Author: Roger Pearse

An anecdote of Bishop Warburton

Posted on by Roger Pearse

BISHOP WILLIAM WARBURTON (1698-1779)

[James Quin, Garrick’s chief rival and a noted wit, retired from the stage at the close of the 1752 season. Warburton, whose marriage to the favourite niece of Ralph Allen (the original of Fielding’s Squire Allworthy) had accelerated his rise in the Church, and who managed to combine arrogance, self-approval, and a belief in his own omniscience with an eye to the main chance, was one of the least liked ecclesiastics of the eighteenth century.]

Mr. Warburton, about the year 1750 or 1752, being in company with Quin the player at Mr. Allen’s, near Bath, took several opportunities of being sharp upon him on the subject of his love of eating and his voluptuous life. However, in the course of the evening, he said he should be obliged to Quin for ‘a touch of his quality’, as he could never again see him on the stage. Quin said that plays were then quite out of his head; however, he believed he remembered a few lines of Pierre;1 on which he got up, and looking directly at Mr. Allen, repeated ore rotunda—

                                                                Honest men
Are the soft easy cushions on which knaves
Repose and fatten.

Warburton gave him no further trouble for the rest of the evening.

1 In Otway’s Venice Preserved, Act I, lines 126-8.  Anecdote from Sir James Prior, Life of Edmond Malone . . . with Selections from his MSS. Anecdotes (1860), via J. Sutherland, The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes (1975), #102, p.71.  The preceding anecdote of Lord Chesterfield is from the same source, #101.

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Flushed with success – how to acquire a knowledge of the Latin poets

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I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house; but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments. He bought, for example, a common edition of Horace, of which he tore off gradually a couple of pages, carried them with him to that necessary place, read them first, and then sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina: this was so much time fairly gained, and I recommend you to follow his example. . . . Books of science and of a grave sort must be read with continuity; but there are very many, and even very useful ones, which may be read with advantage by snatches and unconnectedly: such are all the good Latin poets, except Virgil in his Aeneid, and such are most of the modern poets, in which you will find many pieces worth reading that will not take up above seven or eight minutes. — Lord Chesterfield

— The Letters of the Earl of Chesterfield to his son, ed. Charles Strachey and Annette Calthorp (1901), vol. 1, p. 192.

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Michael the Syrian vol. 3 has arrived

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I scanned volume 1 and volume 2 of the French translation of the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian, the big 12th century Syriac Chronicle and placed them on Archive.org.  I learned today that after a very long wait, volume 3 has appeared at the local library via ILL.  I shall go and get it tomorrow, and fire up my scanner.

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Syriac origins for the Gospel of Thomas? Not convinced, I think

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Paleobabble is a useful blog on some of the factual mistakes that go around.  He’s suspicious — as I am — of the idea that the Gospel of Thomas is “obviously” earlier than the canonical gospels; the way in which this idea is asserted and disseminated has that characteristic smell of a bit of paleobabble.

The Gospel of Thomas: Is it Really Earlier than the Canonical Gospels?

Many scholars think so, especially those trotted out by the Discovery Channel, PBS, etc.  A lot of scholars disagree, and for good reasons, but that isn’t as media-sexy.

Here’s a good article on recent re-consideration of the “earliness” of Thomas. It’s by Nick Perrin of Wheaton College, whom I know. Nick spoke as part of a lecture series I coordinated in Bellingham, WA a couple years ago on this topic. The article is a bit technical, but I think non-specialists in biblical studies will follow it.  I post it since there is so much paleobabble surrounding the Gospel of Thomas. You all ought to know that it’s not so neat a picture as the popular media would have it.

The article by Nick Perrin is interesting.  But in truth it is merely a summary of research, reflecting its origins as a paper given as an address.  I think to be happy with the thesis made, we would need to see all the supporting evidence.  Bits of this paper make me feel unhappy with the argument.

The first bit to do this appears on p.69, where a table of Matt. 8:20 with its version in the GoT and the Diatessaron appears.  This is given to show that the GoT agrees with the Diatessaron.  But … the table is in English!   We need, instead, the original languages, albeit with an English gloss.  I feel deeply uneasy relying on quite as many layers of translation as this table must involve!

The general argument seems to be that there are more “link words” between the sayings if we translate the text into Syriac than if we do into Greek, or in the Coptic.  The reason is that the same Syriac word may represent more than one word in Coptic, thereby creating links not visible in the other two languages.  Likewise the fact that in Syriac families of words all derive from one tri-literal root naturally creates links that won’t exist in other languages.

But … won’t the same apply to every translation into Syriac?  I’d like to see a control test; look at one of Chrysostom’s sermons, extant in Greek, and its Syriac version, and see if exactly the same thing happens, and how often.  It seems to me that it must do.  Because, after all, both things are features to the language.  If so, the statistics quoted may be simply meaningless, unless adjusted for a possible general feature.

The other issue that will come to mind is to ask why the Diatessaron is not, then, using GoT?  If the latter was composed in Edessa (? why?), surely such a thing is likely?  We’re not told this.

In my bones, the paper feels forced.  It feels clever rather than convincing.

