The 9th, 10th and 11th gospel ‘difficulties’ have now arrived from Mr. A, which is most encouraging.
Author: Roger Pearse at ToA
Eusebius Quaestiones translation: progress 7
The 8th question and answer to Stephanus (of 14) has now arrived from Mr. A, which is encouraging. Someone else has enquired about doing some of the Syriac. Still nothing from Mr. C.
Postscript. 13th March Mr. A. has now sent me the 9th question and answer also. I’ve today prompted Mr. C. as to why I have now received nothing for nearly two months.
Postscript. 14th March Mr. C. replied by sending me a translation of the second Syriac fragment. He didn’t really explain the long delays, except that he thought he needed to revise it. I’ve now contacted a second possible translator to do a chunk of Syriac, who tells me that fragment 10 is ‘really easy’ but won’t be able to start for a month.
British Library copyright consultation
The British Library is seeking the opinions of those who use it or borrow books in the UK from libraries on new proposals about copyright. If you live in the UK, stick it to them here.
We can be sure that publishers will be greedily lobbying. Make sure you do too!
Eusebius Chronicle book 1
The other thing that I have done this week is to return to my online collaborative translation of book 1 of Eusebius’ Chronicle. I pretty much had to stop pushing this last year as pressures at work reached fever pitch. It’s very demanding running one of these efforts; you have to log in each day, and find things to say and add more yourself, and generally keep momentum going.
But I’ve been very pleased to find that a lot of chunk 3 has been done in my absence anyway. I’ve done a whole load more myself this week (during a period of boredom) and there are only a dozen sections left unattempted. I shall do more!
The whole text is sitting in the database online anyhow.
Eusebius Quaestiones translation: progress 6
There isn’t any progress this week. Mr. A hasn’t sent anything of the Greek, and Mr. C, who apparently had fragment 2 of the Syriac ready to go on his PC, hasn’t sent it over. It is easy to be frustrated at the slow progress of the work, despite my attempts to impose some kind of schedule.
The Syriac is going far too slowly, so I have advertised for another translator. There are around 16 fragments to do, so there is certainly room for more than one person. In addition, if I can get a reliable translator, I have other projects that I could use him on.
Eusebius Quaestiones translation: progress 5
Today Mr. A. has sent me a translation of the quaestio ad Stephanum 7, and a nice long chunk it is! I’ve not read it yet, but apparently it contains a somewhat baffling allegorical section. We’ll have to see if we can make any sense of it. It may be that the epitomator has managed to confuse the sense here.
After a long silence caused by moving house, Mr. C. has let me know that the Syriac fragment 2 is done, and 3 ready for typing in. Apparently entering the Syriac text has been painful, not least because I’ve asked him to do it in Microsoft Word.
I’ve also heard from Claudio Zamagni, who is editing the Greek text of the epitome for Sources Chrétiennes. This won’t include the fragments of the full text preserved in the Commentary on Luke by Nicetas, so I shall have to use Angelo Mai’s edition for this. It seems as if he has done a pretty serious search for manuscripts, tho.
Severus of al-Ashmunein, Zoroaster and the “Book of the Councils” 2
In a Cairo manuscript there is a 4 page passage not present in the published text of the “Book of the Councils” by Severus of al-Ashmunein. A translator has been working on this for me, for 10 cents a word.
The first two pages have now arrived. Unfortunately they do not seem to be in English as it is normally understood. Here are a couple of examples.
“If his speech is right, grant him words and mysteries, so if he keeps that so it would be considered as a supplication. The truth testified and said also the sun was eclipsed and the eclipse from the sixth hour of the day till the ninth hour. It was not the time of eclipse but because of the afflicted. … There is also this saying from Hermes talk’s till the coming of Christ will be one thousands and five hundreds years.”
This, mind you, is from an academic with a substantial publication record. But the ‘translation’ is gibberish.
I shall have to push back and ask for it to be improved. Suggestions as to how I handle this are welcome.
Sir Walter Scott, on ancient obscenity
Yesterday I was reading the collected letters of C.S.Lewis, and saw a description of Boswell as the best biography ever written. As it is a favourite of mine, I concur. But Lewis also gave second place to Lockhart’s “Life of Sir Walter Scott”.
