The Differences in the Gospels and their Solutions by Eusebius of Caesarea is quoted all over the place. One stray quotation appears in the letters of Isidore of Pelusium. In the Migne edition this is book 2, letter 212, (PG 78, col. 651). This letter consists entirely of a quotation from the Quaestiones Ad Marinum; how can we say that Jesus was dead for 3 days? The text here is of course a corrective for that published by Mai, and I must send it to my translator.
Author: Roger Pearse
A better collection of all the fragments of Papias now online in English
Tom Schmidt has had a real go at getting all the pieces of Papias together, including all the Greek, Latin, Armenian and Arabic pieces, and getting people to make translations. The whole lot is here. His notes by each fragment are also very useful, particularly in the case of the more obscure fragments. I think this must be the definitive collection for now. Well done Tom! The excellent Robert Bedrosian helped out with the Armenian.
A suggestion: it would be nice to have the original language for each fragment online as well, I think.
A dull post on a catena published by Combefis
One of the problems for the Eusebius project is the quantity of materials of this work preserved in catenas. Claudio Zamagni, in his excellent thesis, listed quite a few. I’ve tried to track these down, but one has defeated me. It was edited by F. Combefis, and on p.200 of Z’s thesis is listed so:
S. patris nostri Asterii Amaseae episcopi aliorumque plurimum … [=Graecolat. Patrum bibliothecae novum auctarium… 1], Parisiis 1648 [779-790]
A search in COPAC reveals a number of copies of this work in UK research libraries, mostly in the north of England. Some of the cataloguing is splendid:
Title details: S. Patris Nostri Asterij Amaseæ Episcopi, aliorumque plurium dissertissimorum Ecclesiæ Græcæ patrum ac tractatorum lectæ nouæ eruditissimæque : cum pari pietate orationes & homiliæ: in Dominicas praesertim, sanctissimaeque Dei Genitricis solennitates. / Opera ac studio R.P. Fr. Francisca Combefis …
[ S. Patris Nostri Asterij Amaseæ Episcopi, aliorumqve plvrivm dissertissimorvm Ecclesiæ Græcæ patrvm ac tractatorum lectæ nouæ eruditissimæque ]
Series: Græcolat. Patrum Bibliothecæ nouum auctarium. ; t.1 (Graeco-Latine Patrum Bibliothecae novum auctuarium ; t.1)
Published: Parisiis, : Sumptibus Antonij Bertier … , M. DC. XLVIII..
Physical desc.: [12] p., 1774 columns, [22] p. ; fol.
Notes: Title page printed in red and black, with engraved vignette. Woodcut initials. Includes index. Full contents given in Darling, James. Cyclopaedia bibliographica. London, 1845. Greek text with parallel Latin translation.
Other names: Asterius, of Amasea, Saint, ca. 350-ca. 410; Combefis, François, 1605-1679, [editor.]; Bertier, Antoine, 1610?-1678, [publisher.]
Related item: Referenced by: Brunet, II, 646; Referenced by: CLC, II, C1567
Language: Ancient Greek (to 1453) ; Latin
I wonder what the Cyclopaedia bibliographica is, that has a full description of this?
It seems that the work appeared in two volumes, and this was vol. 1. The text is printed and numbered in columns, rather than in pages, so 779-790 is probably the columns. I note that there is one in Birmingham Special collections, under the somewhat gnomic shelfmark: ML Spec.Coll – r f BR 62. It might be easiest to order copies of those pages from them, since they are a helpful lot.
But what prompted the search was a vague memory that copies existed in Oxford. And so they do; mostly in college libraries:
Queen’s College Upper Library, 60.F.11
Balliol College Library, Special Collections, 0125 s.a.02 A
Christ Church Library, Special Collections, Allestree B.4.1
Keble College Library, Special Collections, TE F.2.2b
It would have been far too convenient had my own college been one of them! But a further search reveals a copy in the Bodleian:
Main author: Graeco-Latini patres.
Title details: Græcolat. patrum bibliothecæ novum auctarium (operâ F. Combefis). Tomus duplex.
Published: Par. 1648
Physical desc.: (fol.)
Other names: Combefis, François, [ed.]
Bodleian Library Bookstack R 6.16, 15 Jur.
And this I hope to inspect on Thursday. Whether the Bodleian will allow me copies remains to be seen.
