I know that French is a closed book to rather too many anglophone scholars, so, in the interests of wider access, here is my own English translation of portions of it. 

The kephalaia of book I

Immediately preceding the text of Contra Eunomium, the majority of the manucripts include a list of chapters of book 1, either as a summary or a table of contents.  The numbers of these chapters are then given in the margins of the text, at the location corresponding to the beginning of each chapter.  Some manuscripts, whether or not they preserve the table at the front, also give the title of the chapter, either in the body of the text or in the margin.  Finally others, which don’t include any portion of the chapters titles anywhere, still retain traces of marginal numerals.  The antiquity of this system of structuring the work is confirmed by the witness of the indirect tradition: in fact the Treatise against Damian written at the end of the 6th century by Peter of Callinicus, patriarch of Antioch, furnishes us with ample citations of the Contra Eunomium of Gregory, and specifies the chapter from which the passages come. These indications correspond, in the vast majority of cases, with the system which appears in the Greek manuscript tradition, except around the great lacuna in the later parts of the book. In fact the text which Peter knew had not yet suffered this loss, and the numbering accordingly had not been disturbed in this area by the loss of an important section of the text.

The following table gives in the first column the number of the chapter, in the second the paragraph where the chapter begins; if the latter does not begin at the start of a paragraph, the difference is signalled by + or – and specified in a note, giving page and line from the edition of W. Jaeger. The following columns, which each correspond to one of the witnesses of the text, indicate if the chapter mark is present (+) or absent (-) from the manuscripts, or if it has not been possible for me to determine its status (?); signalled by a ≠ is a reported difference from the norm. The indication ‘mut.’ is utilised when the manuscript is mutilated for this portion of the text; ‘lac.’ signals the lacuna of chapters 29-31.

The copies of manuscripts where the original is extant are not represented in this table, except for D, which allows us to fill in some of the lacunas of S. B. (Lesbiacus 6), to the extent that it gives a single chapter numeral (κβ’), on f. 340v, in its usual place in the text.

The manuscripts not cited do not include any indication of chapters: mostly these are recent copies, except for V (Vaticanus gr. 447, 12th c.). The latter manuscript, on the other hand, indicates the position of chapters for book III, and for the Refutation; the manuscript from which it was copied, like L, had undoubtedly deteriorated since it was written, and the marks of the chapters were no longer visible. Two manuscripts could not be consulted (Hagion Oros, Mone Vatopediou, 541; Sinai, Mone tes Aikaterines, Metochion 8). Another, equally inaccessible to me, signals the beginning of chapters and their numeral, according to the catalogue which describes it (Brescia, Bibl. civica Queriniana, A IV 3).

There then follow five pages of data on the chapters, which may be conveniently viewed in the SC edition itself. Dr Cassin resumes the story afterwards as follows:

The editio princeps of 1618, based upon recent manuscripts which did not specify the positions of the chapters, could not indicate them. Fr. Oehler, who was in a position to consult manuscripts which carried the numbers of the chapters in their margins, such as L or M, did not report them in his edition, which appeared in 1865. W. Jaeger, whose position on this point is less than clear, chose not to indicate their position, believeing that the manuscripts did not agree among themselves, even though he had access to the majority of the witnesses of the text.

All this is of great interest.

Firstly the work of Peter of Callinicus indicates that by the 6th century at least, the chapter titles were as we see them. Since the transmitted text is likewise equipped, this must be strong evidence that the titles, divisions, and numerals are authentic. Secondly the tendency of scribes to interfere with them seems to be shown — it’s not quite clear from the article — by tinkering with the numbering once a lacuna had appeared in chapters 29-31.

If the summary, the chapter titles, and the marginal numerals are all authorial — and it looks like it — then we have to ask whether this is an innovation by Gregory; or whether, in fact, he is merely adopting a trend active in his own time.

Speculating, I would suggest the latter.  Half a century earlier, Eusebius of Caesarea had given summaries in his Ecclesiastical History (doubtless based on earlier Greek histories which did the same), but also in his theological works like the Praeparatio Evangelica.  It is less clear whether these items had made it into the text, or whether there were numerals.  But who can say?  The influence of the EH on all Greek patristic literature means that possibly this was the catalyst.  Is it possible that the division of theological books into chapters with numbers and marked in the body of the text is a 4th century innovation?  And that it spreads to the Latin world in the 5-6th centuries?

