Category: Information access

I’ve been looking at the volumes of Mansi on the Documenta Catholica Omnia site.  Volume 7 is really of quite poor quality, possibly too poor to use.  I went to look at p.187 to see what it had to say about Theodoret at the Council of Chalcedon, where he was met with suspicion as being a Nestorian and was forced, with great reluctance, to anathematize Nestorius.

The passage is on p.100 of the PDF.  It’s part of the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon; a record of the proceedings.  This is an ancient text about which I knew nothing before now — not even that it existed.  There seem to be Greek and Latin recensions. 

The Mansi volume 9 is even worse, in which I looked for the fragment of the history of Hesychius.  Both seem to derive from the French National Library site which has microfilms online.  We really need some quality copies of Mansi.

Returning to the Acts of Chalcedon, an English translation by Richard Price exists from Liverpool University Press, Translated Texts for Historians, so I suppose that there is no need for me to translate it.  A preview is here.

The dismal nature of the politics of the empire is revealed by this snippet from p.136 of the TTH text:

43. The most devout Egyptian bishops and those with them exclaimed: ‘Theodoret accused Cyril.  We exclude Cyril if we admit Theodoret.  The canons have expelled him.  He is rejected by God.’

44.  The most glorious officials and the exalted senate said: ‘These vulgar outbursts are not becoming to bishops nor useful to either party.  Allow everything to be read.’

45.  The Egyptian bishops and those with them exclaimed: ‘Expel that one man and we shall listen.  Our interjections are for the sake of piety.  We speak on behalf of the orthodox faith.’

46.  The most glorious officials and the exalted senate said: ‘Allow, rather, the hearing to be conducted according to God, and permit everything to be read in order.’

The whole process is followed with accusations of violence, and accusation and counter-accusation, and is of the highest interest as a witness to agora-style democracy under the colour of a church council.

The translators deserve a debt of gratitude for rendering this interesting document into English, dismal though the picture presented is.  The manner in which the florid eloquence of the period is presented to us is likewise very nice to see.

I’ve now finished reading all the way through the 3rd volume of Quasten’s Patrology, looking for shortish works that would be interesting to turn into English and post online.  Here’s a digest.  I haven’t yet looked at any of the refs given.

• Acacius of Beroea.  The literary remains of this contemporary of Cyril of Alexandria comprise 6 letters in all; PG 77, 99-102; PG 84, 647-8 + 658-660; and PG 41, 156 f.  No translations of any sort were listed, but apparently one of the letters is addressed to Cyril, recommending peace.  There are also 5 Syriac hymns which praise Acacius.  A German translation of these was published in the BKV 2nd ed. vol. 6 (1912), p. 71-89.
• Hesychius mostly wrote long commentaries, but a fragment of his church history exists, in a Latin version, which was printed by Mansi, vol. 9, p. 248f.  This I would definitely like to do.  Mansi seems to be online at the Documenta Catholica Omnia site.
• A bunch of letters by Nestorius exist, listed on Quasten p.518, including one written towards the end of his life to the people of Constantinople which is described as “interesting”.
• The fragments of the Church History of Philip of Side, a contemporary of Chrysostom, are very short and definitely deserve attention.
• Another bit of Mansi, vol. 7, p.187, describes the trials of Theodoret at the time of Chalcedon.  This needs to be looked at.

When I get a chance, I’ll look into all these further.

I’m still reading through Quasten’s Patrology volume 3, looking for interesting texts which might be translated.  A few more have caught my eye.

It seems that Epiphanius of Salamis, author of the Panarion, also wrote three works attacking the veneration of images.  He became concerned that people were putting up such images in the churches, pagan-style.  These are extant (more or less). K. Holl, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte, vol. 2 (1928), pp.356-363.  I wasn’t able to find this online, unfortunately.

Theodore of Mopsuestia on Genesis I have mentioned before.  I admit that I am still drawn to this.  Likewise I need to remember to do something about the remains of Philip of Side.

Another snippet from Quasten relates to Diodore of Tarsus.  During the reign of Julian the Apostate he resisted the attempts at re-paganisation.  In a rage Julian wrote an angry letter to one Photinus describing Diodore as “a priest sorceror of the Galileans” and “a keen defender of a religion for farmers” who was defending the Christians with “the wisdom of Athens itself”.  Erudite Christians always tend to infuriate Christian-haters.  The letter is preserved by Facundus of Hermiane (who?), Pro defens. trium capit. 4, 2.  I am unfamiliar with this work, but the letter sounds like something that should be online, and does not seem to be. 

I wonder if the letter is present in the Loeb Julian?  I always hesitated to scan material from these, not least because I am very much in favour of the Loeb Library, and the volumes are still in print.  But now that PDF’s are online there seems little reason to hold back.

The letter is indeed in the Loeb edition of Julian the Apostate, volume 3, on p.186, which also tells us that Diodore was in Antioch in 362.

This letter may have been written at any time between Julian’s arrival at Antioch in July 362 and his departure thence, in March 363. The Greek original is represented by curious and sometimes untranslatable Latin. Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, where Constantius resided in 351, was tried, deposed and banished by a synod convened there by Constantius. According to Sozomen 4. 6, he wrote many Greek and Latin works in support of his heretical views on the divinity of Christ, which were opposed by both Arians and Nicaeans. He is mentioned by Julian, Against the Galilieans 262c.

