Author: Roger Pearse at ToA

Translating Eusebius’s Chronicle 1 online: why not have a go at a sentence?

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

The chronicle of Eusebius has never been translated into English.  But we have a simple Latin version, and also a German one.  Much of it is in short sentences or phrases, so even a novice at Latin would probably find something they could do.  

Would people be interested in having a go at this, as a collaborative online translation?

What I’ve done, is put online the entries for the preface, down to the start of quotes from Alexander Polyhistor on Berossus, and made it editable so that anyone can enter stuff. Each sentence is separately editable. There’s no passwords or logons involved. Anyone can edit anything by just pressing the edit button.

If you know any Latin at all, or German, why not buzz over to this page and contribute a sentence or two?

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/eusebius_chron/chunk1.php

The intention is that the whole translation should be in the public domain and be put online for everyone.

I’ll add some stuff in, but by all means feel free to add notes to each bit you do if something is uncertain and see if someone else can find the answer!

It’s a bit of fun, not something serious — if you know amo amas amat, I think you could probably do a sentence or two! 

Share

The last Roman in London

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

Mike Aquilina at Way of the Fathers reports a BBC news item.  It seems that a burial has been found in London (Londinium), of a grave from the early 5th century. The burial was at St. Martin-in-the-Fields church, near Trafalgar Square.

The man was buried in a Roman sarcophagus with a bit of Saxon pottery.  Test show that he died between 390 and 430AD.  The BBC call him the “Last Roman” and indeed he must have been one of the last Roman inhabitants; someone who saw the legions leave and the barbarians arrive.

Share

Oxford Patristics Conference

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

The quadrennial 15th International Conference on Patristic Studies will take place in Oxford this year from Monday 6 August to Saturday 11 August 2007.   A list of papers has been sent out but is not on the website, for some reason, although abstracts are. I hope to attend at least some of it since I will be in Oxford, staying in my old college, for most of that week.

The most interesting to me is a paper being given in German “Wer war Paul der Perser?” — Who was Paul the Persian.  All I know about him is that he was an East Syriac writer of the 7th century, who composed at least two treatises, one of which was translated by Severus Sebokht into Syriac.  One of them was a summary of Aristotle, which he presented to the Shah.  According to Bar Hebraeus he sought to become a bishop, and apostasised to Magianism when he did not succeed.  I’m not sure that my German is good enough to hear the paper, tho.

Share

Oriental Institute publications free online

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

While reading awilum.com, I discovered that the Oriental Institute in Chicago has decided that it “is committed to digitizing all of its publications and making them available online, without charge.”  This electronic publication programme makes material available in PDF.  A full list is available at the above link.  This is marvellous news — well done the OI! 

Share

Mirror of the old v2 CCEL 38-vol. collection of the fathers

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

I suspect that I am not the only person who has found the old version 2 layout of the 38-volume Ante-Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers collection at CCEL rather easier to use than the new, improved, but very much more awkward version 3?

I today found that the v2 version has vanished from CCEL.  Fortunately I had a mirror of it, and I have uploaded it to

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers2

I hope it is useful.  It’s all public domain, so use as you will.  A cdrom of it, plus the additional patristic translations which I have online, is also available:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/all_the_fathers_on_cd.htm

Share

How the Chronicle of Eusebius was rediscovered

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

Since 1998 Dr. Armenuhi Drost-Abgarjan has been working on a new edition of the Armenian text of Eusebius Chronicle, with German translation *. She kindly sent me an off-print of an article about this. It looks as if the prefaces of both the Latin edition of Petermann (1875-6) and the German one of Karst (1911) are mistaken about a lot of things to do with the manuscripts.

The manuscript of this work was discovered in 1782 in the Eastern Armenian town of Šamaxi by a certain George Dpir Ter Yovhannisean (1737-1811), who was acting as liason man between the Armenian Patriarchate in Constantinople and the exiled Armenian Mechitarist monks in Venice. This is the ‘Lector George’ of Petermann.

It seems that while staying in the town, after a hearty meal at which the Madras wine flowed freely, he got up in the night feeling thirsty and went in search of the water jug. He found it, and found that a manuscript with a strong leather binding was being used as the lid. This was the ms. of the Chronicle, and has been dated in the past to the 12th century.

The ms. then went to Jerusalem; Constantinople; and then to the library of the monastery at Echmiadzin. After the Soviets took over Armenia, mss. were removed from monasteries to central libraries, and in 1939 the ms. was in Yerevan, in the Matenadaran manuscript institute, under the shelfmark Codex Maten. 1904.

In 1793 Dpir copied this manuscript himself, and sent his copy to the Mechitarists. It arrived at Christmas 1794, and is no. 931 in their library.

A further copy exists, made in Tokat in 1696, which is now in Venice as codex no. 302. The sigla in the editions, unfortunately, reflect confusion about what mss. exist.

Adolf von Harnack arranged for a photographic copy to be made of the original ms. by his pupil, Karapet Ter-Mekerttschian, who had discovered and published Irenaeus Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. This copy has been in Berlin, in the “Archiv der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften” for almost a century, and was used by Karst. However the differences between this and the only published edition, that of Aucher, are very small.

Dr. Drost-Abgarjan has located a florilegium on paper (Codex Maten. 2679, s.IX) containing extracts from many historical works, which includes portions of the Chronicle. This will allow some lacunae to be filled up. She has also located various quotations in later Armenian authors, which will be used for the new edition. The new material will be published first; then the new edition.

* Armenuhi Drost-Abgarjan, Ein neuer Fund zur armenischen Version der Eusebios-Chronik, in “Julius Africanus und die christliche Weltchronistik” (Ed. Wallraff) (2006) pp.255-262. I hope to translate this and place it online.

Share

Preparing for the Eusebius Chronicle translation

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

I have now entered both Petermann’s Latin and Karst’s German translation into a database, split into sentences and lined up the two in parallel columns.  It looks as if a copy of Aucher will be with me in a week or so, but I see no way to make much use of it.

I need to revise the software to make it possible for us to enter an English translation, and then we will be underway.  I will post in various groups once the first chunk becomes available, probably this weekend.

Share

Forthcoming English translation of Poggio Bracciolini’s letters

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

We all owe a great debt to Poggio Bracciolini, who in the early 15th century hunted down and recovered so many classical texts. His letters have never been published in English, aside from an unsatisfactory collection to his friend Niccolo Niccoli, whose massive collection of Greek and Latin manuscripts forms the kernel of the Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana in Florence.

Harvard University Press have launched a series modelled on the Loeb Classical Library for renaissance writers. Details about it are here.

UPDATE (2012): Updated link for the I Tatti library here.

Share

Marutha of Maiperqat, On the Council of Nicaea

Posted on by Roger Pearse at ToA

I recently located an unpublished translation, made probably in the 1850’s, of this work.  This is now online here. The translation is public domain so copy freely and put online elsewhere, etc.  I hope to get the Syriac online if I ever get 5 minutes to spare!

I have some doubts that this is really by Marutha.  The text contains almost nothing about the deliberations, and everything in it could be sourced from Eusebius.  The extra details all feel like fictional embellishments, and there are many anachronisms in it. 

The manuscript has slumbered in Yale University for 150 years.  The notes on it by AHW are by Austen H. Wright of the American Mission at Urmia in the 1850’s.  He was one of the missionaries who set up a press there and printed the Syriac Peshitta Old Testament in 1851.

Share