Eighteen months ago, purely for fun, I made my first attempt at seeing whether AI could produce an English translation of a text in Ethiopic, the otherwise untranslated Homily of Yohannan, bishop of Axum, on Abba Garima, printed by Rossini. It could not. A week or so back, I tried again and got a load of rather decent looking results, and I’ve been working on this since. The output from DeepSeek aligned quite well with Rossini’s summary
Last week I accidentally learned that there was a French translation by Gerard Colin.[1] I got hold of that on Friday, and I have compared the first two paragraphs with the AI-generated output from the Ge`ez text.
The results are not positive. The DeepSeek output is really not good enough. Here’s Rossini’s text, followed by Colin’s French. I’ve put the full-stops in red. Ge`ez uses word separators, which I have kept.
Ecoutez et méditez, mes frères bien-aimés, ce que je vais vous raconter. J’ai vu une femme, stérile, que l’on fustigeait et injuriait ainsi que Notre Dame Marie, en parlant à propos du Fils de celle-ci, le Christ. « Il n’est pas né d’une femme », disaient ceux qui ne croyaient pas au Christ. Je me mis à courir et entrepris d’embrasser les pieds de cette femme en disant : « Oui, par cette porte est sorti le roi des deux et de la terre ! » Quand j’eus parlé ainsi, les trombes de l’Esprit Saint descendirent sur moi.
A quick run of Google Translate on Colin gives this:
Listen and meditate, my beloved brothers, on what I am about to tell you. I saw a barren woman being flogged and insulted, along with Our Lady Mary, speaking of her Son, Christ. “He was not born of woman,” said those who did not believe in Christ. I ran and began to embrace the woman’s feet, saying, “Yes, through this gate has come out the king of heaven and of the earth!” When I had spoken these words, the cloudbursts of the Holy Spirit descended upon me.
Now here’s the Deepseek output. I’ve highlighted important differences:
Hear and understand, O my beloved brethren, what I declare to you. I saw a woman while they were stoning her and mocking her, and also mocking our Lady Mary, saying concerning her Son Christ, ‘He was not born of a woman.’ These said, ‘We do not believe in Christ.’ And I stood trembling and took refuge beneath the feet of that woman as she said, ‘Yes, by this decree, the King of Heaven and Earth shall come forth.’ And when she spoke thus, the Holy Spirit descended upon me fourteenfold.
These are not small differences. They obscure what the text is actually saying. And as ever with AI, the output is not stable. That was the output a week ago. Today the same text produced this:
And he said: Listen and understand, O my beloved brothers, what I will tell you. I saw a woman being accused of adultery, and while they were judging her, they also judged our Lady Mary, saying concerning her Son, Christ: “He was not born of a woman’s womb.” Those who say this do not believe in Christ. And as I stood there, I became angry and struck the ground beneath that woman’s feet while she was saying, “Yes, by this argument, let the King of Heaven and Earth come forth!” And when she spoke thus, the Holy Spirit descended upon me.
These are not small differences either. I did venture to ask DeepSeek for details, and the grammar and meaning of individual words. This output also varied uncomfortably. Which basically means that it is not useful.
In conclusion, AI is still not good enough to translate Ge`ez.
Perhaps I shall come back to this in a year, and see how things look then.
I now have a corrected electronic text of the homily of Yohanan, bishop of Axum, in honour of St Garima. I’ve numbered the paragraphs as an aid to myself, since I cannot even read the Ethiopian alphabet. It probably needs work. But here it is:
Today I started plugging paragraphs into DeepSeek. I also tried asking it to interleave the sentences, Ethiopic, then English. This did work, although curiously DeepSeek had trouble with the Ethiopic alphabet.
The first six chapters went fairly well. Here they are:
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God. I have placed my trust in Him and believed in Him forever and ever. Amen.
1. The Homily delivered by Saint John, Bishop and Archbishop of Aksum, concerning the greatness and glory of Saint Isaac. And he said: Listen and understand, O my beloved brothers, what I will tell you. I saw a woman being mocked by a crowd, and as they were laughing at her and at our Lady Mary, they were saying concerning her Son, Christ: “He was not born of a woman; His birth is impossible.” These people did not believe in Christ. And as I stood there, I grew angry and stomped my foot upon the ground where that woman was standing while she spoke. And behold, at that very moment, the King of Heaven and Earth came forth. And when she spoke thus, the Holy Spirit descended upon me.
