Experience of publishing Greek church writers of ancient times in Russian pathological literature

Blessed Diadochos (5th century), Bishop of Photiki of ancient Epirus and his creations. Volume one. Creations of Bl. Diadoche. Greek text, edited from ancient Greek manuscripts, with a preface, Russian translation, discrepancies, notes and appendices. K. Popov. Kiev 1903 I- The book, the detailed title of which we have written down, represents, as far as we know, the first attempt in Russian pathological literature to systematically and completely publish the works of an eastern church writer. The need for this kind of publications on the part of the Orthodox and in particular our domestic patrolologists has been felt and recognized in science for a long time, and therefore the first undertaking of this kind deserves full attention both from representatives of theological science in our country and from scientific criticism. This book attracts attention all the more because its external features are elegant paper, clear large Greek and Russian font, the absence of typos (the publisher counted 13 in total), which our domestic books often suffer from; all the attributes of the best Western editions - a preface, testimonies about Blessed Diadochos, his works in general and especially about the ascetic word, an index of abbreviations, texts of works with translation into Russian, with variants to it, according to various lists, the most insignificant with extensive scholia sometimes several pages under the text, an index of places of Holy Scripture, an index of objects explained in the notes to the ascetic word of the bl. Diadoche and photozincographic and lithographic samples of the writing of Greek manuscripts, according to which the texts of the works of the named writer were edited - all this, taken together, recommends this book from the most advantageous side and places it among the not ordinary phenomena in Russian literature, not only theological, but even secular (Publications of the Academy of Sciences do not count). But, unfortunately, almost all the merits of this publication, which undoubtedly claims to follow a model of this kind that is so far unattainable for Russian scientists - the publications of German and English scientists - are exhausted by these external excellent qualities. The contents of this book and scientific techniques, which are attached by prof. Popov to publish the works of a little-known in the pathological literature, and for many scientists even the hitherto dubious writer of the 5th century, Blessed Diadochos (p. IV), do not allow this publication to be placed in at least some parallel with the mentioned Western samples, cause a number of serious objections from scientific criticism and even lead to a sad consciousness of the futility of this scientific enterprise, not only in the present, but even in the future, if the publisher wished, as promises to continue his scientific work. You might be interested in: