Category Archives: Patristica

I’ve worked through Pusey’s Tetravengelium Sanctum juxta Simplicem Syrorum Versionem in order to compile modern book, chapter, verse citations for the Peshitta adaptation of the Eusebian Canon Table system. It’s a more detailed set of sectioning and parallels, a clear improvement on the Eusebian. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t spread to replace the Eusebian system, but instead passed out of use with the Peshitta itself, so intimately integrated as it was with that version, when the Harklean version, preferring the Eusebian apparatus, became the favored Syriac version. Fortunately, many manuscripts of the Peshitta Gospels have survived, so that the system is provided in full in many copies so that its text is well-establishhed. The tables are here .

I have compiled a version of the Eusebian canon tables simply listing all of the parallels by modern book, chapter, and verse citation, here.

In addition, I have compiled a complete index of all of the citations, here. The index is complete, listing every set of parallels by book, chapter, and verse, not simply following the Eusebian tables which privelege one gospel or another in each table. At the end of the index is a complete listing of the Ammonian sections and their corresponding book, chapter, verse citations.

I trust these will be found useful.

In some earlier posts (part one, part two, part three) I provided a list of the volumes of the Popular Patristics Series published by Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, indicating the contents and the source of the texts translated for each volume. Several more volumes have since appeared, and are described here.

43. Works On the Spirit: Athanasius the Great and Didymus the Blind. Translated, with an Introduction and Annotations, by Mark DelCogliano, Andrew Radd-Gallwitz, and Lewis Ayres.
Texts: 1.) Athanasius’ Letters to Serapion: PG 26.529-638, with reference to: Dietmar Wyrwa and Kyriakos Savvidis, eds. Athanasius Werke / 1. Die dogmatischen Schriften. 4. Lieferung. Epistulae I-IV ad Serapionem. Walter de Gruyter, 2010. 2.) Louis Doutreleau, ed. and trans. Didyme L’Aveugle: Traité du Saint-Esprit. Sources Chrétiennes 386. Éditions du Cerf, 1992.

44A. Saint Athanasius the Great of Alexandria: On the Incarnation. Greek Original and English Translation. Introduction by C. S. Lewis. Translation and Introduction by John Behr.
Text: A working text based on: Charles Kannengiesser. Athanase d’Alexandrie: Sur l’Incarnation du Verbe. Sources Chrétiennes 199, rev. ed. Éditions du Cerf, 2000.
[44B is an edition that includes only the introductory material and the English translation, omitting the Greek text.]

I have mentioned before the works of Saint Isaac the Syrian, with a special focus on those appearing in English, and in particular the first edition of the Holy Transfiguration Monastery publication of Dana Miller’s translation, The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian. The first edition was long out of print, with copies going for sometimes over a thousand US dollars on the used book circuit. Good news! Holy Transfiguraton Monastery has published a new edition of The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, available from the monastery’s online store or a visit in person to the monastery bookstore. I’d like to describe here the differences between the two editions.

First is the matter of size! The first edition was 10.5 inches high, 8.25 inches wide, and 2.5 inches thick. The cover was a beautfiful burgundy, gold-embossed leather over boards. The paper is Warren Old Style seventy pound paper, quite thick. The font is eleven point Century. My copy, which I obtained used, was, one might say, “well-loved.” Had the pages been of thinner stock, I expect many of them would have been torn or worn through. It was obviously much used, occasionally over breakfast, it would seem…. This first edition has the overall impression of something like a lectern Bible, a big, solid, large dictionary-sized tome, rather uncomfortably sized for easy personal reading.

The new edition is quite a bit smaller: 9.75 inches high, 6 1/8 inches wide, and only 1.75 inches thick. The cover is a green cloth, again gold-embossed. The paper is Mohawk Via Laid, a sixty pound paper. The font is Monotype Fournier, with the size unspecified, but slightly smaller than the eleven point Century of the first edition. The readability is not affected however. The paper is lighter than the first edition, and readability is actually thus slightly improved, despite the slightly smaller font. Importantly, the smaller font, thinner paper and the less generous margins make for a more manageable volume, more the size of a standard trade hardcover than an unwieldy dictionary.

Both editions, in their different ways, are exemplars of the consistently high quality of HTM publications, with fine paper, excellent binding, and two-color printing: rubrics throughout both volumes are actually in red.

Aside from the striking difference in size, more striking is the difference content. Here is an explanation of the contents of the present edition from the Translator’s Introduction (pages 104-105):

In the Introduction to the first edition, we wrote on page cii, ‘For many years we have desired to see and English translation of Saint Isaac’s Ascetical Homilies that might be employed by Orthodox monastics and laymenn.’ With this second edition we attempt to fulfill that desire.