2. I tell you, I saw a man and a woman who came to me with wealth that my Lord had given me for the nourishment of your souls, the greatness and struggle of this righteous man. There was a man whose name was Mesfiyanos, king of Rome, and his wife’s name was Kefngya. For she was barren and childless, having nothing. And the two of them lived grieving for twelve years. These were righteous people who gave alms to the poor and needy and to churches. One day she went to offer sacrifice and entered the church where there were images of Peter and Paul and our Lady Mary. She stood between the three images and prayed before Mary, saying: “Give me a son who will glorify you and glorify your Son, and if he does not glorify your Son, let my womb be cursed.” And that image responded as if saying “Oh!” She offered her sacrifice and returned home. From that time she conceived and bore a son and gave thanks to God. They named him Isaac; Isaac, the joy of his mother, the splendor of his father. When he was forty days old, they took him to the church and baptized him according to Christian tradition. All the people gathered in the church of Peter and Paul. The chief bishop stood before the Ark of the Covenant and blessed him, saying: “May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who blessed our holy forefathers bless you.” When the chief bishop blessed the child, a great light shone upon him, bright as the sun, moon, and stars. All who saw this marveled and glorified God, then offered sacrifices in their churches. The queen returned home with her child, and they celebrated a feast with great joy. When he turned twelve years old, they brought him to a teacher who instructed him in the Law, the Prophets, the Apostolic books, and their commentaries. They ordained him as a deacon. He further learned church canons, admonitions, plants, and animals. His parents consulted one another, saying: “Let us arrange a marriage for our son while we still live, that we may rejoice in his offspring.” As they were making these plans, an angel of God appeared to Mesfiyanos in a dream saying: “Many souls perish—will you not save them? A great church shall be built through him.” The king awoke and went to his wife, saying: “Last night an angel of God came to me and told me that through him miracles and wonders shall be performed.” The angel said to the queen: “I have come to command you to build and establish a church, that you may rejoice in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
3. When his father died, the nobles and dignitaries of Rome gathered and mourned for Isaac as he wept bitter tears. They enthroned him in the royal seat, and he reigned for seven years. During his days there was joy and peace. Afterwards, Saint Pantaleon came to him and said: “O my beloved Isaac, your earthly kingdom is temporary, but the kingdom of heaven is everlasting. The earthly kingdom will perish and pass away, but the heavenly kingdom will not pass away. Have you not heard what our Lord said in the Gospel: ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away’? Or what Paul said about this world: ‘It is passing away, and those who weep should live as though they were not weeping, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who use the world as though they were not using it, for the form of this world is passing away’? My son Isaac, do not neglect the love of God.”
When the message arrived, Isaac saw it and wept bitterly. He rose at night and prayed, saying: “O my Lord Jesus Christ, I beg and implore You to hear my prayer and grant the request of Your servant Isaac. Show me the straight path that I should walk.” He rose at night from his chamber and went to a secret place outside the palace, departing by night. The angel Gabriel appeared to him, prepared a chariot and canopy for him with shining wings, and brought him from Rome to Aksum in ninety days, traveling by night on the back of an eagle, arriving at the third hour.
4. When the messengers of Father Pantaleon arrived after ten months and four days, they told the man of God, who marveled and trembled, saying: “O my son Isaac, have you not heard what David the prophet said: ‘Your works and my soul will be satisfied when I awake with Your likeness’? What I have done secretly, do not hide from me under the earth. What I have seen with your eyes, write it all in your book. Listen, my son, to the greatness of God who has called us from all things, just as He called you under the wing of the eagle.” As they spoke of God’s greatness, they remained until daybreak.
5. Saint Isaac said to Father Pantaleon: “Father, clothe me in the monastic garb.” Father Pantaleon replied: “Do you know, my son, what the monastic garb means?” Saint Isaac answered: “Yes, I know, father. Have you not heard what our Lord said in the Gospel: ‘What is exalted among men is an abomination before God’? As Paul said: ‘What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword? Neither death nor life, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.’ I desire to be bound to Christ and to be bound tightly.”
