Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
Today I learned about the Google news archive, a searchable collection of journals and newspapers. Sadly much of this is payment only, but older material can be free, and can be located with a little effort.
I located a puff-piece for the Ante-Nicene Fathers series here, in the New York Times for Sept. 2, 1886 on p.2. Amusingly it neglects to mention that the whole enterprise involved piracy!
I’ve looked for reviews of P.Pusey’s translation of Cyril of Alexandria – in vain, so far.
… is here, with a very nice note on this blog (even if my name is misspelt; I see Mike Aquilina suffers as well)
The collection of links to patristic-themed posts is impressive.
Mike Aquilina at Way of the Fathers highlights a recent find of a colossal head of Marcus Aurelius, and discusses what our attitude should be to this emperor, considering that he was in fact a persecutor of the church.
I sometimes hear people of limited education argue that because no “secular first century historians” (sic) mention Jesus, this proves he never existed (!). I usually respond by asking who specifically these historians are, whereupon I get only silence.
But, religious issues aside, wouldn’t it be really interesting to have a list of all the extant texts written by non-Christian writers between 30 and 100AD? Indeed wouldn’t such lists be almost an education in ancient literature and the classical heritage, listing one century at a time?
I’m not sure that I have the resources to investigate this, but I thought that I would start to compile a few authors. Corrections and contributions welcome!
Any more? This is mostly Romans, so we need more Greeks.
Updates: Epictetus died ca. 135, and his notes were published by his pupil Arrian after his death, so he doesn’t count. Plutarch seems to squeeze in, if that date is right. I’ve culled this from Wikipedia mostly (yuk!) as the source most readily available. I need to rearrange the list by decade, tho.
Update: Of course one can search the online TLG canon of authors by date, which I am now doing. 122 results come back, but nearly all are tiny fragments, found in the Greek Anthology or collected from Byzantine collections. Strabo is too early (d. 24 AD). Thessalus of Tralles, On the powers of herbs, was addressed to Claudius so again too early. Comarius On the philosopher’s stone would appear to be earlier. Thallus is only fragmentary and of uncertain date.
I was excited yesterday to discover an out-of-copyright English translation of the Life of St. Augustine by his friend Possidius. The translation was done in 1919 along with a Latin text, originally as a dissertation (which is online here at Archive.org), then published in the same year.
The text escaped me because it was published under a Latin title, which usually signifies a Latin text without translation. I suspect it escaped a lot of people! It is my intention to scan it and place it online.
I’ve not read it yet, but the life is apparently not a hagiography but more a biography. If so, this would make it valuable.
The Edinburgh translators of St. Augustine’s works — now found in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series — commissioned a translation of Possidius along with the Augustine. Unfortunately they commissioned it from a busy man, who never actually made the translation.
While surfing Google books I came across a reference to myself. It turned out to be in the preface to one of these reprint series, appearing in limited preview; but one that I had never heard of. The press was Evolution Publishing, and they have half a dozen rare and uncommon texts in print in a “Christian Roman Empire” series. The books are also on Amazon, and via various agents.
In this case the editor had reprinted Evagrius, and probably made use of the scan of the Walford translation that I have online. This is pleasing — it’s always nice to see my efforts leading to wider circulation — and good luck to him and I hope he sells many copies. The more copies that circulate, the better for patristics.
Actually I was rather impressed by the look of these books, impressed enough to order their Possidius Life of Augustine. We’re all familiar with the bargain basement Kessinger Reprints; but Evolution had gone to some trouble to produce a professional-seeming book. They’d created a nice series cover design, at least, and it all looks quite professional. The marketing, in short, is good. It’s an interesting approach to print-on-demand, and shows what can be done with a little imagination. I wonder who they use? The books weren’t visible on Lulu.com, which is interesting.
When I come to publish the Eusebius Quaestiones volume, I think that I will take a leaf out of their book, at least in presentation and marketting. Well done, Evolution.
Shlomo Pines published a curious version of the Testimonium Flavianum of Josephus, taken from the Arabic Christian writer Agapius. But rereading his article, and comparing this text with the Patrologia Orientalis version of Agapius, we quickly find that there is a problem.
Pines’ text is not that given by the Florence manuscript, which alone preserves Agapius. However the CSCO text also gives quotations from the later Arabic Christian historian, Al-Makin or Elmacin. These Pines has used to supplement the text, and thereby produce his version.
Now in a way this is rather dubious. After all, we know that texts expand in transmission. The Testimonium is perhaps more prone to this than any other bit of Josephus, as the reference in Photius shows, which gives a bit about Jesus otherwise quite unknown. Glosses on this text were always going to occur, and be incorporated. So treating the manuscript as epitomised is unusual.
The real question is whether Al-Makin generally expands on his authorities. If he does, then the extra material must be worthless, and Pines’ version with it.
But there is no complete edition of Al-Makin at all; none that contains this passage at all; no critical text of any of it; no real translation of any value in any language (unless we include Ethiopic). The text is pretty much inaccessible.
I believe that the Agapius Testimonium is not as we have been led to believe. I suggest that Agapius merely gave a rough summary of the contents, rather than a quotation; the text rather reads like that anyway. Until we have a real understanding of Al-Makin’s text and its sources and handling of them, I think we ought to place Pines’ version on the shelf marked ‘to be verified’.
The magnificent Roman city of Leptis Magna is one that few have visited. Fewer still have walked across the silted-up harbour basin to the eastern wharves, or visited the lighthouse at the tip of the western mole, because the site is so large.
So I was delighted to find that we can all go now, thanks to Google maps! (Although pasting this into a blog post is quite tricky, since the visual editor corrupts the tags…)
So let’s visit the city and take a tour! Below the overview image, I’ve noted some sights. Click on the links to open Google maps on the relevant area!
Note the circular blob to the right of the scrambled area — that’s the mighty amphitheatre, hewn out of a quarry in a hill. The seats are so steep that I felt quite ill standing at the top!
Above it in the same picture is a stadium, in the characteristic oval shape, with a spine down the middle. Apparently substantial remains stood here until the 17th century, when a French adventurer used it as a quarry for stone.
The scrambled area runs along the eastern wharf and covers the harbour entrance and lighthouse. West of it is the harbour; west of that is the main city, with the old forum, and the unbelievably splendid new forum and basilica of Septimius Severus (which includes an inscription recording his campaign in Britain).
Also there is the nymphaeum, whose broken concrete tanks show that this temple of the water deities fronted the city reservoir. The enormous baths are well preserved to a considerable height, complete with toilet block and marble seats; the corner of two streets is in the same picture.
At the entrance to the city is the reconstructed triumphal arch of Septimius Severus. Back inside the city is the theatre; to the east of that some shopping areas and an arch of Titus.