Author: Roger Pearse

4th British Patristics Conference – Exeter, 5-7 September 2012

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The conference details are here:

Fourth British Patristics Conference

A 3-day conference to be held at the University of Exeter, 5-7 September 2012

The aim of the conference is to foster the study of early Christianity broadly considered in its social, historical and theological context and to cultivate a community of scholars of the subject inBritain.  We particularly welcome participation by and applications for papers from current graduate students studying at British Universities.

We are delighted to announce that three plenary speakers have already been confirmed:

  • Sebastian Brock, formerly Reader in Syriac Studies, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford
  • Alastair Logan, Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Theology and Religion, University of Exeter
  • Teresa Morgan, Lecturer in Ancient History and Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History, Oriel College, University of Oxford

The conference will begin after lunch on Wednesday 5th September and will close after lunch on Friday 7th September.

Call For Papers

Registration Details

Further Information

Bookings for this need to be made by the end of July.  There are only 61 places! The last one, in Durham, was great – rather better than the Oxford conferences.

You can book on-line via the web-page:

http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/research/conferences/patristics

I have just booked.  It’s a Wednesday-Friday event.  It costs £210 if you book everything including accomodation.

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Harassing the monastery of Mor Gabriel in Turkey

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Paleojudaica has been monitoring a rather sad story from Turkey, of a dispute between a Syriac monastery in south-east Turkey, in the Tur-Abdin region, and its neighbours.  The monastery was founded in 397 AD, and so it is of considerable historical interest.

I’ve been aware of the situation for some time; but it can be difficult to know all the facts in such cases, and it’s never right to jump to conclusions.   Previous reporting left me with the impression that the Turkish officials were trying to be even-handed in a difficult case.

The story starts in 2008.  On 25th June 2009 Hurriyet Daily News reported:

A Syriac Christian monastery in the Eastern Province of Mardin lost its legal battle Wednesday to overturn a Forestry Department decision to claim part of its land, with community representatives vowing to file an appeal.

The boundaries around Mor Gabriel, located in the Midyat region, and its surrounding villages were redrawn last year as part of an effort to update the land registry. The foundation operating the monastery petitioned the court to have the new boundaries re-examined, saying that they take large plots of land on which the monastery has been paying tax since 1938 and turn them over to the villages. 

Villagers also applied to the court, asking for the monastery wall to be pulled down and accusing the foundation operating the monastery of taking land they need for their cattle.

On May 22, another court ruled in favor of Mor Gabriel over 110 hectares of land claimed by neighboring villages.But in Wednesday’s ruling, the Midyat court decided a 33.6-hectare parcel of land claimed by the monastery within and outside of the building’s walls belongs to the Treasury.

 The case has grumbled on since.  It is, of course, difficult to know the in’s and out’s of such cases; but surely the Turkish government could recognise that the potential tourist value of a monastery full of monks speaking the language of Jesus far outweighs a few acres of land?

Today’s Zaman now reports:

… the final verdict issued by the Supreme Court of Appeals on June 13 of this year, stating that the monastery, founded in A.D. 397 and often referred to as a “second Jerusalem,” does not have rights to the land on which it sits.

However, he added that all the information they have with regards to the verdict has come through the Turkish press.

“Nothing official has been sent to us by the court,” he said. “When we have the official court ruling in our hands, and if the news is true, then we will seek further legal remedies.”

The conflict surrounding Mor Gabriel began when land officials for the Turkish government redrew the boundaries around the monastery and surrounding villages in 2008 in order to update the national land registry as part of a cadastre modernization project in compliance with European Union instructions. The officials finished this work across nearly half the country in less than five years. In addition, several new laws have been passed that require the transfer of uncultivated land to the Treasury and, in some cases, that re-zone other land, such as forest land, transferring it to the jurisdiction of the Forestry Directorate.

In the wake of these new classifications, it has become difficult for former owners to use this land. The issue has also become a Muslim-Christian dispute, with the neighboring villages complaining to the court that the monastery’s monks have engaged in “anti-Turkish activities,” including converting children to Christianity.

The final verdict of the top court has been called scandalous by the Turkish press as the court “lost” several land title and financial/tax documents, undoubtedly demonstrating the ownership of the land by the monastery.

