Author: Roger Pearse

A novel from the Theodosian Code

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The emperor Theodosius II drew up a legal code in the 430’s AD, which reduced Roman law to a manageable proportion.  Further enactments were known as “novels”, and were added on the end.  This one caught my eye, while browsing the English translation by Pharr.

Notice how the emperor blames those he intends to persecute for his own actions.  Notice also what he says about the destruction of the economy caused by over-taxation and the stripping of the soil to provide food for the dole-fed mobs in Rome and Constantinople.

The list of heresies is also interesting, containing not just Manichaeans — perceived as a security risk for their links to Persia — but also various flavours of Montanists.   The Priscillianists were a rigorist group from the west.  The Borborites were a gnostic group of filthy morals.

TITLE 3: JEWS, SAMARITANS, HERETICS, AND PAGANS (DE JUDAEIS, SAMARITANIS, HAERETICIS, ET PAGANIS)

Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian Augustuses to Florentius, Praetorian Prefect.

Among the other anxieties which Our love for the State has imposed upon Us for Our ever watchful consideration, We perceive that an especial responsibility of Our Imperial Majesty is the pursuit of the true religion. If We shall be able to hold fast to the worship of this true religion, We shall open the way to prosperity in human undertakings. This We have learned by the experience of Our long life, and by the decision of Our pious mind We decree that the ceremonies of sanctity shall be established by a law of perpetual duration, even to posterity.

1. For who is so demented, so damned by the enormity of strange savagery, that, when he sees the heavens with incredible swiftness define the measures of time within their spaces under the sway of the divine guidance, when he sees the movements of the stars which control the benefits of life, the earth richly endowed with the harvests, the waters of the sea, and the vastness of this immense achievement confined within the boundaries of the natural world, he does not seek the author of so great a mystery, of so mighty a handiwork? We learn that the Jews, with blinded senses, the Samaritans, the pagans, and the other breeds of heretical monsters dare to do this. If We should attempt by a remedial law to recall them to the sanity of an excellent mind, they themselves will be blameworthy for Our severity, since they leave no place for pardon by the obstinate wickedness of their unyielding arrogance.

2. Wherefore, since according to the ancient maxim no cure must be employed for hopeless diseases, in order that these deadly sects, oblivious of Our age, may not spread too wantonly into the life of Our people like an indistinguishable confusion, We finally sanction by this law destined to live in all ages, that no Jew, no Samaritan, who does not rely on either law shall enter upon any honors or dignities; to none of them shall the administration of a civil duty be available, nor shall they perform even the duties of a defender. Indeed We believe that it is wrong that persons hostile to the Supernal Majesty and to the Roman laws should be considered the avengers of Our laws under the protection of a surreptitious jurisdiction; that they should be protected by the authority of a dignity thus acquired; that they should have the power to judge or to pronounce whatever sentence they may wish against the Christians and very often against the bishops themselves of the holy religion, as if they were insulting Our faith.

3. With an equally reasonable consideration also, We prohibit any synagogue to arise as a new building, but license is granted to strengthen the ancient synagogues which threaten immediately to fall in ruin.

4. To these regulations We add the provision that if any person should seduce a slave or a freeborn person, against his will or by punishable persuasion, from the worship of the Christian religion to an impious sect or ritual, he shall suffer capital punishment, together with the forfeiture of his fortune.

5. If any person of these sects, therefore, has assumed the insignia of office, he shall not possess the dignities which he has acquired, and if he has erected a synagogue, he shall know that he has labored for the profit of the Catholic Church. Furthermore, if any of these persons has stolen into a position of honor, he shall be considered, as previously, of the lowest condition, even though he should have obtained an honorary dignity. If anyone of them should begin the building of a synagogue, not with the desire merely to repair it, in addition to the loss of fifty pounds of gold, he shall be deprived of his audacious undertaking. Besides, he shall perceive that his goods are proscribed and that he himself shall immediately be destined to the death penalty, if he should overthrow the faith of another by his perverted doctrine.

6. Since it behooves Our Imperial Majesty to embrace all contingencies in such a provision that the public welfare may not be injured in any way, We decree that the decurions of all municipalities and also the gubernatorial apparitors, shall be bound to their onerous duties, even those of the imperial service, or to the various obligations of their resources and the duties of their personal compulsory services, and they shall adhere to their own orders, of whatsoever sect they may be. Thus We shall not appear on account of the contumely of corrupt solicitation to grant the favor of exemption to men who are execrable, since it is Our will that they shall be condemned by the authority of this constitution.

