From my diary

News on the translation that I commissioned of the 4th century Acts of ps.Linus .  The second half arrived last night!  That’s the Passio Pauli portion.  I’ve reviewed it, and it seems very close to completion, bar a couple of sentences.  That’s good news, and it will be good to have that complete and paid for.

I was enquiring last week about ancient Latin translations of the homilies of John Chrysostom.  A kind correspondent sent me a copy of an article by Sever J. Voicu. [1]  This gives a very nice overview of the evidence, and is so good, in fact, that I have translated portions of it and might write a post to convey the highlights.

Last night I was discussing online with others like myself what might be done to restore some reliable information about Mithras to the web.  Some useful ideas emerged, and possibly a direction.

It was also suggested that I try using a CMS — Content Management System — such as Joomla.  I might experiment a bit with this.

 

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  1. [1]Sever J. Voicu, Le prime traduzioni latine di Crisostomo, In: “Cristianesimo latino e cultura greca. XXI Incontro di studiosi dell’antichità cristiana”, 1993, p.397-445.

Life of Mar Aba – chapter 23

I’m still translating chapters of the 6th century Saint’s life of the East Syriac patriarch, Mar Aba.  And I’ve had a complaint!  Let me say that I’m doing this, not because these hagiographical texts from the ages of superstition are edifying — far from it, to me — but because this particular one contains valuable historical information about how the attitude to Christians in Persia changed in the late 6th century.

Unfortunately the work is studded with material whose historicity is doubtful, to say the least.  The next chapter is probably an example.  It reads like identikit hagiography to me.  The work of God in people’s lives is always wonderful to hear, but this material does not seem to tell of it; the focus in all this sort of writing is on how wonderful the human Mar Aba is, not on God.  

Oh well.  If there is more good stuff in this Life, we have to get to it past this sort of stuff.

23.  There was at that place a plague, and those who saw it trembled and those who heard about it were terrified.  The blessed one was asked to leave; but he would not, and said, “Death and life are in God’s hand; wherever I am, I am his in life and death.  It is necessary only that we believe in him and walk in good works according to his will.  Believe in him, and stay.”  And many remained and were not struck down by that harsh plague.  But if anyone was hit, he blessed oil and gave it, and they annointed him and, depending on his faith, he recovered from that disease.

A woman from that village, whose husband, named Arwândâd (?), was the judge, was tempted by the evil spirit.  She came and with her husband threw herself for a long time at the door of the blessed one, to  get him to come and put his hand on her head.  But he would not, but blessed oil and sent it to her.  She annointed herself and the devil departed from her and she was tempted no more.  All who knew her previously saw what had happened and praised God.

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Life of Mar Aba – chapter 22

22. Then the blessed one came to the village which is the centre of magianism.  When he came to them, they said, “It has never happened, that a Christian came into this village and spent the night here.  But now the leader of the Christians has been sent to us, so that we give him a house and he live with us.”  Those who were gathered there from the various provinces were at once angry, and boasted at once, “We will dispute with him and convert him to magianism.”  But God altered their feeling against him, and they came to greet him. And when they heard the divine wisdom that was in him, they came constantly with their arguments to him and disputed with the holy one, and through God’s grace he dissolved their objections, countered their reasonings and refuted their errors.  Often also they sought to kill him; but God limited their wickedness and confined them to peace.  When they stopped disputing with him and just asked him about God and the world, good and evil, the resurrection, the judgement to come and the life ever after in Christ, the Master spoke with them and taught them about all this.  They marvelled at his spirit-filled words and closeness to God.  Some disputed about this with each other, some with their teachers.  Also many magians came from other places, to hear the teaching of the Master and to see how he behaved.  For everywhere they called him the god of the place because of his spirit-filled teaching, his compassion for the poor and his care for the sick.  But he had no financial dealings with any of them, and although the local Rad and the gentleman of the place said that he might satisfy his needs from them, he would not do so.  Many believed in him.  For thus did God turn their evil into good.

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Wikipediocracy: a Wikipedia-watch site

Incoming links revealed to me the existence of the Wikipediocracy site this weekend.

