Chrysostom against the Jews — online copies

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Once we have a final version of the missing portion of Chrysostom against the Jews, I need to make sure that it is added to the copies of the defective text that are around online.  Of course that means I need to know where they are.  A google search provided quite a few links:

The first is undoubtedly the most important; many of the others derive from it.   But I have yet to visit most of these.

Some of the more unusual sites in this list — and there are a few — can be difficult to communicate with, as their authors are either very eccentric or have developed a well-grounded fear of entrapment by their political enemies.   I cannot say that I am looking forward to the task of writing to all these sites and asking them to add the missing passage to sermon 2.  Doubtless some will ignore my email.

But unless we do this, unless we reunite the lost portion of the text with all the copies we can find, we may be wasting our time.  We cannot be certain which copy of the text will be the ancestor of all the copies to reach the year 3,000 AD.  In so many cases, we know that a single copy ca. 800 AD is the ancestor of all our current copies of a text.  To fail to reunite the severed texts may be tantamount to wasting the rediscovery.

Our duty to the future dictates that the effort must be made.  Once I have the final version, I will make that effort.  Not because I agree or disagree with the sites above; but because we cannot tell which of them may provide the future with the text of Chrysostom.

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Google goes to Rome

Posted on by Roger Pearse

AP has this excellent news:

Google says it will scan up to 1 million old books in national libraries in Rome and Florence, including works by astronomer Galileo Galilei, in what’s being described as the first deal of its kind. …

Culture Ministry official Mario Resca says the deal will help save the books’ content forever.

Resca said the 1966 Florence flood ruined thousands of books in the Tuscan city’s library. He said digitizing books from before 1868 will help spread Italian culture throughout the world.

Google will cover the costs of the scanning of the books, all of them out-of-copyright Italian works, including 19th-century literature and 18th-century scientific volumes.

Well done, the Italians.  Suddenly we will all be able to read a whole load of material that no-one could ever see.

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Greek.ttf – the curse of pre-unicode Greek fonts

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Once I signed an agreement with the Cerf to use their Greek text of Eusebius Gospel Problems and Solutions, I asked and received a copy of the text in electronic form.  This turned out to be a word file, with an attached font: greek.ttf.

How I cursed that file name!  Because it was clear that this was not a unicode font.  To use the file, I was going to have to convert the text to unicode.  It would help a lot if I knew which font that was!  I hunted around for that file name, and found (as you might expect) several candidates, none of which were the same.

This evening I had a stroke of luck.  I was preparing to write a program that would open the font and display all the characters, so I could see what was what.  But in Vista, when you open a font, you get a Properties option; and under Details there was information!

greek.ttf

This was gold!  The name of the author, Peter J. Gentry and Andre…, a version 1.0, and a date 1993.  A google search turned up a page of old fonts by Eric Pement.  There it was:

Ancient Greek (57 KB). GREEK.TTF, Greek, ver 1.000, © 1993 by Peter J. Gentry and Andrew M. Fountain. Requires this keyboard utility: KeyMan32 (381 KB)

A search on the author names reveals that they were the authors of WinGreek.  I wonder if, perhaps, this font is an early version of that?  With the same keyboard mapping?  If so, I am in great good luck, for WinGreek is widely known.

Installing the font creates “Greek regular” in my fonts directory.  This TLG Wingreek test page reveals that it is exactly the correct mapping.

The next stage is to try to find a converter utility.  And GreekTranscoder seems to fit the bill!  The commercial Antioch program can also import the stuff, and indeed this utility.  I’ll have to see if it works, but I feel very pleased with myself to have got so far!

UPDATE: GreekTranscoder worked brilliantly!  You had to copy the .dot files to the ~\startup, and make sure you had no WINWORD running silently in background, but it then converted everything with just one error.  The Jiffycomp utility did not do as well, and lost all formatting (italics etc).  I have made a donation to Greektranscoder.

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On the spend in Syria

Posted on by Roger Pearse

SyriaThe postman brought a guidebook to Syria yesterday, the first to reach me.  The first question I had was “What currency should I take with me?”  Because, of course, if I need to obtain some Venezualan bolivars or Swiss Francs or whatever, some warning would be helpful!

