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THE FESTAL EPISTLES OF S. ATHANASIUS, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA, TRANSLATED FROM THE SYRIAC, WITH NOTES AND INDICES. OXFORD, JOHN HENRY PARKER ; F. AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON. MDCCCLIV. Digitized by Google LIBRARY OF FATHERS OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, ANTERIOR TO THE DIVISION OF THE EAST AND WEST: TRANSLATED BY MEMBERS OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. TZ,.>. YET SHALL NOT THY TEACHERS BE REMOVED INTO A CORNER ANY MORE, BUT THINE EYES SHALL SEE THY TEACHERS. haioA XXX. 20. PROV.FBANO. OXFORD, JOHN HENRY PARKER;. F. AND J. R1VINGTON, LONDON. MDCCCLIV. Digitized by Google TO THE MEMORY • OF THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD WILLIAM LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND, FORMERLY REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, THIS LIBRARY OF ancient bishops, fathers, doctors, martyrs, confessors, of Christ's holy catholic church, UNDERTAKEN AMID HIS ENCOURAGEMENT, AND CARRIED ON FOR TWELVE YEARS UNDER HIS SANCTION, UNTIL HIS DEPARTURE HENCE IN PEACE, IS GRATEFULLY AND REVERENTLY INSCRIBED. Digitized by Google PREFACE. The Festal Epistles of S. Athanasius, as far as they are extant, are now, for the first time, presented to the English reader. In undertaking to superintend the publication of them, the Editor was, to some extent, aware of the difficulty of the task. In carrying it out, he has not hesitated to make numerous and important alterations in the translation as put into his hands, and not a few passages have been entirely re-modelled by him. He must, there- fore, be held responsible for the errors contained in the following pages. The translation had been prepared for the Press, and most of the notes written, when a German version by Professor Larsow made its appearance. To the general accuracy of this, the Editor bears his willing testimony. The English has been carefully compared with it, and several emendations have, in consequence, been introduced. On the other hand, a different rendering has been adopted in many cases, and errors have not unfrequently been corrected. Some of these will be found pointed out in the notes. Considerable pains have been bestowed in collecting parallel passages from other undoubted works of S. Atha- nasius*; while, in more than one instance, evidence has been adduced bearing upon the authenticity of some treatises concerning which doubts have been entertained. The Scriptural references have, in all cases, been carefully • The edition used is the Bened. Patavii 1777. Digitized by Google IV PREFACE. given, and any remarkable deviation from the received text noted. Manifest errors of the Syriac translator have been shewn, and their origin sometimes detected. Any conjectural emendation has been scrupulously proposed as such. When- ever a difficulty has presented itself, the Editor has examined the original Ms. in the British Museum, and the result of this recension of the text will be found in the notes. It could not have been expected, notwithstanding the extreme eare and the great learning displayed in the edition of the Syriac text, that it should be quite free from errors. They are, however, by no means numerous. Another important feature in the present translation is, that it includes four more pages of the Syriac than have hitherto appeared, they having been discovered since the Syriac text was printed. For these, the public are indebted to the "Rev. W. Cureton, whose courtesy in directing the Editor's attention to them, as well as in occasionally afford- ing assistance in the progress of the work, is gratefully acknowledged 1*. For the Translation, the Editors have to .express their acknowledgments to the Rev. Henry Burgess, LL.D. and Ph. D. H. G. W. Cambridge, May, 1854. b Since the English translation was Latin translation, in the sixth volume printed, but before the preliminary of the Patrum Nova Bibliotheca by matter was put to pre?s, the Festal Cardinal Mai. Letters have been reprinted, with a Digitized by Google ! ^ INTRODUCTION. The learned Montfaucon, in the preface to his edition of S. Athanasius, speaking of his lost works, says, * Nulla, opinamur, jactura major quam epistolarum logTao-nxoov, aut Festalium. Hoi, hei quam pungit dolor amissi Thesauri quantum ad historiam, ad consuetudines Ecclesiarum, ad morum praecepta hinc lucis accederet! Et fortassis adhuc alicubi latent in Oriente.' The ardent wish and the latent hope thus long ago expressed, have at length received their accomplishment. The Festal Letters of S. A than, after having escaped the fury of the Moslem, and survived the carelessness and ignorance of succeeding generations, have been brought to light by the industry and perseverance of our own age, rescued from the ravages of time, and transferred from a