From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The resized PDF of Eusebius has arrived.  I have asked Lightning Source for samples of their paper — no answer today.  I’m hoping to find out a bit about the product before just throwing it over the wall and hoping for the best!  They do blue cloth and grey cloth hard backs — but what shade of blue, or grey?

I’ve been trying to work on a translation of Porphyry Ad Gaurum.  For some reason my copy of Word XP will not open the file.  It opens, I start to edit, and Word crashes.  A web search reveals stuff about “DEP”.  But I’ve never had problems before.  The file opens fine on my work  machine.

At the moment I am installing OpenOffice.  With luck this will at least allow me to do some work on the Ad Gaurum.

Rather a lot of pressure at work at the moment, which is interfering with Real Life.  I’m trying to defend the Wikipedia Mithras article against a troll, with limited success, and losing a ridiculous amount of time, trying to reason with people interested only in getting their own way.   Never make any serious investment in writing a Wikipedia article.  If you do, you will regret it. 

 

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Life’s little difficulties are leaching time and energy at the moment.  But I’m still pressing on.  This evening I went through the pages of Festugiere’s French translation of Porphyry’s Ad Gaurum, correcting OCR errors.  I then exported the result to Word, or at least I think I did.  Abbyy Finereader 10 managed to write a file that crashed Word!  (They’ve been writing .doc files for 10 years, so why does version 10 suddenly have problems?) 

I also want a PDF of the pages.  Finereader 10 produced an abomination — their PDF save just does not work.  So I went into the working directory, to find that the images are now in some non-standard format.  Fortunately I scanned the pages in FR9.  This produces .tif files — but Adobe Acrobat refused to read these.  I ended up exporting the files from FR9 to .png format, which I will then combine.  The results are a  bit bulky, but that is not that important really.

And that’s all I have time for this evening folks!

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Porphyry Ad Gaurum in Festugiere’s translation

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The volume of Festugiere, La Revelation d’Hermes Trismegiste III, which contains a French version of Porphyry Ad Gaurum, has arrived!  My local library is open late on Tuesdays, and I drove into town and collected it. 

All I’ve read so far is the opening portion of the prologue, in which Porphyry argues that unborn children and newborn babies are properly vegetables in nature, rather than living sentient beings.  I fear we all know what motive lies behind such an argument — a defence, against Christian criticism, of the evil pagan practices of procuring abortion and infanticide.    Dehumanising those whom we propose to treat in an inhumane manner is a standard method whereby men who are set on evil deeds attempt to quiet their consciences.

Still, it should make for an interesting read.  There is no English translation.  Festugiere’s translation is clear and accessible.  I may run it over into English.  First I need to explore the volume a  bit  more, and see what else he says about it. 

It also contains a translation of Iamblichus On the Soul, a work about which I know nothing.  Iamblichus was the he-witch who successfully played on the gullibility of Julian the Apostate and lured him to practice theurgy, or so I believe we are told by Libanius.

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More on Severian of Gabala

Posted on by Roger Pearse

It seems that I am not the only person interested in Severian of Gabala.  I have come across a series of publications by Remco F. Regtuit, who is assistant professor of Greek at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

So far I have seen none of his works, but articles on “The Charm of Severian of Gabala” — something I have noted myself — suggest good things!  Unfortunately none of this material seems to be accessible online.

One interesting publication I learned of is Henning J. Lehmann, Per piscatores: studies in the Armenian version of a collection of homilies by Eusebius of Emesa and Severian of Gabala, 1975.  This is research on a collection, published between 1956-9 in Handes Amsorya by Nerses Akinian, based on Ms. New Julfa 110.  It sounds very like the collection published a century earlier by Aucher, which perhaps exists in several manuscripts. 

Another is an edition and translation of an unpublished homily, ed. by Aubineau, Un traité inédit de christologie de Sévérien de Gabala : In centurionem et contra Manichaeos et Apollinaristas. Cahiers d’Orientalisme V.  Geneve, 1983.