The answer seems to be a mixture of US dollars and Euros and British pounds is preferred.  Travellers’ cheques are useless apparently.  Credit cards may be used in high-end hotels (which I certainly hope to be staying in — my sense of adventure evapourates at 5pm).

Only a few weeks to go now.  I’m just starting to feel the first incipient twinges of the “I wish I hadn’t given myself all this trouble” feeling that I get before I go anywhere!   Of course that feeling has to be overcome, or I would never go anywhere.  These days I expect it, and don’t get worried about it.  Still wish I didn’t get that, tho.

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Dreaming of Chrysostom and his works

Posted on by Roger Pearse

quastenI often take a volume of Quasten’s Patrology to bed with me.  In times past I tended to turn down leaves where English translations that were not online were marked.  These days I find myself looking at texts and wondering whether a translation of them would be worth commissioning.  Short, obscure, interesting texts are the sort of things I look at.

So I looked, and I browsed.  There are several works by Chrysostom that seem interesting.  I’ve mentioned the missing portion of his Adversus Judaeos — but that was just housekeeping.  It costs $20 to get a translation of a column of Migne’s Patrologia Graeca Greek text, and at that rate there are a number of possible texts of historical interest.

On p. 453 Quasten mentions a discourse In kalendas (PG 48, 953-962, i.e. 9 columns, or 4.5 columns of Greek, i.e. $90) — On the kalends [of January] — in which he discusses and condemns the pagan celebration of the New Year.  That ought to contain quite a bit of historical material.

Also mentioned is his Contra circenses ludos et theatra (PG 56, 263-270, i.e. 7 columns or $70) — Against the circus games and theatre — which he preached on July 3, 399, on finding the church half-empty because everyone had gone off to see the show.  He mentions chariot racing on Good Friday, for instance.  Again, this must give insights into the popular entertainments at the end of the 4th century.

The temptations of the theatre are addressed in Homiliae 3 de diabolo (PG 49, 241-276, i.e. $350, so quite a bit more) — Three sermons on the devil — which must, therefore, describe these events.  At that price, tho, I can probably resist.  The nine homilies on penitence (one in fact by Severian of Gabala) are 80-odd columns, and a bit long for my purse.

Equally interesting are some of the sermons delivered for church festivals.  His In diem natalem Dominus Noster Jesu Christi, (PG 49, 351-362, i.e. $110) was given on Christmas Day 386 and calls Christ Sol Iustitiae, the Sun of Justice.  It is important for the history of Christmas.  A partner sermon (PG 56, 385-396, i.e. $110) is probably spurious, but also interesting historically for what it tells us about the rivalry in that period between the pagan solar cults and the Christians.  None of the other festal homilies grab my eye.

The first sermon that Chrysostom ever delivered (PG 48, 693-700, i.e. $70) ought to be in English, if only as a curiosity.

Two sermons, before and after his first exile (PG 52, 427-430, i.e. $30; and PG 52, 443-8, i.e. $50) are probably just waffle, but it would be good to have them.

One very interesting work is De S. Babyla contra Julianum et Gentiles (PG 50, 533-572, i.e. $390) — On St. Babylas against Julian and the pagans.  When the emperor Julian the Apostate attempted to restore the oracle at Daphne in Antioch in 362 AD, the priests told him that the Christian shrine of St. Babylas — interred at the sacred grove — was interfering with the voice of the god.  Julian ordered the remains removed; but soon after the temple burned down, and then Julian himself was killed in battle.  Chrysostom treats both events as evidence of the power of the saint, and responds to the lament of Libanius on the temple of Apollo by describing it as drivelling nonsense.  I could wish the work was shorter.

Another text of interest is Contra Judaeos et Gentiles quod Christus sit Deus (PG 48, 813-838, i.e. $200) — Against Jews and Gentiles that Christ is God.  I had originally seen this as a natural complement to the Eight Homilies Against the Jews, but it is only so to a limited extent.  Apparently it does mention the attempted rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem under Julian, when the Jewish workers were driven back by subterranean gas explosions.  Again, this seems interesting.

