The second book in Ancient Texts in Translation is now available. This is a translation of all that Origen wrote on Ezekiel, together with the original text. The work was translated by Mischa Hooker, who has gamely worked away at this for five years. The results are really quite satisfactory.
I’m not sure that I actually announced this when it was released, so here’s an overview.
Origen wrote three works in which he commented on Ezekiel. He wrote sermons, composed a commentary (almost entirely lost) and also scholia.
The series of fourteen expository sermons is lost in the original Greek, but the content is preserved in a Latin translation. The most recent critical text, and a new English translation, are printed here.
Following these is a long section containing the fragments of his work in Greek. This comprises the fragments of the original Greek of the sermons, together with the remains of the scholia and the single remaining fragment of the commentary. The fragments are ordered by the chapter and verse of the bible to which they relate.
The fragments are all derived from medieval Greek bible commentaries, known as catenae. These consist of “chains” of quotations from earlier authors. The text as printed by Charles Delarue is used, together with other fragments given by W. Baehrens. As an appendix a series of fragments from the Onomasticon Marchalianum are given.
The volume has been produced in order to make the translation more readily available. The original language text is reprinted from the best available critical edition and appears on facing pages.
Somewhat annoyingly, while the project was in-flight, a rival translation appeared in the ACW series, by Thomas Scheck (who has done sterling work on the homilies of Origen). But that is now some years ago, and his volume only contains the homilies and not the vast array of fragmentary material.
The book is available in hardback and paperback at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. Here’s the links:
Hardback (ISBN 978-0956654021): $80 (Amazon.com), £50 (Amazon.co.uk)
Paperback (ISBN 978-0956654038): $45 (Amazon.com), £30 (Amazon.co.uk)
I – or rather Chieftain Publishing – can also accept purchase orders from institutions.
It is actually selling reasonably well. I’d be grateful for your support, as it did cost rather a lot of money and life-energy to produce! The sales help to make it possible for me to commission further translations.
The intention, as with volume 1, is to place the book online once the sales drop to nothing. We’re nearly there with volume 1 now, in fact. So this is not a hard money-making scheme, but a way to get a translation made that will not be kept offline by greedy publishers. I expect to lose money on it. Your purchases reduce the amount I lose!
It’s 742 pages, by the way. Don’t buy it expecting a slim volume!
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Origen wrote three works in which he commented on Ezekiel. He wrote sermons, composed a commentary (almost entirely lost) and also scholia.