Our Mission: We exist to shine the light of scrutiny into the dark crevices of Wikipedia and its related projects; to examine the corruption there, along with the structural flaws; and to inoculate the unsuspecting public against the torrent of misinformation, defamation, and general nonsense that issues forth from one of the world’s most frequently visited websites, the “encyclopedia that anyone can edit.”

I wish them well.  Wikipedia presents itself as the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.  But a very large number of people have found themselves drawn into disputes with anonymous trolls there, and then found that Wikipedia’s processes are opaque, arbitary, unfair, administered by children and more trolls, and most of these ordinary people have been forced out or been left bruised and upset.  It’s not a safe place.  And it’s very hard to get past the puff to the reality, not least because Wikipedia policy is to hide information critical of Wikipedia. 

Inevitably the forum contains a certain amount of complaining.  People are likely to arrive here bleeding, after all.  But I have already learned of various meta- and para-wikipedia organisations, chapters, mailing lists and so forth, the existence of which is probably known to a tiny handful.  Most of those who contribute to Wikipedia will not realise that their fate will be decided, not openly, but by one of these backstairs methods.

Recommended.

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From my diary

I’m still thinking about the sermons of the late 4th century church father John Chrysostom, the most important of the Greek fathers.  In particular I’m thinking about the one only extant in a short latin version, De recipiendo Serveriano, That Severian must be received, preached after his (temporary) reconciliation with Severian of Gabala.

I mentioned that his sermon De regressu, On his return from exile, existed in a short latin version, but that the full Greek text was retrieved by Wenger, who also printed a full ancient Latin version.  The latter came from a homiliary, a genre of text about which I know nothing, and about which a Google search at first sight tells me  nothing.

In the process, tho, I have come across a 9th century manuscript of the collection of 38 latin homilies!  It’s at St. Gall, Cod. 113.  The description is here:

  • S. 3363 Johannes Chrisostomus: 37 ächte oder untergeschobene Reden >Incipit liber omeliarum Johannis Chrisostomi< dazwischen S. 251 eine mit der Ueberschrift: Incipit Severiani epi. sermo de pace, gedr. in Petrus Chrysologus Venet. 1742 F. p. 178.
    • cf. Severiani Homiliae nunc primum editae Venet. 1827.
  • S. 363399 >Incipit de eo quod non laeditur homo nisi a semetipso.< Scio quod a crassioribus
  • S. 399460 >Incipit eiusdem s. Joannis de cordis compunctione liber primus< und liber secundus pag. 436. Anfang: Cum tantum intueor b. Demetri
  • S. 460530 >Inc. eiusdem de reparatione lapsi<

OK, so this is all Chrysostom material.  On folios 3-363 is the medieval collection.  On folio 251 there is the start of Severian’s reply On Peace, again in an abbreviated form.  On folio 248 is the start of De recipiendo Severiano.

These are the items printed by Migne.  So it is nice to see a medieval manuscript version of them, as Migne’s text is not necessarily that reliable!

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The selfish generation get a bit more payback

There has been hardly any reporting of this story, so obviously there is no need for anyone to, like, pay much attention.

The list of effective antibiotics has been dwindling as the bacteria became resistant, and now it’s down to one.

So, yes, getting gonorrhea now means that you have to go in and get antibiotics through a needle. And then everyone with whom you’ve had sex in the last 60 days has to get tested, too.

Once gonorrhea becomes resistant to the last of our cephalosporin antibiotics — “it’s only a matter of time,” according to Dr. Gail Bolan, Director of STD Prevention at the CDC in today’s announcement — we will have no treatment. Then when it gets into your bloodstream, it will be lethal.

There is no necessity to learn morality from Moses.  You can always learn it from microbes instead.

Meanwhile:

Thousands march to change outdated attitudes on sexuality.  SlutWalk was formed after a Canadian policeman made ill-considered remarks about rape and women’s appearance

As the man said:

20. The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk.  21. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.

But those who decide what is ‘normal’ in any society care very little for the misery they cause in the lives of the less powerful.  Which is one reason why we should pay very little attention to their demands of us.

Of course you don’t have to be a Christian to be moral.  We are told that every day.  But, funnily enough, only the Christians point out these simple, obvious moral lessons.

