Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
The translation of the 13th century list of books extant in Christian Arabic by Abu’l Barakat is still progressing. The translator has now sent me a schedule for the remaining half of the work still to translate:
This is all good news, and will go online when it is all done.
A question has reached me about the Commentary on Daniel of Hippolytus, especially with regard to the passage in 4.23.3:
For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, eight days before the kalends of January [December 25th], the 4th day of the week [Wednesday], while Augustus was in his forty-second year, [2 or 3BC] but from Adam five thousand and five hundred years. He suffered in the thirty third year, 8 days before the kalends of April [March 25th], the Day of Preparation, the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar [29 or 30 AD], while Rufus and Roubellion and Gaius Caesar, for the 4th time, and Gaius Cestius Saturninus were Consuls. (tr. Tom Schmidt).
But what is the textual basis for this? It doesn’t appear in the Ante-Nicene Fathers version of the text.
A look at the Sources Chretiennes (14; p. 64) edition tells me that the Greek text of the work is entirely recovered from quotations in catenas. In a catena, each quotation appears underneath the relevant biblical verse, and is labelled with the name of the author from whom it has been taken. So the sequence is fairly clear, even if all you have is extracts, provided that the original author wrote his commentary in the same sequence as the biblical text.
The process of recovering the commentary began with one of the great 17th century editors, B. Corderius, who printed the first fragment of the text in his Expositio patrum graecorum in psalmos, vol. 3, Anvers, 1646 on p.951. In 1672 Fr. Combefis, Bibliothecae graecorum patrum auctarium novissimum, vol. 1, p. 50-55 printed two more important fragments, this time commenting on Susanna. Since then various editors have accrued more and more fragments from the catenas, and are listed in Bonwetsch’s edition of 1897. A list of mss. and editions appears on p.xxviii of Bonwetsch (p.43 of the Google books PDF).
The remains seem to be divided into four books. The last addition to the stock was in 1911, when Dioboutonis printed new fragments from a 10th century manuscript from the monastery of Meteores. The end result is a text which contains few obvious lacunas. However there must still be material which is lost, especially in book 1.
The text cannot be said to be in good condition. The manuscripts in which the material is preserved are often in a poor state, or illegible. The most recent edition, that of Bonwetsch in the Griechische Christlicher Schriftsteller 1 in 1897 (online, thankfully) often indicates words added by conjecture or asterisks where there are gaps impossible to fill.
But one compensation is that an Old Slavonic translation exists of the entire work as it once existed in Greek. This tells us, of course, that the Greek text must still have existed in the 10th century when these translations were made. Four manuscripts of this translation exist, none complete, but which fortunately have their omissions in different places. This means that we can read the whole work pretty much as it came from the hand of the author. The most ancient manuscript is 12-13th century. Fortunately Bonwetsch translated the Old Slavonic into German, and the translation was used by the SC editor to help with the Greek.
Our passage is extant in Greek, and appears on pp.306-7 of the SC edition. But the SC editor queries whether part of the text –“Gaius Caesar, for the 4th time, and Gaius Cestius Saturninus” — was interpolated by a later writer.
The apparatus of Bonwetsch (p.242; p.295 of the PDF) tells us that this passage was quoted by the Syriac writer George, Bishop of the Arab tribes. The apparatus also refers to George Syncellus, and Cyril of Scythopolis as using bits of it. The text is given in mss. ABP and S; A= Athos, Vatopedi 260 / Paris suppl. gr. 682 (10-11th century); B=Chalcis 11 (15-16th c.); P=Paris gr. 159 p.469f.; S=the old Slavonic.
So… the text is reasonably well established, and reasonably reliable. The Greek for our passage seems sound, with only a couple of bits in brackets. We have a good early witness for the text, and also a translation in a 7th century Syriac writer and a 10th century translation.
I have continued to read a cheap reprint of Harnack’s Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius, Theil 1, Halfte 2. The volume has no index, so I have amused myself by compiling one in pencil at the front, and scribbling English notes in the margins.
