Author: Roger Pearse

Arator, his “Historia Apostolica” and its “tituli” and “capitula”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Back in October I received an email enquiring about the chapter headings in the manuscripts of Arator.  My first reaction, like yours, was to wonder who on earth was Arator!  So I thought that it might be interesting to give some information here about this obscure figure, and discuss the question posed to me.

Let’s start with Arator himself.  He lived in the early 6th century, in northern Italy, and wrote a single work, on the Acts of the Apostles, generally labelled Historia Apostolica, or sometimes De Actibus Apostolis.

Few perhaps are aware that a sixth volume of Quasten’s Patrology exists, covering the Latin authors from the end of vol. 4 up to the time of the Venerable Bede.  Sadly it exists only in Italian.[1]  Let’s hear what it has to say:

ARATOR

A little information on the life of this poet and his writings is given to us in the Variae of Cassiodorus and in the works of Ennodius. We know that he was originally from the north of Italy and that his father, perhaps a teacher of rhetoric and certainly a man of high culture, had provided for his early education. Following the untimely death of his father, he was taken care of by the bishop of Milan, Laurentius, and so the young boy passed, together with the great Ennodius, into the school of Deuterius, as we learn from one of the Ennodian dictiones (number 9). There in Ravenna he established a great friendship with Parthenius, nephew of Ennodius, and they began to study the classics, especially the commentaries of Caesar, but also Christian authors such as St Ambrose, “Decentius” (as a rule identified with Dracontius) and Sidonius Apollinaris. The Gothic ruler Theodoric had the opportunity to appreciate his eloquence on the occasion of his participation, perhaps in 526, in an Dalmatian embassy, and Athalaric raised him to the position of Comes domesticorum and Comes privatorum He went to Rome in an unspecified year and was named subdeacon by Pope Vigilius. For four days, between April 13 and June 1, 544 AD, he had the honor of reading his poem on the Acts of the Apostles in the Roman church of St. Pietro in Vincoli, in the presence of clerics and laity, with frequent applause and repeated invitations to read some passages again. After that all trace of him is lost.

Arator has left us a single poem in two books, the De actibus Apostolorum in which the two proemial charms are addressed to Florianus (12 couplets) and to Pope Vigilius (15 couplets); and the final metric epistle (51 couplets) is addressed to Parthenius. They are all one, if only for their illustrative character of the Aratorian poetics. Apparently the poem would appear to be a late product of that movement, inaugurated by Juvencus in the fourth century, whose obvious purpose was to excuse the rough simplicity of the biblical text by covering its contents with a metrically unexceptionable and stylistically elegant form; in other words to create a high-level Christian epic, up to the standard of the great classical tradition.

This cliché does not quite fit the Arator’s poem. In fact, Arator chooses only a few episodes of Acts, reserving the first book for those relating to Peter, and the second to those concerning Paul. He gives much space, in imitation of his predecessor Sedulius, to the allegorical and moral interpretation of the succinctly expressed events, as well as, in some cases, to the mystique of numbers. In essence, the poem fits more decisively into the didascalic strand than into the epic one. This explains and justifies the good fortune that it had in the Middle Ages, as evidenced by the numerous commentaries produced upon it between the ninth and tenth centuries.

Editions: CPL 1504-1505; PL 68, 63-252 (H.J. Arntzen, Zutphiae 1769); G.L Perugi, Venezia 1909; A.P. McKinlay, CSEL 72, Vindobonae 1951.

Studies: J. Schrödinger, Das Epos des Arator De actibus apostolorum in seinem Verhältnis zu Vergil, Progr., Weiden 1911; A. Ansorge, De Aratore veterum poetarum Latinorum imitatore, Breslau 1914; R. Anastasi, “Dati biografici su Aratore in Ennodio”: MSLC 1 (1947) 145-152; K. Thraede, “Arator”. JbAC 4 (1961) 187-196; F. Châtillon, “Arator déclamateur antijuif”. RMAL 19 (1963) 5-128; 197-216; 20 (1964) 185-225; S. Blomgren, Ad Aratorem et Fortunatum adnotationes. Eranos 72 (1974) 143-155; R.J. Schrader, Arator revalutation: CF 31 (1977) 64-77; D. Kanschoke, Bibeldichtung, Munchen 1975, 53-55; 72-74; 93-97; G.R. Wieland, The Latin Glosses on Arator and Prudentius in Cambridge University Library; Ms. Gg. 5, 35, Toronto 1983; H. Tiffenbach, Altdeutsche Aratorglossen, Paris. B.N. lat. 8318: AAWG 3, 107, 1977; L.T. Martin, The Influence of Arator in Anglo-Saxon England, in: Proceedings of the PMR Conference, Villanova 1985; P. Angelucci, I modelli classici di Aratore. Per una tipologia dei rapporti poeta-fonte. Boll. Studi Lat. 15 (1985) 40-50; R.J. Schrader, Notes on the Text. Interpretation of the Sources of Arator. VC 42 (1988) 75-78; P.A. Deproost, La mort de Judas dans l’”Historia apostolica” d’Arator. REAug 35 (1988) 75-78; Idem, Les functions apostoliques du sacre dans le poème d’Arator. BAGB (1989) 376-393; Idem, Les images de l’heroisme triomphale dans l'”Historia apostolica” d’Arator, in: SP 23, Leuven 1989, 111-118; N. Wright, Arator’s Use of Caelius Sedulius: a Re-Examination: Eranos 87 (1989) 51-64; P. Angelucci, Centralità della Chiesa e primato romano in Aratore, Roma 1990; P.A. Deproost, L’Apotre Pierre dans une épopée du VIe siècle. L'”Historia apostolica” d’Arator, Paris 1990; Idem, Notes sur le texte et l’interpretation d’Arator. VC 44 (1990) 76-82.

