More British Library mss.

The British Library continue their digitisation of their manscripts, which is very welcome.  They’ve moved on to the Royal collection, although the focus seems to have drifted back to digitising “pretty books” and medievalia, rather than the material that classics and patristics scholars will want.

There is a Tertullian in that collection, which ought to be online.  But I have given up making suggestions and requests, since it never seems to have any effect.

In the current upload only one volume is of interest:

  • Royal 6 C. i   — Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, England (St Augustine’s, Canterbury), 4th quarter of the 11th century.
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From my diary

Home, with piles of electronic gear.  But when will I get time to set it up?  That said, being unable to use my main machine is becoming increasingly irksome. 

I’ve been looking for possible Greek texts to get translated.  There’s a little pile of sermon material by Chrysostom.

Most interesting of these are three items which appear in Migne in very truncated form.  De Regressu Sancti Joannis (PG52, col. 421), De Recipiendo Severiano (col. 423), and Severian’s reply De Pace (col. 425).  All three are given in Latin, and seem far too short to be full versions.  Now I know that the Greek exists of Severian, and indeed a full version of it.  But I am unclear about the others.

It turns out that I did enquire of a scholar who had published about these, and got the response that I should look in the Clavis Patrum Graecorum vol. 2, from 4438 onwards, and also in the supplement.  I believe that there are oriental translations of this stuff also.

And that, dear reader, is why I am annoyed that I can’t access my main machine, on which resides my copy of CPG2!

There are also some short tracts by Epiphanius of Salamis, in which he expresses strong antipathy to icons.  These would be of general interest: but it turns out that a translation exists already, by Stephen Bigham, in Epiphanius of Salamis: Doctor of Iconoclasm? (2008).  Of course this is offline (drat).

Never mind.  There are still lots of Chrysostom sermons!

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Papyri of St Augustine in the Green collection?

Via Tommy Wasserman at Evangelical Textual Criticism I learn of some rather exciting news!

The Baptist Standard reports (2012-07-10) from the same summer institute citing Jeff Fish (editor of the new Brill series) who said:

Scholars also mentored students editing some of the earliest fragments of the New Testament, with some dating to the second century, Fish said. Other discoveries are fragments of copies of some of St. Augustine’s commentaries on John’s Gospel and the Psalms, . . .

There is a little more on the session here, although no more about Augustine.

Also, it looks as if New Testament material will not relegate other material to the sidelines: Dr W. reckons that “the first volume will not contain the NT MSS”.  Information from this interview with Jerry Pattengale in Indiana Wesleyan University (2012-08-02):

Comprising of one to two new volumes per year, the new series will publish approximately 20 papyri with a thorough description, commentary with images, and web-based support for further resources.

The first forthcoming volume in the series, planned to be released in early 2013, is dedicated to an early 3c BCE papyrus containing an extensive, undocumented work by Aristotle on reason, and is currently being analyzed by a research group at Oxford University.

Of course the biblical material is no doubt of very great importance; but classical and patristic material is pretty interesting too!

Well done, Steven Green, for getting hold of all this stuff, and making it available!

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Wikipedia bans the chairman of the Wikimedia charity

There will be a more than a few people chortling today, at the news that the reclusive gang of anonymous editors who control Wikipedia have now banned a user who is, wait for it, chairman of the charity that raises funds for Wikipedia.  According to the Daily Telegraph, Ashley van Haeften, known as Fae was banned for “numerous violations of Wikipedia’s norms and policies”.

Ashley van Haeften is chairman of Wikimedia UK, a charity with an £1m annual budget funded by donations by Wikipedia visitors and dedicated to promoting the website among British museums and universities.

Naturally he has now resigned.

His resignation follows a call by members of Wikimedia UK for an Extraordinary General Meeting to discuss the controversy. They said the decision of the charity’s board to keep Mr van Haeften on as chairman despite his ban from contributing to Wikipedia “not a sufficient response to this situation”.

An EGM could still go ahead, however, as the call was for a vote on a resolution “to remove Ashley Van Haeften from the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia UK”, not only to strip him of the chairmanship.

“By not resigning as chair immediately after the ArbCom decision was announced I am afraid that [Mr van Haeften] made an error which can now only be corrected by his resignation from the board altogether,” said one Wikimedia UK member.

Serious stuff!  No doubt even this will not be enough, and the inevitable next step is imprisonment, and the sale of his children into slavery.  Such measures could hardly be an adequate response to his many and serious crimes, but they are perhaps the most that could be done.

