Tag: Patristics

Early Islamic description of Antioch

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I mentioned earlier that an early Islamic description of ancient Antioch was published by I. Guidi, ‘una descrizione araba di Antiocheia’, Rendiconti della R. Accademia dei Lincei, Cl. di scienze morali, storiche e filolgiche, ser. 5, vol 6, pp. 137-161 (1897).  It’s only 24 pages, half of which at least is an Italian translation.  I wistfully wondered what a translation from the Arabic might cost.

Christopher Ecclestone has been in touch.  It seems that an unpublished English translation exists, done by William Stinespring in 1932 as part of a PhD thesis!  He went on to be professor of Divinity at Duke University for years, but never published it.  I don’t know what the copyright position on it is, but I hope that someone has put it the web somewhere.

In addition I learn that one of Archbishop Laud’s manuscripts — isn’t it odd how scholarly bishops are often persecutors? — in the Bodleian Library in Oxford contains a different and longer recension of the same text.  A Syriac original is posited; but read for yourself!

An Armenian text is examined by Clara Ten Hacken, which draws on the same material, and there is also an article by Margoulioth about it.

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Michael the Syrian: preface to his history

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The largest medieval Syriac Chronicle is that of Michael the Syrian, published with a French translation early in the 20th century by J. B. Chabot.  A single volume of this is online here.

The preface  survives only in an Armenian translation, also with French translation.  My memory is probably playing tricks on me, but I  have an uncomfortable feeling that I have translated this before.  But here it is (again?), from the French, which is online here.

Devoted and studious brothers, when I was considering the facts which it is important to know, in the great number of Chronicles, I refrained from going into detail about those which can be learned from the great number of existing accounts, and I have compiled, in the process, from ecclesiastical and profane writers what was useful and appropriate; so as to reveal this way the mortal laziness of many, and to enlighten the shadows of ignorance, lifting the sight towards the reward of my efforts.  I shall leave this treasure to the church, and to the Teachers of the children of the new Zion, so that it will survive after my time.

In first place we must place the first of all mankind, Adam, so that we start at the beginning.  This will be useful to those who speak and those who listen.  But first we must give the names of the historians from whom we propose to take the material of our edifice.

[Julius] Africanus, Jesus, Hegesippus, Jews, covered up to the coming of Christ.  Annianus, a monk of Alexandria, covered from Adam until the emperor Constantine.

Eusebius Pamphili composed his book with the help of their writings and called it Church History.

Zosimus, Socrates and Theodoret the heretic began their writings with Constantine and [went down] to Theodosius the Younger.

John of Antioch and of Djebel, Theodore Lector, of Constantinople and Zacharias, bishop of Melitene, covered from Theodosius to Justinian the Elder.

John of Asia covered from Anastasius to Maurice.

Gouria covered from Justinian to Heraclius, and on the invasion of the Arabs into the lands of the Syrians, which took place in the time of Heraclius.

Saint James of Edessa made an abridgement of them all.

Dionysius the patriarch covered from Maurice to Theophilus, emperor of the Greeks, and Haroun, emir of the Arabs.

Ignatius, bishop of Melitene, Saliba the Elder, of Melitene, John of Kaisoum and Dionysius (of Alexandria), Bar-Salibi, made several chronicles from Adam to their own times.

Now we have enumerated the chroniclers who, considering the studious disposition of listeners in their own times, wrote with rich colours, we who live in a lesser age, seeing our indolence, [will write] briefly passing rapidly over each of their accounts.

But studious men should not consume their energies in working out greater or lesser numbers in the computation of dates, because of the truth of the saying of the Saviour, “The Father has kept for himself the knowledge of times and dates.” In fact there seems a great deal of difference between the version of the Septuagint and that which the Syrians possess, that which king Abgar had translated, and which James of Edessa revised by using the artifice of a pretended conversion to Judaism, so that the Jews wouldn’t hide their information from him.

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E. W. Brooks and the Chronicle of James of Edessa

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Chronica Minora III (CSCO 6, AD 1906) contains Latin translations of a number of Syriac historical texts, each with an introduction.  I thought that I would give the introduction to the Chronicle of James of Edessa here in English, since this text is an important one for the early history of Islam.  Notes by me are in square brackets.

The text was around 340 words of Latin, and took me about 45 minutes, although I read over it last night first, and only had to look up about 3 words. 

II. Chronicle of James of Edessa, translated by E. W. Brooks.

Fragments of this chronicle are preserved in British Museum manuscript Additional 14,685, which according to Wright [the cataloguer of the BM Syriac mss] was written in the 10th or 11th century.  The author given as is James Philoponus, or “lover of work”, who is the same as James of Edessa, in Wright’s opinion, because excerpts from the work of James of Edessa are quoted by Michael the Syrian.  The canon-table itself, which begins on folio 10r, is a continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea; to it a preface is prefixed in which the work of Eusebius is corrected and supplemented.

