Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
A commenter has discovered two manuscripts of the Old Slavonic Methodius online! The manuscripts used by Michael Chub, when he edited some of the works, are apparently accessible:
Some good news. I found the scans of two Old Slavic manuscripts used by Archbishop Mikhail.
See http://www.stsl.ru/manuscripts/index.php?col=5&gotomanuscript=040, the first two manuscripts (40 and 41) from the list.
Sadly one can’t download the things as PDF’s — they’d be much easier to look at in that form!
At the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, cataloguer Adam McCollum has written an interesting article on whether scholars publishing newly discovered ancient texts should be obliged to translate them as well. (H/t Paleojudaica)
… the optimum scenario is to have texts and editions. No question: that way, those closely involved with the language and literature and those outside this group can both get some benefit and have opportunity and even incentive to interact with the text. And even for the eventual case of every text edition, an included translation or translations is not too much to wish for. But in our own meantime, are translations always necessary?
… translation is always time-consuming and often hard work …. Now, producing useful editions of texts is also hard work, but not in the same way. In some cases, this latter labor can even come down to reading and transcribing manuscripts, or sometimes even a single manuscript, making perhaps some emendations here and there to correct the text, but doing so all the while having also recorded the manuscripts’ real reading…
Dr McCollum then points out that one motive for printing a translation in the past was sales — that people were reluctant to buy text-only volumes, so it was necessary to include a translation, just to make the book commercially viable. He responds:
Electronic texts, even a PDF that can be both electronic and then physical with the push of a button, are relatively easily and very cheaply made, … they also mean more potential readers, since these resources are discoverable so simply via searching and linking.
Where would be in terms of material for Jacob of Sarug, the Syriac Martyr Acts, etc., had Paul Bedjan (or his publisher) decided that French translations were requisite for the thousands of pages he edited? I fear we would hardly have so many thousands of pages in Syriac edited by him anymore! What about Wright’s editions of the Travels of Ibn Jubayr, the Kāmil of Al-Mubarrad, and the later Syriac translation of Kalila wa-Dimna. What of Paul de Lagarde’s numerous text editions? We would be better off if all of these texts had translations, and indeed some of the texts just mentioned eventually have found their translators, but if the necessity of translation had loomed over the head of Bedjan, Wright, or Lagarde, it is hardly likely that we would have the texts edited by them that we have, and we would thus have much less within reach so much literature. …
The question for now is simply that of the title above: should scholars be required, by their own or external compulsion, in every case to produce a translation alongside any newly edited or re-edited text? My own answer, as will be obvious by now, is “no”, but I think discussion of the question may prove fruitful for the fields concerned.
These are interesting points, well made.
I think the key point being made is fairly simple. Translating whole texts is hard and time-consuming. It is considerably simpler and quicker simply to transcribe the manuscript, adjusting for some of the more obvious typos along the way. If you have a lot of unedited material, and you have limited time and resources, then you can put out a lot more stuff if you do the latter, than if you do the former. You’ll be able to make accessible to scholars a load of stuff that they could not otherwise access. On the other hand, few people will ever be able to read the stuff you publish.
Dr McCollum’s point is obviously that of a man with a pile of manuscripts in front of him, wondering what to do with them, in any reasonable period of time. What should he do?
Certainly publication is the most important thing. For instance there are two scholars sitting on a Greek mathematical papyrus, which they can’t be bothered to publish, and which they alone have access to. Doubtless the reason why they don’t publish the text is that they want to do a “commentary” and thereby enhance their own reputations. Such behaviour is by no means novel in the world of papyrology, and is utterly poisonous.
But on the other hand, texts that are edited without translation are really only half available. They can sit there on library shelves, untranslated, hardly used, for centuries.
It’s all a question of time and resources.
If a scholar is sitting in his ivory tower, editing one text, then I expect him to supply a translation. Any scholar who has the time to produce a text and commentary but doesn’t include a translation is being a jerk.
Likewise an enterprise with several hundred scholars and translators should certainly include translations. Migne managed it, after all.
