Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, freedom of speech, information access, and more
The Roman medical writer Galen (d. 199 AD) refers to Jewish or Christian ideas in six places in his works. Some of the works of Galen involved no longer exist in Greek, and the Arabic translation has to be used. In some cases the Arabic translation also has perished — although we know from Hunayn [...]
I’m still OCR-ing the English translation of Ibn Abi Usaibia’s dictionary of medical writers. But I have just come across the following line, in a list of Galen’s books: In his book “The Negation of Grief” he says that many of his books and much of his valuable furniture were burnt in the royal storehouses [...]
The July sales figures (through Amazon) for Eusebius’ book on differences between the gospels (and how to resolve them) have arrived and are encouraging. I still haven’t launched an online marketing campaign, yet we sold more in July than in June. Interestingly most of these seem to have been hardbacks. The purchasers certainly got a good deal [...]
Back in early June, I ordered, from the French National Library in Paris, by email, a photocopy of the hard-to-find catalogue of the manuscripts of the monastery of Vlatadon in Thessalonika. It was published in 1918. This is the library, remember, that had a manuscript of the works of Galen, containing his Peri Alupias (On [...]
I have received an email from Veronique Bourdon-Millot telling the story of how this lost work was found. I have made an English translation of what she says, and, by permission, give the relevant portion here. Hello, Thank you for your email, your encouragement and enthusiasm, which Greek studies need now more than ever. Since you [...]
I have had an email back from Veronique Boudon-Millot today, giving the story of how the lost text by Galen, Peri Alupias (On consolation for grief) was found. It’s very interesting, and I have asked for permission to translate it and place it here. She also mentions that Vlatadon 14, the manuscript that contained the [...]
Galen’s Peri Alupias, (On the Avoidance of Grief), contains many interesting statements about the destruction of libraries in the fire. The following excerpts are from the translation by Clare K. Rothschild and Trevor W. Thompson 1, of the fire and its aftermath. 6. Likewise, it is no (longer possible to have) the books – corrected versions, [...]
The second century medical writer Galen left behind such a vast array of works that it has been estimated that around 20% of the surviving volume of ancient Greek was written by him! I’m not sure where this estimate comes from, but it is a remarkable amount. Ancient medical texts are a specialised interest. Our [...]
David Wilmshurst has drawn my attention to a find. It seems that a French scholar discovered a lost work by Galen in a monastery in Thessalonika, not long ago! Apparently there was a Times Literary Supplement article which mentioned it, and I found this word document — apparently abstracts from a 2007 Classical Association of [...]
Andrew Eastbourne has come through, and a .doc file of this text (De officina medici) arrived today and can be downloaded from here: Galen_-_Preface. I have also uploaded it to the Fathers site here. I’m placing this in the public domain — do whatever you like with it (except stick your own copyright notice on it!) It [...]