Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
A very useful list of these is here at Fourth Century. Very useful indeed!
I’ve noted an omission from their page on Eusebius of Caesarea, tho: they do not list the translation of Eusebius Quaestiones that David Miller &c made and I published. Unfortunately there seems to be no way to contact them!
A little more struggling with the PHP scripts for the new Mithras site, and they seem to actually work on the website now, in the version in my development area. I haven’t written any content yet, tho: no point until saving works properly!
I’ve got a dose of gastric flu, however, so that is slowing me down perceptibly. I think that I shall just go and sleep this afternoon. Which is what I did yesterday.
Something I saw in a magazine today:
Time is the only true currency.
Which is horribly true. I’m about to sign up for a job for six months during which time I will be too tired to do much else. It’s getting worse too. Employers increasingly demand that I work 8 hours a day when they used to demand 7.5, without — of course — offering more money. Many demand “unpaid overtime”, which seems to me no different from stealing. Not that I can work at my profession for 8 hours straight … I’m pretty much done after about 6.
I suppose this is why people “downshift”. They’re just trying to get back their lives. But how many of us can afford to?
Mind you, I’m better off than many. At least I can take a couple of months off, if I want to. Most people cannot.
Perhaps I should think about taking a gap year.
I came across a post online which made some curious claims about Origen, repeated from here. In particular:
“The Scriptures,” Origen maintained, “are of little use to those who understand them as they are written.”
But did Origen say this? At the Logos forums the same question is asked, but with little result.
A Google Books search quickly reveals a likely US source for the quotation: Charles Anthon, A Classical Dictionary: Containing the Principle Proper Names Mentioned in Ancient Authors (1841: this reprint 1888), vol. 2, p.936:
For, whether from a defect in judgement or from a fault in his education, he applied to the Scriptures the allegorical method which the Platonists used in interpreting the heathen mythology. He says himself, “that the source of many evils lies in adhering to the carnal or external part of Scripture. Those who do so shall not attain the kingdom of God. Let us therefore seek after the spirit and the substantial fruit of the word, which are hidden and mysterious.” And again, “the Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written.”
This gives us a little more to work with: and a search on “origen carnal external” quickly takes us to Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History[1], 1824, vol. 1, p.218, note h, which states:
h Origen in his Stromata, book x. expresses himself in the following manner: “the source of many evils lies in adhering to the carnal or external part of Scripture. Those who do so shall not attain to the kingdom of God. Let us therefore seek after the spirit and the substantial fruit of the word which are hidden and mysterious.” And again “the Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written.” One would think it impossible that such expressions should drop from the pen of a wise man. But the philosophy which this great man embraced with such zeal was one of the sources of his delusion. He could not find in the Bible the opinions he had adopted as long as he interpreted that sacred book according to its literal sense. But Plato, Aristotle, Zeno and indeed the whole philosophical tribe could not fail to obtain for their sentiments a place in the gospel when it was interpreted by the wanton inventions of fancy and upon the supposition of a hidden sense to which it was possible to give all sorts of forms. Hence all who desired to model Christianity according to their fancy or their favourite system of philosophy embraced Origen’s method of interpretation.
Anthon, it seems, simply quoted Mosheim, here translated from the Latin[2] and doubtless paraphrased along the way, but omitted the reference. A more accurate translation was made by James Murdock (1832)[3], and in vol.1, p.181, we find the following:
(8) Origen in his Stromata l.x, cited by Ch. de la Rue, Opp. tom i., p. 41, says, Multorum malorum occasio est, si quis in carne Scripturae maneat. Quae qui fecerint, regnum Dei non consequentur. Quamobrem spiritum Scripturae fructusque quaeramus qui non dicuntur manifesti. He had said a little before, Non valde eos juvat Scriptura, qui eam intelligunt ut scriptum est. Who would suppose such declarations could fall from the lips of a wise and considerate person? But this excellent man suffered himself to be misled by the causes mentioned and by his love of philosophy. He could not discover in the sacred books all that he considered true so long as he adhered to the literal sense; but allow him to abandon the literal sense, and to search for recondite meanings, and those books would contain Plato, Aristotle, Zeno and the whole tribe of philosophers. And thus nearly all those who would model Christianity according to their own fancy or their favourite system of philosophy have run into this mode of interpreting Scripture.