While doing so I came across his notes on catenas — medieval Greek commentaries compiled by linking together chains (catenas) of quotations from earlier writers. These seemed concise and useful, so I was thinking about transcribing and translating them. Then I found <blush> that I had already transcribed them on this blog here! Time to translate it, I think.
But I was looking at that data, and remarking on the statement of Harnack that Possinus printed the catena on Matthew of Nicetas of Serrae in 1646 at Toulouse. Now quite a few of the fragments of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Gospel problems and solutions come from Nicetas on Luke, published from a Vatican ms., and a few from Possinus; but Migne does not link the two.
So who was Possinus? A google search turns up the meagre information that he was a 17th century French Jesuit, Pierre Poussines, latinized as Petrus Possinus. He certainly published a Catena Graecorum Patrum in Evangelium secundum Marcum, Rome, 1672. He worked with Balthasar Corderius on a catena, Symbolarum in Matthæum tomus alter, quo continetur catena patrum Græcorum triginta … interprete Balthasare Corderio, Boude, 1647.
According to J. W. Burgon, The last twelve verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark vindicated, p.134, the 1673 catena was found by Possinus in the library of Charles de Montchal, Archbishop of Toulouse.
In the Oxford movement text of the Catena Aurea, vol. 3, pt. 1, p.ix., we find the following statement:
Mai has published a considerable part of another Catena, in his ninth vol. Vet. Script. Its date is very near the end of the 11th century, and it is entitled, ἀπὸ τῆς ἐκλογῆς τοῦ Νικητοῦ Σεῤῥῶν. He ascribes the first Catena to the same author, and a similar title is prefixed to a MS. in the Coislin Library, (Bibl. Coisl. No. 201.) of a later date, and containing a Catena on St. Luke of sixty-two Fathers. These three Catenae, though differing in date, yet very similar in the names and number of the authors cited, must all be traced to the same source. Nor does there seem any reason why they should not be successive copies, only increased as time went on, of the original MS. of Nicetas, whose name they bear. Nicetas flourished about 1077. He was at first Deacon at Constantinople, then Bishop of Serrae in Macedonia, afterwards Archbishop of Heraclea in Thrace. He is proved by Wolf (De Catenis) to have been the author of a Catena on Job, generally assigned to Olympiodorus; and Lambecius (v. 63. iii. 81.) describes a Catena of his on the Psalms. That published by Possinus on St. Matthew, from a MS. in the Library of the Elector of Bavaria, contains extracts from thirty Fathers, with a prologue and several expositions under the name of Nicetas. It seems very probable then that Nicetas was the author of a new class of Catenae, far exceeding in size and completeness those which previously existed. For among a great number of MSS. Catenae on the Gospels in the Paris, Venice, and Vienna Libraries, which bear date of the 10th or 11th centuries, there are scarcely any which number more than twelve Fathers, none certainly which approach to the extent of those above mentioned.
But much of this again relates to the catena on Luke. Hmm. Why so hard to find out much about Possinus? I did find a statement that his catena was mainly based on extracts from Chrysostom, but then most catenas are.
Perhaps we shall just have to wait until more older scholarship appears online.
While doing this search I stumbled across a reference to an Ante-Nicene Exegesis of the Gospels, ed. HD Smith, 6 vols. (London: SPCK, 1925). This apparently includes quotes from Possinus’ catena on Matthew. I must confess I had never heard of the book! But it sounds very interesting. I wonder if it is online?
The remains of the Gospel Problems and Solutions of Eusebius of Caesarea exist in two chunks. Firstly there is a long epitome, and then there is a mass of fragments of the original work, which together are longer than the epitome. There is a critical text of the epitome, but not of the fragments.
People I have consulted universally tell me that they would like the Greek facing the English translation that I commissioned. So I have asked the Sources Chretiennes, and the Editions Cerf who publish them, for permission to print a copy of their text opposite, as in a Loeb.
Good news! I heard from them today, and they have agreed. The price for doing so seems very reasonable. Frankly I was prepared to abandon the idea of printing the Greek, had it been otherwise. But there is now no reason not to proceed.
