The domain name transfer of the Tertullian.org name is still pending. Network Solutions are evidently sitting on it, the weasels.
When it happens, Tertullian.org will go down until I can set the DNS settings at the new registrar. Sorry about that.
Author: Roger Pearse
More on catenas
Something I had meant to do, when I wrote about the catena of Nicetas, was to track down the works of J. Sickenberger mentioned as published in TU. I have, in fact, now updated that page with some links to Google books, although, as ever, non-US readers will not be able to read them.
TU 22.4: J. Sickenberger, Die Lukaskatene des Niketas von Herakleia untersucht (Leipzig, 1902) can be found here, or here.
TU 21.1: J. Sickenberger, Titus von Bostra. Studien zu dessen Lukashomilien (Leipzig, 1901) can be found here. This is not evidently about the catena on Luke by Nicetas, except that Titus of Bostra figures regularly in catenas, including that of Nicetas.
I have also updated both Google books pages with a “review” indicating the contents of each volume. That should make searching easier!
But how did I find them? Through a link to the right here, which I often use. Mischa Hooker compiled an index of TU volumes 1-32. It is such a useful resource!
My main remaining problem is that my German is not that good, and academic German of a century ago is pretty impenetrable!
The final item mentioned is Sickenberger’s 32 page monograph, Aus römischen Handschriften über die Lukas Katene des Niketas (1898). This is referred to here. But I was unable to locate the item itself. I suspected that perhaps it too was part of a serial. And a Google search indicated just that: “Röm. Quartalschrift für christl. Altertumskunde und für Kirchengeschichte, XII [1898]” (don’t you just hate that habit of abbreviation?). I think it’s actually known as “Römischen Quartalschrift”. But I had no luck finding that volume online.
UPDATE: Now running OCR using Adobe Acrobat on TU 22.4. The only way I shall be able to work on that will be with the help of Google translate!
Tertullian.org may go down over the next day or two briefly
I’m transferring the domain name from Network Solutions — who are a pain to deal with — to PairNIC. Unfortunately the latter won’t let me enter the domain name servers until the transfer actually happens. Tomorrow is Sunday, when I do not use my computer or the web. So it is possible that I will miss the emails. All the rest of my domains should work fine. My apologies for this.
From my diary
I had to empty my loft a week ago in order to have some insulation fitted. I still have rather a lot of items lying in a heap. Last night I put some of the heavier stuff back up. But I noted that a lot of things were just in plastic carrier bags, and I wondered if I should repackage them.
This morning I found a Bleep and Booster annual (the one on the left). My parents must have given it to me as a small child, back in the 60’s. It was interesting to see it again, but I had to clean a thick layer of dust from it.
I also found some boxes for old PC networking kit. These have gone down to a pile for throwing out!
What I would like to do is to put everything into transparent plastic boxes. I bought one yesterday. But these seem quite expensive, and it doesn’t take much in the way of contents to make them too heavy to lift.
From my diary
Oh bother … the cough I have been struggling with for the last week or so, and the sensitive stomach that I have lived with for nearly three weeks, have ganged up now with a streaming cold that came on last night. It must be holiday time! This business of living in an organic construct is not that great an idea, sometimes. Everyone in our office is starting to cough and choke, so I imagine we will all get it. It will stop me doing much this weekend, I suspect.
Last night was productive, tho. I realised that I had only 8Gb left of the 500Gb on my PC. Where had it gone, I wondered?
I always use WinDirStat to work out which directories are hogging the space. In this case, I found that one working directory for an OCR task had taken some vast area of disk, and I moved it out to my two external backup hard disks. Finereader 10 is really a disk hog!
Another 40Gb (!) was being occupied by two Internet Explorer temporary log files, named brndlog.txt and brndlog.bak. I also took the time to reorganise a bit, as I found multiple copies of some large PDF’s. After an hour or so I had 89Gb spare. I also backed everything up to the two backup drives.
Very pleased with myself after that!
From my diary
First, a gorgeous statement from the Monday Evening blog:
It’s a mistake to think, since they thought the sun and planets revolved around the earth, therefore medieval men were egocentric fools. It’s not so much they thought the earth was at the center, but that they thought it was at the bottom.
I am no medievalist, but these few words really do make an important point.
