Tag: From my diary

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Greetings to any Mertonians who are lured hither by the mention of this site in Postmaster.  Those who remember me may recall that even at college I was interested in the Church fathers!

My apologies for the limited blogging.  I have been interviewing for a new contract this week.  One that I had favoured, with IBM, has given me much anguish.  Who would believe that, under their non-negotiable contract, the contractor is expected to work 8 hours a day for a fixed sum, and for free for up to four more hours a day? Or that the luckless souls so entrapped were contractually unable to leave during the entire 6 month term? Or that if they did, if they got sick, or their children did, they forfeited a month’s salary and were the subject of legal action for up to ca. $10,000?  I cannot imagine making such demands of another human being who simply wants to earn some money from me.

Back in the world of real and important things, the Eusebius volume is still progressing.  I have been unable to work on the corrections for it as yet, tho.  But I had an email from the lady responsible for the Coptic, with some further details.

Yesterday I was talking about chapter titles.  In medieval manuscripts we often find ancient works divided into chapters, and these often labelled capituli or kephalaia.  There are often short pieces of text at the start of the chapter, in red, which we might think of as chapter titles.  But it is a real question whether these are authorial.  The research has not really been done.

Years ago I collected articles on this subject, all more or less poor or limited in scope.  Often these referred to the 1882 Das antike Buchwesen (The ancient book trade) by Birt; or the even more elderly 1872 volume Griechische Literaturgeschichte by Bergk.  The latter gives a short list of ancient authors who mention kephalaia; whatever that means to them at that date.  But it is plainly incomplete, since I myself know of an interesting quotation in the praefatio of Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentary on John.  I know of this only because I scanned the translation to place it online.

 The subjoined subscription of the chapters, will shew the subjects over which our discourse extends, to which we have also annexed numbers, that what is sought may be readily found by the readers.

In other words, he has written a praefatio, then given a list of chapters, and numbered them (and presumably placed numbers in the text?) so that the readers can find them.

Do these words indicate that Cyril is doing something which is a novelty?  If it is not, why does he mention it?

I’ve long hankered to know, all the same, what Bergk and Birt say.  But I knew better than to borrow their books.  I don’t read German very well.  Trying to find whatever there was on chapter titles in these long texts would be fruitless, and hard on the eyes.  So I never did.  But that was then.

How times change!  Today you can download the two books as PDF’s.  This I have done, and OCR’d them.  So I now have searchable PDF’s.  I can do a search on “kapit” (short for kapiteln).  I can find all the passages where the word appears.  I can then select the text, paste it into Google translate, and get a very good idea of what is being said, right there! 

I may paste the text and translation of the relevant portions in this blog, if my job-hunting permits.  A list of ancient discussions of the subject, with verbatim quotation, would be a useful thing to do.

Of course the other question is whether a TLG search on “kephal” would produce more.  I might try that on the CDROM.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m going through my filing cabinets, turning paper articles into PDF’s using my trusty Fujistu S300 scanner.  In the process I am finding some gems.

I’ve just found a photocopy of a complete book on the History of Durham Cathedral Library, which I have uploaded to Archive.org.  The book was published in 1925, and I can find no evidence that H. D. Hughes ever wrote anything else.  His date of death must be unknown, therefore, but the chances are good that it was before 1940, and that the book is therefore in the public domain.

Another item was Shlomo Pines interesting booklet on the Arabic versions of the Testimonium Flavianum of Josephus.  So interesting, indeed, that after scanning it, I have put the photocopy to one side to peruse later on the sofa with a coke and some crisps.

Onwards, tho.  The pile of discarded photocopies and hanging folders grows taller on the floor.  Five more sit at my elbow, awaiting processing!

It’s a nice, gentle thing to do on a rainy afternoon.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Too busy trying to find a job today to do anything useful. 

My QuickLatin utility is causing me some grief.  I have to copy protect it, because it’s used in education and no-one ever registers software in that world.  But the copy protection is behaving a bit weirdly.  Two users have reported that the code locks up every time they use it.  They sound likely to be true, particularly as some Microsoft patch may be responsible.

Trouble is, you can’t always believe what people say.  I’ve had people write that the software locked up in order to try and get extended demo periods.  Doubtless they think it’s fair game, but it causes worry and heartache.

Anyway I’ve produced a special version of the code with logging on, and I’ll send the log file to the manufacturer of the copy protection.  Let’s hope it can be resolved easily. 

Meanwhile the translation of al-Qifti on the destruction of the library of Alexandria is being revised.