How valuable the SC series is!  For increasingly I notice that they include a section of just what the manuscripts actually contain.  As Dr C. rightly observes, editors simply ignored this stuff.  Those days, thankfully, must be behind us.

1. ^[1] Gregoire de Nysse, Contre Eunome I, SC 524, 2010: Greek text by W. Jaeger from WNO I.1, translation by Raymond Winling. ↩

Here is the ANF translation:

The Letter of Pontius Pilate
Which He Wrote to the Roman Emperor, Concerning Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Pontius Pilate to Tiberius Caesar the emperor, greeting.

Upon Jesus Christ, whose case I had dearly set forth to thee in my last, at length by the will of the people a bitter punishment has been inflicted, myself being in a sort unwilling and rather afraid. A man, by Hercules, so pious and strict, no age has ever had nor will have. But wonderful were the efforts of the people themselves, and the unanimity of all the scribes and chief men and elders, to crucify this ambassador of truth, notwithstanding that their own prophets, and after our manner the sibyls, warned them against it: and supernatural signs appeared while he was hanging, and, in the opinion of philosophers, threatened destruction to the whole world. His disciples are flourishing, in their work and the regulation of their lives not belying their master; yea, in his name most beneficent. Had I not been afraid of the rising of a sedition among the people, who were just on the point of breaking out, perhaps this man would still have been alive to us; although, urged more by fidelity to thy dignity than induced by my own wishes, I did not according to my strength resist that innocent blood free from the whole charge brought against it, but unjustly, through the malignity of men, should be sold and suffer, yet, as the Scriptures signify, to their own destruction. Farewell, 28th March.

So what is this item?  The ANF introductory notice is very unhelpful.  New Testament Apocrypha^[2] does not mention it at all.  Nor does a Google Books search produce much.

Fortunately I have on my shelves a copy of J. K. Elliot’s The Apocryphal New Testament^[3] and this has a section on the apocryphal Pilate literature.  Our item appears on p.206-8.

The work is written in renaissance Latin, probably in the 16th century.^[4] The letter cannot be traced any earlier than the renaissance,^[5].  It was composed in Latin^[6]. 

Tischendorf printed the Latin text,^[7] based on four witnesses, which he obtained from earlier publications:

• Chas. — the text printed by Chassanaeus in part 4 of his catalogi gloriae mundi, 1571.
• Flor. — the text printed by Florentinius in Martyrolog. vet. Hieronymi, p.113 (and reprinted by Fabricius).
• Bodl. – the text printed by Abrah. Gronovius in the preface to his edition of the works of Tacitus in 1721, from an ms. or mss. of the works of Tacitus from the Bodleian library in Oxford.
• Ven. — the text which Tischendorf himself obtained from a manuscript in Venice, Marcianus class. X. num. CXXXIV.  The ms. is 16th century. 

The text had previously been edited by Fabricius^[8], Thilo^[9], and Giles^[10].

Note that the Letters of Pilate and Herod exist in a Syriac version of the 6-7th century,^[11], followed by that of Walker in the ANF in 1870.^[13]  Another translation appeared in 1915 from A. Westcott.^[14]

A Google search reveals an “epistola Pilati” is contained in the British Library ms. Cotton Titus D. xix, on f.88-89, but this is probably the epistola Pilati ad Claudium.^[15]

There is also a Letter of Tiberius to Pilate, in Greek.^[16] This also is a late production.  I am not aware of the existence of a translation, but it takes an unfavourable view of Pilate and alludes to a journey by Mary Magdalene to Rome to accuse Pilate.

