Tag: Information access

Stephanos of Alexandria steps out of the shadows

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In the early 600’s Stephanos of Alexandria was a philosopher interested in alchemy.  His extant works consist of nine orations on alchemy, the last delivered in the presence of the emperor Heraclius.

Three of these were translated into English and published before WW2 in Ambix, the alchemy journal, by Sherwood Taylor.  As I have mentioned before, I discovered a draft of the fourth oration among Taylor’s papers in Oxford a couple of years ago. 

Last year I suggested to the modern editors of Ambix that it might form a nice part of their 75th anniversary issue to publish the material.  They agreed but not a lot happened.

Over the weekend I had an email from Dr Jenny Rampling, who has taken responsibility for this.  She’s in Athens, “cataloguing Hellenistic alchemical manuscripts” — which I suspect means medieval mss. of Hellenistic texts, but is still exciting stuff!  Apparently she’s working with a Greek researcher. 

She tells me that investigation reveals the draft would need revision before it could be published, but the idea is for her co-worker to do that, and that it will indeed appear in Ambix.  She asked my opinion, so I’ve written a letter of suggestions, although how welcome they will be I don’t know — never ask for opinions unless you want to get them!

I’ve also suggested she talk to the CSNTM people.  After all, people in Athens cataloguing mss ought to have some common interests.

So … some progress.  Ancient texts by alchemists are still ancient texts, and ought to be accessible.  Currently they are not.

UPDATE (July 3rd).  No reply or acknowledgement from Jenny Rampling.  Hum.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Cambridge University Library is going to put Codex Bezae online, or so I read in a Daily Telegraph story.   Better still, they’re preparing to put all their books online, and make them freely available.  That’s what we want to hear.

Anne Jarvis, the university Librarian, said that the exciting new plans would open up priceless collections to students worldwide.

She said: “Our library contains evidence of some of the greatest ideas and discoveries over two millennia.

“We want to make it accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world with an internet connection and a thirst for knowledge.

Good for them!  Codex Bezae will be in the first tranche, as — at little pointlessly — will be a Gutenberg bible. 

I hope they attract lots of funding.  This will be the first UK library to take mass free access seriously, and if they do it, will probably guarantee the existence of the library into the digital age.

Dan Wallace and the chaps at CSNTM who photograph manuscripts of the bible were in Cambridge trying to negotiate access.  I suspect their efforts — seemingly fruitless at the time — probably helped change minds and create expectations at CUL.

I’m increasingly impressed with what Anne Jarvis is doing.  I’ve just discovered that even people like me — readers not part of the university — can use the library Wifi network if we get a ‘Lapwing ticket’, valid for a limited period.  It doesn’t look as if they charge, either, which is as it should be.  Lack of access to electronic resources is a real pain for the occasional visitor, and they have addressed it.

I have also received my copy of Croke and Harries, Religious conflict in fourth century Rome, and started to read it.  Lots of excellent texts in translation. 

But it’s much too sunny today to be sat in doors, so I went off to Norwich today instead.

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Sympathy for Hercules

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An Augean day today.  I’ve received an A4 envelope containing a print-off of the translation of the 18 Coptic fragments of Eusebius Gospel Problems and Solutions (Quaestiones ad Stephanum et Marinum) with pencil revisions in the margin, plus revisions of the Coptic transcription, plus notes on the translation of De Lagarde’s Latin preface.  Also an electronic file containing a new version of the translation.  All this has to be merged together, which would anyway be arduous and is hampered by a somewhat disorganised presentation.

De Lagarde benefited from the generosity of the then owner of the Coptic manuscript.  The latter was rather more generous than the British Library of our own day with its talk of copyrights on PDFs which has prevented me seeing it.

Now, since Robert Curzon, with that mindset whereby the British nobles are ever ready to help in every fine endeavour, had promised on 1 May 1866 (after I wrote to him from Schleusingen) to grant me free access to the very valuable books he had collected, in the year 1874 I asked Robert, Lord Zouche, the son of that most magnanimous man, who had meanwhile been summoned to heaven, to honour his father’s promise (I was intending to edit the Egyptian Psalter). 