7. The following exception shall be observed, namely, that apparitors who are members of the aforesaid sects shall execute the sentences of judges only in private suits, and they shall not be in charge of the custody of prisons, lest Christians, as customarily happens, may at times be thrust into prison by the hatred of their guards and thus suffer a second imprisonment, when it is not certain that they appear to have been rightfully imprisoned.

8. Hence Our Clemency perceives that We must exercise watchfulness over the pagans also and their heathen enormities, since with their natural insanity and stubborn insolence they depart from the path of the true religion. They disdain in any way to practice the nefarious rites of their sacrifices and the false doctrines of their deadly superstition in the hidden solitudes, unless their crimes are made public by the nature of their profession, to the outrage of the Supernal Majesty and to the contempt of Our times. A thousand terrors of the laws that have been promulgated, the penalty of exile that has been threatened, do not restrain them, whereby, if they cannot be reformed, at least they might learn to abstain from their mass of crimes and from the corruption of their sacrifices. But straightway they sin with such audacious madness and Our patience is so assailed by the attempts of these impious persons that even if We desired to forget them, We could not disregard them. Therefore, although the love of religion can never be secure, although their pagan madness demands the harshness of all kinds of punishments, nevertheless We are mindful of the clemency that is innate in Us, and We decree by an unshakable order that if any person of polluted and contaminated mind should be apprehended in making a sacrifice in any place whatsoever, Our wrath shall rise up against his fortunes, against his life. For We must give this better victim, and the altar of Christianity shall be kept inviolate. Shall we endure longer that the succession of the seasons be changed, and the temper of the heavens be stirred to anger, since the embittered perfidy of the pagans does not know how to preserve these balances of nature? For why has the spring renounced its accustomed charm? Why has the summer, barren of its harvest, deprived the laboring farmer of his hope of a grain harvest? Why has the intemperate ferocity of winter with its piercing cold doomed the fertility of the lands with the disaster of sterility? Why all these things, unless nature has transgressed the decree of its own law to avenge such impiety? In order that we may not hereafter be compelled to sustain such circumstances, by a peaceful vengeance, as We have said, the venerable majesty of the Supernal Divinity must be appeased.

9. It remains to be said, O Florentius, dearest and most beloved Father, that all inaction shall cease and that the regulations shall be put into swift execution which have been issued in innumerable constitutions against the Manichaeans, always odious to God, against the Eunomians, authors of heretical folly, against the Montanists, the Phrygians, the Photinians, the Priscillianists, the Ascodrogians, the Hydroparastatae, the Borboritae, and the Ophitans.

10. Therefore, since it is dear to your heart to exercise implicit obedience to both the divine and the imperial commands, Your Illustrious and Magnificent Authority, by duly posting edicts of Your Excellency shall cause to come to the knowledge of all that which We have decreed for the insatiable honor of the Catholic religion. You shall also direct that these commands shall be announced to the governors of the provinces, so that by their like solicitude they may make known to all the municipalities and provinces what We have necessarily sanctioned.

Given on the day before the kalends of February at Constantinople in the year of the sixteenth consulship of Our Lord Theodosius Augustus and the consulship of the one who is to be announced. 19 January 31, 438.

INTERPRETATION: This law specifically orders that no Jew and no Samaritan can attain any honor of the imperial service or of an administrative office. In no manner can they undertake the office of defender or be guards of a prison, lest perchance under the pretext of any duty they may dare to harass with outrages on some occasion the Christians or even their priests, or lest the above mentioned persons who are enemies of Our law might presume to condemn or to judge some person by Our own laws. They shall not dare to construct a synagogue anew. For if they should do this, they shall know that this structure will profit the Catholic Church and that the authors of the construction must be fined fifty pounds of gold. But they shall know that the concession is made to them that they must repair the ruins of their synagogues. The regulation is also specifically included in this law that no Jew shall dare to convert a Christian, either slave or freeborn, to his own religion by any persuasion whatsoever. If he should commit this offense, he shall forfeit his resources and suffer capital punishment. As for the remainder, this law condemns the sects whose names are listed and contained in the law.

