Tag: Information access

A bunch of Chrysostom and ps.Chrysostom now online in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Sometime correspondent “Inepti Graeculi” has been working away on some of the untranslated works of Chrysostom, and also some of the mass of literature attributed to him in transmission.

This sort of work is excellent.  Voicu has estimated that there are around 1,500 texts which are spuriously attributed to Chrysostom.  They are, of course, works which lost their original author, but were considered sufficiently interesting to be preserved; which means that they deserve attention now.  These translations should do much to make that happen!

There’s a list of material recently translated by IG at the bottom; but coming soon also is…

Ps.Chrysostom’s In Parabolam Ficu (CPG 4588) – a popular work that argues against the notion that God rejected the Jews (versions found in Syriac, Ethiopic, translated five times into Arabic (!), also in a very important manuscript in Slavonic etc etc.  Wrongly ascribed to Severian of Gabala in the Armenian tradition. Voicu assigns this to an anonymous Cappadocian. The amazing Sever Voicu’s short outline of Chrystostom in the Oriental tradition is quite eye-opening.

I have also nearly finished Chrysostom’s Non Esse Desperandum (CPG 4390) which I very much enjoyed

Here are the recent releases!

Pseudo-Chrysostom

Title CPG Comment Version
In Jordanem Fluvuium 4548 Attributed to Severian of Gabala by Marx (1939) but this was rejected by Altendorf (1957). Calvin should have read this. 0.1 Link
De Cognitione Dei 4703 A short homily in which  the speaker relates that Christ’s advent brought the knowledge of god (θεογνωσία). He then briefly addresses neophytes and invites the audience to pilgrimage to the Jordan. Possibly delivered at Bethlehem on the night before the celebration of Christ’s baptism 0.1 Link

 
Precatio in Obsessos 4710 One of several prayers published by Montfaucon (and reprinted by Migne) as a supplement to the Liturgy ascribed to John Chrysostom. Montfaucon sourced this text from Goar, Rituale Graecorum, Paris, 1647, p. 783. It was not included in Savile’s or Fronto’s Chrysostom edition. This little prayer is still found in the liturgical books of Eastern Orthodox churches. 0.2 Link
In Ingressum sanctorum jejuniorum 4665 On fasting and drunkenness. Ascribed to Proclus (Marx, Le Roy, De Aldama) or an anonymous sophistic rhetor (Musurillo) 0.1 Link
In sanctum Stephanum 2 4691 One of several homilies on the Protomartyr Stephen among the Ps.-Chrysostomica 0.1 Link
Encomium in sanctos martyres 4759 Text: Aubineau (1975) 0.1 Link
Share

And the tide rushes in: now self-service photography arrives at the British Library

Posted on by Roger Pearse

About ten years ago, when digital cameras had appeared, I went down to the British Library and asked if I could use mine to photograph manuscript items.  The female librarian to whom I spoke looked very angry and rudely and indignantly refused.  I remember thinking that the response was more or less as if I had casually asked for the loan of her daughter for the night. 

Not long afterwards mobile phones acquired digital cameras.  But still the hard-faced refusal went on.  I commented, in these pages, on this nonsense.  Only last year I went to examine Ms. BL addit. 12150, but had to resort to verbally describing various paragraphing marks, because I had no means to take a snap of the pages.

But the tide has been with us, and finally sense has prevailed.  Yesterday I learned via a correspondent of an update to the British Library policies, here.

Self-service photography

From 5 January 2015 you will be able to photograph collection items using compact cameras, tablets and mobile phones in the following Reading Rooms:

  • Humanities – floors 1 and 2
  • Newsroom
  • Science – floors 2 and 3
  • Social Sciences

Photographic copies made may be used for personal reference purposes only and must not be used for a commercial purpose. Copyright and data protection laws may still apply.

Some material will be excluded from self-service photography, including items at risk of damage, or further damage. …

In March 2015 we will extend this service to include the following Reading Rooms:

  • Asian & African Studies
  • Business & IP Centre
  • Manuscripts
  • Maps
  • Philatelic
  • Rare Books & Music

It is very good news.  No doubt there will be teething problems, as the staff get used to the idea that snapping is normal.  But it should mean that a lot of material starts to appear online that might otherwise wait for years to appear in someone’s priority queue.