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Literature searching for a lost manuscript

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m still looking through the literature, trying to find leads to the last, lost manuscript of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Gospel contradictions.  I’ve been reading my photocopy of Zoepfl’s book about the Commentary on the Hexameron of ps. Eustathius of Antioch, which — according to Latino Latini — probably was the first text in this now lost manuscript.

It seems that I am not alone in being interested in Latini’s comments.  On p. 10 of Zoepfl, he lists a Spanish manuscript:

cod. Matrit. gr. 124 (1), a collection-manuscript, written by Antonius Calosyna in 1563 (2), contains in first place (f. 2ff) the ps.Eust. Commentary, under the title: Τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις πατρὸς ἡμῶν εὐσταθίου ἐπισκόπου ἀντιοχείας ὁμιλία εἰς τὴν ἑξαήμερον ὑπόμνημα θαυμαστόν.  The end of the work is missing.

(1) See J. Iriarte, Regiae Bibliothecae Matritensis codices Graeci manuscripti, vol. I (1769), p.501 f.; J.A.Fabricius-G.Ch.Harles, Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. IX (Hamburgi, 1804), 134 f.
(2) Latino Latini wrote on the 14th September 1563 to Andreas Masius (see Latinius II 116), “Cardinal Sirletus sends to tell you, there has been found in Sicily a work of Eustathius on the creation, or the six days.”  This raises the question of whether there is a connection between the Matr. 124 and the manuscript mentioned by Latinius, especially when the Latin title in the manuscript is written in an Italian hand.

If Sirleto found a manuscript, he would first probably hire a scribe to make a copy for himself.  Since this is made in the same year as Latini wrote saying that Sirleto had just found such an ms, containing both Eustathius and the lost work by Eusebius, is this the copy made?  If so, what else is in this ms?  From what was it copied?

Interesting, and leading to more questions!

UPDATE: Iriarte doesn’t seem to be online, unfortunately.  Vol. 9 of Fabricius (found by doing a Google advanced search, author=Fabricius, date=1804) is here.  This volume of Fabricius is a patrology, so we are in the section on Eustathius, reviewing scholarly opinion on the work and full of useful and interesting information.

It is interesting how these multi-volume Latin works of the 18th century make modern patrologies look babyish.

UPDATE2: The Pinakes database contains information on this ms., which is Madrid, BN, 04852.  Eustathius is on ff.2-96v; but folios 1r-v and 97 r-v are blank, and the work is unfinished.  It is then followed by 3 works by Gregory of Nyssa.  I would guess, therefore, that the four parts are of different origins, and that the copy of Eustathius was not completed.  Drat.

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Cambridge University Library manuscripts department are idiots

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Apparently Cambridge University Library has appointed someone new to be in charge of the manuscripts room.  That man is a jerk.  He wants to make his mark, so has “increased security.”  Yes, I know; we all wince when librarians do this.

This I found out today when I tried to look at the catalogue of manuscripts in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples.  As a manuscripts-related book, access to it is through the manuscripts room, to which I have access (which required a special letter of introduction).

I arrive at the door of the reading room, with my special clear plastic bag containing my wallet, notebook, assorted pencils, etc.  First I have to sign my name and card number in a paper register.  Then I am denied access.  I am handed a key and told to leave my bag in a locker outside, and hold in my hands whatever I need.  I do so. 

Then I come back; and they still won’t let me in.  I have to give them the key to the locker; and they give me a tag for it.  Then they let me in.

Then I go to where the book should be.  It isn’t there.  Indeed there is no sign of a whole range of books in that shelfmark.  I go to the desk; they don’t know where it is either.  After messing me about for 10 minutes I just want to leave this creepy, horrible place.

And then, of course, I have to go through the rigamarole again in order to leave.  Remember, not a single person in that room has got there without already passing a vetting, before they were even given a library card.

Possibly I could have ordered the book at the desk, gone away, and come back again, going through this “security” nonsense FOUR TIMES.  Frankly I couldn’t face it, and went without.

Finally… CUL has no mechanism for complaints.  Very angry and frustrated.  They have the book.  I want to look at it.  I’m authorised to look at it.  And I can’t.

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More on ps.Eustathius’ Hexameron

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A small family emergency has brought me up to Cambridge again today, and given me the opportunity to examine Zoepfl’s monograph on the Hexameron of Ps.Eustathius of Antioch.  This is a lightweight 50 page thing, which does NOT contain the text.  Indeed it contains very little more than a list of manuscripts possibly available, not made very clear, and a list of contents, and a discussion of sources.  It does indicate that the title Hexameron – on the six days of creation – is woefully inappropriate for the contents, which are miscellaneous.

Interestingly one section is devoted to the genealogy of Jesus, from Matthew.  Since Eusebius in the Quaestiones spends quite a bit of time on the genealogies of Jesus, it makes sense that a volume might contain the two.

Zoepfl’s list of manuscripts is very limited; less than I got from a search of Pinakes.  I intend next to try to access the catalogue for the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples and see what I can find.