1. ^[1] Copied from the Cowper translation of 1867.  The introductory words may be found on Cowper, p.389, here. ↩
2. ^[2] W. Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, 2 vols, Eng. tr. 1991. ↩
3. ^[3] J. K. Elliot, The Apocryphal New Testament, Clarendon 1993. ↩
4. ^[4] Z. Izydorczyk, The Medieval Gospel of Nicodemus, Arizona, 1997, p.8, gives the following description: “Epistola Pilati ad Tiberium: Pilate reveals that he sentenced Christ partly through his own weakness but partly through his loyalty to the emperor. This letter, which again presents Pilate in a positive light, was written in Renaissance Latin, probably in the sixteenth century.” and “Geerard, Clavis no. 68; Starowieyski, Apokryfy, 476″. Online here. ↩
5. ^[5] Elliot, p.206. ↩
6. ^[6] Elliot, p.207 ↩
7. ^[7] Tischendorf, Evangelia Apocrypha, Leipzig, (2nd) 1876, p.lxxvi-lxxviii, p. 433-4. Online here. ↩
8. ^[8] J. A. Fabricius, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti, 4 vols, Hamburg, 2nd ed., 1719. p.300-1. ↩
9. ^[9] J. C. Thilo, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamentum, vol. i, Leipzig, 1832, p.801-2 ↩
10. ^[10] J. A. Giles, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti: The uncanonical Gospels and other Writings, London, 1852, vol. ii, p.14; so J.K.Elliot, but in the online copy of that work, I found that the reference did not seem to be correct. ↩
11. ^[12] ↩
12. ^[11] Texts and Studies, 5, p.xlviii.[/ref] but the Letter of Pilate to Tiberius is not  one of these.

    The first English translation was made in 1867 by B.H.Cowper^[12]B.H.Cowper, The Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents relating to the History of Christ, Edinburgh, 1867, p.398-9.  Cowper tells us, p.xx, that he is translating Tischendorff.  There is no introduction to the “Epistle of Pontius Pilate” in Cowper. ↩

13. ^[13] A. Walker, Apocryphal Gospels, Acts and Revelations, Ante-Nicene Christian Library vol. 16, Edinburgh, 1870.  The Ante-Nicene Fathers series is a rearranged and pirated US edition of the Edinburgh series. ↩
14. ^[14] A. Westcott, The Gospel of Nicodemus and Kindred Documents, London, 1915, p.119-20. I was unable to access this, but possibly US readers may be able to do so, in which case I should be glad of a copy. ↩
15. ^[15] A catalogue online here, where the work follows the Gospel of Nicodemus.  Compiled by Nigel Ramsay, who gives a bibliography including, “The Gospel of Nicodemus. Gesta Salvatoris, ed. H.C. Kim (Toronto, 1973), chapter xxviii. [Epistola Pilati.]“ ↩
16. ^[16] Edited in Texts and Studies, second series, vol. 5, 1893.  Introduction on p.xlix-l; Greek text on p.77-82. ↩

Today I learn via the eChurch blog that the ASA has decided to threaten the Cranmer blog, on the grounds that an advert that appeared on his site supporting marriage is “homophobic”. 

Oh, and they demanded that he keep quiet about the threats.  Being a brave man, he rightly told them to go to hell.  Bullies love silence!

I do hope that this is raised in Parliament.  The ASA clearly needs reform, once it starts behaving like the Gestapo.  For there can be no free speech, when this kind of thing is going on.

Read the post in which Cranmer — well done! — blows the gaff on this.  The tone of the communication from the ASA is sickening.

Apparently there have been a number of complaints about one of the advertisements His Grace carried on behalf of the Coalition for Marriage. He has been sent all manner of official papers, formal documentation and threatening notices which demand answers to sundry questions by a certain deadline. He is instructed by the ‘Investigations Executive’ of this inquisition to keep all this confidential.

Since His Grace does not dwell in Iran, North Korea, Soviet Russia, Communist China or Nazi Germany, but occupies a place in the cyber-ether suspended somewhere between purgatory and paradise, he is minded to ignore that request. Who do these people think they are?

In the US and Canada, it is a recognised form of attack on someone to denounce them for their opinions to some officious “human rights” body, which will then solemnly harass them for months or years for daring to say something inoffensive.  In real courts people are considered innocent until found guilty; in the kangaroo courts like the ASA, they are guilty until they can prove that they are innocent of Wrong Thinking.  And so, we see, Cranmer is required to “justify” what he wrote. 

In this process, it matters not whether the victim is found guilty — because “the process is the punishment”, as Ezra Levant — himself attacked in this way — put it.  Few will dare to volunteer for months or years of harassment, merely for expressing an opinion.

