Tag: Origen Homilies Project

The draft of the 9th homily on Ezekiel by Origen has arrived from the translator, and is excellent, with little to do on it.  This homily also could probably be preached today, just as it is.

The homilies give us a picture of Origen the preacher, a humble, learned man, eager to help explain the difficult places of scripture in ways that everyone could understand.  Instead of the airy speculation that we associate with the name we see a practical man.

It is remarkable to me that these works, easily the most accessible of his works, have remained untranslated until today.

If I’m going to get the Selecta in Ezechielem of Origen translated from the Migne edition (PG13), I need to work out a price.  I’ve already agreed a price per page of the Sources Chrétiennes text; how does this relate to a column of Migne?

It turns out that a full column of Migne is about twice the size of the same full page of an SC edition, which was a surprise.  It shows just how much stuff the good Abbé was able to cram into his not inconsiderable volumes.

The Selecta are cols. 767-825 in PG13; but of course alternate columns are the Latin translation, so there’s only 29 columns of text.  The online Google books edition of the PG13 is damaged at this point; several pages are unreadable, clearly because the copyist lifted the volume before the page was copied.  Fortunately I have a better copy.  I wonder how I can report the book and get the Google books errors fixed?

The Origen project translator has kindly translated the bit from the Selecta in Ezechielem about Tammuz:

On Ezek. 8.14

Mourning for Tammuz. It is said that the one called Adonis among the Greeks is named Tammuz among the Hebrews and Syrians. So then, in terms of the literal reading, the women were seen sitting “on the front porch of the north-facing gate of the Lord’s house” [i.e., the temple] and “mourning for Tammuz” in keeping with a certain Gentile practice belonging to those who are outside [true] religion †of the doors†. For they seem to perform certain mystic rites [τελεταί] yearly: first, they mourn for him as [though he is] dead; second, they rejoice over him as though he has risen from the dead. And those who are skilled in the symbolic interpretation [αναγωγή] of Greek myths and in the practice of “mythical theology” say that Adonis is a symbol of the fruits of the earth, which are lamented [as dead] when they are sown, but [afterwards] rise again and for this reason cause the farmers to rejoice as they grow. Thus, I think that those women who mourn for Tammuz are a symbol of those who yearn after the things of the world that are considered good, and bodily fruits / profits / rewards, but known nothing beyond material and perceptible things—they are pained by deprivation from these things, and pleased by their presence and the acquisition of such things. But all such people would rightly be considered to be womanish in soul.

He’s also taken a look at De la Rue’s introduction, which I partly translated last time, and adds:

To your account of PG 12:9 at the blog, note also that he says (regarding method of editing), that even if the catenae were unanimous in attributing something to Origen, if he found the comment in the published commentaries of other Fathers, he omitted it here. If there was disagreement on the attribution between different catenae, he omitted (perhaps, unless it was confirmed by agreement with the Latin translations of Rufinus or Jerome) — and that (unsurprisingly!) the fragments are often incomplete (interruptus) and sometimes corrupt (one would almost have to be an Oedipus to arrive at a conjecture!): hence bear with him if there are mistakes in his Latin translation of them…

He adds:

What still puzzles me is that Baehrens quotes a fair amount of text as “Sel. in Ezech.” which is *not* printed in the separate section of PG 13 but in footnotes to the text–which appear in PG, and in Lommatzsch are attributed to Delarue (“Ruaeus”). 

No doubt some note somewhere explains this, but I have yet to find it.  It might be worth going direct to De la Rue’s edition, rather than the reprint.

I’ve been looking around for more information on these mysterious chunks of Greek, found in PG 12 and PG13.  Migne is really very vague about the origins of this material, and it isn’t even mentioned in Quasten.  However at the start of PG 12, where the biblical materials of Origen begin, there is a praefatio (col. 9), which looks relevant.

The second volume of the works of Origen includes many fragments of his exegetical works on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, …, partly already printed, some made public for the first time.  We have edited whatever remains of the Latin version by Rufinus faithfully from the old manuscripts.  But we have added the Greek fragments in this edition … whatever is collected in the Greek Catenas under the name of Origen.  I have looked at all the fragments ascribed to him, whether those of Combefis from Paris mss, or those which Ernest Grabius copied from English manuscripts.  Those were kindly communicated to me by the learned Fr. Louis de Touremine, SJ … ; but these were transmitted to me by the learned English doctors Walker and Bentley.  I have also seen the fragments which in many places appear in the various Greek Catenae of the Fathers, which were published by Corderius, Barbarus, Ghislerius, Comitolus, Patritius Junius, and others.  But the accuracy of everything in the catenas is uncertain… the names of the writer of the same fragment is given in one catena as Origen, in another as Didymus, or Eusebius, or Theodoret, or others. … [he uses his judgement as to what to include].

So it looks as if the Selecta are essentially extracts from the catenas.  Each extract in a catena relates to a specific bible verse; so the editor has merely compiled these, for each work, extract by extract, in chapter/verse order.  There seem to be Selecta printed for each of the homilies of Origen.

The title page of PG 12 tells me that the works are edited by Charles and Charles Vincent de la Rue, priests and monks of the Benedictine congregation of St. Maur.  So Migne is merely reprinting the Maurist edition, it seems; yours, according to the title page, for 15 francs.