But what were his crimes, exactly?  It is curiously awkward, for an online site, for any normal person to find out.  I tend not to believe the spin statements in the Telegraph articles.  These suggest that the issue is pornography in Wikipedia.  But … where’s the evidence of this?

The “case” before the “court” may be found here, and makes wretched reading.  An accusation is made by a certain Michael Bisanz, rather diffuse, complaining that … well, erm, what?  Digging into it, I find hurt feelings on the part of the accuser:

… you have made extreme accusations as to my character as an editor and I request a determination by some authority to clear my name, unless you are willing to withdraw your allegations of abuse of my trusted status. I understand you are going on a trip, but letting the allegations lay on the table and further sully my name is unacceptable.

Erm, and this is a crime, is it?  The “offences” urged are trifling, urged as if they were great crimes.

And I find another “request for comment” on Mr van Haeften here, which is referenced in the accusation.  The latter comments:

The RFC/U was created by Delicious carbuncle (DC) in conjunction with a series of canvassing threads of Wikipedia Review that included a large number of personal allegations …

The user “Delicious carbuncle” was himself “admonished” during all this, at which, no doubt, he quaked.

Reading even a small portion of all this tripe would weary any normal person.  So much of it consists of personal comments, attacks, and insinuations.  Very little of this material would be admissible as evidence in any judicial environment.   None of this rubbish would be acceptable to any fair person. 

People contribute to Wikipedia because they want to add content.  They get a good feeling from so doing.  Once they are being subjected to a process of accusations by strangers sustained over a period of months or years, that drains the will to continue.  Most just leave, I suspect, although we don’t really know.  The process itself is the punishment, and any malicious user can target another in this way.  Such a process is nothing less than assault, and it should be treated as such.

Mr van Haeften has referred to being “hounded”.  Just looking at those few pages, the complaint seems amply justified.  There is nothing of substance in all this piffle, as far as I can see; but ample evidence of people tussling to get their way. 

There are allegations that Mr van Haeften may be addicted to various loathsome (but legal) vices, as his accusers allege (and he does not deny).  But whatever has that to do with the matter?

The “verdict” states:

Fæ has been the target of a sustained campaign of criticism and some harassment, related to images that he has uploaded to Wikipedia’s sister site, Wikimedia Commons, his administrator status on Wikipedia, and his role involving a Wikimedia Foundation-related charity. However, he has at times failed to differentiate between those who are harassing him, and those with good-faith concerns.

No doubt a user who is the “target of a sustained campaign of criticism and some harassment” may indeed “fail to differentiate” between the different classes of his tormenters.  There is also a complaint that Mr van Haeften used more than one account with which to edit. But this is not forbidden in Wikipedia.  Indeed a user being attacked under one name may naturally create another in order to continue to contribute elsewhere without obstruction.  It only becomes sock-puppeting when multiple users are used to create the impression of several different people.  There is no suggestion that he was using these in that way, so the accusation seems to be merely a convenient stick with which to beat him.

And there we have it.  The many, serious crimes turn out to be, erm … nothing much.  The dispute resolution pages appear to be mainly about the person, not the edits. 

I have remarked in the past that the Wikipedia dispute resolution is broken.  This seems to be another example of it. 

Mr van Haeften must now be drinking the bitter cup of many another ex-contributor to Wikipedia, who has come to regret that he ever gave any of his time or energy to the site.

Reform of Wikipedia’s Byzantine and unfair administration is required.  Simple justice towards those who try to contribute and find themselves victimised demands it.  It is surely time and past time that it was subjected to legal scrutiny.

Mr van Haeften might consider consulting a firm of British libel lawyers and pointing them at the statements on these Wikipedia pages.   For in England, when a case of libel is brought, the onus is on the defendant to prove that the statements are not defamatory.  I would usually feel that this is excessive; but the outcome could only serve the public good, in this case.

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Some primers on online security – because the criminals are really there

I’ve found a number of articles online which seem to contain useful security advice.

All tedious stuff that I’d better read carefully.

 

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From my diary

It’s depressing how prevalent internet vandalism has become. 

I accidentally linked from this blog to an experimental online editor that I have been developing in PHP.  Today I followed the link and discovered my mistake. 

But instead of the test material, the editor was full of spam.  Some evil person had followed the link to the custom editor, and manually — for it could not have been done automatically — filled it with spam.

Probably they were some hireling from a poor country, to whom poisoning the internet is merely a means of earning a living.

