Month: April 2010

Eusebius, On Easter now in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I now have the translation which I commissioned of Eusebius De solemnitate paschalis, on the celebration of Easter (CPG 3479).  This will go up in HTML form soon, but I have moved PC and I need to do some setup before I can deal with the Greek text in the footnotes.

In the meantime I uploaded a searchable PDF of the text to Archive.org here.  For some reason the uploader put my name as author — rather than Eusebius! — but I hope that glitch will be fixed by the time you see this.  They are also here:

UPDATE: The Eusebius is now online here.  Many thanks to Andrew Eastbourne for translating it all for us.
UPDATE 12 Feb 2024 Added CPG number, slight reformat.

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Chrysostom’s “First sermon” now online in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve finished translating Chrysostom’s first sermon into English from the French of Bareille.  As far as I know it hasn’t previously been translated into English.  It’s here.  I place the translation in the public domain, so do whatever you like with it, personal, educational or commercial. 

Of course it would be far better to have this translated directly from the Greek, but I think I will save my funds for texts that don’t exist in Bareille. 

It was quite interesting to see that Google translate, which I made use of, has got still better at handling French.  It still needs intervention, but the work this time was minimal.  I see that Google has also added a page of “Translators Toolkit” which I must explore.

I do have a few tools which I have written myself which help me to work with translating.  The most important of these is a little utility which takes a paragraph and splits it into a sentence a line.  I then paste that into Google translate, copy the resulting translation back, and the tool will interleave the sentence of text with the Google translation.  It makes working on the text very easy, as I don’t have to look back and forth between  two solid masses of text.

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I hope that I am misunderstanding Chrysostom

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m translating his first sermon, preached when he was ordained priest.  The first couple of chapters are so-so, although theologically a bit dodgy at one point, where he suggests that there cannot be sinners in heaven, nor sinners worshipping God, so we had better pray to some intermediary saint or other. 

In chapter three he gets into a fulsome panegyric of someone.  That someone was born wealthy.  No names, so far. 

I am rather afraid that I am translating a prolonged bum-suck to Flavian, the bishop of Antioch who was ordaining him. 

Let’s hope not.  Clerical flattery is disgusting.

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Were cultists of Mithras marked with a sign on their foreheads?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The great French scholar Pierre Petitmengin has kindly sent me an off-print of the new Chronica Tertullianea et Cyprianea (CTC 2008).  This is a list of new publications about Tertullian, Cyprian, and the other ante-Nicene Latin Fathers, with a short review of each.  It has long been essential reading for Tertullianists (at whom it was originally aimed).

Item 42 is Luc Renaut, Les initiés aux mystères de Mithra étaient-ils marqués au front? Pour une relecture de Tertullien, De praescr. 40, 4 , in : Bonnet, C., Ribichini, S., Steuernagel, D. : Religioni in contatto nel Mediterraneo: modalità di diffusione e processi di interferenza, Actes de colloque (Côme, mai 2006), Rome, 2008 (Mediterranea, IV, 2007), p. 171-190.   He questions whether Tertullian actually said that initiates of Mithras were marked on their foreheads.

Tertullian says this in De praescriptione haereticorum 40:4, as he works up to the end of the work and points out the pagan origins of what is peddled as “christian” by the heretics.  Here is the Holmes translation:

if my memory still serves me, Mithra there, sets his marks on the foreheads of his soldiers; celebrates also the oblation of bread, and introduces an image of a resurrection, and before a sword wreathes a crown. 

And Refoule’s Latin text:

si adhuc memini Mithrae, signat illic in frontibus milites suos. Celebrat et panis oblationem et imaginem resurrectionis inducit et sub gladio redimit coronam.

Only Tertullian tells us of this rite.  The ritual meal that includes bread (and water, although Tertullian does not say so) appears in the mosaic in the Ostia Mithraeum that depicts the seven grades of initiands and their special meals.  The crown worn by Mithras cultists is discussed in Tertullian’s De corona militis.  The image of a resurrection is as far as I know otherwise unknown. 