This means that I must now negotiate rights on the fragments. Fortunately (?) most of them have never been edited since Migne, so there are no rights! But there are three fragments of Anastasius of Sinai that I need to use. I’ll have to find out who the publisher is and ask them. But the total size must be about a page; and I don’t much care if they refuse and I have to use Migne.
Also there are a few pages of extracts from St. Ambrose of Milan and St. Jerome. For these, slightly embarassingly, I find that the Sources Chretiennes are also the most recent critical edition. I wish I had known that when I originally asked! No matter; I have written back, thanking them, and asking if these can be included in the deal also.
Again, if not it hardly matters. I collated the Jerome, and there was no substantive difference at all. (The Ambrose is longer, and I ran out of puff!) But let’s try to do things the way it should be done.
Of course this also means that I’m going to have to enter material not in Migne by hand. I wonder if there are people who know polytonic Greek who would be willing (for money) to do this? If so, please use this form and let me know, and we’ll talk. I can’t pay much, but I can pay something.
Even more fun, I will have to get the Syriac text transcribed. This was originally printed without vowels, ca. 1900; but I can hardly print an unvocalised text today. So I will have to get back to the translator and ask for help.
I expect the Syriac is out of copyright, tho. I must remember to check!
Very good news from Switzerland, which has launched the e-codices site:
The goal of e-codices is to provide access to the medieval manuscripts of Switzerland via a virtual library. On the e-codices site, complete digital reproductions of the manuscripts are linked with corresponding scholarly descriptions. Our aim is to serve not only manuscript researchers, but also interested members of the general public.
At the moment, the virtual library contains 570 manuscripts from 24 different libraries. The virtual library will be continuously updated and extended.
This is what we want to see; the mss becoming accessible to us all. Well done the Swiss!
When you access the site, they want you to click to “accept terms”. Yes, well, that is just silly, lads — how are you going to enforce that on someone in Turkmenistan? But at least they have recognised that the world and his wife use English!
I did a search for ‘Eusebius’, and up come various catalogue entries. The mss seem to be mostly Latin; descriptions were in German, but none the worse for that. ‘Tertullian’ brought up no results. ‘Origen’ gave nothing; ‘Origenes’ 8 mss. Interestingly this included a “Martin Bodmer” result — is it possible that all the Bodmer mss are now online? If so, that would be very exciting!
And … there are 74 Bodmer mss online. I wonder what treasures this contains?
H/t Open Access Manuscript Library of Switzerland at Charles Ellwood Jones.
I have spent a couple of hours online attempting to locate some evidence of an introductory work to Old Slavonic literature. This has been in vain, although guides to the language are common enough. The only text I have found is an 1883 SPCK publication here.
Does anyone know of such a guide to what exists in Old Slavonic; like a patrology in organisation?
The post on the Nestorian monk Ibn al-Tayyib and his commentary on the gospels, a source for the Diatessaron, has led to a very interesting set of comments and a large bibliography. This is a text that really does need to be in English. I shall continue to explore this in the comments on that article.
Today I learn that there is a BBKL article in German on Ibn al-Tayyib. Since a lot of people find German difficult, I thought I would smarten up the Google translation and place it here.
Volume II (1990) Columns 1238-1239 Author: Michael Tillly
Ibn al-Tajjib, full name “Abu’l Farag Abdallah ibn at-Taiyib al Iraqi”, Nestorian monk, writer, philosopher, physician, priest, b. towards the end of the 10th century, † in October 1043 in Baghdad. – After studying medicine he worked ca. 1015 as a doctor in the hospital named after its founder Adud al-Dawla al-Adudiya in Baghdad. As a physician and teacher, over time Ibn al-Tayyib gathered a large group of disciples. He presided at the election-Synod of the Syrian Nestorian Church, which elected Elias I as Catholicos. As secretary he composed in 1028 the church’s approval of the report of Elias of Nisibis on his “Seven meetings”. Under the Catholicos Yuhanna ibn Nazuk he became Patriarchate secretary.
