J. A. Giles, “Complete works of Bede” – links to all the volumes

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Google books does not handle series of volumes very well.  It can require real determination and effort to locate the volumes of a series.  This afternoon I have had to do just this, in order to locate the 12 volumes of the 1843-4 edition of the works of the Venerable Bede.  These were edited by the Rev. John Allen Giles (“J. A. Giles”), whose Dictionary of National Biography entry is quite fun reading.  He was clearly rather an oddball, whose career was eccentric.  His works were written mainly for money, in great haste.

On 6 March 1855 Giles was tried at the Oxford spring assizes before Lord Campbell, on the charges of having entered in the marriage register book of Bampton parish church a marriage under date 3 Oct. 1854, which took place on the 5th, he having himself performed the ceremony out of canonical hours, soon after 6 a.m.; of having falsely entered that it was performed by license; and of having forged the mark of a witness who was not present.

He pleaded not guilty, but it was evident that he had committed the offence out of foolish good nature, in order to cover the frailty of one of his servants, whom he married to her lover, Richard Pratt, a shoemaker’s apprentice. Pratt’s master, one of Giles’s parishioners, instituted the proceedings.

Giles spoke on his own behalf, and declared that he had published 120 volumes. His bishop also spoke for him. He was found guilty, but strongly recommended to mercy. Lord Campbell sentenced him to a year’s imprisonment in Oxford Castle. His fate excited much commiseration in the university, and after three months’ imprisonment he was released by royal warrant on 4 June (Times, 7 March and 7 June 1855).

At that date the University of Oxford was primarily a training establishment for Anglican clergy.  No doubt the fellows of the university had a word, not out of any love for Mr Giles, but rather to ensure their own rights and liberties.  It does not seem that the episode was held against him, and he was appointed a couple of years later to a curacy.

In Gerald Bonner’s Church and Faith in the Patristic Tradition: Augustine, Pelagianism, and Early Christian Northumbria (1998), we read the following words about Mr G.’s editorial efforts.

I am going to discuss Bede’s commentary of the Apocalypse, and here I must warn you of a difficulty which at present confronts any student of Bede’s theological writings: the unsatisfactory character of our available texts. For most of these we have to rely upon the labours of the Rev. Dr. J. A. Giles, an indefatigable but undiscriminating editor, in whom energy was not tempered with discretion.

In a review of another of Giles’ ventures – his edition of the correspondence of Thomas Becket – the English historian E. A. Freeman observed, with the devastating candour of the Victorian reviewer: ‘We suppose we must allow the praises of zeal and research to a man who has edited, translated, and written more books than any other living English scholar. But really we can give him no other praise,’ and he went on to emphasise his point by remarking: ‘The Letters [of Becket] of course are invaluable; at least they will be when anyone shall be found to edit them decently.’[1]

It would be unkind to apply Freeman’s verdict to Giles’ edition of Bede without qualification. His edition – at least so far as the commentary on the Apocalypse is concerned – is sufficient for practical purposes. Unfortunately, for any detailed study of the text it is unsatisfactory, not only because it lacks any reference to original manuscripts, but also because no attempt is made to indicate the sources used by Bede, which would help us to estimate both the range of his reading and his personal contribution to the commentary. Giles’ edition appeared in 1844. It was reprinted by the Abbé Migne in 1850 in the Patrología Latina, and no one familiar with Migne’s editorial practice will suppose that Giles’ text underwent any particular improvement at his hands. The Migne edition, which is in effect Giles’, is the text most readily available today, and it is high time it was replaced.

Bonner indeed gives an example of Mr. G’s curious editing:

‘Bestiam sanctus Augustinus impiam civitatem, imaginem vero eius simulationem eius (avis [sic!] ed. Giles), fallaci imagine Christianos, characterem autem notam criminis interpretatur, quam adorari, et subiici ei, et consentiri, dicit’ PL xciii, 175 C.

While in Archaeologia Aeliana N.S. 16 (1894), p.82, we read a note on Bede’s Life of Cuthbert:

Patres Ecclesiae Anglicanae: Miscellaneous Works of Venerable Bede, ed. by Dr Giles (1843) VI, p. 357….

3. ibid IV, p. 202 No trust should be placed in the English translation added by Dr Giles.

But no doubt Mr. G. simply printed whatever some manuscript said, or seemed to say; and laboured nothing over the translation.  As you would, if you had to write for a living.