But I do feel I want to examine the book. I shall want to see whatever information he gives on the manuscripts used. This will be scanty, at that date, but all the same I want whatever there is. To do so I will need to hunt through the volume. And anyway, isn’t it pleasant to do so?
Dionysius Bar Salibi’s “Commentary on the Gospels”, Papias and Eusebius
The massive commentary on the Gospels of the 13th century Syriac writer Dionysius Bar Salibi has never been translated into English. But at one point it looked as if it might be. An Irish scholar named Dudley Loftus made use of a manuscript in Trinity College, Dublin, and made a Latin translation of the whole thing. This still exists, in manuscript, and I have seen it in the Bodleian, among the mss. of Dr. John Fell, where it is numbered #6 and #7. The ms is crumbling, and probably unphotographed; of course I wasn’t allowed to take a copy.
But it seems that Loftus found that he could not publish his translation. Instead he made an English version of extracts, which he did publish as “A clear and learned explication of the history of our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ: taken out of above thirty Greek, Syriack, and other oriental authors: by Dionysius Syrus, … and faithfully translated by D. Loftus. / [by] DIONYSIUS BAR SALIBI, Bishop of Amadia ; Loftus, Dudley ; JESUS CHRIST. (1695)”
This contains some interesting material. It contains a passage from Papias, which my friend Tom Schmidt is going to blog about. But while looking for this, I also found a quotation from Eusebius! The work is really something of a catena, and thus the statement of Eusebius about how the Lord was dead for 3 days appears in it, on p.58.
Eusebius; Mathew by way of Exposition adds after this, of the Evening of the Sabbath the dawning of the Firstday of the Week, denoting the Hour and time of the Night after the Sabbath, which was when the First day of the Week dawned. ‘Tis true, Mathew wrote in the Hebrew, and he who Translated the Scripture into the Greek Language, rendered the Dawning of tbe Day, the Evening of the Sabbath; and Mathew, by the Evening, means the whole Length and Evening af the Night; as John calls the passing away, or the least Part of the Night, Day; and therefore adds, whilest it was yet dark, least it should be thought, that he spoke of the Morning; so Mathew also, when he said, the Evening of the Sabbath, lest Men might think it was spoken of the Evening Season, he adds, When the First day of the Week began to dawn.
I suspect this is more the sense of Eusebius’ thought than his words; it will be interesting to see, when the Syriac fragments are properly published, how this compares.
More on remacle.org
The excellent Marc Szwajcer of remacle.org has left a note on this blog here, to which I have responded by email. I have already highlighted this massive French site of classical, patristric and Syriac texts in translation. It seems that Marc is also translating material himself, and uploading it, which is wonderful.
From my diary
I’m off to Oxford on Thursday. I shall make a day trip of it, and if the sun shines it will be very pleasant.
Getting to Oxford is not as easy as it might be. It is unlikely to cost less than 40 GBP in petrol. The Oxford City Council will meanly charge me another 20 GBP to park there. (Both charges are mainly tax, and seem to be levied out of spite rather than to fund necessary works; the latter, indeed, go undone). The actual journey from London is simple; straight up the M40.
Once there, my first stop will be to try to sell some academic books. For some time I have been weeding out books that I never use, and piling them into a heap. Most are patristic. There are 20-odd Sources Chretiennes volumes of Tertullian, all in mint condition. There are half a dozen Italian translations of his works also. There are also some classical texts, and one or two items such as “C.S.Lewis at the BBC”. I’ve just counted them, and there are 73. Such a lot of money spent… and on items that in truth I have hardly used!
Then I shall go onto the Bodleian. The medieval Greek commentaries made up of patristic quotes were largely printed in the 16th and 17th centuries, and are themselves hard to find now. They have one which I have never been able to access, and which contains some fragments of Eusebius. The Bodleian can be hard to deal with; I hope that they will supply me with reproductions of the pages without charging obscene prices.
I shall visit my old college, and go and sit in the gardens at a wall seat where Tolkien used to sit and where we sometimes had bible studies when I was there. It was 1983 when I left, and somehow this is more than 25 years ago! Those unlined young faces that I see in memory now have children of their own, and where are they all now, that jolly company? I remember sunlight in the gardens as if it was yesterday. I remember playing croquet on the lawn, all unawares that such things would come to an end and a life much less agreeable follow. I remember sitting in my room overlooking St. Albans Quad — how I remember that room! — and listening to voices rehearsing a production of the Wizard of Oz in the gardens; and playing Goodbye Yellow Brick Road on my HiFi, which I had obtained by pure coincidence at the same time.
