There’s a fascinating blog post this morning from Guillaume Bady at the Chrysostom blog: L’édition interrompue des Sermons contre les juifs et les judaïsants de Jean Chrysostome. Using Google Translate:
The discontinued edition of John Chrysostom’s Sermons Against the Jews and Judaizers
Published on December 26, 2022 by Guillaume Bady
The edition of Sermons against the Jews and Judaizers for Christian Sources has been interrupted for many years, in particular because the collations of the manuscripts have been lost due to the irretrievably obsolete format of the files which contained them. Taking note of this lasting interruption, Rudolf Brändle, who is at the origin of the company, wanted the work already done, if not publishable, to be formatted and put at least in a certain way to available to researchers.
At the request of R. Brändle, I therefore composed the Sermons in a volume of 670 pages and had 10 copies printed for the authors (R. Brändle, Wendy Pradels and Martin Heimgartner). R. Brändle has deposited a copy in the Basel University Library (in the fund that bears his name) and I have deposited another in that of Christian Sources.
The 670 pages include a foreword and the general introduction by R. Brändle, several chapters by M. Heimgartner and W. Pradels, the introduction to the history of the text by W. Pradels, a bibliography (all these elements going up to p. 200), and, also by W. Pradels, a new Greek text made on the basis of collations that have unfortunately disappeared, and a working translation with minimal annotation.
There’s more at the link.
I wonder what happened here. It sounds as if electronic materials have become corrupted, or something of the kind. If so, this is a major disaster, and a warning to us all.
Dr Brändle has done rightly in taking steps to preserve the work done. But what a disaster! To get so far, but no further!
I wonder if the team could be persuaded to release a PDF of the file to the world?
I wonder if it is really irretrievably obsolete. I mean, there are some crazy computer guys out there who can do magic.
Apparently it’s on magnetic media that got zapped a decade ago.
That does seem rather permanent. Hard to believe there’s no hardcopy anywhere, though.
I have no details, I’m afraid. It sounds very unfortunate.