News

Spectacular discovery: Original Greek sermons by Origines of Alexandria

A spectacular discovery has been made at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in the process of indexing the greek manuscripts from the collection of Jakob Fugger. While cataloguing a manuscript, philologist Marina Molin Pradel identified numerous texts of Greek sermons on Psalms, hitherto unknown in the greek original, by Origenes of Alexandria (185 – 253/54 AD), the most important theologian of the Christian church prior to St. Augustin.

The scientific importance of this find is truly extraordinary. The manuscript has already been digitized by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and is universally accessible via the internet:

http://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/, search term „Homiliae in psalmos"

The newly discovered manuscript will be available for public viewing on December 5, 2012, at a symposium of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. A scientific discussion will be held on June 25, 2012, during the conference on Greek Palaeography at the University of Padua. The publication of a critical edition will be directed by Lorenzo Perrone.