That’s a rather wordy description, but clear enough for our purposes.  The successful public reading in 544 is known to us from a subscriptio to several of the manuscripts in which the work is transmitted.[2]

A deeply obscure English translation appeared in 1987.[3]  A modern French edition and translation exists in Les Belles Lettres series, and there is also a Portugese one[4]

There is apparently a complex manuscript tradition, as the poem was popular in the middle ages.  Unfortunately, lacking access to McKinlay’s edition, I can’t say anything about this.

But what about the table of contents and chapter titles, with which the original enquiry was concerned?  Well, the table of contents appears in the Patrologia Latina edition, which reprints the Arntzenius edition, but only in his introduction, in columns 58-9.  Apparently the capitula – the chapter headings – were still unprinted when McKinlay started work on his edition.[5]  Here’s the start of them:

The verse numbers are no doubt modern.  My correspondent was asking about the unusual usage “De eo ubi…”, “Concerning that passage where”.  For the text is a retelling of the Acts of the Apostles, so it is perfectly reasonable to refer to the passage of scripture.

Notice how often the verb appears, not at the end as in ancient texts, but in the middle of the sentences, just as it would in a modern language.  This by itself suggests that the chapter titles are not ancient, but medieval.

McKinlay reviewed 20 manuscripts, for both the table of contents (‘tituli’) and the in-body headings (‘capitula’).  The tituli and capitula differ, as is very common.  Furthermore they were not revised capriciously by scribes, as might be supposed, but rather were handled not much less carefully than the main text.  Rather the manuscripts fall neatly into two groups. The text of the items was revised, at some point during their transmission, and made closer to the biblical text.  They predate 820 AD, when they appear in ms. Paris 12284.

It all tends to show that we need much more information on these meta-textual elements.  The statements in the handbooks that have always tended to skip over the headings as late (which they may be) and often corrupt (which they may sometimes be) need to be based on something other than anecdote.  In the last century we have seen much more care taken with these elements in the medieval manuscripts.  If this is done enough, one day a monograph will be possible which can survey the field.  But not yet!

 

Share
  1. [1]Angelo di Berardino &c, Patrologia: I Padri latini (secoli V – VIII), Marietti (1996).↩
  2. [2]Roger P.H. Green, Latin Epics of the New Testament: Juvencus, Sedulius, Arator, Oxford (2006), p.251-2; edition and translation of the subscriptio on p.391-2.  This item is edited from mss. Voss. Q 15 and Q 86, and Vat. Pal. Lat. 1716; but another 8 mss are known.↩
  3. [3]R.J. Schrader, Arator’s On the acts of the Apostles (De Actibus Apostolorum), Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987.↩
  4. [4]Bruno Bureau, Paul-Augustin Deproost, Histoire apostolique / Arator; texte établi, traduit et commenté, Paris : Les Belles Lettres 2017; José Henrique Manso, História apostólica a gesta de S. Paulo / Arátor, Coimbra : Centro de Estudos Clássicos e Humanísticos 2010.↩
  5. [5]A.P. McKinlay, “Studies in Arator: I. The Manuscript Tradition of the Capitula and Tituli”, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 43 (1932), pp. 123-166. JSTOR.↩

Cotelerius on Pope Julius and Cyril of Jerusalem

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In my last post I looked into John of Nicaea – or John of Nike, as we ought to call him – and found the full version of the De nativitate Dei text that Migne quoted briefly in the PG 33 to show that Cyril of Jerusalem wrote to Pope Julius I to find out the day of Christ’s birthday.  The story was spurious, of course, and I discussed it in the Dubious Claims post.

Migne also quoted another version of the story, with a reference to  Cotelier, Patres Apostolici, i.316 (1724).  Let us see, then, what the original has to say.