When Father Pantaleon heard these words from Saint Isaac’s mouth, he prostrated himself and blessed God, saying to Isaac: “May God strengthen you in keeping His commandments.” Then he took the monastic garb and clothed him, blessing him with these words: “May our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed Anthony and placed upon his head the crown of monasticism, sanctify your garb. May God who blessed Father Macarius and Father Synoda bless your garb. May He who gave Elijah’s mantle to Elisha when he ascended to heaven and brought down the cloak for him—and with that cloak Elisha struck the waters and crossed over, raised the dead, and cleansed lepers—likewise sanctify your garb. May God who sanctified the priesthood of Melchizedek sanctify your priesthood.” They remained together for one year.
6. When the other saints heard that Saint Isaac had renounced the kingdom and embraced monastic life, they came to him. Among them were Abba Likanos from Qusṭinṭinya (Constantinople), Abba Yima’ata from Qosya, Abba Ṣəḥma from Antioch, Abba Guba from Cilicia, Abba Afṣe from Isya, Abba Maṭa‘ from Rome, and Abba ‘Oṣe from Caesarea. When the saints gathered, they met with Abba Pantaleon and Saint Isaac, and they were united in spiritual love. They lived together in one house, devoted to prayer. Among them, there was no one who sought personal gain, nor anyone who desired material possessions or the pleasures of the world. They remained for a period of one year.
The first 5 chapters are from DeepSeek. I then asked it to do chapter 6, and the monstrously long chapter 7. The results were weird, and then DeepSeek crashed. I then tried ChatGPT on chapter 6, which is what you have above. The DeepSeek version was about the same.
The ChatGPT version of chapter 7 was quite different in every way from that produced by DeepSeek. Here’s DeepSeek, the opening bits:
7. While they lived in this way, a governor of Aksum came to them and said: “There is a great beast, a king of the land of Ethiopia, to whom all the nobles bow down and offer gifts. They bring him a beautiful maiden of good appearance, and they perform sacrifices and offerings. When she is brought before this beast, he defiles her and then devours her. This beast has reigned in this manner for fifteen years.”
This beast was 170 cubits long and 4 cubits wide, with one cubit for its tail. Its eyes were like fiery coals, and the pupils of its eyes were like black pots. Its entire body was like a serpent and a dragon. When it ate, it would consume 17 oxen, and they would bring before it 10 sheep, 10 goats, 1000 chickens, 100 lambs, and countless birds. Upon its head were horns measuring three cubits. When it moved, its voice could be heard from a distance of eighty days’ journey.
When the brothers heard this, they marveled and were astonished. They trembled and said to the governor: “Do you truly speak the truth?” He replied: “Yes, truly. If you do not believe me, let one of you come and see.” Father Pantaleon said to Saint Isaac: “My son, what shall we do?” Saint Isaac replied: “Let my brother Oz go and observe this beast. If it is as he says, then you too must rise and pray.” …
Here’s ChatGPT:
7. And when they came and reached him, a certain nobleman from Aksum spoke to them and said: “Hail, great king, the ruler of the nation of Ethiopia!” And they all bowed before him, the nobles, and presented to him the honorable and righteous virgin of the Lord. And they performed hymns and praises, and she came before him, the king, and prostrated herself. And she continued to remain pure. And the king was astonished.
And they stayed there for fifteen years. And the king stood in honor of her for one hundred and eighty days. And he prepared four feasts in her honor. And one of these feasts was the greatest. And his eyes shone like flames of fire, and his pupils were as bright as polished metal. His appearance was as dazzling as the sun and lightning. And when he spoke, seventeen scribes recorded his words. And they made a proclamation across the land.
There were ten thousand warriors, and one hundred thousand men armed with shields and spears. And they gathered before him in great numbers. And his voice was heard from afar, resounding like thunder. And the land trembled at his voice. And his presence was mighty, and all the nobles fell before him.
The DeepSeek text is at least plausible. The ChatGPT is not.
What I will try doing is getting each to translate it, sentence by sentence, interleaved with the Ethiopic. I’ll see what that does.
I’m working away on this Ethiopian homily of John, bishop of Axum, on St. Garima. It was printed in 1898 by C. Conti Rossini,[1] but without translation.
Well, I don’t know any Ethiopian at all, and I don’t even know the alphabet. There are 31 consonants, each of which has seven variants, I gather.
But I knew that it was possible to get Google to turn images into electronic text, and a couple of experiments with ChatGPT and DeepSeek quickly showed that the resulting output file could be understood by AI and produce English text.
So I need to get a decent electronic text.