I’ve had a rather exciting email today which I can’t discuss yet, thanks to some rather sniffy bureaucrats, but may mean that some interesting material is public domain, and that it will indeed be possible to get it online in English.
Eusebius update
The book is still selling well, I think. Amazon are fulfilling orders quite quickly, or so I hear, which says that they are holding stock and, pleasingly, selling them!
Carol Downer and her team, who did the translation of the Coptic fragments, are thinking about translating more of the Coptic catena. I am encouraging them!
A rather interesting copyright issue has developed with the book. For the Eclogue, I licensed the Greek text edited by Claudio Zamagni from Les Editions du Cerf, who publish the Sources Chretiennes series.
I myself do not believe that copyright was ever intended to apply to the raw Greek or Latin text of ancient authors, however edited. The publishing industry has pushed for ever more copyright, and I am told that some German courts have even acknowledged such ownership, improbable as it seems. But I wanted no trouble, and indeed the Cerf were very easy to deal with and asked a modest percentage (unlike Brepols, whose demands were so outrageous that I was forced to use a pre-critical text and simply note the difference — five words! — in the footnotes).
But today I learn from Dr. Zamagni that he never licensed his Greek text to the Cerf. His contract with them left the ownership of that (if any) in his own hands. He tells me that the Cerf have acknowledged this. Naturally I have written back and asked his permission to use it, and I have also written to the Cerf and queried the facts. After all, if they don’t have any claim on the copyright, I don’t owe them any money.
I’m sure the Cerf negotiated in good faith, and I will happily give them the free copies that were part of the deal. But I suspect Dr. Z. is quite right about the legalities.
But it all raises an interesting issue. Surely every scholar should ensure that the raw Greek text of his labours should not become the supposed property of Bloggins and Co? After all, a scholar may wish to do an editio minora, and should not have to pay to use his own work again!
None of us would deny a publisher the chance for a return on his work. But this whole business of claiming copyright on the works of someone dead 16 centuries smells, whatever the legal trickery. I suggest that scholars put an end to it by declining to include that text within their deals with publishers. Apparatus? Fine by me. Translations? Ditto. Commentaries? Ditto. Wherever real work is done, it is fine that a copyright exist. But where someone is merely editing a corrupt text back to what the author wrote, the circulation of the raw text should NOT be obstructed by copyright.
Idiot of the week award goes to …
…, erm, <cough>, me.
“Why so?” I hear you cry. (At least, I hope that’s what you’re saying.) Well, it’s like this.
I’m interested in the Coptic catena on the Gospels, published without a translation by Paul De Lagarde back in the 1850’s-ish. I knew that an Arabic translation exists of that catena, and that the Arabic version is more complete. For the sole surviving Coptic manuscript has lost many of its pages in the years. But as far as anyone knew, the Arabic was unpublished.
Some time back I discovered that an edition with Italian Spanish translation existed of part of the Arabic catena, covering Matthew. The Arabic was edited by Iturbe, around 50 years ago, and attracted no attention, and I only stumbled on it through my habit of compulsive reading of patrology bibliographies. I wanted to include the Arabic fragments of Eusebius in my book. So I got hold of a copy of Iturbe, in two volumes, and had the fragments included in my book.
Recently the translator of the Coptic fragments has told me that she and her team fancy doing more of the De Lagarde catena into English. That’s very good news, of course, and I want to help. Apparently they also have some Arabic skills, so are interested in the Arabic version. I’ve offered to supply them with a copy of one of the manuscripts — because most of the Arabic catena is still unpublished. So I thought I’d look in Iturbe and find out what mss. exist.
She was also asking for details about the Arabic catena. Now I have a couple of PDF’s of selected pages, which I sent her, telling her that I borrowed the book. That’s what it usually means, when I have a PDF of a few photocopied pages.
Just now, then, I was looking for stuff about Iturbe online, and came across my own post above. It turns out that actually I did NOT borrow the book, contrary to my statements in several emails. It seems that, erm, I bought the book. In fact, once I realised this, I realised that I knew where they were as well. Yup: that’s them on my shelf.
Ah, what a fallible creature is man! “Quick Watson, the straight-jacket!”
Christophe Guignard on the catena of Nicetas
Continuing from yesterday, here is another excerpt from Christophe Guignard’s book La lettre de Julius Africanus à Aristide.