It is easy enough to find the Cotelier volume, so long as you ignore the title above and search for “SS. Patrum qui temporibus apostolicis floruerunt, Barnabae, Clementis”…, the actual title of the work, and use Cotelerius, the Latinized form.  The 17-18th century habit of giving books very long names, which inevitably were abbreviated, is a problem until you are aware of it; whereupon you search for the author on Google, and hope to find what his works were, and so guess at the real title.  The 1724 edition is a reprint, but volume 1, p.316 is here.

The passage is again longer than Migne prints, which ended with “…among many a murmur arose”, three lines from the bottom of column 1 in the page image above.  The continuation tells us that Gregory the Theologian quelled the objections to dividing the festival into two parts.

But even this longer passage clearly has been abbreviated.  Where does it come from?

Well, Cotelier tells us that it comes from a Paris manuscript, with the shelfmark “Regius 969”.  This is the shelfmark in the old royal library.  Of course the modern Bibliothèque Nationale Français has its own system.

Older literature often uses old shelfmarks.  The BNF online catalogue is not bad, but a search for “Regius 969” drew blank.  Fortunately Cotelier tells us that the “John of Nicaea” letter was edited by Combefis: “And in ms. Regius 969, from which the most learned Combefis published that work of John of Nicaea, there is another little narrative on the same subject which is not markedly different, where the bishop is called Juvenalis:…”.  Page 200, note 102 of Glen L. Thompson’s book on the correspondence of Pope Julius tells us about the letter of John of Nicaea – which is in the same ms., remember – that:

…the letter, transmitted in the fifteenth century manuscript Paris, BN, gr. 900, was first edited by Combefis (1672).  Coustant, who reprints (coll. 83-86) Combefis’ text, notes (col. 83f) that it was transcribed “ex codice Regio olim 696, nunc 2428, pag. 149“.  The same text was taken over by Migne…

So the current shelfmark of the manuscript is BNF gr. 900.  This is online here, although in a monochrome microfilm.  Thompson tells us (p.201) that our fragment is found on fol. 120 of the manuscript, under the title Ἀναγκαία διήγησις (=necessaria narratio, necessary narration), and so it is.

The header in the right-column is visible even in this reproduction, followed by the Greek text printed by Cotelier.

Sadly I can’t read the Greek text – my paleography is non-existent, and the image is poor – but Thompson says it is preceded by a note that attributes it to Juvenalis. (Edit: wrong – the text itself mentions Juvenalis; line 5 of the text after the header, at the start)

Other short pieces precede and follow it.  Here is the BNF online catalogue:

  • (f.111)Anonymi de divinis mysteriis liber, e variis SS. PP. libris : Ἡ γὰρ σάρξ μου… ;
  • (119 v°)Anonymi de illis qui V. Testamenti libros de hebraica lingua in græcam converterunt ;
  • (120 v°)Petri Antiocheni epistola de azymis, ad Dominicum Gradensem ;
  • (128 v° et 149)Joannis, Nicæni archiep., ad Zachariam, magnæ Armeniæ catholicum, epistola de Christi nativitate ;
  • (135)Joannis, Hierosolymit. archiepiscopi, epistola ad Constantinum Caballinum de sacris imaginibus ;

Note however that the catalogue actually fails to mention our piece, starting on fol. 120 recto.  (I have communicated this omission to the BNF).

The catalogue does make clear why our piece is here.  It relates the Hebrew months to the Roman months; so naturally follows on from the anonymous item on fol. 119v.

That’s about as far as we can take this.  It’s a revised item of the Pope Julius I story, in a 15th century manuscript, among a bunch of other short pieces.

I’ve uploaded the two pages of the manuscript here:

Does anybody with better paleography than me fancy transcribing the whole of our piece, starting at the top of folio 120 and continuing down to the next header in the right-hand column of the reverse of the page?

Share

From my diary – The “upgrade” that destroys your website

Posted on by Roger Pearse

WordPress has pretty much conquered the world, as far as blog engines are concerned.  Who uses anything else now?  Fortunately, to the best of my knowledge, WordPress has not adopted the evil practices of other ‘net monopolies and started to censor content for political reasons.  But the monopoly cannot be good for any of us.

I noticed a few days ago that my blog menu no longer works on my Android  smartphone.  My theme – underskeleton – did once!  But somewhere along the WordPress update schedule, the developers broke it.  Nor is this the first time.  I had to move away from my original theme “unnamed” for the same reason.  “Underskeleton” has not been updated in a year, so plainly it is time to move.  But to what?

Most WordPress themes these days seem to be aimed at websites, not blogs.  The WordPress standard themes are no better.

I have just spent an hour experimenting with themes until my patience was exhausted.  What I want is simple enough – two columns, my pages not treated as navigation, the side panel accessible on mobile, a header image, and reasonable typography.  But I was unable to find anything I liked.