 In the manuscript as we now have it, the fragments are wrongly ordered: fol. 12v must be read before fol. 12r, and fol. 18v before 18r [i.e. these pages have been bound in backwards], fol. 11 and 13 come from the same folio, and likewise fol. 19 and 20; and two fragments which contain fol. 19 are stuck together.

The fragments go no further than 942 A. S. [=the Seleucid era, or year of the Greeks], = 631 AD, but the canon, as we learn from Michael the Syrian, was continued to 1021 A.S.  Michael notes that James died two years before this, so that the last two years must be supposed to be the work of a pupil.  But Elias of Nisibis says that James composed the Chronicle in 1003 A.S. = 692 AD; and if this is true, then 18 years must be ascribed to the continuator.  The canon of years was copied by Michael, so portions now missing from the manuscript can easily be restored.  The same author quotes several places from the preface in a complete form which are now mutilated in our manuscript.  We have also edited from Elias of Nisibis material both from the preface, which he calls the Chronicle, and excerpts from the canon itself, to fill up the gaps.

Among the sources for the Chronicle the following must be included: Socrates, Theodoret, the Chronicle of Edessa, John of Ephesus, the history generally ascribed to Zacharias Rhetor, and perhaps lists of emperors, kings and bishops.  In the preface, besides Eusebius, James used certain Alexandrian chronographers, perhaps Anianus and Andronicus, and, as we see, a catalogue of kings of the Persians.

The beginning of the preface was translated [not so; edited] in the Catalogue by the excellent Wright; I myself edited the Canon in 1899 with an English translation and commentary: the complete text of the whole work is now translated for the first time [into Latin].  Many places which in the previous edition of the canon were left lacunose or wrongly filled up I have now restored from Michael and corrected. [Michael was published between 1899 and 1906] I have imitated the layout of the manuscript where possible in both text and translation; in the translation I have restored lacunas in the canon of years, but in the text it did not seem worthwhile to do so.

Bibliographical note:

You can read a description of the manuscript in Wright, Catalogue of Syriac MSS in the British Museum, p. 1062-1064  [online here, vol. 3; the PDF is p.1062 also.  This gives the text of the start of the work, not a translation].
Editions: W. Wright, op. cit., p. 1062, 1063, London, 1872.  Text of the start.
E. W. Brooks, The Chronological Canons of James of Edessa (Zeitschr. d. Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Bd. LIII, p. 261 ff and p. 550).  Canon with English translation. — Cf. also ibid. p. 534 ff (notes by Sigismund Fränkel) — See also F. Nau, Notice sur un nouveau ms. de l’Octoechus de Severe d’Antioche et sur l’auteur Jacques Philoponus (Journ. asiatique, ser. IX, tom. XI, p. 346 ff).

*      *     *

From Wright:

DCCCCXXI.  Paper, about 12 in. by 7, consisting of 23 leaves, all of which are more or less stained and torn.  There are from 36 to 40 lines in each page.  This volume is written in a good, regular hand of the 10th or 11th century and contains…

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Microfilms of the Ambrosian library in the USA

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Christopher Ecclestone has sent me this link which shows that a US university has microfilm copies of all the manuscripts in the Ambrosian library in Milan.  Good to know these exist; now what about getting them online where we can see them?

The holdings of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana (named after Ambrose of Milan, of course) are very rich, and include the manuscripts from the abbey of Bobbio.  These remained unknown through much of the renaissance, and were only discovered in 1493.  The abbey was founded in the early Dark Ages by the Irish monk St. Columbanus, and many of its books were made by reusing old parchment.  Consequently the books include many palimpsests of classical texts not known elsewhere.

PS: A sinister note.  Apparently the Ambrosian have banned this US library from making microfilms available.  All requests must go to the library itself.  The library has a site — only in Italian, of course — in which I was unable even to locate the microfilm-ordering service.  I think I will write and ask why they do such a thing.

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Agapius on a boat

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m still translating the world history of the 10th century Arabic Christian writer Agapius.  I’ve just come across this:

This sea contains also on the coast of Persia a gulf which is called the Persian Gulf;  its length is 1,400 miles, its width at the beginning is 500 miles and its end is 150 miles.  Between these two gulfs is the country of Hedjaz and Yemen;  the distance between the gulf of Aylah and the Persian Gulf is 1,500 miles.

Today we encounter Arabs determined to rename the Persian gulf as “the Arabian sea.”  But here is evidence that in the Middle Ages they had no such qualms.

He also mentions Britain!

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New Department of Syriac at Mardin University

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I learn from George Kiraz on the Hugoye list of a newspaper announcement that Mardin University in Eastern Turkey is to create a department of Syriac studies.  Apparently Oxford University is the only other university in the world with such a department.   The university is based in the middle of the remaining Syriac-speaking population, which makes it a natural place for such study.  This is good news! Let’s hope that they hunt for books in the region and publish texts which have escaped the attention of researchers.  Who knows what may sit on rural shelves, awaiting attention?

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Biblia Patristica now online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Want to know where a verse of scripture is referenced in the Fathers?  The answer has always been the Biblia Patristica volumes.  These are now embedded in BIBLIndex, and so accessible to us all.  Well done, chaps!  (Thanks to Ben Blackwell for publicizing this).