But once again, how do we access any of this?

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Severian of Gabala, “Homily on the Seals”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

While surfing this evening I came across a reference to a Discourse on the Seals by our old friend Severian of Gabala, the bishop who preached with a pleasant Syrian burr and was a rival of John Chrysostom’s.  It was in an 1815 book  by Nathaniel Lardner, on p.620 of vol. 2 of his works, On the credibility of the Gospel history, chapter 119 of which is devoted to Severian.

In an oration concerning Seals, Severian expresses himself in this manner:

Let heretics often observe that saying, “In the beginning was the word.” Indeed, the three evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, when they began their preaching, did not immediately say what became Christ’s dignity, but what was suitable to their hearers’ capacity. Matthew, at the beginning of the gospels, says, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Why does he not say, “the son of God?” Why does he, with such low expressions conceal his dignity?’

Having answered those queries, he also observes the beginnings of the gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke, and adds: 

‘All three, therefore, attended to his dispensation in the flesh; and, by his miracles, gradually instilled his dignity.’

He afterwards compares John to thunder, and says, he is terrible to heretics; whilst the other three evangelists only lightned. He likewise says, until John wrote, the best defence of the right faith, and the best weapons against heretics were wanting.

And, in his discourse on Seals, the beginning of the first epistle of John is expressly cited as John’s: and it may be reasonably supposed, that he likewise received the epistle of James.

From the CPG (vol. 2) I learn that CPG 4209 is De sigillis sermo (BHG 2351; PG 63, 531-544; Savile 5, 689-698).  I always wondered what that was.  It doesn’t sound too long, and might be quite interesting to have translated.  Something like 7 columns of Migne, at $20 each – $140? Hmmm.  I think I will just go and peek at Migne now.

It seems to be in six chapters.  The Latin translation was made for the Migne edition, the old one being too much of a paraphrase.  Severian attacks the extreme Arians in it.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Festugiere’s translation of Porphyry Ad Gaurum has arrived at my local library.  I have discovered that it is open until 7pm tomorrow, so I may be able to get it then.

I’ve also got two modern translations of Juvenal.  The one by Peter Green is pretty slangy, and I disliked it a lot.  The one by Neil Rudd seems sound enough.  But both put their notes at the end, which means reading with fingers stuck in the book! 

Perhaps we should have a Campaign for Real Footnotes!

I’ve also enquired whether it would be possible to increase the margin on the Eusebius book so that the trim size is  6.14×9.21″.  Probably it is not, but if it was, we could use the thinner white paper.  In a book of 430 pages, thickness of the paper is a real issue.  But who knows?  Maybe the creme paper looks better anyway.

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Eusebius update 2

Posted on by Roger Pearse

We have the final PDF of the Eusebius book! 

How do I express deep joy in mere words?

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Eusebius update

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have just finished checking over the final PDF of the book (Eusebius of Caesarea, Gospel Problems and Solutions or Quaestiones ad Stephanum et Marinum).  It’s pretty nearly perfect.  There are two small changes to be done, both because I didn’t understand a note from the translator.  But they’re trivial.  Bob the typesetter has understood a pretty chaotic set of changes, and done them all perfectly.

I’ve written to him to ask for the last two tweaks.  I’ve also asked for .RTF files of the whole thing.  One day, remember, this will all go online.  The whole idea of this project is to make the work accessible to as many people as possible.  The RTF’s will allow me to do so.

First, tho, I have to sell some copies to libraries in order to pay for the costs so far.  These are not really huge, in the great scheme of things — perhaps $5,000? — but more than I can just treat as petty cash.  But when the sales come to an end, then we’ll get the thing online.  The book will still be available for purchase, tho — after all, it’s the sort of book which is probably best consulted in paper form.