I’m not a great fan of much of Scott’s writing, but of course that is neither here nor there as regards the biography. So today I went to Google Books and had a look for a copy. Turning at random to p.140 of a one-volume version, I came across the following letter to Mr. Ellis:
“My principal companion in this solitude is John Dryden. After all, there are some passages in his translations from Ovid and Juvenal that will hardly bear reprinting, unless I would have the Bishop of London and the whole corps of Methodists about my ears. I wish you would look at the passages I mean. One is from the fourth book of Lucretius; the other from Ovid’s Instructions to his Mistress. They are not only double-entendres, but good plain single-entendres — not only broad, but long, and as coarse as the mainsail of a first-rate. What to make of them I know not ; but I fear that, without absolutely gelding the bard, it will be indispensable to circumcise him a little by tearing out some of the most obnoxious lines. Do, pray, look at the poems and decide for me.”
Of course this was in a period when being accused of indecency was not the mild thing that it is today, but more like being accused of racism — something that could ruin a career.
I’ve ordered a copy of the old Everyman edition of Lockhart. It cannot fail to be of interest, I think.
The epigrams of Martial
If I look around the web for English translations of ancient texts, I am quickly struck by the degree to which patristic texts are commonplace, while classical ones are rare. The difficult-to-use Perseus site continues its well-funded progress, it is true. But amateur collections seem few.
These ruminations were provoked by the need to consult the epigrams of Martial recently in order to discuss some elements of the Roman book trade. They were inaccessible.
This was not due to the lack of an out-of-copyright translation. Other texts, such as the historical anecdotes of Valerius Maximus, have only recently received an English translation. But for Martial, a version exists in the 19th century Bohn library. A PDF does exist of this online. I have started to OCR the pages, to produce something useful and searchable, although the scan was so poor that I find it is slow work.
Nevertheless, it is my first encounter with Martial. As a long-time devotee of Juvenal, I am rather enjoying the picture it gives of the days of Domitian. But how many people have read Martial, these days?
While reading this, there was a reference to the plays of Plautus. But again, where do I go to read these?
My own projects consume already more time than I have available. But I wish someone would create something free and accessible, an English version of the Latin Library site.
Severus al-Ashmunein, Zoroaster and the “Book of the Councils”
For some time I have been tracking down references in Arabic Christian texts to the idea that Zoroaster said something like “He who doesn’t eat my body and drink my blood will not know salvation”. (The actual idea is fairly clearly bogus).
One of the possible witnesses is a passage in Severus ibn Mukaffa’, Book of the Councils. Severus is one of the first Christian writers to write in Arabic, and he was bishop of Al-Ashmunein (formerly Hermopolis) in Egypt in the 9th century. He is best known for starting the collection of biographies of patriarchs which forms the History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria.
Unfortunately the printed text was from a manuscript which doesn’t include this passage, but the passage can be found in a Cairo manuscript. Georg Graf gives the following description:
“Severus ibn al-Muqaffa‘ of al-Ashmûnain (10th century) in his polemical “Book of the Councils” (= S) 2…[2] In Cairo 111 (1544 AD), ff. 268v-270v. This portion was not included in the printed edition in Patrologia Orientalis III, 2.” (Graf vol. 1. p-483-6)
A kind friend told me that Graf (almost always) refers to the Cairo MSS via the numeration of his own catalogue. This catalogue combines material from both the Coptic Patriarchate and the Coptic Museum. Graf nr 111 is found in the Coptic Museum. Its shelf number there is Theol. 196. It is also described in Simaika’s catalogue under nr. 53. In the film collection at Brigham Young University , it is found in Roll A15-4.
I never have a lot of luck communicating with people in Egypt. Even today the Coptic Museum isn’t on the internet! So I tried emailing various people at BYU.
Gary Gillum of BYU has tracked down this microfilm, found someone who knows Arabic, located the relevant pages and emailed me jpgs of them, all without charge. I am deeply grateful to him. I think the world of scholarship owes more than we ever realise to all the people out there like Gary, who make it all possible.
I’ve now commissioned someone to transcribe and translate the pages, which I will place online in the public domain. Interestingly I am finding it easier to locate Arabists willing to translate than either Greek or Syriac translators.