Year: 2011

In the afternoon I bunked off.  I really did.  There were three sessions on Chrysostom in Syriac, but I looked at the abstracts and the urge to go waned.  The sunshine called to me, and I went out instead. 

First I walked up to the Bodleian Library, and dropped into the admissions office.  My pass had expired, so I renewed it.  In the process I learned that the manuscripts and rare books department had been kicked out of Duke Humphrey’s library and were squatting in a basement room in the Radcliffe Science Library.  The phrase “seated three to a chair” was used.  Apparently the New Library building is to be demolished, and a brand new building constructed by 2015, in which “special collections” will be based.  The fate of the historic Duke Humphrey’s is unknown.  I heard all this with some scepticism.  The problem at the Bodleian has always been that not enough material is available on the shelves, and ordering material from the stack takes ages.  I do hope that all this work is not merely in order to improve the working conditions of the staff — which it seems certain to do –, but also improves the usefulness of the library to the readers.

Then out, and along Broad Street.  The sun poured down and there were few cars and people walking in the road.  Blackwell’s bookshop is still there, but I didn’t go in.  So was Balliol College, of which we used to say, “C’est manifique, mais c’est n’est pas la gare”, parodying the observation of a French officer during the Crimean War on the Charge of the Light Brigade.

But it differed from my day in a couple of respects.  For instance, Thornton’s bookshop was gone, replaced by … some nothing shop. 

I made my way up to the Tesco Metro, which was killing the nearby Sainsburys.  There I bought a couple of rolls, evidently fresh, came out and started walking down towards the station.  I passed the market at Gloucester Green, which I never remember visiting in my student days, full of tatty stalls under striped awnings.  A shop selling Italian bread and with dried hams hanging up was nearby.

I was on my way to Oxbow books, in 10 Hythe Bridge Street.  Ahead of me, some blonde dolly bird was walking, evidently sightseeing, and eventually stopped to photograph the river.  The street itself was rather industrial, and Oxbow books occupied what looked like a converted office, up a metal stair.  There I bought the TTH translation of Hilary of Poitiers for less than £5, but nothing else.

Then back, sauntering in the sun, until I reached the Examination Schools where the conference is being held.  I had decided to attend one of the 4pm workshops, and hear the first paper, on the Pistis Sophia and astrology.  The links between ancient astrology and gnostic texts seem like a worthwhile idea to explore to me.  But the talk was incredibly technical, and required a lot of knowledge of both text and astrological jargon.  There was a lot of noise from outside as well.  After 10 minutes I gave myself mercy and slipped out.

Then over to the marquee, and I sat at my stall for a while, working out what to do next.  But as I did so, Carol Downer came by.  Carol translated the Coptic for the Eusebius book.  It was nice to meet her for the first time.

The next step was to  go to a meeting of Evangelicals involved in Patristics (5:30-7).  This was taking place at Wycliffe Hall, at 58 Banbury Road, which is quite a step!  But I walked up there, passing the science labs in South Parks Road — where Cromwell once parked his cannon during the siege of Oxford, and the revetments used to be visible.  As a student I walked this route to lectures regularly.

There was a large turnout for the meeting, and rather too small a room.  Four speakers each said something about evangelicalism and patristics, mostly from an American point of view.  But as I listened, I began to become somewhat uneasy.  What I was hearing was, if anything, putting evangelicalism down.

If the word “evangelical” means anything, it means a bible-believing Christian, who has met Jesus and decided to make Him the Lord in his life and bases his life on the bible — that which the Lord taught, the apostles preached, and the scripture records, without the sort of additions that Catholics and Orthodox make, and certainly without the wishy-washyness of the liberal, who is always “progressing” and “enriching” and stuff like that, and whom Tertullian aptly describes in De praescriptione haereticorum. 

But the panelists, one and all, spoke as if evangelicalism was something to get away from, something that was only one part of the church, where people needed to learn about the “richness of other traditions”, and they saw patristics as a way to induce evangelicals to do this.   Lots of questions came from people boasting about how they were managing to get evangelicals to do this, by one method or another. 

Questions were asked for, and I put my hand up.  I pointed out that in Oxford 2 centuries a young evangelical started studying the fathers, and his name was John Henry Newman; and asked them what they thought the dangers were in evangelicals studying the fathers.  Newman and his colleagues, of course, all abandoned the faith of their youth and most ended up as Catholics or Ritualists.  But the panelists saw no problem, no danger.  Indeed their responses indicated that they thought that evangelicals “enriching” (i.e. changing, for the word means nothing else) their faith was a good thing.