My first step was to take the PDF, extract the pages with the Ethiopian text on them, and pull them into Finereader. Finereader does NOT support Amharic, but it has useful image editing tools. I trimmed the 24 pages down to the bare text – no footnotes, no headings, and exported them as images to a directory.
I then bundled these images up into a PDF using my incredibly elderly Adobe Acrobat Pro 9.0. I then went into Google Drive and uploaded the PDF. Then I right-clicked on it in Google Drive, and opened it in Google Docs. This caused Google to OCR it, thereby creating an electronic text. I then downloaded this in Word format.
I’ve checked the results into a local Git repository – so that I can always go back if I screw up the file.
And now, page by page, I am going through what Google has given me, removing obvious crud and irrelevant line breaks. It seems to insert a small amount of garbage between pages.
Wish me luck!
There are other free Amharic OCR websites online, and these seem to do a reasonable job too. But I’ve stuck so far with the Google Docs output.
Incidentally DeepSeek offered the opinion that the text is not in Amharic, as I had expected, but in Ge`ez, Classical Ethiopian. Luckily it doesn’t care.
[1]C. Conti Rossini, “L’omilia di Yohannes vescovo di Aksum in onore di Garima,” Actes du Congrès International des Orientalistes, Section Sémitique (Paris, 1898).Online via here.↩
Back in August 2023, I found that it was possible to scan in some of an Ethiopian text, part of the Life of Saint Garima. Unfortunately the results from machine translation were disappointing. ChatGPT was no better.
This evening I was writing my last post, and remembered these efforts. So I pasted those chunks of text into ChatGPT. Here’s the first:
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God above all, I have renounced everything and believed in Him until the end of the world. Amen.
The sermon delivered by Saint John, the Bishop of Aksum, concerning the greatness and honor of Saint Isaac:
He said, “Listen and understand, my beloved ones, what I will tell you. I saw a woman who was suffering greatly, trembling and in distress. And she called upon Our Lady Mary, saying: ‘For the sake of the Son, Christ, this woman is not yet born.’ They said to her, ‘Whoever does not believe in Christ and remains doubtful, they shall be humbled and brought low under her feet.’
Then, at that moment, the King of Heaven and Earth came forth. And she said, ‘The one who is greater than Moses shall come.’
Plausible. Here’s the second chunk:
And it happened on one night that a book was opened, read, and written down. And he arose for prayer in the church. And the angels wrote for him the Gospel at the fourth hour and interpreted it for him. And the angels of God descended and stood before him, and our Lord Christ comforted him. And his message was heard throughout all the land. His prayer and blessing remained with us.
I was looking at the online copy of the Bodleian manuscript of Plato, the “Clarkianus” 39 (here), when I discovered something wonderful. We can now download the whole thing as a PDF!
This is just so amazing! It also means that any cyber-attack can only do so much damage, if you have offline copies.
Here’s the screen grabs of what to do:
Go to the manuscript online:
2. Click on the “Download” icon and you get this.
3. Click on the download for the whole item.
Note that if you select a page range, it has to assemble that offline and email you, so it takes longer.
That’s it! It’s actually the best user interface for downloads that I’ve yet seen. Nice!
The only downside is resolution. The download of this manuscript (871 pages) is a pretty massive 800mb. If you look at folio 1r, the scholia are a bit fuzzy. So for these you still need to use the website. It would be good to have an “ultra-high res, kiss your disk space goodbye” option. But it’s still a huge step forward.
Now online, and coming soon to an airport near you, is the first English translation of the Pseudo-Athanasian work, De Incarnatione et contra Arianos. academia.edu/114648612/Ps… So begins my long-term project of translating key pieces of patristic pseudepigrapha into English.
Coming soon: Ps-Basil, Against Eunomius IV and V Ps-Athanasius, Dialogues on the Trinity Ps-Epiphanius, Homily on the Resurrection Anonymous, Life of Amphilochius.
On the Academia page he adds:
This is the first English translation of the Pseudo-Athanasian work De Incarnatione et contra Arianos (PG 26: 984-1028). Though it has received little scholarly attention, it is a work of considerable interest for its novel exegesis of biblical texts and unusual theological formulations. Some have attributed it to Marcellus of Ancyra, though probably erroneously.
The work is CPG 2806. The edition is that of Montfaucon. Interestingly there is a Latin version in Florence BML 584, of the 9-10th century; an Armenian version , and a Syriac version in the CSCO series!