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Jerome’s Commentarioli in Psalmos exists in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An email from Andrew Eastbourne reveals that the Commentarioli does indeed exist in English already:

It looks like this Tractatus / Homily is in a FotC volume (The Homilies of Saint Jerome: 1-59 On the Psalms, translated by M. L. Ewald — “preview” at least in the US at http://books.google.com/books?id=2MBHW1WHAbsC ; in case it’s not available elsewhere, I’m attaching a screen cap) — and from “Quasten” it appears that Morin was basically convincing in arguing for Jerome’s authorship…

The screen grab of the portion we were discussing is here:

Jerome on Ps 1

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Thinking about Jerome’s “Commentarioli in Psalmos”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A look at the PDF of the Morin edition of this work by Jerome reveals 100 pages.  The comments are all fairly short.

I’ve been looking to see what translations exist.  An edition exists in the Corpus Christianorum from Brepols (CCSL 72, 100 euros), but since the editor given is Morin I suspect this is really a reprint.  A German translation does exist here, from 2005, which advertises itself as the first into a modern language.

Is there an English version?  Would one be interesting?

I’ve worked out that a page might be about 180 words, and the whole work perhaps 18,000, across 100 short pages.  The Latin is easy enough.  Perhaps I should commission a translation.

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A passage in Jerome on Revelation

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A correspondent asked me for a translation of this:

Legimus in Apocalypsi Johannis (quod in istis provinciis non recipitur liber, tamen scire debemus quoniam in occidente omni, et in aliis Faenicis provinciis, et in AEgypto recipitur liber, et ecclesiasticus est: nam et veteres ecclesiastici viri, e quibus est Irenaeus, et Polycarpus, et Dionysius, et alii Romani interpretes, de quibus est et Cyprianus sanctus, recipiunt librum et interpretantur) legimus ergo ibi: eqs.

Which I rendered hastily as:

We read in the Apocalypse of John (which in those provinces is a book not received [as canonical], however we ought to understand that in all the west, and in the other Phoenician provinces, and in Egypt the book is received, and is a book of the church; for also ancient men of the church, among whom Irenaeus and Polycarp and Dionysius [of Alexandria] and other Roman expounders, also including St. Cyprian, receive the book and expound it) we read therefore there: …

Errors?  And … what is “Faenici”?

UPDATE:  Andrew Eastbourne writes:

That text of Jerome is in his (possibly inauthentic) “Tractatus” on Ps. 1, edited by Morin in the Anecdota Maredsolana vol. 3.2 (online at http://books.google.com/books?id=Qh0NAAAAIAAJ — easiest to find if you search in that volume for “legimus in Apocalypsi”) — oh, and Faenicis *is* simply “normal” medieval confusion of spelling for Phoenicis.  (ae / oe / e variation is very frequent in mss.)

I’ve also changed the translation as suggested in the comments!  The quote seems to be on p.5 of the text: just searching for “legimus in Apocalypsi” gives p.314 which is another quote.  The book is inaccessible outside the US, tho.  The reference is: 

Jerome, Commentarioli in Psalmos / Hieronymi, qui deperditi hactenus putabantur ; edidit, commentario critico instruxit, prolegomena et indices adjecit Germanus Morin. 1895, p. 5.

The faenicis has a note in Morin’s apparatus, “Faenicis] paenicis C 1 m: phaenicis A: phoenicis uC 2 m.”  The meaning of these glyphs is not apparent at first glance.

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Latin texts that ought to exist in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been looking through volume four of Quasten’s Patrology, trying to find anything that I think really should exist in English.  I didn’t do very well.  Part of the problem is that volume 4 was not written by Quasten, and is quite inferior in a number of ways. 

Quasten always made sure you knew why you might be interested in an author, or in a text.  He would quote bits, or indicate their importance.  The Italians translated for volume 4 merely tend to refer to scholarly discussions.

The only items that caught my eye were a few short poems, such as the Carmen adversus paganos, which is one of only four texts to mention the taurobolium; or the Carmen ad senatorem quendam, which addresses a senator who had apostasised, gone over to the cult of the Magna Mater, and become a priest of Isis.

There must be quite a number of Latin historical texts that are of interest, of the kind that appear in Mommsen’s Chronica Minora and the like.