He very kindly, with truly unheard-of benevolence, entrusted to my piety and learning both the most ancient fragments of the Egyptian Psalms and the codex of which I have just been speaking, sending them to Göttingen. 

This favour was all the more gratifying, the more certain it was that neither in my own Germany were such treasures possessed—for I was born after the riches of the globe had been distributed—nor in the whole of Europe was there to be found, apart from myself, a man who had both studied theology and had acquired some acquaintance with the Egyptian language, and was willing to expend toilsome and thankless effort—and to suffer a large enough financial loss—on the task of editing this catena.

Faced with such generosity, one might hope that De Lagarde would behave similarly.  Alas, at the end of the preface we read:

All those who wish to do so may use my volume, but only with the proviso that without my permission it is not permitted to reproduce what I have edited, nor to include it in the margin of an edition of either the Egyptian New Testament or of the Fathers.

I thank Robert, Lord Zouche, to the highest extent of my abilities for sending the manuscript to me in Göttingen to use.

De Lagarde’s failure to provide a translation was a more certain guarantee that his work would remain unused than this early claim of copyright.  It was successful; the catena remains unknown and unused by scholars.

Let us mourn the passing of the aristocratic spirit, in these days of small minded officialdom, and honour the shade of Robert, Lord Zouche.

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The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I mentioned some time back that I came across the works of the philosopher Stephanos of Alexandria.  In particular I discovered that he delivered nine discourses on alchemy, the last before the emperor Heraclius in the early 7th century.

Three of these discourses were translated into English before WW2 by a chap called Sherwood Taylor, who published them in Ambix, the journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry.  I suspected that more might exist in manuscript, so I located Taylor’s papers, and found a fourth discourse in draft among them.  This I sent to Peter Morris, editor of Ambix, with the suggestion that it might make a nice anniversary item.  He agreed but deputised it to someone called Jenny Rampling.  This was October 2009, since when I heard nothing.  I thought I’d prompt him, so emailed again this evening.

But this all prompted me to go and look at their website.  And … it’s like a glance into the 1980’s.  Every activity seems to be offline.  They look so much like a small band of people, with a very restricted interest, as fan groups  tend to be.  So every such group had to be, before 1995.  It’s not clear that they have moved on that much, tho.  The website is good, but everything points people offline.  They’ve digitised all the back-issues of Ambix — good, although probably not that hard to do — but made sure no-one can see them unless they pay.

I hope they start to reach out.  While I am not very interested in the history of chemistry, it is a pity that the ancient texts embedded in Ambix are not accessible more widely.

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Theodore of Mopsuestia on Genesis

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have started another little project and written to someone to translate a bit of Syriac into English.  It’s fragments of Theodore of Mopsuestia on Genesis.  I found a PDF of Sachau’s 1869 edition, and uploaded it here.

The Latin translation starts on p.14 of that PDF; the Syriac text on p.94 of the PDF file.  There may be some Greek fragments extant of this work also; not sure how these relate to the Syriac.  The remains cover most of the first three chapters of Genesis.

I think it’s about 4,000 words (based on 7.8 words / line, 25 lines / page, so 200 words per page, 21 pages, two of them half pages) in length.  I’d be prepared to pay 10c a word for a translation (no transcription this time), say $400.

It will be interesting to see if it flies.  I’d give this one away as well, I think.

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Berthelot’s Greek Alchemical Texts

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I never knew that a collection of Greek alchemical texts existed with French translation in four volumes, but it does: Edition: M. Berthelot/Ch. Em. Ruelle, Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs , Paris 1887-1888.  Better still, much of it is online.

  • Volume 1 (Archive.org)
  • Volume 2-3 (Archive.org).  Vol. 2 is Zosimos; p.244 of the PDF is the start of vol. 3, old authors and technical texts and commentators.
  • Volume 3-4 (Google books).  Volume 4 seems to be indexes.

The packaging of these volumes in PDF’s is unfortunate.  Nor do I see various texts of the Byzantine period, such as Stephanos of Alexandria.  But … still worth knowing about.

