Greek mss at the British Library

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have been hunting around to see which Greek manuscripts at the British Library it might be interesting to get digitised.  It is remarkably difficult to find out.

The BL catalogue is online; but it is largely useless because there is no way to restrict results to Greek mss only.  So a search for Chrysostom — every collection must have these — is pointless, because most of the results will be Latin manuscripts of translations.  This is really quite frustrating.  So far I have managed to find only a handful of mss which I might put forward.

One possible source of information would be Henri Omont, ‘Notes sur les manuscrits grecs du British Museum’, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, 45 (1884), 314-50, 584 (p. 335).  This is online here.  Maybe this will list some interesting volumes, if it ever downloads!

UPDATE: Indeed it does.  After a survey of the main collections, it lists the interesting previous owners and what they owned.  I need to digest this down into a list of suggestions.

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Never mind the New Testament – digital mss at the British Library

Posted on by Roger Pearse

All the NT people are getting excited about Juan Garces’ plan to digitise 250 manuscripts at the British Library.  But of course the rest of us have views too!  I have written today to Dr Garces asking for some classical manuscripts to be done as well.

Some time ago I went through the introductions of a large number of Loeb editions in order to get an overview of what mss of what existed where.  Since the list of mss in a Loeb is always limited, anything mentioned is probably important.

Here’s what I found that was held by the BL — 9 manuscripts in all:

  • Letters of Alciphron — British Library Harleianus 5566.  Paper. ff.141r-167v.
  • Apollodorus — British Library Harleian 5732.  (16th c).
  • Babrius, Fables — British Library, Additional 22087 (codex Athous).  Contains fables 1-122.  Corrections in the margins and above the lines by Demetrius Triclinus. 10th c.
  • Herodotus – British Library 1109 (Greek papyri in the British Museum III p.57 = Milne, Catalogue of the literary papyri in the British Museum no. 102) 1/2nd century
  • Homer, Iliad, — British Library Burney 86, 11th c.
  • Isaeus — British Library, Burneianus 95 (=codex Crippsianus).  This is a vellum manuscript containing Andocides, Isaeus, Deinarchus, Antiphon, Lycurgus, Gorgias, Alcidamas, Lesbonax and Herodes.  This was first discovered in the library of the monastery of Vatopedi on Mt. Athos.  It was then acquired by the Phanariot Greek Prince, Alexander Bano Hantzerli of Constantinople.  John Marten Cripps bought it from him at the start of the 19th century.  It then passed into the collection of Dr. Charles Burney, and thence with the rest of that collection by purchase into the British Museum in 1827.  It also has two corrector’s hands.  The first is the original scribe correcting his work against the exemplar, with the occasional conjecture.  The second may or may not involve the use of a different ms.  13th c.
  •  Isaeus — British Library, Burney 96. 15th c.
  • Thucydides — British Library 11727. Parchment  11th c.
This taken from my notes about the traditions here:
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Digitised mss at the British Library

Posted on by Roger Pearse

From Evangelical Textual Criticism I learn that the excellent Juan Garcés is revolutionising things at the British Library.   He’s leading a project to digitise 250 Greek manuscripts and place them online so scholars can consult the things.  He has obtained funding from the Stavros Niarchos foundation.

He’s also created the Digitised Manuscripts blog to report on progress.

It seems that the British Library described the project in their “Annual Reports and Accounts 2008/2009”:

Digitisation of Greek manuscripts

We are very grateful to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation for making it possible for us to undertake a project to digitise 250 of our Greek manuscripts to make them fully accessible to researchers around the world through the internet. We will also create catalogue records for each item and create a website that will enable researchers to search using key words and interactive technology that will allow them to upload notes and collaborate with other researchers virtually. We aim to launch the website in summer 2010. We are continuing to fundraise to enable us to add the remaining Greek manuscripts and papyri to the site in the longer term.

Let us hope that they understand that we will all want downloadable PDF’s.

It might be interesting to think what mss we would like scanned.  I know that New Testament people will be lobbying; but classics and patristics mss would be nice.  I realise that I don’t actually know what Greek mss at the BL I would like to see.

