Letter of Latino Latini completed

I’ve now had the letter of Latino Latini to Andreas Masius translated. This is the one that mentions the lost manuscript of Eusebius Diaphonia.  It’s actually a very interesting, gossipy letter.  The translator has offered to do the whole set of letters sometime, which is nice but not something I will pay for at this time.  I’ll print it as an appendix to the edition of the Eusebius.

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Discussion on Armenian version of Michael the Syrian

I note that the comments on this post of mine have wandered into the very interesting area of Armenian versions of Michael the Syrian, Armenians in Egypt, and related issues, and are well worth a read.

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Still scanning Michael the Syrian part 3

And boy is it hard work!  Just lifting and turning the heavy volume itself is tiring.  Just scanned p. 165.  I find that I have to play games with myself, to avoid giving up.  So at the moment I’m saying, “only a couple more to 170; you can pause there.”  When I get to 170, of course I have 171 open.  So I tend to just scan the extra page — just turn the book and lower it on the scanner.  Then, “well, may as well do a couple more.”  And so on.

We tend to take for granted how all those books on Google and Archive.org got scanned.  But it was hard, slow, back-breaking work.  When we grumble about missing pages, perhaps we should think of some low-paid person, very tired.

P. 173 done.  Maybe I’ll just do as far as 180…

UPDATE.  p.269.  Wonder if I can get to 300 tonight?

UPDATE2. p.361.  But I’m missing One Tree Hill!  Still, when the pages are turning and the pain-level is low, you have to keep rolling.

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Jerome, Letter to Hedibia, complete online

James Snapp Jr. has kindly run the old French translation of Jerome’s Letter to Hedibia (ep. 130) through Google translate, smartened it up a bit, and made it freely available in the public domain.  It’s here.  Many thanks, James!

As machine translators improve, there will be real public benefit in efforts like this.  Yes, we should translate from the original.  But the fact is that vast amounts of stuff exists in French which few anglophones can read, and which won’t get a translation directly.  Particularly for amateurs and enthusiasts, making a translation and placing it online really increases public interest in texts.

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Abu al-Fida, Historia ante-Islamica online

Emily Cottrell has written to tell me about a discovery in Google Books:

I am happy to have found this amazing chronicle online (very little studied because rarely available in libraries:

http://books.google.com/books?id=1jpbAAAAQAAJ&dq=abulfeda+fleischer&hl=en&source=gbs_navlinks_s

(Abu al-Fida, an Ayyubid prince of the 14th c. check out for his interesting genealogies of Greeks and Romans… I am trying to see if he had access to the Philosophical History by Porphyry…)

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Michael the Syrian, book 12, chapter 1 — have a quick translation!

Today is pretty much done, but since I read the first chapter of book 12 of Michael the Syrian, perhaps I could give a quick translation of it here.

Book 12.

With the aid of the divine power that perfected the twelve holy apostles, we shall commence the twelfth book of the chronicle, which begins in the year 1088 of the Greeks, which is the year 157 of the empire of the Arabs, who are the Taiyaye, the year 6260 from Adam, i.e. since the beginning of the world, and the year 758 from our Lord.

Chapter 1. — Of the era from the beginning of the reign of Leo, (emperor) of the Romans, and of Mahdi, (king) of the Taiyaye, when the holy patriarch and martyr Mar Georgius came out of prison.

In the year 1088 Leo son of Constantine began to reign over the Romans.  In the same year, 25 days later, Mahdi, son of Abu Jafar, began to reign over the Taiyaye.  Both set free all the prisoners who had been imprisoned by their fathers.

Mahdi opened the treasuries of his father and gave away his riches, as with the van, not only to his soldiers but also to women, his concubines; because he was debauched and addicted to pleasures.  He was also interested in magic, divination, sortileges, and he collected books of magic and divination.  This is why Leo, emperor of the Romans, sent him the book entitled Janes and Jambres, which contains all the magic of the Egyptians, and all that they did when they encountered Moses.

In the year 1090 Mahdi went to Aleppo, and the Tanoukaye came out to meet him; [479] they lived in tents in the surroundings of Aleppo.  He saw that they were mounted on Arab horses, and were richly dressed.  Then someone said to him, “All these people are Christians.”  He was inflamed with rage and ordered them to become Moslems.  He forced them to do this by tortures, and the men apostasised, to the number of five thousand; the women were saved and to the present day are found in the churches of the west.  A venerable man among them, named Leith, suffered martyrdom.

Mahdi invaded the territory of the Romans and fixed his camp on the river Pyramus, in the region of the town of Arabissus.

He sent his son Haroun to ransack Beit Roumaye; himself he captured Syria and returned to Jerusalem to pray; his son, after capturing a fortress called Semalus, finished pillaging and moved off.

In the year 1092 of the Greeks, the Taiyaye penetrated into the region of Ephesus and made captive around seven thousand men.  The emperor Leo, on his side, sent an army which took into captivity the orthodox Syrians and settled them in Thrace.

