Author: Roger Pearse

Interesting letters of Isidore of Pelusium

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been reading the account of Isidore’s letters given by Quasten in volume 3 of his Patrology, pp.180-185.  Quasten is a treasure.  He tried very hard to give an interesting picture of each author, and also to find all the English translations for them all.  I have spent many happy hours reading and re-reading his pages, searching out translations that I could put online.

He discusses various letters.  Most of them sound as if a translation would be nice!  Here are some that he lists (after Migne, book. letter no):

  • 3.65 and 2.3 discuss and affirm the value of secular learning.
  • 5.133 discusses his “principle of unaffected elegance” in writing.
  • 2.25 and 1.174-5 are addressed to the Prefect Quirinius, on behalf of the city of Pelusium.
  • 1.35 and 1.311 are to the emperor Theodosius II (and translated elsewhere in these posts)
  • 4.99 refers to the Council of Nicaea.
  • 1.102 and 2.133 rebut the Manichaeans.

Isidore’s interpretation of the bible has earned high praise in the past:

  • 4.117 rejects allegorisation.
  • 2.195, 2.63, 3.339 condemn the practise of seeing the NT everywhere in the OT, as liable to bring genuine messianic passages under suspicion.
  • 2.63 and 4.203 tell us that the OT is a mixture of prophecy and history, and not to confuse the two.
  • 3.335, 1.353, 3.334, 3.31, 1.67, 3.166, 4.142, 1.139, 4.166 all deal with the literal meaning of scripture as it bears on the Arian dispute, following the Antiochene method of interpretation.  Indeed 1.389 tells us that he saw the Arians as a real danger.

He also gives spiritual advice:

  • 1.129 and 1.287 advocate voluntary poverty and abstinence, but only if all the commandments are practised.  Asceticism is not enough.
  • 1.162 reminds his reader that it isn’t enough to follow the lifestyle of John the baptist; you must have his spirit too.
  • 4.192 and 1.286 promote celibacy, but without humility, he says, it is meaningless.

One group of his letters are addressed to Cyril of Alexandria.  Another group outline the lamentable history of the wealthy man Cyrenios, who bought the governorate of Pelusium, banned anyone from seeking refuge in a church, and then set out to make money by taking bribes in lawsuits.

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Asterix, manuscripts, and the Bibliothèque Nationale Français

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In Asterix and the Normans, the Gauls encounter the Normans, who know no fear but would like to.  They are invited to listen to the village bard, the aptly named Cacafonix.  After his first number, the Normans look pained.  “By Thor!” says one; “By Odin!” another; “Bite on the bullet!” says a third.  A few more numbers, and they run!  Recommended, actually, this one.

What brought this on, I hear you cry?  Well, I want to get images of a manuscript of the History of the Arabic Christian historian, Al-Makin.  The British Library let me down when I ordered some from them, so I’ve asked the BNF in Paris for help.  The invoice arrived today.  For Ms. Arabe 294 and 295, total number of pages 648, the price is going to be…. 234 euros!  OUCH!

I’ve paid it anyway.  I have to have it to progress.  But this is serious money.  Each page costs 26c from the first ms and (mysteriously) 36c from the second.  But of course it hardly costs that much to make these copies. It certainly doesn’t cost a different amount for each of the two halves! Greed, I fear, is responsible for this bill. And all these images, I suspect, will be low quality monochrome. It’s enough to make any digital camera owner spit!

I know that I have banged on about this before, but this is serious stuff.  The medieval manuscripts are the raw stuff of scholarship on all ancient texts.  If we can’t access the dratted things — and a bill of 234 euros per manuscript is no different to refusing access, for most people — then we can’t work.  This is particularly bad for unpublished texts, which means most of Arabic Christian and Syriac and Armenian and…

The fact is that these institutions are making money off this.  Come on, you scholars; clamp down on it!

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Recreational use of a nymphaeum in ancient times

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A few weeks ago the Antiochepedia site mentioned that an unspecified Arabic source 1 suggested that skin diseases could be cured by bathing in the town water supply.  This rather horrible idea seemed unusual; but I wonder.

When I was in Leptis Magna, I saw the nymphaeum there.  The temple was essentially a facade onto a massive concrete storage tank, which collected water from the rivers and stored it for use by the city.  Temples of the nymphs are associated with springs, and sources of water in general, and thus with the urban water supply.

This leads me to wonder if this is what we are looking at here in Antioch as well; the miraculous supply of life-giving water being associated with the gods — the nymphs, here — and curative powers associated with the latter?  If so, the procedure above would make more sense.

Note: 1.  Antiochepedia doesn’t say what it is, other than ‘Guidi’, but a google search on Antioch and Guidi says that this seems to be a short early Islamic text, much of it fanciful.  I. Guidi, ‘una descrizione araba di Antiocheia’, Rendiconti della R. Accademia dei Lincei, Cl. di scienze morali, storiche e filolgiche, ser. 5, vol 6, pp. 137-161 (1897).  It’s only 24 pages, half of which at least is an Italian translation.  I wish this existed in English.  I wonder what it would cost to translate.  Not a lot, I would guess.

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Help with some French

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m trying to understand a passage of Agapius.  Here is the French translation: can anyone tell me what it means?

Il faut que nous sachions d’abord que la terre est ronde comme une boule; son centre cul­tivé et habité représente une élévation; ses côtés touchent les quatre parties qui sont situées en bas; à cause de son élévation le centre est plus rapproché du cours du soleil dans la partie orientale de la terre, c’est-à-dire la région de la terre brûlée. A mesure que l’homme passe et avance par son intelli­gence et sa pensée jusqu’à la région septentrionale vers les extrêmes limites de la terre et l’examine attentivement, il trouve que l’augmentation de la longueur du jour s’y fait constamment à la montée du soleil sur la voie sep­tentrionale des douze signes du Zodiaque au signe du Cancer, et l’augmen­tation de la longueur de la nuit – à le descente du soleil au Zodiaque du sud; il le percevra par son intelligence et le comprendra.