retired nook in the African desert to enrich the shelves of our great Library. They have not, indeed, reached us in the garb in which they were originally sent forth by their great author ; still have they come down to us in one hallowed by its almost exclusively sacrecj character. Nor have they escaped mutilation; nevertheless, the portion that has been preserved will be gratefully accepted by all to whom the name of the great champion of the faith is held in honour, or any accession to our store of ecclesiastical literature valued. It was in the year 1842, that Dr. Tattam, now Arch- deacon of Bedford, was so fortunate as to obtain from the monastery of S. Mary Deipara, in the valley of Scete, in the desert of Nitria, a valuable collection of Syriac Mss. of Digitized by Google VI INTRODUCTION. great antiquity \ The valley in which this inestimable treasure had so long lain hid, had early become, from its calm and retired character, the refuge of pious penitents, who sought an abode in these lonely solitudes, apart from the tumult and cares of the world. Among the many dis- tinguished saints who selected this spot for their seclusion may be mentioned Macarius, the pupil of the great Anthony, who here spent the greater part of a long life, and whose name, from having been given to one of the monasteries, was afterwards applied to the whole of the desert. The Mss. themselves, or a large proportion of them, had been brought from Mesopotamia, and deposited in the monastery by Moses of Nisibis, who presided over the monastery in the year 932; a fact which is recorded in many of the volumes, and which is also mentioned by J. S. Asseman, in the Preface to his Bibliotheca Orientalis. More than one attempt had been made in the early part of the last century to procure the monastic library, but with only very partial success. D. Gabriel Eva, the Maronite, had ascertained that many Syriac, Arabic, and Egyptian Mss. were to be found in the monastery of the desert of Scete, and had acquainted the Pope Clement IX. with the fact. In con- sequence of this, Elias, a learned Syrian, and a near relative of Asseman, was sent to endeavour to obtain them. This was in the year 1707. Notwithstanding the utter neglect with which the Mss. were treated in the monastery, Elias was unable, by money or entreaties, to procure more than forty. These were added to the Library of the Vatican, not, however, before other difficulties had been surmounted. The vessel in which Elias was sailing down the Nile was wrecked, and though the volumes were recovered, it was not till they had suffered considerable damage from the water. Afterwards, in the year 1715, J. S. Asseman himself » For a full account of Dr. Tattam's he obtained the Mss. see an article in visit to the monastery of S. Mary the Quarterly Review, No. CLIH. Peipara, and the manner in which Dec. 1845. Digitized by Google INTRODUCTION. Vll set out from Rome on a visit to the monastery. The number of volumes there deposited had then, from one cause or another, been much diminished. He selected about a hundred; but even of these, with all his efforts, he was unable to carry away more than a small proportion. These, however, he speaks of as the most valuable. The Mss. thus acquired by Dr. Tattam were consigned to the Library of the British Museum. Among them, Mr. Cureton soon discovered a portion of the Festal Letters of S. Athanasius, which he committed to the press. This portion, however, included only about one half of that now made public. For the remaining part of the Ms. we are indebted to the exertions of M. Augustus Pacho, a native of Alexandria, who, three or four years later, paid a visit to the same monastery, and succeeded in obtaining another considerable collection of Syriac Mss. some of which formed part of the volumes already secured by Dr. Tattam. Such was the case with regard to the Festal Letters of S. Athan. The latter portion thus acquired was likewise printed by Mr. Cureton, and published together with that previously printed, the sequence of the different parts (which was b necessarily broken) being indicated by notes . At an earlier period of the Church, Festal Letters had been sent by the Bishop of Alexandria, as we learn from c Eusebius , who speaks of those sent by Dionysius, the thirteenth Bishop, [A.D. 247, to A.D. 265.] In them, according to the same authority, he had treated of the high character of the Paschal Festival, had argued the necessity for celebrating it after the time of the Vernal Equinox, and had moreover published a Canon to serve for eight years. A small fragment from the fourth of these Letters, consisting of exhortations to peace and good-will, is pre- served in Damascen. Op. torn. ii. p. 753. The names by b Four more pages of the Syriac in print, will be found in the present text, belonging to the tenth and volume.

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