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Burning past the libraries

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Today I drove up past Cambridge on some domestic business.  Being in the area, I wondered whether to pop in to Cambridge University library.  I didn’t, tho.  I didn’t feel the need. 

Last night I downloaded 10 volumes of Angelo Mai’s 1825 extravaganza, Scriptorum Veterum Collectio Nova, in which he published the finds he made in the Vatican library at the time.  Each was about 1,000 pages.

Volume 1 includes the first publication of several works by Eusebius, including the Quaestiones ad Stephanum / Marinum.  About 3 years back I went to Cambridge, and bought photocopies of those pages from that volume.  They charged me 25c per page — not cheap but by no means exorbitant in the crazy world of academic libraries.  I probably got 100 pages, and paid $25 for them; and was very glad to get them, and to be allowed to get a photocopy.  I had to wait a week for them to be done.

And now?  I hardly care about those books, because I can get the whole 1,000 pages from Google Books for nothing.  It hardly matters what CUL charge for photocopies of those books now; no-one will pay it.  How long before they realise that storing the physical books is a waste of time?

It has become acceptable among IT journalists to sneer at Google.  But let us not forget the many wonderful things we owe to the owners of that company, and their vision, and the free access to vast amounts of information and services.  Those living in unfree countries are robbed at every turn by petty officialdom, under the guise of laws and regulations, which must be obeyed, and hoops must be jumped through and fees paid — ahhhh, fees! — and in the process nothing happens and everyone is impoverished.  For even the most enthusiastic will be ground down when he has to ask permission of the lazy and indifferent to do anything.

Google has changed the world, and changed it markedly for the better.  I for one am grateful.

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Mai’s Scriptorum veterum nova collectio e Vaticanibus codicibus – online!

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have just discovered the volumes of Angelo Mai’s massive collection of materials here, all derived from google I think.

I can find some of them directly.  Not sure where the rest are.  Here’s the list (updated – thanks Dioscorus / Walter):

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Polychronius, Porphyry and Daniel

Posted on by Roger Pearse

One of the 5th century commentators on scripture was Polychronius, brother of Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 430 AD).  He belonged to the Antioch school of biblical interpretation, who took a fairly literal approach to scripture.  His works are lost.   But the interpreters of that school were used extensively by the compilers of catena-commentaries from the 6th century onwards, and Polychronius was among them.  The result is that the Patrologia Graeca contains hundreds of pages of fragments culled from these catenas.

It’s fairly obvious why someone compiling a commentary on scripture from the Fathers would tend to prefer Antioch to Alexandria, literal to allegorical.  An allegorical interpretation might be interesting, but as a comment on a passage is much less useful than someone who is dealing directly with what the passage says.

Polychronius is interesting because he was one of the few Fathers to agree with Porphyry — “the impious Porphyry” as he is universally referred to — on the subject of the date of portions of Daniel.  These he considered were additions made in the Hellenistic period, in the times of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.  The latter monarch led the attack on Judaism and is the subject of the books of Maccabees.  The portions are Bel and the Dragon, Susannah, and the Song of the Three Children.  In Daubney’s Three additions to Daniel I read:

Polychronius, Theodore of Mopsuestia’s brother, refused to comment on this piece because it was not part of the original Daniel, nor in the Syriac, ο  κεταιν  τος  βραϊκος    ντος  Συριακος βιβλίοις.

I’ve had a proposal to translate the fragments on Daniel, amounting to some 50 columns of Migne.  This is quite a bit, and would cost quite a bit too!  I’ve queried whether perhaps we might cherry-pick some of the best bits, solely from a cost-saving point of view.  But it’s not an impossible sum.

The fragments of Daniel were published by Mai in Volume 1 of Scriptorum Veterum Collectio Nova, in part 2, p.105.  They start on p.556 of the Google Books PDF.

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Sixth century writers of whom I know nothing

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A correspondant wrote to me about some writers of the sixth century whom it might be interesting to have online and in English.  Unfortunately he is clearly more erudite than I, because I don’t recognise most of the names!

