Migne, Dictionnaire des apocryphes – online

Here’s something that I didn’t know.  Apparently there is a bunch of French translations of the apocrypha, published by J.-P. Migne.  They were printed under the title Dictionnaire des apocryphes: ou, Collection de tous les livres apocryphes relatifs à l’Ancien et au Nouveau Testament, in two volumes, vol. 1 (1855) and vol. 2 (1858).  They may be found on Google Books here and here.

“Yes, so what?” I hear you cry, stifling a yawn on this hot afternoon.

Well, it seems that they sometimes contain translations of stuff not found in Schneemelcher’s massive collection of English translations!  And, if you can manage a little French, that can be helpful.  Of course they are very elderly now, but so what?  They’re free.

I learned this while looking for material about the Martyrium beati Petri Apostoli attributed to ps.-Linus in J. K. Elliot’s Apocryphal New Testament.  The latter is not nearly so extensive as Schneemelcher, but has other virtues, one of which is its bibliographies.  The relevant section is on p.427, and lists translations of the work.  The French translation is said to be in Migne, vol. 2, cols. 459-70; and so it is, right here!

Likewise on p.388 of Elliot I learn that the corresponding Martyrium beati Pauli Apostoli by pseudo-Linus is in Migne, ii, cols. 665-74.  And so it is, here.

I’m not sure what else may be in these two thick volumes, but clearly they deserve investigation.

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3 thoughts on “Migne, Dictionnaire des apocryphes – online

  1. Hi Roger,
    The Latin text is in Tischendorff’s 1891 edition of Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, pars posterior, which was digitized by Google, but unfortunately unavailable as PDF download now. Do you happen to know where that PDFfile can still be downloadded from?

    Kees

  2. I am getting a very bad feeling here … this used to be available, as you say. Instead, on Google Books, I get a page with a “preview” and demands from Google for large sums of money to download the eBook. Has Google sold us all out? Has the digitisation process now just been turned into a cash cow?

    The “Pars Prior” is here:

    http://archive.org/details/actaapostolorvm01tiscgoog

    and the Google Books link (probably only accessible in the US) is here:

    http://books.google.com/books?id=4HmvvwQQGmUC

    What seems to be the first part of the “Pars Posterior” is here:

    http://archive.org/details/actaapostolorvm02tiscgoog

    and the Google Books link (ditto):

    http://books.google.com/books?id=3C4RAAAAYAAJ&oe=UTF-8

    That was as good as I could get.

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