A translation of the first 14 letters of Isidore of Pelusium came in this morning. It’s generally looking good, although the people I use to verify this are on holiday! But I’ve paid the sum agreed anyway — the chap has certainly worked on it seriously — and commissioned letters 15-25 for the same treatment.
The letters of Isidore do need some kind of running commentary on them, to tie the book into a readable whole. How this might be done I don’t yet know.
I need to find some more translators and commission some more books for publication. I wonder how IVP found their translators? I’ll wander around at the patristics conference next week and see if I can make contact that way.
Great stuff! Thanks, Roger.
Schaff has a footnote that gives Isidore of Pelusium an extensive reference to the eunuch and Philip and the Acts baptism in Epistles 447 and 448.
One question is whether he has verse 37 in his Bible, with the question from Philip and the confession from the Ethiopian eunuch. (There is also a Latin textual addition in v. 39 of some interest.)
Also interesting is the question of Philip not being the apostle. Epp and Fee use that as a shaky argument for v. 37 not being original. Against the much stronger issue, given by many, and stated plainly by Richard John Knowling of:
“the question in ver. 36 evidently required an answer” .
https://books.google.com/books?id=-0YsoMkOARwC&pg=PA114
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Isidore of Pelusium
Footnote 13 from and edition from Philip Schaff
§5.-S. Isadore of Pelusium, Ep. 448, in reply to a correspondent who was not satisfied with his statement (Ep 447), that “Philip who baptized the Eunuch and catechized Simon was not the Apostle, but one of the Seven,” and requested proof from Scripture (‘Epeidh kai marturian zhteij gpafikhn …’Epeidh pollown apodeicewn eraj,) bids him observe, ch. viii. 1. that the Apostles remained at Jerusalem: that Philip the Apostle would have been competent to impart the gift of the Spirit: and further suggests, that Philip the deacon, fleeing from the persecution, was on his way through Samaria to Caesarea his native place, (where we afterwards find him xxi. 9), when these events befell, viz. the preaching, etc., at Samaria, and the conversion of the Eunuch.-In the next sentence, ekeinoi (i.e. the Apostles) ouk echesan: wkonomhqh toutouj (i.e. Philip the deacon and others) ecelqein: kai ekeinouj (the Apostles) usterhsai: “should come after,” or rather, “should be lacking, be behindhand, not be forthcoming (at the time):” but Cat. kai ekeinouj eterwj, “and those (the Apostles) otherwise.”-The modern text, after “next to Stephen,” proceeds thus: “Wherefore also, when baptizing, he did not impart the Spirit to the baptized, for neither had he authority to do so, since the gift belonged only to the Twelve. But observe; those went not forth; it was Providentially ordered that these should go forth, oi kai usteroun thj xaritoj dia to mhpw labein Pn. #A., who were deficient in the grace because they had not et received the Holy Ghost. For they received power, etc. Consequently, this was the prerogative of the Apostles.”
http://orthodoxchurchfathers.com/fathers/npnf111/npnf1106.htm
https://books.google.com/books?id=O2AwhlZ4frUC&pg=PA115
https://books.google.com/books?id=NwKgIv2l7hcC&pg=PA412
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Also, could the Latin be searched for “tres unum”? That often discovers the heavenly witnesses being referenced, or sometimes the earthly witnesses alone.
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Thanks!
Thank you – nice to know about that translation of a letter.
No doubt someone willing to do it could search the Patrologia Graeca text, and look through the Latin (and, of course, the biblical references) and see if there is a reference to these words. I don’t have the time, sadly.