But I can’t do any more today.  It’s started raining, and I feel exhausted all of a sudden.  This job hunting business is very tiring.

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Eusebius update, and other things

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The last news was that I sent the typesetter a huge number of corrections, as “stickys” on the PDF.  These have now been processed, and the file has come back.  I now need to add in the changes that have arrived since then, which I hope to do this week.

Bar Hebraeus tells us that the Moslems destroyed the library of Alexandria.  He may well  have copied this from al-Qifti.  A translation of the relevant passage of al-Qifti is now done, and I have sent it back to the translator, as requested, for diacritics to be added.

 

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Simple Latin required for online project

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve had an email from someone who has been laboriously placing online a medieval Latin text.  It’s one of those catalogues of patriarchs and kings, with snippets of simple Latin in between.  Unfortunately our friend doesn’t have much Latin himself, so is rather stuck.  Can anyone help him?  I’d do it, if I wasn’t so busy.  He’s willing to pay something.

Here’s what he writes:

I’ve already translated the names, the formulaic stuff and the simpler Latin myself, so there is only about 30 per cent of the text left to do: I would guess about 1,500 words of the text defeats me. I hear what you are saying about the rates: perhaps it isn’t enough. The late Wilhelm Neuss looked at some of this text and pronounced some of the phrasing to be sheer nonsense (by an idiot copyist) and I daresay a translator needs the courage to say when something is untranslatable.
 
Yes, it would be a huge help if you could mention on your blog that I have a Late Antique Latin text and need some paid help … links to the two pages:

http://www.piggin.net/stemmahist/biblicalnomina.htm
http://www.piggin.net/stemmahist/biblicaltimeline.htm

I’ve written a note on the pages themselves explaining what help I actually need.

Send an email toif you can help.  And if you get stuck with some horrible bit of Latin, post it in the comments here and we’ll have a look!

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Finnish translation of Tertullian’s Apologeticum uses an image from my site?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I had an email today from a chap in Finland which interested and amused me.

Here in Finland, Tertullian’s Apologeticum has just been published in Finnish  translation made by certain Lutheran emeritus bishop Juha Pihkala. The publisher is Kirjapaja, and it looks like they have used in the cover your photo of the codex Romanus S. Isidoriensis 1/29; compare for example the lights in the middle of the foto. You can see the cover here. The publisher’s own net site (http://www.kirjapaja.fi/) shows a different picture on the cover of the book, but this one (the Isidoriensis) is on the actual book, I’ve seen it.

My friend was concerned, I think, in case I felt robbed or something.  But of course I don’t.  I’m glad to see those images, which few ever seem to look at, getting wider circulation.  I went to quite a lot of trouble to get permission to photograph those half-dozen manuscripts; indeed the effort was too much after a while.  So I am glad that they are being used to spread the good word!

I get so much email that I don’t remember for certain, but I may have had an email from the people concerned asking about permission.  If I did, I would have referred them to the Abbey that owns the manuscript.  I hope they made a donation in that direction either way.  But for myself, I rejoice to see it.

It’s also very good news that a Finnish translation has appeared.

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I’m going to have to stop using Amazon

Posted on by Roger Pearse

It’s becoming impossible to use Amazon any more. 

Here they’ve decided to use courier companies to send out books, instead of putting them in the post.  Stuff that is sent by post arrives.  If it does not, it’s taken to a local depot and you can pick it up.

Courier companies are set up to deal with companies, where there is someone there all the time.  To cover their own backsides — not for any other reason — they demand signatures.  Normal people do not sit at home all the time.  So you won’t be there when they call.  So they won’t leave the book.  And … they don’t allow you to call them, they don’t have a local depot.  All they give you is a premium-rate phone line with a robot on it, which asks “which working day will you be there all day on?”

So … you don’t get your books, and you get thrown into a problem.  I’ve written to Amazon demanding to cancel the order, and threatening to sue them.  Why should I be the only one to suffer?  I’m going to have to do without that book, that’s for sure!

Meanwhile … can anyone tell me who else I can order books from that will actually send them out?

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m being very good, and I’m not mentioning the Pope’s visit to the UK.  I felt that I’d better say something about the vandalism of Livius.org, but again I don’t want to dwell on it.

One thing that has come to my mind, tho, is the lack of an English language handbook on Islamic literature.  There is Brockelmann’s Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, in multiple volumes.  But where is the English equivalent?  Indeed who has a copy of Brockelmann, even in PDF?  (I wish I did!)

The work of Dryasdust, in compiling such volumes, is one to which we all owe a debt.

