Tag: Methodius

Methodius of Olympus, De Cibis – critical edition in progress

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Most of the works of the Ante-Nicene writer Methodius of Olympus (ca. 300 AD) do not survive in Greek.  Instead they are preserved only in Old Slavonic –  a language known to very few in the west -, plus a few catena fragments.  I became aware of this a few years ago, and Ralph Cleminson very kindly translated some of them for us, such as De Cibis.  The text used was a couple of digitised manuscripts which I accidentally became aware of.

So I was really delighted to read the following from George Mitov on Twitter a couple of days ago:

The first chapter of my MRes thesis already submitted (with an extensive section on the Slavonic reception of Methodius of Olympus). Next step: a critical edition of the Slavonic text of the De cibis ad Chilonam and an English translation of it.

I have already obtained digital copies of the manuscripts, about 20 in total, and have already started preparing the critical edition. It is fascinating that this text by Methodius is preserved only in Slavonic and yet no critical edition so far.  What we have so far is the German translation of the Slavonic text, based mainly on two mss, and published by G. Bontwesch and the English translation of Cleminson.

Hope I will be done with the critical edition by the end of the summer.

This is excellent news.  It sounds as if a whole load more manuscripts have become available.  Mr. Mitov gives his biography as:

MRes at @KU_Leuven; BA and MA – Sofia University (Bulgaria); Durham University (UK); Byzantine and Paleoslavic Studies, History, and Greek Patristics

Which sounds ideal.  Indeed an earlier tweet shows him:

Presenting a paper on a newly discovered Slavonic translation of a letter (Ep. 1959) by Isidore of Pelusium at the International Conference “Constantine of Preslav’s Uchitel’noe Evangelie and the South Slavonic Homiletic Texts (9th-13th century)” (Sofia, 25-27 April 2023).

All of this is excellent stuff.  Patristic texts in Old Slavonic translation is something that we all need to know more about.  Looking forward to whatever he produces!

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A fragment of De Pythonissa by Methodius of Olympus (d. ca. 300), and more, discovered in Old Slavonic

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Every so often I come across a splendid piece of scholarly work; work that makes me want to stand up, and cheer, and shout “look at this!!!”. I’m thinking of work that could only be done by a professional scholar of great skill, great linguistic ability, and massive determination.

Such an experience came my way today with an 2020 article by Alexey A. Morozov, in Russian, who is preparing to edit for the first time the De Resurrectione of Methodius of Olympus, composed in three books and attacking some of the dafter ideas of Origen.  This work is probably the largest ante-Nicene text still unpublished.  Dr Morozov is based at the university of Fribourg in Switzerland, from where some very excellent philological work has emerged in recent years.

The article citation is:

Морозов А. А. Диалог Мефодия Олимпийского «О воскресении» (CPG 1812) и методология критического издания славянских текстов // Библия и христианская древность. 2020. № 3 (7). С. 80–125. DOI: 10.31802/BCA.2020.7.3.003

Morozov, Alexey A. “Dialogue of Methodius of Olympus ‘On the Resurrection’ (CPG 1812) and the Methodology of Critical Edition of the Slavonic Texts”. Bible and Christian Antiquity, № 3 (7), 2020, pp. 80–125 (in Russian). DOI: 10.31802/BCA.2020.7.3.003

The original Russian can be downloaded in PDF from here.  I’m sure everyone realises that I had to pass it through Google translate in order to read it.  To save others having to do the same, I have pasted the raw output into a Word .docx file, which is here.

Only fragments of the original Greek text of De Resurrectione still exist.  But the complete text is preserved in Old Slavonic (or “Old Slavic” as our American friends seem to want to call it).  This, like most Old Slavonic texts, has never been published.  In fact, before the fall of the Soviet Union, it was simply impossible to access the manuscripts anyway.  A complete Italian translation exists, but this was made directly from a random manuscript.  This is a hard area in which to work.

The article itself is an example of hard, painstaking, grinding labour.  It is the product of assembling copies of all the manuscripts in every archive in Eastern Europe –  nineteen -, and collating the lot in order to produce a stemma.  It must have taken him ages.  Just locating manuscripts alone involved wading through bad catalogues.  Most people in the past just wimped out and worked from whatever manuscript they were able to locate, just as people did back with classical texts at the renaissance.  There was nothing else you could do.  So in one article he has opened up the whole field.  Nobody will ever thank him, I fear.  But this paper will form the basis for all subsequent work on the Old Slavonic text of Methodius.  It is simply excellent stuff.