Here are the volumes of Giles’ The Complete Works of Venerable Bede, on Google Books:

  • Vol. 1 – The Complete Works of Venerable Bede: Life, poems, letters, etc – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vDkYAAAAYAAJ
  • Vol. 2 – The complete works of Venerable Bede: Ecclesiastical history (1843). Books 1-3. – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QRhMAAAAYAAJ
  • Vol. 3 – The complete works of Venerable Bede: Ecclesiastical history (1843). Books 4-5. – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Amw6AQAAMAAJ
  • Vol. 4 – The Complete Works of Venerable Bede: Historical tracts (1843) – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZAVEAAAAYAAJ
  • Vol. 5 – The complete works of Venerable Bede: Homilies (1843) – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vzEYAAAAYAAJ
  • Vol. 6 – The Complete Works of Venerable Bede: Scientific tracts and appendix (1843) – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JTIYAAAAYAAJ
  • Vol. 7 – The Complete Works of Venerable Bede: Commentaries on the Scriptures, vol. 1 (1844) – Old Testament – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dxEMAQAAIAAJ
  • Vol. 8 – The Complete Works of Venerable Bede: Commentaries on the Scriptures (1844) – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9N_RAAAAMAAJ
  • Vol. 9 – The Complete Works of Venerable Bede: Commentaries on the Scriptures (1844) – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-jIYAAAAYAAJ
  • Vol. 10 – The Complete Works of Venerable Bede: Commentaries on the Scriptures (1844) – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DAti1aGBVu8C
  • Vol. 11 – The Complete Works of Venerable Bede: Commentaries on the Scriptures, vol. 5 (1844) – New Testament – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Dh4MAQAAIAAJ
  • Vol. 12 – The Complete Works of Venerable Bede: Commentaries on the Scriptures, vol. 6 (1844) – New Testament – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HyAOAQAAIAAJ

The Giles volumes were reprinted in the Patrologia Latina volumes 90-95.  Thankfully most of this material has now been replaced by the Corpus Christianorum Series Latina volumes.

Volume 1 of Giles’ edition also contains the text of various medieval “Lives” of Bede, including BHL 1069, the “Vita Bedae” in the Scriptorium Press volume to which I referred a couple of days ago.  I don’t think that these have been edited since.  But more on that in my next post.

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The Sermons of Pope Leo I (Leo the Great) – A Bibliographical Note

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A correspondent drew my attention to an English translation online of sermon 25 of Pope Leo I, or Leo the Great.  This appears on the Paths of Love blog here.  He noticed that it was not among the selection of sermons included in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers collection, and asked whether it was genuine.

The sermons of Leo the Great were published in a modern critical edition by A. Chavasse in the Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (CCSL) from Brepols in 1973 (numbers 138 and 138A).  This was not titled something normal like “Sermones Leonis Magni” or something of the sort – “Sermons of Leo the Great.”  Instead the – evidently deranged – editor chose to call  his volume, “Sancti Leonis Magni Romani Pontificis Tractatus Septem et Nonaginta.”  The two volumes contain 96 of these “tractatus” (plural), i.e. “sermons;” or at least, 96 is the highest number in the index at the end of the second volume.

An idea of the contents of volume one is as follows:

I. La transmission des sermons de saint Léon
II. Chronologie et circonstances des sermones
III. Établissement du texte
IV. La présente édition
TRACTATVS
I–V: Pour l’ordination de saint Léon et son anniversaire
VI–XI: De collectis
XII–XX: De ieiunio decimi mensis
XXI–XXX: De natale Domini
XXXI–XXXVIII: De epiphania Domini

The lengthy introductory material in French is extremely detailed.  But the novice reader had better avoid it until he has some understanding of the manuscript tradition.

It seems that early editions of the Sermons were mainly taken from homiliaries, medieval collections of sermons adapted and reordered for liturgical use.  This includes the Ballerini edition.  But proper manuscripts do exist, and need to be used.  There seem to be three families of manuscripts, labelled A, B and C.

Unfortunately our insane editor begins his volume by assuming that only experts in the field will be reading his book.  So instead of giving an introduction, to orient a non-specialist, he plunges straight into immense detail.

I’m sure that many of us remember, from university, reading some massive tome and trying to extract from it the half-page of information that was all we actually required?  I certainly do, and indeed occasionally I still have nightmares featuring such a task.

This is one of those unhelpful volumes.  On the very first page of text, it dives into detail from the second paragraph onwards, giving no orientation whatever to the newcomer. Indeed this “avant-propos”, “introduction” consists entirely of an attack on the Ballerini edition (Venice, 1755).  The Ballerini text is the text reprinted by J.-P. Migne in his Patrologia Latina 54, cols. 141-468, and so this was the standard text before Chavasse.  But this should have appeared much later in the volume.  The point made is that the Ballerini brothers based their edition on the homiliaries, not on the manuscripts of the “straight” text.