The Latin does indeed more or less mean what is given by Maclaine.
The Stromata of Origen is, of course, a lost work. But here we get a proper reference, to the edition of Charles de la Rue, no less, which is what the Patrologia Graeca reprints. So we can now use Migne to examine the text!
It’s PG 11 (Origen vol. 1), col. 99 f. The first quotation from book 10 of the Stromata is on col. 106 C-D, and comes from a Latin source, Jerome’s 3 books of Commentary on Galatians, chapter 5, discussing Gal. 5:13. The second is from the same source, col. 105 D, and reads somewhat differently to the quotation:
Sed neque in his consequentiam desperare debemus: quia opera carnis divinorum voluminum historia continent; non valde eos juvans qui sic eam intellegunt, ut scripta est.
I can’t quite make out from the Latin what the context is, except that the next sentence refers to multiple marriages by the patriarchs and the like. Andrew Cain made a translation of this work for the Fathers of the Church series, and I can see on Google Books a preview of p.218 with the first quotation:
Clinging to the flesh [that is, the literal meaning] of Scripture opens up the door for many evils. “Those who do these things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” So, then, let us seek the spirit of Scripture and the fruits that are not readily apparent to the eye.
Unfortunately I can’t view p.216 or 217 which must contain our quotation. Can anyone else have any more luck? It is infuriating not to have access, I must say!
UPDATE: A kind correspondent has sent me copies of those pages. Here is what Jerome says:
5. 13a. Brothers, you were called to be free. Just do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh (The word “use” is implied; the latin translator supplied it because it is not found in the Greek).
Given the obscurity of this verse, I have thought it best to insert a translated portion from the tenth book of Origen’s Miscellanies. I have done this not because individual parts [of this verse] cannot be explained according to their proper context and sense, but because, if they are isolated from the preceding passage, they comprise a single, indiscernible mass, and, if they are understood literally, they seem internally dissonant and logically inconsistent.
These are Origen’s words:
This is a difficult passage and so it requires elucidation. The one who is free and who, in a more elevated sense, pursues the Spirit and truth disdains both the letter and the types which precede [the realities they foreshadow]. He must not look down on lesser [Christians] and give those who cannot grasp spiritual profundities an occasion for despairing completely about their plight. For although they are weak, and although they are called flesh in comparison with the Spirit, they are nevertheless the flesh of Christ. For if he apprehends the mystery of the love which senses the lesser one, let him do what he can for the weak to make sure that a brother for whom Christ died may not perish in deficiency of knowledge . Watch closely to see whether this is the sense that emerges from the discussion below.
“Brothers, you were called to be free.” Perhaps he says this because not everyone could understand the calling to freedom. This is why you now hear, “Just do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.” The greater must serve the lesser out of love, and he who aspires to be greater will become the servant of all. Therefore, the spiritual man must not tear to pieces [believers who are] Christ’s flesh, nor must he give them an opportunity to bite and devour one another. The one who walks by the Spirit and abides by the words of Scripture in the spirit of Scripture must not gratify the desires of his flesh.
