by the 10th century Arabic Christian writer Hunain ibn Ishaq.  Hunain translated most of Galen and was a key figure in the passage of Greek literature into Arabic.  His treatise on true and false proofs of religion is now entirely translated into English, although needs a bit of tweaking.  I’ve also bunged it over to an online contact to review for accuracy etc.

Sbath also published a Coptic Arabic commentary on this text, which I had hoped to get done as well.  But the translator is finding himself rather busier than he had thought, so this may not go ahead.  All the universities are starting teaching, so it isn’t the best time for such projects.  Let’s hope that work does resume.

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UK law to change on internet — in a small but beneficial direction?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

This article in the Register says:

Defamation law currently states that someone has the right to sue every time defamatory material is published. This means that publishers could be liable many times over for the online publication of an article if a court agrees that the mere delivery of a web page to a reader counts as publication.

It seems that the Ministry of Love –sorry, that should be the equally Orwellian-sounding “Ministry of Justice” — is consulting on a change, and about time too.

In most countries, the law is different.  You publish something online, and that’s it.  But in the UK “publication” online is when someone accesses it.  This is very bad news, when the laws on what is allowed to be said keep changing.  In the last five years the UK government has used the excuse of “hate speech” to criminalise people expressing disapproval of various favoured groups and policies.  So expressing a perfectly legal distaste for some evil or other in 2000 — and I probably did — means that I can be prosecuted now for publishing “hate speech” today.

Obviously the UK shouldn’t be criminalising free speech, however deserving the perverts that it wants to privilege.  But still more, it shouldn’t be doing so retrospectively, which is the current situation.

So … a little step towards ironing out a silly legal situation, and bringing UK law into line with the US.  Now if only they would see sense on copyright and introduce a horizon of 1923 for copyright too…

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Philosophers did not philosophize for free

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A young man was introduced to Aristippus, to become his pupil.

“I shall expect ten pounds,” said the philosopher.

“Ten pounds,” said the father; “why, I could buy a slave for that!”

“Then buy one,” said Aristippus, “and you will have two slaves in your household.”  (Diogenes Laertius. ii. 8, 72.)

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The orator Scopelian and his trademark gestures

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The first century philosopher and rhetor Scopelian belonged to the Second Sophistic.  His life is recorded in the Lives of the Sophists by Philostratus (online to US readers here).

His style when speaking was to gesture violently, strike his thigh, sway to and fro.  A pupil of his rival Polemo sneered that he acted as if he was beating a shield.  Scopelian replied, “Yes; but it is the shield of Ajax.” (Loeb, p.85)

Such was the power of his oratory that he was able to induce the emperor Domitian to grant special privileges to his home city of Smyrna in cultivating vines.

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Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, vol. 2 now on Archive.org

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A customer for my CDROM of the Fathers wrote to ask if I had a PDF of vol. 2 of Cyril’s Commentary on John, since I had scanned it for my site.  Luckily for him I had the chance to look, and found the images first shot.

I’ve now uploaded a searchable PDF of this volume to Archive.org.  It’s here:

http://www.archive.org/details/CyrilOfAlexandriaCommentaryOnJohnVolume2Tr.T.Randell

(Or will be in a few minutes)

This was the final volume in the Oxford Movement Library of the Fathers series of translations.  The series began in 1838.  By 1880 E.B.Pusey was dead, and the movement was history.  Yet, somehow, this one last volume appeared, in 1885.  It wasn’t published by Parker of Oxford, and it wasn’t edited by Pusey; but the title-page was uniform with it.  The last few volumes were unnumbered.

By this time the Ante-Nicene Fathers series was 20 years old.  Most collections of the Library of the Fathers were obsolete.  Very few of them indeed ever acquired this last, final volume.  I obtained this one through the courtesy of Glasgow University Library, who benevolently photocopied it and posted it to me.  May their name be ever remembered; for I doubt any other copy of this very, very uncommon book, is ever likely to get scanned.

Volume 1 of the Commentary contained books 1-5.  It was translated by Phillip E. Pusey, the crippled son of old Pusey, who predeceased his father.  P.E.Pusey edited Cyril’s works, and his editions still have value.  But as a translator he was useless, tending to transliterate the Greek.  A vicious review, which I have never been able to locate, halted his efforts and he never proceeded further with Cyril on John.  The otherwise unknown T. Randell did this volume, and made a nice job of it.  It’s far easier to read than vol. 1!  It covers books 6-12, although some of those books are lost and only catena fragments were available.

There’s quite a lot of Orthodox interest in this text.  Let’s hope this helps make it more available. 

 

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Fragments of Eusebius in the Mingana collection

Posted on by Roger Pearse

PDF’s are such a blessing.  I’ve been looking at the PDF of volume 1 of the Mingana collection of Syriac manuscripts in Birmingham.  How quickly we take these for granted!  Once, just to consult such a volume, would have meant a day off work, a 60 mile journey, and being robbed blind for copies — if I was even allowed copied.  That was the situation, only five years ago.  Not now!

This will be a dull post, I fear.  Because I ordered some photos of manuscripts in the collection, but no longer remember what was so precious in them!  This post is my journey of discovery.

