Category: Isidore of Pelusium

Interesting letters of Isidore of Pelusium

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been reading the account of Isidore’s letters given by Quasten in volume 3 of his Patrology, pp.180-185.  Quasten is a treasure.  He tried very hard to give an interesting picture of each author, and also to find all the English translations for them all.  I have spent many happy hours reading and re-reading his pages, searching out translations that I could put online.

He discusses various letters.  Most of them sound as if a translation would be nice!  Here are some that he lists (after Migne, book. letter no):

  • 3.65 and 2.3 discuss and affirm the value of secular learning.
  • 5.133 discusses his “principle of unaffected elegance” in writing.
  • 2.25 and 1.174-5 are addressed to the Prefect Quirinius, on behalf of the city of Pelusium.
  • 1.35 and 1.311 are to the emperor Theodosius II (and translated elsewhere in these posts)
  • 4.99 refers to the Council of Nicaea.
  • 1.102 and 2.133 rebut the Manichaeans.

Isidore’s interpretation of the bible has earned high praise in the past:

  • 4.117 rejects allegorisation.
  • 2.195, 2.63, 3.339 condemn the practise of seeing the NT everywhere in the OT, as liable to bring genuine messianic passages under suspicion.
  • 2.63 and 4.203 tell us that the OT is a mixture of prophecy and history, and not to confuse the two.
  • 3.335, 1.353, 3.334, 3.31, 1.67, 3.166, 4.142, 1.139, 4.166 all deal with the literal meaning of scripture as it bears on the Arian dispute, following the Antiochene method of interpretation.  Indeed 1.389 tells us that he saw the Arians as a real danger.

He also gives spiritual advice:

  • 1.129 and 1.287 advocate voluntary poverty and abstinence, but only if all the commandments are practised.  Asceticism is not enough.
  • 1.162 reminds his reader that it isn’t enough to follow the lifestyle of John the baptist; you must have his spirit too.
  • 4.192 and 1.286 promote celibacy, but without humility, he says, it is meaningless.

One group of his letters are addressed to Cyril of Alexandria.  Another group outline the lamentable history of the wealthy man Cyrenios, who bought the governorate of Pelusium, banned anyone from seeking refuge in a church, and then set out to make money by taking bribes in lawsuits.

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Recipient names in Isidore of Pelusium

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The recipient names in the letters of Isidore of Pelusium have a different textual history to the body of the text.  These names appear at the top of each letter, sometimes followed by a one-line summary.

I learn from Pierre Evieux’s excellent study that in the manuscripts, these items were not copied at the same time as the rest of the text.  This is because they are written in red, and are therefore done by a rubricator.  The copyist had to leave a space for them, and then someone — himself or another — would come back and fill in the gaps in red ink.

The same approach was taken in medieval texts to decorated initials.  Quite a large number of those initials were never done, and there are many manuscripts which still have a gap at the appropriate place.  So we can see immediately that the names can be lost in transmission far more easily than the rest of the text.

Nor is this all.  In a modern edition the names would be on a separate line.  But in a manuscript, saving parchment is all — especially if you had to kill the sheep necessary to make that parchment!  So the names would be inline, and distinguished by the colour to indicate the start of a new letter.  If you didn’t leave enough space, what then?

The only possible answer would be to abbreviate the words.  But names are hard to abbreviate.  Consequently the result could well be obscure symbols, also leading to loss.  This would be hard to fix next time the text was copied, especially as the next copyist would be liable to leave the same amount of space, thereby preventing the abbreviation from being expanded.

Finally the red ink tended to fade more than the black ink, leaving portions illegible.  A few scattered letters would be all that could be copied.

A further factor is the nature of the manuscript.  When it contained a copy of the letters of Isidore of Pelusium, the names of the recipients were important to the reader, and are generally included.  But there are also manuscripts which only contain a selection by subject of his letters, e.g. on some point of scripture.  In these manuscripts the name of the author was important, as an indicator of authority, but the recipient names hardly so.  In these type of manuscripts the recipient names suffer much more damage.

All these features are found in the manuscripts. 

These interesting comments by Pierre Evieux would seem to have wide application to many other sorts of texts.  They explain how letters can easily be combined in transmission; how the names can easily be corrupted or mistaken.  All these little details help us to understand what we see in any text that has reached us.

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Isidore of Pelusium: some more letters

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Here are two more letters of this 5th century monastic:

311. TO THE EMPEROR THEODOSIUS
How to provide assurance to the synod

If you could personally take the time to join them in deliberating at Ephesus, I am sure that there will be no censure of you on their part. If you leave the voting to the crowd’s antipathies, who would free the synod from all of the mockery? You would also remedy the situation, if you would stop your servants from dogmatizing, since they stand uncertainly between a great chasm of serving the emperor and quarreling with God, for fear that they make waves for the empire, dashing against the rock of the Church the contrivances of their bad faith. That Church has been set up, and cannot be lorded over by the gates of Hell, as God announced when He was creating it.

