Author: Roger Pearse

Killing the dipsticks of the world

Posted on by Roger Pearse

It’s funny how the world can suddenly become a hostile place!  I thought people might be amused by the litany of improbable problems that has prevented me from doing something simple this evening.

I got an email today from one of the people I’m working with, saying that they couldn’t work out how to install a unicode font, so could I print some stuff for them and send them out.  They don’t want advice, I find.  I don’t have much choice, but I cursed when I read this; I’m tired and have much to do.

  • I get home after a very long day, dog-tired, fire up the Windows 7 laptop, plug in the Canon i560 inkjet, a couple of years old, and … it won’t install. 
  • I search out the drivers disk… it says it isn’t compatible.
  • I hunt around the web — it’s nearly impossible to find ANY driver.  I find pages saying Canon won’t support Win7 for this product.  I download the XP driver.  It refuses to install.
  • Fine, I boot up the Vista  machine — and it locks up.  I look for my XP machine… and then think, hang on, why am I bothering with all this pain.  Let’s just use my laser printer.
  • I plug in the laser, print 3 pages and … the toner light comes on and it too refuses to print.
  • At that point I give in.  I am NOT going to attempt to change toner while stumbling tired.

But I won’t be buying a Canon ever again.

Sorry everyone — if you’re waiting for something from me, I am too frazzled to do it this evening!

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More on Philip of Side and the Religionsgesprach

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve now got hold of Wallraff’s book with its list of fragments of Philip of Side – thank you to the chap who made that possible – now I must actually look at it, and start seeing what other bits exist.  Unfortunately the article is in German, but machine translators are a wonderful thing.  I might digest down the list of fragments for public consumption.

I’ve also had an email that part of the materials from the Dialogue at the court of the Sassanids which contains fragments of Philip is already in English, albeit misattributed to Julius Africanus, here. 

I also learn that portions of the catalogue of fragments by Katharina Heyden are online in preview form here.  Also a related monograph is here.

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Progress on Philip of Side

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The fragments of Philip of Side’s monster Ecclesiastical History — or more likely, World Chronicle — are being looked at.  Most interesting are the bits embedded in the fictional text the Religionsgesprach am Hof der Sassaniden, published by E. Bratke, Das sogennante Religionsgesprach am Hof der Sassaniden (TU 19, 3) Leipzig 1899, 153-164.  (Bratke starts on p.448 of the PDF; something about Philip appears on p. 476 of the PDF).  These discuss the work, and depict it being brought out in evidence and quoted verbatim!  The start of a translation of these bits is most interesting.

Apparently a French dissertation has a critical text and a translation.  Does anyone know how one might obtain/buy a copy of French dissertations?

Apparently a catalogue of the fragments of Philip of Side appears here: Katharina Heyden, “Die Christliche Geschichte des Philippos von Side: Mit einem kommentierten Katalog der Fragmente,” in M. Wallraff (ed.), Julius Africanus und die christliche Weltchronistik (Berlin, 2006), pp. 209-243.  Does anyone have a copy they could slip me in PDF form?  If so, contact me using the form on the right.

Another article that would be of use, if anyone has it, is Katharina Heyden, Die “Erzählug des Aphroditian,” Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 53 (Tübingen, 2009).  This relates to the Religionsgesprach, I think.

 

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Thinking about Severian on Genesis

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Severian of Gabala ca. 400 preached at least six sermons on the six days of Creation.  Six have reached us in Greek; there are rumours of a Seventh in Arabic, although this is unpublished.  The sermons are notorious as advocating a flat-earth cosmology, although I suspect this projects back quite a few ideas not present in the texts themselves.

Yesterday I finished translating the first sermon into English from the old French translation of Bareille.  Translating a translation is always unsatisfactory, and if I had endless money I wouldn’t dream of it.  But it still has some value, if not for the scholar; the ordinary mortal can at least gain a sense of what the text contains and its structure and argument.