The only other item that I could think of was the fragments of Porphyry’s Against the Christians.  Quite a number of these are from works by Jerome.  I have a version of the fragments online, which isn’t very satisfactory, and omits a whole lot of these.  Perhaps this would be a good thing to attack.

As ever, I am open to suggestions.

I’m back to work today, after two weeks off with some kind of strain or sprain or whatever in my hip.  I was very glad that I cancelled my Syria trip. If 45 minutes in the car was enough to make me hurt, imagine what five hours in cramped discomfort in a plane would have done!

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Savile’s edition of Chrysostom

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The text of the complete works of Chrysostom published by J.-P. Migne was a reprint of the Benedictine edition by Montfaucon of a century earlier.  Rather surprisingly, it does not contain all the material included in the 8-volume edition produced a century before that by Sir Henry Savile.  

I learn from Quasten’s Patrology 3 and also from the Clavis Patrum Graecorum 2 that some of the sermons of Severian of Gabala are only contained in Savile’s edition.

A kind reader has sent me PDF’s of Savile.  It’s rather daunting!  The lack of a Latin title is a clue; inside there is solely Greek.  There is an index at the end of volume 8, but it too is all in Greek.  In short, it is a rather tough proposition to find your way around! 

Fortunately the CPG gives page numbers for the sermons in question.

I’ve been working on transferring data and software to my new PC since Saturday, and I’m getting there.  But it is a wearisome business.  Windows 7 hasn’t attacked me yet, but give it time.

I’ve had another chunk of the Greek of Eusebius’ Quaestiones back from proof-reading.  I’ve also had a chunk of the Coptic back in English, although not in any useful format — the translator seems to have terrible trouble doing simple things with a computer, which is very, very wearing.  On a more positive note the translator of the Arabic bits is on course to complete those.

The translation with text of Origen’s Homilies on Ezechiel is progressing very well, and there is very little more to do.  The translator has worked very hard on this, and it shows.  It’s likely to be ready before the Eusebius, at current progress.  If it does appear first, I might send it out first, contrary to my original intention.

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Leontius of Byzantium, “Adversus fraudes Apollinistarum”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

If you browse idly through Quasten’s Patrology volume 3, a little here and a little there — if you do this idly but often, you will acquire quite a fund of knowledge about the later Greek fathers, their lives, their quarrels, and their works; and about what editions and translations are commonly relied on for all these.

A couple of hours ago I found myself reading the entry on Apollinaris of Laodicea.  This learned man wrote a great many commentaries on Scripture.  More, he stood up to the Emperor Julian the Apostate.  The emperor passed a decree in 361 AD banning Christians from teaching the classics — effectively from teaching.  This was the first but by no means the last attempt to make sure Christians were uneducated in order to jeer at them for being uneducated.  A similar approach has been used by modern atheistic regimes, and demanded by modern atheists in democracies.  Apollinaris responded by recasting the bible in the forms of Greek dialogues and so on, to ensure that Christians could continue to acquire knowledge.  The early death of Julian after a reign of 18 months rendered the effort unnecessary.

Apollinaris was later condemned as a heretic for some christological mistakes.  His works were banned.  But they continued to circulate under other names, and some have reached us.

A 6th century writer, Leontius of Byzantium, composed a work Adversus fraudes Apollinistarum.  This was designed to show that various works in circulation were not by people like Gregory Thaumaturgus, but in reality by banned Apollinarist authors.  Censorship of opinion had its natural consequence, that opinions circulated anonymously; and hate built on this the usual accusation of fraud.  It is hateful to ban a man from speaking his mind and then call him a forger when you force him to put his opinions forward under some form of camouflage.  In our politically correct days, we have lived to see the reappearance of this Byzantine tradition.

The work itself sounds more interesting than it is.  It appears in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, 86b, cols. 1947-1976.  It’s 15 columns of Greek (ignoring the parallel Latin translation), and would therefore cost $300 to translate.  I can find no evidence of a modern translation.

The work consists of a brief introductory paragraph, then the main body which consists entirely of excerpts from Apollinarists, each named and referenced; and then a final couple of paragraphs (1973C ff.) on the Apollinarist errors.