It must be 20 years ago or more that I first stumbled upon the OCR software, Abbyy Finereader. I was enthralled, and I bought it, with the option for Cyrillic recognition. At the time the word was that it had originally been developed for the KGB! It was much better than anything else.
Since that day I have bought every upgrade. These appeared every couple of years, and always gave you a bit better OCR. The user interface was not really improved tho – they tended to mess with it, when it worked really very well. And currently I am using Abbyy Finereader 15 Pro. This is a wonderful OCR engine. In the last couple of versions, the software developers have gone a bit insane, and started forcing you to produce PDF as your output. But in fact they don’t do PDFs that well! Never mind – it is still possible to just do straight OCR. The addition of the Fraktur module is good also.
But … disaster! I learn today that the idiots and nincompoops at Abbyy have decided to make it available only on a “subscription” model. You can’t buy it any more. Instead they will lease it to you for a year, for the same price as a purchase used to be. At the end of the year, you have to pay again. And again.
I have never purchased a subscription for any software, and I never will. This is predatory pricing, and it should be illegal.
We all know that Microsoft have their “Office 365” subscription. A few years back I was horrified to find that a poor girl living on benefits was paying for a subscription. She had to count every penny; yet Microsoft was bleeding her each month. I quickly put a stop to that, I should say.
Last month I discovered that my late mother had also been taken in by this scam, and was paying a monthly sum to Microsoft just to do basic word-processing.
This is classic monopoly abuse. Create a monopoly, then force people to accept predatory prices that benefit only the monopolist. Instead of bringing in better software each year, so that people want to buy something better, how much easier it is to just force them to pay again for the same thing?
Microsoft can get away with it, because word-processing is essential, and they have donated heavily to the US political establishment.
But I rather doubt that Abbyy has a monopoly. All they have done is to ensure that I don’t buy any more upgrades.
All the same, it’s a shame. Abbyy Finereader really was good. I always recommended it.
Those who don’t feel like being robbed like this may wish to know that Google Docs does OCR for free, and for an even wider range of languages than Abbyy.
Something that comes around every year at this time is a quotation from a certain “Scriptor Syrus,” supposedly about the origins of Christmas. Often it is supposed to be 4th century. This is the usual wording.
It was a custom of the pagans to celebrate on the same Dec. 25 the birthday of the sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity …Accordingly, when the church authorities perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnized on that day.
There is an excellent post at Andrew McGowan’s blog here about this “quote”, and the many errors and falsehoods involved, and a mention by Tom Holland. It is, in fact, a marginal note by an unknown Syrian writer (= “scriptor syrus”) in a manuscript of the works of Dionysius bar Salibi, a 12th century Syriac author.
There is a somewhat fuller translation by Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries, Yale (1997), p.155:
A twelfth-century Syrian bishop explained,
“The reason, then, why the fathers of the church moved the January 6th celebration [of Epiphany] to December 25th was this, they say: it was the custom of the pagans to celebrate on this same December 25th the birthday of the Sun, and they lit lights then to exalt the day, and invited and admitted the Christians to these rites. When, therefore, the teachers of the church saw that Christians inclined to this custom, figuring out a strategy, they set the celebration of the true Sunrise on this day, and ordered Epiphany to be celebrated on January 6th; and this usage they maintain to the present day along with the lighting of lights.”[8]
p.244, 8. Dionysius Bar-Salibi, bishop of Amida, whom I quote from the Latin of G. S. Assemani, Bibliotheca orientalis Clementino-Vaticanae 2 (Rome 1721) 164; and compare such other festivals as that of the Natale Petri of February, particularly in Fevrier (1977) 515, who protests against apologetic arguments to insulate the choice of date from any pagan antecedents or competition.
The overt polemical purpose of the modern author needs no discussion. But the reference is a useful entry-point to try to find the actual source.
What work are we talking about? What manuscript?
Assemani was an Eastern Christian who published a whole series of extracts from eastern authors, in the original language, in his Bibliotheca orientalis Clementino-Vaticanae, with commentary and translation in Latin. These are now online, and volume 2, page 164 may be found at Google books here. The text is in two columns. The original language is given, a text in italics is the translation, and Assemani’s own words are in normal text.