But it still sickens.  There’s no means to indicate who did this, for I never intended anyone but myself to use it.  But … how selfish, how wretched.

Nothing is lost — I had nothing there but test data, which I keep offline.  But it depresses you all the same.

UPDATE: This led me to wonder about an old project to translate Eusebius’ Chronicon, which I launched online back in 2007 and was then overtaken by events.  I couldn’t even remember what the URL was!  But, after some poking around, I went to look.  And … yup … it too had been vandalised.  I shall have to find a backup of the database, pre-vandalism, and roll back.  In fact I shall have to take it down.

A few years ago that just did not happen.  You could have pages with an “edit” button on, and people did not vandalise them.  No longer, it seems.

The internet criminal is now omni-present.

UPDATE: And here an article exhorting us,  Turn on Google’s 2-step verification. Now:

You should read the story of what happened to my wife when six years’ worth of email — and associated photos, research notes, book drafts, calendar info, contacts, attached-file data, memorabilia, etc — were all zeroed out by a hacker, who was using the “Mugged in Madrid” scam and was probably operating from West Africa.

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New issue of Hugoye (15.2)

Via Paleojudaica I learn that the new issue of the Hugoye journal for Syriac studies is now available.

Volume 15.2 (Summer 2012)

Papers

Syriac Manuscripts in India, Syriac Manuscripts from India
Françoise Briquel Chatonnet, Centre National de la Recherche scientifique, Paris

The Christian Library from Turfan: SYR HT 41-42-43, An Early Exemplar of the Ḥuḏrā
Erica C.D. Hunter, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Remarks on Recent Cataloging Efforts among Syriac Manuscripts Preserved at the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library
Adam McCollum, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, Saint John’s University

Review Essay

Review of E.J. Wilson and S. Dinkha, Hunayn Ibn Ishaq’s “Questions on Medicine for Students.” Transcription and Translation of the Oldest Extant Syriac Version (Vat. Syr. 192)
Grigory Kessel, Phillipps Universität-Marburg

Book Reviews

Li Tang, East Syriac Christianity in Mongol-Yuan China
Thomas A. Carlson, Princeton University

David Thomas and Barbara Roggema, Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographic History. Volume 1 (600-900)
Aaron Michael Butts, Yale University

Romualdo Fernández Ferreira, Símbolos Cristianos en la Antigua Siria
Andrew Palmer, University of Muenster

Adam M. Schor, Theodoret’s People: Social Networks and Religious Conflict in Late Roman Syria
Christne Shepherdson, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Kees den Biesen, Annotated Biblography of Ephrem the Syrian
Paul S. Russell, St. Joseph of Arimathea Anglican Theological College

Conference Reports

North American Patristics Society, May 2012

 

The quality of papers is very high.

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From my diary

I’ve been reading through the German translation of various Acts of the Persian Martyrs,[1] with the aid of Google Translate.  My main interest has been in the Life of the East Syriac Catholicos, Mar Aba I.  But I have dabbled in some of the other, shorter, acts, which date mainly from the 4th century persecution.  I can’t say how reliable the latter are: many of the accounts seem to have very little historical content.

But the Life of Mar Aba looks much more like a historical document, although it does have a couple of chapters of stock “miracles by Mar Aba” carried out at Constantinople, at which, I admit, I rather winced.  

In fact it is sufficiently interesting that it really should be online in English.  I have dropped an email to someone who possesses the relevant skills and might be interested in making a translation for us all.

In the meantime I need to think of some short, interesting Greek texts.  A translator whom I have not used before has become available in this area, and I want to commission something.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  I’m thinking in terms of a sermon by Chrysostom, perhaps, at the moment, but I am in no way wedded to this.

The other big news is that I have ordered a new laptop, so I shall spend time with that this weekend.

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  1. [1]Oskar Braun (tr), Ausgewählte Akten persischer Märtyrer,  Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, series 1 vol 22, Kempten; München : J. Kösel, 1915,  online here: Ausgewählte Akten persischer Märtyrer – (RTF) 

Some notes on the life of Mar Aba I (=Maraba)

Mar Aba I (the name is given as “Maraba” in some 19th century works) became Nestorian patriarch in the mid 6th century and revolutionised the relationship between the Christians and the Sassanid Persian state. [1] He was originally from the country on the right bank of the Tigris near Hale, the chief place in the district of Radan.  Although Sava had evangelised the country ca. 480 AD, many of the inhabitants remained faithful to the official religion.  The future patriarch was born into a Mazdaist family, and seems to have been strongly attached in his youth to the teaching of Zoroaster.  He entered upon a career as an administrator, and, according to the anonymous editor of his Life, “arzbed” of his town, and then assessor of the secretary of the “hamaragerd” of Beit Aramaye.

