Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
I’ve just discovered the link for donations to the Centre for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. They’re going around photographing manuscripts, and accustoming their holders to the idea of digital photography, and of putting manuscripts online. This makes them trail-blazers for us all, even if — like me — NT manuscripts are peripheral to your interests. They’re breaking down the barriers.
They take Paypal, credit cards, etc. Why not give them a quick $20?
I’ve been blogging on the disaster at Koln, where the municipal archive fell into in a large hole in the ground when the building collapsed. I speculated that the archive probably saw requests for photographs as a chance to make money, rather than an opportunity to record and preserve. The local university has put out an appeal for anyone who did manage to get any photos to contact them, so I asked whether my suspicions were true.
And they were! It seems that the Koln archive really did prevent readers photographing! They really did charge the few people interested in their documents absurd prices for copies. They had the chance to get much of their archive recorded, and they put a tax on those who wanted to do so!!! And they’ve been caught out.
What we need to do now is fire the ass of the people who made that particular decision. Accidents happen; but the loss of much of the material is not accidental; it followed directly from the decision to charge for photographs.
Anyone know who the politicians are, with responsibility for this archive?
A Spanish Romanian language blog has a list and set of links here. Most useful!
I’ve finished scanning the 540-odd pages of vol. 2 of Michael the Syrian and uploaded a PDF of it to Archive.org here. Archive.org are still using Abbyy Finereader 8 to OCR the text, and Finereader 9 is quite a bit better. So I have also uploaded the output from that; a Word document, a .txt file, and a .htm file. These are indicated as *_fr9.*.
Tomorrow I will go down to the library and order volume three, which is the final volume of the translation. There is a fourth volume, which contains the Syriac. I’ll worry about that when I get to it.
…is here. Thanks to Phil for compiling this list of patristic posts on blogs in the last month, and for including mine. I liked his wry comment on an atheist’s critical review of a Bart Ehrman book.
Well, after my last post, I got a quick reply — and in English! — from Valerio Brambilla at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. He was very helpful, which was a nice change.
Firstly, I learned that the BA is in fact a private collection! It is not state-funded. I didn’t know this; I wonder how many people do? The English language website is offline because they changed the company that provided it. The new prefect is Mons. Buzzi, and he told me that they have good relations with Notre Dame.
Unfortunately they seem to be obsessed with the possibility that commercial publishers may use materials they put online. This relates mainly to artworks in the collection of paintings. But in consequence they are trying to devise a way to put images there in a “no download, no print” manner. It’s understandable that they need to protect themselves from commercial exploitation; but not at the price of preventing access to the collection.
The Koln archive is currently sitting at the bottom of a large hole filled with rubble etc. This link gives information on an appeal for volunteers to help dig out the archive material.
Some entirely unofficial (as he notes) remarks posted to Mediev-L by Alexander Regh:
Short news update: Approximately 40% of the documents in the archive were stored in buildings in the back of the main building and were unharmed. Another 20% have been retrieved now from the rubble, in varying conditions. Some not damaged at all, others torn to shreds, and everything in between. Which means that another roughly 40% of the documents are still missing.
Among the things saved are a large collection of seals and one of the two manuscripts by Albertus Magnus.
Unfortunately, many of the more valuable documents were stored on the fourth floor of the main building, because in Cologne, there is always some worry about flooding. Which means whatever was stored there is now right in the middle of the rubble heap.
On the site itself, the search for a missing person currently still has priority, which means that retrieving the documents in a systematic way is a secondary concern. Every bit of rubble removed is checked by hand for documents though. The roof that is going to protect the rubble is coming up nicely, after stability problems in the last days. Rescue operations are also constantly hampered by the unstable ground.
http://www.historischesarchivkoeln.de/index.php?lang=en is not an official site, but they are collecting any digital copies of material from the town archive.
I wonder if the archive did its best to ensure that these copies were as few as possible, if it’s like most such institutions? If so, I wonder if they feel a bit short-sighted now? I’ve written to enquire; it seems like a good time to point out the merits of allowing readers to photograph.
http://archiv.twoday.net/ is also an archivists blog that tries to keep up-to-date and some articles are in English. There is n particular an article about coordinating help offers.
Pictures from the Rescue Work at the scene w. English comments
A crisp sunny morning, a free afternoon at home, and an email arrives telling me that volume 2 of Michael the Syrian is available for collection at my local library. Sometimes it all just comes together. I wonder how much of it I can scan today?
UPDATE: (Early Afternoon) I’d forgotten how HEAVY the volumes are. The physical labour in picking them up, turning the page, placing it on the scanner, turning it round, etc, it pretty exhausting. The paper is yellow-ish, which makes for speckling when scanned. 70 pages so far, tho. The speckling seems to affect the margins most.
It’s an interesting question, whether to trim the margins or not. Why bulk out the file with speckled white-space?