On p.599 of the PDF (col. 1197 of the book), there is listed the various snippets of Eusebius in various manuscripts.  In July 2008 I went through these, and ordered the following from the Mingana:

Ms. Mingana Syr. 332      Folios 1-9a          Eusebius
Ms. Mingana Syr. 480      Folios 29a-31b       Eusebius
Ms. Mingana Syr. 589      Folios 1-6a          Eusebius

Time to refresh my memory on these!

First I’m opening the Mingana catalogue in Adobe Acrobat and running an OCR on the file to create scannable text.  I only wish Adobe used some decent OCR software.  Come on chaps, talk to Abbyy!

 OK.  On p. 308 of the PDF (col. 616) we find ms. 332.  On ff.6b-7a there are quotations on the genealogy of Jesus, from Ephraim, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Philoxenus.  Wonder why I ordered as far as 9a.

 On p. 432 of the PDF (col. 863) is ms. 480.  Ff. 29a-31b consist of tables to show that there is no contradiction between the two genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke.  The first table is from Severus of Antioch; the others from Ephraim, Eusebius and Philoxenus.  Not sure why I thought this stuff was worthwhile, now.

On p. 562 of the PDF (col. 1125) is ms. 589. 

  • Ff.1b-3b = A short treatise on ecclesiastical chronology dealing with the lunar and solar months. 
  • Ff. 4a-5a : Another short treatise on chronology by Eusebius of Caesarea (called Eusebius of Palestine).
  • Fol. 5 : The months in which the year begins in the calendar of the Jews, the Arabs, the Copts, the Syrians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians and the Armenians.
  • Ff. 5b-17b: A medical treatise on the composition of the human body, by Ahud’ immeh Antipater, who mayor may not be the same man as Ahud-‘immeh of Tegrit.
  • and so on.

Fascinating stuff… or not.  This is what so manuscripts consist of, tho; pages of short, dubious-looking texts.

The upshot is that there is unlikely to be much here to impact on my Eusebius project.  Wonder what the “short treatise on chronology is”?  I might toss that over to my translator and ask.

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Eusebius “Quaestiones” Syriac fragments all now translated

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Very pleased indeed to get the last fragment of Eusebius’ Tough questions on the gospels in English.  It has been incredibly hard to find people who (a) know enough Syriac to translate this and (b) will actually do it.  This translator is my fourth attempt!  I had to pay a premium price, and it does hurt, but it was worth it.  He’s now going to look over the fragments done by others, and revise and bring it all into line.  But this is another step forward, and a very welcome one.  I shall be very glad to see the back of the Syriac fragments.

I also have some manuscript fragments, which I need to look up again and pass to him.  More later on this.  Today seems to be a day when *everyone* has written to me.

It’s just as well I’m at home this week, recovering from a vicious virus, or I wouldn’t be able to respond to it all.

Oh, and Origen, Homily 9 on Ezekiel, is now done as well.  Only five to go!

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Isidore of Pelusium did not pirate Eusebius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Somewhere I read that book 2, letter 212 of Isidore of Pelusium was an unacknowledged copy of part of Eusebius Ad Marinum.  This would make it valuable as a witness to the text of the latter.  But I sent the text to the translator today. He has just informed me that in fact it takes rather a different approach to the same bible difficulty — how is Jesus dead for 3 days — and is not part of the Eusebius text.  We’ll translate it anyway, but I need to go back and find out who said that it was.

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Isidore of Pelusium on Romans 1:28-29

Posted on by Roger Pearse

1245 (IV.59) TO POLYCHRONIOS

Since you ask me in your letter: For what reason was it that “God gave them over to an intelligence without judgement” [Rom. 1:28-29] ? I will answer: If you read the next bit, you will understand and you will have no more uncertainty. In fact it reads: “Filled with every kind of injustice”; so, after indicating vice in general, he then goes in detail through the species of vices. So if He has given over people who were, not about to be filled with vice, but already filled with it, he’d have been talking nonsense.

If this isn’t clear to you, although actually it is clear, I will try to give a clearer interpretation of this.

(Paul) did not say: “When they were given over…, they were filled…”, nor: “They were given over… in order to be filled…”, but: ‘(already) filled, he gave over them’, i.e.: he abandoned those who deprived themselves of his help, as a general abandons soldiers who, disobeying his orders, are beaten by their own fault, by depriving themselves of his power. Because those who, of themselves, allowed themselves to be filled with every kind of vice, he rightly gave them over and abandoned: he did not make them “an intelligence without judgement”, but he let them run off.

Our bibles render “an intelligence without judgement” as “a depraved mind”.  God does not throw us into depravity; He lets us run into it, if we are determined to do so.  A further snippet makes up the next letter:

1246 (V.26) TO THE SAME

Just as the quality of the site of a city is closely related to the quality of the climate [of the location], in the same way for hearts, a good disposition to virtue helps the divine alliance along.

In other words, if you are naturally virtuous, this will help lead you into a relationship with Christ.  Well, maybe; but I’m not at all sure that the apostles would have agreed.  Won’t the naturally virtuous tend to be proud, like the Pharisee? Pride obstructs the recognition of sin, and so prevents repentance and conversion at all.

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