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Classical Text Editor – useful?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I was wondering about how to turn the .doc files for the Eusebius and Origen books into something printable, with properly kerned text, etc.  An email suggested that I might like to look at the Classical Text Editor.  So I pulled down the demo and had a play.

Unfortunately all you are presented with on start-up is a blank screen.  This is not very helpful.  I tried importing a word document, and it did import.  But it wasn’t at all clear what the benefit was, once I had done so.  Possibly the output to print is better — but in the demo version this is disfigured every inch with a logo indicating that this is an unregistered copy, so I couldn’t be sure.

In short, I found it baffling.  The help suggested using templates; but none seemed to be supplied as default.  Like most people I edit in Word.  What does this tool give me?

Probably it is a good tool.  But without a guide, it’s useless.  I would imagine that most people using this have been shown how to use it by someone else.  That must limit the take-up.  I couldn’t find anything useful online.

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Theodore of Mopsuestia on Genesis

Posted on by Roger Pearse

My attention has been drawn (as the libel lawyers say), by this discussion, to the remains of the commentary on Genesis by Theodore of Mopsuestia.  These are not extensive, but are interesting.

Migne prints a bunch from the catena of Nicephorus in vol. 66, cols. 633-646.  These are in Latin, not Greek, so I presume are from a publication of the catena which only consisted of an early modern Latin translation.

A bunch of fragments were also found in Syriac, and printed in Sachau, Theodori Mopsuesteni Fragmenta Syriaca (1869).  Finally some more were printed in French, according to Quasten (I don’t have the details here).

The upshot is that most of what Theodore wrote on Genesis 1-3 is actually extant, if collected.  It doesn’t sound like a great volume of data.  Probably $500 would translate the lot.

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Origen problem

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The translation of Origen’s Homilies on Ezechiel is going very well, and we are deep into fragments from catenas.  These tend to make sense only if you have the biblical (=septuagint) quotation before you.  The NETS text and translation is the modern standard, but of course is heavily copyrighted by Oxford University Press.  I’ve been meaning to approach them for permission to use this, little as I like the idea. 

But I have at this very instant had a horrible, horrible thought. I don’t think I can use NETS.  Indeed I cannot use anything copyright on the English side at all, or only for portions appearing only in book form.

The end objective is to make the translation freely available online.  I will never be able to do that if portions are copyright someone else!

Oh bother. I’ve literally thought of just now, so I haven’t a solution to hand.  What to do?  Any suggestions would be welcome. Maybe the answer is simply to translate the biblical passages ourselves in all cases.

Isn’t copyright a bother!!!

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Eusebius update

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve signed a contract with Les Editions du Cerf to use their Greek text for the Eusebius book.  Today I wrote to them asking where I can actually get the Greek text they print in electronic form.  I’m devoutly hoping that the answer is not “retype it”!

Portions of Cramer’s catena are getting typed up, and the friend who is doing this is also picking up some strangeness.  Various Greek words have more than one accent, for instance.

Meanwhile I have commissioned fresh translations of the two Syriac bits in Severus of Antioch and Ishodad of Merv, for inclusion in the “Syriac fragments” section.  I’ve also been in contact with the Coptic translator, although this grinds forward very slowly.  I think I’ve given up on the idea of using the Arabic version of the Coptic — it would take forever to get this coordinated with the Coptic.   I have not been able to find any information about Armenian gospel catenas, although I am positive they exist, so this will also be omitted.

I’m starting to think again about the process of turning the Word documents into print-ready text.  It seems that desktop publishing packages such as Adobe InDesign and QuarkXpress can kern the text.  But I would much rather have someone else work this over, rather than me do it! 

It will be good to get the Eusebius done.  The main remaining steps are to finish the manuscript.  I need to assemble the Greek and Latin text (and probably the Syriac and Coptic too), which is begun, and then to write indexes and odd bits of text.  Once this is done I can send it to the Cerf (a condition of their permission) and start to get it typeset.