“I feel sad for the Turkish legal system,” Ergün said.

He feels that if the verdict is true, the decision is against the Arameans of Turkey. He added: “Everybody knows to whom the monastery has belonged for the last 1,600 years. But we will be put in a very difficult situation if the court says the land does not belong to the monastery.”

Meanwhile, a petition campaign has recently been started through a website called, in English, “We grew up together in this  country” (http://beraberbuyudukbuulkede.com/).

In Today’s Zaman for 12th July 2012, an EU commissioner is reported as expressing concern.

All this seems to simplify matters. 

  • If the local villagers are claiming the land on which a monastery, founded in 397 AD, stands, then plainly the claim is fraudulent and malevolent, and probably all the other claims are equally baseless.  In this case the court cases are simply harassment, and the Turkish state should prosecute the villagers for their attack on their neighbour, the monastery.
  • If a court has upheld a fraudulent claim of this kind, then the court is corrupt.  For there is no possible case that a monastery standing on lands granted 15 centuries ago can be squatting.  In that case the Turkish state needs to reform the court, and send the bent judges for trial.

This is, as I said, rather sad.  I would suggest that the Turkish president step in and bring an end to this story.  It does great discredit to the Turkish state.  Turkey’s interests are not served by a story like this one.  Let the monks get on with their praying.

I have always tended to feel that the Turks get a raw deal over Cyprus.  In that unhappy island, they are the victims of repeated, endless, harassment by Greek hotheads.  Indeed the presence of the Turkish army there is solely because of an attempt by Greece to annex the island.  Yet it is invariably the Turks who are blamed in the western media.  I suspect that much of our reporting of Turkish issues is unfair.

I’m not sure how I feel about getting the European Union involved.  The issue is really an internal Turkish one.  The risk of involving the EU is that the EU is seen to be pro-monastery and anti-Turk; that the monastery, therefore, is not seen as part of Turkey’s heritage, but as aliens who can be held hostage for concessions from the foreigner.  That would be disastrous.  Turkey should be proud of its heritage, and that, almost alone in the world, it has a small minority of people who speak Syriac.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A few bits and bobs have attracted my attention today.

More technical manuscripts at the British library.  This is mostly medieval, but includes BL Harley 6, which contains the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville.

Via Dunelm Road I learn of an interesting rationale for Christians to be learning NT Greek.

Curious Presbyterian has useful advice for people who write, from a Guardian article by Robert Harris.

I’d very much like to know what the sources are that tell us about Roman interest in tin mining in Cornwall.  This website gave some ideas; perhaps I will find the time to do some research on it.

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Hunting the wild misquotation – “our Father was crucified”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

At Paleojudaica, Jim Davila has an odd story from an Israeli newspaper, featuring a quotation from an ancient author:

A VERY ODD STORY from Arutz Sheva:

Shocking ‘Land of Israel’ Exam Shows Christian Crosses
High school “Land of Israel” exam features Christian crosses. Is the Education Ministry trying to undermine students with Christianity?

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
First Publish: 7/8/2012, 8:58 AM

High school students last week were shocked by a matriculation exam in “Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology” that showed Christian crosses and referred to a place where “our father was crucified.”

[…]

I’m really scratching my head over this:

The exam included a quote from a Christian pilgrim who visited Jerusalem and wrote in a dairy about “the little hill of Golgotha ​where our father was crucified.”

It would be very unusual for a Christian pilgrim, or any other kind of Christian, to refer to Jesus as “our father.” Either this pilgrim had some confused ideas about the Trinity or Arutz Sheva has made a mistake. I would like to know more about the source of this quotation.

The source is not far to seek, I fear.  A lazy journalist has used Wikipedia as his source, and is quoting from here, misremembering as he typed:

In 333, the Pilgrim of Bordeaux, entering from the east described the result:

“On the left hand is the little hill of Golgotha where the Lord was crucified. About a stone’s throw from thence is a vault [crypta] wherein his body was laid, and rose again on the third day. There, at present, by the command of the Emperor Constantine, has been built a basilica; that is to say, a church of wondrous beauty.”[12]

The “reference” given is “Itinerarium Burdigalense, pages 593, 594.”  Naturally there is no indication of edition.  The Latin is online and reads:

A sinistra autem parte est monticulus golgotha, ubi dominus crucifixus est.