An English translation of the whole series of sermons has appeared in the Fathers of the Church series, 93 (1995), taken from the CCSL text.

There is a French translation in the Sources Chrétiennes series, SC 22, from 1947.  At that early date the editors of this now august series had few ambitions beyond producing cheap paperbacks with parallel Latin and French.  They reprint the Migne text from the PL.  Curiously they reorder and renumber the sermons according to their own scheme.

Sermon 25  is one of the ten sermons delivered at Christmas.  It is perfectly authentic.

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Did the New Testament influence the text of the Greek Old Testament?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In the course of writing my last post, I came across a curious quotation, which I give as follows, although I have overparagraphed it.  The discussion is about to a “long quotation” in Romans 3:10 f., “made up of a number of passages taken from different parts of the O.T.”:

As a whole this conglomerate of quotations has had a curious history. The quotations in N.T. frequently react upon the text of O.T., and they have done so here: vv. 13-18 got imported bodily into Ps. xiv [xiii LXX] as an appendage to ver. 4 in the ‘common’ text of the LXX (ἠ κοινή, i.e. the unrevised text current in the lime of Origen). They are still found in Codd. ℵa B R U and many cursive MSS. of LXX (om. ℵca A), though the Greek commentators on the Psalms do not recognize them.

From interpolated Mss such as these they found their way into Lat.-Vet, and so into Jerome’s first edition of the Psalter (the ‘Roman’), also into his second edition (the ‘Gallican,’ based upon Origin’s Hexapla, though marked with an obelus after the example of Origen. The obelus dropped out, and they are commonly printed in the Vulgate text of the Psalms, which is practically the Gallican.

From the Vulgate they travelled into Coverdale’s Bible (A.D. 1535); from thence into Matthew’s (Rogers’) Bible, which in the Psalter reproduces Coverdale (A.D. 1537), and also into the ‘Great Bible’ (first issued by Cromwell in 1530, and afterwards with a preface by Cranmer, when it also bears the name of Cranmer’s Bible, in 1540.  The Psalter of the Great Bible was incorporated in the Book of Common Prayer, in which  it was retained as being familiar and smoother to sing, even in the later revision which substituted elsewhere the Authorized Version of 1611.

The editing of the Great Bible was due to Coverdale, who put an * to the passages found in the Vulgate but wanting in the Hebrew. These marks however had the same fate which befell the obeli of Jerome. They were not repeated in the Prayer-Book ; so that English Churchmen still read the interpolated verses in Ps. xiv with nothing to distinguish them from the rest of the text.

Jerome himself was well aware that these verses were no part of the Psalm. In his commentary on Isaiah, lib. XVI, he notes that St. Paul quoted Is. lix. 7, 8 in Ep. to Rom., and he adds, quod multi ignorantes de tertio decimo psalmo sumptum putant, qui versus [στίχοι] in editione Vulgata [i.e. the κοινή of the LXX] additi sunt et in Hebraico non habentur (Hieron. Opp. ed. Migne, iv. 601; comp. the preface to the same book, ibid. col. 568 f.; also the newly discovered Commentarioli in Psalmos, ed. Morin. 1895, p. 24 f.).

I came across this in something called “Romans (International Critical Commentary)” online here.  But it actually comes from W. Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam, A critical and exegetical commentary on the epistle to the Romans (1902), p.77-8, on Rom. 3:9-10. (Online here).

It is not at all improbable that such things should happen.  But this is now very old scholarship.  There must be more recent studies of this phenomenon in the 122 years that have passed since.

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Baffled by a liturgical psalter

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve just come back from a few days away, staying in an Anglican nunnery.  My girlfriend wanted to attend a retreat there, and my role was to act as chauffeur, factotum, and otherwise to stay out of the way.  Which I did.

I did attend one service, and found myself reading responses from a modern ring-bound book of psalms.  Here is a picture of psalm 1 in that book.

Modern ring-bound psalter

The asterisk in the middle of the line marks a long silent pause, which kept catching me out; and the two sides of the congregation read alternate lines.

Inevitably I found myself wondering what I was looking at.  Often behind modern prayer books there lurks the ghost of very ancient Latin versions.  I already knew that in the Anglican world, the psalter is not from the King James Bible, but rather from Miles Coverdale’s “Great Bible” of 1540 as suitably amended by Cranmer, and this, in a revised form, appeared with the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.  The people were used to it, and it read more smoothly, and so it was retained.  This decision was made in the Savoy Conference of 1661, apparently.

But where does this particular text come from? That’s a modern set of pronouns there.  Nor is this the text in the new “Common Worship” that is being introduced, for that begins with “Blessed”, not “Happy.”  But then this “Common Worship” is trying to get closer to the modern biblical text.

