Euthymius Zigabenus wrote commentaries on St. Paul’s Epistles, but not on the Universal Epistles, as I explain here.

At the time that I wrote the post above, I was conflicted as to whether or not I should include the Universal Epistles in my project going forward. I can now comfortably say that I have made my decision: I will exclude the Universal Epistles from both the Critical Edition and the Translation and thus stay true to my focus on Euthymius Zigabenus.

Changes in the Project and Site

Because I have included so much research about Theol. gr. 79 (i.e. the 9th Manuscript), I have decided not to remove it from my site, but just to relocate it to a subsection of the Critical Edition page called Manuscripts No Longer Included in the Project.

I have, though, removed the 7 Universal Epistles from the Progress section of the Critical Edition page and from my Translation Progress Report. This now pushes my overall completion percentage as of today to 47.76% and puts my approximate completion date for the first draft of the translation to January 15, 2025.

Long-Term Goal

My decision to remain faithful to Euthymius Zigabenus, regardless of the loss of the 7 commentaries on the Universal Epistles, opens the door for me to continue my work on him as an author, even after I have completed his Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistles.

Euthymius Zigabenus wrote Biblical commentaries in addition to this one. He wrote a Commentary on the Four Gospels (which has been translated into Russian, I believe; I just have to find it) and a Commentary on the Psalms (which has been translated into Modern Greek in two volumes, see here for volume 1 and here for volume 2 to purchase them, and into English by Father John Raffan, see here for his free translation online with Greek and English facing pages).

I have an entrepreneurial itch to open up my own small press and publish these three works, first translating and publishing the Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistles (which I am currently doing), then translating and publishing the Commentary on the Four Gospels, and maybe even working on my own translation of the Commentary on the Psalms.

Having modern translations of a work helps incredibly in places where the Greek is difficult. Even though I cannot read Russian, a quick Google Translate will give plenty of help to a struggling translator to see how the Russians took a difficult phrase to mean.

We will see what the future holds. In pursuing this goal of translating multiple works of Euthymius Zigabenus, there might be a need to put the Critical Edition of the Commentary of St. Paul’s Epistles on hold, since I will definitely not be able to work on both projects simultaneously.

First I have to finish this translation and see how the editing process goes.