 

It is necessary to know first that the earth is round like a ball;  its cultivated and inhabited centre represents an elevation;  its sides touch the four parts which are located below;  because of its elevation the centre is closer to the course of the sun in the Eastern part of the earth, i.e. the area of the scorched earth. As a man moves and advances in his mind and thought from the northern area towards the extreme limits of the earth and examines it attentively, he finds that the increase in the length of the day ??? there constantly from the rise of the sun on the northern way of the twelve signs of the zodiac to the sign of Cancer, and the increase of the length of the night – to the descent of the sun to the Zodiac of the south;  he will perceive this by his intelligence and will understand it. 

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Revue de l’Orient Chretien on Google books

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A bunch of these are available here.

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Cramer’s Catena online at Archive.org

Posted on by Roger Pearse

You can download all the volumes of Cramer’s catena from here.  Thanks to this blog for the tip!

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Abu Al-Majdalus, “Commentary on the Nicene Creed” – now online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Some months ago I obtained images of two manuscripts from the Oriental Library at St. Joseph University in Beirut, containing a 15th century and 18th century text of the Commentary on the Nicene Creed of the 10th century Arabic Christian writer, al-Majdalus.  I then commissioned Samuel Noble to transcribe and translate this work into English.

The transcription and translation are now online, and may be downloaded in Word format from here.  I place them both in the public domain — do whatever you like with them.  At the weekend I will reformat them into HTML and place that in my collection of additional Fathers.

An article here by Dr. Khalil Samir gives background info on the text.  My own interest was in the citations of Greek writers which it contains, although it does not contain one of Zoroaster, as I had hoped.

PS: Nick Norelli has created a PDF with the two in parallel columns.  It’s here.

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Translations that ought to exist

Posted on by Roger Pearse

What untranslated ancient texts deserve to be translated?  Here is a list of texts that I have thought about translating, which I feel ought to exist in English.  Of course there are many others that probably deserve attention too — these are merely ones where I have given some serious thought to it.  It’s a wish-list, in a way.

The fragments of Philip of Side.*  He wrote a massive universal Chronicle which is now lost.  But there’s a miscellaneous manuscript in the Barocci collection in the Bodleian which has excerpts from various texts, including a biggish chunk of Philip.  It was published a century ago with German translation.  It includes an otherwise unknown chunk of Papias.  But surely we’d like to have this?  Not so expensive to do, either.  Maybe more chunks exist in other mss?

Gelasius of Cyzicus.  His history of the Council of Nicaea in three books has a critical edition in the Berlin GCS series, but no modern language translation.  It’s the only text on Nicaea written within a century not translated.

Cyril of Alexandria, Contra Julianum.  Massive 10 book refutation of Julian the Apostate.  Should be just as interesting as Origen, Contra Celsum.  Probably 100,000 words, or say $10,000 to get translated?

Cyril of Alexandria, De recta fide.  “You need to think like this” says Cyril, in three works of this title.  A German translation exists of the first.  They’re all crucial to understanding the Nestorian split.  Not that long, really.

Eusebius of Caesarea, De Pascha*; Commentary on Luke*.  Two short fragmentary works.  I’ll probably try and do these.

Eusebius of Caesarea, Commentary on the Psalms.  Massive text with no proper text available.  Someone should attack this.

Chrysostom, Against the Jews*.  Wendy Pradels found part of Oration 2, which had been lost.  This has been published with German translation, but never in English.  The rest has twice been translated, but offline.  We really need a good quality, non-PC version.  He also did a sermon against Jews and Pagans, which needs doing.

Chrysostom, On the Nativity*.  Two sermons, often referred to at Christmas time.  One has been translated but is only available in a PhD thesis.  The other not.  Probably wouldn’t cost too much to do.  Only a Migne text available.

Al-Makin.  Big 13th century Arabic Christian chronicle.  We urgently need the bit about Josephus from it.  The text has never been edited or translated.

Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum.  A massive who’s who of Syriac Christianity.  Amazing that this hasn’t been done.  Probably another $10,000 job, but… I have great difficulty getting translators from Syriac.

Syriac fragments of Eusebius from the Mingana library.  I have photos of these.  Not very long; but same problem as Bar Hebraeus.

Thomas of Edessa, On the Nativity, On Easter.  The text of the first was published in a thesis with Latin translation.  I have photographs of both from the Mingana.  Probably each is around 10,000 words, or about $1,000 for a translation.  The first is interesting for a reference to 6th century sun-worship in Syria; and if we’re going to do the first, we should do the second.  But… I can’t get translations made from Syriac.

Quite a list, isn’t it?  How to proceed…!

UPDATE: 9th February 2013.  Coming back to this, I find that we have made some progress.  I have added an asterisk to items that have been done, either by myself or Maria D. (see comments).  Which is good news, actually!

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Courting the mystery – a new patristics blog

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Courtesy of the Patristics Carnival, I have just discovered Kevin and his blog, here, although he has been blogging since 2007 at least.  It’s good to meet someone who has the same interest in G.W.H.Lampe’s lexicon of patristic Greek as I do.  There doesn’t seem to be any way to contact the author, tho.

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Patristics Carnival 20

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Phil Snider has uploaded a digest of the best patristics blog entries in the last month here.  Thank you for the kind mentions, Phil!

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