[594] Inde quasi ad lapidem missum est cripta, ubi corpus eius positum fuit et tertia die resurrexit; ibidem modo iussu constantini imperatoris basilica facta est, id est dominicum, mirae pulchritudinis habens ad latus excepturia, unde aqua leuatur, et balneum a tergo, ubi infantes lauantur.

The “page reference” would appear, thus, to be to the Latin.

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Dumbarton Oaks Syriac resources now online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An interesting email:

I write to announce the publication of a new online resource at Dumbarton Oaks aimed at the community of Syriac studies. We have assembled numerous freely available, digitized texts — most notably tried-and-true scholarly instrumenta — and organized them into an annotated bibliography that covers several categories (lexica, grammars, histories of Syriac literature, etc.). We have pitched the site at Syriac students who may not know that they need these resources yet, but will be glad to see them all in one place when they do!

This new resource can be found at

http://www.doaks.org/research/byzantine/resources/syriac

You can read more about our goals on the Introduction page. We hope that this site will be of value to the Syriac community, especially those who do not have access to print copies of these (often rare) resources. We will continue to refine and enlarge these pages, and add new ones as well. Of course, we welcome helpful suggestions, comments, and corrections from the scholarly community.

As a caveat, we understand that some of the Google Books links may be useless to those outside of the US because of Google’s decisions regarding copyright law in various countries. Where available, we have tried to link resources on other reputable sites that do not have international restrictions (such as archive.org). We will continue to try to move our links to such sites in the future.

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Have you seen this (stolen) papyrus?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Via Paleojudaica I learn that one of the Oxyrhynchus papyri has gone missing:

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 187. P.Oxy.187, a circa AD 150 business letter of Irene.

Missing from Department of Classical Studies, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia since 1975

Jim adds:

 If you find the papyrus, please contact Dorothy.

I imagine the item has been removed through inadvertence, rather than by fraud, but it does highlight how museums are not the permanent repositories that we might think them to be.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve received the printed copy of Lanciani’s Ancient Rome in the light of recent discoveries, and I’ve started to read it. 

It’s a bit disappointing to discover that the reprinter, “Shelf2Life” (printed by Amazon themselves) didn’t trouble to get the reprint right.  The text is all stretched.  What they did was take a PDF, trim to the text block, and then send it to be printed as was on the next largest standard book size.  What they should have done was pad it with white space to that book size. Hmm.

But Lanciani is charming.  He begins by discussing  the mass destruction of material in Rome, and makes an interesting point, with examples; that the ruins provided hiding-places for thieves, robbers, poor people and other riff-raff.  In some cases demolition was a matter of security for the living. 

I’ve also been reading the Tim LaHaye &c, Left Behind series; a set of Christian novels imagining what would happen next if the teaching of the Rapture were correct, and all the real Christians in the world vanished.  The books are good, but some of the office politics described is too much like work for me!

In news from Italy, a Roman shipwreck reveals details of the medical paraphernalia of an ancient physician.  The vials in which he carried his drugs were very well sealed, and have been analysed.

And a curious freedom of speech issue from Boston, UK.  A pensioner  has displayed in his window a hand-written placard proclaiming that “Religions are fairy stories for adults”.  (Quite why he felt the need to say this to all his friends and neighbours we are not told, and one senses that part of the story is missing.)  Generally houses in the UK do not display placards in their windows.  Someone complained to the police that the item was offensive.  The police advised that potentially it could be, and recommended removal; and the NSS, the atheist society, is complaining about free speech.  Something smells a little about this one, to my eye.

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A newly discovered Mithraeum in Scotland

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A correspondent writes to tell me of the discovery of a Mithraeum in Scotland, at Inveresk.  There is an announcement in Epistula 1 (PDF), page 5, the organ of the Roman Society, from John Gooder (AOC Archaeology Group) and Fraser Hunter (National Museums Scotland):

Excavations on the eastern edge of the fort complex of Inveresk in East Lothian have revealed the first evidence for the cult of Mithras in Scotland. The excavations, for East Lothian Council by AOC Archaeology Group, preceded the rebuilding of the cricket pavilion after it was burnt down. The findspot is over 750 m from the fort, in an area where little Roman activity was previously known.