322. TO THE READER TIMOTHEOS
On how you cannot argue with an ignorant person.

Just as it is not safe to travel through an uninhabited land with a belligerent person, so it is not very easy to have an educated conversation with an ignorant person. The former will unleash his full force on you when you are alone if something is said or done not to his liking, while the latter, unless everything said is dumbed down to his lack of education, will single out for disgrace and ridicule everyone intelligent in the world, including learned philosophers and virtue-loving men. Frequently, people’s lack of letters tends to spread and at the current time you will find it preeminent everywhere. Even the Church is not without its share of it as well as the State and even the empire itself cannot be governed without it. Because of this, our troubles grow and the spirit of slavery has taken hold through the empire. So be very patient with the unlearned person, because you gladly abstain from the mindless, being mindful of our Lord.

What a picture these give us of the conditions in the fifth century.  The emperor, drawn into pointless dogmatic quarrels, while the nation drifted towards ignorance and contempt for learning.

I’ve now obtained Pierre Evieux’s study of Isidore of Pelusium.  It’s entirely discussion; none of the letters are included. From it I learn that the letters have been highly regarded.  Mainly they deal with Old and New Testament exegesis.  In some cases they quote Demosthenes and are a source of readings for establishing his text.  Isidore was definitely in favour of using pagan learning, so long as it was baptised.

Interestingly many scholars have denied the authenticity of the letters.  They point to the fact that the collection of 2,000 letters emanates from the “Sleepless” monastery of Constantinople — so called because the monks took it in shifts to keep the services going 24 hrs — and suggest that it was forged by them.  We thus have the absurd situation where scholars demand that we call him “pseudo-Isidore” and claim that these letters are not by the otherwise unknown father of the 5th century, but by someone else of the same name!   Evieux remarks that the existence of additional letters in Syriac, outside the “Sleepless” collection, disproves the idea of a later forgery.

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Bringing projects to an end

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The recession is biting, and I need to reduce my outgoings.  Luckily the Eusebius is all but done, the al-Majdalus is done, and I have a promise of the Cyril text for a week hence.  I’ve cancelled the translation of letters by Isidore, and decided not to commission a translation of the medieval biographies of Hunain ibn Ishaq.

I have enjoyed doing all these things, but I don’t have a guaranteed source of income, and so must be prudent in hard times.  At the moment I don’t know where my income will come from after March.  This is by no means unusual, but this year there may be no business in April.  It was nervous enough this time last year, when I spent three months hunting for work.    Let’s see what the new financial year brings.

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Isidore of Pelusium – how to number the letters

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A cross-reference table of the letter numbers in the manuscripts (used in the Sources Chretiennes edition of the second half) and the letter numbers as found in Migne is now online here.

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Isidore of Pelusium: some newly translated letters

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Here are the draft translations that I commissioned of four letters.  I don’t know whether any have been translated into English before.  Now that I have paid for them, I can share them with you!

After reading the Turner article, it is clear that the letters are numbered 1-2000 in the manuscripts, and the Migne “books” are imaginary.  So I’ve given the number in the collection as found in the mss, followed by the Migne book/letter reference. Anyone wanting to look at the Migne Greek can find it here.

35 (1.35) TO THE EMPEROR THEODOSIUS

If you are trying to gain the kingdom of Christ — may persistence unworn away crown this –, and the prize of immortality that God gives to those who administer it honestly, blend authority with mildness and lighten yourself of the weight of wealth by the necessary dispersion of it, for a king is not saved through ample power, nor does he escape the impiety of idolatry by keeping for himself abundant wealth.

310 (1.310) TO CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA

Liking cannot see far ahead, while dislike cannot see clearly. So if you wish to remedy both of these sight problems, do not spout out such vehement statements, instead be more fair in your accusations. Even God All Knowing, before his birth, thought it best out of his love for man to come down and see the boisterousness [1] of the Sodomites, teaching us a lesson in fully inquiring. Many of the people who have come to Ephesus (are) ridiculing you for acting out of personal enmity and not for the doctrine of Jesus Christ. “Here’s this nephew of Theophilus, they say, imitating his way of thinking. Like him, he falls into a rage against the God-loving John, inspired by God, and he desires ever so much to lecture, even though there is a great difference between the people (who are) deciding.”

[1] There should be a better word for this.

1106 (3.306) TO THE BISHOP CYRIL.

Just as the emperor is subject to the laws, the law having a life of its own, so a priest is subject to the laws of the Lord, the canon being untouchable. [1]

[1] The Greek actually says the canon is “apthoggos” meaning that you can’t utter any words of protest against it.

1582 (5.268) TO THE BISHOP CYRIL.

Once the hierarchy used to correct and temper the office of emperor when it stumbled and fell, but now it has fallen beneath it, losing not its own rank, instead possessing ordained men unlike those in our ancestors’ time.[1] Previously when those crowned with a holy office lived the evangelic and apostolic life, naturally the office of emperor stood in awe of the hierarchy, but now it is the hierarchy of the office of emperor. In my opinion, the office of emperor is following its natural course, since it has not intentionally meant to assault the hierarchy, which it reveres like a god, but avenge it of the assaults on it and temper the people not conducting themselves as they should toward it.