The book that I held in my hand contained no information as to its origins, no ISBN, no printer, nothing.  It was possibly from some ecclesiastical supplier, or even printed themselves from somewhere.

Next I went to the library and started looking at their collection of service books, in the hope of enlightenment.  I pulled down the 1980 Alternative Service Book:

1980 ASB Psalm 1

Well, it’s not this.  We’re still “Blessed.”  But there are now seven verses, not six; verse 3 has been split, and “It’s leaves also shall not wither” is a new sentence.

A modern reprint of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer was no more helpful:

1662 BCP

Again, we are “Blessed.”  The “Happy” version must be a modernisation from somewhere.  Here “His leaf also shall not wither…”

I then went online and found a copy of the 1540 Great Bible:

1540 Great Bible, Psalm 1

This is of course “Blessed”.  There are no verse numbers.  But “His leaf also shall not wither…” appears as a separate sentence.

Eventually I resorted to Google, and I found this page which contains exactly the text above, minus the antiphon.  It informs us that the version is from the 1979 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.  I found this online at Google Books here, on p.585:

1979 Episcopalian BCP

Psalm 1
Beatus vir qui non abiit

1     Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, *
nor lingered in the way of sinners,
nor sat in the seats of the scornful!
2     Their delight is in the law of the LORD, *
and they meditate on his law day and night.
3     They are like trees planted by streams of water,
bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; *
everything they do shall prosper.
4     It is not so with the wicked; *
they are like chaff which the wind blows away.
5     Therefore the wicked shall not stand upright when judgment comes, *
nor the sinner in the council of the righteous.
6     For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, *
but the way of the wicked is doomed.

As far as I can determine, the preceding US Episcopalian prayer book was the 1928, which had the traditional “Blessed” and “His leaf.”

Like most people I know very little about the history of the prayer book, and indeed the history of liturgy.  It was news to me that Cranmer’s prayer books were basically a translation of the medieval “Sarum usage” prayer books, suitably revised for protestant ideas.  These also had a psalter.  Cranmer saved himself effort by using Coverdale’s existing translation.

Coverdale himself knew relatively little Hebrew, and inevitably this made him dependent on the Latin vulgate.  This rather unpleasant site – beware adverts – interleaves the Latin of Jerome’s translation of the Hebrew; the Latin of his translation of the Greek LXX; and the literal Douai translation.  Verse three in Coverdale is illuminated a bit by the comparison:

3.

et erit tamquam lignum transplantatum iuxta rivulos aquarum quod fructum suum dabit in tempore suo et folium eius non defluet et omne quod fecerit prosperabitur

et erit tamquam lignum quod plantatum est secus decursus aquarum quod fructum suum dabit in tempore suo et folium eius non defluet et omnia quaecumque faciet prosperabuntur

And he shall be like a tree which is planted near the running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit, in due season. And his leaf shall not fall off: and all whatsoever he shall do shall prosper.

“Folium” is singular, hence “his leaf.”

That was more work than it might have been!

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Scriptorium Press – A New Series of Translations of Hagiographical Texts

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Scriptorium Press is a new publisher.  They started a year ago, and have a series of translations available, at very cheap prices.  Mainly these are of Greek hagiographical texts, which is wonderful to have.

None of the texts translated have previously been translated.

They are based in Canada, but their translations are available on Amazon.com also.

Titles include:

  • The Conversion of Saint Cyprian – The Unabridged Greek Acts  [BHG 452 – this is Cyprianus of Antioch]
  • The Life of Saint Nilus the Younger  [BHG 1370 – Nilus of Calabria]
  • The Life of Saint Bede the Venerable [BHL 1077]
  • The Life of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite – By Michael Syncellus [BHG 556]
  • Saints of the Old Testament – By Rabanus Maurus [Rabanus Maurus’ commentary on the Books of Ruth, Esther, and Judith]
  • The Life of Saint Simeon the Stylite – By Simeon the Metaphrast  [BHG 1686]
  • Saints of Ethiopia

For each text I have added where I could what I believe to be the correct BHG or BHL number, for ease of reference.

This is an impressive array of texts, all very much in need of more attention.  Buy them now!

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Web hosting recommendations?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Yesterday I received an evasive email from my long-term web host, Pair Networks.  After careful reading, it seems to mean that they are increasing the prices on all their shared hosting by 50%, starting on January 1, 2025.  That will take the price up from $12 a month to $20, which seems like a silly price for my limited needs.

Does anyone have recommendations for a new web hosting company?  It’s not about price, but reliability and good customer service.