Likewise he sits down and addresses the fundamental question: how should Old Slavonic texts be published?  He reviews past work, and produces a list of bullet points with the principles to be followed.  This is fundamental stuff, and ought to be very influential.

There is more.  Reward comes to the selfless scholar who buries himself in such a dry task.  Dr Morozov’s reward is to make discoveries.  First he has found some substantial portions of the text which are missing from most manuscripts of the text.  Even better, he has discovered a fragments of a lost work of Methodius, mentioned by Jerome but lost since antiquity!  He gives a diplomatic transcription of the short section of De Pythonissa, which I think was headed “On the demise of magic” in his manuscript.  Sadly he does not give a translation, and not even Google Translate can handle Old Slavonic.  He has also discovered an Old Slavonic translation of the Symposium of Methodius, the only work preserved in Greek, but not previously known in Old Slavonic.  This is likely to clarify the text in some particulars.

Dr Morozov’s findings run to 40 pages.   They promise very well for his forthcoming edition of the work.  I hope that it will be accompanied by a translation in French.

Magical stuff in a neglected field!  More please!

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Reading the Italian translation of Methodius “De resurrectione”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The Italian translation of Methodius of Olympus, De resurrectione, has arrived.  I was able to order it from the publisher without undue difficulty (although IBS.it would probably have been easier, had I remembered them!)  I have now scanned some of it, which means that I can now use Google Translate on the Italian.  Google Translate handles Italian well, so long as you read intelligently.

I thought that I would give a page-worth, on the Old Slavonic translation of Methodius.  Here it is:

The Corpus Methodianum, however, was preserved in Old Slavonic. This translation was supposedly made in Bulgaria around the tenth century and was made accessible to the West by the end of the nineteenth century in the German translation of Bonwetsch, who edited all the works of Methodius for the critical edition except those considered inauthentic. This Old Slavonic translation contains the almost complete text of De autexusio, De resurrectione, and De lepra, and also that of other works of which there was no mention in ancient testimonies, and of which there were no Greek remnants (De cibis, De sanguisuga, De vita). The Greek text used for this translation seems to have been in good condition. It is translated to the letter, except in some passages where we are faced with summaries (it is difficult to determine whether this was done by the Old Slavonic translator, or found by him in the original). As we have mentioned earlier, Musurillo believes that the writings of Methodius have been handed down in Slavonic because of a happy error of attribution, because of the homonym with the 9th century evangelizer of the Slavs. Bracht criticizes this suggestion, noting that Musurillo does not provide reasons for this affirmation, and considers it simpler to attribute the interest in preserving his writings to the uninterrupted tradition of the Eastern Church, which continued to venerate Methodius as a saint, martyr and Doctor of the Church. Bracht does not exclude the idea that the influence of the homonym, Methodius, apostle of the Slavs, might have helped preserve the writings; but not – as Musurillo suggests – by error in attribution. In his opinion, a stronger reason – in turn already advanced by Ivan Dujchev – would be this: the thesis of the De autexusio would be considered very useful in order to counteract the doctrinal errors of the Bogomil heresy (a heresy that arose in Bulgaria around the 10th century). These heretics affirmed a strong dualism. The refutation of any kind of dualism contained in the De autoexusio of Methodius would have helped to get it translated.[1]

I shall keep reading.

PS: I wondered what Old Slavonic manuscripts were used for the Slavonic text.  This is not stated; but two manuscripts – Q.I. 56a and Q.I. 57b – are mentioned in footnotes.

UPDATE (3/3/2018): An enquiry to the translator brought the following response:

I was using manuscript from Petersburg Q.I. 265. The numbers from 43 to 168 are the page numbers of this manuscript.  For example, 57a is left hand side and 57 b – right hand side.

Useful to know!

