The sales figures for September for my book — Eusebius of Caesarea, Gospel Problems and Solutions. Text and translation. Get yours from Amazon now! — have arrived and are acceptable. For a change most of the sales were in the UK. More acceptable still is the first chunk of payments. Lightning Source, the distributor, delay these for three months, so this is the first money that I have seen from Amazon.
A correspondent from Germany interested in Coptic studies has emailed me the Arabic text of the life of Samuel of Kalamoun, in PDF form. This is Anthony Alcock’s publication, The Arabic Life of Anba Samawi’l of Qalamun, Le Museon 109 (1996), p.321-345. The text was edited from a manuscript written on … 29th September 1945 AD! We forget, I suspect, that hand-copying texts is something that goes on even today, and was certainly going on in the Arab world until the photocopier era. It was printed from the mss. of the Franciscan Center of Christian Oriental Studies in Muski in Cairo.
The editor remarks that this vita survives in Coptic, and also in Ethiopic. The Arabic version is closer to the Ethiopic, naturally enough, as the Ethiopic probably derives from an Arabic version.
I got the PDF’s on Tuesday, but only today realised that this included an English translation! Wonderful!
Roger,
I’m glad the book-sales were acceptable. I really want to buy the book. Other things are just a little more urgent at the moment.
Btw, you might want to double-check something on page 293. Instead of referring to “Peter and John,” the text in Schenkl (p. 527, line 14) says “Petro et Iacobo” (alluding to I Cor. 15:5-7).
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
It turns out there is a part II to Alcock’s Le Muséon article. It is in volume 111 (1998), pp. 377-404. And Alcock also edited and translated the Coptic life! This is Isaac the Presbyter: The Life of Samuel of Kalamun, edited and translated by Anthony Alcock (Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips, 1983). There is a Portuguese translation of the Ethiopic life, but I haven’t found a reference to an English translation of it.
James, it is indeed a typo. It should of course be Peter and James. Oops!
MHB, thank you so much for these details! I had no idea.