Most take literally the injunction, “Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” If we do the same, Paul will do a sudden turn-about and contradict the argument and the point of his entire epistle. He continues right after this, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” The discourse has to some extent been internally consistent up to this point. If we again subscribe to the literal meaning, Paul leads us at once from a discussion about flesh and Spirit to random precepts, that is, “The deeds of the flesh are obvious,” and by contrast, “The fruit of the Spirit is love,” and so on. But we must not be dismayed by the implication of these statements. The divine books record deeds of the flesh — a fact that is not edifying for those who take the narrative literally. Who will not be prompted to become a slave to extravagance and regard sexual immorality as something permissible when he reads that Judah propositioned a prostitute and that the patriarchs had many wives at once? How will someone not be inspired to worship idols when he thinks that the blood of bulls and the rest of the sacrifices detailed in Leviticus have no further significance attached to them than what the letter of the Law conveys? What Scripture teaches about hostilities is clearly shown in this passage, “O wretched daughter of Babylon, happy is he who will repay you for what you have done to us. Happy is he who will seize your infants and dash them against the rocks,” and also in this one, “Every morning I destroyed all the wicked in the land,” and so on. Comparable passages may be adduced which deal with discord, jealousy, rage, quarrels, and dissensions. If we do not go with a spiritual interpretation of them, examples from history will stir us toward these [vices] rather than deter us from them. Heresies, too, have taken rise more from the literal interpretation of Scripture than from the work of our flesh, as most people think. We learn envy and drunkenness from the letter of the Law. After the flood Noah got drunk, and so did the patriarchs when they were in Egypt visiting their brother Joseph. There are stories in the Book of Kingdoms and elsewhere about revelries. For instance, David danced in celebration and tambourines made loud music before God’s Ark of the Covenant. One might ask how the literal word of divine Scripture, which is called its flesh, leads us into sorcery and magic, unless we make our way toward the spirit of the same Scripture. This is what is meant, I believe, when it is said that Moses was educated in all the wisdom and learning of the Egyptians, and that Daniel and the three boy’s were found to be ten times wiser than the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers.
Clinging to the flesh [that is, the literal meaning] of Scripture opens up the door for many evils. “Those who do these things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” So, then, let us seek the spirit of Scripture and the fruits that are not readily apparent to the eye. For the fruit of the Spirit is found in Scripture only with great effort, exertion, and careful study. I reckon that Paul was referring ever so carefully and cautiously to the literal meaning of Scripture when he said, “The deeds of the flesh are obvious.” As for the spiritual meaning, he did not say that the fruit of the Spirit is obvious, but he said instead, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,” and so on. Now, if we leave behind types and move towards the Spirit and the truth of Scripture, first love is spread out before us, and then we move on to joy and peace on the way to acquiring patience. Who would not be educated in mercy and goodness when he regards aspects of the Law that seem gloomy to some — I mean penalties, wars, the toppling of nations, and the threats delivered by the prophets to the people — as remedies rather than punishments? For the Lord will not be angry forever. Since these things are evident to us, our faith will be more enlightened by reason and our conduct will be guided by temperance, which continence and chastity follow, and then the Law will begin to be favorable to us.
Here ends the quotation from Origen.
And there are our two passages. Origen does indeed say what he is quoted to say. He makes some interesting arguments, but today these issues would be dealt with by the idea of progressive revelation, rather than by this approach, whose weaknesses are obvious.
Interesting, tho, that he dismisses the literal sense of “David danced in celebration and tambourines made loud music before God’s Ark of the Covenant.” I have certainly heard that verse used to justify both in pentecostal circles.
And I have to say that Andrew Cain has produced a rather excellent translation here. It’s readable and comprehensible and, while we may not agree with all the points made by Origen, there is no doubt as to what he is saying.
This morning I opened volume 1 of the Loeb edition of Pliny’s letters, and read a few. I also read the introduction. This was fine, but I found it infuriating that the text did not include the chapter titles from the front of each book, since these alone supply the names of the people to whom Pliny was writing.
This afternoon I worked on my Mithras site a bit more. I’m still coding, and still not confident that everything is right, but it’s getting there.
I’ve mentioned a number of cases where Christian groups are being banned by universities on one pretext or another. Of course, in a secular way, such persecution is disgusting.
But if we look at it from the perspective of eternity, it looks very different.
God is allowing these hateful and malicious persons to reveal themselves. He is allowing them to target the real Christians on campus. And He is allowing them to say, thereby, “These are the real Christians, the ones whom the world hates. These are the ones who are despised, who won’t conform, who we fear and hate.” He is making the world proclaim the truth of the Gospel.
Most universities have a range of groups onsite which call themselves Christian. These range from chaplaincy groups, to denominational societies, down to groups of unbelievers with a religious bent. Quite often, the unbelievers point to these, and ask rhetorically, “why do you think you’re special?”
But now God has allowed a persecution to take place. And … some are found worthy, and some are not. And the judgement is proclaimed on university noticeboards, and in the press.
Praise God that Exeter University Christian Union was found worthy a couple of years ago. And that the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship at Tufts University has been found worthy as well.