To do, then:

  1. Decide on a cover, and get one made if need be.
  2. Get the cover to Lightning Source.
  3. Get a professional website for my company (Chieftain Publishing) up with an eCommerce solution, so people can actually buy it.
  4. Get the PDF to Lightning Source for the hardback.
  5. Get hold of the test print and check it is OK.
  6. Send the translators each a free copy.
  7. Send out the handful of other free copies that I have promised or been contractually required to supply.
  8. Send out review copies to three journals.
  9. Do whatever is necessary to make Amazon.co.uk work.
  10. Make sure Amazon.com has the book.
  11. Email everyone on the list of “I am interested in this book”
  12. Get some kind of e-Flyer made (how?)
  13. Tell interested people that the book is available.

Hum.  There’s more things there than I had thought!  I have some free time coming up in a week, tho, so it should be possible to do a lot of these then.

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Book cover design with Lightning Source

Posted on by Roger Pearse

One of the tasks that I have shirked for the Eusebius book is designing the cover.  That’s mainly because I’ve been too busy with getting the book actually complete, but also because of a misunderstanding.

When you go to Lulu.com, you get an online interactive designer tool.  The results when I have used it have been so-so, but at least you don’t worry about that.  Lightning Source, who will be printing the book, tell you in their blurb about their cover generator.  Naturally I presumed these were the same. 

But it is not so.  What Lightning Source make you do is enter the dimensions of the book and decide on paper and whether it’s hardback etc.  These options are few, but can still confuse.  I long ago decided on 6×9 inches as the trim size, and mentally chose a hardback.  But I did not realise that this choice committed me to creme paper!  Indeed when I started using the form, I naturally chose white paper and couldn’t find any hardback options!   But after trudging through some docs, I realised that, if I want white paper, in that size, it can only be a paper back.  Still, I am committed to 6×9, and to hardback, so I must lump it.  The creme seems to be thicker, and hopefully is better quality.

But the “generator” just emails the info to Lightning Source, who send you back a template file, onto which your design must be placed by you.  This is not an operation for the squeamish, it seems.

My next thought was to hire someone to do it.  After all, surely anyone dealing with Lightning Source will have the same needs?  But a Google search did not bring up much.  So far I have two options:

A few hundred dollars to sidestep this task does not seem unreasonable. 

I’m not quite sure what sort of cover the “hardback” is, either.   I shall explore as I go a long!

There seems to be a choice of “case laminate (hardcover)” and “cloth – blue or grey” and “jacketed”.  The “cloth” option doesn’t list a cover template size.  But cloth is what I vaguely had in mind.  And then I find this:

Cloth-style casebound titles require text copy for spine production. Up to 42 characters (including spaces) may be used to stamp the title, author, and/or other text the publisher designates onto the spine. Characters available include the 26 upper and lowercase letters, numerals 1-10, space, period, comma, hyphen, quote, apostrophe, colon, semi colon, hash/pound sign, question mark, exclamation mark, dollar sign, ampersand, quotation marks, asterisk, and the two parentheses. Text is positioned on the spine of the book as the publisher designates during the title setup process.

The same digital file or hardcopy book may be submitted for paperback and casebound editions provided the trim size is the same, however, a new copyright page containing the ISBN for that format may be needed. A unique ISBN is required by the book industry for each format.

A google search says “casebound” = “hard cover”!  OK: that’s fair enough.

The choices in another PDF manual for hardbacks are “blue cloth”, “blue cloth (with jacket)”, “case laminate”.  Hum.  OK, that’s the same three choices.  But I search for “cloth” and find later on a charge for “Stamped cover (hardcover cloth only), 100% cotton fabric cover w/gold foil author/title on spine)”.    But then I discover that is the US manual.

The UK manual is different again, and clearer in some ways: “Cloth covered books are available in blue or grey. Foil stamping on the front of the book is not available…. and then the same “Stamped cover” bit.  The UK manual insists on using metric, which is annoying.

So it seems if you want cloth, it comes as plain, and with gold stamping on the spine.  Hum.  Well, that’s clear enough… in the end.  In the process of writing this, I’ve found out more than I knew at the start, it seems. 