Page 164 from Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticanae, vol. 2 (1721)
Hunc tamen Armenorum ritum, quem hic rejicit Bar-Salibaeus, anonymus nescio quis Syrus probare contendit in margine apud eundem Bar-Salibaeum fol. 43. a tergo, his verbis:
However an anonymous Syrian, I don’t know who, tries to prove this Armenian rite, which Bar-Salibaeus here rejects, in the margin in the same Bar-Salibaeus fol. 43. on the back, in these words:
Then follows the Syriac text, and then the Latin translation prepared by Assemani:
Mense Januario natus est Dominus eodem die quo Epiphaniam celebramus, quia veteres uno eodemque die festum Nativitatis & Epiphaniae peragebaret, quoniam eadem die natus & baptizatus est. Quare hodie etiam ab Armenis uno dic ambae festivitates celebrantur. Quibus adstipulantur Doctores, qui de utroque festo simul loquuntur. Causam porro, cur a Patribus praedicta solemnitas a die 6. Januarii ad 25. Decembris translata fuit, hanc fuisse ferunt. Solemne erat ethnicis hac ipsa die 25. Decembris festum ortus solis celebrare; ad augendam porro diei celebritatem, ignes accendere solebant: ad quos ritus populum etiam Christianum invitare & admittere consueverant. Quum ergo animadverterent Doctores ad eum morem Christianos propendere, excogitato consilio eo die festum veri Ortus constituerunt; die vero 6. Januarii Epiphaniam celebrari jussere. Hunc itaque morem ad hodiernum usque diem cum ritu accendendi ignis retinuerunt. Et quoniam sol duodecim gradus ascendit Dominus natus est hac die tertiadecima, & sicut S. Ephram docet, Solis justitiae & duodecim Apostolorum ejus mysteria repraesentat. Numerus, inquit S. Doctor, denarius perfectus est. Die decima Martii uterum intravit. Numerus item senarius perfectus est. Die 6. Januarii utramque partem nativitas ejus reconciliavit.
In the month of January, the Lord was born on the same day on which we celebrate the Epiphany, because in the olden days the festival of Nativity and Epiphany was held on the same day, since he was born and baptized on the same day. Therefore, even today, both festivals are celebrated by the Armenians. The Doctors [of the Church] support this, who speak of both festivals at the same time. Furthermore, the reason why the aforesaid solemnity was transferred by the Fathers from the 6th of January to the 25th of December, they say was this. It was traditional for the pagans to celebrate the birth of the sun on this very day, the 25th of December; to further enhance the celebration of the day, they used to light fires: to which rites they were accustomed to invite and admit even Christian people. When, therefore, the Doctors noticed that the Christians were inclined to that custom, they devised a plan and established on that day the feast of the true Resurrection; but on the 6th of January they ordered that the Epiphany be celebrated. So they have kept this custom to this day with the ritual of lighting fires. And since the sun has risen twelve degrees, the Lord was born on this thirteenth day, and as St. Ephraim teaches, he represents the mysteries of the sun of justice and his twelve apostles. The number, says the Holy Doctor, is a perfect denarius. On the tenth of March he entered the womb. The same number is perfect. On the 6th of January his birth reconciled both parties.
I don’t understand the bit about “denarius”; is it a typo for “senarius,” which seems to mean “a multiple of six”? But it doesn’t matter for our purposes. Assemani then continues his work by introducing a different extract from fol. 125 concerning Caiaphas, of no relevance here.
So these words, by the anonymous “syrian writer”, are on folio 43v of the manuscript used by Assemani.
But what is this a manuscript *of*? What text?
Looking up to page 161, I see that Assemani is quoting material from folio 37v of this manuscript of a work by Dionysius bar Salibi, about the “progenitores” of Christ, from Luke’s gospel:
Quos Lucas refert Christi progenitores, eos ex Africano, Eusebio, Nazianzeno,Sarugensi, Graecisque & Syriacis Codicibus sic enumerat fol.37. a tergo:
He enumerates those whom Luke gives as progenitors of Christ, from Africanus, Eusebius, Nazianzen, [Jacob of] Sarug, from Greek and Syriac manuscripts, on fol. 37v:
He then continues with a passage from folio 161, on the nativity of Christ, before adding the material above from the scholiast. It’s odd that this jumps about like this.