We live in fortunate times.  In the 19th century editors had to pay for collations of manuscripts, and thank the owners of the mss fulsomely for even being allowed to have such a thing.  It seems unthinkable now.  So also the nuisances of very recent times will quickly become historical curiosities.

Share

46 more British Library manuscripts online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The flow of manuscripts continues!  Here’s some highlights from the latest batch at the British Library.

  • Add MS 26112, Georgius Cedrenus, Compendium historiarum (TLG 3018.001), imperfect, starting from vol. 1, 546.3 and ending with 750.22, συγχάρια τῷ βασιλεῖ (from AD 374 to 641). 12th century.
  • Add MS 27862, John of Damascus, Dialectica sive Capita philosophica (TLG 2934.002) and Expositio fidei (TLG 2934.004); Sketches on the Division of Philosophy according to Christ and On the Seven Good Things; Anastasius of Sinai, Viae dux (TLG 2896.001); selections and fragments from other works (theological and geographical). 11th c.
  • Add MS 28821, Mathematarion in Byzantine music notation, containing works by a number of composers such as Manuel Chrysaphes, John Koukouzeles, John Kladas, Xenos Korones, Chionopoulos, John Glykys, Gregorios Mpounes Alyates, Theodoros Manougras and others. 15th-17th century.
  • Add MS 28828, John Zonaras, Epitome historiarum (TLG 3135.001-002), imperfect; George Akropolites, Annales (TLG 3141.002), imperfect; Leo VI the Wise, Oracula. 14th century.
  • Add MS 36634, Gregory of Nazianzus, Orationes, followed by Pseudo-Nonnus (Nonnus the Abbot), Scholia mythologica, imperfect. 10th century, ff 1-9 being added on paper in the 15th century.
  • Add MS 36749, Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistles and Poems; Leo Magister, Poems; Anonymi professoris epistulae; Hierocles, In aureum carmen. 10th century, with some paper additions in Messina (southern Italy) in the 15th century.
  • Add MS 39607, John Chrysostom, In epistulam I ad Corinthios homiliae (TLG 2062.156), imperfect. 12th century.
  • Add MS 58224, Appian, Historia Romana. Eastern Mediterranean (Crete?), c. 1450-1460. Decorative headpiece on f 1r. The text belongs to Mendelssohn’s family i (deteriores). The text breaks off after 11 lines on f 65r, after which 37 unfoliated leaves are left blank, marking the lacuna in the Illyrica first found in Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS 70.5.
  • Burney MS 69, Greek treatises on warfare, with numerous drawings. Includes works by Athenaeus, Biton, Heron, Apollodorus, Philo of Byzantium, Leo VI the Wise, and others. Italy, N. E. (Venice), completed 7 May 1545.
  • Kings MS 17, Scholia on Pindar’s Olympian and Pythian Odes. Italy, N., 4th quarter of the 15th century.
  • Royal MS 16 C XXIII, Philostratus, Heroicus, Imagines, and Vitae Sophistarum. 15th century.
  • Royal MS 16 D II Epistles of Phalaris (TLG 0053.001), with many marginal annotations, imperfect. Italy, N. (Venice), 2nd half of the 15th century. Owned by Isaac Casaubon.

Nice!

Share

Locating images of monuments online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A year or so ago I decided to collect some of the online images of monuments of Mithras, and put them together on my site with some explanatory material.  The reason is that I kept seeing some glorious images; with no idea what they were, or where they might be found.  Of course a complete or professional collection is beyond me, but there is still value is sticking text under commonly found pictures.  It is not always that easy, in truth, to find an image of a monument just by looking.

A little while ago I became aware that a relief of Mithras killing the bull was found by Italian police in Veii during a raid.  It was hidden in a  barn, and was intended to be sold to a Japanese collector for 500,000 euros.  Little information exists in English, but I have a page on the item here.