In other words, these people were not evangelicals at all, but liberals, or rather heretics — people to whom opinions are really secondary and to whom conviction and sincerity is, if anything, amusing.  No other sort of person treats the faith once delivered to the saints, by which we live, and by which we will die if necessary, as something that can just be modified as seems convenient under cover of the sort of stale rubbishy phrases about “enrichment” (=change) or “diversity” (=change). 

By “evangelical” I suspect that they meant only the incidental cultural things that tend to be associated with what used to be called Low Church.  There was certainly plenty of the lazy sloppiness in arrangements, the overrunning of time, and the over-mateyness that is too common among Christians these days.  But that, to them, was I fear all that “evangelicalism” meant.  A certain Rob Bell, who has been accused of universalism, was mentioned approvingly, and the criticism he has received mentioned with a smile.  This, again, is not bible-based Christianity.

Any group that is centred around an ideology or a set of principles — rather than a social group — must define itself, in order to exist.  It must define what it is, and what it is not.  The attitude I found there was one of pure liberalism.  The Fathers were men.  Much of what they say is tosh, as is the case for all of us.  You don’t add the Fathers to the biblical teaching.  They may illuminate it for us, they may have interesting things to say or examples to offer; but at the end of the day they are not inspired. 

I walked back down the Banbury Road afterwards, rather annoyed to see  the Fathers being hijacked in this way.  It is useful, however, to know that the term “evangelical” in patristics means nothing.  What I did think, however, was that I ought to write an article on the Right use of the Fathers.  Indeed I think a book of that name exists somewhere.  Because using the Fathers to deconvert Christians into Churchianity is NOT what I do, or want to see.

I got back to my room, and decided that I would go to the organ recital this evening, from 8:30-9:45.  The theme was Bach and his influences, and it was held in Christ Church Cathedral.  It was getting dark as I set out.  In the evening Oxford becomes a different place, warm, inviting, with restaurants everywhere.  But the staple student emergency food, in my day, was provided by some mobile vans that appeared after dark.  These served beef-burgers — at least, it was supposedly beef — with lots of onions and greens, and were generally known as the “death burger vans” and supposed to serve rat meat.  Hygiene was probably a word that the owners could not spell.  I was amused to see, in Oxford High Street, the modern version of the same thing, offering kebabs etc.  I hope the standard is better.

The recital was, in truth, tedious.  The pieces by Bach were good, but I did not find the rendition of them particularly inspiring, and the other pieces were dirge-like.  One, indeed, I could not help feeling was being misplayed, unless that composer really did introduce wavering notes and uneven intervals.

We exited with what I felt was probably relief all round.  I found myself following the distinctive figure of T. D. Barnes down the High Street from Carfax.  A side alley contained a sign “Carfax chippy”.  Well do I remember that dubious fish-and-chip shop where — personal experience — washing the potatoes before chipping and frying was optional.  It was still in business, amazingly.

Then back to the college annex.  It’s been a good day, and the room is quiet now.  Here’s hoping for sleep!

I then went to hear Hugo Lundhaug talk about Origenism in 5th century Upper Egypt: Shenoute of Atripe and the Nag Hammadi codices.  This was fascinating, and discussed two texts.  The first was a letter from Dioscorus of Alexandria, telling people — and Shenoute in particular — to hunt out heretical books associated with Origenism and other heresies in the monasteries of Panopolis.  The second was a text by Shenoute himself, which does not mention Origenism but likewise is interested in books.

Dr L. made the interesting point that we find in the Nag Hammadi codices, gnostic as these are, ideas which we associate with Origen, and the Origenist disputes, such as the spiritual resurrection and the pre-existence of souls.  These apocrypha, then, such as the Gospel of Philip, could be held and used by people holding Origenist views, rather than being gnostics as such.  Indeed we may suppose that the texts may have been revised at this period with these ideas in mind.

I must write to Dr. L. and ask him for specifics on these two texts, which I think we would all find useful, as a possible literary and physical context for the Nag Hammadi codices.

Then it was off to Room 1, up rather a lot of stairs, and much too close to the book exhibitions in the North School, to hear William Tabbernee present a most interesting paper on bishops exiled to Pepuza by Constantius II, including Hilary of Poitiers, and so forced to live among the Montanists and potentially to seek bread from the latter.  Dr. T. very sensibly gave us the text of his article, with footnotes, which indicated the evidence — some from Hilary’s In Constantium.  He finished with photographs of the Pepuza area, which he excavated.  Let us hope that he and his team can return.

