The Medieval Church · c. 858–878
The Translations and Letters
Anastasius Bibliothecarius · c. 810 – c. 878
What it is
The papal librarian, who knew Greek in a Rome where almost nobody did, translating the acts of councils, the Greek lives of the saints, Maximus, and the Dionysian scholia — and writing prefaces explaining to Latin readers what they were about to encounter.
Why it lasted
The West's only real window on Byzantium in the ninth century. Several Greek texts survive solely in his Latin, including the acts of the council that deposed Photius, whose Greek original was destroyed.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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