Digital Critical Edition of Exp. in Psalmos of "Athanasius"

The biblical corpus of the Psalms, 150 poetic texts, are very important for the spirituality and liturgy in the history of Christianity. It is one of the most used and many times commented text of the bible at all and very often functions as a book of prayer and meditation. The Greek Expositiones in Psalmos (ExpPs) from the beginning of the fifth century AD offer an interesting commentary of these Psalm texts in the tradition of Alexandrian theology. A particular emphasis is laid on the spiritual and ascetic interpretation, within the broader methods of allegorical interpretation. This commentary is attributed to the famous theologian Athanasius of Alexandria (373 n.Chr.), but in all probability not written by himself but in the tradition of his thoughts one generation later. It is therefore an example for pseudepigraphy. However, the work itself has not been preserved in a direct transmission, but must instead be reconstructed with the aid of the Psalm catenae, where sequences of excerpts from diverse patristic authors and their works are presented suitable to biblical verses. This has not been done yet, and the latest edition of the ExpPs, realized by the Maurist Montfaucon 1698, united authentic and inauthentic material which makes this edition unusable nowadays. A highly needed critical edition fills a huge gap among the Psalm commentaries of Late Antiquity. The project will establish a new digital critical edition of the ExpPs on Ps 1-50. A careful analysis of several catenae must assess the material, understand the complex transmission process of the catenae collections, include oriental translations and explore the connections between the ExpPs and other Psalm commentaries, especially of Eusebius of Caesarea (337 AD). The project unites philological, codicological and exegetical methods with new approaches in digital humanities to develop a new standard of digital critical editions. These new possibilities will offer the chance to present the different stages of transmission of the ExpPs (manuscript-level, catena-type- level if attestable, ExpPs-level, where possible, including similia e.g. of Eusebius of Caesarea), to explore and visualize the very complicated catena material and allow to include these texts in a new digital archive of texts from Antiquity. This edition will serve as Gundlagenforschung and paves new paths, as a) its publication will be primarily in digital form, b) fulfills a central role in catenary research, c) undertakes pioneer work for the evaluation of pseudepigraphy of Athanasius, d) contributes significantly to the history of exegesis, theology, and spirituality. The project team consists of the project applicant Uta Heil and the members Sebastiano Panteghini (Greek philology), a further philologian (n.n.) and an IT expert for the digital technique and experts for Oriental languages (working contracts). The team will work in cooperation with the Austrian Center for Digital Humanities, Tara L. Andrews (ÖAW), and with Arbeitsstelle: Die alexandrinische und antiochenische Bibelexegese der Spätantike of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, directed by Christoph Markschies and conducted by Annette von Stockhausen.