Nothing seems to have presaged his conversion to Christianity, when, in uncertain circumstances, he met a student named Joseph, surnamed Moses, from Nisibis, who was acting as catechist in the district.  Mar Aba was going to cross the Tigris by boat, when we found on board the catechist, dressed in his monastic habit.  Unable to endure such company, the pagan scribe kicked out his unfortunate companion and dump his baggage in the river.  But a storm sprang up, which abated only after the student was at length readmitted to the boat.  Mar Aba asked Joseph to forgive him.  The latter responded that a disciple of Jesus Christ must not hold on to rancour.  Struck by this, Mar Aba continued to talk to him, and decided to convert.  On his return to Ctesiphon, he arranged to be instructed in the Christian faith, renounced his job in the administration, despite the appeals of his superiors, and received baptism.

The school of Nisibis welcomed him, and there he showed signs of exceptional abilities.  He especially attached himself to one of the teachers of the school, Ma`na, who later became bishop of Arzun.  When he did so, Mar Aba followed him, possibly as his syncellus, and converted many of the pagans and the heretics to Christianity.  He then returned to Nisibis to complete his studies.

But this was not enough for him.  Many of the students then went to Roman territory in order to complete their theological education.  After the accession of Justin, imperial displeasure was reserved for monophysites, and Persian Christians were able to travel more freely in the lands of the orthodox emperor.  His biographer states that Mar Aba wanted to visit the Holy places, and also to dispute with Sergius, “an Arian” strongly tainted with paganism, in order to convert him to the true faith.

At Edessa he met a Syrian named Thomas, probably a  little younger than himself.  The two students formed a friendship, and Thomas taught his companion Greek.  Then together they visited Palestine, and then went to Egypt.  There Mar Aba was able to study the scriptures in the Greek language.

Nor did he fail to make a pilgrimage to the desert where thousands of monks were living the ascetic life, following the venerable traditions of the Desert Fathers.  Then he travelled to Corinth, and Athens, and finally to Constantinople.  His stay at the imperial capital is attested by Cosmas Indicopleustes, who mentions the church in Persia and states:

I received these [details] from a very spiritual man and from the great teacher Patrikios [= Syriac Aba].  He, following the example of Abraham, came from the land of the Chaldaeans with Thomas of Edessa, then studying theology, who accompanied him everywhere and who now, according to God’s will, has died at Byzantium.  He made me part of his piety and his very accurate science, and it is he who now, by the grace of God, has been elevated to the sublime and archiepiscopal throne of all Persia, having been instituted as Catholicos.[2]

The journey to Constantinople must be placed between 525-533 AD.  At that period other oriental teachers could be found in the imperial city.  Best known of these is Paul the Persian. 

No doubt Mar Aba did not attain to this degree of fame, although he also appeared at court.  His stay in Constantinople seems to have been brief, lasting only a single year according to his anonymous biographer.  Mare tells us that Mar Aba and his disciple were invited to anathematise Theodore of Mopsuestia and the Nestorian teachers.  Their refusal led to a threat on their lives, and they were obliged at once to flee, and to place the Persian frontier between themselves and their enemies.

This tradition seems is probably accurate.  Following the colloquium at Constantinople, which took place in 531, Justinian for some time favoured the Monophysites.  In 535 one of thes, Anthimius, became patriarch of Constantinople.  Severus of Antioch was recalled from exile and made a triumphant entry into the capital of the empire.  We may suppose that the victorious party took the opportunity to indulge in reprisals.

If they were obliged to tolerate the dyophysite monks of the capital, the Severians were less constrained when it came to strangers.  It is very probable that Paul the Persian, Mar Aba, Thomas and other Syrians who were residing at Constantinople were forced to choose between banishment and disavowing the teachings of Theodore.  Probably, as they returned to the patriarchate of Antioch, they warned the bishop of that city, Ephrem, of the danger facing the dyophysite orthodoxy.  For in 535 Sergius of Reshaina returned to Antioch, complaining of maltreatment at the hands of the bishop Asylus.  Ephrem, appreciating his talents as a diplomat, placed him in charge of a mission to Pope Agapetus.  The intriguing doctor embarked for Rome, accompanied by a young architect named Eustathius.  He met Agapetus at Constantinople and together they arranged for  the expulsion of the Monophysites from the city.  Since Sergius was Mar Aba’s teacher, and possibly also of Paul the Persian, it is likely that the refugees made him aware of what had happened to them.  It is also possible that Thomas of Edessa accompanied Sergius on his mission and stayed in Constantinople, where he died some years later, probably before 543, the date of the first publication of the Three Chapters.