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Compiling the Koran, bashing the Bible – a couple of interesting passages from the Hadith

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The internet is full of protagonists overstating their claims for every imaginable cause.  On Twitter I see many Muslim-bots making extreme claims about the origins of the Koran.  They tend to claim that no copy of it deviates at all from any other copy, ever.  They explain this extreme claim – no human error?  ever? – by reference to the “oral tradition,” that the first Muslims memorised the Koran and so nobody could ever get it wrong and if they did it would immediately be detected.   This they invariably contrast to the bible text, to the disadvantage of the latter.

There are various obvious objections to this, and there is likewise a bodyguard of deflections that the same people deploy.

When confronted with Muslims bashing the bible in this way, I have begun to refer to the role of the third Caliph, Uthman, in creating the Koran.  Uthman was an early Caliph, who created an official written Koran, copies of which were distributed to provinces of the new Islamic empire.  Once these had been created, Uthman had other copies of the Koran burned.

Uthman himself ruled for only a decade before the early Muslims killed him, for corruption.  His misdeed, as I understand it, was appointing members of his own family to senior posts instead of those more qualified.

Uthman’s action in burning Korans is documented in the Hadith.  It turns out that there is a rather splendid website with the Arabic text and English translation of the Hadith online.  This is well-indexed by Google, and so a search quickly found the relevant hadith here.  (I have over-paragraphed the English translation).

حَدَّثَنَا مُوسَى، حَدَّثَنَا إِبْرَاهِيمُ، حَدَّثَنَا ابْنُ شِهَابٍ، أَنَّ أَنَسَ بْنَ مَالِكٍ، حَدَّثَهُ أَنَّ حُذَيْفَةَ بْنَ الْيَمَانِ قَدِمَ عَلَى عُثْمَانَ وَكَانَ يُغَازِي أَهْلَ الشَّأْمِ فِي فَتْحِ إِرْمِينِيَةَ وَأَذْرَبِيجَانَ مَعَ أَهْلِ الْعِرَاقِ فَأَفْزَعَ حُذَيْفَةَ اخْتِلاَفُهُمْ فِي الْقِرَاءَةِ فَقَالَ حُذَيْفَةُ لِعُثْمَانَ يَا أَمِيرَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ أَدْرِكْ هَذِهِ الأُمَّةَ قَبْلَ أَنْ يَخْتَلِفُوا فِي الْكِتَابِ اخْتِلاَفَ الْيَهُودِ وَالنَّصَارَى فَأَرْسَلَ عُثْمَانُ إِلَى حَفْصَةَ أَنْ أَرْسِلِي إِلَيْنَا بِالصُّحُفِ نَنْسَخُهَا فِي الْمَصَاحِفِ ثُمَّ نَرُدُّهَا إِلَيْكِ فَأَرْسَلَتْ بِهَا حَفْصَةُ إِلَى عُثْمَانَ فَأَمَرَ زَيْدَ بْنَ ثَابِتٍ وَعَبْدَ اللَّهِ بْنَ الزُّبَيْرِ وَسَعِيدَ بْنَ الْعَاصِ وَعَبْدَ الرَّحْمَنِ بْنَ الْحَارِثِ بْنِ هِشَامٍ فَنَسَخُوهَا فِي الْمَصَاحِفِ وَقَالَ عُثْمَانُ لِلرَّهْطِ الْقُرَشِيِّينَ الثَّلاَثَةِ إِذَا اخْتَلَفْتُمْ أَنْتُمْ وَزَيْدُ بْنُ ثَابِتٍ فِي شَىْءٍ مِنَ الْقُرْآنِ فَاكْتُبُوهُ بِلِسَانِ قُرَيْشٍ فَإِنَّمَا نَزَلَ بِلِسَانِهِمْ فَفَعَلُوا حَتَّى إِذَا نَسَخُوا الصُّحُفَ فِي الْمَصَاحِفِ رَدَّ عُثْمَانُ الصُّحُفَ إِلَى حَفْصَةَ وَأَرْسَلَ إِلَى كُلِّ أُفُقٍ بِمُصْحَفٍ مِمَّا نَسَخُوا وَأَمَرَ بِمَا سِوَاهُ مِنَ الْقُرْآنِ فِي كُلِّ صَحِيفَةٍ أَوْ مُصْحَفٍ أَنْ يُحْرَقَ‏.‏

Narrated Anas bin Malik: Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to `Uthman at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were waging war to conquer Arminya and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sham and Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur’an, so he said to `Uthman, “O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Qur’an) as Jews and the Christians did before.”

So `Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, “Send us the manuscripts of the Qur’an so that we may compile the Qur’anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you.” Hafsa sent it to `Uthman. `Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, `Abdullah bin AzZubair, Sa`id bin Al-As and `AbdurRahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. `Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, “In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur’an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur’an was revealed in their tongue.”