Excavations exposed part of a sub-rectangular sunken feature 6.1 m long, at least 4.1 m wide and 0.65 m deep. Buried face-down at its north-west end were two intact altars, both offered by the same person, C Cassius Fla[vianus?], a centurion.

One is dedicated to Sol and bears a bust of the god, his pierced eyes and radiate crown allowing light to shine through from a recess carved in the rear; the capital carries busts of the four seasons.

The other is dedicated to Mithras, with imagery linked to Apollo (lyre, plectrum and griffin) and sacrificial implements carved on the sides. Traces of pigment survive on both altars. Close by was an altar base.

Inveresk was only occupied in the Antonine period … Was the sunken feature a timber-built mithraeum?

All this is immensely interesting.  I wish we could see the inscriptions!  I wish we could see photos of the altars!

AOC refers to these as the “Lewisvale Roman Altars“:

In March 2010 AOC Archaeology Group was undertaking routine archaeological investigations in advance of the erection of a new cricket pavilion in Lewisvale Park, Inveresk, East Lothian, when two large sandstone slabs were uncovered.

It soon became apparent from the ornately carved side panels that these two slabs were significant remains relating to the Roman occupation of Inveresk, and by the end of the day it had been confirmed that they were in fact Roman altars. Wider excavation revealed that they had been deposited in a pit also containing an altar base and an area of paving.

In addition to the altars and altar base the artefact assemblage includes nails, fragments of lead, Roman ceramic (including Samian, fine ware and black burnished ware sherds), and later prehistoric ceramic. …

The two rare carved Roman altars, one dedicated to the Roman God Sol and the other to Mithras are amongst the most important Roman finds ever to be made in Scotland both for the quality of the carving and the importance of the inscriptions. The Mithraic altar is the first dedication to Mithras known from Scotland and the most northerly example to date.

The discovery of Roman altars from within a secure Roman context, presents a unique opportunity to investigate a purposeful Roman-period event. The wider artefact assemblage of both Roman and local objects, along with ecofacts recovered during soil sample processing provide the opportunity to investigate activities within the pit from whence the altars were recovered, and from the adjacent area.

The AOC archaeology site also has a blog — confusingly called Diary — with photographs and details of the whole process!!!  I deeply approve of this.  Well done, AOC archaeology!  Snippets:

Today we have uncovered all of the inscription on the Mithras altar. It reads DAEO/INVICT[.]MY/C CAS/FLA, which may mean “To the invincible god Mithras” followed by the dedicators name…

Here are a couple of preliminary laser scan images of the Sol altar, there will be more to follow…

The sides of the altar have been carved with laurel wreaths. It has been suggested that these wreaths represent Sol Invictus, the unconquered Sun. …

Today we have uncovered the inscription “SOLI.C.CAS.FLA >”….  The capital is characterised by a row of four figures with an inscribed panel beneath that bears traces of red and white pigment. The figures most likely represent the four seasons.

Spring and Summer have been fully cleaned using soft brushes and wooden skewers. As can be seen Spring, on the left, has more flowers in her hair than Summer.

The final figures on the capital of the Sol altar have now been cleaned. We believe that they represent autumn and winter;  Autumn with grapes in her hair and Winter with a shawl covering her head.

Today we have finished cleaning the Mithras altar. There is a carving of a beautiful winged mythical creature on the side that we have just finished, as well as a patera (handled bowl). It is possible that the creature is a Griffin. What do you think.?

On the side of the Mithras altar you can see a finely carved lyre, a plectrum (small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument) and a jug. Specialists have indicated that the jug is a standard vessel of sacrifice and the lyre with a plectrum are typical attributes of Apollo.

We will start with the Mithras altar….

 

I’ve linked to the original images, rather than copied them here.