However I grew more dissatisfied as I proceeded.  I really do feel that a proper translation of these six sermons is necessary and desirable.  Nor am I satisfied that Bareille is that accurate.  At one point he suggests more or less the opposite of what the Greek says, and what the context makes clear he must mean — I presume a “not” has dropped out of his translation in the printing process. 

These sermons are really very interesting.  Surprisingly, Severian is not an obscurantist, but a man of a probing and scientific mind.  He rejects the appeal to the authority of past writers, and appeals regularly to what can actually be seen, and for original thinking.  Admittedly he comes to seriously mistaken conclusions; but they are not self-evidently daft conclusions, given the state of knowledge at the time.  He is also preaching to an audience which is hoping to trip him up — it would be very interesting to learn the circumstances under which he felt obliged to preach on this subject.

I will consider commissioning a translation of these from Greek.  It’s 70 columns of Migne, which won’t be cheap; but if done well, done once, will always be worth doing.  If I can get hold of a copy of the Arabic, I might have a translation made of that as well, and perhaps do the set in book form.  If I do that, of course, I would need to get the Greek transcribed.

I’ve never digitised a lot of Greek.  So I’ve just emailed Dr. Maria Pantelia at the TLG, on a whim, suggesting that perhaps we might work together on digitising the Greek.  If I pay for some of it, perhaps it would benefit both sides.  If not, of course, I’ll find another way.

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Fancy a scroll of Caesar’s Gallic War?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

If so, there is a vendor who is selling a copy of the opening chapters in roll format, here.  It’s interesting to see how ancient books really appeared.

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Burning past the libraries

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Today I drove up past Cambridge on some domestic business.  Being in the area, I wondered whether to pop in to Cambridge University library.  I didn’t, tho.  I didn’t feel the need. 

Last night I downloaded 10 volumes of Angelo Mai’s 1825 extravaganza, Scriptorum Veterum Collectio Nova, in which he published the finds he made in the Vatican library at the time.  Each was about 1,000 pages.

Volume 1 includes the first publication of several works by Eusebius, including the Quaestiones ad Stephanum / Marinum.  About 3 years back I went to Cambridge, and bought photocopies of those pages from that volume.  They charged me 25c per page — not cheap but by no means exorbitant in the crazy world of academic libraries.  I probably got 100 pages, and paid $25 for them; and was very glad to get them, and to be allowed to get a photocopy.  I had to wait a week for them to be done.

And now?  I hardly care about those books, because I can get the whole 1,000 pages from Google Books for nothing.  It hardly matters what CUL charge for photocopies of those books now; no-one will pay it.  How long before they realise that storing the physical books is a waste of time?

It has become acceptable among IT journalists to sneer at Google.  But let us not forget the many wonderful things we owe to the owners of that company, and their vision, and the free access to vast amounts of information and services.  Those living in unfree countries are robbed at every turn by petty officialdom, under the guise of laws and regulations, which must be obeyed, and hoops must be jumped through and fees paid — ahhhh, fees! — and in the process nothing happens and everyone is impoverished.  For even the most enthusiastic will be ground down when he has to ask permission of the lazy and indifferent to do anything.

Google has changed the world, and changed it markedly for the better.  I for one am grateful.

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Gregory of Antioch – a sixth century figure of whom I knew nothing

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Gregory of Antioch began as a monk in the monastery of the Byzantines in Jerusalem, or so we learn from Evagrius Scholasticus.  He was transferred by the emperor Justin II (565-578 ) to Sinai.  He was abbot there when the monastery was attacked by Arabs.  John Moschus mentions he was also abbot of Pharan in Palestine.  In 569-70 he became Patriarch of Antioch after Justin II deposed the Patriarch Anastasius.  Gregory was an influential figure, who quarrelled with the Count of the East and was subjected to official harassment and “enquiries” in consequence, including a appearance in court in Constantinople some time before 588.  The charges were trumped up, it seems, and he was acquitted.  When Roman troops fighting the Persians mutinied in the time of the emperor Maurice, Gregory was asked to mediate.  When Chosroes II of Persia was obliged to flee to the Romans for safety early in his reign, Gregory of Antioch and Domitian, metropolitan of Melitene, were sent to meet him.  His services were evidently acceptable; when Chosroes regained his kingdom, he sent Gregory the cross which had been earlier carried off from Sergiopolis by Chosroes I.  After this, Gregory made a tour of the border lands to convert Monophysites to the Chalcedonian definitions.  He died in 593-4 from taking a drug, intended to relieve gout.  His predecessor Anastasius then become Patriarch once more.