They did so, and when they had written many copies, `Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. `Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.

Sahih al-Bukhari 4987
https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4987

Uthman’s action makes sense only if the material destroyed was not, in fact, the same as that which he promoted as the “true Koran.”

The Muslim bots respond to this by claiming that the difference was only one of pronunciation.  But this hadith does not say so.    Rather it makes clear that the text of the Koran was already circulating in different Arabic dialects, and in written copies which did not all contain the same material.

Indeed the preceding hadith openly states that when the koran was collected under Abu Bakr, one verse was only in the possession of one person.  Similarly the following hadith is as follows:

قَالَ ابْنُ شِهَابٍ وَأَخْبَرَنِي خَارِجَةُ بْنُ زَيْدِ بْنِ ثَابِتٍ، سَمِعَ زَيْدَ بْنَ ثَابِتٍ، قَالَ فَقَدْتُ آيَةً مِنَ الأَحْزَابِ حِينَ نَسَخْنَا الْمُصْحَفَ قَدْ كُنْتُ أَسْمَعُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم يَقْرَأُ بِهَا فَالْتَمَسْنَاهَا فَوَجَدْنَاهَا مَعَ خُزَيْمَةَ بْنِ ثَابِتٍ الأَنْصَارِيِّ ‏{‏مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ رِجَالٌ صَدَقُوا مَا عَاهَدُوا اللَّهَ عَلَيْهِ‏}‏ فَأَلْحَقْنَاهَا فِي سُورَتِهَا فِي الْمُصْحَفِ‏.‏

Zaid bin Thabit added, “A verse from Surat Ahzab was missed by me when we copied the Qur’an and I used to hear Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) reciting it. So we searched for it and found it with Khuza`ima bin Thabit Al-Ansari. (That Verse was): ‘Among the Believers are men who have been true in their covenant with Allah.’ (33.23)

Sahih al-Bukhari 4988
https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4988

This attests to a copy where a verse was missing, even though the copyist had actually heard Mohammed himself say that verse.  And, far from having memorised it, he had to search until he found someone who had written it down.

None of this is actually surprising. Even if we were Muslim, and accepted that the Koran was from Allah, the fact is that it did not fall from heaven on gold plates, or whatever, but involved a human being giving utterance to it in a local Arab dialect and being copied down by other human beings.  The laborious efforts to make sure that it was indeed as Mohammed uttered it also testify to human activity, and, inevitably, some kinds of human error.  Muslims believe that these efforts were successful, and that the text today is an exact copy of the text as dictated by Mohammed.

Non-Muslims need not believe this.  The Hadith suggests strongly that the process was far more haphazard than the bots would like us to believe.   It also suggests strongly that claims to memorisation at this period are false.  We may also note that Muslims display no interest in actually finding out by collation whether extant manuscripts copies of the Koran – and indeed printed copies – are actually exactly the same.

But we need not labour this point, except in response to those who deploy it in order to rubbish the bible.  There is nothing of significance here.  For all practical purposes, it seems likely that the Koran does indeed contain the mission statement of Mohammed and his earliest followers.

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A quote from Cyril of Alexandria about wax and communion

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An email yesterday with an interesting query, asking for the source of a quotation from Cyril of Alexandria (found here and many other places):

Just as by melting two candles together you get one piece of wax, so, I think, one who receives the Flesh and Blood of Jesus is fused together with Him by this Communion, and the soul finds that he is in Christ and Christ is in him.

Our friend has done quite a search and turned up a version in a little treatise from 1534:

Germain Gardiner (later beatified), “The Letter of a Yonge Gentylman…” (London: W. Rastell), verso of f. xxxiii to verso of f. xxxiiii. The candles-and-wax part appears on the recto of f. xxxiiii. See a scan here, on the Internet Archive.

He says, “Wherfore it muste be consydered, that Chryst is in us not onely habitually by cheryte, but also by naturall partycypacyon. For lyke wyse as yf a man take wex that is molten with fyre, & with other wex [that] is in lyke maner molten, so myngle it that bothe twayne be made one: so by the communion of Chrystes body and bloud he is in us and we in hym.”

Thankfully this is all about wax, and a search for Cyril of Alexandria and wax promptly produced a hit here, in Simon Birckbek, “The Protestants Evidence, Taken out of Good Records…,” London (1657), page 176.  This is written to show that the Fathers taught the doctrine of the Church of England, and responds to Catholic objections.

Here it quotes the saying, and gives a reference: “Cyril, l.4, c.17, in Joan.” – i.e. the “Commentary on John”, book 4, chapter 17.