There is a question in my mind about the Syriac.  Would there be merit in printing the Roman letters under the Serto letters?  Perhaps in smaller type, interleaved between the lines, and right-to-left?  A lot of people know Hebrew, but can’t read Syriac letters.  If the text appeared in this manner,  a lot of them could work with the Syriac.  I’ve never seen this done, but I don’t see why not.

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Two more Syriac fragments of Eusebius “Gospel problems and solutions”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Ishodad of Merv, in his commentaries on the gospels, quotes from Eusebius To Marinus.  The commentaries were printed by Gibson in 1911 with an English translation.  Vol. 1,  p. 143 contains the Eusebius, on Mark 15.  This is online in PDF here.  The Syriac text is in vol. 2, here.

The other passage appears in the letters of Severus of Antioch, published in Syriac with English translation by E. W. Brooks in the Patrologia Orientalis 14, p. 270 (of the PDF).  This is online here, and I transcribed the English here long ago.

The two passages seem to be on the same material.  Probably neither actually had a full text of Eusebius before him, but relied on excerpts.

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Getting hold of books

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I pulled down from my shelves yesterday a cheap reprint of Lanciani’s The destruction of ancient Rome, and made it my bedside reading.  It’s full of interesting statements, about how the monuments disappeared into the lime kilns.  Unfortunately it is rather under-referenced.  The latter is very frustrating. 

The book also refers to the destruction of the Septizonium.  Interestingly it tells us that a medieval guide to Rome, the Einsiedeln itinerary, contains transcriptions of inscriptions visible when it was made.  This includes an inscription on the septizonium which is long since vanished.  I was unable to find the itinerary online, tho.

Lanciani refers readers to his Ruins and excavations, and last night I decided I would just buy a copy of this.  The cheap reprints based on PDF’s usually make this possible, although in this case it seemed very difficult to get one at what I consider a reasonable price.  I did notice a copy of the first edition, with fold-out maps, offered for $200!  This raised the issue of how good the reproductions of the plates would be.  Those in my copy of The destruction were pretty grainy, which rendered them largely useless.  Indeed we might ask whether Google books is really preserving illustrations at all.

UPDATE: I was able to find Lanciani’s Italian publication of the itinerary here.  Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to contain the inscriptions.

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Devreesse: catenas on Mark

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Let’s continue to extract relevant material to Eusebius from Devreesse’s massive article on catenas.

VIII.  THE CATENAS ON St. MARK. — 1.  OVERVIEW. — The most ancient edition of a catena on St. Mark is due to the Jesuit, Poussines:  Catena graecorum Patrum in evangelium secundum Marcum couectore atque interprete Petro POSSINO Soc. Iesu presbytero qui et adiecit, titulo spicilegii commentarium, ad loca selecta quatuor evangeliorum: accessere collationes graeci contextus omnium librorum novi Testamenti cum XXII codd. antiquis mss. ex bibliotheca Barberina. Romae. typis Barberinis, MDCLXXII. [1672].

Three sources were available for this edition; 1.  A manuscript which Poussines cites under the name of the Anonymous of Tolouse, belonging to Charles de Montchal, archbishop of that town, today Paris gr. 194.  Most of the exegesis in this manuscript is anonymous: it is astonishingly closely related to that work known as the commentary on Mark of Theophylact (Patrologia Graeca, vol. 123, cols. 487-682); the rest consists of 20 citations scattered through the work.  — 2.  An interpretation of St. Mark attributed to a certain Victor of Antioch by a German manuscript, a copy of which was sent to him by Cordier.  According to Sickenberger (Titus von Bostra, p. 128 f.) this would today be the Monac. 99.  An exegesis of almost identical content is given in Vatican gr. 1423, but that manuscript bears no attribution on it.  — 3.  An anonymous manuscript in the Vatican, of which Cordier also sent him a copy.  We have identified this manuscript, which Poussines cites as Ἀνωνύμου Βατικ or even Ἀνωνύμου as the Vatican gr. 1692 A, fol. 177 ff. Its content can be found in Poussines, as will appear below, although not always very faithfully.