It reminds me of the bad old days in the reign of Charles II, when Samuel Pepys was kept hanging on and hanging on under arrest, by his political enemies, who simply kept deferring the hearing (at which, in the end, he was found not guilty of being inclined to Roman Catholic opinions — the ridiculous charge made against him).

So … who was it that denounced this UK blogger to the authorities?  Well, we’re not told.  Anonymous accusations … the lovely fruit of the hater and the bigot.

The ‘Issue’ here is that 24 anonymous complainants, ‘including the Jewish Gay & Lesbian Group’ (doubtless disclosed to give weight to the allegations), challenged whether the claim ’70% of people say keep marriage as it is’. However, His Grace is not required to respond to that point, since he did not conduct the research. But it transpires that 10 of these 24 complainants objected that the ads were ‘offensive’ and ‘homophobic’, and he is requested to respond to these allegations ‘under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 4.1 (Harm and offence)’.

And so the punishment begins. 

But blogging will be light for a bit, for a daft reason.  You see, for the last few weeks I’ve been working out of a hotel.  The hotel has an air-conditioning system which has the kind habit of generating noise at regular intervals, thereby waking me up every four hours during the night.  Somehow it manages to do this, even when turned off by the room switch. 

It’s remarkably difficult, after a while, to concentrate on anything, under the effect of that treatment.  This weekend, indeed, I was almost drunk with tiredness.  Why is it, I wonder, that it is nearly impossible to get a good night’s sleep in any hotel with which I am familiar?  In an type of establishment that exists for no other purpose than to supply sleeping chambers for rent?

So of course I have not got very far with the material in Latin and German. 

The hotel have promised me that tonight the problem will not recur.  So … cross your fingers for me! 

And let’s laugh at the absurdity … for this, friends, is the stuff of life; the things that we spend our lives on, while planning to do something else!

I saw this evening that Mark Goodacre was commenting on the curse that email has become to many scholars.  I’m luckier than most, in that I tend to get a reply eventually.  But I too get a fair amount of email myself; but then I try to handle each email only once, and reply as soon as I read it.  I do not envy him, tho.

But some emails are blessed.  One email this evening cheered me more than I can say.  It showed that God had heard some prayers of mine, made every Monday for many years, and answered them fully.  Very cheered by this.

…and for clearness’ sake I think it well to set forth to you the discourse by chapters, that you may be able briefly to know the force of the several arguments of the whole work.^[1]

The Greek text of Migne does not print any chapter titles, but the English translators embedded them following this sentence.

The word rendered “chapters” is, of course, kephalaia.  Here at least we see that Gregory is familiar with the idea of a work which may be summarised in this way. 

1. ^[1] PG 44, col. 128B.  English translation from the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series, which then inserts a translation of the chapter headings which do not appear at this position in the Greek text of Migne. ↩

I had meant to go and investigate each of these, but my work life is eating all my time at the moment.  However the list is well worth publishing as it is (i.e. before I mislay it!):

Pline l’Ancien, Naturalis Historia livre I. C’est l’exemple le plus célèbre. L’auteur est évidemment Pline.

Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia, édition Briscoe, 2 vols., Teubner Stuttgart et Leipzig, 1998. Je ne sais pas si la récente édition de la Loeb contient les indices. Les éditions plus anciennes ne comportent pas les indices.

Hygin, Fabulae (ed. Schmidt sur Google)

Jérôme, De Viris Inlustribus et Gennadius, De Viris Inlustribus (ed. Richardson et Gebhardt, Texte und untersuchungen 14, 1896). Sur Google.

Florus, Epitomae Libri II, ed. Rossbach, Teubner 1896 (sur Google), ou édition de la collection Loeb.

Cassius Dio, Histoire Romaine, édition Boissevain, tomes 1-3 (sur Archiv.org). Les indices sont conservés pour les livres 37-59 et 80 (à vérifier dans le détail). Ils sont aussi dans l’édition de la Loeb.

Eusèbe de Césarée, Histoire ecclésiastique

Eusèbe de Césarée, Vie de Constantin

John of Nikiu, traduction anglaise Charles, 1916 (site Roger Pearse)

Fréchulf (orthographe très variable) de Lisieux, Historiae (début du 9e siècle), édition Allen, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis CLXIX et CLXIX A, Brepols 2002. N’est évidemment pas sur Internet. L’édition de la Patrologie de Migne (PL 106) ne contient pas les indices. Le meilleur manuscrit, de Saint-Gall, contemporain de l’auteur, contient les indices et se trouve sur Internet. Les indices sont sûrement de l’auteur.