Renaut proposes that the text might be corrupt.  Instead of in frontibus he suggests in fontibus.  This would translate as sets his marks on his soldiers in the waters.  In other words, this would refer to pagan “baptisms”, such as those mentioned by Tertullian in De Baptismo 5 and indeed just beforehand in De praescriptione haereticorum 40:3.

The reviewer, the great scholar Jean-Claude Fredouille, is naturally cautious.  He points out that the fontibus version would make Tertullian’s rhetoric a little “lame” (boiteux) if we end up with two references to baptism in a single sentence.  Renaut is aware of this idea, and suggests that there are two forms of the baptism meant here, paralleling Christian baptism and confirmation which Tertullian distinguishes in De resurrectione carnis 8:3 and Adversus Marcionem III, 22:7.

It’s an interesting idea.  I myself would tend to resist it, on the grounds that there is no actual evidence of a corruption, and the fact that the emendation would be convenient — as disposing of one of the “parallels” between Jesus and Mithras that dim people exult over — is not adequate reason to emend the text. 

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

This is a busy time of year, when the government requires that we do unpaid labour as clerks, filling in tax returns.  It’s worse if you are self-employed, for your business also must be accounted for to the tax collectors.  That time is now upon me.  Still there is progress.

The Eusebius project is now awaiting a transcription of the Syriac fragments.  This will be done by the end of May, I have been told.  That date is now my target date for completion of the editing of the volume.  I’m also awaiting some tweaks to the Coptic translation, but these can be omitted if need be.

The Origen project has passed a milestone.  The final version of the text and translation of all the Greek fragments of Origen’s Homilies on Ezechiel and other works on the same book has now been done.  The introduction to that section needs a few changes, but the body is done.  The translation of the Latin needs some revision, but only five sermons remain to do.

The translation of John Chrysostom’s In Kalendas, on the pagan festival of New Year, is proceeding apace and another chunk arrived today.  This will be given away online.

My own translation of Chrysostom’s first sermon is about half done.  It’s not a great sermon — nor a great translation! — but it will get done as and when I can get time from chores.

A sample of Severian of Gabala’s sermon De pace is now with the reviewer.  The latter will also soon finish up his translation of Eusebius’ De solemnitate paschalis, which will also go online.

So … much going on.

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Manuscripts for sale

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Got a spare 20,000-50,000 euros?  Why not buy a manuscript?  Listed in that price range are a renaissance copy of Vegetius, The art of war.  Or you might fancy a handwritten copy of some works by St. Cyprian. 

And what, after all, in these days of devaluation, is 50,000 euros?  Not a lot, really; not when you consider that computer programmers working in the City of London can earn 700 euros a day, or around 168,000 euros in a year of 48 weeks.  One of our Merchant Banking princes would probably consider it pocket change.

Well!  I wish I earned anything like that.  I’d find many uses for the money that would  benefit us all.  So beneficial, indeed, would I be that I wonder why a grateful government has not simply stepped forward and volunteered me the money.  It seems inexplicable, really.  But that’s one of life’s little mysteries.

Returning to seriousness, tho, it is really very interesting to see what a couple of common 15th century mss are worth on the market.  It is far less, in truth, than I had thought.  Of course it is quite beyond my means.  I suspect that is a good thing.  After all, while it is easy to buy such items, how easy is it to get them off the shelf when you are done with them?  Never buy a book without knowing how you will get rid of it.  Trust me on this.

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The commentaries of Theophlyact and their reference to Papias

Posted on by Roger Pearse

People online asking about fragments of Papias, who knew the apostles, lead you to obscure authors.  I had heard the name of Theophylact before, but never knew much about him until today.

The biblical commentaries of Theophylact — who was Byzantine Archbishop of Bulgaria — fill four volumes of Migne, 123-6.  Somewhere in one of them is a quotation from Papias, discussing the fate of Judas.  It seems reasonable that this is in the commentary on Acts, in vol. 125, and so indeed it is, on cols. 521C-523D.  The “commentary” seems mainly to be a catena, in fact, as might be expected.  Chrysostom Press has produced an English translation of his commentary on the gospels; I don’t know of an English translation of the commentary on Acts.

