I’ve today had an email from the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples. As far as they can tell, they do not have any manuscripts of Eustathius of Antioch. The last ever copy of Eusebius Gospel Questions and Solutions was attached to the back of a Sicilian manuscript in the 16th century, and I wondered if it might be there. Oh well.
Tag: Eustathius
Literature searching for a lost manuscript
I’m still looking through the literature, trying to find leads to the last, lost manuscript of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Gospel contradictions. I’ve been reading my photocopy of Zoepfl’s book about the Commentary on the Hexameron of ps. Eustathius of Antioch, which — according to Latino Latini — probably was the first text in this now lost manuscript.
It seems that I am not alone in being interested in Latini’s comments. On p. 10 of Zoepfl, he lists a Spanish manuscript:
cod. Matrit. gr. 124 (1), a collection-manuscript, written by Antonius Calosyna in 1563 (2), contains in first place (f. 2ff) the ps.Eust. Commentary, under the title: Τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις πατρὸς ἡμῶν εὐσταθίου ἐπισκόπου ἀντιοχείας ὁμιλία εἰς τὴν ἑξαήμερον ὑπόμνημα θαυμαστόν. The end of the work is missing.
(1) See J. Iriarte, Regiae Bibliothecae Matritensis codices Graeci manuscripti, vol. I (1769), p.501 f.; J.A.Fabricius-G.Ch.Harles, Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. IX (Hamburgi, 1804), 134 f.
(2) Latino Latini wrote on the 14th September 1563 to Andreas Masius (see Latinius II 116), “Cardinal Sirletus sends to tell you, there has been found in Sicily a work of Eustathius on the creation, or the six days.” This raises the question of whether there is a connection between the Matr. 124 and the manuscript mentioned by Latinius, especially when the Latin title in the manuscript is written in an Italian hand.
If Sirleto found a manuscript, he would first probably hire a scribe to make a copy for himself. Since this is made in the same year as Latini wrote saying that Sirleto had just found such an ms, containing both Eustathius and the lost work by Eusebius, is this the copy made? If so, what else is in this ms? From what was it copied?
Interesting, and leading to more questions!
UPDATE: Iriarte doesn’t seem to be online, unfortunately. Vol. 9 of Fabricius (found by doing a Google advanced search, author=Fabricius, date=1804) is here. This volume of Fabricius is a patrology, so we are in the section on Eustathius, reviewing scholarly opinion on the work and full of useful and interesting information.
It is interesting how these multi-volume Latin works of the 18th century make modern patrologies look babyish.
UPDATE2: The Pinakes database contains information on this ms., which is Madrid, BN, 04852. Eustathius is on ff.2-96v; but folios 1r-v and 97 r-v are blank, and the work is unfinished. It is then followed by 3 works by Gregory of Nyssa. I would guess, therefore, that the four parts are of different origins, and that the copy of Eustathius was not completed. Drat.
More on ps.Eustathius’ Hexameron
A small family emergency has brought me up to Cambridge again today, and given me the opportunity to examine Zoepfl’s monograph on the Hexameron of Ps.Eustathius of Antioch. This is a lightweight 50 page thing, which does NOT contain the text. Indeed it contains very little more than a list of manuscripts possibly available, not made very clear, and a list of contents, and a discussion of sources. It does indicate that the title Hexameron – on the six days of creation – is woefully inappropriate for the contents, which are miscellaneous.
Interestingly one section is devoted to the genealogy of Jesus, from Matthew. Since Eusebius in the Quaestiones spends quite a bit of time on the genealogies of Jesus, it makes sense that a volume might contain the two.
Zoepfl’s list of manuscripts is very limited; less than I got from a search of Pinakes. I intend next to try to access the catalogue for the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples and see what I can find.
He also discusses the editions of the work. There are precisely three; the editio princeps of Leo Allatius; a reprint of the Latin translation of Allatius in some series, and Migne’s reprint. The edition of Allatius was made from a copy he made himself of a manuscript in Rome in a private collection, possibly the Barberini collection. There are a lot of typos in the printed text, it seems. Allatius says that he just printed what he found in the mss., without changing it and added critical notes at the end. Indeed from the sound of it the edition of Allatius is (a) very unsatisfactory, as might be expected in 1629 and (b) the best that the work has ever received.
The work is about 90 columns of Migne long, i.e. 45 columns of Greek. I wish I knew a Greek translator whom I could just give money to and a translation would appear!
The Hexameron of Eustathius of Antioch
The commentary on the six days of creation by Eustathius of Antioch, to which Latino Latini refers in my previous post, is spurious. Indeed only one work by Eustathius (deposed 330 AD by an Arian synod) survives. The text was composed in the late 4th-early 5th century, and makes use of Basil the Great’s work on the same subject, as well as Josephus and even Achilles Tatius. Indeed the work appears to have much more historical interest than the dull title might indicate, since it quotes so many historical sources, at a date well before they appear in manuscript copies.
The work was published in 1629 by Leo Allatius, which is reprinted in the Patrologia Graeca 18, c.708-793. A modern edition by F. Zoepfl exists, with discussion of the codices. Eustathius is found in the Clavis Patrum Graecorum vol. 2, #3350f. The Commentary on the Hexameron is CPG 3393. It appears to be a deeply neglected work.
A search for CPG 3393 in Pinakes, the IRHT database of Greek manuscripts, gives 28 results, including a bunch of mss. in Rome, mostly in the Vatican. Nothing in Naples. But it is unlikely that our ms. is in the well-indexed lists of the IRHT, or it would already be known.
Bibliography:
Friedrich Zoepfl, Der Kommentar des Pseudo-Eustathios zum Hexaemeron, in Altestamentliche Abhandlungen X, 5, Munster, 1927.
In Hexameron Commentarius: Ac De Engastrimytho dissertatio adversus Originem… / Ed.: L. Allatius. Lugduni, 1629. PG 18.