But if it’s a lone scholar (or two) editing masses of stuff, I think we can cut him some slack. Don’t worry about the translation. The priority is to get the stuff out there in multiple copies — yes, definitely on the web, where automated translation tools make using it easier all the time — and worry about the translation later. The burning by the mob of the Institut de l’Egypte in Cairo this week is a reminder that no text is safe sitting in an archive. If Addai Scher had remembered this, when he discovered Theodore of Mopsuestia’s De incarnatione in a complete Syriac version in the hills of northern Persia in 1905, and had published a transcription, we would today be able to study that interesting text. Instead it perished in the sack of his residence by Turkish troops in 1915.
Go to it, Adam.
A correspondent writes with an interesting query about a novel book cradle for copying manuscripts.
Most used are the copy stands, and I found an Austrian system called “Traveller’s copy stand”.
But last year I saw in Athos someone using a portable device with 2 glass windows and a system allowing the camera to change position for taking pictures of both pages of an opened manuscript.
Do you happen to know the name of this device? I would like to get more info on it, but I don’t know what to look for.
Copying manuscripts is the very devil to do. You can’t open the thing flat, so it ends up in a book rest open at 45 degrees. You want the camera facing each page at 90 degrees. So you have to take one side of the book, turning the pages; and then flip the book around and do the other side. It’s a faff.
I think the “Austrian travellers’ copy stand” is mentioned here. A description at a vendor site is here. I wonder what it costs?
But does anyone recognise the description above? If so, info very welcome!
UPDATE: From the comments, it seems to be the Ion Book Saver. I want one!
UPDATE: There’s a very poor demo of it on YouTube here, but it gives an idea. It also states that UK price will be 129 GBP. A comment on the video says release was postponed to December 2011.
This evening I sat down with the text of Michael Chub’s preface to his edition of a selection of the works of Methodius.[1]. I took the output from Google Translate, and went through it, smoothing and amending.
I got a very long way! It’s about 3,400 words, and nearly all of it fell into English quite neatly. But not all. If you know Russian, some thoughts in the comments on the following would be useful.
My first stop was:
The literary activity of St. Methodius, as can be seen, coincides with the end of the donikeyskogo period of development of theological thought, and, to some extent, can be regarded as a peculiar result of this development.
The period in question is that before the Edict of Milan in 313; but as I wrote this, it came to me that this meant “ante-Nicene”.
So far so good; but bluff and a machine translator will only take you so far. Now it gets hard.
Молитва св. Мефодия, известная только в славянском тексте, вне всякого сомнения, ^ принадлежит к числу наиболее ранних христианских молитв. Употребленные в ней формулировки и выражения чрезвычайно характерны для суждения о догматическом словоупотреблении доникейской эпохи. Заслуживает особого внимания то место молитвы, где говорится о победе над смертью, совершенной страданиями и умерщвлением Бесстрастного и Бессмертного. Здесь встречаются и скрещиваются слоза и мысли, знакомые уже древнейшей христианской Церкви (сравн. Игнатий Богоносец, „Послание к Поликарпу”, 3, 2; Григорий Неокесарийский, „Послание к Феопомпу”, 7, 8, ІО) и прочно вошедшие в молитвенный обиход последующих веков (сравн., напр., в „Последовании на сон грядущим” в современных молитвословах Молитва вторая). Вся молитва имеет большое значение для суждения о прочности и устойчивости церковных традиций и, в частности, о способах сохранения и передачи этих традиций.
The prayer of St. Methodius, known only from the Slavonic text, no doubt, belongs among the earliest Christian prayers. Its formulation and expression are extremely characteristic for evaluating the dogmatic discourse of the ante-Nicene era. Deserving of special attention is a passage in the prayer, which says the victory over death, suffering and killing of a perfect passionless and Immortal. Here you can meet and interbreed sloza and thought, already familiar to the ancient Christian Church (cf. Ignatius, “Epistle to Polycarp,” 3:2, Gregory of Neocaesarea, “Message to Theopompus”, 7, 8, 10) and entered the everyday life of prayer of later ages (compare, for example, in the “Succession before sleep” in the modern prayer book, Prayer Two). The whole prayer is important for judging the strength and stability of church traditions and, in particular, on how to preserve and pass on these traditions.