Thankfully I have Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John online here, in Philip Pusey’s horribly unreadable translation.  Pusey also has different chapter numbers.  But it will do for our purposes:

56 He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood dwelleth in Me and I in him.

Manifoldly does Christ initiate us by these words, and since His Discourse is hard of attainment by the more unlearned, asking for itself rather the understanding of faith than investigation, He revolving again and again over the same ground makes it easy in divers ways, and from all parts illumines what is useful therein, fixing as a kind of foundation and groundwork the most excellent desire for it.

For he that eateth My Flesh (saith He) and drinketh My Blood abideth in Me and I in him. For as if one should join wax with other wax, he will surely see (I suppose) the one in the other; in like manner (I deem) he who receiveth the Flesh of our Saviour Christ and drinketh His Precious Blood, as He saith, is found one with Him, commingled as it were and immingled with Him through the participation, so that he is found in Christ, Christ again in him.

Thus was Christ teaching us in the Gospel too according to Matthew, saying, The Kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. 

Good to find a genuine translation, and, if you do quote Cyril here, please indicate that it’s from the Commentary on John, book 4.

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“Views in Egypt,” by Luigi Mayer

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Earlier I came across a twitter post by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, referencing a book unknown to me.  The book title is “Views in Egypt, from the original drawings in the possession of Sir Robert Ainslie, taken during his embassy to Constantinople by Luigi Mayer” and printed in London in 1801.

The volume may be found at Archive.org here.  The 10mb PDF is useless, however, as the pictures have been compressed to the point of destruction.  But the original images of the pages are also downloadable, although the zip file is 2Gb in size.

The text is not interesting.  The images are not especially interesting either, in truth!  But I did see this one, between pages 14 and 15, of the two largest pyramids at Giza.

Views in Egypt, from the original drawings in the possession of Sir Robert Ainslie, taken during his embassy to Constantinople by Luigi Mayer. 1802. View of the Great Pyramid between pp.14-15.

The figures in all the illustrations are clearly stylised and added in the studio.

What makes this image interesting is the mound reaching up the side of the Great Pyramid, right up to the huge gash in one side.  Today that damage is in mid-air.  But here we see that this is the residue of attempts to take stone from it, for building purposes in Cairo.  The mound was heaped up to facilitate this.

There are quite a number of images of Alexandria.  The drawings were taken while Egypt was still under Mameluke rule, before the coming of Mohammed Ali, and the beginning of modernisation.

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Life of John Damascene by John, Patriarch of Jerusalem (BHG 884) – Part 4

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Here are the next four chapters of the “Jerusalem Life” of John Damascene.  John Damascene’s father has met an educated Italian slave named Cosmas in the market in Damascus, and employs him to teach his sons philosophy.

    *    *    *    *

10.  John’s Father Frees Cosmas and Entrusts His Sons to Him.[1]

On hearing these words, the man[2] who was seeking such a treasure replied, “Well then, O blessed man, console yourself, for perhaps the Lord may grant you the requests of your heart.”  Having said this, John’s father ran as fast as he could to the Saracen chief and fell at his feet, requesting the now quiet distinguished Cosmas as a gift, nor did he fail in his request, but he received the one truly worthy of much as a gift, and brought him into his own house, comforted him, and refreshed him after his long ordeal, and said something like this, “Not only are you free from now on, but also I make you a partner in my household, and equal in authority with me, sharing all my joys and sorrows.”  But this only I request of you, in honour your honour, that you instruct and educate most diligently my natural son John, and also this other who shares your name – whom I have made my spiritual son, who was born in Jerusalem but orphaned at a young age – all the secular learning and philosophy that you know, as well as that to which the grace of the Holy Spirit guides the worthy.[3]  The philosopher, upon hearing this, was at once like a horse galloping away from its restraints and prancing across the field, or a thirsty deer sent out towards streams of water.  You might say that he was like another Midas who had stumbled upon great treasures of gold.  He was very eager for the matter at hand, and he took on the young men, and became their tutor.

11.  John and Cosmas the Younger gain expertise in theology.

John was like an eagle, soaring through the air, as if using wings, and with natural ability and zeal of purpose.  And his spiritual brother, and fellow initiate, Cosmas, was like a ship with sails spread wide, and borne like a cargo vessel upon the waters, [propelled] by a favourable breeze[4] and with a west wind blowing from the stern.  Thus, by natural quickness and intensity of zeal, they gathered all the most important teaching in a short time, whether in grammar, dialectic or demonstration.  And with moral philosophy, they not only cultivated their minds by means of studying this, but also calmed the disturbances of their souls.  And just like an eagle looking keenly, so did they gaze intently at the laws of nature.  They also learned mathematical proportions as skilfully as Pythagoras or Diophantus.  They were trained so well in the proof of geometry that they seemed like Euclid and those others similar to him.  In harmony, they became like those[5] who appear to have created divine melodies for the wise.  In astronomy, as much as [pertains] to intervals, figures,[6] and the proportions of distances, even if he[Cosmas the elder] taught only a introductory understanding for non-specialists, from what he wrote John appears to excel; and indeed so also did Cosmas.  But discussion about him [Cosmas the younger] must be left to others, for John is the subject of our praise.[7]

