Author: Roger Pearse

Some years ago I photographed some early editions of Tertullian in Norwich Cathedral Library.  The library was a shed on the roof of the cloister; in fact a ruinous medieval room, which had been reroofed.  In it stood a perfect 18th century library, shelves and books, and leaded-glass windows.

It was the sort of place where you would see books which you only ever see in footnotes.  Great folios of 16th and 17th century writers, little octavos of long forgotten divines, and so forth.

Among the books there was the “Diarum Italicum” (1702) of Bernard de Montfaucon, one of the Maurist fathers.  He made a trip into Italy, listing books and antiquities of all kinds, and providing a mass of research material for all of us.  The book was translated twice into English, and the library had a copy of that also.

It’s all rather different today.  The library room has been turned into a ‘rare books’ room, and so made inaccessible to us, while a new room has been built in front of it to hold a modern theological library.  Doubtless the latter is more comfortable, but I mourn the old days, the charm of the old room and its shelves of old books.  I never did get to read Montfaucon’s book — I was always busy with something else, and Norwich isn’t as easy to get to as it might be.

But I had occasion to remember the book, and idly looked for it on Google Books.  And… THERE IT WAS!  I downloaded it instantly.  Then I recalled the English translation.  And… THAT WAS THERE TOO!

Let us reflect that we are among the most fortunate of men, and offer our thanks to God for Google Books.

I was musing last night about Stephen of Alexandria, the philosopher and alchemist at the court of Heraclius.  He was known to contemporaries as the “Universal Philosopher”.  But you will read through the Patrologies in vain to hear about him.  Indeed in what handbook of late antique literature would we find him?

We’re accustomed to the idea that all late Greek literature is ecclesiastical and therefore in the Patrologia Graeca.  But this is untrue.  Technical and scientific and medical works, in particular, are omitted.  There are whole rafts of works, therefore, which certainly never cross my mind and probably don’t feature in the minds of anyone else.  Nor is it a simple matter to translate works of that kind.  Unless you know alchemy, or medicine, how can you make a translation?

Yet how unrealistic this is!  Doesn’t this silence, this omission, give us a quite misleading idea of Greek literature in the period?  What can be done to recover these things from the specialist collections in which they lie, immured and forgotten?

In the 1930’s Sherwood Taylor, the editor of the journal Ambix, translated into English and printed 3 of the 9 lectures of the work of Stephen of Alexandria on alchemy in that journal.  I scanned these, then realised they were in copyright and had to remove them.  But I did compose a Wikipedia article from what I learned, as a sort of bucket in which to dump this info.  Likewise there was a translation of another alchemical work by Zosimos.

Something about the last article made me suspect that he had perhaps translated more.  A visit to the Oxford Museum of Science in Broad Street allowed me to search through his papers, including multiple hand-written and type-written drafts of the first 3 lectures.  There I found a translation of the 4th lecture, unseen by anyone since Taylor’s death, not even by the archivist and tucked inside a packet bound with a pink ribbon.  It was hand-written, unrevised; and, to me, unreadable.  But I got a photocopy which I have at home.  Perhaps one day I’ll have another go at decyphering his handwriting!

An interesting article in the NY Times on the problems caused by very high textbook prices, and a revolt against traditional academic publishing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/technology/15link.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

I suspect the very low quality of many textbooks — compared to commercial products operating in a free market — is also a factor.