Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
I came across an article by Alin Suciu on the Coptic ps.Severian homily In Apostolos, and thought that I had better update the bibliography. It is, as ever, far from comprehensive – I am no compiler of bibliographies – but merely a tool for my own purposes.
This replaces the files uploaded here.
UPDATE: New version here.
A couple more interesting pictures appeared on Twitter tonight.
The first of these was posted by Ste Trombetti, and shows the Arch of Titus in 1848 (!). The photo is in the Getty archive, and was taken by Count Jean-François-Charles-André Flachéron (French, 1813-1883). Through the arch, the Meta Sudans is visible, in its truncated 19th century state.
Here it is:
The next item is a photograph which was found by searching on “Collina della Velia”, i.e. the little Velian hill. This hill was completely levelled by Mussolini, in building the Via del Foro Imperiali. This old photograph shows the black base of the Colossus of Nero, which existed until Mussolini removed it. The black item below the Colosseum is the base.
I found it on Flickr here. Here it is:
Finally let’s include an aerial view of the whole region, from a 2009 exhibition here. Click on it to get a very large photo!
The base of the Colossus is in the shade of the Colosseum, but I think the rectangle can be made out if you zoom:
There seem to be very few photographs of this obscure item.
I learn from Brice C. Jones that a marvellous discovery has been made: a papyrus leaf, or the remains of one, containing a portion of the Symposium of the Ante-Nicene writer Methodius of Olympus (d. 311 AD, as a martyr):
… The only complete work of Methodius that we possess is his Symposium or Banquet—a treatise in praise of voluntary virginity.
Until quite recently, the earliest manuscript of this text was an eleventh century codex known as Patmiacus Graecus 202, which is housed in the Monastery of St. John the Theologian on the island of Patmos.
But a remarkable discovery has recently been made in the Montserrat Abbey in Spain.
Sofia Torallas Tovar and Klaas A. Worp, who have been working on the manuscript collection in the Montserrat Abbey for many years, have just published a fragment of Methodius’ Symposium that they date on palaeographical grounds to the fifth-sixth century—about 450 years earlier than the Patmos codex mentioned above. (On another recent, important discovery by Tovar and Worp, see here.)
Published as P.Monts. Roca 4.57, this fragment is the first attestation of a work of Methodius from Egypt. It is a narrow strip of parchment, with thirty partial lines preserved on the hair side (see image of fragment at right).
The text on this side of the fragment comes from Oratio 8:16.72-73, 3:14.35-40, 8.60-61, and 9.18-19 (in that order).
The flesh side contains thirty-five partial lines of text unrelated to the Methodian text. This is an unidentified Christian text with “Gnomic” sentiments, as the authors explain.
In addition to the wonderful fact that we now have a significantly earlier manuscript witness of Methodius’ text, there is also another remarkable feature in the new manuscript: a previously unattested saying about the Nile. In lines 5-8, the manuscript reads:
“The rise of the Nile is life and joy for the families”
ἡ ἀνάβα̣σ̣ε̣ι̣[ς] τοῦ Νείλου̣ ζω̣ή̣ ἐστι κ̣[αὶ] χαρὰ ἑστία[ις]As the authors note, this saying does not occur in Methodius. And indeed, it does not fit the immediate context. Where it comes from is a mystery, but the saying is nonetheless very interesting.
Marvellous! And thank you, Brice, for making this known to the world! Brice adds that the publication is:
Sofía Torallas Tovar and Klaas A. Worp, ed., with the collaboration of Alberto Nodar and María Victoria Spottorno, “Greek Papyri from Montserrat” (P.Monts. Roca IV) (Barcelona: 2014), no. 57.
What this find also reminds me, is that Methodius is one of the very few ante-Nicene authors whose works have not been translated into English. This is because they survive only in Old Slavic versions. I paid some attention to these, in previous posts, and even acquired some texts; but I must hurry up and try to get some translations made!
Anthony Alcock has continued his marvellous programme of translations from Coptic. Today’s item is the Encomium on Theodore the Anatolian, by Theodore, Bishop of Antioch. It’s here:
The manuscript that contains the work was published by E.A.W. Budge, and dates from 995 AD.
The text is a hagiographical text, but St. Theodore the Anatolian was a popular saint in Egypt.[1] Also known as Theodore the General, or Theodore the Stratelates, the cult of this warrior saint developed in Anatolia in the 10-11th centuries.[2]
Via AWOL I discovered the existence of a search engine for Greek manuscripts, made by David Jenkins and online at Princeton here. I promptly started looking for examples of the “summaries” or “tables of contents” in Greek texts. Not many of the texts that I looked at had them; but a few did.
First off, let’s have a look at an 11th century manuscript of Eusebius’ Church History, BML Plut. 70.28. On folio 2v we find this:
But none of this material is in the body of the manuscript as far as I could see.
Here’s a 16th century version of the same thing, much influenced by the age of printing no doubt. This is Ms. Vatican Ottobonianus gr.108. Fol. 1v looks like this:
It’s neater: but not fundamentally different in content.
Next up, a 9th century manuscript (Pal. gr. 398) from Heidelberg of Arrian’s Cynegetica. Fol. 17r looks like this:
If we then look at the start of the text on fol.18, we see the same material – numerals appear in the margin against each chapter, while the “chapter heading” is in the right margin:
Unfortunately I found no early examples in the manuscripts listed. The majority of manuscripts listed were biblical (as this is where digitisation has concentrated), which is not what I am looking for. Manuscripts of Plato’s works had no table of contents; nor did a manuscript of the histories of Herodotus. But my search was by no means comprehensive.
It’s still nice to see these things, tho. What I nowhere saw was modern-style chapters, blank lines followed by titles with numbers and another blank line. Which is interesting itself.