But in that case, I can see why people go for dust-jackets, tho!  I had some idea of just having a title and logo stamped on the front of the book, as the old Loeb’s did.   But maybe I do need to get a paper cover designed!

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A description of Alexandria in Achilles Tatius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A review at Bryn Mawr draws my attention to a new book on the famous library by Monica Berti, La Biblioteca di Alessandria.  But the review (in English) mentions descriptions of Alexandria in ancient literature.  One of these is at the start of book 5 of the 2nd century novel by Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon. 

Like most people I have never paid any attention to this work.  So it was a pleasure to have a reason to go and look at it.  The 1917 Loeb edition and translation is at Archive.org — aren’t these old online Loebs useful! — here.  Here’s the relevant passage, over-paragraphed by me for readability.

1. After a voyage lasting for three days, we arrived at Alexandria. I entered it by the Sun Gate, as it is called, and was instantly struck by the splendid beauty of the city, which filled my eyes with delight.

From the Sun Gate to the Moon Gate — these are the guardian divinities of the entrances — led a straight double row of columns, about the middle of which lies the open part of the town, and in it so many streets that walking in them you would fancy yourself abroad while still at home. Going a few hundred yards further, I came to the quarter called after Alexander, where I saw a second town; the splendour of this was cut into squares, for there was a row of columns intersected by another as long at right angles.

I tried to cast my eyes down every street, but my gaze was still unsatisfied, and I could not grasp all the beauty of the spot at once; some parts I saw, some I was on the point of seeing, some I earnestly desired to see, some I could not pass by; that which I actually saw kept my gaze fixed, while that which I expected to see would drag it on to the next.

I explored therefore every street, and at last, my vision unsatisfied, exclaimed in weariness, “Ah, my eyes, we are beaten.”

Two things struck me as especially strange and extraordinary — it was impossible to decide which was the greatest, the size of the place or its beauty, the city itself or its inhabitants ; for the former was larger than a continent, the latter outnumbered a whole nation. Looking at the city, I doubted whether any race of men could ever fill it; looking at the inhabitants, I wondered whether any city could ever be found large enough to hold them all. The balance seemed exactly even.

2. It so fortuned that it was, at that time, the sacred festival of the great god whom the Greeks call Zeus, the Egyptians Serapis, and there was a procession of torches. It was the greatest spectacle I ever beheld, for it was late evening and the sun had gone down ; but there was no sign of night — it was as though another sun had arisen, but distributed into small parts in every direction; I thought that on that occasion the city vied with the sky for beauty.

I also visited the Gracious Zeus and his temple in his aspect as god of Heaven; and then praying to the great god and humbly imploring him that our troubles might be at last at an end, we came back to the lodgings which Menelaus had hired for us.  …

6. … On the morrow came Chaereas at dawn: for very shame we could make no further excuses and got aboard a boat to go to Pharos; Menelaus stayed behind, saying that he was not well.

Chaereas first took us to the light-house and showed us the most remarkable and extraordinary structure upon which it rested; it was like a mountain, almost reaching the clouds, in the middle of the sea. Below the building flowed the waters; it seemed to be, as it were, suspended above their surface, while at the top of this mountain rose a second sun to be a guide for ships.

After this he took us to his house, which was on the shore at the extremity of the island. …

14. … [A rich Ephesian woman living in Alexandria wants to marry the hero] … it was agreed upon between us that the next day we should meet at the temple of Isis in order to discuss our future and take the goddess as witness to our troth. Menelaus and Clinias came there with us, and we took oaths, I to love her honourably, and she to make me her husband and declare me master of all that she possessed.

Note the reference in chapter 2 to street-lighting!

This is all that Achilles Tatius gives us about the city.  It’s rather vague; but of course the author had no notion that his work would be scanned by readers 18 centuries later for clues about ancient Alexandria, any more than I consider some possible future reader of these words, of two centuries hence, who impatiently scans these paragraphs of tedious-seeming antiquarianism on the off-chance that it may contain a description of modern London!  We do not describe what we see every day, until it is vanished.

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