On pp.157-8, it all becomes clear. Assemani is giving extracts from the Commentary on the Four Gospels by Dionysius bar Salibi, and he is extracting this material from a Vatican manuscript:
Commentaria in Testamentum Vetus & Novum. Et quidem expositio in quatuor Evangelia exstat in Cod. Syr. Vatic. 11. & in Cod. Syr. Clem. Vat. 16. a fol. 27. usque ad fol. 263. ejusque duo exemplaria in Bibliotheca Colbertina haberi testatur Renaudotius tom. 2. Liturg. Orient. pag. 454.
Commentaries on the Old and New Testaments. And a certain exposition on the four Gospels exists in Cod. Syr. Vatic 11. And in Cod. Syr. Clem. Vat. 16, from fol. 27. up to fol. 263. Renaudius testifies, Liturg. Orient. vol. 2, page 454 that two copies of this are held in the Bibliotheca Colbertina [i.e. now in the French National Library].
So… let’s take it further. A lot of Vatican manuscripts are online. But when I use the excellent Wiglaf guide to Vatican mss, and look at Vatican. Syr. 11, and Vaticanus Syr. 16, – I don’t think there is a “Clementine” subdivision of Syriac manuscripts – I find that neither has scholia on fol. 43v. Someone has messed up the numbering of the manuscripts since! It turns out that Assemani and his son did so, later in life, in the 1750s. The marvellous Syri.ac website tells me of a concordance by Hyvernat, “Vatican Syriac Mss Old And New Press Marks” (1903), online here.
But this too is useless. The old “Vat. Syr. 1” became Vat. Syr. 19, online here, but there is still no marginal note on folio 43v. Hyvernat does not explain the “Clem.” collection at all.
Thankfully Hyvernat tells us about a catalogue composed by Assemani and son, and Syri.ac gives links to text-searchable PDF’s!
Looking at these, if we do a text search for “Salib”, we find that manuscript 156 contains Dionysius bar Salibi. But… no scholion on fol. 43v. In fact the manuscript has been divided into two parts, and part 2 is also online here.
The catalogue for Vat. Syr 156 says the Luke portion begins on fol. 188, which doesn’t sound right. But at the end it says “see ms 155, fol. 161v” And when I look at the catalogue entry for Vat. Syr. 155 – it too contains Dionysius bar Salibi! The text search had missed it. Are these two, perhaps, the two manuscripts that Assemani used, now placed side by side? Hyvernat says look at the start of the catalogue entry, there may be the old shelfmark there. And…
CLV. Codex in fol. bombycinus, foliis constans 294. Syriacis recentioribus literis exaratus, inter Syriacos Codices, a nobis in Vaticanam Bibliothecam inlatos, olim Decimus sextus: quo continentur:
150. Folio manuscript on cotton-paper, consisting of 294 leaves, written in modern Syriac letters, one of the Syriac manuscripts brought by us into the Vatican Library, once the Sixteenth: which contains:
So this is indeed the one-time manuscript Vat. Syr. 16! Hyvernat expresses himself bitterly toward the authors of the catalogue – “of no practical use” -, and, after more than two hours working on this, I too am less than chuffed with them. The manuscript was never simply “Vat. Syr. 16”; prior to the reorganisation it was, in fact, Vat. Syr. Assemani 16; and the other manuscript, 156, was Vat Syr. Assemani 46. Aaargh!
But … viewing Vat. Syr. 155 on folio 43v – there is a long scholion! We’re there! It matches!
Vatican Syr. 155, folio 43v – the scholion on Dionysius bar Salibi, Commentary on Luke, discussing the date of Christmas
One last wrinkle. The catalogue (part 3, p.297) tells us that Luke is on fol.160v onwards. That’s is item 23 in this manuscript, which contains various texts. So what is fol. 43v part of? Well, item 21 is the commentary on Matthew, starting on folio 32, and continuing to fol. 148v. Not Luke, as anyone would infer from the original in the Bibliotheca Orientalis, unless they were very careful.
So this passage by “Scriptor Syrus” is, in fact, a scholion by some unknown person, on a passage in the Vatican Syr. 155 copy of Dionysius bar Salibi’s Commentary on Matthew.
It would be most useful to know exactly which passage of Dionysius bar Salibi is so annotated. But there we must leave this.
Update: 24 Dec. 2023. A useful comment from Syriacist Grigory Kessel is that Dionysius bar Salibi’s commentary on the gospels was printed in the CSCO series, with a Latin translation; and that the annotation above is against Dionysius’ comments on Matthew 2:1 (“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying,…”), and the relevant passage is here. I imagine it relates to the paragraph on p.67, l.12 onwards, where 25 December is specified. Thank you!