UPDATE: (3pm) 123 pages. Groan. One page had a bit of foxing, which came out as black splotches in black/white scanning. So I did that page in colour.
UPDATE: (5pm) I’m aiming for 200 pages. On page 190 at the moment, although I had to stop when the plumber arrived. Then I can have dinner! Somewhere in the reign of Justinian at the moment; I saw the name Belisarius a moment ago.
Isidore of Pelusium is still writing to those seeking his advice. The first is an erudite bishop, who would like to be seen as a philosopher.
1219 (=IV.174) TO MARINOS, BISHOP
I find that the definition that the illustrious Job gives of wisdom and knowledge is a happy one: “To worship God is wisdom; to keep far away from evil is knowledge”; because, in truth, the supreme wisdom is a right conception of God, and the divine knowledge is a perfect way of life: the first has a right opinion of the divine, the second keeps far away from evil; the one uses words to speak about God, we estimate the other by its acts. So if one who loves God and is loved by him is at the same time wise and erudite, he has both the virtue of contemplation and the one of action, one as a soul, the other as a body; how can we look like exceptional philosophers if we neglect to live as well as possible and apply ourselves only to speaking well?
Pierre Evieux points out that the last sentence is an echo of the advice of Socrates, in Plato’s Gorgias.
Another correspondent considering Christianity is plainly having difficulty with the cult of the martyrs. The Roman cry of Vae victis – “stuff the losers” – ran all the way through paganism. How can losing be anything but shameful?
1220 (=V.5) TO DOMITIUS, COUNT
Defeat, my very wise friend, is not death in combat; it is to be afraid of the enemy and to throw down your shield: but he whose body lets him down when he tries to show bravery, the rule is that his name is inscribed on the trophy; likewise we see the athletes killed during the fight honoured by the organizers of these combats more than those who did not encounter the same fate. So if this is so, why do think you that, for the martyrs, death is a defeat, instead of seeing in it a reason to celebrate them all the more? Because the end of that combat is not to keep the body alive – which lived only for the torturers and which they put to death – but to not diminish the glory of virtue.
Evieux notes that when gladiatorial games began, a trophy was awarded, inscribed with the names of the gods, especially Zeus; but in a later era, the trophy of victory was inscribed with the names of those killed in the process.
Meanwhile the worldly advantages of a late Roman episcopate continued to have an evil effect on the worse sort of lesser clergy.
221 (V.6) TO PALLADIUS, DEACON
If neither the greatness of the episcopate, nor a conduct which in no way deserves it, nor the word of the apostle who defines what a bishop must be, nor the incorruptible tribunal which will pronounce an undeniable verdict, nor anything else draws aside you from the madness which transports you with a foolish desire and makes you hope to buy this dignity, least let yourself be persuaded by the pagans.
It is told that Pittacus received the government of the Mitylenians, and when he had overcome Phrynon, the chief of Rhegion, in single combat he wanted to return this power to them. When they did not agree to receive it, he forced them to. He did not want to be a tyrant, but an ordinary person.
So if one who by risking his life personally had acquired power, voluntarily laid it down — he was removed from danger, he was discharged from tyranny, and that because he had no account to return to anyone — you who are not even in law a simple taxpayer, so it is said, take on a burden with high responsibility, called to return multiple accounts, higher than any human dignity, a burden which you should not accept even if it were offered to you; well! look at what you dream of buying, not only without hiding, but to glorify yourself! Who then will not reproach such an audacity?
Even the sub-deacons were worrying away at Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, V, X, 2-3). “If what is fair and what is just are equal, prefer to be fair. What causes the problem is that being fair can be against the law; it’s like watering down justice.” Isidore replies:
1222 (=V.7) TO PALLADIUS, SUB-DEACON
It would be right that a fair man should adopt an attitude more human than the man of a too strict justice. Because it is more fitting for him to show himself human, than for the man of justice.
Which sidesteps the problem rather, while endorsing Aristotle’s precept. A problem familiar to every confessor, and to every self-help group, follows:
1223 (=V.8) TO ALPHIUS, SUB-DEACON
Better not to be caught by vice; if we are caught, it is to better know that we are caught and quickly to become ourselves again, like after getting drunk. Because he who is caught but does not think of being caught, his sickness is incurable.
Education is the concern of everyone who finds himself a parent. The school curriculum remained based on the pagan classics as late as 1453. But the tension between the Christian family and the needs of a worldly education remain even today. Isidore highlights the key point:
1224 (=V.9) TO AMMONIUS, SCHOLASTICUS
Those who when their children are still very small in the first place sow a notion of excellence and divine providence, in the second place a sense of virtue, these, because they are not only parents but also excellent teachers, will obtain divine rewards. While those who implanted polytheism and vice in them, since they sacrificed their children to the demons, will receive the reward which they deserve.