Mar Aba returned to Nisibis.  His joy at his return was tempered by the spectacle of divisions among his Nestorian coreligionists.  Discouraged, he sought to adopt an ascetic life in the desert.  But his biographer states that when the bishops of the eparchy learned this, they forbade him to do so. 

His profound and varied learning and the austerity of his life increased  his reputation, and when the old Catholicos Paul died, all the votes for his replacement fell on Mar Aba.  This was in the 9th year of Chosrau Anosharwan, in February 540 AD.

His first task was to deal with the disorders that had fallen upon the Nestorian church owing to a schism among the leadership, which had led earlier on to two patriarchs, Elisaeus and Narses.  This had led to two bishops being named for many sees.  His predecessor patriarch, Paul, had invoked the assistance of the state, and with the help of Chosrau II had reestablished unity, and decided that neither of the competitors had been constitutionally made catholicos.  But it was Maraba who dealt with the consequences.

It is ordered that if, in a single see, there was only one bishop instituted before the duality, he remains legitimate.  If there are two bishops, the most virtuous shall be chosen and the other shall serve as a priest.  If both are equally virtuous and orthodox, he who was first instituted shall be confirmed in the episcopate.  The other shall renounce any episcopal functions, but shall be designated as the successor.  If both are unworthy, they shall both be deposed and shall serve in the order of clergy to which they previously belonged.[3]

Such was the decision taken in the synod held, as was usual, by the new patriarch immediately after his election.  But it had to be put into effect.  In the north, it seems, the reform was carried out without difficulty, whether because the circumstances were uncomplicated or because of the personal authority of Mar Aba and his metropolitans.  But in lower Chaldaea, Susiana and Persia proper, the homeland of every schism and revolt, there were problems.  Not only were there two bishops, but some bishops had proclaimed themselves independent of both catholicoses.  There were also some mischief-makers, such as Taimai in Mesene, and Abraham son of Audmihr, in Susiana, who had seized churches and ordained, for money, anyone who aspired to the episcopate.

Mar Aba resolved to visit the troubled regions in persona, and went accompanied by the clergy of his patriarchal church, and some loyal metropolitans and bishops.  The synodicon gives an official list of those who went.  First he went to Perozshabur, then into the land of Kashkar, where he met several supporters and appointed a new bishop to replace both contenders.  Then he went to Mesene, deposed the bishop there and excommunicated Taimai.  Then the mobile synod went on to Hormizdardashir where various differences were resolved, and then on to Persia proper.  At Rewardashir he deposed two usurpers and, after revaliditating ordinations made by them, chose Ma`na as metropolitan.

He too joined the synod which went on to Khuzistan.  Elisaeus of Shushter was delivered from a competitor, and from there the journey continued into Beit Lapat, although the problems there were not immediately resolved, and a case was necessary in the Sassanid courts.

Mar Aba returned to Seleucia, probably ca. Jan-Feb 541, having established his authority.  But the quiet was of short duration, for the resumption of war between the Byzantines and Persians allowed the Zoroastrian clergy to embark on a new phase of persecution.  From 540-545 Chosrau made war incessantly in Lazica, Commagene, Armenia and Mesopotamia. 

At this period the Christians were not protected by theological difference with Byzantium, as they had been in the time of Anastasius, when the monophysite leanings of the latter guaranteed the fidelity of his Nestorian subjects in the eyes of the King of Kings.  So in the 10th year of his reign, when Chosrau left to make war in Lazica, the Zoroastrian priests found themselves free to act.  Their chief was the grand mobed Dadhormizd.

The persecution was not of the scale of the days of Sapor.  Where the Christians were in a minority, the churches and above all the monasteries were destroyed, and nobles who had embraced Christianity were arrested, and several were executed.  The acts of these martyrs give the details, especially the Passion of Gregory, a noble originally named Pirangushnasp.  But in 545 the persecution ceased, following  a treaty between Justinian and Chosrau, which brought the war to an end and stipulated religious liberty for the Christians in Persia, and the release of the senior clergy who had protested the persecution in its early days and been arrested for their pains. 