This is only a tiny selection of the materials in the diary, which is very, very interesting and includes UV examination.   This blog is really a model of how material should be presented online.  Truly it is!

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Vedius Pollio and the lampreys

Posted on by Roger Pearse

This evening I found myself wondering just what ancient sources record the story of the cruelty of Vedius Pollio. 

For those unfamiliar with the story, Pollio used to keep man-eating lampreys in a tank.  When a slave displeased him, he would order the slave thrown to the lampreys.  One day the emperor Augustus was dining with him, when a slave happened to break a crystal cup.  Pollio ordered him thrown to the lampreys; but the boy escaped and threw himself at the knees of the emperor, begging to be executed in some other manner than being eaten alive.  The emperor sought to calm Pollio, who was implacable.  Then Augustus ordered that all of Pollio’s valuable cups should be brought; and when they were, he ordered them smashed.  The slave seems to have been allowed to live.

Here are the sources that I can find.

Seneca the Younger, De ira (On Anger), book 3, chapter 40:

To reprove a man when he is angry is to add to his anger by being angry oneself. You should approach him in different ways and in a compliant fashion, unless perchance you be so great a personage that you can quash his anger, as the Emperor Augustus did when he was dining with Vedius Pollio.

One of the slaves had broken a crystal goblet of his: Vedius ordered him to be led away to die, and that too in no common fashion: he ordered him to be thrown to feed the muraenae, some of which fish, of great size, he kept in a tank. Who would not think that he did this out of luxury? but it was out of cruelty. The boy slipped through the hands of those who tried to seize him, and flung himself at Caesar’s feet in order to beg for nothing more than that he might die in some different way, and not be eaten.

Caesar was shocked at this novel form of cruelty, and ordered him to be let go, and, in his place, all the crystal ware which he saw before him to be broken, and the tank to be filled up. This was the proper way for Caesar to reprove his friend: he made a good use of his power. What are you, that when at dinner you order men to be put to death, and mangled by an unheard-of form of torture? Are a man’s bowels to be torn asunder because your cup is broken? You must think a great deal of yourself, if even when the emperor is present you order men to be executed.

Seneca the Younger, De Clementia (On Clemency) book 1, chapter 18:

Slaves are allowed to run and take sanctuary at the statue of a god; though the laws allow a slave to be ill-treated to any extent, there are nevertheless some things which the common laws of life forbid us to do to a human being.

Who does not hate Vedius Pollio[10] more even than his own slaves did, because he used to fatten his lampreys with human blood, and ordered those who had offended him in any way to be cast into his fish-pond, or rather snake-pond?

That man deserved to die a thousand deaths, both for throwing his slaves to be devoured by the lampreys which he himself meant to eat, and for keeping lampreys that he might feed them in such a fashion.

Cruel masters are pointed at with disgust in all parts of the city, and are hated and loathed; the wrong-doings of kings are enacted on a wider theatre: their shame and unpopularity endures for ages: yet how far better it would have been never to have been born than to be numbered among those who have been born to do their country harm!

[10] Vedius Pollio had a villa on the mountain now called Punta di Posilippo, which projects into the sea between Naples and Puteoli, which he left to Augustus, and which was afterwards possessed by the Emperor Trajan. He was a freedman by birth, and remarkable for nothing except his riches and his cruelty. Cf. Dion Cassius, LIV. 23; Pliny, H. N. IX. 23; and Seneca, “On Anger,” III. 40. 2.

Cassius Dio, book 54, chapter 23 (via Lacus Curtius):

1. This same year Vedius Pollio died, a man who in general had done nothing deserving of remembrance, as he was sprung from freedmen, belonged to the knights, and had performed no brilliant deeds; but he had become very famous for his wealth and for his cruelty, so that he has even gained a place in history.

2. Most of the things he did it would be wearisome to relate, but I may mention that he kept in reservoirs huge lampreys that had been trained to eat men, and he was accustomed to throw to them such of his slaves as he desired to put to death.

Once, when he was entertaining Augustus, his cup-bearer broke a crystal goblet, and without regard for his guest, Pollio ordered the fellow to be thrown to the lampreys.