[1] Note the euphemism for the not so perfect bishops.

Comments and corrections are welcome!

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Numbering the letters of Isidore of Pelusium

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Following my last post on the letters of the 5th century writer Isidore of Pelusium, I have found that much of Pierre Evieux’s book Isidore de Peluse is online at Google books, and p.6 onwards discusses the text as we have it. 

The letters are mostly extracts, and very brief.  In Migne’s edition, we find these letters arranged in five books.  But this is the result of chance, and does not reflect the manuscripts very well. 

As might be expected, different manuscripts contain different material.  Some contain more or less extensive sections of a numbered collection of letters.  Others contain groups of letters in a different order.   All derive from an ancient collection of 2,000 letters.

There is ancient evidence as well.  A collection was consulted by Facundus of Hermianus ca. 548 (Pro defensione trium capitulorum 2, 4; PL 67, 571-4);  the same by Rusticus in 564 AD, who encountered a collection in four books, each of 500 letters (translation of Synodicon Orientale, ACO I, 4, 4).  In the same period, Severus of Antioch records that collections existed at many places, including Antioch, Caesarea, Alexandria, Pelusium; indeed that he went to Alexandria when doubts arose about the copy at Caesarea (Contra Impium Grammaticum, 6th book of Letters).  Apparently some of the letters (to Cyril, Theodoret) may be bogus.  Severus estimated that around 3,000 existed (the Suda says the same); the discovery of at least 40 unknown letter in Syriac indicates that some of these may still exist.

The early editors discovered manuscripts fairly randomly.  Jacques de Billy (1585) published a bunch of letters from Parisinus gr. 832, which he arranged in three books; a fourth book was added by Conrad Rittershuys (1605) using a copy of Marcianus gr. 126, which was an anthology rather than a manuscript of the collection; a fifth in turn by Andre Schott (1623 and 1629) from Vatican manuscripts, and the whole reprinted by Migne with various other materials and collations.

Evieux decided to junk the division into books, and go back to the numbering in the manuscripts.  This comprises 1,999 letters or fragments (no letter numbered 1378 has reached us).  A Latin translation contains a selection which circulated at Constantinople; three Syriac manuscripts also contain a collection.  One of these (BL Addit.14731) contains letters which did not survive in Greek.

This week I have been typing up the concordance between the numeric series and the numbers in Migne, which I will make available online.  But what a mess the early editors made of it all!

Apparently C.H.Turner in JTS 6 (1905) p.70-86 had an article on the letters, which I will try to locate.

PS: I’ve found that volume on Google Books here, free to US readers.  The Journal of Theological Studies does have a website, but demands money of the UK taxpayers (who fund the show) to allow them to see it.  Greedy little bastards.

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Isidore of Pelusium

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Fifth century ecclesiastical history can be a depressing business, if you’re a Christian.  All these bigots and dimwits and political chieftains… in our darker moments, we may find ourselves asking how any of this can be of God?

In these moments, it’s worth remembering that the history of mankind is not written exclusively in books, and that political history is perhaps the falsest history there is.  Today I have had occasion to look up St. Isidore of Pelusium in Quasten’s “Patrology”, and found, as I recalled, a genial man with his heart set on God.

Isidore lived in the 5th century, but little is known about him.  He left behind a collection of letters, more than 2,000 in number.  These have never been properly edited, and the oldest and best manuscript was unknown to what is still the standard edition, that of the Jesuit Schotte.  This is the text reprinted in the Patrologia Graeca, which is the text available to me.  The order of the letters in there is neither chronological, nor that of the author.  A proper edition would be a blessing.

Most of the letters are very short; a quarter of a column in Migne.  Eight of them are to Cyril of Alexandria, whose position he supported in the Nestorian controversy.  But at the same time, Isidore had the courage to tell this mighty political figure that his actions at the Council of Ephesus had left most people feeling that Cyril had acted like a jerk.  This may have prompted Cyril to intensify his efforts to explain and vindicate himself, in numerous apologias.

Another is to the emperor Theodosius II, whose bailiffs at the Council had tried to settle matters on their own authority.  Isidore reminds him that minor bureaucrats are not competent to decide theology.  There are a mass of personal letters.  One, to a certain Timothy the Lector, tells him to avoid pointless arguments – a lesson many online might take to heart.

Migne’s edition does not seem to be indexed.  I can’t tell what other gems may be found there.  At some point in the manuscript tradition it was divided into five books.  A simple list of contents would be a useful thing.

Because of the connection with Cyril, whose Apologeticum ad Imperatorem is being translated for me on commission, I have tonight gathered the letters to Cyril, and to the emperor, and asked someone to translate them, again on commission, at 10c a word. 

Are there any Isidorists out there?  I can’t find any critical editions, any translations into modern languages.  I suspect that this collection needs attention.  We might start with a list of letters!

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