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The overwhelming quantity of John Chrysostom

It can be a shock, sometimes, to remember that not every writer is extant in a single manuscript.  That shock just hit me, when I decided, in a weak moment, that I would “just” have a quick search in the British Library Manuscripts catalogue for works by Chrysostom.

I’m looking for copies of the ancient Latin translation of De Severiano recipiendo, in truth.  But since I wasn’t specific, I got the lot.

Boy did I get a lot!  103 hits, to be precise.  Mostly homilies on scripture.

Mind you, the quality was rather low.  Arundel. 542 has a catalogue description which is plainly the result of uncorrected OCR.  I don’t mind; but I’d like to see the raw image!  On the other hand, someone has indexed the authors out of this mess with some skill and effort — well done!  The ms. also contains some homilies of Severian of Gabala at the end, it seems.

I drew blank, but it’s a reminder that finding stuff by Chrysostom in all this mass will not be easy.

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From my diary

It’s far, far too hot to do ANYTHING!!!

Turn off your computers, disconnect your wifi, and go out of your houses and frolic on the grass.

That should produce rain, and then we can all get back to work again.

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Chrysostom homilies which I just can’t access

There are a couple of homilies by Chrysostom in the Patrologia Graeca which do not seem to exist in English, and which ought to be interesting.  They were delivered after he returned from his first exile, and attempted a reconciliation with his enemy, Severian of Gabala, who had been needlessly alienated by the arrogance of John’s staff.

Back in 2010 I found that in Migne there were three sermons; De Regressu Sancti Joannis (PG52, col. 421-424), De Recipiendo Severiano (col. 423-426), and Severian’s reply De Pace (col. 425).  All three are given in Latin, and all seemed far too short to be full versions.  Some time ago I learned that the Greek of the Severian existed, in a much longer version.  It needs to be translated into English, but that project went nowhere.

At the time I asked a scholar specialising in Chrysostom whether Greek texts existed for the Chrysostom homilies.  I got the less than precise reply, “look in the CPG vol. 2, after #4438, and also its supplement.”

This evening, two years on, I have finally managed to do it!  And … well … it’s not #4438.  De Regressu is CPG 2, 4394, and De recipiendo Severiano is 4395.  4396-4401 are further sermons concerned with his various exiles, 4401 being his last sermon.

The complete Greek text of De Regressu does exist.  It was published by A. Wenger, L’Homelie de saint Jean Chrysostome “a son retour d’Asie”, in Revue des Etudes Byzantines 19 (Melanges R. Janin), 1961, p.110-123.  This doesn’t seem to be online.  The Latin text printed by Migne is assigned doubtfully to Annianus of Celeda.

The Greek text of De recipiendo Severiano is lost.  All we have is Migne’s Latin, again doubtfully assigned to Annianus of Celeda.

Apparently Andre Wilmart, La collection des 38 homilies latines de saint Jean Chrysostome, JTS 18, 1918, 305-327; p.324 n. 36 talks about the former, and in n.24 about the latter.  But this too I have been unable to access.

And the supplement to the CPG indicates that there is discussion of the mss and editions of the Latin version in W. Wenk, Zur Sammlung der 38 Homilien.[1]  And that is offline too.

Hmm.

UPDATE: But I spoke too soon!  Wenger’s text of De Regressu is at Persee.fr, here!  I did search Persee.  But only Google picked up the match.  Evidently the search engine at Persee is useless!

UPDATE2: I discover that De Regressu has been translated into English as part of Pauline Allen’s John Chrysostom (1999).  There is a Google books preview here.  Apparently the Sources Chretiennes were bringing out an edition of Chrysostom’s letters at that point.

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  1. [1]Wolfgang Wenk, Zur Sammlung der 38 Homilien des Chrysostomus Latinus : mit Edition der Nr. 6, 8, 27, 32 und 33, Wiener Studien, Beiheft 10, Wien, 1988.