I shall walk down the High street, and into Cornmarket. But however hard I look, I will not see the faces of friends; everyone will be a stranger. It will be like taking a time-machine to your own past; everything is the same as you remember, but you no longer belong. For we are all gone, the Grecians of my day, gone to other things, to pay bills and walk the treadmill of life. In the streets will be a new generation, as heedless as we; and they too will pass away as we have done. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Update on Origen Project
Copts in literature from ancient times to the present
Christianity came early to Egypt. The distance from Jerusalem is not great, and the substantial Jewish community in Alexandria must have provided fertile ground for early missionaries. But for the first couple of centuries there is relatively little literary material, even though the discoveries of papyri at Oxyrhynchus indicate the presence of Christians. Clement of Alexandria at the end of the second century witnesses to the substantial Christian community; Origen in the third century does likewise. In this way the Egyptian church comes into being, and has continued to exist to this day. Its roots in the native population led to Coptic being its language.
The historical sources for Christianity in Egypt are not as numerous as might be desired. There is the mighty History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, first compiled supposedly by the 10th century bishop Severus of al-Ashmunein, or Sawirus ibn Mukaffa` as he is in Arabic. This runs from the time of St. Mark, down to the modern era, and the notices are often contemporary, and vivid. The length account of the reign of Cyril III Ibn Laqlaq will illuminate any discussion of modern Palestine, as the writer grapples with regular Western — ‘Frankish’ — incursions into the region. The vulnerability of the Christians to Moslem attack, even in time of peace under very tolerant Sultans, is visible throughout.
Unfortunately the history withered in the later Middle Ages, and notices from that period down to the 19th century are perfunctory. The size of the book, even so, can be gauged by the fact that it fills four fascicles of the Patrologia Orientalis, and a further 8 similar sized fascicles in the Cairo continued translation. All this material is now in Arabic, but some was originally in Coptic. All of it is online in English here and here.
Beyond that there seem to be few sources. The other source is the history of which part was published by B.T.A.Evetts as the Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and some neighbouring countries, ascribed to Abu Salih, and which is really by Abu al-Makarim This portion is online here. But the work is actually a history, which happens to include sections on churches and monasteries. I have been writing about this important 13th century source, since I discovered the existence of the whole work in an Arabic edition by Bishop Samuel al-Suryani. I hope to discover whether an English translation of the whole exists; it seems that the Bishop may have translated at least some of it.
These histories give us a window into the Egyptian church in ancient times, after the ending of our standard histories — Eusebius, Sozomen, Socrates and Evagrius Scholasticus. The schisms of the 5th century and the collapse of Roman society mean that our knowledge of what happened there tends to be sketchy. These sources can rectify this, if we let them. They will tell us what it was like to live under Islam; and how doing so tended to corrupt senior clergymen.
Accounts of 20th century Coptic Christianity seem to be patchy. A really good book, aimed at the western Christian, does not seem to exist. Yet Christianity remains strong in Egypt even today, in a situation very like that of the times of Ibn Laqlaq. The Sunday School movement of the early 20th century has led to a renewal among the Copts. Coptic Orthodox monasticism is thriving, and monasteries are being reopened. Interest in Coptic studies is increasing all the time. Islamic violence — malevolent, yet somehow feeble — remains a problem, as it has done for centuries. But a true picture of what God has been doing among the Copts has never reached me. I wish there was one!
(This post has been written to give some context on my posts on Coptic and Egyptian Arabic Literature to the general visitor, who might otherwise find himself wondering just why anyone cares about some bloke named Abu al-Makarim!)
Selling patristics books
It’s easy to buy books; never easier, in fact. But selling them? That’s hard work. There’s a bookshop in Oxford that specialises in patristics, St. Philips Books. Quite willing to go over there and offer them the 40-odd books that I have and want off the floor. Trouble is, you email them and get a reply several days later, if then.
Anyone got any other suggestions?
English translation of the Coptic history of Al-Makarim?
The medieval coptic history attributed to Abu Salih by the first editor, B.T.A. Evetts, was published in a complete form by Bishop Samuel al-Suriani in Egypt, in five parts and two volumes. I learn today that he may also have completed an English translation, available from the St. Shenouda Center in the USA. Their bookstore is here. Unfortunately the details I have are infuriatingly vague, as are the details on that page. I wonder if it is true? If it is complete?
Pity it isn’t online, if so.