Notes on Eusebius of Emesa

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Ever since I found a sermon by Eusebius of Emesa and placed it online, I have been somewhat interested in this obscure figure.  He was a pupil of Eusebius of Caesarea, and has been called a semi-Arian, although he had no political interests and lived in the times of Constantius when such views were perhaps normal in some areas.  The sermon I found was translated by Solomon Caesar Malan, a Swiss prodigy who knew many languages, took a degree at Oxford, and could converse in the bazaars of the east in the 1830’s with anyone who met in any language.  He is mentioned in Tuckwell’s Reminiscences of Oxford.

The sermon was very interesting, and this leads me to wonder what else now remains of his work.  I could find no evidence of any translations into English.

In the Patrologia Graeca 86, there are two “orationes” (cols. 510-535), plus a slew of fragments from catenas (columns 535-562).  But I learn from Quasten that there is rather more under the name of Eusebius of Caesarea, in PG 24. 1047-1208, 14 sermons originally printed by Sirmond in 1643.  The CD I have lists the following titles (which don’t make 14!):

  • De fide adversus Sabellium (On the faith, against Sabellius, 2 books)
  • De resurrectione (on the resurrection, 2 books)
  • De incorporali et invisibili deo (on the incorporeal and invisible God)
  • De incorporali (on the incorporeal, 2 books)
  • De spiritali cogitatu hominis (on the spiritual thoughts of men)
  • De eo quod deus pater incorporalis est (on he who is the incorporeal God the Father) (?)
  • Another sermon of the same name
  • De eo quod ait Dominus (on he who is called Lord)
  • De operibus bonis et malis (on good and evil deeds)
  • De operibus bonis (on good deeds)

I don’t think any of that exactly thrills.  Theological noodling is not my bag, and the lack of work on these texts suggests that my instinctive reaction is not unusual.

There is also another 17 homilies, discovered in Latin in Ms. Troyes 523 and published by Buytaert in the 1950’s.  He appended Sirmond’s collection to the end of his publication.  There are also a bunch of these things in Armenian.

None of this exactly calls out for translation, tho, does it?

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Eusebius once more

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m supposed to be on holiday — indeed I must spend a few days NOT working on projects!  Perhaps later this week.

I’ve just emailed Les editions du Cerf about getting their approval for the manuscript of the Eusebius book.  This was a condition of them allowing me (on very generous terms) to use the Greek text of the Abridged Selection printed by Zamagni.

I’ve processed all the revisions to the Greek text of the fragments into  the PDF — which was truly horrible to do.  I would have got the editor to do it differently, had I realised what he was doing.  Oh well, that’s experience.

Now I have to go through the other issues in my file of corrections and deal with those.

I’ve also heard back from Carol Downer, the leader of the UCL Coptic Reading Group, who did the Coptic translation.  Apparently there will be some more corrections from there, although they sound minor to me and we might do them at the proof stage.

The next stage, after these corrections, is to explore printing physical copies and getting the translators to check them (and doing so myself).  You can only do so much on-screen.  I need to talk to Lightning Source, who are the print-on-demand people I was recommended to use. 

I also need to enter the book in the British Library “cataloguing in progress” system.  And … no small point … get a cover designed.  Wonder how to do that!

UPDATE: All the corrections I know about are now added as stickies to the PDF file.  There are quite a few, but it will probably take the typesetter less time to pop them in than it took me to add them to the file.  I am very impressed, tho, by Acrobat’s co-working facilities.  They are ideal for this.  Adam McCollum, who did the Syriac, has replied very quickly on some formatting issues; and I’ve checked a query about the Arabic text back with the original edition. 

I’ve now emailed the PDF of the whole book back across to Bob Buller, who will probably deal with it at the weekend.  It’s another definite step forward!

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Today is the day I go through all the corrections on the Greek fragments and process them into the PDF to send to Bob the typesetter.  It’s rather boring, frankly.  Worse yet, the editor has mingled text in unicode with characters in non-unicode Greek.  Every bit of it has to be converted to unicode, and the mixture makes this very hard.  Few conversion utilities will not throw if they are told the text is one thing and it is another.  The editor sometimes also indicates that he wants a footnote on the facing English text, but does not indicate where it should go.  It’s hard, being an editor…!

Fortunately it won’t be nearly so awkward for Bob, as I’m doing all those corrections. 

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Letters of Isidore of Pelusium

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A translation of the first 14 letters of Isidore of Pelusium came in this morning.  It’s generally looking good, although the people I use to verify this are on holiday!  But I’ve paid the sum agreed anyway — the chap has certainly worked on it seriously — and commissioned letters 15-25 for the same treatment.