I’ve often wanted to interbreed sloza and thought, of course. Whatever sloza is. Nor did the previous sentence make sense to me either.
При чтении трактата „О прокаженин” следует помнить, что по замыслу автора это диалог.
9) When reading the treatise “On prokazhenin” should be remembered that the author’s idea is a dialogue.
Mine too, as it happens!
Ссылки на Свящ. Писание после цитат не принадлежат св. Мефодию. Они вставлены в текст перевода для удобства чтения, причем прямые цитаты снабжены ссылками в круглых ( ) скобках, а непрямые цитаты и реминисценции — в квадратных скобках [ ].
Quotation marks from Holy Scripture are not by St. Methodius. They have been inserted into the translation for readability, and direct quotations are provided with round brackets, and indirect quotations and reminiscences – in square brackets [].
I’m pretty sure I’m confused here. Does the text really put scripture in brackets? Or in quotes?
По связи речи следует здесь же отметить, что проф. Н. Г. Бонвеч совсем не затрагивает тему о наличии аграфов в творениях св. Мефодия.
Speech Communication should also be noted here that Prof. N. G. Bonwetsch does not affect the subject of the presence of agrapha in the works of St. Methodius.
Any ideas?
The final chunk is rather serious: it’s the list of manuscripts and libraries of the Old Slavonic text. Not that I can’t get a general idea: but specifically it’s not great.
Основной рукописью для работы над текстом названных творений явился „Сборник” XVI века, хранящийся в Ленинграде в Государственной Публичной Библиотеке имени Салтыкова-Щедрина (Q I 265).
Текст основной рукописи сличен с текстом следующих рукописей;
- Рукопись Библиотеки Академии Наук Союза ССР 16. 16. 2 (XVII в.).
- Рукопись Библиотеки им. Ленина из собрания Московской духовной академии №41, ранее находившаяся в Троице-Сергиевой Лавре (нач. XVII в.).
- Рукопись Государственного Исторического Музея из Синодального собрания №170 (XVI в.).
- Рукопись Библиотеки им. Ленина из собрания Моск. дух. академии № 40, написанная для Арсения Суханова (XVII в.).
- Рукопись Библиотеки им. Ленина из собрания Общества Истории и Древностей Российских № 137 (XVII в.).
Кроме указанных выше рукописей, были привлечены следующие;
- Рукопись Госуд. Исторического Музея из Уваровского собрания № 115 (XVI в.).
- Рукопись Госуд. Истор. Музея из собрания Чудовского монастыря № 233 (XVI — XVII в).
- Рукопись Госуд. Истор. Музея из собрания Чудовского монастыря № 205 (XVII в.).
- Рукопись Госуд. Истор. Музея из собрания Единоверческого монастыря № 12 (XVII в.).
- Рукопись Госуд. Истор. Музея из собрания Барсова № 264 (подделка — довольно искусная — под XVI век, воспроизводящая, по-видимому, слово в слово текст старинной рукописи, послужившей образцом для настоящей).
OK. This comes out as something like this:
The main manuscript for the text of these works is the Sbornik 11 of the XVI century, kept in the Leningrad State Public Library in the Saltykov-Shchedrin (QI 265) 10.
The main text was produced by collating the following manuscripts;
1) Manuscript Library of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR 16. 16. 2 (XVII century).
2) Lenin Manuscript Library, from the Collection of the Moscow Theological Academy, number 41, previously found in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra (the beginning of the XVII century.).
3) The manuscript of the State Historical Museum of the Synodal Assembly number 170 (XVI century).
4) Lenin Manuscript Library, from the collection of the Spiritual Academy of Moscow number 40, written for Arsenius Sukhanov (XVII century).
5) Lenin Manuscript Library, from the meeting of the Society of History and Russian Antiquities number 137 (XVII century).In addition to these manuscripts, the following were involved;
6) The manuscript gov’t. Historical Museum of Uvarov meeting ? 115 (XVI century).
7) The manuscript gov’t. History. The Museum from the collection of the monastery Chudovsky No 233 (XVI – XVII c).