That was enough for me for the morning.  I wandered into the North School, where I enquired about the Gorgias dictionary, and met one of my old transcribers of Syriac at the Gorgias stand.  I was forced to apologise for my poor memory, and I hope no-one that I have corresponded with will be offended by what is a physical failure, rather than any rudeness. 

Then, fataly, I went to the Liverpool University Press stall and spent money.  Oh no!  Yes, I actually bought books: Theophilus of Edessa’s Chronicle; Selected Letters of Libanius; and Antioch as a centre of Hellenic culture.  These three totalled £35.  The only difficulty is where I shall put them at home!

I detoured back via my own stall, where I discovered that some careless person had messed up the display — which I fixed — and then back here. 

There’s quite a few sessions this afternoon.  But first, I have some emails to write!

Between 10:20 – 11:20, I spent my time in the marquee at my stall.  I arrived to find that a group of Russians with a film crew had positioned themselves with a table right in front of my table, thereby preventing anyone from visiting it.  Promises that they would not be long proved empty.  By dint of rearranging I was able to get the table at least partially accessible.

I’d brought my laptop, and typed up a diary.  I sold a paperback there, and, interestingly several visitors picked up a copy of the leaflet, apparently oblivious to the fact that they had one in the welcome pack.

But my presence there brought one dividend; David Michelson, whom I had missed earlier, appeared and we talked about his new project for an online Syriac dictionary of people and manuscripts.  It’s all database driven, he has plenty of staff.

The latter will be publishing an Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, by Sebastian Brock and van Rompay, which will be less than $100, and sounds like an essential purchase.

Meanwhile I was trying to set up Microsoft Expression Web on my PC, which I had bought by download this morning.  It refused to start, so I didn’t get anything done.  But it turned out that this is a known clash with Kaspersky anti-virus.  There was no Wifi in the Examination Schools — a very strange omission — so I didn’t find this out until later.

But I did get a call from Gemma at Queen’s to the effect that there was now a room I could change to (room 12 in the Queens Lane Annex) and I promptly did.  There is still some noise, but much less, and I hope to actually get some sleep tonight!  I was very pleased by this, as you may imagine.

I’ve just attended a truly fascinating paper “Marginalizing Paul of Samosata: scholia and Origenism in the exemplar of codex von der Goltz“, given by Eric Scherbenske.

The codex is a biblical ms., Aland number 1739, Ms. 184 B64 of the Lavra monastery on Mt. Athos.  This contains extensive scholia, which clearly come from the scriptorium of Caesarea in the 4-5th century, and the text itself was compared with the text in the works of Origen, as a marginal note states.

Dr Scherbenske gave out a handout containing 6 scholia from these, all of them of the greatest interest.  One, indeed, referred to books 6 and 7 of Eusebius’ lost work against Porphyry, indicating that he used a particular variant in his argument.  I must ask Dr. S. what this was.  Verbally he also mentioned that another scholion refers to material written by Eusebius in his own hand!

I’ve sneaked out.  It seems there is no Wifi in the examination schools, which is rather daft.  But I shall find something to do while I am sat there at the book display!  Now to go off to the Bodleian and renew that Bod. card!

Now looking at the programme.  There are a number of sessions today that I would like to attend.  None of the plenary lectures or workshops today appeal.  Not that this worries me — one conference member whom I met yesterday wisely said that most papers appeal to a narrow group of people within the patristics firmament.  It’s inevitable.

Among the short communications the following caught my eye:

9:00 Rm6 – Marginalizing Paul of Samosata: scholia and Origenism in the exemplar of codex von der Goltz
12:00 Rm6 – Origenism in 5th century upper Egypt: Shenoute of Atripe and the Nag Hammadi codices.
12:00 Rm1 – Phrygian roots of the Montanist movement
12:20 Rm1 – Exiled to Pepouza: consorting unwillingly with heretical Montanists, by William Tabbernee.

2:20 Rm12 – Chrysostom in Syriac dress
2:40 Rm12 – The Homilies on King Uzziah by John Chrysostom in Syriac translation.
3:00 Rm12 – Preaching as the audience heard it: unedited transcripts of patristic homilies

3:20 Rm15 – Some manuscript witnesses of Pelagius Ad Demetriadem and what they reveal about the manuscript tradition of the text.