In 1840 [sic]  following his catena on Matthew, Cramer published a catena on St. Mark, based on Bodleian Laud 33 and Coislin gr. 23, already used with profit by him for the catena on the first gospel.  Some lacunas were filled with the aid of Paris 178.  Cramer likewise took from Bodleian Barocci 156 a scholion attributed to Justin in the catena of Macarius Chrysocephalus on St. Luke.  There are few named citations in this collection printed by Cramer.  One is credited to Cyril of Alexandria, another to Irenaeus, a third to Basil and a fourth to Theodore of Mopsuestia.  A few others are cited from time to time, but inside the texts.  Other manuscripts like the Vindob. 154 (Lambec. 29) have a few more lemmas [=author’s names], but never more than twenty.

One name dominates all the catenas on St. Mark; that of Victor of Antioch.  The Jesuit Peltanus edited  a commentary on the second gospel under this name… [1580]…  It is also from ps. Victor that another pseudepigraph already mentioned is derived: Peter of Laodicea, whose content was edited by Matthaei as a commentary by ps.Victor … [Moscow, 1775].

I don’t think the lengthy discussion of Victor of Antioch is relevant here.

Let us summarise this collection of literary facts from which the catenas on Mark derive.  1.  A bloc of scholia for the most part anonymous: the pseudo-Victor of Poussines.  2.  To this have been added other citations, not numerous: from which derive the text of Cramer, and the ps.Peter of Laodicea; the first reproduces integrally the fundus and adds a few (anonymous) extracts; the second rearranges the fundus and interpolates new scholia, some related to the additions in the catena of Cramer.

There remain two other collections of scholia; those of Vatican gr. 1692 A, and those of Paris 194, incompatible with each other.  The second agrees almost word for word, as in Poussines, with what is contained in the commentary of Theophylact on Mark.  As for the first, the state in which it has reached us does not permit us to say whether the few named citations encountered in it are the remains of a primitive state in which every citation had a name against it, and the source from which the catenist excerpted it, or on the contrary, whether we must envisage a two-stage process of compilation, perhaps an anonymous collection to which named patristic extracts were added later with an indication of their provenance.  Let us add that this collection also is far from covering the whole of the second gospel.

There remain the Scholia vetera (PG 106, col. 1173- 1178; also edited in Thomas, Les collections anonymes de scholies grecques aux evangiles, vol. 2, p. 181-9).  Their rare extracts correspond sometimes with ps.Victor.  Most often, they form a group apart.

II.  THE AUTHORS CITED. — …

Let’s now skip to Eusebius.  I’ve added some paragraphing.

Eusebius. — There was mention of a passage of Clement on the origins of the second gospel, collected by Eusebius.  The catenas cite various works of the bishop of Caesarea [=Eusebius].  In its prologue, the Anonymous of the Vatican (Poussines, p.3-4) refers to an opinion ἐν τρίτῃ βίβλῳ τῆς εὐαγγελικῆς ἀποδείξεως.  

Likewise the testimony of the questions to Marinus is invoked (Cramer, p. 266, 10-12; Poussines, p. 343 (on Mk. 25:25), 364 (on 16:18-20); these two passages on Simon of Cyrene and the appearance to Madeleine have been reproduced from Poussines  in PG vol. 22, col. 1009).  The same anonymous bears on Mk 13:32-39 (Poussines p. 297) the statement of Eusebius: ὡς γὰρ ἱστορεῖ ὁ Εὐσέβιος ἐν τῷ χρονικῷ κάνωνι.  Likewise on Mk 8:27 (Poussines, p. 269) Εὐσέβιος ἐν τῇ ἐπιτομῇ τῶν χρονικῶν. 

Finally Eusebius is named three times, though without references, once in Paris gr. 194 (=Poussines p. 46 on Mk 2:12), twice in ps.Victor of Antioch on Mk. 16:18-20 (Cramer 446, 19 f.) and by the anonymous of Poussines  on Mk. 15:15 (p. 340).

I think that is a very useful summary both of the printed catenas, and what is to be found in them.

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