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  1. [1]Italian: “Il Corpus Methodianum ci è tuttavia rimasto in traduzione paleoslava. Tale traduzione è stata realizzata presumibilmente in Bulgaria attorno al X secolo ed è stata resa accessibile in occidente dalla fine del XIX secolo nella traduzione tedesca di Bonwetsch, che ha curato l’edizione critica di tutte le opere di Metodio, eccetto quelle considerate inautentiche 81 . Questa traduzione paleoslava contiene il testo quasi completo del De autexusio, del De resurrectione, del De lepra e quello di altre opere di cui non si aveva notizia da testimonianze antiche e di cui non erano rimastiframmenti greci (De cibis, De sanguisuga, De vita). Il testo greco di riferimento di questa traduzione sembrerebbe essere stato in buono stato. Esso è tradotto alla lettera, tranne in alcuni punti in cui ci troviamo di fronte a riassunti (se del traduttore paleoslavo o degli originali stessi è difficile a dirsz). Come abbiamo accennato,  Musurillo ritiene che gli scritti di Metodio siano stati tramandati in slavo per un felice errore di attribuzione, a causa del!’ omonimia con l’evangelizzatore degli slavi del IX secolo 82. Bracht critica questa informazione, rilevando come Musurillo non offra motivi per questa sua affermazione, mentre ritiene più lineare far risalire l’interesse per la conservazione dei suoi scritti all’ininterrotta tradizione della Chiesa orientale che ha continuato a venerare Metodio come santo, martire e Dottore della Chiesa 83. Bracht non esclude che un influsso dell’omonimia del Metodio apostolo degli slavi abbia potuto contribuire a salvare gli scrittz; ma non – come vuole Musurillo – per errore di attribuzione. A suo parere, un più forte motivo – a sua volta già avanzato da Ivan DujCev 84 – sarebbe questo: le tesi del De autexusio sarebbero state ritenute molto valide per contrastare gli errori dottrinali dell’ eresia dei bogomili (corrente eretica sollevatasi in Bulgaria attorno al X secolo). Questi eretici affermavano un forte dualismo. La confutazione di ogni tipo di dualismo presente nel De autexusio di Metodio avrebbe portato a favorirne la traduzione 85.”↩

There are Italian translations of Methodius of Olympus!

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Few are familiar with the works of Methodius of Olympus.  He is an Ante-Nicene Fathers whose works are hard to access. Most were not translated into English as part of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, because they are preserved mainly in Old Slavonic.  Only one large work was translated in the ANF series, the Symposium, because that exists in Greek.  I have listed his works here, with a bibliography.

Thanks to a correspondent, I have today become aware that all three of the major works have been translated into Italian!  This should be of use, if only because Italian is handled quite well by Google Translate.

On the downside, it seems that translations into Italian are rarely stocked by reference libraries in the US and UK.  But all three are in print.  So if you want them, you can purchase them.  I see that Italian site IBS.it has them all here.  Just search for “metodio di olimpo”.

In case that link disappears, here are the details:

On Free-Will – R. Franchi, Metodio di Olimpo: Il libero arbitrio, Paoline Editoriale Libri, 2015.  448p. Series: Letture cristiane del primo millennio.  ISBN 9788831546690.  €39.  (22 sample pages at the publisher site here).  Facing pages of Greek/Slavonic and Italian.

Symposium – N. Antoniono, Metodio di Olimpo: La verginità, Città Nuova, 2000.  200p.  Series:  Testi patristici.  ISBN 9788831131520. €20.  (Google Books preview here).

On the Resurrection – M. Miroslaw & B.Zorzi, Metodio di Olimpo: La risurrezione, Città Nuova, 2010.  296p.  Series:  Testi patristici.  ISBN 9788831182164. €30.

Useful stuff!  (The minor works are all now available online in English at Archive.org, of course).

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No grant from the Arts Council to translate Methodius from Old Slavonic

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Last summer I wrote to the Arts Council, enquiring whether they would sponsor a translation of a couple of long works by Methodius of Olympus from Old Slavonic.  I usually pay for translations myself, but in this case the cost was beyond what I can reasonably afford myself. I was willing to pay a significant part of it, however.  But it would be a permanent benefit to the world.  So I thought I’d try.  The response was encouraging, and stated that they do fund translations.  So I set things up, and a couple of weeks ago I applied.

Today I received a letter telling me that my application was rejected on the grounds that it was unclear that the objective was an artistic work.  The letter made clear that the application had basically gone unread, and not even been subjected to examination or formal decision – i.e. that a box-ticker had rejected it.

This reason contradicts what I was told. Naturally I have written an email of enquiry to the person who invited me to apply.  I will make a telephone call next week as well.  But I suspect that I will just get fobbed off.