The blue handbook of events is curiously organised, but this seems to be the stuff for Thursday.  I have only clash there, at 12, but will probably go to the Origenism paper.

There’s a gap between the end of the first paper (9-9:20) and the 12 noon papers.  I shall go up to the Bodleian and try to renew my Bod. card.

10:20-11:20 I will be in the marquee at the Chieftain Publishing stand, hoping to sell copies of the Eusebius book (only £24 at the conference).  I wonder if they have wi-fi?  If so, I could sit there and update this blog as I wait!  Must ask.

Breakfast here in Queen’s is 7:45-8:45 sharp.  I suppose it means that no-one gets sleep, so they may as well get up and eat whatever is offered.  My tum is still sore, so I shall pass. 

It’s 7:38 and sadly my fears about the rooms here in the Queen’s college Annex have been realised.  I’ve had virtually no sleep at all because of the noise.  The conference organisers should never have put people in here – only those who are heavy sleepers could have any chance of repose.  But it’s like everything else — an air of negligence pervades everything.

I may go home later today.  If I can’t sleep, I’m hardly going to be able to enjoy the conference very much.   

I’ve just got back from a very pleasant gathering at the Head of the River, where the food was as excellent as ever, and beautifully served.  One of us chose Italian, however, only to discover that they had run out of parmesan cheese — a curious failure, considering that a Tesco Express stood just down the street.

Glen Thompson and wife arrived, and Andrew Maguire and I made up the table — David Michelson did not appear.  But we exchanged anecdotes of what our website traffic was like, and how we came to start our sites, and so forth.  A pleasanter way to spend an evening is hard to imagine.  Likewise we swapped anecdotes of where we were staying and so forth.  David had chosen to stay at the Eastgate hotel, where parking was available. 

The most interesting statement came towards the end, when Glen listed the people whom he had tried to contact, who maintained websites of Early Christian material.   The CCEL site, for instance, was largely run by the computer department now, without any real input from anyone academically inclined.  Two or three others were mentioned who were unable to attend for various reasons.  And yet … are there really only eight or nine of us in this game? 

Afterwards David, showing more hardihood than I, went off to catch the tail end of an 8:30pm session.  I walked up Cornmarket to the Martyrs Memorial, where four years ago there was a Borders bookshop that was open late, next to a small Sainsburys.  The latter was still there; but oh! how changed.  It was nearly deserted, and a large area of the floor was unused.  The explanation was two doors down, in a thriving new Tesco Metro.  The bookshop had vanished with it. 

I bought some bottled water in the Sainsburys, and came back to my room.  The sound of heavy diesel engines from the bus stop still thunders in the night, in a way that the motor car never did.  It’s quite a warm, humid evening here.

Wish me luck on getting some sleep! 

Rather more cheery than I was earlier.  A Dutch chap came to the stall and showed signs of wanting to buy a copy of the Eusebius book, which is nice, particularly since I haven’t been at the stall that much.  I’ll be there between 10:20 and 11:20 tomorrow, tho, because I left a note saying that I would.

Clayton Coombs, who gave a paper on Eusebius ad Marinum — which is contained in my book — is in the same college annex that I am, and very kindly offered to take me out to dinner this evening.  But I’m actually off to the Head of the River to meet Glen Thompson of www.fourthcentury.com, Andrew Maguire of www.earlychurchtexts.com and David Michelson of www.syriac.ua.edu.  How we will recognise each other I know not, but I shall be wearing my name tag, carrying the conference bag, and wearing a bright orange tie, so I shall be visible enough.  David has an interesting project to do a website for Syriac literature, on which he delivered a paper this morning — while I was on the road, drat him — and since I created my own Syriac site, I hope to talk about his.

I’ve spent the afternoon first in recovering from the journey and the stress of the check-in arrangements.  After that, I went over to the conference, and started wandering around the bookstalls and talking to whoever I met.  At the Gorgias press stall I met George Kiraz himself, who was sat there looking bored but wisely remarked that you can either mind the stall or else attend the sessions, but doing both is impossible and attempting it is stressful.  There was a copy of his publication of Michael the Syrian’s Chronicle there, which is actually a photo-facsimile of the manuscript.  For those who have seen the Chabot edition of the same work, the original is infinitely more readable than the horrible Syriac text of the Chabot edition. 