One of the Chalcedonian writers says that this emperor Leo detested images and wouldn’t allow anyone to venerate them, and that he adhered to the Orthodox, like his father.

In the year 1092 Leo died, and his son Constantine [Porphyrogentius] began to reign.  Since he was a child of 12, his mother Irene governed and was proclaimed as ruler with him.

In the year 1094 Mahdi sent his son [480] Haroun, with two generals, into the land of the Romans.  `Adb el-Malik beseiged Nacolaea; his army was shattered in pieces and he returned covered in shame.  Bournike gave battle and killed ten thousand Romans.  Haroun advanced towards the imperial city.  The Romans made use of a ruse, and encircled the Taiyaye near the river Sangarius between the mountain on one side and the sea on the other.  The Taiyaye were in great straits.  They asked for peace; Irene, following the feminine spirit, agreed.  A truce of three years was made, and the Taiyaye emerged from their difficulty.

In the following year `Ali built the town of Hadeth.

In the year 1095, Mahdi died.  His son Mousa [began to reign], for two years.

In the year 1097 the Romans advanced with a considerable army and reached the town of Hadeth, which had been newly built by the Taiyaye, on the frontier.  The inhabitants fled and it was deserted.  The Romans then destroyed the walls completely and demolished all that had been constructed.

In the month of Tammuz [July] Mousa, [king] of the Taiyaye died; and after him reigned his brother Haroun, surnamed Rashid [=the Just, a name given by his father].

At the time when Mahdi began to reign over the Taiyaye, he sent a man named Mohtasib to destroy the churches which had been built in the times of the Taiyaye, and he ordered that the Christian slaves should be sold.  Many churches were demolished, and the slaves fled.

The church of the Chalcedonians at Aleppo was destroyed.

He also stirred up a persecution against the Manichaeans everywhere.  Many of the Taiyaye were convinced of this heresy and were put to death because they would not renounce it.

A place called Padana Rabta was destroyed, which was quite filled with Manichaeans.  Some Christians were arrested because they were unjustly accused of being of this heresy.  A Persian also denounced some women of the family of the Goumaye, and they were arrested.  The motive (for this) of this Persian was that they had not given him lodging in their house situated in the town of Hinan.  He was annoyed at this, and when he saw at Baghdad [479] that (a persecution) was being stirred up against the Manichaeans, he denounced the people of the Goumaye as being Manichaeans.  Eight of the principal men among them were seized and thrown in prison.  After many torments, three died in prison and the other five were delivered and came out, thanks to the Saviour who saves.

[A long passage on a locust plague in 1095 follows]

After nine years of the imprisonment of the patriarch Georgius at Baghdad, Mahdi, son of Abu Jafar, began to reign and released the prisoners.  The patriarch came out with them.  Mahdi banned him from exercising the patriarchate, and from calling himself Patriarch.  The blessed man went back to Tikrit, and was received there like an angel of God.  He was received the same way in going through Mosul and all the towns of Jezira [=Iraq], and was treated everywhere with honour.  He came to Antioch.  There he ordained ten bishops in that year; he deposed those of David, and created others in their place.  However he left some of them, making the concessions which the situation of the moment demanded.

He excommunicated and deposed Plotinus, who had been installed by Sandalaya, and made Constantinus return to Samosata.  Some time later, when Constantinus died, the inhabitants of Samosata asked him for Plotinus [479], and he sent him back to them.

After the patriarch had spent two years in travelling around and supporting the churches, some calumniators accused him to `Ali, emir of Jezira, of using the orders of the king to clean his feet.  Annoyed, (`Ali) had him brought from Harran to Callinice.  Before he appeared in the presence of the emir, Theodosius, the bishop whom Sandalaya had deposed, went in and calmed the heat and anger of the emir.  He demonstrated to him that the patriarch had been accused falsely.  When the blessed man went in, and when the emir set forth the accusations against him, he made his apology admirably, and was very well received, above all because Theodosius who interpreted his words into Arabic, and who was well thought of by the emir, made a eulogy of the patriarch, saying that he was a good and holy man and that those who accused him of having imposed charges and tributes on the church were not truthful.  The emir was appeased by this acceptable discourse, and the patriarch retired victorious, and after that he governed the church of God without fear until the end of his life.

At Alexandria the patriarch was Maiana for 9 years; then Iwannis [=John].

In the year 1095 the Edessans fell out with Zacharias their metropolitan for various reasons, but principally because they told him to bring back his brother Simeon, because of his bad conduct, and because he never did anything.  This is why the patriarch Georgius ordered him to leave the town, and he was no longer received there.

 And so on it goes.