Ibn al-Tayyib wrote in Arabic many dogmatic, exegetical, and canonical works, as well as making translations from Syriac. However, of his literary work, only a fraction has been preserved. He wrote numerous works on teaching and explaining the scientific and medical works of Hippocrates and Galen, as well as on the logical and metaphysical works of Aristotle.
His main work in theology is the commentary on the whole Bible “Firdaus an-Nasraniya (Paradise of Christianity), the largest exegetical work in Christian Arabic literature. Other works are his exegetical commentary on the Psalms “Arraud an-nadir fi tafsir al-mazamir” (The flower garden – Explanation of the Psalms), with an introductory essay on the classification, origin and purpose of the Psalms and on the reading and linguistic peculiarities of the Psalms, a Translation and Explanation of the four Gospels, as well as several smaller exegetical commentaries. The most important among the dogmatic, ethical and canonical works is the apologetic compendium “Al-usul ad-diniya ar-rabbaniya” (The Basics of the religion of the Lord).
In the legal collection “Fiqu an-Nasraniya” (The law of Christendom), I translated and compiled the ancient Syrian collections of canons and compendia of laws, which he joined together in a collected work.
I. is the focus of current research as the translator of the Syriac Diatessaron of Tatian into Arabic.
The importance for Church history of the versatile and learned Nestorian Ibn al-Tayyib is justified by his rich and diverse literary work on natural scientific, philosophical, theological and ecclesiastical matters. His great tradition of teaching and interest is representative of the Nestorians as a zealous agent of Greek science, philosophy and theology among the Arabs.
Works: Diatessaron, ed. Augustinus Ciasco, Rome 1888; Firdaus annasranija (Paradise of Christendom), ed. v. fransis Miha’il, Cairo 1898, 49, 236-240; Ar-Raud an-nadir fi tafsir al-mazamir (The flower garden – Explanation of the Psalms), ed. Yusuf Manqurius and Habib Girgis, Cairo 1902; Tafsir al-machriqi, ed. Yusuf Manqurius, Bd. 1, Cairo 1908, Bd. 2, Cairo. 1910; Maqala fi ‘l-‘ilm wal-muchiza (Treatise on science and miracles), ed. Paul Sbath, Vingt Traités, Cairo 1929, 179 f.; Fiqu an-Nasraniya (The law of Christendom), ed. W. Hoenerbach and O. Spies, in: CSCO 16 1-162 (1956), 167-168 (1957).
Lit.: G. Chr. Storr, Dissertatio … de evangeliis arabicis, Tübingen 1775, 44-47; – Paul de Lagarde, Die vier Evangelien, Leipzig 1864, 16 f.; – Karl Georg Bruns and Eduard Sachau, Syrisch-römisches Rechtsbuch aus dem 5. Jh., Bd. II, Leipzig 1880, 176 ff.; – Ignazio Guidi, Le traduzioni degli Evangelii in arabo e in etiopico, Rom 1888, 14, 19, 23 f.; – Ernst Sellin, in: Theodor Zahn (Ed.) Forschungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentl. Kanons und der altkirchlichen Literatur IV, Leipzig 1891, 243-245; – O. Braun, Das Buch der Synhados, Stuttgart 1900, 315 ff.; – Arthur Hjelt, Die altsyrische Evangelienübersetzung und Tatisna Diatessaron, in: Theodor Zahn (Ed.), Forschungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons und der altkirchl. Literatur VII, Leipzig 1903, 68 f.; – Georg Graf, Die Philosophie und Gotteslehre des Jahja ihn ‘Adi und späterer Autoren, Münster/Westf. 1910, 48-51; – Eduard Sachau, Syrische Rechtsbücher, Bd. 2, Berlin 1908, 23, 190-204, Bd. 3, Berlin 1914, 16 f., 289-344; – A. J. B. Higgings, The Arabic Version of Tatians Diatessaron, in: JThS 45 (1944), 187-199; – Brockelmann I, 482, I2, 635, Suppl. I, 884; – Graf I, 152 ff.; II, 162-176; – DThC XI, 276 ff.; – LThK V, 591.