12.  They study theology especially.

Who would not recognize and marvel at his theological insights, and the precision of his doctrines in his foundational book—or rather, in his comprehensive book on doctrine—which one could call a code of laws of every orthodox doctrine, and [liken to] the tablets of Moses without straying from the truth.  However I know that I ought to have made praises of that book in the earlier chapters, and not here, but I have stated these things to demonstrate the education in which he was educated, and how he pursued all of it with knowledge and precision, and the marvellous thing is that he was not puffed up by knowledge, but rather, just as the noble  branches of trees, weighed down by their abundance of fruit, inclined toward the ground, so also the great John, as the fruits of learning increased upon him, began to incline, not towards the ground, but towards the depths of the philosophical sea, sailing still upon it as if on some ship of worldly endeavour.[8]  But he also longed to unload this world’s ship, and to entirely strip off the garments of bodily endeavour, and with a naked mind to swim across the sea, and dive into the deep, so that he might find the precious pearl lying hidden there. Therefore, longing for this and aiming at it, he descended to the bottom of the depths.  And he was not puffed up by his knowledge, but humbled by his desire for a more mystical wisdom.  So the intellectual lamp of his soul was filled with the oil of worldly wisdom, in order that the incorporeal light falling down from above might set fire to this light, and John might appear like a burning torch.

13.  They are returned to their father by their teacher, who retires to a monastery.  John becomes Chief Adviser.

In these circumstances, his teacher, guided towards this desire by his student, or so it seems, approached the boy’s father and said,

“Behold: your wishes are fulfilled, and the boys surpass me in wisdom.  For it was not enough for them to become equal to their teacher, but by the greatness of their nature, and their unyielding efforts, perhaps also with God increasing their gift of wisdom, they have risen above me towards the pinnacle of philosophy.  Accordingly, I am no longer needed by them from now on.”  As reward for my labours, allow me to depart to a monastery, where I may scientifically[9] seek the highest wisdom.  For the philosophy, in which I was already trained, directs me towards that [higher wisdom], and to be enriched still more by both blessings [heavenly and earthly wisdom], and to add to the earlier wisdom also that which is most separated from matter, and surpasses understanding, and which only the mind alone, completely free from the body, can be initiated into.”

John’s father was grieved at the words of the philosopher.  But he could not detain him, as otherwise it would seem as if he had held onto the wages agreed for the teaching given [to his sons].  Having provided him with the most abundant supplies for his needs, he sent him away in peace.  But he went to the monastery of Mar Saba in the desert, and remained there until his end, going to God who is Wisdom Himself.  The father of John also departed through death.  But the leader of the Saracens summoned John, and appointed him as Chief Advisor.[10]  But he declined because his inclination was directed elsewhere.  However he was put under sufficient pressure that he was no longer able to refuse, and was appointed to a greater office than his father.

    *    *    *    *

The Muslim caliphs made use of the existing Byzantine civil service to run the government machine and – the most important part – collect taxes, for a considerable period after the conquest.

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  1. [1]This heading is not from Lequien, but just appeared from nowhere in an AI Latin translation output.↩
  2. [2]John’s father.↩
  3. [3]I am not clear about καὶ ἡ τοῦ πνεύματος χάρις τοὺς ἀξίους ἐμυσταγώγησεν so I have followed the Latin.↩
  4. [4]πνεῦμα = wind, breeze, breath, spirit.↩
  5. [5]I was unable to follow the use of the particles here.  Gk: Περὶ δὲ τὴν ἁρμονικὴν τοιοῦτοι γεγόνασιν, ὁποῖοι ἄρα ἐξ ὧν ἐμουσουργήσασαν θείων μελισμάτων τοῖς συνετοῖς καταφαίνονται.↩
  6. [6]ἐν διαστήμασι καὶ σχηματισμοῖς.↩
  7. [7] ἐγκωμίων↩
  8. [8]The sense is that he was still using the works of mankind to investigate the truths of philosophy, but wanted to go beyond this.↩
  9. [9] ἐπιστημονικός; Lequien “certis regulis”, “by fixed rules.”↩
  10. [10] πρωτοσύμβουλος, perhaps a financial post.↩