Tag: Cyril of Alexandria

Look again at Google Books; you will find more than you did last time

Posted on by Roger Pearse

On this hot summer’s day, I was idly searching in Google books for “library of the fathers” review “cyril of alexandria”, as I have done before in the hope of finding the review which caused Phillip Pusey to abandon work on the translation of the Commentary on John after only publishing one volume.

To my surprise, this time there was far more material.  We tend to forget that Google books is not a static collection, but is being continually enriched with more books and journals.  And although I have not yet found the article in question, I did find several reviews of Phillip Pusey’s work.  The Church Quarterly Review 23, p.32 contains a review of the second volume, published posthumously, which explains how Pusey tended to translate:

THE first-named of these volumes, which will apparently close the series inaugurated in 1838 under the name of ‘The Library of the Fathers,’ enjoys the advantage of a preface by Dr. Liddon, explaining the circumstances which have caused its appearance. In 1874 Mr. P. E. Pusey published the first volume of a translation of this Commentary, which, extending to S. John ix. 1, ‘was reviewed,’ we are told, ‘by an English critic in terms which rendered its humble and too self-distrusting author unwilling to resume it.’ We fear that these words may produce an impression which would hardly do justice to the case; the reader might infer that the critic was captious and inequitable. Now, we never met with the review in question ; but we are constrained to say, as we said on a former occasion (Church Quarterly Review, xv. 287), when reviewing another volume of Mr. Pusey’s translations from S. Cyril, that ‘ translation was not his forte’, and that when he attempted it, he seldom rose above the baldest ‘ construing,” very often so strangely worded as to associate his author’s name with mere grotesqueness. The fact is undeniable, however we may account for it; our own supposition is, that Mr. Pusey was debarred from success in this line by the very narrow range of literary interest to which he perforce restricted himself, when ‘ in his uniform filial love,’ in obedience to his father’s wish, he ‘ took as the central work of his life to make the text of S. Cyril’s works as exact as it could be made.”

The dreadful English of the first volume is indeed fully as bad as this gentle description suggests.

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Cyril of Alexandria – commentaries on Paul’s letters

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Ben Blackwell is thinking about translating the commentaries of Cyril of Alexander on Romans and the other letters, as part of a post-doctoral project.  Doing so could only benefit everyone.  He discusses how he is going about it, and (excitingly) how the online TLG now has parsing information (if you can access it!)  Computer-based resources must be increasingly important in translation, I think.

One wry thought: the “standard” edition is that of Philip Pusey; who died in 1880!  So neglected is Cyril in the West.  A new critical text would seem a desideratum; or at least, a few papers on the manuscript tradition.  It is unlikely that Pusey had access to the best mss. 

Still, the first step in making a new edition would be to become conversant with the text and its problems, and the best way to do that is to make a translation of it into some other language.  So Ben might be beginning a life’s work here!  Either way, for a scholar setting out, it would seem that he is looking at unexplored territory.  Go for it, Ben!

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Fresh Cyril of Alexandria

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Ben at Dunhelm Road has the following very interesting note:

There’s a new translation of Cyril of Alexandria’s Festal Letters 1-12, by Philip R. Amidon, S.J., in The Fathers of the Church series (Vol. 118). See here.  This look at his pastoral side will be interesting.

This piggy-backs on works on his commentaries on the 12 Prophets (3 volumes: FOTC 115, 116, & tbd) and also a recent publication of his Commentary on Isaiah, all of which were done by Robert C. Hill.

There is also a proposed re-translation of Cyril’s majesterial commentary on John–it runs some 1300 pages if I remember correctly–as part of the Ancient Christian Texts series by IVP.

I’m thinking about proposing to do some translation for a post doc here at Durham since we’re staying longer, so it’s good to see other work being done on him.

The IVP series is interesting, since it includes Origen’s Homilies on Numbers which I had in mind to do.  Here’s their list of proposed translations:

  • Commentaries on Romans and 1-2 Corinthians by Ambrosiaster, translated and edited by Gerald L. Bray
  • Commentaries on Galatians-Philemon by Ambrosiaster, translated and edited by Gerald L. Bray
  • Incomplete Commentary on Matthew (Opus imperfectum), Vol. 1, translated by James Kellerman; edited by Thomas C. Oden
  • Incomplete Commentary on Matthew (Opus imperfectum), Vol. 2, translated by James Kellerman;l edited by Thomas C. Oden
  • Homilies on Numbers by Origen, translated by Thomas P. Scheck; edited by Christopher A. Hall
  • Commentary on Jeremiah by Jerome, translated by Michael Graves; edited by Christopher A. Hall
  • Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles by John of Damascus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, translated by James R. Blankenship and Charles David Gregory; edited by Michael Glerup
  • Commentary on John, 2 vols, by Cyril of Alexandria, translated by David Russel Maxwell; edited by Joel C. Elowsky
  • Commentaries on the Prophets by Ephrem the Syrian, translated by Marco Conti; edited by Thomas Buchan
  • Commentary on Isaiah by Eusebius of Caesarea, translated by Jonathan Armstrong; edited by Joel C. Elowsky
  • Commentaries on Genesis by Severian of Gabala and Bede the Venerable, translated by Robert C. Hill and Carmen Hardin; edited by Michael Glerup
  • Commentary on the Gospel of John by Theodore of Mopsuestia, translated by Marco Conti; edited by Joel C. Elowsky
  • Greek Commentaries on Revelation by Oecumenius of Isauria and Andrew of Caesarea, translated by William C. Weinrich; edited by Thomas C. Oden
  • Latin Commentaries on Revelation by Victorinus, Apringius, Caesarius, and Bede, translated and edited by William C. Weinrich

Good though these look… if they aren’t online, how will most of us ever access them?

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Cyril project cancelled

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In June 2008 I commissioned a translation of Cyril of Alexandria’s Apologeticus ad imperatorem.  It’s about 15 pages in the ACO edition, and a competent person should be able to translate it in 3-4 days.  Unfortunately the translator has been very hard to deal with, and hasn’t produced anything but excuses since before Christmas.  It’s always just about to be completed! Emails are not replied to. It even looks as if he’s using some other text than the one specified.  So I have written to him and dismissed him.

I would like to recommission this, at 10c a word.  It’s probably around $700 worth.  But I’m not sure that I can quite face the hassle at the moment! 

Later: I’ve emailed someone who offered for the role back in January.  Let’s see what happens.

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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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