The letters of Isidore do need some kind of running commentary on them, to tie the book into a readable whole.  How this might be done I don’t yet know.

I need to find some more translators and commission some more books for publication.  I wonder how IVP found their translators?  I’ll wander around at the patristics conference next week and see if I can make contact that way.

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British patristic conference, 1st-3rd September 2010

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Just a quick note to say that bookings for the conference, to be held in Durham at St. Johns College, are still possible.  Accomodation and meals have to be booked by Monday, but of course there is plenty of hotel accomodation in the city, within walking distance of the college.  It might even be more comfortable!

If you’re not sure whether you can make it or not, do not despair: registrations are still open.  The organisers tell me:

Yes,people may still register, though Monday is, of course, the deadline for lodging and meals.  But we’ll gladly accept registrations at the door.  Come one, come all!

Glad you like the program, we’re excited about it, too.

Registration for the conference begins at St John’s College, Durham at 1330 hrs on Wednesday 1st Sept 2010, and the conference will conclude at 1300 hrs on Friday 3rd September. 

The schedule and papers to be given are listed here.   And the city of Durham itself is well worth a look, so you won’t be at a loss for alternatives for things to do.

You can register online here, although payments have to be sent in by cheque.  The conference fee is £70 (70 GBP); 35 GBP for impoverished post-grads!

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Eusebius update – whole book typeset!

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Rejoice!  The whole Eusebius Gospel Problems and Solutions is now in typeset form, with page numbers etc!  This is a massive step forward, and all credit is due to Bob Buller who did the job, did it very quickly and efficiently, and turned a bunch of word files into something professional.

Of course it has to be proof-read and so forth, but suddenly we have a BOOK before us.  I feel mightly encouraged by that!

Postscript from the Coptic group.  Apparently something is wrong with biblical references in their section and will need to be re-read (which will happen very slowly, I suspect).   Curses, curses!  But at least we’re now amending the final version, which is most cheering!

UPDATE: I thought I’d just check the page count — 412 pages, plus xiv pages of intro.  Phew!  That is a MUCH bigger book than I expected.

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British Patristic Conference – conference schedule

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The list of papers and what happens when has been posted on the web site here.  The papers look good.  A quick glance shows several that I want to to hear, straight out of the box.  I do want to hear that paper about Eusebius in the 17th century.  The myths started then still enjoy a good life among the headbangers.  Likewise T.D.Barnes on the Constantinian period is always interesting and of a very high scholarly standard.  And that’s just two that caught my eye!

 

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Google books not visible outside the US — people are starting to notice

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I was delighted to see an article at Mark Goodacre’s blog, The bizarre case of Google Books unavailable outside the US.  I’ve been banging on about this for some years.

There’s a great mass of material on Google Books.  Full copies of all works up to 1923 are online.  But … if you live outside the US, you can’t see any after 1880.  In fact if you use the search facility, you won’t even get to see the search results unless you’re in the US.  This bonkers situation was caused by pressure from non-US publishers, afraid that hypothetically they might miss out on some royalty or other.

Mark asks:

Well, this was news to me. I am really surprised that books like this, over one hundred years old, are not showing up in some countries. I realize, of course, that copyright laws differ from country to country. Nevertheless, I am curious to know how widespread this kind of difference between Google Books at home and abroad is. Anyone else experienced this?

Damn right we have.

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British Patristics Conference

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The British Patristic Conference at Durham is due in a very short time indeed.  It kicks off on 1st September, which is now merely a week and a half away.  So I’m slightly nervous that no programme or acknowledgement of my registration has appeared!  Still, if they haven’t got me on the list, I just won’t attend.

An email asking who wants a car pass has arrived — the first communication I have received.  Well, I certainly will need somewhere to park!  The distance to Durham from me is considerable, and I shall be going up the day before and staying in a hotel.  I don’t much fancy the idea of driving for 5-6 hours and then trying to find the place, park, register, and listen to sessions!

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Eusebius again

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Bob Buller, who is typesetting Eusebius’ Gospel Problems and Solutions, has just sent over the typeset version of the Latin fragments and translation.  He tells me he’s starting in on the Syriac now.  After that, only the front matter — a few pages — remains!  At that point I’ll send in the collected corrections — not a vast pile — and then we’ll print some proof copies for the various translators to have their say on. 

The Arabic material that arrived earlier was all fine, according to Adam McCollum who translated it.  I’ve replied to Bob’s queries on the Latin myself.  The Coptic translator has yet to reply — the question is merely as to the placement of two quotation marks, tho.

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