When he was alive, it is said that J.P. Migne the prolific publisher of greek patristic material and the famous “PG” or Patralogia Grecae was nick-named God’s Publisher. For those interested in playing with original source material in the original language PG is an invaluable resource – sadly one that is both out of print, rare, and very expensive if you happen to find a couple of volumes.

But lo! Yonder star! I’ve been waiting for a while now for PG to be made avaliable in digital form. A few years ago someone started to offer a digital version which was extortionately expensive. I don’t know if its the same concern or no but you can buy it now on 16 DVD’s or on a personal hard-drve from these folks. I’ve done some digging and most of the universities that have the digital format seem to be getting it from here. Alternatively for $40 you can buy it from a Ukranian supplier whose web page suggests that this is perhaps not up to spec (and thus no link will be found here – grin).

Now, I’ve been waiting for other sources to offer it for free and wouldn’t you know Google Books is doing just that here. It’s not a complete set – yet. What is more I downloaded vol. 42 last night to look at Epiphanius’ Panarion and . . . well . . . my excitement at findin it in this format was quickly washed away; it’s a less than perfect arrangement, pages are both missing, and out of order, oh and some are repeated in more than one place! Dealing with PG can be sometimes daunting enough as it is, having to go rummaging to find the missing pages is frustrating to say the least.

That being said – I’m very glad that it is finally being made available and hope that in the not to distant future it will be possible to reclaim the missing and re-organised pages.