3. Hereupon the slave fell on his knees before Augustus and supplicated him, and Augustus at first tried to persuade Pollio not to commit so monstrous a deed. Then, when Pollio paid no heed to him, the emperor said, “Bring all the rest of the drinking vessels which are of like sort or any others of value that you possess, in order that I may use them,” 4. and when they were brought, he ordered them to be broken.

When Pollio saw this, he was vexed, of course; but since he was no longer angry over the one goblet, considering the great number of the others that were ruined, and, on the other hand, could not punish his servant for what Augustus also had done, he held his peace, though much against his will.

5. This is the sort of person Pollio was, who died at this time. Among his many bequests to many persons he left to Augustus a good share of his estate together with Pausilypon, the place between Neapolis and Puteoli, with instructions that some public work of great beauty should be erected there.

6. Augustus razed Pollio’s house to the ground, on the pretext of preparing for the erection of the other structure, but really with the purpose that Pollio should have no monument in the city; and he built a colonnade, inscribing on it the name, not of Pollio, but of Livia.

Pliny the Elder, Natural History, book 9, chapter 39 (via Perseus):

Vedius Pollio,[7] a Roman of equestrian rank, and one of the friends of the late Emperor Augustus, found a method of exercising his cruelty by means of this animal [the muraena], for he caused such slaves as had been condemned by him, to be thrown into preserves filled with muraenae; not that the land animals would not have fully sufficed for this purpose, but because he could not see a man so aptly torn to pieces all at once by any other kind of animal.

[7]. This wretched man was originally a freedman, and though he was on one occasion punished by Augustus for his cruelty, he left him a great part of his property. He died B. C. 15. He is supposed to be the same person as the one against whom Augustus wrote some Fescennine verses, mentioned by Macrobius, Sat. B. ii. c. 4.

Tertullian, De Pallio, chapter 5:

6. Equally do I plunge the scalpel into the inhumanity which led Vedius Pollio to expose slaves to fill the bellies of sea-eels. Delighted, forsooth, with his novel savagery, he kept land-monsters, toothless, clawless, hornless: it was his pleasure to turn perforce into wild beasts his fish, which (of course) were to be forthwith cooked, that in their entrails he himself withal might taste some savour of the bodies of his own slaves.

It is not suggested anywhere, note that Vedius Pollio committed any crime in law; merely that he had acted in a gauche and ignoble manner.  Seneca states above:

Servis ad statuam licet confugere; cum in servum omnia liceant, est aliquid, quod in hominem licere commune ius animantium vetet.

Slaves are allowed to run and take sanctuary at the statue of a god; though the laws allows a slave to be ill-treated to any extent, there are nevertheless some things, which the common laws of life forbid us to do to a human being.

Literally: “although all things are allowed [to be done] to a slave”. 

It is perhaps fortunate that such “law” is not part of our inheritance from Rome.

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A series of posts on Cyril of Alexandria at “All along the watchtower”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An incoming link draws my attention to a blog previously unknown to me, All along the watchtower.  The blog has begun a series of posts by “Chalcedon451” on Cyril of Alexandria.

It is certainly the case that few of the Fathers enjoy a lower reputation in the English-speaking world than Cyril.  “Chalcedon451” suggests that we have Gibbon to blame for this.

He’s probably right.  Few other than specialists had any access to the Fathers, and the impact of Decline and Fall on the literate world was immense.  His slurs on Eusebius are still repeated; his negative opinion of Cyril was likewise definitive. 

It is telling that the 19th century American pirate edition of the Fathers, the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series, while it reprinted the translations of Augustine and Chrysostom, left sternly to one side the translations of Cyril of Alexandria in the same series.

I have always felt that Cyril suffers from his association with the Nestorian dispute.  That was a matter of high politics, in which he is unlikely to appear very pleasing to our eyes.  It would be much, much better if we could start with something we DO sympathise with, the Contra Julianum.  One of the last apologetic works of antiquity, the arguments of Cyril would at least be directed against the anti-Christianity of Julian the Apostate, rather than Nestorius, with whom many of us feel some sympathy.  A translation of this work is in progress; but it seems unlikely that it will be accessible to non-specialists.

It will be interesting to see what is said in the blog series, all the same.

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