Henry Savile and his edition of the works of Chrysostom

Looking at the Clavis Patrum Graecorum — a text that should certainly be online — we find that the works of Severian of Gabala appear in two main editions, under the name of Chrysostom.  There is the 1718-38 century edition of the works of Chrysostom by Montfaucon, the Benedictine editor in France.  This is what Migne reprinted.

But there is also an edition by Henry Savile, published at Eton, of all places, in 1612.  A couple of Severian’s sermons only appear in this edition.

I am impressed by the CPG, by the way.  It neatly clears up what exists for Severian, and where it may be found; in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Armenian.

Philip Schaff’s introduction to the works of Chrysostom in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers edition is useful.  After discussing the marvellous labours of Montfaucon, he adds:

The edition of Sir Henry Savile (Provost of Eton), Etonae, 1612, in 8 vols. for., is less complete than the Benedictine edition, but gives a more correct Greek text (as was shown by F. Dübner from a collation of manuscripts) and valuable notes. Savile personally examined the libraries of Europe and spent £8,000 on his edition. His wife was so jealous of his devotion to Chrysostom that she threatened to burn his manuscripts.

Lady Savile was not the first wife to threaten her husband’s books, out of jealousy, as Reynolds and Wilson, Scribes and Scholars records.

But is the edition accessible?  Is it online?  It is, after all, a very old book, and the USA did not exist when it was published.  It is US libraries, after all, who have made Google Books and Archive.org what they are.

A search suggests that it might form part of “Early English Books Online”, a project which is not freely available.  UK taxpayers funded it, so naturally it has been placed under the control of a commercial company and only rich institutions are allowed to use it.  (It is depressing, sometimes, to see the combination of waste and greed and littleness of mind characteristic of British higher education).  You can’t even see if it is in there.

Does anyone have access to EEBO, and can check whether it is there?

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5 thoughts on “Henry Savile and his edition of the works of Chrysostom

  1. Yes, it is there. About 2000pp, Greek text with Latin notes. Bizarrely, they have four different sets of images for it, all of which have the volumes in a different order! Though one at least appears to have the first book first.

  2. On a closer look it seems to be ~8000pp, with each image set containing two volumes. I had assumed since one image set is marked 1993 with the others 1963-65 that these were duplicate microformed images of the same publication (and I had looked at the 1993 first and seen an image of the vol.1 title page, which was actually for the catalog/index/etc.). I suppose I’m too used to duplicate image sets from Google Books.

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