A couple of updates on the Severian of Gabala work.
Firstly, Bryson Sewell has sent me a first draft of his English translation of De Spiritu Sancto (PG 52 813-826). It still needs heavy revision, and I haven’t commented on it yet, but it is there in skeleton at least. It looks interesting, for the most part. Apparently Severian’s style is not always of the clearest, tho! As ever, when it is done, it will appear here.
One of the problems in studying Severian is that none of his works were online in any modern language – or at least, none in English, and the one or two, that did exist in French etc, were basically in a dark hole somewhere online. The translations that Bryson is making will fix some of this.
But just getting a list of works is difficult. Regular readers will recall that I have been driven – unusually – to compiling some kind of bibliography myself, as a basis for commissioning translations.
In general, studies on Severian are few, and hard to access. The prince of all the articles on Severian is one by Dr Sever J. Voicu, who is the world expert on Severian: Sever J. Voicu, “Severien de Gabala,” in: Dictionnaire de spiritualité 14 (Paris, 1990), pp.752-63.
This is the most comprehensive introduction to the subject, with a detailed bibliography, and it supersedes all previous work. Of course it is now 24 years old, so it is now somewhat outdated. But it is impossible to access, and the Dictionnaire itself seems almost unknown to patristic scholars in general; certainly to most anglophone scholars.
Fortunately I obtained a copy of this article some time ago, which led me to realise how essential it was. Soon afterwards, a correspondent emailed me a Word document of it, which he had scanned. Dr Voicu has very kindly granted his permission for this transcript to appear online on this blog. This will happen, probably in the next week. I want to check it over first, and to make sure that, in whatever format I upload it, it can be handled by Google Translate.
I may also translate portions of it into English. I’ve been unwell with a virus for a week, but I must return to work on Monday. Much will all depend on how busy next week is!
The Voicu article is now here.