8 ) The manuscript gov’t. History. The Museum from the collection of the monastery Chudovsky No 205 (XVII century).
9) The manuscript gov’t. History. The Museum from the collection of ? 12 Edinoverie monastery (XVII century).
10) The manuscript gov’t. History. The Museum from the collection of Autograph No 264 (a forgery – a rather ingenious one – from the XVI century, reproducing, apparently, word for word the text of an ancient manuscript that served as a model for this).
Could anyone with Russian skills help here? We need to get a reliable list of manuscripts, if we’re going to put it online, as some poor soul may one day make his travel plans by this!
But that’s it. Otherwise the 3,400 words is pretty much done.
Few of us know much about the technical treatises of antiquity. My last post, on Hero of Alexandria, inevitably mentioned his two works of this kind. When I went to look at the volume in which a translation exists,[1] I was drawn into the question of how these works reach us.
As long ago as 1867, Wescher addressed this question, and, since his work is online, we can inform ourselves what he thought.[2] The following notes are taken from Marsden’s volume, however.
The collection of works in Greek consists of Biton’s Construction of War Machines and Artillery; Hero’s Belopoeica and Cheiroballistra, and Philon’s Belopoeica.
Our knowledge of this collection depends in the main on four manuscripts. All contain Biton and Hero, but only P and V contain Philon.
There is also information to be had in the following:
There are other and more recent manuscripts, but all of them are copies or descendants of these eight.
It seems that a single uncial manuscript of Biton and Hero survived into the 9th century, when two copies were made from it. One of these, M, survives, and contains traces of the Ionian dialect in Biton and Athenaeus Mechanicus. The other is lost, but was the ancestor of F. However at some point the dialect in this family was normalised.
Some time later, someone in the Byzantine world decided to create a collection of seige and tactical works. This collection used the second family as a source; added three works of Philon, the Belopoeica, Parasceuastica, and Poliorcetica; and also added tactical works from a third source, creating a compendium of works. P and V are copies of this collection.
In the process of compilation, however, the compiler managed to lose some of the diagrams. Spaces are left in the text for three diagrams in Biton, which do appear in M, and one of them in F (the portions of the text where the others would be is not preserved in F). There are likewise spaces in the text of Philon, where illustrations should be, which the compilation did not preserve.
The Stavros Niarchos foundation continue to fund the digitisation of Greek manuscripts at the British Library, who in consequence are still shovelling them online. Thank you both, gentlemen: this is good news. Long may it continue!
A new tranche of 75 was released today, bringing the total to 500. Fortunately the library staff have started to give a summary of the contents of each manuscript, which can be found at the bottom of the post.
So, what goodies are there for patristic and classically minded people in this release?
Useful to be able to see what the manuscript contains, tho.
I wonder if there are online English translations of these two works? Greek scientific literature is shamefully neglected.
(How I wish it was possible to link to what I want to display, at the resolution I want, and to embed the precise view that I want, rather than having to screen-grab bits like this? Surely it should be possible to pass a few parameters to the display engine?)
The sigla are in red in the margin. The top one is “xru” — probably Chrysostom. The lower one is “athana” — probably Athanasius. I wonder what the bit above the name is, in each case? What we need now, of course, is a list of authors and folio numbers for each. That would be quite a task, tho!
It would not be right to ignore two mss. containing work by Manuel Chrysoloras, such as Harley 6505. Chrysoloras is the father of all modern Greek studies. He was a Byzantine diplomat who was persuaded to come and teach in Florence at the very end of the 14th century, and who proved capable of reducing the myriad complexities of Byzantine grammars down to something that could be comprehended for the first time by a non-native speaker. Before it, fol. 1v has with an alphabet, and a few marginal signs at the bottom. Ever wondered how we know that a sign indicates “obelise”? —
Of course I am just scratching the surface here. Go and explore!
Many will remember the BBC series I, Claudius, which was based on Robert Graves novel of the same name. The series drew heavily on his translation of the Vita Caesarum of Suetonius Tranquillus. This was composed under Hadrian in the early 2nd century and published in 120 AD.
Suetonius covered the lives of twelve Caesars, from Julius Caesar down to the murder of Domitian in 93 AD. His gossipy, colourful work, has always been popular.