In preparing the first edition we confronted a multitude of points — textual, historical, and theological — on which it was necessary to be satisfied, and we felt it to the reader’s benefit to document many of the answers that we found, either in footnotes, or in the Introduction, Appendices, or Epilogue. The result was a hefty tome well received in academic circles, to whom in format and approach it was geared more than to the monastic or layman seeking guidance in repentance, prayer, and the love of God. One pious friend told us that he trusts the monastery’s translations and felt no need for the constant distraction of footnotes discussing differences in the text; that they would be appropriate for someone studying Greek or Syriac, but not for a devotional book. And a devotional book is what we aim at now.

Thus, we have reduced the amount of footnotes by almost two-thirds. We tallied 1,231 footnotes to the homilies of the first edition. [note 121: Including the Introduction, Appendices, and Epilogue yields 1,628. Chialà’s 406-page work on St. Isaac, which is a straightforward scholarly study, has 1,598 footnotes. Compare with the 1,231 footnotes in our first edition, the three footnotes to the 97 pages of St. Isaac’s writings translated by Kadloubovsky and Palmer in Early Fathers from the Philokalia; for a book of 415 pages, they used 45 footnotes.] Of these, some 350 were simple scriptural references, leaving almost 900 footnotes of explanation. We have reduced the explanatory footnotes to under 300, and have placed the scriptural references in the margin. The great majority of footnotes eliminated were those that gave variant readings; footnotes that helped comprehension of the text were not only retained, but added to.

We have also elminated Appendices B and D [note 122: Appendix B contained A Selection from the Book of Grace by Symeon d-Taibutha and An Epistle to Abba Symeon of Caesarea; Appendix D, two homilies by Mar John the Solitary.] which contained texts not by Saint Isaac, and the Epilogue on the History of the Church of Persia; and we have added a Glossary, in Appendix C, of various terms used by Saint Isaac, in a special sense and requiring some explanation.

This edition differs from the first in two other points. First, we have translated from Bedjan’s Syriac printed text two short homilies not included in the first edition, which can be found in Appendix A as Homilies I and III. We have also added some passages that following the Greek were omitted, and expanded various passages that following the Greek were abbreviated, so that we are aware of no significant passage in the Syriac not represented here. Though this edition is shorter than the first overall, it contains more Abba Isaac.

Second, besides correcting a handful of outright mistranslations, we have revised the text here and there. Saint Isaac requires enough effort on the reader’s part as it is, and in places the translation itself made the going rougher than necessary. Wherever we found we could make the meaning easier to grasp without misrepresenting or simplifying the original, we did so. In some homilies onl a clause or two was changed; in others, stretches of text were reworked. In all cases we strove for greater clarity and stricter fidelity to the original. Usually the two went hand in hand, when bringing our translation closer to the original also made it easier to understand; in fact it was not infrequent that the Greek and Syriac agreed even in the details of syntax, and simply by following both more faithfully, the English became clearer. All the same, the hardy of heart who like a challenge will still find it here. Except in the case of obvious typographical errors, no revision or correction was made without consulting the originals.

From the above account, it will be seen that this is truly a new edition, one that is better tailored to the needs of devotional readers, while still maintaining an accuracy exemplary of scholarly integrity. A reader would benefit from both editions, of course, if such scholarly details as variant readings are needed. In such a case, however, I would myself expect a reader concerned with such detail to be working from the originals instead, rather than via translation.

This is a very welcome edition, well worth the wait. I know that it’s popular here amongst the students of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. Several of us have walked over to the monastery to pick up copies from the bookstore. We’re all thankful for their continued work at publishing such consistently excellent publications of such superior material quality. I hope other readers will obtain copies and come to appreciate and benefit from the writings of Saint Isaac as well!

Pursue the small consolation that is acquired in time from toil, that you may be accounted worthy of that great consolation which dispels the troubles of this life of sorrows for those who find it. Do not despise small things, lest you be deprived of great ones. Has no one ever seen an infant who, when he puts flesh in his mouth, sucks milk? By means of small things the door is opened to great ones. You dishonour God, O my brother, in that you desire Him to govern you without a definite order. For no man has been entrusted with great things without first having been tried in small ones.

From The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, Homily 25.

In context, Saint Isaac is discussing noetic prayer amongst monastics. There were those (like the heretical Messalians) who claimed to be able to enter a state of theoria at will, and that their prayer became such regularly, with no effort. Over the course of this and the previous two homilies, however, Saint Isaac destroys the foundations of such a supposition. Theoria is not something that is generated at will, a kind of “altered state of consciousness”, but is an uncreated grace of God, something on His terms, not ours.