Here are the relevant portions of Migne:

theophylact_papias1

theophylact_papias2

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A passage of Papias in Cramer’s catena

Posted on by Roger Pearse

There is a fragment of Papias, quoted by Apollinaris, in Cramer’s catena on Acts.  It’s on page 12, against Acts 1:17 (p. 33 of the Google books PDF).  It is translated by Lightfoot and Harmer:

Fragment 3 (Preserved in Cramer’s Catena ad Acta SS. Apost. [1838])

1  From Apollinarius of Laodicea. `Judas did not die by hanging, but lived on, having been cut down before he was suffocated. And the Acts of the Apostles show this, that _falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out._ This fact is related more clearly by Papias, the disciple of John, in the fourth (book) of the Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord as follows: —

2  “Judas walked about in this world a terrible example of impiety; his flesh swollen to such an extent that, where a waggon can pass with ease, he was not able to pass, no, not even the mass of his head merely. They say that his eyelids swelled to such an extent that he could not see the light at all, while as for his eyes they were not visible even by a physician looking through an instrument, so far had they sunk from the surface.  His genital was larger and presented a more repugnant sight than has ever been seen; and through it there seeped from every part of the body a procession of pus and worms to his shame, even as he relieved himself.”‘

3 After suffering an agony of pain and punishment, he finally went, as they say it, to his own place; and because of the horrible smell the area has been deserted and no one has lived there up until now; in fact, even to the present no one can go by that place without holding his nose.  This was because the discharge from his body was so great and spread so far over the ground.”‘

The Greek is thus:

cramer_papias1

cramer_papias2

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been asked how it is that I have moved from Tertullian to Chrysostom.

The answer is that I haven’t moved to Chrysostom, really.  I started work on the web with the Tertullian Project, because there was nothing much about him online and I was filling a gap.

But when I came online, I found a great deal of anti-Christian polemic consisted of supposed “quotes” from the Fathers “proving” that the Fathers advocated lying, cheating, violence etc.  The grand author of these was a book by one Joseph Wheless, Forgery in Christianity, from which the material was plagiarised and improved. 

In some cases it was easy to show that the “quotes” were fake by going to the online English translation.  But others quoted from works not online.  So I began to place online translations of patristic works where there was an existing out-of-copyright translation which was not online.  This collection grew into the Additional Fathers, where I made these texts available as public domain.

From this it has been a natural step to start adding translations, by doing them myself, or commissioning them.  Naturally I tend to look for shorter works.

My current emphasis on Chrysostom arises from my discovery that the Homilies against the Jews were online, in a version whose copyright status is unclear, but that a portion remained untranslated.  This I commissioned and distributed.  But while looking at the entries for Chrysostom in Quasten’s Patrology vol. 3, I am struck by the number of short works which remain untranslated into English.  Some are of great historical interest, such as the one on the celebration of New Year in Roman times, or those on Christmas.  All these get quoted in anti-Christian polemic, probably in a distorted way.

My interest in Severian of Gabala came from someone writing to ask me about a passage in one of his sermons De sigillis librorum.  Until then I knew little about Severian.  A little research revealed an interesting author, whose works were unavailable in English.  Reading Bareille’s French translation revealed an author whose style is very distinctive and would translate well. 

So at the moment I am concentrating on ways to get works by these authors online.  I think I can make a difference.  In a few months, doubtless, my attention will be drawn by something else.  But whatever I do, I think it will benefit everyone.  So … let’s be a butterfly!

I was thinking last night about how to handle the fact that a French translation by Bareille exists of most of Chrysostom (although not the letters, I notice, nor the spuria).  I think it is probably best if I don’t commission translations of works that exist in that fashion — a translation from the French will probably do for most non-academic purposes.  If I restrict myself to commissioning only material where nothing exists in English or French, that would probably be the most effective use of my funds.