He also discusses the editions of the work.  There are precisely three; the editio princeps of Leo Allatius; a reprint of the Latin translation of Allatius in some series, and Migne’s reprint.  The edition of Allatius was made from a copy he made himself of a manuscript in Rome in a private collection, possibly the Barberini collection.  There are a  lot of typos in the printed text, it seems.  Allatius says that he just printed what he found in the mss., without changing it and added critical notes at the end.  Indeed from the sound of it the edition of Allatius is (a) very unsatisfactory, as might be expected in 1629 and (b) the best that the work has ever received.

The work is about 90 columns of Migne long, i.e. 45 columns of Greek.  I wish I knew a Greek translator whom I could just give money to and a translation would appear!

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Finding collections of Greek manuscripts is less easy than it should be

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I need to find out where in Southern Italy and Sicily there are collections of Greek manuscripts.  I have been trying to think of a Google search that will give this information.  I don’t expect it to give me every collection; just the obvious ones.

Well, I can’t think of a search that will do this.  A few attempts bring up nothing.

Yet… isn’t this sort of search a fundamental need?  Not just for that region; say you wanted to know where to look in the United Kingdom?  It’s the same problem.

Where DO we look?

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The Hexameron of Eustathius of Antioch

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The commentary on the six days of creation by Eustathius of Antioch, to which Latino Latini refers in my previous post, is spurious.  Indeed only one work by Eustathius (deposed 330 AD by an Arian synod) survives.  The text was composed in the late 4th-early 5th century, and makes use of Basil the Great’s work on the same subject, as well as Josephus and even Achilles Tatius.  Indeed the work appears to have much more historical interest than the dull title might indicate, since it quotes so many historical sources, at a date well before they appear in manuscript copies.

The work was published in 1629 by Leo Allatius, which is reprinted in the Patrologia Graeca 18, c.708-793. A modern edition by F. Zoepfl exists, with discussion of the codices.  Eustathius is found in the Clavis Patrum Graecorum vol. 2, #3350f.  The Commentary on the Hexameron is CPG 3393.  It appears to be a deeply neglected work.

A search for CPG 3393 in Pinakes, the IRHT database of Greek manuscripts, gives 28 results, including a bunch of mss. in Rome, mostly in the Vatican.  Nothing in Naples.  But it is unlikely that our ms. is in the well-indexed lists of the IRHT, or it would already be known.

Bibliography:
Friedrich Zoepfl, Der Kommentar des Pseudo-Eustathios zum Hexaemeron, in Altestamentliche Abhandlungen X, 5, Munster, 1927.
In Hexameron Commentarius: Ac De Engastrimytho dissertatio adversus Originem… / Ed.: L. Allatius. Lugduni, 1629. PG 18.

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A lead on the lost manuscript of the full text of Eusebius’ “Diaphonia”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Result!  I’ve now got an idea of where to look for the lost full text of Eusebius’ Quaestiones ad Stephanum/Marinum!

When Angelo Mai published the sad remains of this work in 1823, he added a note that Latino Latini (in the 16th century) said that Cardinal Sirleto had told him that he had seen a manuscript of this work, in three books, in Sicily.  Migne reprinted this. 

But I suffer from acute reluctance to repeat stuff unchecked.  For a year now I have been trying to locate a copy of the letter in which Latini said this.  Today I succeeded.  And … it turns out that Mai has misled us all.  He did not mark insertions and omissions into what Latini wrote.  Here is an excerpt:

Scire etiam te vult in Sicilia inventum esse Eustathii Antiocheni Episcopi librum de mundi creatione, idest de sex dierum operibus, unde Basilii plurima videantur sumpta esse; praeterea libros tres Eusebii Caesariensis de Evangeliorum diaphonea, qui omnes, ut ipse sperat, brevi in lucem prodibunt.

He also wants you to know that in Sicily there have been found the book of Eustathius bishop of Antioch on the creation of the world, that is of the works of the six days, from which many things seem to have been taken by Basil; in addition three books of Eusebius of Caesarea on the divergences in the Gospels, all of which, so he hopes, will be brought into the light shortly.

Now this is an important difference.  For the first time we learn that the main find is a volume of Eustathius; and, if we translate praeterea as “following it”, it suggests to me that the two ‘finds’ are in a single physical volume.  If so, it becomes no mystery that the Eusebius might “disappear.”

When cataloguing a pile of manuscripts, the lazy librarian flips open the cover, scribbles down the title of the first work in it, and then closes the book and moves on to the next one.  And if there is one characteristic endemic to the Southern Italian librarian, it is laziness.  And who in the world would trouble themselves over a volume of Eustathius?  My eyes close, almost at the name.  How likely is this to be interesting?  Not very.  How likely is it that anyone has examined such a volume in centuries?  Not very.

What this means is that we ought to be looking in the manuscript catalogues for a volume of Eustathius.  If there is one, say in the old Royal Library in Naples, the capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, it may well repay investigation!

“You will find,” said Martin Routh, “it is a very good practice to always verify your references.”  Wouldn’t it be something to rediscover that manuscript!!!

UPDATE: I have tossed an email of enquiry to the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples, and also to the Biblioteca centrale della Regione siciliana.  They ought to know what they have.  If they reply.

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