OF THE SAME LEONTIUS, AGAINST THOSE WHO BRING US MATERIAL BY APOLLINARIS, FALSELY INSCRIBED WITH THE NAME OF HOLY FATHERS.

Some from the heresy of Apollinaris or Eutyches or Dioscorus, when they wanted to advance their heresy, inscribed some works of Apollinaris as by Gregory Thaumaturgus, or Athanasius, or Julius,  in order to deceive the more naive.  And so they did.  For by the authority of these people who deserved trust they were able to take in  many people in the Catholic Church.  And you can obtain from many true believers the book of Apollinaris with the title h( kata meros pistis, … ascribed to Gregory; and some of his letters have been ascribed to Julius, and others of his orations or expositions on the incarnation have been ascribed to Athanasius.  Likewise ascribed is the expostion  agreeing with the exposition of the 318; not only this but others also.  However this will be made evident to you, and to anyone studious of the truth, from these things which we haveextracted from Apollinaris himself, or his disciples, one of whom is Valentinus.

Valentinus: a chapter of an Apollinarist Apology

“Against those who say that we say that the flesh is consubstantial with God”.

Master Apollinaris, from his letter to Serapion.

 Receive this letter, of your charity, sir, …

And so on it goes.  I can see why it has never received translation; but surely, all these works ought to be more accessible?

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Stopped by a PC

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The Dell I mentioned a week ago turned out to be a turkey.  It was a Dell Studio 15, but it vibrated so strongly that my desk shook, and also had a headache-inducing mid-tone howl.  It’s going back, naturally.  Today I went out and got whatever was for sale in local shops, which turned out to be a Sony Vaio.  The Sony actually seems very nice.

Both it and my old Vista machine are now chained together, moving 250Gb of data across.  After that, I need to install lots of software — probably on Monday,  I would guess, as I don’t use a PC on Sundays.  Meanwhile I’ve found an even older laptop on which I am typing this. 

I apologise if any correspondence goes unanswered until I am back up and running properly.

The Vista machine (a Dell Inspiron 1720) started having problems.  Worse yet, I was out of disk space for all the PDF’s of books that I need and want.  The new machine has twice the disk space. It also has an “eSata” port — apparently that will allow an external hard disk to run at a reasonable speed —  USB hard disks are hopelessly slow.  If so, I can put my PDF collection on such a drive, and not need quite so much on the local hard disk.

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Henry Savile and his edition of the works of Chrysostom

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Looking at the Clavis Patrum Graecorum — a text that should certainly be online — we find that the works of Severian of Gabala appear in two main editions, under the name of Chrysostom.  There is the 1718-38 century edition of the works of Chrysostom by Montfaucon, the Benedictine editor in France.  This is what Migne reprinted.

But there is also an edition by Henry Savile, published at Eton, of all places, in 1612.  A couple of Severian’s sermons only appear in this edition.

I am impressed by the CPG, by the way.  It neatly clears up what exists for Severian, and where it may be found; in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Armenian.

Philip Schaff’s introduction to the works of Chrysostom in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers edition is useful.  After discussing the marvellous labours of Montfaucon, he adds:

The edition of Sir Henry Savile (Provost of Eton), Etonae, 1612, in 8 vols. for., is less complete than the Benedictine edition, but gives a more correct Greek text (as was shown by F. Dübner from a collation of manuscripts) and valuable notes. Savile personally examined the libraries of Europe and spent £8,000 on his edition. His wife was so jealous of his devotion to Chrysostom that she threatened to burn his manuscripts.

Lady Savile was not the first wife to threaten her husband’s books, out of jealousy, as Reynolds and Wilson, Scribes and Scholars records.

But is the edition accessible?  Is it online?  It is, after all, a very old book, and the USA did not exist when it was published.  It is US libraries, after all, who have made Google Books and Archive.org what they are.

A search suggests that it might form part of “Early English Books Online”, a project which is not freely available.  UK taxpayers funded it, so naturally it has been placed under the control of a commercial company and only rich institutions are allowed to use it.  (It is depressing, sometimes, to see the combination of waste and greed and littleness of mind characteristic of British higher education).  You can’t even see if it is in there.

Does anyone have access to EEBO, and can check whether it is there?