I’ve also been revising the Wikipedia article on the Library of Alexandria, to document the Arabic sources on that subject.

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Abd al-Latif’s “Account of Egypt” and the destruction of the library of Alexandria

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I was reminded this evening of the stor about the destruction of the library of Alexandria under Omar.  The conqueror Amr wrote to the Caliph Omar to ask what to do about all the books.  He got back the reply:

As for the books you mention, here is my reply. If their content is in accordance with the book of Allah, we may do without them, for in that case the book of Allah more than suffices. If, on the other hand, they contain matter not in accordance with the book of Allah, there can be no need to preserve them. Proceed, then, and destroy them.

I take this quotation from L. Canfora, The vanished library, corrected Eng. tr., 1990, p.98.

The question for us is whether this statement is to be found in the ancient sources.  Who is the source for this, to start with?

Canfora says (p.109) that Gibbon discusses this passage, and relies on Bar Hebraeus, Specimen Historiae Arabum, given in Latin translation by Edwarde Pococke in 1649.  I did not see a page number, tho.  Is Pococke’s work online?

Hunting around on the web I find a page by James Hannam which says that there are in fact two sources, although unfortunately he does not reference this page.  As well as Bar Hebraeus, he refers to Abd al-Latif, “Account of Egypt”, whom he says describes Alexandria and mentions the ruins of the Serapeum.  The author died in 1231 and thankfully there is a Wikipedia page.

The Arabic manuscript was discovered in 1665 by Edward Pococke the orientalist, and preserved in the Bodleian Library. He then published the Arabic manuscript in the 1680s. His son, Edward Pococke the Younger, translated the work into Latin, though he was only able to publish less than half of his work. Thomas Hunt attempted to publish Pococke’s complete translation in 1746, though his attempt was unsuccessful. Pococke’s complete Latin translation was eventually published by Joseph White of Oxford in 1800. The work was then translated into French, with valuable notes, by Silvestre de Sacy in 1810.

The Wikipedia references are unfortunately to a secondary source.  But my eye fell immediately on the existence of a French translation of the work, by de Sacy, in 1810.  Surely this should be online?  If so, the work might be an interesting one to examine.  A Google search revealed that the title of the work is Relation de l’Egypte par Abd al-Latif, Paris, 1810.  This proved to be on Google books here and here.  So … what does he say?

 P.171 starts book 1, chapter 4, where he looks at the antiquities of Egypt.  After some pages on the pyramids, surely deserving of translation, on p.182 is material about Alexandria.  On p.183 is a statement about the burning of the library.  Here it is, with a little context about what sounds like “Pompey’s pillar.”

I saw at Alexandria the column named Amoud-alsawari [the column of the pillars]. It is of granite, of red stone, which is extremely hard. This column is a surpassing size and height: I had no difficulty in believing it was seventy cubits high; its diameter is five cubits; it is raised on a very large base proportional to its size. On top of this column is a big capital, which could not be so well positioned with such accuracy without a deep knowledge of mechanics and the art of raising great weights, and extreme skill in practical geometry.  A man worthy of trust assured me that he measured the periphery of this column and found it was seventy-five spans of your large measure.

I also saw on the seashore, on the side where it borders the walls of the city, over four hundred columns broken into two or three parts, of which the stone was similar to that used by the column of  the pillars and which seemed to be to it in the proportion of a third or a fourth. All the residents of Alexandria, without exception, assume that the columns were erected around the column of the pillars; but a governor of Alexandria named Karadja, who commanded in this city for Yusuf son of Ayyub (Saladin), saw fit to overthrow these columns, to break them and throw them on the edge of the sea, under the pretext of breaking the force of the waves and thereby protecting the city walls from their violence, or to prevent enemy ships from anchoring against the walls. This was acting like a child, or man who can not distinguish right from wrong.

I also saw, around the column of the pillars, some sizeable remains of these columns, some whole, others broken; it could still be judged by these remains that these columns were covered with a roof which they supported. Above the column of the pillars is a dome supported by this column. I think this building was the portico where Aristotle taught, and after him his disciples; and that this was the academy that Alexander built when he built this city, and where was placed the library which Amr ibn-Alas burned, with the permission of Omar.

The pharos of Alexandria is too well known to need description. Some accurate writers say that it is two hundred and fifty cubits high.

It is interesting to see that de Sacy uses an older form of French, where était is étoit, and -ai- is often -oi-.

