An interesting volume of St Nicholas literature has come to my attention, published in 2017. I learned of it from the wonderful Dumbarton Oaks list of Translations of Byzantine Saints Lives. It contains modern Greek translations of a number of the early Greek “Lives” of St Nicholas.
You may wonder why most of us care. Well, Google Translate handles modern Greek rather well. So this means that even those of us with no knowledge of medieval Greek can read the texts by means of this edition.
But first some details.
The volume is Ch. Stergioulis, Ἅγιος Nικόλαος. Ἐγκωμιαστικοὶ Λόγοι ἐπιφανῶν βυζαντινῶν λογίων, Athens: Zitros, (2017), Series: ΒΥΖΑΝΤΙΝΟΙ ΣΥΓΓΡΑΦΕΙΣ / Byzantine Writers 19. ISBN 9789604633234. In English that appears to mean something like “Encomia by eminent Byzantine writers”. The website of the publisher is here, and if you use Chrome, you can read the site easily using Google Translate.
The book is actually very cheap – only about 17 euros – and I would have bought a copy. But doing so has proven beyond my abilities, since all the websites offering copies want to be paid by bank transfer rather than credit card. Many of them won’t ship to me anyway. Fortunately I was able to find a PDF with sample pages online here, including the table of contents!
Πρόλογος σεβασμιωτάτου μητροπολίτου Λα- Σελ.ρίσης κ. Ιγνατίου……………………………………………. 9
Εισαγωγή Β. Κατσαρός……………………………… 13
Πράξις του εν αγίοις πατρός ημών Νικολάου…. 65
Τευδο-Πρόκλου Εγκώμιον εις τον όσιον Νικόλαον…………………………………………………………….101
Ανδρέου επισκόπου Κρήτης Εγκώμιον εις τον όσιον πατέρα η μών Νικόλαον………………………….. 123
(Μιχαήλ) Βίος και πολιτεία και μερική θαυμάτων εξήγησις του εν αγίοις πατρός ημών Νικολάου 169
Μεθοδίου πρεσβυτέρου και ηγουμένου εις τον βίον καιταλείποντα του οσίου πατρός ημών Νικολάου ……………………………………………………………. 251
Μεθοδίου αρχιεπισκόπου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως εγκώμιον εις τον άγιον Νικόλαον………………… 307
Συμεών του Μεταφράστη Βίος και Πολιτεία…. 419
Νεοφύτου Εγκώμιον εις τον μέγαν Νικόλαον…. 535
From this I get:
Foreword by a church dignitary
Introduction by B. Katsaros.
Nicholas of Myra, “Praxis de stratelatis” (BHG 1350) p. 65–100.
Nicholas of Myra, encomium by Pseudo-Proclus (BHG 1364c) p. 101–22.
Nicholas of Myra, encomium by Andreas of Crete (BHG 1362) – p.123-68
Nicholas of Myra, vita by Michael (BHG 1348) pp. 174-243.
Nicholas of Myra, vita by Methodios (BHG 1352y) – p.256–98.
Nicholas of Myra, encomium by Archbishop Methodius of Constantinople (BHG 1352z) pp. 312–405.
Nicholas of Myra, vita by Symeon Metaphrastes (BHG 1349), 424–520.
Nicholas of Myra, encomium by Neophytos the Recluse(BHG 1364), 542–651.
This list does not in any way convey to the reader the value of the contents. For this, in fact, an academic publication.
First, it contains both the medieval Greek and the modern Greek on facing pages. Secondly each text is preceded by an introduction. And each introduction and text has detailed footnotes to the literature, although these are sadly banished to the end.
There is no English translation for many of these texts, other than those which I have placed online over the years, and which I must collect into a single place. According to the DOAKS list, there are German translations for some of them, by L. Heiser, in Nikolaos von Myra. Heiliger der ungeteilten Christenheit,Trier (1978), which is probably more accessible.
But the great find is a translation of BHG 1352y, the “Methodius ad Theodorum”, which was the source for the legend of St Nicholas throwing gold through windows so that poor girls could have a dowry, and thus of our modern tradition of “Santa” the bringer of gifts. This was used by John the Deacon for his “Life” in Latin, ca. 880, and is how the story reaches us.
Material in Greek tends to be unknown to western academics, because of the language barrier. But this need no longer be so, and volumes like this make clear that we are all missing out.
Zitros is not an academic publisher. They have published mostly ancient Greek and Byzantine literature with the original text and modern translation. Some twenty years ago the newspaper “To Vima” would give away the Zitros edition of ancient Greek literature, basically half a book with every weekday edition. Greek newspapers give away free stuff to increase sales and this is not a new practice: they gave away booklets of ancient Greek literature during the 1930s. Now I did get quite a few of the volumes, specifically what they had published from Herodotus (they had not published all), Xenophon, Arrian, Lucian, Plutarch (again, not all) is what I remember. I can tell you that they are better editions than Kaktos which is the only complete edition of ancient Greek authors in modern Greek, but it is quite flimsy and the commentary is annoyingly shallow. Zitros is both good quality and the comments are most often to the point.