Always good to see God vindicating his name!
The tide of religious persecution in our universities has reached yet another nadir. I learn today via Virtue Online here of this news report:
Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts has banned a Christian group from campus because the group requires student leaders to adhere to “basic biblical truths of Christianity.” The decision to ban the group, called the Tufts Christian Fellowship, was made by officials from the university’s student government, specifically the Tufts Community Union Judiciary.
The ban means the group “will lose the right to use the Tufts name in its title or at any activities, schedule events or reserve university space through the Office for Campus Life,” according to the Tufts Daily. Additionally, Tufts Christian Fellowship will be unable to receive money from a pool that students are required to pay into and that is specifically set aside for student groups.
There are various procedural pretexts for this hateful action. One of the bigots even posted (anonymously) a “justification” in the comments section at Virtue Online, which reveals the real intent:
Had the group dropped the “biblical truths” requirement, and adopted democracy, they could have still chosen leaders who shared their beliefs, albeit with a ballot and not discrimination.
The technique is becoming familiar.
All student societies are open to all students. Christians are a minority. Any student may be a member; so naturally the leaders must be believers. Otherwise a group of hate-filled non-Christians — and clearly we have some here — can gather a mass of drunken unbelievers in the bar, turn up to the vote, and simply take over the society in one go, and vote it into non-existence.
Precisely the same technique was used in the Exeter University persecution in England. The pretext is “anti-discrimination”, as a means to prevent the Christians on campus from having recognised groups and blocking their access to funds which Christians are obliged to contribute to.
I have written to the PR department for Tufts university to enquire whether the university endorses this action, and if not, what it proposes to do about it, and likewise to the president of the university. No university should allow vicious attacks on minorities like this.
I have also written a response to the anonymous persecutor on Virtue Online. It occurred to me, as I wrote that the “Christian groups on campus” not selected for persecution must be gnashing their teeth at being found unworthy. For persecution is the litmus test of sincerity. “Not all those who say, ‘Lord, Lord’…” after all, and “They have hated me and they will hate you”.
The Lord has allowed this persecution, I think, to make clear in the eyes of the whole university who is, and is not, Christian. Which is rather encouraging, isn’t it? Well worth the inconvenience.
UPDATE: I got a response from a certain Kimberley Thurler at the Tufts University PR department. But the email, as from the university, was in fact merely the text of a statement on the university chaplaincy site here. The chaplaincy, then, is the voice of the university and vice versa. The statement means nothing, unfortunately, except that the university endorsed the persecution and is now trying to deflect the criticism.
Curiously this official university chaplaincy — and therefore the university — has an official religious policy which is officially non-Christian:
The University Chaplaincy upholds the Universalist tradition and commitment to inclusivity.
I could not but be reminded inexpressibly of official Roman religion, when I read those pages.
I find this site reports on it. A comment links to this article by one of the haters (does not display in IE), a certain Brandon Archambault:
As a Christian and a Tufts student, I am calling for the immediate de-funding of the so-called Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF), a chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA (IVCF). IVCF continues to promote anti-gay hate speech while acting as the oversight advisory for TCF’s funding, taken from the Student Activities Fee. This is unacceptable.
Last October, I was threatened by an employee of IVCF. They told me to be careful about whom I complained to, because “the last time this happened it cost everyone a lot of money, and we had to get lawyers involved.” (etc)
As IVCF New England Regional Director Chris Nichols told me in Nov. 2011, if a gay person was elected to an exec-board position, refused to resign and IVCF could not otherwise compel them, then “IVCF would not continue its relationship with that chapter.”
Note that this person has apparently been harassing IVCF for almost a year. In the comments is the following dry response to this hysterical piece of hate:
… they didn’t really threaten you. It appears you have been threatening them (you’ve been leading efforts to defund them for months now), and they just informed you that they intend to do everything within their power to stay on campus. It’s not really a threat to say that lawyers will get involved when you are the reason that the lawyers would have to get involved in the first place.
Isn’t it curious that accusations against the Christians always come from those involved in vice, either personally or commercially?[1] Why any university worth the name would tolerate the activities of this revolting individual to introduce a censorship is rather hard to imagine.