During the week someone mentioned to me how complicated it is becoming to create web content.  There are a million options, and even those of us who are IT professionals are drowning in the flow of information.  Yet at the same time simple things become impossible.

It’s very like how Microsoft have destroyed Visual Basic.  You just can’t get simple stuff done these days.

Likewise the Contact Form 7 is broken.  I’ve used it for years.  But the last update played havoc, and sent me loads of spam.  Why???!  I fell back on my old Tertullian.org feedback form.  This too has had its vicissitudes – the endless upgrades to perl on the server keep removing support for bits of code that I used when I wrote it.  But mostly I can fix it easily.  WordPress on the other hand is a monster.

I sat down here over an hour ago to write a post on Cotelerius.  Instead I’ve been messing with techno-rubbish.

Thank you, WordPress.

Share

The search for “John of Nicaea”: adventures in Byzantine prosopography

Posted on by Roger Pearse

John of Nicaea is not known to the World-Wide Web.  A search for this author, whom I mentioned in my last post, was quite futile.  So I began to think about how I might find someone from the 9th or 11-12th century, potentially.  The CPG ends around the time of John Damascene, so is useless here.  But then I wondered whether “prosopography” might help; handbooks of people known from the period.

A search for “Byzantine prosopography” pointed me to two websites.

The first of these was hosted at Kings College London, so looked hopeful – the Prosopography of the Byzantine World.  But on my Android mobile it refused to work at all, kicking me back to the home page (itself useless).  On my PC, it worked but gave me nothing.  Entering “Ioannes” gave me too much, either in Free Text or in Name; entering Ioannes Nicaea gave me nothing in either.  No doubt there is some incantation that will produce results, but it defeated me.

I was more fortunate with Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit Online, although I was initially baffled at how to use it.  The entry page tells you nothing useful, and I clicked around for some time.  Eventually I downloaded a user guide in PPT format, which did not reflect the current site but allowed me to guess.

The actual answer is to use what looks like a general site search, but is not.  I have highlighted it in the screen shot below (click to enlarge):

All the rest is irrelevant.  But if you type “ioannes” in that box, you get stuff; and you also get a search that you can actually use (again I have highlighted this):

You can add a row, and suddenly you are looking at real options:

Click on the entry, and you get full details (in German; but if you use Chrome, you can right-click on the page and select “Translate”).  You can even download them as a PDF, which is helpful.

    *    *    *    *

Reading this entry made much clear.

“John of Nicaea” was actually an Armenian named Vahan, graecised as John, and was archbishop of Nike (ἀρχιεπίσκοπος Νίκης) in Thrace, not Nicaea in Bithynia.  About 861-2 he was the ambassador from Photius, the patriarch, to Zacharias, the catholicos of Greater Armenia. He was the Byzantine representative at the Council of Širakawan in 862/63.  The opening speech of this council is preserved in Armenian (unpublished, in manuscript) and attributed to him; but in reality must be by an Armenian, perhaps Zacharias.[1]  He was also the author of a tract on the Nativity of Christ (De nativitate Domini, PG 96, 1435-1450).  This work is mentioned in a letter of Photius written in 878-9, addressed to the Armenian ruler Ašot I. Bagratuni.[2]

The article gives a very useful bibliography, which is mainly about Armenian affairs, so perhaps of limited interest here.  All the same; nice to know who he is, when he lived; and even more to know how to find these things.

UPDATE: A look at the Pinakes database of Greek manuscripts shows that John of Nicaea, or Johannes Nikenus, or Iohannes Nicaenus mtr., is listed, as author 1501.  These synonyms help somewhat in doing Google searches.  I learn from the 1838 index volume of Fabricius’ Bibliotheca Graeca, p.55 – which gives a huge list of “Johns” – that Ioannes, Nicaenus Archiepiscopus is to be found in volume X, p.238.  So this is another way to locate obscure authors called “John”.  Being unfamiliar with Fabricius’ work, however, I have not been able to locate the entry, and suspect that it is wrong.  A list of volumes of Fabricius is at Links Galore here.

UPDATE: See the comment below from Tia Kolbaba with lots of up-to-date information on John of Nike, and references to articles.

UPDATE: (Feb 2023): Kurt Simmons has now produced a translation of the letter of John of Nicaea from the PG text.  It’s at Academia.edu here.

Share
  1. [1]Edition: “Vahanay Nikiay episkoposi bank” (“Discourses of Vahan the Bishop of Nicaea”), ed. N. Akinean, in: Handes Amsorya 82 (1968) 257-280↩
  2. [2]Photios, Ep. 284 (III 4 Laourdas-Westerink).↩

Dubious claims: Pope Julius I decided that Jesus was born on 25 December?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Christmas comes round every year, and every year somebody will tell us that Pope Julius I (337-352 AD) in 350, or 352, or 320 – the supposed date varies – decided that Jesus was born on 25 December.  Julius lived under the Arian emperor Constantius II, and was an ally of Athanasius, but is otherwise obscure.