As I remarked, one of the charms of this book is that, in order to establish a text of the fragments of the letter of 2nd century writer Julius Africanus to Aristides on the genealogy of Christ, it provides a modern overview of all the sorts of sources of the fragments of lost patristic works. These sources crop up in a rather hangdog, shamefaced manner in so many books, briefly referred to as if everyone knew everything about them, when in truth no-one knows much. Dr. Guignard is, of course, surveying the scene for bits and pieces of the letter to Aristides, which has not reached us in its own right. But the same sources are used, or not used, for most patristic authors, and are the source of all those “fragments” that tend to appear at the back of editions of authors.
One of the great failures of scholarship over the last two centuries is the failure to provide editions of the catenas. These medieval Greek bible commentaries, composed entirely of chains (catenae) of quotations from the Fathers linked together, remain our brightest hope for extracts from many now lost authors. Yet they remain unpublished, for the most part. If they were published, it was in pre-critical editions of the 16-17th century. The attempt by J. Cramer, in eight volumes in the mid-19th century, to remedy this for the New Testament, was met with much criticism. I believe one or two scholars have attempted to edit a catena today, but if so their work has not come my way.
Let us return to Dr. G., p.56. The translation is mine.
The catena of Nicetas on Luke
An immense work in four books,210 gathering more than three thousand extracts, the catena on Luke composed by Nicetas of Heraclea (11-12th century)211 is today still unpublished, even if fragments of many authors or works have been published.212 In the absence of an edition, the description of its content given by Ch. Th. Krikonis based on the manuscript Iviron 371 is of signal service, despite its imprecisions.213
The catena of Nicetas is an essential witness for the Gospel Problems and Solutions of Eusebius: it was in one of its manuscripts that Cardinal Mai discovered the most important fragments of the Eusebian text outside the ecloge. It is, together with the latter, the sole witness to the first part of the Letter to Aristides (§1-9 of our edition), and also includes further extracts. However it would be hasty to conclude that it is simply one of the witnesses to the text of the Gospel Problems, since Nicetas also had access to the Ecclesiastical History [of Eusebius].214 We must, therefore, consider this point. For the moment, let us present the catena and its manuscripts, and indicate the content of the part which interests us.
I will also give the footnotes for this short section, which must have involved incredible labour to compile and are full of good things. TU is the series Texte und Untersuchungen, in which this volume appears itself as TU 167.
210 The gospel of Luke was divided into 80 chapters in the time of Nicetas. The first book of the catena covers the first 16; book 2 begins with the 17th (Luke 6:17 ff.); books 3 with the 40th (11:27ff); book 4 with the 63rd (18:18ff.). All the same it is not certain that this division, which appears in the manuscript Vaticanus graecus 1611 and its descendants is by Nicetas (see J. Sickenberger, TU 22/4, p.34-36 and 80).
211 CPG C 135 (type IV of Karo and Lietzmann). The Greek title is, according to the Vaticanus gr. 1611 (folio 1r): Συναγωγὴ ἐξηγήεων εἰς τὸ κατὰ Λουκᾶν ἅγιον εὐαγγέλιον ἐκ διαφόρων ἐρμηνευτῶν παρὰ Νικήτα διακόνου τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ μεγάλης ἐκκλησίας καὶ διδασκάλου γεγονυῖα (Sickenberger, TU 22/4, p.34)
212 See the references given by R. Devreese, “Chaînes exégétiques grecques”, DBS 1 (1928), col. 1184 ff; among the more recent publications, we cite as an example M. Richard, “Les citations de Theodoret conservées dans la chaîne de Nicétas sur l’évangile selon saint Luc”, Revue biblique 43 (1934), p.88-96 (reprinted in Opera minora, vol. 2, Turnhout: Brepols, 1977, no. 43) or P. Géhin, SC 514 (Chapters of the disciples of Evagrius).
213 Χ. Θ. Κρικώνης, Συναγωγὴ Πατέρων, (cited as: Krikonis). See the criticisms of W. Lackner, Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 24 (1975), p.287-289 (equally useful for the identification of a certain number of extracts which were dismissed by Krikonis), of M. Aubineau, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 70 (1977), p.118-121, and of A. A. Fourlas, “Die Lukaskatene des Niketas von Heraclea”, p. 268-274, more positive. The studies of J. Sickenberger remain equally useful (“Aus römischen Handschriften”, p.55-84, and above all TU 22/4; see likewise TU 21/1).