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More letters of Isidore of Pelusium

Posted on by Roger Pearse

27. (1.27) TO THE PALACE EUNUCH PHARISMANIUS.

I understand that it is said that you are interested in the divine books and that you make an appropriate use of their testimonies in every circumstance, but that you are a covetous man, furiously grabbing for yourself from the lives of others.  I am extremely astonished that this assiduous reading has not blessed you with the divine love, a love which should have modified your former behaviour, something which not only prevents us from desiring the goods of others, but further prescribed us to distribute our own goods.  So, when you read, understand, or, if you do not understand, read!

36. (1.36) TO THE PALACE EUNUCH ANTIOCHUS.

Since you unroll the sacred books and, so it is said, you are very attached to reading them, you must know the history of the admirable Daniel:  upright in the middle of floods of error, he would not undergo the fate of the prisoners, not even to take his share of common meals, even when they did not happen to make unclean those who touched them.  And since not only you are the servant of the imperial power but that you direct it as you want, hurry up and make effective again the justice which has fallen into a state of weakness or rather which is moribund:  you will thus find the court of justice benevolent to you, even if for an hour the idea does not often come to you, blinded as you are by the vain spectacle of grandeur.  

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Interesting letters of Isidore of Pelusium

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been reading the account of Isidore’s letters given by Quasten in volume 3 of his Patrology, pp.180-185.  Quasten is a treasure.  He tried very hard to give an interesting picture of each author, and also to find all the English translations for them all.  I have spent many happy hours reading and re-reading his pages, searching out translations that I could put online.

He discusses various letters.  Most of them sound as if a translation would be nice!  Here are some that he lists (after Migne, book. letter no):

  • 3.65 and 2.3 discuss and affirm the value of secular learning.
  • 5.133 discusses his “principle of unaffected elegance” in writing.
  • 2.25 and 1.174-5 are addressed to the Prefect Quirinius, on behalf of the city of Pelusium.
  • 1.35 and 1.311 are to the emperor Theodosius II (and translated elsewhere in these posts)
  • 4.99 refers to the Council of Nicaea.
  • 1.102 and 2.133 rebut the Manichaeans.

Isidore’s interpretation of the bible has earned high praise in the past:

  • 4.117 rejects allegorisation.
  • 2.195, 2.63, 3.339 condemn the practise of seeing the NT everywhere in the OT, as liable to bring genuine messianic passages under suspicion.
  • 2.63 and 4.203 tell us that the OT is a mixture of prophecy and history, and not to confuse the two.
  • 3.335, 1.353, 3.334, 3.31, 1.67, 3.166, 4.142, 1.139, 4.166 all deal with the literal meaning of scripture as it bears on the Arian dispute, following the Antiochene method of interpretation.  Indeed 1.389 tells us that he saw the Arians as a real danger.

He also gives spiritual advice:

  • 1.129 and 1.287 advocate voluntary poverty and abstinence, but only if all the commandments are practised.  Asceticism is not enough.
  • 1.162 reminds his reader that it isn’t enough to follow the lifestyle of John the baptist; you must have his spirit too.
  • 4.192 and 1.286 promote celibacy, but without humility, he says, it is meaningless.

One group of his letters are addressed to Cyril of Alexandria.  Another group outline the lamentable history of the wealthy man Cyrenios, who bought the governorate of Pelusium, banned anyone from seeking refuge in a church, and then set out to make money by taking bribes in lawsuits.

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Asterix, manuscripts, and the Bibliothèque Nationale Français

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In Asterix and the Normans, the Gauls encounter the Normans, who know no fear but would like to.  They are invited to listen to the village bard, the aptly named Cacafonix.  After his first number, the Normans look pained.  “By Thor!” says one; “By Odin!” another; “Bite on the bullet!” says a third.  A few more numbers, and they run!  Recommended, actually, this one.

What brought this on, I hear you cry?  Well, I want to get images of a manuscript of the History of the Arabic Christian historian, Al-Makin.  The British Library let me down when I ordered some from them, so I’ve asked the BNF in Paris for help.  The invoice arrived today.  For Ms. Arabe 294 and 295, total number of pages 648, the price is going to be…. 234 euros!  OUCH!

I’ve paid it anyway.  I have to have it to progress.  But this is serious money.  Each page costs 26c from the first ms and (mysteriously) 36c from the second.  But of course it hardly costs that much to make these copies. It certainly doesn’t cost a different amount for each of the two halves! Greed, I fear, is responsible for this bill. And all these images, I suspect, will be low quality monochrome. It’s enough to make any digital camera owner spit!

I know that I have banged on about this before, but this is serious stuff.  The medieval manuscripts are the raw stuff of scholarship on all ancient texts.  If we can’t access the dratted things — and a bill of 234 euros per manuscript is no different to refusing access, for most people — then we can’t work.  This is particularly bad for unpublished texts, which means most of Arabic Christian and Syriac and Armenian and…

The fact is that these institutions are making money off this.  Come on, you scholars; clamp down on it!

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