I could carry on.  But what is noteworthy is how little it would cost to translate some of these, and that almost none have ever been translated.  I might commission translations of some of these, just to make them available.

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Really Important: tell the British Library which manuscripts you want to see online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Juan Garces is inviting suggestions for manuscripts to be digitised here.

The obvious answer to this question is: all of them! We all want access to free digital resources, but creating them is tempered by a series of practical considerations. How can we best deliver digitised manuscripts to your desktops? One answer is to secure funding for independent digitisation projects with achievable goals. Such a series of projects has to be placed squarely within a vision and strategy. At the start of each one we have to ask ourselves: which manuscripts should we digitise next? …

It is, however, crucial that we also engage you. Here’s how. Contact me to answer the following question: which particular Greek manuscripts held by the British Library would you like to see digitised and why? I cannot promise that your favourite manuscript will be in the next phase, but I can assure you that your feedback will inform our decision.

Basically Juan has to go out and bid for money.  So if you have an idea for some manageable-size “project” that would attract funding easily, tell him.  If you have a bunch of manuscripts in mind, tell him.

I notice that the Stavros Niarchus Foundation is funding the first tranche.  We have, perhaps, overlooked the “wealthy Greek shipowner” angle on all this.  The manuscripts — the physical books — are the remains of Greek culture as it was in the middle ages, and record that culture from still earlier stages.  Why shouldn’t this Greek culture be online?

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A.L.Williams, “Adversus Judaeos” (1935)

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I was browsing through Quasten vol. 3 and noticed several short anti-Jewish pieces.  I am rather tempted to commission translations of these while I’m dealing with Chrysostom’s anti-Jewish work as well.  Quasten says that Williams’ book is a guide to all these works.  It is rather curious tho — it isn’t online, and no copies are available for sale!  It shows how much I miss having PDF’s of things!

But I can manage without, anyhow.  I also notice several short works by Chrysostom which it would be useful to have online, such as two Christmas sermons, and his In Kalendas, on New Year, and one on the circus games being held on Good Friday (which emptied his church).

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Curious QuarkXpress

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have been experimenting with the trial download of desktop publishing package QuarkXpress.  What a curious thing it is!  I have been quite unable, for instance, to import a Word .doc file with footnotes and get footnotes.  This — surely elementary — ambition has cost me an hour or so of my life.

Off to try Adobe InDesign.  Just getting the download is rather horrible — I hope the program is better!

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Update on Chrysostom on the Jews

Posted on by Roger Pearse

John Chrysostom delivered eight sermons against the Jews.  All are of about the same length, except for sermon two, which is about a third of the length of the others.  The 18th century editor Montfaucon signalled a lacuna (reprinted by Migne), i.e. that part of the sermon was lost. German scholar Wendy Pradels conducted a search of collections of manuscripts, and finally found a complete copy on the island of Lesbos.  The new material was printed, with a German translation, ten years ago.  But no English translation exists.

I have today received a first draft of a translation of this material, which I commissioned a while back.  It looks very good.  Once it is finished, I will place it in the public domain.  I will also try to make sure it is added to the end of whatever copies of the English are online.  Let’s hope website owners — some of rather different politics to myself — are willing to cooperate in reuniting the pieces of this work of Chrysostom.

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Forgotten translations of the Fathers

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An email tells me of this volume, which on the face of it is a translation by S.C.Malan of Russian meditations on some material by Ephrem Syrus.  But it’s actually much more interesting than it appears; because at the back is a translation of Chrysostom’s Sermon on Passion Week, Severian’s sermon on the same, and a couple of pieces by Ephrem Syrus. 

The whole book is dedicated to Charles Marriot, the self-effacing editor and translator of much of the Oxford Movement Library of the Fathers.  The translations of Chrysostom made at that time have never been superceded.

The only annoying thing is the old-fashioned typography.  Using the long-s in 1859?!

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