I don’t want to enter into the larger question of why we celebrate Christmas on 25 December.  But the association with Pope Julius I seems worth probing.

Here are some samples of the claims made:

In 350 AD Pope Julius I declared December 25 the official date and in 529 AD Emperor Justinian declared Christmas a civic holiday.[1]

By the fourth century, however, many Christian groups had begun to observe Christ’s birthday, though the day chosen for the celebration differed from place to place. Christians in the East generally celebrated on January 6; those in the West on December 25. Others set dates in March, April, or May. About 350 AD, Pope Julius set December 25 as the date of Jesus’ birth. This corresponded with the Roman feast of Saturnalia, the festival of the Unconquered Sun.[2]

In the late 330s AD, Pope Julius 1 declared: “December 25th, Christ born in Bethlehem, Judea.” … [3]

Pretty confident sounding!  But … no references in any case.

But it doesn’t sound right anyway.  This is the 4th century.  A Pope doesn’t have the authority to set anything for the whole of Christendom.  He’s just one of the patriarchs.  He can make a decision for his area of the world, but why would that be definitive?  How could be it “the official date”?

A more significant problem is the lack of reference.  We only know about what people in the ancient world did if they left behind some document which was copied down the years; or else an inscription, or something.  But I was quite unable to locate any reference to such an item.

Fortunately in 2015 Glen L. Thompson edited and translated the correspondence of Pope Julius I.[4]  This consists of 2 letters from Pope Julius I, and 4 letters to him.  None have any mention of the birthday of Christ.  They are all concerned with the Arian dispute.

But I learn from Dr T.’s introduction that there are a further 26 (!) pieces that have the name of Pope Julius I on them, and every one of them wrongly.  In fact, in almost every case, the name is attached fraudulently!  This is unusual in antiquity.  Some were Apollinarist works, from the late 4th century, which being banned, were circulated under other names.  Some are from the medieval period, the Forged Decretals.  25 of them do not mention the birthday of Christ.

The 26th item (given the letter Z by Dr T.) is different – it does!  It’s a letter, supposedly from Cyril of Jerusalem to Pope Julius I, and quoted in two versions, the first by an obscure medieval bishop, John of Nicaea; and the other anonymous, but probably of the same era or later.

In the letter, Cyril tells us that his clergy celebrate the birthday of Christ and the baptism of Christ together, on 6th January.  But, he adds, they find this a pain, because they have to start in Bethlehem, do the service for the birth, and then travel down to the Jordan to do the baptism service.  This, he says, they found burdensome, and they had to rush the services.  So he is writing to Pope Julius to ask if the Pope would consult the archives of the Jewish church in Jerusalem.  These, he says, were seized by the Romans under Titus when the city fell in 70 AD and transported to Rome.  Underneath the letter, the 9th century author then adds that the pope did so, and identified 25 December as the birthday of Jesus.

The item in question is listed in the Clavis Patrum Graecorum under the spuria of Cyril of Jerusalem as CPG 3598.  The text can be found in Greek with modern Latin translation in the Patrologia Graeca vol. 33 columns 1208-9, together with a page of introduction (online here).  There is also a discussion of it in the old Dictionary of Christian Antiquities here.

Let’s see what it says.

There are in fact two versions given in the PG.  (I’m not going to type up the Greek, but I find that Abbyy Finereader 12 reads the Latin side very well, so I append it).

The first item is by John of Nicaea, from a letter to Zacharias, Catholicos of Greater Armenia, titled De Christi Nativitate.  (I’m not sure who John of Nicaea is, but the PG says 11-12th c.; Thompson says 9th).[5]  The works of John of Nicaea as a whole are in the PG 96, and our letter is col. 1441f.  (Update: see my post here for “John of Nicaea” who turns out to be 9th century) Here is the excerpt as given in the PG 33, however.

Once upon a time, Cyril – [not he] who sent a letter to Constantine, but he who succeeded him in his see – wrote to Julius, bishop of Rome, in these words: “Great labour and expense is caused at great and solemn festivals which are celebrated together on one day.  For the readings and order of service of both festivities end up incomplete, such that the nativity and the baptism of Christ cannot be celebrated [together].  So, seeing that we cannot on one day be both [in Bethlehem, and] in the place of the baptizism, (for Bethlehem is three miles south of Jerusalem, and the Jordan is fifteen miles to the east), may we appoint your sanctity to search out all the commentaries (συγγράμματα, i.e. writings) of the Jews, which Titus Caesar looted and carried off to Rome from Jerusalem.  Possibly you will discover for a fact the day of the nativity of Christ and our God.”