Orose, Adversus paganos. Les éditions de Zangemeister, CSEL 1882 et Teubner 1889 (toutes les deux sur Archiv.org) donnent des indices différents.

Cassiodore, Variae, édition Mommsen, Monumenta Germaniae Historica

Cassiodore, Institutiones, édition Sir Roger Mynors

Cassiodore, Historia ecclesiastica, édition Hanslik 1952. Absente sur Internet …

Isidore de Séville, Etymologiae, ed. Lindsay, Oxford, OCT 1911 (2 volumes). A consulter par exemple sur le site de la « Bibliotheca Augustana ».

Grégoire de Tours, Historia Francorum (Monumenta Germaniae Historica)

Frédégaire, Chronique (Monumenta Germaniae Historica). Plusieurs indices.

I hope to investigate each of these, bit by bit.

C. S. Lewis died in 1963.  That’s almost 60 years ago.  Yet it does not seem very long ago, and meeting people who met Lewis is far from improbable.  We have a wealth of information about him.

Yet 60 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus in AD 30 is AD 90.  I think that most of us would feel that by AD 90 the number of living witnesses might be getting thin.  But quite probably we are wrong to think so, simply by analogy with C.S.Lewis.

What is the book?  Well, it’s a very decent modern translation of the Vitae Patrum volume 5, from the Patrologia Latina vol. 73, cols.851-1024.^[2]  The same translator has also translated volume 1^[3] and been involved with a translation of volume 2^[4]

The introduction is interesting — I learned from it, for instance, that the Lausiac History by Palladius is volume 8 of the same work, and is so called because it was dedicated to a certain Lausus the Chamberlain, an imperial official.^[5]  A useful note on the text tells us that the sayings were copied, extracted, attributed to different people and places, and so on, and translated from one language to another, compiled, excerpted and so on.  All this is normal for sayings literature such as gnomologia (“wisdom sayings”).

But there is a price to pay for this form of transmission.  A saying must be striking to survive the process.  It must appeal to those who will preserve it, or it will not be transmitted.  It will be rephrased to adjust to different tastes, it will be attributed to different people, often to famous people.  A certain kind of joke in modern English always becomes associated with Winston Churchill; another sort with Oscar Wilde; but the attribution is made casually in order to make the saying more striking, not as the product of some form of careful research!

What this note on the text does not say, then — and surely it should? — is that we cannot know for certain who actually composed any particular saying, and whether it reflects the views of the monks at all.  Many of these may be the product instead of what we might call the “fan base” — people who were not monks, lived in ordinary society, and simply admired what they believed a monk was.

Much of the material consists of sayings that suggest an attempt at humanising some ridiculously ascetic aspirations.  These, possibly, are indeed by the monks, faced with a torrent of people under the craziest misapprehensions as to what to expect; and awaiting massive disappointment and even psychological or physical injury in consequence. 

I’m afraid that I did not find wisdom in these pages.  It is, perhaps, best to dip into such a book rather than try to read it.  But I’m afraid it irritated me.  Possibly having a book wished on me had that effect; but also the fact that one couldn’t know whether the things were anything but fan-fiction annoyed me.  

These sayings of the fathers did not strike me as holy, or inspired.  I’m sorry, but there it is.  

Asceticism, as the translator rightly notes, is not particularly a Christian thing.  It’s something that human beings are drawn to, often as a reaction to a morally corrupt society.  It does not have spiritual value per se. A busy mother bringing up a brood of brattish children will learn more about mortification than any of these.

But Jesus was not an ascetic, and neither were the apostles.  I don’t see the point.

1. ^[1] Translated by Benedicta Ward, Penguin, 2003. ↩
2. ^[2] Thus the translator, p.xxvi. ↩
3. ^[3] Harlots of the desert, London:Mowbray, 1987, based on PL 73 cols 651-71 ↩
4. ^[4] The lives of the desert fathers, translated by Norman Russell, London:Mowbray, 1981, based on PL 73, cols. 707-39. ↩
5. ^[5] p.xxix. ↩