But this brought to my mind how often people these days deceive themselves and one another that a life of prayer is an extremeley easy thing. How easy it is to read a few chapters of the Philokalia, do a couple laps around the prayer rope, and then be impatiently waiting for theoria! What is even worse are those who are completely outside the tradition, smorgasbording their way through ancient Christian texts and practices (Eastern ones in particular are now so en mode!) and who think that this or that ancient text or practice, ripped out of its context, is justificatioin for a personally concocted supremely smug “spirituality” that is so terrifically annoying, yet so abundantly common these days.

The Christian way is threefold: purification, illumination, and glorification. One leads to the other. Without purification, without turning one’s body and mind away from those things which separate us from God, one will not experience the illumination of the soul that comes from the Holy Spirit. And without illumination of the soul, one is not experiencing theosis, the eternal approach toward the perfection of God, which is our transformation and glorification. Purification > Illumination > Glorification. We cannot skip a step. Nor may we adjust any of these steps for a perceived need to appease the world’s perceptions and expectations. The truly Christian life is something that is anti-world. And without that first step, to resolutely turn our minds away from an earthly goal and toward a heavenly one, we are not on that path at all.

Saint Isaac is quite thought-provoking!

In two earlier posts (part one, and part two) I provided a list of the volumes of the Popular Patristics Series published by Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, indicating the contents and the source of the texts translated for each volume. Several more volumes have since appeared, and are described here.

39. Harp of Glory: Enzira Sebhat—An Alphabetical Hymn of Praise for the Ever-Blessed Virgin Mary from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church
Introduction and Translation: Fr John McGuckin
Text: Latin version of M. Van Oudenrijn OP. Corpus Scriptorum Christianiorum Orientalium, volume 40. Louvain, 1961.

40. Divine Eros: Hymns of Saint Symeon the New Theologian
Introduction and Translation: Daniel K. Griggs
Works: All fifty-eight hymns
Text: Sources Chrétiennes, volumes 156, 174, and 196

41. On the Two Ways—Life or Death, Light or Darkness: Foundational Texts in the Tradition
Introduction and Translation: Alistair Stewart(-Sykes); Translation of Life of Shenoute: Posy Clayton
Works [and Texts]: Qumran Community Rule 3.13-4.26 [Florentino Garcia Martinez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. Brill, 1997]; Didache [SC 248]; Doctrina Apostolorum [SC 248]; Epistle of Barnabas [SC 172]; Epitome of the Apostolic Commands [Alistair Stewart-Sykes, The Apostolic Church Order. Sydney: St Paul’s, 2006]; Apostolic Church Order [Alistair Stewart-Sykes, The Apostolic Church Order. Sydney: St Paul’s, 2006]; Life of Shenoute [Ed. E. Amélineau, Monuments pour servir à l’histoire de l’Égypte chrétienne aux IVe at Ve siècles. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1888]; Syntagma doctrinae [Ed. P. Battifol, in Syntagma doctrinae, Studia Patristica 2. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1890]; Fides patrum [Ed. P. Battifol, Didascalia CCCXVIII patrum. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1887]; Rule of Saint Benedict chapter 4 [ed. Montecassino, 1959]; Pseudo-Boniface, homily 15 [H. van de Sandt and D. Flusser, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity. Assen: Van Gorcum 2002]; The Second Catechesis of the Manner of Catechizing Converts: Concerning the ten commandments of the law [H. van de Sandt and D. Flusser, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity. Assen: Van Gorcum 2002]

42. St Basil the Great: On the Holy Spirit
Introduction and Translation: Stephen Hildebrand
Text: Bernard Sesboüé. Sur le Saint-Esprit (SC 17 bis)

Life in the world is like a manuscript of writings that is still in rough draft. When a man wishes or desires to do so, he can add something or subtract from it, and make changes in the writings. But the life in the world to come is like documents written on clean scrolls and sealed with the royal seal, where no addition or deletion is possible. Therefore, so long as we are found in the midst of change, let us pay heed to ourselves; and while we have power over the manuscript of our life, which we have written by our own hand, let us strive earnestly to add to it by leading a good manner of life, and let us erase from it the failings of our former life.

St Isaac the Syrian, from Homily Sixty-Two

In relation to my previous post on The Vision of Theophilus, I was doing a little reading and ran across some interestingly sensible comments from a Coptic Orthodox priest on the relationship between faith and scholarship. The source is Be Thou There: The Holy Family’s Journey in Egypt, edited by Gawdat Gabra (American University in Cairo Press, 2001), page 114.