The last bit of biblio is interesting:
Samir Khalil Samir, I .- La place d’al-T. dans la pensée arabe, in: JEChSt 58.2006, p. 177-193.
A comment on this post leads us to a wonderland of Old Slavonic patristic manuscripts, all online and in full colour. I will repeat some of the information here.
I wonder if you know about this website: http://www.stsl.ru/manuscripts . This an online collection of manuscripts from the former library of St.Sergius Monastery near Moscow, now in the Russian National Library.
Now I know no Cyrillic. But Google translate does!
The Russian-text images on the left are not translated, but if you hover the mouse over them, English text appears!
Then I clicked on the “Main Library” link. This takes you straight to a catalogue. OK, it’s a bit wonky, and you have to be a bit imaginative, but it’s perfectly usable for English-speakers, thanks to Google; and this link takes us to a list of manuscripts in the main library collection. And if you click on the book, you get a detailed catalogue of the ms, and then a box at the bottom to ask for the folio! This is SUPER!!!
There are loads of biblical manuscripts in here. Of course you have to wade through synodicons, and all the stuff that makes up the bulk of ecclesiastical libraries. But … this is simply splendid!
My next stop was the search facility. As expected, entering “eusebius” made no sense to the Cyrillic engine. So I went back to Google translate, entered “Eusebius” into it and got out “Евсевий” in Russian. I tried this; but it didn’t work. Then I tried “Gregory”, got “Григорий” and tried that. That didn’t work either. Hum. Lack of a search engine we can use is a problem.
Another collection is here. These are not as well catalogued, but the images are top-notch. Dionysius the Areopagite, the “Creation Methodius of Patara”… hmm!. #75 is a Slavonic ms of Cosmas Indicopleustes! #100 is the Annals of George Hamartolus; 102 is Cosmas again; 146 is Chrysostom. I got to ca. 239, but have to stop there.
The mss are late, but so what? They’re accessible!!!
But all the same, this is really wonderful! The images are gorgeous, undefiled, and quite fit for any scholarly study imaginable (other than examining the stitching of the book!) Frankly this is how it should be done! Who, I wonder, did this? I wish I knew the names of those involved, for they deserve a big cheer!
Snow here. I had to leave work at lunchtime on Wednesday and have been home since. This morning I couldn’t see where my driveway was! I tried to drive to work this morning, but I had to turn back. The roads were not too bad, but accidents were happening, and a bridge near me was closed.
On the way to and fro, I saw that the temperature on my car thermometer dropped to -8.5°C and stayed there for mile after mile. My screenwash froze, but I fixed that by adding anti-freeze to it. However at that temperature, I was pretty nervous whether the anti-freeze in the engine coolant would be OK, if I left the car outside all day.
But one positive effect of all this (unpaid) time off is that I have been working on editing the Eusebius, Gospel Problems and Solutions. Today has mostly been about tidying up. There is such a large amount of physical labour involved in doing a book. This evening I’ve been adding references to each extract given by Mai from Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew. Simple stuff, but time-consuming. I posted off materials to correct the Latin fragments to the translator yesterday.
I’ve had to order various books. My original plan was a day-trip to Cambridge, but this has gone out of the window with the snow. So I am reliant on an inter-library loan system that is both expensive — $8 per loan — and slow and unreliable. Here’s hoping!
The snow has also brought other problems, with plumbing and health. Fortunately I have been able to deal with them all!
But … aside from the urgent unimportancies of life… the snow is beautiful. I am reminded of the line in the Silmarillion where the evil of Morgoth in devising bitter cold produces a wonderland of ice. So it is here.
I found myself yesterday evening, when I had put the car away, just standing outside my front door and pausing. All was still. The road was full of snow. The sky was dark, but light was reflected from the snow onto the underside of clouds, and the world was light anyway. I just stood there… and watched the magic of winter. We must, we really must stop, and look around us. Store up these memories, memories of beauty.
Then I hastily ran into the house!