We live in an age where the individual can rarely break through.  The internet has given people like myself a way to contribute.  But once we enter the world of the official body, the real truth is probably that only corporate bodies and professional fundraisers, paid to do it, can hope to navigate the shoals and extract any money; and that these are the only applicants they really deal with.

I have always felt sympathy for the way that academics are forced to waste their time on these sorts of process; and that sympathy is not abated by this experience.  What I regret, really, is the time and energy wasted.  It is characteristic of a pointless application that you hear different things from different officials, because – in essence – you don’t matter to any of them.

It has to be said, though, that I don’t find dealing with bureaucracy enjoyable or productive.  For this reason I was reluctant to expose myself to that world in the first place.  The process of applying to the Arts Council itself pretty much excludes 99% of possible applicants, since it requires them to plough through a 50-page manual.  Another requirement, that funding must be found from more than one grant-making body, pretty much excludes everyone other than the organisations with access to databases of such people.  (I was going to just pay a proportion myself).  I do wish that my application had actually been read tho, rather than rejected by a box-ticker.

It is rather disappointing.  But probably people like us simply can’t get any money out of that system.  (Which leads one to ask: what is the point of it?)  I was willing to take on the burden of driving and editing the Methodius project, which would have been considerable.  I was willing to do it, pro bono publico, and because nobody else would.  It needs to be done.  But … evidently it will not be done by me.

Anyway, unless I can think of anything else, Methodius will have to remain untranslated unless or until some Old Slavonic scholar with an interest in patristics decides to do something on his own initiative.  This may be some distance away: for even the text has never been printed.

On the other hand, in all honesty, I wasn’t looking forward to working within an unnecessary straightjacket of timescales and milestones.  So there is that consolation, that I won’t have to!

UPDATE: 2 Feb 2016.  I sent in my enquiry as to why they solicited an application that they dismissed as ineligible without reading it.  As I rather expected, I got an insulting email back, consisting of a single paragraph pasting the same “ineligible” message, followed by many paragraphs, all boilerplate, from the guide.  The whole did not actually answer the question, except to say “you aren’t important enough for us to even reply to”.  I fear that the Arts Council is just another group of elitists giving public money to their friends.  “Not our sort of people, dahlink”, before firing off the form rejection.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Two long works of Methodius of Olympus (d.311 AD) are preserved only in Old Slavonic: De Autexusio (=On Free-Will) and De Resurrectione.  Yesterday I applied for some grant money to get these translated and put online.  Wish me luck!

I’ve never applied for grant funding before.  The price is just beyond my means to do; but on the other hand, who knows when someone with the skills to create such a translation will be available again?  Not for a century, that we know.

I find the process rather intimidating.  The online application is straightforward enough.  But the regulations impose barriers to normal people.  For instance, the grant body require that more than one source of funds is used – presumably to avoid them being blamed alone for a daft grant.  But I actually don’t know any other body that might fund translations.  Indeed I only discovered that they did so by accident!  So this policy excludes people other than those with access to databases of grant-making bodies.  It’s one more way in which the charitable sector exists for itself, rather than the public.    However I have offered to put in some money myself, and with luck that will be enough for them.  I must say that they have been reasonable enough to deal with so far.

I’ve also commissioned a translation today of Proclus’ Encomium on St Nicholas of Myra.  It’s another source of the legends which became Santa Claus.  If this is really by Proclus of Constantinople, then it will be a 5th century source.  Frankly I doubt that it is, despite my negligible knowledge of that author!  It’s bound to be later.  It’s only 5 pages of Anrich’s edition, tho.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

As you may have seen, I have resumed translating the Annals of Eutychius (or Said ibn Bitriq as he was known in life) from the Italian translation of Bartolomeo Pirone into English, with the assistance of Google Translate.

I would much prefer to translate the Arabic directly.  But since I don’t know Arabic, and I have no access to the Arabic text, then I am working from the Italian version.  This itself seems to be a rare book.  The object is to make the text known.  Anyone intending to base themselves on a statement in Eutychius should, of course, arrange to translate the original.  But that I leave to those able to do it.

Yesterday I revised the application for grant money for the translation of Methodius De Resurrectione and De autexusio from Old Slavonic.  It’s nearly as I want it to be.  I’ve written to the translators to check their availability in the timescale that (annoyingly) I have to specify.