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Mysterious book – anyone know what it contains?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A correspondant draws my attention to this book at Brepols.  But I’m blessed if I can work out what the book contains:

Homiliae Pseudo-chrysostomicae
Instrumentum studiorum I.
K.-H. Uthemann, R.F. Regtuit, J.M. Tevel (eds.) 309 p., 153 x 245 mm, 1994. ISBN: 978-2-503-50340-0. Languages: Greek. Paperback. Retail price: EUR 113,00

German is not my language, but with the aid of Google here is a translation:

The study of pseudo-Chrysostomica has made great progress since 1968 with the Codices Graeci Chrysostomici [a list of manuscripts of works] and the list of as yet unedited texts collected by M. Geerard in 1974 in the second volume of the Clavis Patrum Graecorum, for those patristic scholars who work on critical editions of homilies. But the texts themselves have not yet become available to the larger circle of interested patristic scholars; if we wait for critical editions of the same, for the history of the tradition based on all now available witnesses to be clarified, then there is little hope that in coming decades, they will become known to patristic scholars and generally philologists, who are not working directly with the relevant manuscripts themselves. The Clavis of M.Geerard alone lists 239 unedited texts, and this list is far from complete. If you are looking for a way to present all known Pseudo-Chrysostomica and in print as soon as possible and still provide a generally useful text, then it can only mean reproducing the output of one or more “good” manuscripts of the text without each apparatus, without any compromise in the direction of a critical edition.The texts, which Bernard de Montfaulcon (1655-1741) created today afford us useful service, and whoever is interested in the particular content of a text will usually make use of Migne.The scientific ideal of a critical edition is therefore not in question, certainly not from the editors of this new Instrumentum studiorum.

So … what does the book actually contain?

UPDATE: A correspondant points me here, to the online Chrysostom bibliography, which gives a list of contents:

Uthemann, K.-H., R. Regtuit & J. Tevel, Homiliæ Pseudo-Chrysostomicæ, Instrumentum studiorum. Volumen I, Turnhout: Brepols, 1994. [rev. Voicu JbAC 38 (1995) 198-199; contains updated texts of 42 homilies: De sacrificiis Caini (CPG 4208), In Noe et filios eius, de cherubim (CPG 4232), Hom. de Noe et de arca (CPG 4271), De paenitentia sermo 1 (CPG 4615), Quod grave sit dei clementiam contemnere (CPG 4697), Oratio in martyres omnes (CPG 4841), In ver et in resurrectionem (CPG 4858), In illud: Vigilate et orate (CPG 4870), De nativitate 1 (CPG 4871), In Adam et de paenitentia (CPG 4888), In orationem Pater noster (CPG 4896), In tentationem domini nostri Iesu Christi (CPG 4906), De creatione mundi, revera Ad Stagirium (CPG 4911), De fide et contra haereticos (CPG 4917), In caecum natum (CPG 4918), Oratio in exaltationem crucis (CPG 4927), De salute nostra et oratione perpetua (CPG 4938), Encomium in sanctos martyres (CPG 4950), Sermo de quadragesima (CPG 4955), In sanctum Stephanum (CPG 4958), Sermo de agricolis in vinea laborantibus (CPG 4966), De ieiunio (vel In postremum iudicium) (CPG 4968), De vigilantia (CPG 4972), In pharisaeum et meretricem (CPG 4984), In illud: Iesus autem fatigatus ex itinere (CPG 5003), In sanctam theophaniam (CPG 5004), In Paulum apostolum CPG 5013), In illud: Si enim dimiseritis hominibus (CPG 5019), De nativitate Iohannis Baptistae (CPG 5023), In Adam et in Sodomitas (CPG 5045), Quod deus superbis resistat (CPG 5047), In illud: Nemo potest duobus dominis (CPG 5059), De nativitate II (5064), De nativitate III (CPG 5068), Quod debet episcopus docere (CPG 5073), Hom. in Ps. 71 (CPG 5074), Contra Iudaeos et Graecos et haereticos, De exitu animae, In illud: Attendite vobis ipsis, In illud: Noli aemulari in malignantibus, De paenitentia sermo II, Sermo in Adam; the last 6 are not listed in CPG]

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