But what I could not find – and I tried hard – was any pictures of the relief.  All the articles – in Italian – had no images or just a fuzzy one of a barn with some cops hanging around it.

This evening I was making some technical changes to it, and I searched for “Mitra Veio” and drew blank.  Then I searched for “dio mitra veio” (because one of the Italian articles talked about “Dio Mitra”), and clicked on the images tab.  And … there it was!  There were several images; not huge, but quite large enough!  One showed the item upside down in the barn; another after restoration.

So now there is a proper page with the material on, and searchers will be able to find it.

But it is odd, you know?  It’s like one of those fairy stories, where you can’t find something by looking for it.  Instead you must be looking for something else, and it will just come along of its own accord.  Which is why sites that index material are valuable.

Share

No photos allowed inside the National Museum in Damascus

Posted on by Roger Pearse

It seems that the Syrian National Museum in Damascus does not / did not allow photography inside the building.  Not that it got many tourists, thanks to the grim reputation of the Assad regime in the old days, but those who did turn up were prevented from photographing, or rather recording, the contents.

That doesn’t seem like a satisfactory policy now, does it?  If ISIS capture the city, all that material will be gone for good, except for those pieces that they can sell on the art market.

If some people have their way, the art market for Syrian pieces will be shut down, in order to prevent ISIS raising money thereby.  But won’t that merely guarantee 100% destruction rate?  I rather doubt the evidently well-funded and foreign-backed ISIS gunmen will be deterred by the loss of a few art sales, however.

So what was the justification for not recording the museum contents?  To sell a few miserable postcards?  I fear so.

Share

Acts of Andrew and Paul: Does anyone have access to “Orientalia”?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I need an article: can someone help me?  We may get a translation out of it, if we can get hold of the text.

The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation by J. K. Elliott makes mention of some 9th century Coptic Acts of Andrew and Paul, on p.243. The text has been published, with French translation.  Unfortunately the journal is not one I have access to:

X. Jacques, “Les deux fragments conservés des ‘Actes d’André et de Paul'”, in: Orientalia, New Series, volume 38 (1969), pages 187-213.

The Orientalia journal seems to be issued by the Pontifical Bible Institute in Rome: info here.  The 2008 volume seems to be open-access, here and here.  The article is also referenced in Schneemelcher, p.450.

Does anyone have access to this article? If so, can you let me have a copy?  A kind gentleman is willing to translate the Coptic into English, if I can supply him with the text.

UPDATE: The series is ISSN 0030-5367. Apparently the journal exists in the “ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials” product (not the same as the more common “ATLA Religion Database”) – does anyone have access to this?

Share

Some translations by Anthony Alcock from Syriac, Coptic and Arabic

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Anthony Alcock has been busy on a number of texts, creating new translations.  He has kindly sent a number of these to me for upload here, although I think that they are also available on Academia.edu and perhaps on Alin Suciu’s blog also.

In each case he provides a useful introduction.

Here they are (all PDF):

  • Chronicle of Séert I – A rather important Syriac chronicle, written by a Nestorian writer in the 9-11th century.  A detailed study of the text by Philip Wood (Oxford, 2013) is accessible on open access (yes!!!) here.
  • Chronicle of Séert II – Part 2 of the same.
  • Preaching of Andrew – A fresh translation of one of the Christian Arabic apocrypha from Mount Sinai.
  • Sins1 – A Coptic text on the Sins of priests and monks, by ps.Athanasius.  An Arabic version also exists.  This is the first English version, so is very welcome.  The text is interesting because of the interaction with Islam, and may be one of the sources used by the Apocalypse of Samuel of Kalamoun.  However I wasn’t able to locate this text in either the Coptic Encyclopedia or Graf’s GCAL – does anyone know where it is?
  • Sins2 – Part 2 of the same.

It is profoundly useful to have this kind of material available in English and online, and our thanks to Dr Alcock.

UPDATE: Dr Alcock has now provided part 3 of the Chronicle of Seert here:

Share

If you have access to HathiTrust, can you help me with a 1913 article?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m trying to access an article from Italian journal Ausonia, from 1913.  Unfortunately, while many volumes of the journal before and after are accessible at Archive.org, the particular issue I want is not.

