|
( ABA, BA, ILAB, BASEES) Established in Oxford in 1835 (Internet and mailorder sales only) HOME |
Member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association since 1907 Booksellers Association of Great Britain International League of Antiquarian Booksellers |
1808 - 1891 
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
order via e-mail at thorntons@booknews.demon.co.uk
Syriac
Ignatius, Bishop
of Antioch, Saint, Martyr, c.35-c.107. W. Cureton : Corpus Ignatianum:
A
Complete Collection of the Ignatian Epistles genuine, interpolated,
and spurious; together with numerous extracts from them, as quoted by ecclesiastical
writers down to the tenth century; in Syriac, Greek, and Latin :
an English translation of the Syriac text, copious notes, and introduction,
by William Cureton.London, Francis and John Rivington, 1849, [4],
xvii, lxxxvii, [2], 365, [2] pp.; double-page pl. of Syriac mss.
drawn by Harrietta Cureton, lithographed in red & black;
size 26 x 17 cm., text in Syriac, Greek, Latin and English. Robust
and elegant full dark brown calf leather binding, with some
mottled lighter patches and a few scuff marks; front and rear covers
each blind-ruled with double lines to form one main central panel,
narrower panels along all four sides, and four corner panels, each
corner with blind stamped floral ornament; spine with title in gilt
on red leather title label , four raised bands with blind stamped
floral ornaments between them; the top 5 cm. of the spine has
at some time been neatly repaired and strengthened, though
the repair material now covers the place where a fifth raised
band was originally positioned; lower part of spine has a former
library shelfmark in small white numerals on black background
("2.81.3"); head and tail bands; lower rear hinge has a small split,
pages edged in red; marbled end papers; pasted on to the front
endpapers are bookplates of Thomas Hodgkin (1831-1913, a prominent
Quaker and historian) and the Woodbrooke Library (a Quaker
institution in Birmingham), with a label indicating that the
Woodbrooke Library received the volume from the library of Dr.
Hodgkin on 12 November 1913; apart from foxing of a few pages at
the beginning and end of the book, and neat pencilled notes in the
margins of about ten pages, the text is clean and unmarked. Very
scarce. ?450.00 An important date in the Ignatian controversy was the year
1845, when Canon Cureton published a Syriac version of the epistles
to St. Polycarp, the Ephesians, and the Romans. The three epistles
contained in this version appear in a much shorter form than is found
in the Greek text and Latin version. A fragment of the epistle to
the Trallians is incorporated in the epistle to the Romans, but none
of the other epistles appear in the collection. The text of Cureton's
edition was based upon two MSS. in the British Museum. The former
of these two MSS. dates from the sixth century. It was purchased
by Archdeacon Tattam from the convent of St. Mary Deipara in the
Nitrian desert in 1839. The second MS. dates from the seventh or
eighth century, and was brought from Egypt by Archdeacon Tattam in
1842. Cureton maintained that these three epistles alone represented
the genuine Ignatius, that the Vossian collection contained these
three in an interpolated form, and that the remaining four letters
of the Vossian collection were forgeries. This rekindled the controversy.
Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, declared
the newly-discovered version to be an epitome of the genuine letters
made by an Eutychian heretic. This led Cureton to a fuller treatment
of the question. He had meanwhile discovered an additional MS. of
the three epistles, brought, like the first-named, from the convent
of St. Mary Deipara, and dating from at least the ninth century.
He now published his great work Corpus Ignatianum (London, 1849),
which contains a full treatment of the whole question. Cureton's
view was supported by Bunsen and several eminent scholars. But it
has failed to hold its ground. Apart from the fact that the seven
letters of the Vossian collection were plainly known to Eusebius
and Theodoret, they exhibit a perfect unity of authorship and style
throughout. Cureton's theory requires us to suppose that the interpolator
was able to reproduce in his additions to the letters the most subtle
characteristics of language and grammar. A similar difficulty occurs
when we examine the relation of Cureton's Syriac version to the Syriac
version of the seven letters. The one is plainly derived from the other,
and it is far more probable that the Curetonian Syriac version is an
abridged form of the Syriac version of the seven letters, than that the
latter is an expansion of the former. Epistle to Polycarp, to the Ephesians
and to the Romans: on the left opening Cureton's restored Greek text
at the head with the shorter and longer recensions in parallel, on
the right the Syriac from his ms a at the head with the longer and
shorter Latin versions. For the epistle to the Magnesians, Trallians,
Philadelphians and Smyrnians: the shorter and longer Greek recensions
on the left, the longer and shorter Latin on the right. Fragments
of `Other Ignatian epistles, not mentioned by Eusebius' include epistles
from and to Maria Cassobolita, to the Tarsians, to the Antiochians,
to Hero the Deacon and to the Philippians, in parallel Greek and
Latin; to John Apostle and Evangelist I-II and to S. Mary the Virgin,
in Latin only. -- Testimonies respecting St. Ignatius, and extracts
from the Ignatian epistles as cited by various authors down to the
tenth century, p. [158]-195 -- Passages from the Ignatian epistles,
and extracts from various writers respecting St. Ignatius, in Syriac, p.
[196]-225 -- English translation from the Syriac, p. [226]-55 --
Excerpta Ignatiana Aethiopice, p. [256]-62, Ethiopic and Latin on
facing pages -- Notes, p. [263]-363, with Syriac text of the Epistle to
the Tarsians, obtained by the British Museum in 1847, p. 363-65.
£350.00