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Severian of Gabala, Homily 3 on Genesis, chapter 5

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve translated roughly a little more of the French translation of Bareille of these sermons, which I increasingly find interesting.  I’m getting an idea of why Severian was such a popular preacher.  I really think that I will commission a translation of the homilies on Genesis by Severian (although I think I would use the best translator I know on them).

5. Let us now ask where the sun goes down, and where, during the night, it purses its course?  According to our adversaries, under the land; and we who look at the sky as a tent, what is our feeling on this?  Look and see, I beg you, whether we are in error, or whether the truth of our opinion appears clearly, and whether reality is in agreement with our hypothesis. 

Imagine that above your head a pavilion has been set up.  East would be there, north here, south there and west there.  When the sun has left the East and starts to set, it will not set under the land; but crossing the limits of the sky, it traverses the northern areas where it is hidden by a kind of wall from our gaze, the upper waters concealing his journey from us; and, after having traversed these areas, it returns to the East. 

And where is the proof of this assertion?  In Ecclesiastes, an authentic and not interpolated work of Solomon: “The sun rises and the sun sets,” it is written there;  “while rising, it moves towards its setting, then it turns to the north;  it turns, it turns, and it rises again in its place.”  Eccl., i, 5.  Otherwise it is during the winter that you will note this southward journey of the sun, and its movement in the direction of the north; then, it does not rise in the centre of the East, it inclines towards the south, and, following a shorter route, it makes the day shorter; once it has set, it continues its circular direction, and the nights then are longer. 

We all know, my brothers, that the sun always does not start at the same point.  How then do the days become shorter?  Because the sun, to rise, moves from the south; then, from where it rises, it follows an oblique path, and from this comes the brevity of the days.   As it sets in the extremity of the west, it must necessarily traverse during the night the west, north, all of the east, to arrive on the edge of the south; from which inevitably follows the length of the night.  When the distance traversed and the speed of travel are the same, the nights then are equal to the days.  After that, it moves northwards as during the winter it had moved south; it rises in the northern heights and makes the day longer;  on the other hand the curve which it must follow during the night being shorter, the nights also become shorter. 

This is not what the Greeks have taught us:  they do not want these teachings, and they claim that the sun and the stars continue their course beneath the land.  But no, the Scripture, this divine mistress, the Scripture leads us and dispenses her light to us. 

Thus the Lord has made the sun, a torch which never weakens; he made the moon, whose glory shines and fades alternately.  The work reveals the workman.  The workman never knows failure, the work is also eternal.  The moon does not lose its light, it is concealed only to our eyes, a faithful image of mortal men. 

Think of the centuries that have passed since its appearance!  And yet, when the moon is new, we say:  The moon is born today.  Why this language?  Because we see a figure of our corporeal life there.  The moon is born, grows, reaches its apogee, only to then decrease, diminish and disappear:  and we also, we are born, we grow, we arrive at our apogee; then we fade, we decline, we age and we disappear in death.  But, just as the moon reappears then, we also will come back to life and another life is reserved for us.  This is why the Saviour, to teach us that, following the example of our birth on earth, a new birth awaits us beyond the tomb, expresses himself in these terms:  “When the Son of man comes at the time of the new Genesis.”  Matth. xix, 28. 

So the moon guarantees the resurrection to us.  What! she says to us, you see me disappearing to reappear, and you lose all hope?  Wasn’t the sun itself created for us, as well as the moon, and all creatures?  What does not promise us our resurrection?  Isn’t the night the image of death?  When darkness covers our bodies, you recognize nobody any more.  Often it happens that you touch with your hand the face of someone sleeping, and you do not know whose face this is, whose is that one; and you ask, so that the voice allows you to recognize those whom the darkness conceals from you.  So in the same way as the night hides the features of everyone, and as we do not recognize one another any more, when we are all together; in the same way death destroyed the human form and prevents us recognizing them any more. 

Walk through the tombs, look at the skulls which they contain; do you recognize to which people they belonged?  He knows who formed them; He who delivered these bodies to dissolution knows from where they came.  And you do not admire the creative power of the Lord?  There is a multitude of men, and none is exactly the same as any other.  You could traverse the ends of the universe in vain, you would not find two men who resembled each other exactly; and, when you believe you have found such, there would be presented in the eyes or the nose a difference which would justify this astonishing truth. Two children come out of the same place at the same time, and their resemblance is imperfect.  

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