Then Julius the Roman carefully enquired into this question.  When he had collected all the writings of the Jews, which were captured and taken to Rome, he discovered a certain commentary of the time of the historian Josephus, written by himself: in which he said that, in the seventh month, on the feast of Scenopegia [or Tabernacles], on the day of expiation, the angel of the Lord appeared, and the dumb priest was restored, who had remained without voice until that time when his wife Elizabeth in old age gave birth.

Scripsit aliquando Cyrillus[non is],qui epistolam ad Constantinum [leg. Constantium] dedit sed is qui post ipsum in ejus sede successit, ad Julium Romanum episcopum in haec verba: «Magnus labor ac dispendium magnis ac solemnibus festivitatibus contingit, quod una  die celebrantur. Nam ambarum festivitatum lectiones et ordo [officii] imperfecta manent, eo quod nativitas et baptisma Christi [simul] celebrari nequeant. Quoniam itaque non possumus in una die [in Bethlehem, et] in locum baptismatis occurrere (nam Bethlehem tribus millibus ad meridiem ab Hierusalem distat, et Jordanis quindecim millibus ad orientem), jubeat sanctitas tua omnia Judaeorum commentaria investigari, quae praedatus Caesar Titus Romam Hierosolymis advexit. Fortassis certo reperies diem nativitatis Christi et Dei nostri. »

Tunc Julius Romanus studiose de hac rogatione quaesivit. Cumque omnia Judaeorum scripta, quae capta et Romam deportata fuerant, collegisset, quoddam Josephi temporum historici commentarium deprehendit ab ipso conscriptum: in quo habebatur, quod mense septimo, in festo Scenopegiae [seu Tabernaculorum]. Expiationis die, Dei angelus apparuit, sacerdosque mutus redditus, sine voce mansit ad illud usque tempus, quo Elisabet uxor ejus in senectute peperit.

That is not all that helpful, really.  Cyril of Jerusalem wrote to Constantine about a fiery cross that appeared over Jerusalem; but this is a later Cyril, mentioned by Epiphanius (Panarion 66.20).

But a second version of the story exists, in which the letter is attributed not to Cyril but to Juvenalis, under the title Ἀναγκαία διήγησις.  This is in the BNF in Paris; the old royal library shelfmark was Bibi. Reg. Cod. 2428, fol. 120.[6] Here it is:

However Juvenalis, patriarch of Jerusalem, wrote to Julius, patriarch of Rome, this about the matter: “On one day I cannot be both at Bethlehem and at the Jordan.  In fact the Jordan is 25 miles east of Jerusalem, while holy Bethlehem is 6 miles to the south of the city; nor can I in one day complete both celebrations.  So I ask your sanctity, Father, that you would scrutinise the commentaries, and give us, from an accurate examination, information on this matter, written by yourself, venerable one: on what day Christ the Lord was born, and on what day baptised.  For we understand correctly that books of commentaries from the early days were transferred from Jerusalem to Rome by Titus and Vespasian.”

Having received these letters, Julius patriarch of Rome investigated the commentaries, and he found that our Lord Jesus Christ was born on 25 December, and after 30 years from his nativity was baptised by John in the river Jordan, on the 6th January.  Well, when the fathers were dividing up the festival based on this investigation, among many a murmuring arose… etc.

Scripsit autem patriarcha Hierosolymitanus Juvenalis ad patriarcham Romanum Julium ea de re: « Non possum una die conferre me ad Bethlehem et ad Jordanem. Etenim Jordanis distat ab urbe Hierusalem ad orientem milliaribus 25, sancta vero Bethlehem ad austrum civitatis milliaribus sex; nec possum una die ambo festa peragere. Rogo itaque sanctitatem tuam, Pater, ut scruteris commentaria, et des nobis ex accurata disquisitione, per tuum scriptum, venerande, ejus rei notitiam: qua die natus sit Christus Dominus, et qua die baptizatus. Probe enim scimus commentarios ab initio libros e Hierosolymis Romam delatos fuisse per Titum et Vespasianum.»

His litteris acceptis Julius Romae patriarcha investigavit commentarios, invenitque quod 25 Decembris natus est Dominus noster Jesus Christus, et post annos 30 a nativitate sua baptizatus est a Joanne in Jordane fluvio, sexta mensis Januarii. Secundum ergo hanc investigationem cum Patres festum divisissent, inter multos ortum est murmur. Etc.

That’s clear enough.  It’s the same story, with different details.  But there are obvious difficulties.