At the Gorgias stall I met Bob Kitchen, who has been translating the Book of Steps and making a new translation of the Discourses of Philoxenus.  I asked him what he thought of the old Budge translation, and he explained that, rather than be influenced by it, he’d not read it while he was working on his own version.  The new translation has just been sent in to Cistercian Press, I gather.

At other stalls I met some other interesting people — you know who you are, if you’re reading this! — and we talked about their projects and, of course, mine.  It was actually very pleasant to find people who (mostly) knew my work, and whose work was likewise known to me.

While I was doing this, people started carrying crates through the hall, the signal for throwing out time.  It was 4:30, which seemed early.  I popped in to check if there was any sign of interest in the book — none — and then headed up to the Bodleian, with a view to renewing my Bod. card.  But I found that admissions closed at 4:30, so headed back here.

Time to crash, to relax a bit, and prepare for the evening ahead.  It’s clouded over here, and there is a grey sky and a wind blowing through the streets, which — thankfully — is preventing my room from becoming too hot.

There’s a bunch of promotional material from the welcome pack that I have yet to examine, although someone told me that my leaflet made quite an impact when you went through it.  Still somewhat sore at having to fight to get a complete welcome pack, tho.

Another interesting snippet came from another conference attendee — they’d come over from Holland this morning, and were staying at the Randolph Hotel.  That has always had the reputation of being the best hotel in town, indeed 5* in standard, and I must investigate.  Maybe I should try it.  But then, I don’t know what it cost!  I booked into Queens because I wanted to go to meals with other conference attendees, but now that I find we get breakfast only, the logic in that has mostly evapourated.

There’s a session tomorrow evening at Wycliffe Hall, about Evangelicals and the Fathers.  I’d quite like to go — but I’m not sure whether my feet will carry me that far!

This morning I drove to Oxford, and parked at a house in the suburbs using www.parkatmyhouse.com.  That went well — there was someone there and they even gave me a lift into Oxford.  So far, so good.  The sun is shining but it is not incredibly hot, and the various accidents on the M25 this morning — three! — did not cause me any delays.  I leave at 9:30 and arrive around lunchtime, in fact.

I was dropped off in the High Street.  The next step was to locate Queens College.  No sign outside, and a locked-looking door up a set of steps!  Lucky for me that I had a good idea where it was!  The stone buildings are magnificent, but within the arrangements are rather amateurish.

I find that the porter is friendly enough, but for some reason all visitor information has to be given verbally!  Where to go, and how to get there, for instance.  Also I discover that there is only breakfast on offer — which rather defeats the purpose of my booking a room here.

But off I go to the Queens Annex, room 46, to discover that I have a room which is (a) over the gate (b) on the stair, (c) facing an area of Queens Lane where the local loungers hang around and talk, a few feet from my window and worst of all (d) in direct line of sight, and a few feet, from a bus stop.  Oxford is overrun with buses, and every few seconds the roar of a diesel engine interrupts my thought.  I did attempt to change rooms, but there was no other to be had.  The poor girl who looks after the conference bookings is even worse off than I am, in a room where the windows have to be closed because of the buses, and the heat is intense.  At least my room does not get the sun, or so it seems.  For it is very hot in Oxford today. 

The conference organisation itself is rather shambolic.  I get a welcome pack, but later I discover that it is missing both the synoptic timetable and the blue book listing the conference events.  I have quite a fight with the woman on the desk to get a copy, too.  I wonder what else I am missing.  Later I discover that it is also missing the shoulder strap. 

I’ve been told that I can set up on tables under the posters in the marquee.  But there is no table, and no chair next to it.  Fortunately these are easy to obtain, and I set up the inspection copies, and lug the box of 20 copies across there as well.  Thank heavens that I did not order 40! 

Next step is to decide when I will be there to man the desk.  The sessions are mostly in the morning, and the main morning break is 10:20-11:20 (as I discover, with some difficulty).  I leave a note there indicating that I will be there at that time.  After all, I would like to go to the sessions too!

I go back to the college and ask about internet access.  As ever, they give verbal instructions (which don’t work) but they do have cables for sale at £5 each — well done, whoever thought of that! — which can just plug into the wall and work.  And this DOES work.  As you can tell.

Rather frazzled after that, but relieved to find my room may be noisy, but it is cool.  Still not entirely recovered from the illness earlier in the week, so I shall now lie down and attempt to work out what, if anything, I need to do this afternoon.