Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on the Psalms: critical text now online. And did you know there is an Italian translation?

A kind correspondent draws my attention to an important blog post by Tommaso Interi on the Patristics.It blog, in English here, and in Italian here.  He points out that a preliminary text has appeared online of the new edition of Eusebius of Caesarea’s enormous Commentary on the Psalms.  It’s at this link: https://pta.bbaw.de/pta/texts/urn-cts-pta-pta0003.  They have also produced a text with German translation of the “Hypomnema de Psalmis” (CPG 1426), usually attributed to Origen but recently reattributed to Eusebius (online here).[1]

The edition is from the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, and the three sections of the work have been edited by Barbara Villani (Ps 1-50), Cordula Bandt (Ps 51-100) and Franz-Xaver Risch (Ps 101-150).  Only the commentary on Ps.51-100 has been transmitted to us intact; the remainder has been recovered from quotations in the catenas, the medieval Greek bible commentaries.

The site is run by Città Nuova, the Italian publisher of a great many translations of patristic texts.  The post naturally reminds us that in 2004 the company produced a two-volume translation of the entire work![2]  I don’t think that I knew this, and I suspect that I am not alone in this.  The translation was made by Maria Benedetta Artioli.  It is available still from the publisher, although I find that research libraries don’t tend to hold it.

The translation is naturally based on the text in the Patrologia Graeca, going back to the Maurist fathers of the 18th century.  My correspondent has also discovered that a generous preview of each is accessible online!

Volume 1: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Commento_ai_Salmi/sDZLBphq88MC?hl=en
Volume 2: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Commento_ai_Salmi/76L9XADO0zkC?hl=en&gbpv=1

Here’s the cover of volume 1, in the characteristic softback livery of Città Nuova.

It is great to see such progress with one of the neglected works of antiquity.  The accessibility of

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  1. [1]C. Bandt, F. Risch, “Das Hypomnema des Origenes zu den Psalmen – eine unerkannte Schrift des Eusebius”, Adamantius, 19, 2013, p. 395-435.  This includes an edition.
  2. [2]Eusebio di Cesarea, Commento ai Salmi 1 (1-71), Città Nuova (2004), ISBN 978-8831131766, Publisher page here; Eusebio di Cesarea, Commento ai Salmi 2 (72-151), Città Nuova (2004), ISBN/EAN 9788831131773. Publisher page here.

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