A small number of homilies have reached us, mostly under other names, which are also extant in various oriental languages.  He seems to have been a gifted speaker.  Three of these homilies (CPG 7385-7) were preached on successive Sundays.  The address to the army or oratio ad exercitum (CPG 7388) preserved in Evagrius Scholasticus seems to be by Evagrius himself.  Finally there is a homily on the first martyr, Stephen (CPG 7389) extant only in Georgian, which is perhaps a letter rather than a sermon.

The homilies can be found in PG 10, 1177-89; PG 61, 761-4; PG 88, 1848-66; and PG 88 1872-84.  The homily of Stephen is in PO 19 (1926) 689-99, with an encomium following in 699-715.

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Mai’s Scriptorum veterum nova collectio e Vaticanibus codicibus – online!

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have just discovered the volumes of Angelo Mai’s massive collection of materials here, all derived from google I think.

I can find some of them directly.  Not sure where the rest are.  Here’s the list (updated – thanks Dioscorus / Walter):

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Polychronius, Porphyry and Daniel

Posted on by Roger Pearse

One of the 5th century commentators on scripture was Polychronius, brother of Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 430 AD).  He belonged to the Antioch school of biblical interpretation, who took a fairly literal approach to scripture.  His works are lost.   But the interpreters of that school were used extensively by the compilers of catena-commentaries from the 6th century onwards, and Polychronius was among them.  The result is that the Patrologia Graeca contains hundreds of pages of fragments culled from these catenas.

It’s fairly obvious why someone compiling a commentary on scripture from the Fathers would tend to prefer Antioch to Alexandria, literal to allegorical.  An allegorical interpretation might be interesting, but as a comment on a passage is much less useful than someone who is dealing directly with what the passage says.

Polychronius is interesting because he was one of the few Fathers to agree with Porphyry — “the impious Porphyry” as he is universally referred to — on the subject of the date of portions of Daniel.  These he considered were additions made in the Hellenistic period, in the times of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.  The latter monarch led the attack on Judaism and is the subject of the books of Maccabees.  The portions are Bel and the Dragon, Susannah, and the Song of the Three Children.  In Daubney’s Three additions to Daniel I read:

Polychronius, Theodore of Mopsuestia’s brother, refused to comment on this piece because it was not part of the original Daniel, nor in the Syriac, ο  κεταιν  τος  βραϊκος    ντος  Συριακος βιβλίοις.

I’ve had a proposal to translate the fragments on Daniel, amounting to some 50 columns of Migne.  This is quite a bit, and would cost quite a bit too!  I’ve queried whether perhaps we might cherry-pick some of the best bits, solely from a cost-saving point of view.  But it’s not an impossible sum.

The fragments of Daniel were published by Mai in Volume 1 of Scriptorum Veterum Collectio Nova, in part 2, p.105.  They start on p.556 of the Google Books PDF.

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Sixth century writers of whom I know nothing

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A correspondant wrote to me about some writers of the sixth century whom it might be interesting to have online and in English.  Unfortunately he is clearly more erudite than I, because I don’t recognise most of the names!

I was thinking of Anastasius of Antioch who influenced both his time and later debates and also Maximus the Confessor. His sermon “on his return” delivered when he was returned to his patriarchal see (published by Mai) deserves a translation. His other homilies too, actually all what he wrote deserve better concern and translations.