UPDATE (2015): The four hundred columns are the colonnade around the enclosure of the Serapeum of Alexandria.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

It seems that there is no PDF online of Harnack’s collection of all the ancient data on Marcion.  This seems extraordinary to me —  the book is certainly out of copyright — but that seems to be it.  If anyone knows where pirate PDF’s of German books may be found, I’d be glad to know.

Meanwhile I shall have to resort to old-fashioned methods.  I have emailed my local library to obtain a loan of a copy by interlibrary loan.  This will cost rather a lot, and involve at least a couple of weeks delay.

I’ve gone back to look at the material at the Houston Stewart Chamberlain site.  I haven’t worked out why it is there, tho.  By the way I am told that the two corresponded, but that, whenever Chamberlain wrote some anti-semitic comment, Harnack just ignored it.  But the list of contents is interesting.

Justin (Ptolemäus), ein kleinasiatischer Presbyter bei Irenäus, Dionysius v. Korinth, Philippus v. Gortyna, Modestus, Melito, Theophilus v. Antiochien, Miltiades, der Montanist Proklus, Hegesipp, Acta Pauli, das Muratorische Fragment, der Antimontanist bei Eusebius 314* (Das römische Symbol 316*). Irenäus 318*. Rhodon 321*. Clemens Alex. 322*. Bardesanes 325*. Celsus 325*.

Tertullian 328*.  Hippolyt 332* (Pseudotert.; Filastr.; Prepon gegen Bardesanes; Röm. Adoptianer; der Gnostiker Justin).  Viktorin v. Pettau 334*.  Cyprian, Saturnin v. Tucca 334*.  Der römische Bischof Stephanus, Novatian, Dionysius Rom. 335*. Porphyrius 336*. Laktanz 337*. Julius Afrikanus 337*. Ambrosius, Freund des Orig. 337*. Origenes 337*. Martyrium Pionii 340*. Firmilian, Methodius, Didascalia Apostolica (Apostolische Konstitutionen) 340*.

Adamantius 344*. Eusebius 348*. Konstantin, der Kaiser 348*. Die Acta Archelai und Mani 349*. Marcell v. Ancyra 350*. Athanasius 350*. Cyrill v. Jerusalem 351*. Didymus der Blinde 352*. Pseudoklementinische Homilien und Recognit. 352*. Brief des Eustathius an Tiberius; Basilius; Gregor v. Nazianz; Glaubensbekenntnis der Kirche von Laodicea Syr. 353*. Amphilochius, Nicetas v. Remesiana 354*. Aphraates und ein unbekannter Syrer 354*. Ephraem Syrus, Bar Bahlûl 356*. Ein anderer unbekannter Syrer 362*. Zenobius und Rabbulas (Joh. v. Ephesus) 362*. Maruta v. Maipherkat 363*. (Die Chronik von Edessa 29*). Isaak v. Niniveh und Philoxenus 364*. Epiphanius 364*. Die kaiserliche Gesetzgebung gegen die Häretiker 366*. Chrysostomus Theophylakt; Nicephorus, Antirrhet.) 368*. Isidor v. Pelusium 369*. Theodor v. Mopsveste 369*. Fünftes Konzil 369*. Theodoret 369*. (Eusebius v. Emesa hier als Bestreiter Marcions genannt). Esnik 372*. Malalas 380*. (Trullanische Synode 380*. Anhang: (1) Artotyriten 381*. (2) Messalianer und Marcianus 382*. (3) Paulicianer (Bogomilen) 382*. Abulfaradsch, Fihrist 384*. Die eigentümlichen Marcionitischen Schriftzeichen 385*. Schahrastani 386*. Abulfaradsch (Barhebräus) 387*.

Lucifer von Calaris 387*: Der gallische Bischof Sabbatius 387*. Optatus 388*. (Der röm. Bischof Zephyrin angeblicher Bestreiter Marcions 388*). Ambrosiaster, Ambrosius, Augustin, Pacian, Aponius, Paulin von Nola, Parmenian, Petilian, Cresconius, Julian v. Eklanum, Jovinian, Priszillian, Prosper, unbekannter Arianischer Prediger, Patricius, Leo I., Sabellianer und Marcioniten 389*—393*. Consultatio Zachaei et Apollonii 392*. Prudentius 392*. Hieronymus 393*. Synode v. Braga 393*. Carmina Pseudotertull. adv. Marc. 394*. Arnobius minor (Praedestinatus; hier auch Pamphilus); Gennadius; der Schreiber eines Cod. Casin.; Patrizius 399*, s. auch Beilage X.

 This displays the annoying habit of abbreviating the names, but otherwise presents few problems.  But what a dossier!

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