Few perhaps are aware that it has reached us only in an incomplete form. The opening pages of the work are missing in all the handwritten copies that we now have. It seems that only a single copy from ancient times, now lost, made it into the 9th century — not an unusual pattern for a classical text — but that this copy had lost the opening quaternion. This means that we do not have the prologue, nor the opening for the Life of Julius Caesar.
I learn from L. D. Roberts’ excellent work on the transmission of Latin literature[1] that as late as the sixth century, John the Lydian had seen a copy which was complete, and included a prologue with a dedication to Septicius Clarus. This interesting statement is referenced to p.ix-x of the 1858 edition of K. Roth, which is described as the standard critical edition. I thought it would be interesting to look and see precisely what is said.
Fortunately the Roth edition is easily accessible on Google books. Here is p.ix, where the facts are laid out in the rather less than straightforward form popular with certain editions of the period.
On p.286 is the text of the extract from John the Lydian concerning the prologue:
Τράγκυλλος τοὺς τῶν Καισάρων βίους ἐν γράμμασιν ἀποτίνων Σεπτικιῳ, ὃς ἦν ὕπαρχος τῶν πραιτωριανῶν σπειρῶν ἐκ̕ αὐτοῦ, πραίφεκτον αὐτὸν τῶν πραιτωριανων ταγμάτων καὶ φαλάγγων ἡγεμόνα τυγχάνειν ἐδήλωσεν.
This is apparently from On the Roman magistrates, 2. 6, and may be found on p.171 of the Bonn edition. It tells us that “Tragkullos” — i.e. Tranquillus — in the “letter” or prologue dedicated the lives of the Caesars to Septicius, who was prefect of the Praetorian cohort. (I can’t quite make sense of the titles given above). I think it is a reasonable inference from this statement that John had seen a copy with such a preface.
From the BL manuscripts blog I learn that a further 74 Greek manuscripts have been added to their online site. The site uses proprietary technology to ensure that users can’t download images — perish the thought! — but is still better than nothing.
The blog post gives a list of manuscripts. Previous lists just gave the shelfmark, but this time, thankfully, they have indicated the contents.
There’s quite a chunk of useful material here. A few highlights:
I admit to rubbing my eyes a bit when it came to Harley 5593 — Philip of Side? Investigation gives a bit more:
Regular readers will remember that I commissioned a translation of all the fragments of Philip of Side, which is here. I wonder, therefore, what this is? I’ve asked Andrew Eastbourne to take a look, and we’ll see.
In other news, I have emailed a Dutch academic to ask about people who might be willing to translate some Old Slavonic for us all. I am, of course, thinking about the works of Methodius!
A very useful post at the British Library manuscripts blog today gives an image of the medieval catalogue of the books owned by the Abbey of St. Andrew at Rochester. The page is from Ms. Royal 5 B XII, and is doubtless one that was stolen by the crown when the abbeys were closed down at the Reformation.
Via Apocryphicity I learn that a multi-spectral imaging scanner is due to hit the market which should be affordable by everyone. Oxford University have developed it, and gone into partnership with a Chinese company to exploit. Tony Burke’s explanation is to the point:
Oxford University has developed a portable multi-spectral scanner that is inexpensive enough to be purchased by both institutions and individuals. I don’t know what the exact cost is, or whether it is available for purchase yet, but Dr. Obbink said it was in the price range “of a high-end laptop computer.” See HERE for their info page.
There is a picture of the unit at the OU site.
Let us hope that greed does not price this unit out of the range of normal people, for this could be the greatest innovation in manuscript studies for many years.
These catalogues of medieval libraries are often very imperfectly published, and there is nothing like seeing the actual page! The Rochester page (f.2r) in fact lists the books owned by the abbey, starting with works by Augustine; then by Gregory the Great; then by Ambrose of Milan; then Jerome / Hieronymus; then the Venerable Bede; and then miscellaneous other books, including a lectionary, a passionary, a homiliary, some saints’ Lives, decretals, and others which I can’t make out.
But what we all want to see, of course, are the complete mss. online.