  • Juvenal of Jerusalem held the see from 422-458; Julius I held his see from 337-352.  So clearly Juvenal wrote no letter to Rome.
  • Cyril of Jerusalem held his see from 350, but the letter states that a later Cyril is involved.  Julius died in 352.
  • The DCB tells us that in Palestine the practice of combining the celebration of Christmas and the baptism of Christ continued well after these times. (p.359 n.c).  The PG introduction informs us that Chrysostom’s homily on the nativity says the same, but this I have not checked.  It also says that Basil of Seleucia (ca. 448) states in the Laudatio S. Stephani that the innovation of celebrating the nativity separately began with that Juvenal.
  • Josephus does not specify the date of the birth of Christ in any extant work.  But it seems questionable whether any such Jewish archives really existed, or at least, not by the middle of the 4th century; and how would a medieval figure know of this, other than through apocryphal works like the “letter of Pilate” cycle?

To conclude, this is a letter with no claim to authenticity.  This leaves us where we started; there is no evidence that Pope Julius I ever set the nativity of Christ to 25 December.

UPDATE: I was curious about John of Nicaea, so I went to look in the PG 96.  He wrote only this single work. Our snippet fails to clarify why this relates to December 25; but the passage is actually introduced with these words:

Caeterum quod spectat ad Salvatoris Natale, ut celebrandum constituerint 25 Decembr., in hunc modum invenimus.

The other thing to consider for the nativity of the Saviour, as ordained that to be celebrated on 25 December, we discovered in this way.

Our snippet ended with “Then Julius the Roman carefully enquired into this question.  When he had collected all the writings of the Jews, which were captured and taken to Rome, he discovered a certain commentary of the time of the historian Josephus, written by himself: in which he said that, in the seventh month, on the feast of Scenopegia [or Tabernacles], on the day of expiation, the angel of the Lord appeared, and the dumb priest was restored, who had remained without voice until that time when his wife Elizabeth in old age gave birth.”

John then continues:

Well, according to the months of the Hebrews, the first month is Nesan.  This is numbered, and from that to the seventh month proceeds in this way: Nesan, Iar, Siban, Tamous, Aph, Eloul, Tesirin. This [Tesirin] is month 7, within which the annunciation of Zachariah happened; and 6 months are counted from Nesan, i.e. March, until the annunciation of the Mother of God; in this way, Mersan, Chasili, Tapet, Sipat, Atar, Nesan, which is 6 months from Mersan until Nesan, just as it was written, “In the sixth month was the archangel Gabriel sent to Mary”; and from the month of Nesan, in which was the annunciation, nine months are counted until the nativity of the Lord, in this way: Iar, Siban, Tamus, Aph, Eloul, Mersan, Tesirin, Chasili, Tapet.  Therefore the first lunary month Tesirin happens in the month of September: and from the conception of John to the annunciation of the God-bearer we count thus: October, Novemberm December, January, February, March.  There are equally 6 months.  But from the annunciation until the nativity are numbered thus: April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.  Again in month 7, on day 10 of the month, was the day of expiation; 15 however was the observance of the Scenopegia.  In that month Elizabeth conceived, on the 10th day of Tesirin, on the day of expiation, and the 23 September was the conception of John; but 4th Nesan, March 25 was the annunciation of the holy Mother of God Mary; and 5th Tamnis, 25 June, was the birthday of the Forerunner [=John], and however 9th Sapet, December 25 is the nativity of Christ our great God, and Word incarnate.  In this way did Julius Romanus the patriarch arrange the months of the Hebrews and the Romans: from which time the Roman church began with outbursts (?) of joy to celebrate the nativity of the Saviour on 25 December, and bequeathed the obligation to the whole church.

Jam ergo juxta menses Hebraeorum, primus mensium Nesan. Hic numeratur, atque ab eo ad 7 mensem proceditur, hoc modo : Nesan, Iar, Siban, Tamous, Aph, Eloul, Tesirin. Hic est mensis 7, in quo facta est annuntiatio Zachariae; ac numeratur usque ad Annuntiationem Dei Genitricis, mensis hic sextus Nesan, id est, Martius; in hunc modum, Mersan, Chasili, Tapet, Sipat, Atar, Nesan, qui est sextus mensis a Mersan usque ad Nesan, sicut scriptum est : In mense sexto missus est Gabriel archangelus ad Mariam; atque a mense Nesan, quo facta est Annuntiatio, numerantur menses novem, usque ad Domini Nativitatem, hoc modo: Iar, Siban, Tamus, Aph, Eloul, Mersan, Tesirin, Chasili, Tapet. Prima igitur luna mensis Tesirin, occurrit in mensem Septembrem: atque a Joannis conceptione usque ad Deiparae Annuntiationem sic numeramus: October, November, December, Januarius, Februarius, Martius. Fiunt simul sex menses. Ab Annuntiatione autem usque ad Nativitatem sic numerantur: Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Julius, Augustus, September, October, November, December. Porro, mense 7, die mensis 10, erat Expiationis dies; 15 autem erat solemnitas Scenopegiae. Ipso mense concepit Elisabeth, 10 die mensis Tesirim, in die Expiationis, fuitque 23 Septembris conceptio Joannis, quarta autem mensis Nesan, Martii 25 fuit Annuntiatio Dei Genitricis sanctae Mariae; quinta vero mensis Tamnis, 25 Junii, fuit Praecursoris nativitas; ac tandem 9 mensis Sapet, Decembris 25, Nativitas Christi magni Dei nostri, ac Verbi incarnati. Inque hunc modum Julius Romanus patriarcha menses Hebraeorum atque Romanorum composuit: a quo tempore, coepit Romana Ecclesia laetis gaudii celebrare Natalem Salvatoris diem 25 Decembris, tradiditque celebrandum universis Ecclesiis.