A text describing different religions by Abu Qurra

One of the Syriac Christian writers who mention Persia is the 8th century writer Theodore Abu Qurra.  Quite by accident I have stumbled across a French translation of an interesting text by him on the different religions of his time.[1]  The abstract indicates its contents:

The Syriac Theodore Abū Qurra (c.750-c. 825), Melkite bishop of Harrân, has left many works. Among them, the Treatise (Mîmar) on the Existence of the Creator and the True Religion, in Arabic contains two outstanding chapters, translated and commented here.

First, a carefully organized account of religious in his time : Pagans (who will be called « Sabaens » later), Mazdaeans (of Zurvanite conviction), Samaritans, Jews, Christians, Manichaeans (who were practising specific interpretation of the canonical Gospels), Marcionites, Bardesanites, Muslims.

Second, a lenghty allegory which presents common points with the Hymn of the Pearl. Its expounding by the author aims at giving a definite clue to the discernment of the only true religion : God resembles man, and its up to human reason to judge in the matter.

The work is of course in Christian Arabic. 

The first part is really rather interesting.  Were there really still Marcionites and followers of Bardaisan in Syria ca. 800 AD, in the Abbassid period?

The work is preserved in a unique manuscript of the 17th century which is missing its opening section, ms. 373 of the monastery of the basilian monks at Deir al-Shir, wherever that is.  The manuscript contains five works by Abu Qurra, and our text is on folios 2-59.  The work was probably written around 780 AD, and has been edited Louis Cheikho in 1912, and again by Ignace Dick in 1982.

I grew up in the mountains, where I did not know what men there are.  But one day, prompted by a business matter concerning myself, I went down to the towns where men gather, and I saw them divided into different religions.

1.  One group, who follow the religion of the ancient pagans, called me to come among them.  They say that we should worship the seven stars, [i.e.] the sun, the moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury and Venus, and the twelve signs of the zodiac, because these are the ones that create and govern all creatures and which give good fortune and happiness, or bad luck and distress, in this world.  Their prophet on this matter is the wise Hermes.

2.  I left these people and the Mazdaeans approached me, saying “Leave them, they talk wind.  Come to us, for our teaching is solid.”

They explained that their great god is called Zurvan, and Zurvan is Destiny.  Before the world was created, he sacrificed for a thousand years so that a child should be born to him, and his wife conceived a son called Ormazd.   After he had been conceived for 900 years, his father Zurvan doubted whether he had indeed been conceived, and that doubt engendered in the womb of his wife another child, i.e. the devil.  Zurvan learned this and said, “Whichever of children comes before me first, I shall give him the kingship.”  Ormazd, in his mother’s womb, had knowledge of this word and shared it with the devil.  The latter, when he knew this, pierced the womb of his mother, came out by his own effort, and presented himself to his father.  He was dark, black of face, and hideous.  His father asked him, “Who are you?”  He replied, “I am your son, the devil, born of your doubt.  Give me then the royalty that you promised.  Zurvan was sad, but as he did not want to go back on his word, he gave him royalty over the world for nine thousand years.

As for Ormazd, his mother gave birth to him at the end of a thousand years.  He seemed like a completely beautiful light.  He created the heaven and the earth and the different intermediary natures, in the beauty and brilliance in which this world is seen.  All the same, the latter was in darkness, without light.  Ormazd was sad, and sought counsel from the devil.  He advised him to marry his mother.  He did so and had relations with her.  [His mother] conceived and bore the sun, for light by day.  [The devil advised him] to marry his sister.  He did so, and had relations with her.  [His sister] conceived and gave birth; the moon, to illuminate the night.  Likewise the Mazdaeans, like their god Ormazd, marry their mothers, their sisters and their daughters, so that they shall have children like the sun and the moon.

Such are their gods.  In imitation of Ormazd, Madaeans are allowed to enjoy all the pleasures of the world, because that is why [Ormazd] created them.

Their prophet who, they say, brought this truth to them, is Zoroaster.

I wish I had time to do more of this text.  It is really rather interesting.  But … did Theodore Abu Qurra really meet all these groups; or is this a literary way to describe the contents of his reading?

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  1. [1]Guy Monnot, Abu Qurra et la pluralite de religions, Revue de l’histoire des religions 208 (1991), 49-71, online here at Persee.fr.  A PDF is here.