214 The lemma Εὐσεβίου ἐκκλησιαστικῆς ἱστορίας appears against Luke 3:1-3 (extract no. 540 Krikonis: Iviron 371, fol. 124-5; Vaticanus gr. 1611, fol. 48). According to the description by Krikonis, these are extracts from chapters 6 and 8-10 of book 1 [of the HE] (see also J. Sickenburger, TU 22/4, p.87).
I ought to add that the articles by Karo and Lietzmann, which classify catenas, are on archive.org, and, if you prefer a paper copy, I made one available at Lulu.com here for a nominal price. I always felt that I should have added some material in English to that, by way of a guide to readers, but who has the time?
That’s part of one page, that lot! Dr. Guignard promises us more on the manuscripts of this work in the next section or two, which I have not yet read. But I think it will indeed be useful to have a list of these, over and above the three mentioned here.
The “Sententiae” of Publilius Syrus
Publilius Syrus is a name that few will know. According to Pliny the Elder, he was brought to Rome in the first century BC as a slave, and rose to become the author of many mimes. These are lost, but a collection of sayings or sentences is preserved. The 1895 Cambridge edition here has 70 pages of English preface, although it leaves the text untranslated.
Such a collection of sayings was always likely to be popular in the Middle Ages, and consequently quite a collection of manuscripts exist, the oldest of which is 9th century. There are 717 lines in the edition above; a mutilated version containing only the first half also circulated, and older English editions were based on this. An old 1856 translation is here. How this relates to the edition is not clear to me.
The text is in alphabetical order, all the sayings — in Latin! — starting with A, then those starting with B, and so on.
UPDATE: I have been gently reminded that most people will not be familiar with the Roman mimes. The excellent Bill Thayer comes to my rescue with the following:
Among the Romans the word mimus was applied to a species of dramatic plays as well as to the persons who acted in them.
It is certain that the Romans did not derive their mimus from the Greeks in southern Italy, but that it was of native growth. The Greek mimes were written in prose, and the name μῖμος was never applied to an actor, but if used of a person it signified one who made grimaces.
The Roman mimes were imitations of foolish and mostly indecent and obscene occurrences (Ovid, Trist. II.515; Valer. Max. II.6 §7, X.11), and scarcely differed from comedy except in consisting more of gestures and mimicry than of spoken dialogue, which was not the case in the Greek mimes. The dialogue was, indeed, not excluded from the Roman mimes, but was only interspersed in various parts of the representation, while the mimic acting continued along with it and uninterruptedly from the beginning to the end of a piece. At Rome such mimes seem originally to have been exhibited at funerals, where one or more persons (mimi) represented in a burlesque manner the life of the deceased. If there were several mimi, one of them, or their leader, was called archimimus (Suet. Vespas. 19; Gruter, Inscript. 1089.6).
During the latter period of the republic such farces were also represented in the theatres; but it appears that they did not attain any high degree of perfection before the time of Caesar, for it is not until then that writers of mimes are mentioned: Cn. Matius, Decius Laberius, and Publ. Syrus were the most distinguished among them (Gellius, XV.25; Suet. Caes. 39; Cic. ad Fam. XII.18). These coarse and indecent performances, of which Sulla was very fond, had greater charms for the Romans than the regular drama: hence they were not only performed on the stage, but even at repasts in the houses of private persons. On the stage they were performed as farces after tragedies, and during the empire they gradually supplanted the place of the Atellanae. …
It was peculiar to the actors in these mimes, neither to wear masks, nor the cothurnus, nor the soccus, whence they are sometimes called planipedes (Diomed. III.487; Gellius, I.11; Macrob. Sat. II.1). As the mimes contained scenes taken from common life, such as exhibited its most striking features, their authors are sometimes called biologi or ethologi (Cic. pro Rabir. 12, de Orat. II.59), and the works themselves were distinguished for their richness in moral sentences.
That distinguished and living persons were sometimes exposed to ridicule in these mimes, is clear p764from J. Capitolinus (M. Ant. Philos. c29). (Cf. Reuvens, Collectan. Literar. I p51, &c.; Osann, Analect. crit. I p67, &c.; Ziegler, De Mimis Romanorum, Götting. 1788).