I was thinking of Anastasius of Antioch who influenced both his time and later debates and also Maximus the Confessor. His sermon “on his return” delivered when he was returned to his patriarchal see (published by Mai) deserves a translation. His other homilies too, actually all what he wrote deserve better concern and translations.

Next to him is Gregory of Antioch, his follower and successor. He left few homilies, those published are in Migne. One very respected scholar told me that these homilies so neglected are a witness for liturgy between the early Armenian and later Georgian texts about the liturgy of Jerusalem and linked of course Antioch to Jerusalem. He was a friend of Pope Gregory the great and was an important figure.

I thought also about Antipater of Bostra (5th century) whom, it seems, only two homilies are genuine. These are so important and have never been translated before (I guess in Italian translation of the syriac text is published by Vona).

There are others too, like a certain Timothy…Chrysippus…

It’s always interesting to look into a fresh area of patristics.  None of these people are known to me.  What can I find out online?

Antipater of Bostra appears in Patrologia Graeca vol. 85, cols. 1763-96; Gregory of Antioch appears in PG. 88; Anastasius of Antioch in PG 89.

Antipater of Bostra was one of the anti-Origenists of the 5th century, at the time of the council of Chalcedon, and is important enough to have a Catholic Encyclopedia article and a Wikipedia entry.  The former tells us that fragments remain of his highly-regarded refutation of the Apology for Origen of the Holy Martyr Pamphilus and Eusebius of Caesarea (CPG 6687), in the Acts of the Seventh Council (787).  This is on cols. 1791-3 of the PG.  The Saint Pachomius webpage for him lists his works; a sermon on John the Baptist and another on the Annunciation, plus four columns of fragments including a fragment against Apollinaris.  The fragments look interesting, the sermons not very.  There is also a BBKL article in German.  Apparently Antipater wrote: “Hail, you who acceptably intercede as a Mediatrix for mankind.” (In S. Joannem Bapt., PG, 1772C), which will not endear him to most of us.  There are entries in the CPG for his works from 6680 to 6698, including an unpublished Greek Homily on Epiphany (CPG 6685).  His sermon on the annunciation exists in both Greek and Syriac.  An Italian edition and translation of the two sermons above exists, I learn from here: C. Vona, L’orazione di Antipatro sulla nascita del Battista e l’orazione sull’Annunciazione, Rome, 1974.  The details of Vona’s publication may not be quite reliable, tho; there seem to be two books, not just one.

An extract from the anti-Origen work is  here:

Antipater, Bishop of Bostra, in his First Book against Eusebius of Cæsarea’s Apology for Origen.

“Since now this man was very learned, having searched out and traced back all the books and writings of the more ancient writers, and having set forth the opinions of almost all of them, and having left behind very many writings, some of which are worthy of all acceptation, making use of such an estimation as this of the man, they attempt to lead away some, saying, that Eusebius would not have chosen to take this view, unless he had accurately ascertained that all the opinions of the ancients required it. I, indeed, agree and admit that the man was very learned, and that not anything of the more ancient writings escaped his knowledge; for, taking advantage of the imperial co-operation, he was enabled easily to collect for his use material from whatever quarter.”

Gregory of Antioch is hardly referred to online.  What about Anastasius of Antioch?  When I search I find this:

” It is clear,” he says, ” that those things which the divine Scripture has passed over are not to be inquired into; for all things which tend to our profit the Holy Spirit has dispensed and administered to us.” 2

2. Quod quae silentio praeteriit Scripture divina non sint scrutanda, est perspicuum. Omnia enim quae faciunt ad nostram utilitatem dispensavit et administravit Spiritus Sanctus. Anastas. Antioch. Anag. Contempt. in Hexam. lib. viii. init. (Bibl. Patr. ed. Col. 1618, et seq. Tom. vi. P. 1. p. 666.)

From which I learn he wrote something about the Six Days of Creation or Hexameron.  He is Anastasius III of Antioch, but he doesn’t have a Wikipedia article.  A portion of one of his works is here, Oratio 4:1-2, taken from PG 89, 1347-49.  Beyond that, he seems no better off than Gregory.

I shall see what the “extra” volume of Quasten has to say about these people!

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