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.

The project of principal investigator Uta Heil, carried out by two researchers specializing in philology and one researcher focusing on IT aspects, is dedicated to the new critical edition of a late antique commentary on the Psalms attributed to the famous Bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius. The commentary was likely composed at the beginning of the 5th century and represents an important contribution to late antique exegetical literature, striking a balance between the allegorical interpretation of the Alexandrian tradition, the historically oriented exegesis of the Antiochene tradition, and a spiritual-monastic approach. Thus, the project lies at the intersection of editorial work on a late antique commentary on the Psalms, basic research on the Catena manuscripts, and research on the Christianization of the Psalter as a fundamental book of prayers and hymns in the history of Christianity. The goal was to create an interactive digital edition of the commentary on Psalms 1-50 in order to represent the complex tradition found in the Catena manuscripts and to present the editorial decisions in a transparent manner. Initially, the relevant ancient Greek manuscripts were examined and the technical details of a digital edition were clarified. The challenge was to strike a balance between philological accuracy and pragmatic transcription. Over the course of the project, the project team members familiarized themselves with the technical details of a digital edition and cataloged new Catena manuscripts; this knowledge was also passed on to two interns who were supervised as part of the project. The project website provides open access to the edition, the transcription, a search interface, the new discoveries made during the course of the project, as well as information on editorial principles and technical implementation. On the website, archived by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (https://expps.acdh.oeaw.ac.at/expps/index.html), the edition is presented alongside a German translation; a traditional book-length publication is in preparation for the "Athanasius Werke" series at De Gruyter Brill. The project was developed in cooperation with the ACDH of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW), with the new edition of the Greek Psalter text at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences (F. Albrecht), and with the editorial project on Alexandrian and Antiochian biblical exegesis at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences (A. von Stockhausen). Significant research findings beyond the pure edition and the new discoveries of commentary fragments included the correction that by no means should a single manuscript (Codex Vaticanus gr. 754) be used as the standard manuscript, that manuscripts previously largely ignored are indeed relevant, and that the manuscripts must be consulted in their entirety, not merely through sampling. This is because the character of a manuscript can change unexpectedly at times and therefore had to be reassessed each time.