Following my last post, I’ve started to look at the PDFs of Bauer’s 1783-5 German translation of Bar Hebraeus’ History of the Dynasties.
It must be said that the Fraktur print is not pleasant to deal with. But it could be very much worse! I’ve seen much worse. Here’s the version from Google Books:
And here is the same page from the MDZ library:
I’ve tried running both through Abbyy Finereader 15 Pro. Curiously the results are better, on the whole, from the higher resolution MDZ version. I had expected that the bleed-through from the reverse might cause problems – and it may yet! Even more oddly, the OCR on the “Plain Text” version of Google Books is better still.
But there is a problem with using Google Books in plain text mode. There is no way to start part way through the book. You will always be placed at the very start, and you can only navigate by clicking “Next page” or whatever it is. This is not good news if you have 100 pages to click through before you get to where you want to be.
The opening portion of these world chronicles is always a version of the biblical narrative about the creation, followed by material from the Old Testament, combined with apocryphal material. I may be alone here, but I have always found these parts of the narratives unreadable. When I translated Agapius, I started with the time of Jesus, part way through. I did the same with Eutychius. I only did the opening chapters at the end, after I had translated all the way from Jesus to the end of the book first. I recall that it felt like wading through glue. I might have given up, except that I had already invested so much time in the project.
Starting in the time of Jesus immediately introduces us to familiar figures. On page 88 of volume 1, the “Sixth Dynasty” starts, with Alexander the great. It ends on page 98 with Cleopatra. Each section starts with a familiar name, one of the Ptolemies in most cases.
On page 99, dynasty 7 begins, after an introduction, with Augustus. The dynasty ends on p.139 with Justinian. Each ruler gets a paragraph, often only a few sentences.
It’s all do-able, clearly. I’m not sure that I want to get into working on this book seriously, with the St Nicholas project still in mid-air. But it’s not hard work, which is something!
None of the histories of Arabic Christian literature – Agapius, Eutychius, Yahya ibn Said al-Antaki, Al-Makin, Bar Hebraeus – exist in English translation. This site has made some modest efforts to remedy this, by turning the French translation of Agapius and the Italian translation of Eutychius into English, and posting them online. Judging from queries received, the effort has been worthwhile, and has drawn attention to both. It was difficult to obtain a copy of the Italian translation, but eventually I located and purchased one over the web from the Franciscan bookshop in Jerusalem, where it had plainly sat and gathered dust for many years. The translator was a certain Bartolomeo Pirone, of whom I knew nothing.
Indeed how many of us are that aware of material in Italian? Even though Google Translate handles Italian very well these days, few of us have any idea what is out there. Yet there are invaluable translations of otherwise inaccessible patristic material.
A few days ago I became aware of a series of translations into Italian of Arabic Christian literature, the PCAC series. This includes 30-odd texts from the literature of the Christians in the Near East, such as Theodore Abu Qurrah. The region was occupied by Islam in the 7th century, and they were obliged to write in Arabic from the 9th century onwards, as the cultural pressure became irresistible. But it is, at that period, a branch of Byzantine literature, and full of interest.
Much to my surprise, I discovered that the series was edited by none other than the same Dr Bartolomeo Pirone. Now retired but still active, he was a full professor at the University of Naples L’Orientale, and lectured in Cairo and Beirut. Judging from a google search, he has dedicated a portion of his life to making this literature known, in the most obvious way possible; by translating it into the vernacular, and gathering other scholars to do likewise. Indeed I have at this very instant just discovered that he also made a translation of Agapius into Italian![1] But this does not exhaust his work, which also includes Muslim literature, and the interaction between Christianity and Islam.
Much of his work was published by the Franciscan Province of the Holy Land, known as the “Custody of the Holy Land“. This in turn explains why a copy of his standalone translation of Eutychius was available in their bookshop in Jerusalem. There is an article from 2018 at the Franciscan website here, celebrating his 40 years of research.
Prof. Bartolomeo Pirone
I would imagine that very few people in the English-speaking world have ever heard of Dr Pirone and his immensely valuable work on an area of literature known to very few. But if you are at all interested in Arabic Christian literature, and especially if you – like myself – do not know any Arabic, then you need to know about his work.