Mar Aba himself had felt the malice of the magian clergy.  He was summoned before a council of mages, headed by the grand mobed.  The accusation was made that on his journey into Persia he had converted various Mazdaists to Christianity, and had forbidden the practice of various pagan activities to Christians, such as eating meat which had been blessed by Magian priests.  After a pretence of interrogation, Dadhormizd went to the king and obtained permission to hand Mar Aba over to the head of the prisons.  This seems to have been around 540-1. 

But the mages did not dare to abuse their victory.  They knew that the king might well one day think ill of too hasty a zeal, and executing the patriarch might well provoke a revolt by the innumerable Christians of Persia just when the king’s forces were fully stretched.  This perhaps explains the intervention of a notable Christian of Seleucia, one `Abrodaq, who assured the grand mobed that, were the latter to go for instruction in the school of the Catholicos, he would soon be seeking baptism.  This was too much for the mages, and charges were brought against him.

Meanwhile the royal forces were travelling slowly northwards, and all those who had lost money or other advantage from Mar Aba’s reforms hastened to make accusations, and the mages tried to use these to get the patriarch to waive some of the canons that he had put in place, particularly those affecting Persian weddings of cousins and the like.  Others discovered that he was a convert from Zoroastrianism, and sought to make use of this fact.  But Mar Aba refused to budge, and his position was strengthened by the fact that he retained the royal favour, and, when he met Chosrau, the king greeted him in a friendly way and spoke familiarly with him.

Nevertheless Mar Aba was exiled to a remote place, far from other Christians.  His biographer records that this had the effect of bringing large numbers of Christians into the area, and resulted in the establishment of Christianity in the region and the appointment of bishops.  A synod was held, which issued six constitutions.  But Mar Aba remained there, even after peace had been declared.

Ca. 548 a renegade clergyman who called himself Peter Gurganara, who had been deposed by Mar Aba for various irregularities, went to court and obtained, it is unknown how, royal permission to depose Mar Aba and to annul the ordinations which he had made.  Peter went to Azerbaijan with a royal order, which, however, was rather vague.  The mages, who had many reasons to hate Mar Aba, nevertheless found the order insufficient to justify permitting the actions of Peter.  The latter resorted to violence and organised a nighttime attack on the residence of the patriarch, which was foiled by the inhabitants of the area.

These events warned the patriarch that his position was in danger, and he made a secret journey to court to see the king, despite being exiled.  The king was clement, and Mar Aba advised him that he would rather be executed at court, if the king so wished, than murdered in an obscure place by a renegade.  The king accepted this excuse, and remitted his exile, obliging him to be confined at court.

In 551 Anoshazad, son of Chosrau I and a Christian woman, who had been exiled to Beit Lapat, raised a revolt and marched on Seleucia.  He was able to rely on Christian support in the region.  The king’s first reaction was to execute Mar Aba.  But on further thought he invited the catholicos to detach his coreligionists from supporting Anoshazad.  At the same time he released Mar Aba from prison.  By chance at this point a priest sent by the chief of the Haital arrived, seeking ordination from Mar Aba; and the presence of this envoy of a remote people increased the king’s respect for the Catholicos.  The letters of the Catholicos were effective, the revolt failed, and Mar Aba was set at liberty. 

But Mar Aba had suffered from all this, and he died on 29 February 552, at Seleucia.  He had spent the last year of his life in pastoral concerns and in converting heretics.

The king had learned much from this episode.  He did not permit the bishops to elect a new Catholicos, but instead appointed his own candidate, a doctor named Joseph who had treated Chosrau successfully, and the bishops acquiesced in his choice.

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  1. [1]These notes are from J. Labourt, Le christianisme dans l’empire perse sous la dynastie Sassanide (224-632), Paris, 1904, p.162-191.  Although well out of date, the history of the church in Persia is so little known that this material will be new to most of us.  The sources for his life are: Bedjan, Histoire de Mar Jabalaha, etc, Life of Maraba, p.206-274; `Amr, p.23; Mare, p.43-46; Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, vol. 2, col.89-96.  Cf. Assemani, Bibl. Orientale, III, p.75-80; Duval, Litterature Syriaque, p. 218, 440; Synodicon Orientale p.318-351 and 540-562.
  2. [2]PG 88, c. 73.
  3. [3]Synodicon Orientale, p.321.

When were the Olympic games abolished?

In many places online you can find statements that the Olympic games were banned by the emperor Theodosius I.  The date is variable — 385 through to 393, and the claims are always unreferenced to ancient evidence which should make us all wary.