Moreover the Emperor Julian, faithless to Christ, in his attack on Diodorus writes as follows to Photinus the heresiarch:

O Photinus, you at any rate seem to maintain what is probably true, and come nearest to being saved, and do well to believe that he whom one holds to be a god can by no means be brought into the womb. But Diodorus, a charlatan priest of the Nazarene, when he tries to give point to that nonsensical theory about the womb by artifices and juggler’s tricks, is clearly a sharp-witted sophist of that creed of the country-folk.

A little further on he says:

But if only the gods and goddesses and all the Muses and Fortune will lend me their aid, I hope to show that he is feeble and a corrupter of laws and customs, of pagan * Mysteries and Mysteries of the gods of the underworld, and that that new-fangled Galilaean god of his, whom he by a false myth styles eternal, has been stripped by his humiliating death and burial of the divinity falsely ascribed to him by Diodorus.

Then, just as people who are convicted of error always begin to invent, being the slaves of artifice rather than of truth, he goes on to say:

For the fellow sailed to Athens to the injury of the general welfare, then rashly took to philosophy and engaged in the study of literature, and by the devices of rhetoric armed his hateful tongue against the heavenly gods, and being utterly ignorant of the Mysteries of the pagans he so to speak imbibed most deplorably the whole mistaken folly of the base and ignorant creed-making fishermen. For this conduct he has long ago been punished by the gods themselves. For, for many years past, he has been in danger, having contracted a wasting disease of the chest, and lie now suffers extreme torture. His whole body has wasted away. For his cheeks have fallen in and his body is deeply lined with wrinkles. But this is no sign of philosophic habits, as he wishes it to seem to those who are deceived by him, but most certainly a sign of justice done and of punishment from the gods which has stricken him down in suitable proportion to his crime, since he must live out to the very end his painful and bitter life, his appearance that of a man pale and wasted.

* Twice in this letter Facundus translates Julian’s “Hellenic” as “pagan.”

Interesting that this Photinus was currying favour with Julian.  We tend to think of the corrupt bishop as a modern figure, but of course it is not so.

… Or so the Arians must have thought!  Yes, it’s the Cappadocian Fathers.  These are the group of clergymen who turned the tide against Arianism in the mid-4th century; Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzen.

Less well known are some of their associates, such as Amphilochius.  I’ve been looking at his works with an eye to seeing whether any of them are (a) short and (b) untranslated.

One interesting text is the Iambics for Seleucus (PG 37, 1577-1600).  This is a set of moral advice to a friend, composed in verse form, and ending with a recommendation to study the scriptures and a list of canonical books.  There is a poor translation of the latter here – the portion of Hebrews misrepresents what Amphilochius writes.

I understand that a critical text of all the works of Amphilochius was made by C. Datema, Amphilochii Iconiensis Opera, CCSG 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978).  I don’t know whether any translation of the Iambics exists, tho; I could find none.

Another interesting text was published in Leipzig in 1906 by Gerhard Ficker in his Amphilochiana, I., p.23-77, Against the Apotactites and Gemellites.  Quasten says this is a Coptic version, but it seems to be a mistake; there is a Greek text, and then another work on Isaac, presented in German translation only of a Coptic text.  Who the people attacked in the former are I do not know, but they seem to be ascetic or perhaps encratite heretics.  Thankfully Ficker’s book is online here.

Asterius of Amasea was another of the Cappadocian Fathers.  Fourteen homilies survive, and the same Datema made an edition with English notes (but no translation!) here.  The edition appeared from Brill in 1970, who have put online a limited preview.  It is a pity that they didn’t make the whole book available.  Five of his fourteen homilies are online in English at my site.

I was reading Quasten’s Patrology vol. 3, looking for interesting untranslated texts, when I came across (p.57-8) mention of a work of Athanasius on the Holy Spirit, consisting of four letters to bishop Serapion of Thmuis.  Quasten lists an English translation: C. R. B. Shapland, trans., The Letters of Saint Athanasius Concerning the Holy Spirit, Ad Serapion (New York: The Philosophical Library, 1951).

The subject is probably dull, but a US publication of that date may be out of copyright, unless the copyright was renewed after 28 years.  So I thought it was worth checking.  And … I can find no evidence of a copyright renewal.  “Shapland” is quite an unusual name, after all.  “Athanasius” is going to get a limited number of hits in any database.

By contrast the Tertullian / Minucius Felix in the “Fathers of the Church” series (1950) turns up as renewed in 1978 in this database.

A look in COPAC reveals that “Shapland” was Cuthbert Richard Bowden Shapland, but no dates for his life.  (The copyright system outside the US demands that we know the biography of the author, absurdly enough). The book is 204 pages, and Shapland’s last date of publication was a volume of sermons in 1957 – but this was edited by someone else, and was probably posthumous.

A search for the name on Ancestry.com reveals a man of that name born 1907, died 1952.  There is a picture of a young clergyman there.  This is likely to be the same man, and the dates are right.  If so, his books goes out of copyright outside the US in 2022 (1952+70).

What a performance, just to find out the status of a long defunct book!

So … are any copies available for sale?  Not that I can find.  Hum!

Well, I’ve placed an ILL for it instead.

Update: (3rd September 2021): Eleven years later, a kind correspondent writes that C. R. B. Shapland, trans., The Letters of Saint Athanasius Concerning the Holy Spirit, Ad Serapion (New York: The Philosophical Library, 1951), is online here:

https://archive.org/details/TheLettersOfSaintAthanasiusConcerningTheHolySpirit

Excellent news!

I wonder whatever happened to that ILL?