Next to him is Gregory of Antioch, his follower and successor. He left few homilies, those published are in Migne. One very respected scholar told me that these homilies so neglected are a witness for liturgy between the early Armenian and later Georgian texts about the liturgy of Jerusalem and linked of course Antioch to Jerusalem. He was a friend of Pope Gregory the great and was an important figure.

I thought also about Antipater of Bostra (5th century) whom, it seems, only two homilies are genuine. These are so important and have never been translated before (I guess in Italian translation of the syriac text is published by Vona).

There are others too, like a certain Timothy…Chrysippus…

It’s always interesting to look into a fresh area of patristics.  None of these people are known to me.  What can I find out online?

Antipater of Bostra appears in Patrologia Graeca vol. 85, cols. 1763-96; Gregory of Antioch appears in PG. 88; Anastasius of Antioch in PG 89.

Antipater of Bostra was one of the anti-Origenists of the 5th century, at the time of the council of Chalcedon, and is important enough to have a Catholic Encyclopedia article and a Wikipedia entry.  The former tells us that fragments remain of his highly-regarded refutation of the Apology for Origen of the Holy Martyr Pamphilus and Eusebius of Caesarea (CPG 6687), in the Acts of the Seventh Council (787).  This is on cols. 1791-3 of the PG.  The Saint Pachomius webpage for him lists his works; a sermon on John the Baptist and another on the Annunciation, plus four columns of fragments including a fragment against Apollinaris.  The fragments look interesting, the sermons not very.  There is also a BBKL article in German.  Apparently Antipater wrote: “Hail, you who acceptably intercede as a Mediatrix for mankind.” (In S. Joannem Bapt., PG, 1772C), which will not endear him to most of us.  There are entries in the CPG for his works from 6680 to 6698, including an unpublished Greek Homily on Epiphany (CPG 6685).  His sermon on the annunciation exists in both Greek and Syriac.  An Italian edition and translation of the two sermons above exists, I learn from here: C. Vona, L’orazione di Antipatro sulla nascita del Battista e l’orazione sull’Annunciazione, Rome, 1974.  The details of Vona’s publication may not be quite reliable, tho; there seem to be two books, not just one.

An extract from the anti-Origen work is  here:

Antipater, Bishop of Bostra, in his First Book against Eusebius of Cæsarea’s Apology for Origen.

“Since now this man was very learned, having searched out and traced back all the books and writings of the more ancient writers, and having set forth the opinions of almost all of them, and having left behind very many writings, some of which are worthy of all acceptation, making use of such an estimation as this of the man, they attempt to lead away some, saying, that Eusebius would not have chosen to take this view, unless he had accurately ascertained that all the opinions of the ancients required it. I, indeed, agree and admit that the man was very learned, and that not anything of the more ancient writings escaped his knowledge; for, taking advantage of the imperial co-operation, he was enabled easily to collect for his use material from whatever quarter.”

Gregory of Antioch is hardly referred to online.  What about Anastasius of Antioch?  When I search I find this:

” It is clear,” he says, ” that those things which the divine Scripture has passed over are not to be inquired into; for all things which tend to our profit the Holy Spirit has dispensed and administered to us.” 2

2. Quod quae silentio praeteriit Scripture divina non sint scrutanda, est perspicuum. Omnia enim quae faciunt ad nostram utilitatem dispensavit et administravit Spiritus Sanctus. Anastas. Antioch. Anag. Contempt. in Hexam. lib. viii. init. (Bibl. Patr. ed. Col. 1618, et seq. Tom. vi. P. 1. p. 666.)

From which I learn he wrote something about the Six Days of Creation or Hexameron.  He is Anastasius III of Antioch, but he doesn’t have a Wikipedia article.  A portion of one of his works is here, Oratio 4:1-2, taken from PG 89, 1347-49.  Beyond that, he seems no better off than Gregory.

I shall see what the “extra” volume of Quasten has to say about these people!

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