A little earlier this afternoon I was looking for any evidence.  And I came across this:

We owe the notion of the ancient Olympics ending in 393 to John [sic] Cedrenus, who was writing in the eleventh century.  A somewhat different tradition was known to the author of a note on a work by the satirist Lucian, who said that the games continued ‘from the time of the Hebrew judges until that of Theodosius the Younger.’[1]

This naturally led me to ask where I might find the text of Cedrenus.  And … do you know, I found almost nothing?  Why is there no translation of Cedrenus?

Another work made much the same statement:

It is generally assumed that the Olympic games continued to be celebrated as late as the fourth or fifth century of the Christian era.  Cedrenus appears to date their suppression in the 16th (potius the 15th) of Theodosius the elder AD 393.[z] Joannes Lydus attributes it to Theodosius the younger[a]: … unless he meant the substitution of some other era for that of the reckoning by Olympiads. The Olympic games are certainly recognised as in existence in the reign of Theodosius the Great [b] and by Moses Chorenensis seem to be so even as late as the 20th of Theodosius the younger[c].

z. Mr Clinton Fasti Romani ad AD 393 Ol 193
a. iv. 64. 95. 22.
b. Anecdota Graeca Paris ii. 155. 17.
c. iii. 40. 279.

These references are not very helpful, of course.

There is this:

We are told by an eleventh-century historian, Kedrenos (Historia comparativa [sic] 322B and 348A), of the last Olympiad (293rd), which occurred under Theodosius I in 393 or 394 before his edict against pagan festivals.  Kedrenos reports that the Zeus of Phidias was moved to Constantinople, where it was kept in the palace of the patrician Lausos and was eventually lost in a fire.  But the source may well be in error.[55]  The edict of Theodosius II on November 13, 426, ordered the destruction of all pagan temples.  A late source records the burning down of the Temple of Zeus at that time (scholiast to Lucian’s Rhetorical Precepts 6[22] Jacobitz).  Archaeology shows rather that another earthquake brought down the temple and traces of burning are absent. … In A.D. 395, two years after the edict of Theodosius I, the Goths under Alaric invaded as far as the Peloponnese, although Olympia was probably passed by.[2]

Unfortunately the references to Cedrenus only tell us about the statue.  Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici gives a better reference:

 The series of years commences at the 55th Olympiad and is brought down to the cessation of the Olympiads a period of 956 years. Censorinus names the second year of Olymp. 254 and Eusebius the second year of Olymp. 277, which he makes coincident with the 20th year of Constantine.

The Olympiads ceased in the reign of Theodosius. Cedrenus having mentioned the 15th and 16th years of Theodosius proceeds thus [a] … The 16th year of Theodosius began xiv Kal. Feb. AD 394 in the middle of Olymp. 293. 1. He died xvi Kal. Feb. AD 395 in the middle of Olymp 293. 2. The 293rd Olympiad therefore appears to have been the last.

The Scholiast, however, upon Lucian[b] brings down the Olympiads a little lower … The younger Theodosius began to reign May AD 408, U.C. Varr. 1161 = Olymp. 296. 4. The Alexandrine Chronicle pursues the computation by Olympiads to Ol. 345 c but there is no proof that the Olympic games actually continued to so late a period. The author merely expresses the Olympiads as a notation of time.[3]

[a] Cedren. p.325 C.
[b]Tom. VII p. 515.

So what does Cedrenus [4] say, in 326D?  Almost nothing, and that little has to be given with reference to other events:

In year 15 and 16 of his reign, Theodosius published a law that no woman should receive money to become a deaconess unless older than 60. In the same year died [p.325D] Placilla, wife of Theodosius, … the people of Antioch threw down his statue because of the exactions of the emperor, because of which John Chrysostom, then a priest in Antioch, published marvellous orations under the title Of the statues.

Then the festival of the Olympics ceased, which it was customary to celebrate at the end of every fourth year. [P327A] It was instituted at the time when Manasses was king of Judah, and continued until the reign of Theodosius.  …

Likewise Theodosius overturned all the temples of the fictitious ‘gods’, which Constantine the Great ordered <something>. He died at Milan aged 60 from illness, after reigning 16 years, leaving two sons…

So Cedrenus tells us only that in the last year of the reign of Theodosius, i.e. in 394 AD (unless we wish to include the first few weeks of 395), the Olympics ceased.  Interestingly he does NOT say that Theodosius ordered it halted, just that “it stopped”.  The climate of the times must have been very hostile to its continuance, it must be said.