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An anecdote of Bishop Warburton

BISHOP WILLIAM WARBURTON (1698-1779)

[James Quin, Garrick’s chief rival and a noted wit, retired from the stage at the close of the 1752 season. Warburton, whose marriage to the favourite niece of Ralph Allen (the original of Fielding’s Squire Allworthy) had accelerated his rise in the Church, and who managed to combine arrogance, self-approval, and a belief in his own omniscience with an eye to the main chance, was one of the least liked ecclesiastics of the eighteenth century.]

Mr. Warburton, about the year 1750 or 1752, being in company with Quin the player at Mr. Allen’s, near Bath, took several opportunities of being sharp upon him on the subject of his love of eating and his voluptuous life. However, in the course of the evening, he said he should be obliged to Quin for ‘a touch of his quality’, as he could never again see him on the stage. Quin said that plays were then quite out of his head; however, he believed he remembered a few lines of Pierre;1 on which he got up, and looking directly at Mr. Allen, repeated ore rotunda

                                                                Honest men
Are the soft easy cushions on which knaves
Repose and fatten.

Warburton gave him no further trouble for the rest of the evening.

1 In Otway’s Venice Preserved, Act I, lines 126-8.  Anecdote from Sir James Prior, Life of Edmond Malone . . . with Selections from his MSS. Anecdotes (1860), via J. Sutherland, The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes (1975), #102, p.71.  The preceding anecdote of Lord Chesterfield is from the same source, #101.

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Flushed with success – how to acquire a knowledge of the Latin poets

I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house; but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments. He bought, for example, a common edition of Horace, of which he tore off gradually a couple of pages, carried them with him to that necessary place, read them first, and then sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina: this was so much time fairly gained, and I recommend you to follow his example. . . . Books of science and of a grave sort must be read with continuity; but there are very many, and even very useful ones, which may be read with advantage by snatches and unconnectedly: such are all the good Latin poets, except Virgil in his Aeneid, and such are most of the modern poets, in which you will find many pieces worth reading that will not take up above seven or eight minutes. — Lord Chesterfield

The Letters of the Earl of Chesterfield to his son, ed. Charles Strachey and Annette Calthorp (1901), vol. 1, p. 192.

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Michael the Syrian vol. 3 has arrived

I scanned volume 1 and volume 2 of the French translation of the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian, the big 12th century Syriac Chronicle and placed them on Archive.org.  I learned today that after a very long wait, volume 3 has appeared at the local library via ILL.  I shall go and get it tomorrow, and fire up my scanner.

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Syriac origins for the Gospel of Thomas? Not convinced, I think

Paleobabble is a useful blog on some of the factual mistakes that go around.  He’s suspicious — as I am — of the idea that the Gospel of Thomas is “obviously” earlier than the canonical gospels; the way in which this idea is asserted and disseminated has that characteristic smell of a bit of paleobabble.

The Gospel of Thomas: Is it Really Earlier than the Canonical Gospels?

Many scholars think so, especially those trotted out by the Discovery Channel, PBS, etc.  A lot of scholars disagree, and for good reasons, but that isn’t as media-sexy.

Here’s a good article on recent re-consideration of the “earliness” of Thomas. It’s by Nick Perrin of Wheaton College, whom I know. Nick spoke as part of a lecture series I coordinated in Bellingham, WA a couple years ago on this topic. The article is a bit technical, but I think non-specialists in biblical studies will follow it.  I post it since there is so much paleobabble surrounding the Gospel of Thomas. You all ought to know that it’s not so neat a picture as the popular media would have it.

The article by Nick Perrin is interesting.  But in truth it is merely a summary of research, reflecting its origins as a paper given as an address.  I think to be happy with the thesis made, we would need to see all the supporting evidence.  Bits of this paper make me feel unhappy with the argument.

The first bit to do this appears on p.69, where a table of Matt. 8:20 with its version in the GoT and the Diatessaron appears.  This is given to show that the GoT agrees with the Diatessaron.  But … the table is in English!   We need, instead, the original languages, albeit with an English gloss.  I feel deeply uneasy relying on quite as many layers of translation as this table must involve!

The general argument seems to be that there are more “link words” between the sayings if we translate the text into Syriac than if we do into Greek, or in the Coptic.  The reason is that the same Syriac word may represent more than one word in Coptic, thereby creating links not visible in the other two languages.  Likewise the fact that in Syriac families of words all derive from one tri-literal root naturally creates links that won’t exist in other languages.

But … won’t the same apply to every translation into Syriac?  I’d like to see a control test; look at one of Chrysostom’s sermons, extant in Greek, and its Syriac version, and see if exactly the same thing happens, and how often.  It seems to me that it must do.  Because, after all, both things are features to the language.  If so, the statistics quoted may be simply meaningless, unless adjusted for a possible general feature.

The other issue that will come to mind is to ask why the Diatessaron is not, then, using GoT?  If the latter was composed in Edessa (? why?), surely such a thing is likely?  We’re not told this.

In my bones, the paper feels forced.  It feels clever rather than convincing.

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