I’ve spent some time on twitter, combatting the persistent nonsense that Mithras was born on 25th December.  No ancient source connects the two, and the idea originates from a careless bit of speculation by Franz Cumont – a great man, but altogether too prone to speculate.

It is now Christmas Eve.  I’m sure that some of my readers are off to late church services for carols and midnight masses and the like.  If you have such an opportunity, do take the opportunity to do something different.

Merry Christmas to you all!

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve finished work for the year, and I’ve been diligently clearing away all the things in my inbox.  It’s quite a relief to do this!  But most of them are done.

Six weeks ago I started a new job which means that I have done nothing about applying for funds to translate Methodius.  I will see if I can do anything about that this week.  Blogging may well be rather sporadic over the next six weeks also, again for work-related reasons.  After that time, I may well commission some more translations.

The first draft of a commission that I had outstanding for Andrew of Crete, Encomium on St Nicholas of Myra, is done; but the last few queries on it are not resolved.  So I can’t very well pay for it and release it, which is a shame.  But I suspect the translator is simply snowed under with other commitments, as is so common at this time of year.  It will still be valuable when it is done.

I have a nagging feeling that I have another commission in flight, and have forgotten all about it.  Which is, of course, rather embarassing!  No doubt it will come to me.

I have started the process for taking Eusebius, Gospel Problems and Solutions, out of print, which means notifying the printers.  It will go out of print on 22nd March 2016, and I will put in the request for this four weeks beforehand.  So if you want a printed copy, you have only a couple of months left in which to do so!

Christmas is a time when blogging tends to go quiet.  Many bloggers have families to attend to at this season.  However I hope, as usual, to keep posting!

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m trying to push forward a couple of projects.  I’ve written to the translator for the Encomium on St Nicholas of Myra by Andrew of Crete, to see if the sample is available yet.

I have also changed my plans slightly for the translation of Methodius from Old Slavonic.  The lady who was to do the Greek fragments is overcommitted elsewhere, with the result that nothing ever appeared of the Severian translation that I set as a sample.  So I will ask Andrew Eastbourne to handle that side of the work.  Indeed I had always intended to use him in some capacity if I could, because of his vast philological knowledge.

In some ways this simplifies the grant application process, since I now know who I am dealing with.  I can also upload the Methodius De Lepra translation as part of the application, as evidence that I know what I am about.  But I need to replan.  Some kind correspondents have been supplying me with parallels and sources, which may well be useful.

Most of the grant bodies will only give around 50% of a project; so I shall try to find another source of funding for translations.  I suspect, rightly or wrongly, that this is merely bureaucrats trying to cover their own backsides.  After all, if it isn’t just them who gave the grant, then how can they be blamed?  But it is tiresome.  I also realise that I need to understand what the unstated rules of the game are.  So I need to telephone and talk to someone.

It all reminds me why I just pay for translations out of my own pocket.  There seems to be a whole industry that has grown up, merely to get funding.  It is a quite daunting process to the amateur.

I have been adding a few more photos to the Mithras site.  Most of these I encountered on Twitter, and wondered to what they related.  I’ve just seen one of a Vatican tauroctony, photographed by Carole Raddato, that is really quite good.  This is no small praise; the location of the monument in the museum makes photography almost impossible.  I’ve seen it myself, tried to get useful pictures, and failed!

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Methodius of Olympus, De Lepra (On Leprosy) – now online in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The fourth short work by Methodius of Olympus (d.311) is De Lepra, On Leprosy, an explanation of Leviticus 13.  The first English translation of it is now made available.

Unlike the three previous works, some fragments of the original Greek text are preserved in a medieval anthology found in at least 20 manuscripts.  The task of translating both sides has been a long one!  But it is done at last.  The comparison reveals that the Old Slavonic text is an abbreviated version of the original.

Ralph Cleminson translated the Old Slavonic, and Andrew Eastbourne translated the Greek, and drew attention to many issues which will considerably modify how we go about the task of translating the two long works.  Anyway, here are the files:

I’ve also uploaded these to Archive.org here.

As ever, I make these public domain.  Do whatever you wish with them, personal, educational or commercial. Let them circulate as widely as possible, entire or in part.  That’s the whole idea!

UPDATE 22/9/15: Tweaked for a couple of late thoughts.

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