Interestingly Cedrenus, a little earlier, in 322B, tells us of various items removed from temples and set up at Constantinople, after the defeat of Eugenius by Theodosius in 394.

In the [palace] of Lausus was … the image of Athena of Lindos, of emerald stone, four feet high, the work of Scyllides and Dipoenus the statue-makers, which was originally given by Sesostris, tyrant of Egypt, as a gift to Cleobulus, the tyrant of Lindos.  And the Aphrodite of Cnidos, from white stone, nude, hand over the pudenda, the work of Praxiteles of Cnidos.  And the Hera of Samos, the work of Lysippus and Bupalos of Chios.  … And the ivory Zeus of Phidias, which Pericles dedicated in the Olympic temple.

So it sounds as if the image was removed from Olympia before the games had ceased; but it is in the same year and it would be strange if the events were unrelated.  In 348A we read of the fire at Constantinople that happened in the 5th year of the emperor Marcian. Among the places burned is the palace of Lausus.

Let us move on to the Scholion on Lucian.[5]  This reads as follows, in full:

 Ὀλυμπιάδας] πόλις ἧν ἐν Ἤλιδι Ὀλυμπία καλουμένη ἱερὸν ἔχουσα ἐπιφανέστατον Ὀλυμπίου Διός. ἐν ταύτῃ ἁγὼν ἐπετελεῖτο παγκόσμιος τὰ Ὀλύμπια κατὰ πέντε ἔτη συγκροτούμενος· διὸ καὶ πενταετηρικὸς ἐκαλεῖτο· ὅς καὶ ἀνεγράφετο τοῖς δημοσίοις ἀεὶ εἰς δήλωσιν τῶν ἐνιαυτῶν καὶ ἧν τοῦτο ἀκριβὴς τῶν χρόνων ἐπίγνωσις· τεσσάρων γὰρ ἐτῶν μεταξὺ διαρρεόντων τῷ πέμπτῳ συνετελεῖτο. καὶ διήρκεσεν ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ τῶν καθ’ Ἑβραίους κριτῶν μέχρι τοῦ μικροῦ Θεοδοσίου·  ἐμπρησθέντος γὰρ τοῦ ἐν Ὀλυμπίᾳ ναοῦ ἐξέλιπε καὶ ἡ τῶν Ἠλείων πανήγυρις.

My Greek is very bad, but my guess at the sense is something like this (corrections welcome!):

Olympiads] The town in Elis, Olympia, is called the manifest temple of Olympian Zeus. In this the Olympic contest common to all the world was celebrated (?) every five years: and because of which (summoned?), falling every four years [i.e. five inclusively].  And the time-span being engraved and setup publicly, indicating the year and the exact date ….  And it endured in first place down from the judges of the Hebrews until Theodosius the Younger.  For a fire having broken out in the temple of Olympia, the assembly of the Elians abandoned it.

It is not clear from this whether ‘it’ is the system of Olympiads was abandoned after the fire in the temple — which thereby wiped out the public record — or the Olympic contests.

Then there is the reference in John the Lydian, but I have not been able to work out where is meant.

It’s not much, is it?  None of this is very conclusive.  I would theorise, ignorantly, that the statement of Cedrenus is correct; and that the system of Olympiads continued another 50 years, out of habit (and, after all Eusebius the Christian historian himself used it in his chronicle), as the scholiast states.  But who knows?

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  1. [1]David Potter, The Victor’s Crown: A  History of Ancient Sport from Homer to Byzantium, Oxford, 2011, p.311
  2. [2]Thomas F. Scanlon, Eros and Greek Athletics, Oxford University Press, 2002, p.59.
  3. [3]Henry Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellenici: the civil and literary chronology of Greece : from the earliest accounts to the death of Augustus. From the CXXIVth Olympiad to the death of Augustus, Oxford University, 1830, volume 3, p.xv.
  4. [4]B. G. Niebuhr (ed), Georgius Cedrenus, vol. 1, Series: Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, 1838,
  5. [5]H. Rabe (ed.), Scholia in Lucianum, Stuttgart, 1906.  Online at Google Books here and at Archive.org here. Scholia on the Rhetorum praeceptor 9, to be found on p.175-6 for “Olympiadas”.  The scholion is found in M (=cod. Paris 2954, 14th c., a low-grade ms.) and cod. Florence Laur. 32, 13, so is not one of those found in the better sources.