The article I want is C. Huelsen, “I lavori archeologici di Giovannantonio Dosio”, in: Ausonia: rivista della Società italiana di archeologia e storia dell’arte, vol. 7 (1913), p.1 ff.

The volume is online here, apparently:

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015039706737

Well, it is if your institution is in the USA, anyway.  But I am overseas and can’t access it.

Can anyone access this?  If so, please use the contact link at right and talk to me.  It seems silly for me to make a library trip for something already freely accessible online.

Many thanks!

UPDATE:  Thank you to the gentleman who sent me a copy of the article, and the other gentleman who made the whole volume available.  I am very grateful!

Share

Is it time to nationalise the academic publishers?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A few tweets this morning were complaining about the inaccessibility of the main reference works for patristics, the Clavis Patrum Latinorum and the Clavis Patrum Graecorum.  These works are essentially lists of works by patristic authors.  Each is assigned a number, and the opening words of the first line are given.  If the text appears in the edition of J.-P. Migne, the reference is given; if not, the manuscript where it may be found.

As may be imagined, it is impossible to work in patristics without access to these volumes.

The complaints were that the volumes – numerous and very expensive – were generally not held by university libraries or, if they were, could not be borrowed.  A respondent slyly suggested that perhaps pirate PDFs were available somewhere; which is one answer.  Another said that Brepols, who publish the volumes, would undoubtedly eventually make them available online.  This drew the retort that access would be through a paywall, and that only tier-1 universities would subscribe for it.

Every word of this is true.  We have academics unable to access the tools of their trade, themselves compiled by other academics, because they are – legally – the property of a Belgian publishing house who have to pay their bills somehow, and do so by charging high fees for access.

What is the answer?

A further tweeter said that she would make sure all her work was open access.  This is laudable.  But it doesn’t solve the problem.

The situation is rather akin to that in place in the British Empire when slavery was abolished.  There were great numbers of slave owners, who had obtained their property quite legally, and were financially invested in it.  But the public interest was to abolish slavery.

The rulers of that day, being honest man and leaders of a great commercial nation, did not do what the lesser men of today might do.  They didn’t pillage their countrymen.  Instead they bought out the rights of the slave-owners.  The community as a whole had decided; and the community as a whole paid to make it happen.  Nobody was robbed.  There was no damage to the right of private property, the basis for all civilised life.

Surely the situation is much the same now.  The academic publishers once served a vital purpose.  That purpose is disappearing.  The absurd copyright laws give them ownership of materials lasting back a century.  The public interest is that this material should be freely accessible online.

The answer, surely, is for western governments to buy out the academic publishers.  The Belgian government needs to buy out Brepols and free the archive.  The terms might be negotiated; but the end is necessary, and it should be pursued.  The same applies to Brill in the Netherlands, and so on.

It might be objected that it is rather hard on the middle classes – the only people who pay tax, and who are currently being fleeced of their savings by low interest rates and money-printing – to add to their burdens.  There is merit to this, and it needs to be considered.

But I do not see how else the problem can be solved.

Free access to learning is a national necessity.  Let our politicians find a way.

Share

Oxyrhynchus Papyri online … or maybe only in the US?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Via AWOL:

Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volumes 1-15 online

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 1 (1898)
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 2 (1899)
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 3 (1903)
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 4 (1904)[Alternative version]
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 5 (1908)
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 6 (1908)
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 7 (1910)
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 8 (1911)
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 9 (1912)
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 10 (1914)
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 11 (1915)
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 12 (1916)
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 13 (1919)
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 14 (1920)
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume 15 (1922)

This is really valuable except … from outside the US, I can’t access vols. 1-5.  Can anyone in the US confirm that these are indeed online in PDF form?

Annoyingly, it looks as if Google Books have now blocked anonymizing proxies and Tor as means to by-pass the block on non-US people.  Probably there is now some other way that is presently unknown to me.  But really … why does anyone benefit from such childish dog-in-the-manger antics?

Share