Dr Peter Toth
Long Term Frances A Yates Fellow
I have studied Latin and Greek Language and Literature and Egyptology at the University of Budapest. During my studies I always focused on the different roles and perspectives a narrative can express and convey when transmitted and translated from one tradition to another.
Hagiography
During my MA and PhD studies I studied Greek and Latin hagiographic texts and investigated the ways they were used and abused by translations into Coptic and Syriac. After graduation I was working at the University Library Budapest as a curator of the medieval manuscripts and prepared a new catalogue of the Latin codices kept at the library. During my work with the medieval material I studied the medieval reception: re-use and re-making of the ancient narratives, especially the legends of the saints and the extra-biblical material concerning the life of Christ. I published a monograph with a critical edition of a special medieval legend of St Demetrius of Thessalonica and started a project investigating medieval and patristic ’dramatic’ sermons containing extrabiblical dialogues and narratives.
Apocrypha
A literary and rhetorical analysis of these sermons seemed to open up new ways to approach the problems raised by two major and sometimes overlapping groups of extra-biblical narratives, that of the apocrypha and of the dramatic texts. As the narratives of the late antique and also medieval homiletic texts appear to derive from the late antique traditions of the exegetical paraphrase, their close similarity with some of the apocryphal texts would help us to reconsider these – together with the homilies themselves – as texts conveying exegetical and philosophical message with the ancient tool of the paraphrastic exegesis. Some attempts to apply this ’rhetorical-exegetical’ approach for apocryphal motifs turning up in ancient and medieval or early modern texts warn us to re-think the definition of the apocrypha.
Drama & Theatre
On the other side, dramatic homilies and sermons, seem to have exercised a considerable impact on the evolution of theatre as well, since many of the extra-biblical scenes elaborated in these texts appears on the stage of the theatres of medieval and early modern Europe. It is this relationship between pulpit and stage that I am currently working on trying to understand how and why the ancient theatrical traditions of Greco Roman paganism as embedded into the classical rhetorical traditions and transmitted by homiletics towards the European Middle Ages have found their way back to the stage and contributed to the birth and evolution of European drama and theatre.
Books
Historia Sancti Demetrii Thessalonicensis: Kritische Ausgabe mit Einführung. Ottawa, Canada: Institute of Mediæval Music, 2010, p. 65 (Submitted) [with Zsuzsa Czagány]
Catalogus Codicum Latinorum Medii Aevi Bibliothecae Universitatis Budapestinensis, quos recensuit L. Mezey et denuo revisus et auctus per P. Tóth. Budapest, 2008, p. 343. (available online in the database of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek:
(http://www.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de/hs/kataloge/Budapest.pdf)
Prelude to a United Europe. Greek Cultural Presence in Hungary from the 10th to the 19th Century. Budapest, 2008, p. 48 [with Tamás Glaser]
Szent Demeter. Magyarország elfeledett védőszentje. [The Forgotten Patron: The Cult of Saint Demetrios of Thessalonica in Medieval Hungary] Budapest: Balassi, 2007., p. 290. [with Zs. Czagány, Sz. Terdik; D. Bárth]
A filozófus megtérése, Alexandriai Szent Cirill párbeszéde a pogány filozófusokkal. (A kopt szöveg fordítása magyarázatokkal), [Conversion of the Heathen Philosopher: The Debate of St. Cyrill of Alexandria with the Heathens. Edition, Translation and Commentary of a Coptic Ostracon], Agape: Szeged, 2000. [with Andrea Hasznos]
Articles
The Syriac Versions of the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto. A Preliminary Investigation on the Basis of the First Chapter, Oriens Christianus 94 (2010) (in print)
Way Out of the Tunnel? Three Hundred Years of Research on the Apocrypha: A Preliminary Approach, in: Lucie Dolezalova – Tamás Visy, Retelling the Bible: Literary, Historical, and Social Contexts, Bern: Peter Lang, 2011, 45-84.
Give me another death! The Apocryphal Vision of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, in: Lucie Dolezalova – Tamás Visy, Retelling the Bible: Literary, Historical, and Social Contexts, Bern: Peter Lang, 2011, 85-115.
Die Sirmische Legende des heiligen Demetrius von Thessaloniki: Eine Lateinische Passionsfassung aus mittelalterlichem Ungarn, Analecta Bollandiana 128 (2010), 348-392.
Sirmian Martyrs in Exile: Pannonian Case-Studies and a Re-evaluation of the St. Demetrius-Problem, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 103 (2010), 145-170.
Pseudo-Apocryphal Dialogue as Tool for Memorization of Scholastic Wisdom: The Farewell of Christ to Mary and the Liber de vita Christi by Jacobus, Dolezalova, L. (ed.): The Making of Memories in the Middle Ages. Leiden: Brill, 2010, 161-198.
Lost in Translation. An Evagrian Term in the Different Versions of the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto. Origeniana IX. (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 228). Louvain: Peeters, 2009, 613-621.
The Prophets' Cry in Limbo: Origin and History of a Special Scene in Medieval Plays. European Medieval Drama 12 (2008), 67–92.
Patronus Regis – Patronus Regni. Die Verehrung des heiligen Sigismunds in Ungarn, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 119 (2008), 80–96.
Neue mittelalterliche lateinische Handschriftenfragmente in der Universitätsbibliothek Budapest: Ein Katalog von 30 neue Fragmente. Az Egyetemi Könyvtár Évkönyvei [Annual of the University Library Budapest] XIII (2007), 89–128.
Codici Corviniani nelle Bibliothece Ungheresi. In: Nel segno del Corvo. Libri e miniature della biblioteca di Mattia Corvino. Modena: Il Bulino edizioni d’arte 2002, 263–267.