UPDATE (19th November 2012): An article in the Wall Street Journal online indicates that Tufts has a history of repressing political dissent too. Which raises the question: why doesn’t some conservative foundation sue the heck out them under US free speech clauses in the constitution?
Anthony Alcock has uploaded to Archive.org an English translation of a 4th century Coptic apocryphon, The story of Joseph the Carpenter. It’s here:
http://archive.org/details/
The text, in the Bohairic dialect of Coptic, was published by Paul de Lagarde in Aegyptiaca, (Göttingen, 1883), which is online here, with a pointer to the Google books volume (inaccessible to non-US readers).
The text was issued without a table of contents, and Dr Alcock has thoughtfully provided one:
Joseph the Carpenter: 1-37.
Dormition of Mary: 38 – 63
Wisdom of Solomon: 64 – 106
Ecclesiastes: 107 – 206
Psalms: 207 – 208
Apostolic Canons: 209 -291
He writes:
The principal text of Joseph the Carpenter is in Bohairic, with a complete Arabic text and fragments of a Sahidic text.
The Arabic text, published by Georg Wallin in Leipzig 1722 with a Latin version, is in Paris (the Bibliothèque Nationale).
M.R. James used the Latin version to provide a summary of the text for his Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1924) p.84ff.
The Sahidic fragments are in Rome (Catalogus codicum copticorum 1782 no. 121). Only sections 14 to the beginning of 24 of the Sahidic version have survived.
The English version is based on the Bohairic, and reference is made from time to time to the other two versions.
And:
The major study of this story was published in 1951 by Siegfried Morenz (Die Geschichte vom Joseph dem Zimmermann, Berlin and Leipzig).
Marvellous! Get it while it’s hot.
I’ve been doing some more work on the Mithras Project pages. This has been entirely PHP and perl coding, tho.
Daryn Lehoux kindly sent me a copy of the paperback of his book, Astronomy, Weather, and Calendars in the Ancient World. CUP are now selling this on Amazon at USD$40. It’s very excellent, and I shall have to spend some time with it, once my pile of books from last weekend diminishes!
I’ve just come across something that looks weird. When I open Google mail in IE9, and hit Alt+Space to minimize it, I find that the menu bar has been interfered with, and the close, minimize and restore options are not there. Do the same on any other site and it’s fine. Do the same in Chrome, on Google mail, and it’s fine.
I can only suppose that Google’s developers, knowing that busy people use keyboard shortcuts, have decided deliberately to harass Internet Explorer users by disabling it, to try to force them to use Chrome. Nasty.
There’s probably some way you can override this, but a Google search brought up nothing.
Does this just happen to me?
UPDATE: I find that if you right click in the top left hand corner and select “Menu bar”, check that it is ticked, and restart IE, it then works fine. The downside is that you lose a bit of real estate by having the File | Edit |View etc bar visible all the time.
Apparently people in the US are noticing that their universities arent much good either. Via Trevix Wax I found this article:
Shocker. An increasing number of intellectuals and major publications are questioning the value of America’s colleges. Recently Newsweek ran a cover story suggesting that college is a lousy investment, something not worth nearly the dollars or the time that is invested. In response to these sorts of criticisms and questions, the most recent edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education (Oct 19, 2012) includes an article entitled, “College, Reinvented.” This article contains 15 suggestions, by 15 educators, on how we might improve the system.
It also mentions the standard excuse:
Anybody familiar with higher education knows that faculty members often are expected to excel both in classroom instruction and research/writing. In this article, Robin Wilson argues that colleges should allow faculty members to choose one or the other of these two skills.
Won’t work. And in UK universities, faculty members are not even expected to excel in instruction, so much as to do some now and then, quality immaterial.
There’s got to be changes, I think. The current situation isn’t working. It’s a bit like a “you can’t get there from here” situation: how on earth do we actually get some decent education done in our universities? At the moment the whole system is loaded to ensure that most students do not get value for money/time spent there. In the humanities it also causes huge quantities of junk “research” to be produced, for career purposes, much of it of little permanent value.
I don’t know the answers, but it is good to see that our rotten university systems are being examined.