These are the words of Father Philoxenos of the Monastery of the Holy Virgin, Dayr al-Muharraq, Upper Egypt:

Not every fact of history is recorded in historical documents. Let’s not speak about Theophilus, but consider instead the Prophet Isaiah, who wrote about the altar in the midst of Egypt. The proof of Isaiah is stronger than Theophilus. We first depend on the Bible, then we have the doctrines of the Apostles, and the third source is Tradition. These are the three sources of faith of the Coptic Orthodox Church. We do not base our belief on Theophilus only, but on Isaiah.

You see, Coptic people are a very religious people. We have a strong belief in the Bible, in the Church, the sayings of the Church, and the history of the Church. We can’t deny that there are many stories that are exaggerated. We don’t deny this. But we have faith in our Church Fathers and in what they say. This is a very strong source for the people of Egypt.

The first source we depend on is faith. If historical evidence adds something that confirms it, it is fine, it is acceptable. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter because I already have the faith in my heart.

I look at whether such a story is a benefit to the faith. If what people believe makes their faith stronger and vital, fine, that is acceptable. But if a certain story contradicts accepted belief and dogma, we must oppose it.

[On those in Egypt who believe their various churches were visited by the Holy Family:] It is some kind of spiritual pride and a kind of blessing. They want to be connected to the Holy Family, and that is not a problem, because it is not against the dogma and not against tradition. Here the people are not so focused on the history but on spiritual things. We are not talking about research of a PhD on the Holy Family. We are talking about faith, blessings, miracles, about something spiritual. What benefit do we have if we confirm it here and cancel it there? But this is not accepted in the Western world. They ask for documents, proof, and if you don’t have proof, it can’t be true. That is a different way of thinking.

Following is a translation by Alphonse Mingana of the Third Book of an apocryphal history of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. This book is typically referred to (somewhat imprecisely) as The Vision of Theophilus, for the discourse of the Virgin to Theophilus comprises the majority of this book. The translation and original Syriac text are found in Mingana’s Woodbrooke Studies, volume 3, a pdf of which is available here, for those interested in further introductory materials, annotations, and the Syriac text. (The same volume, as a bonus, includes the text and translation of the Syriac Apocalypse of Peter.) Of chief interest in the Vision is the description of the troubled journey of the Holy Family into Egypt, escaping King Herod.

This book is obviously in its origins closely connected with the most important shrine associated with the travels of the Holy Family in Egypt, the Monastery of the Holy Virgin at al-Muharraq, near the mountains of Qusqam, near the town of al-Qusiya in Upper Egypt, 48 km north of Assyut. The church there is (so the narrative and Coptic tradition uphold) the first church in the world, consecrated by the risen Lord, where the first Divine Liturgy in the world was celebrated by the miraculously transported Peter and the Apostles, with the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Salome (Mary’s cousin who accompanied the Holy Family into Egypt) also present. The Vision is actually something of a foundation story for the church and monastery there, rather than strictly an account of the Holy Family’s travels throughout Egypt. The church is built upon the ruins of an ancient house that the Holy Family is said to have stayed in for six months, the longest duration of any of their traditional stops, and traditionally the southernmost (although there is also the Monastery of the Holy Virgin further south at Durunka, the position of which is harmonized through its being the place where the Holy Family waited in a cave to embark on a boat sailing down the Nile on their way back to the Holy Land.).

The narrative is complicated. The Theophilus of the title is Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria (+412). The account is a first-person account of some event of Theophilus’ tenure, including a visit to the monastery during which he is granted a vision of the Virgin Mary, who then relates (in first person) her and her Son’s connection with the monastery. The entire narrative is then said to have been actually written down by Cyril of Alexandria (+ 444) himself! But there is no doubt that while the narrative demonstrates traditions of definite antiquity it does not date so far back as St Cyril! Mingana would attribute the work to Kyriakos, Bishop of Bahnasa (Oxyrrhynchus), who wrote in the early fifteenth century.

While there are many aspects of the Vision of Theophilus which may be found entirely bizarre by western Christians, the work itself is a rather beautiful expression of piety. For more information on the traditions related to the Holy Family in Egypt, see this post in which I give short descriptions of a number of excellent books on the subject. Enjoy a seasonally apropos reading originating from a land closer to the sunrise!

❧

Again the third Book (containing) the flight (according to) the vision shown to Theophilus, Patriarch of the great city of Alexandria, concerning the arrival of our Lady Mary, Mother of God, in the land of Egypt, and concerning the house which she and her beloved Son Jesus Christ inhabited in the holy mountain of Ḳusḳam, on account of their great fear of King Herod.

Continue reading “The Vision of Theophilus”