Let me translate the cover for you:
Saint Nicholas
Encomiastic speeches by prominent Byzantine authors/people of education
(Andrew of Crete. Michael, Methodius, Symeon, Neophytus)
Foreword: His Eminence Bishop pf
Larissa and Tyrnavos Ignatius
Introduction
Vasilis Katsaros
Translation, comments
Haralambos Stergioulis
Zitros Editions
I would also fix on the TOC μητροπολίτου Λαρίσης , the σελ. part likely is σελιδα and the word was cut
Also Ψευδο-Πρόκλου but you got that right in the translation
When I just google this Zitros edition did ask for bank number, likely because they do not sell retail. However e-shop.gr, further down the google results, was happy with credit card. Of course you can always go down to Athens to buy this at some big bookstore that has it.
Thank you very much for this, and especially for the cover info! I had trouble with the metropolitan’s name and titles. I hope reading what I gave didn’t make you wince too much.
What do Zitros do, then? Are they are a general publisher? The bits that I have seen of the book look rather good, to be honest – as good as the Ancient Christian Writers or Fathers of the Church series.
Thank you also for the suggestion of e-shop.gr. This didn’t appear in my search results. The link is https://www.e-shop.gr/agios-nikolaos-p-BKS.0348318. It does indeed accept credit cards. But sadly postage outside of Greece seems to be 31 euros.
If I were to characterized Zitros in one word, I would call them a “specialist” publishing house. Generally though there are no specialized academic publishers in Greece. Ekdotiki Athinon has published a multi volume photographic work on the manuscripts of Mt Athos, but their most popular publication is the 18 volume History of the Greek Nation, now over 50 years old, whose authors are members of the Academy of Athens but is intended for a general audience (as in every Greek house has a copy) and has no citations, though a lot of references at the end. I have see Papasotiriou publish specialized technical books, e.g. on sonar technology by a couple of officers of the Hellenic Navy, but they are most famous for publishing study guides for school students. Zitros is a specialist publisher in ancient and byzantine literature. On the left is the ancient text, on the right a translation.
Generally translated editions of ancient Greek literature post date independence. During the Byzantine era educated people were supposed to be able to read the ancient text in the original, plus the new works they produced were written in κλασσικίζουσα, classicizing language. That is what is written on the left side of this edition. After the 4th crusade destroyed the empire and the system of education it supported writers started writing in αρχαιζουσα, archaic language that was not quite the classical Attic of Byzantine writers and eventually after the Fall of Constantinople in katharevousa, clean language devoid hopefully of foreign influence. We have few survivors in vernacular Greek and their language is very understandable to modern Greek speakers. Our language has not changed that much the last 1000 years. In the mid 19th century the first translations started getting published since we were having mass education only that very often the translations of the ancient authors were in katharevousa, not demotic Greek. Demotic translations started appearing closer to the turn of the 20th century, but it was not universal. The first translations of Jules Verne were also in katharevousa too, it is a sign of the times. As recently at the 1960-70s Zacharopoulos editions published a series on ancient Greek translated in katharevousa rather than demotic.
Typically in Greece some writer makes a translation of an ancient author and then tries to publish it. Professor Maronitis made it his career to translate ancient literature to modern Greek and that is great because after him, no academic followed in his path. He was rather ad hoc though plus one person cannot possibly translate everywhere. In 1991 Odysseas Hantzopoulos founded Kaktos editions and set out to publish and translate all ancient Greek literature into modern Greek. The problem with Kaktos is that it is a cheap edition, and not in the sense of sticker price: The editions get attributed to “Kaktos philological team”, in other words no name, the ancient text is “based on byzantine codices” and very likely just a copy of Teubner or OCT without attribution while the commentary is lacking. The Herodotus edition I read just puts in some comments (with attribution) to How & Wells’ 1911 massive commentary. Before Zitros this was often the most available text and with a sensible translation. The other major publishers tend to be small publishing houses from the Ufological right fringe. I remember reading the Tactics of Leo the Wise and in one of the comments it was saying that Yucatan, as in the peninsula of Mexico comes from ου κανδανω, I do not know, because of the obvious ancient connections between ancient Greece and pre-Columbian America.
Zitros editions have an ancient text on the left side which is very likely a critical edition. They definitely have several editions of Herodotus in English, French, German, Italian plus Greek on the references and also discuss what was chosen on difficult sections. Their comments are to these editions, several commentaries in several languages plus also Greek writers who wrote on the topic, not just academics. They are not Ufological in the comments, no stories how our ancestors had super technology or were human alien hybrids. The translation is a very flowing and readable. Now Zitros has not published all ancient Greek literature yet but I am pretty sure they will. Now I have not read any of the Byzantine authors and to be honest right now editions of Byzantine texts are far fewer than ancient texts overall. Several Byzantine authors have never been published or translated in Greek and if say a student of Athens Theology School wants to read them, they are sent to Patrologia Graeca to do so. This is a problem because Migne was a Roman Catholic monk so after the Schism he publishes Latinophile authors and purposely did not publish anti-union authors. Honestly, if Zitros manages to do to Byzantine literature what they have done for ancient literature, they will do a great service to the nation and the world.
Try searching Αγιος Νικόλαος Ζήτρος in the Google and you will see many results. e-shop was result #5, #1 was the Zitros website and 2,3,4 wanted you to register before paying, so I could not see how to pay.