That makes more sense of the snippet given by John of Nicaea (about whom, as yet, I can find no information).  Both versions, then, give the story that Pope Julius I ordered that Christmas should be on 25 December.

UPDATE2: I had meant to look for the snippets in the Pinakes database of Greek manuscripts, but that work is not indexed.  John of Nicaea, or Johannes Nikenus, or Iohannes Nicaenus mtr., on the other hand, is indeed listed, as author 1501, together with his work De festo die natali Domini., which they number as work 2657.  Ten manuscripts are listed, from the 12th to the 17th century.

Share
  1. [1]http://www.lnstar.com/mall/main-areas/xmas-not-first-choice.htm↩
  2. [2]https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/301-600/celebrate-christmas-but-when-and-how-11629663.html↩
  3. [3]https://thenewdaily.com.au/religion/2017/12/14/12-days-of-christmas-day-three/↩
  4. [4]Glen L. Thompson, The correspondence of Pope Julius I, CUA (2015).  The important pages are p.xlii, 200-201.  Google Books Preview here.↩
  5. [5]DCB says published by Combefis, Haeresis Monothelit., p.298 ff.↩
  6. [6]According to the DCB it was printed by Cotelier, Patres Apostolici, i.316 (1724).↩

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

My apologies for the annoying pop-up that now appears on the right of the blog, touting ReCaptcha.  This is a little bit of market-position abuse from Google, who have forced their branding into the Contact Form that I have been using, and popped it up throughout my site (!).  I will find a way to make this disappear, given time.  How nice of google to steal part of my Christmas holidays and force their way onto my blog.  Google urgently needs to be broken up.

I’ve received a whole bunch of translations of portions of Eusebius’ Commentary on the Psalms from Fr. Alban Justinus.  There is one more batch to go, then I will release the lot.

The translation from the Latin of a life of St George is still in progress.  I have had no time to attend to it, and the translator has been in hospital.

I’ve now finished for Christmas, thankfully – my current contract is hard work – and I hope to have time to attend to things.

Share

Ephraim Graecus – a list of works

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Just to wrap up my work on Ephraim Graecus, I’ve uploaded a list of works to the site.  This appears as a page in the right-hand side of the blog here.  I give the title of the work, in Greek, the Latin title, where the text  may be found, any translations known to me, and a link to the Greek text where it is online.

The whole list is divided into the seven sections of the Phrantzolas edition, whose titles are also given.

This is the basis for further work.  Go to it, people!

 

Share

From Hell’s bookshelf: the official 1930 history of the Student Christian Movement

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Some books are fun to read.  Some are worth reading, fun or not.  Some are not worth reading.  And finally some are worse than that.

Last weekend I was reading Oliver Barclay’s From Cambridge to the World, a fine description of the work of God through student ministry in Britain over the last 120 years.  I was myself a member of the Oxford Intercollegiate Christian Union (OICCU) when I was a student, so it is a world that is familiar to me.  It’s not a long book, but it is full of interest.

I noticed that the author used extracts from the official Story of the Student Christian Movement by Tissington Tatlow, published in 1933, and this reminded me that I wanted to read this.  Now the SCM was an early attempt by the Cambridge intercollegiate CU (CICCU) to create an inter-university link for the Christian Unions, but it went badly off the rails into heresy, ran into trouble after WW1, and collapsed more or less finally – I think it still exists in name – during the 1960s.   Tissington Tatlow was the secretary of The Movement – they spoke of it in capitals, curiously – for much of its life, so his book has an official character.  Anyway I found a copy for sale for a few dollars, and ordered it.

I was leaving my house this morning, and to my surprise the postman called to me from up the road that he had a parcel for me.  So he did; and inside a thin plastic wrapper was Tatlow’s opus.  It’s almost a thousand pages long and three inches thick.

But the content!  Oh my goodness.  Even after a lifetime of reading corporate communications, the prose style is impenetrable.  Did anyone ever read this?  The author seems to feel that his work must glorify The Movement at all costs, and any hint of dissent or difficulty might scare people away.  But of course this means that most of the interesting episodes of the history of the SCM are omitted. That leaves only paper-shuffling.  It is the work of a bureaucrat.

A characteristic passage occurs early on, as early as page seven.  Dwight L. Moody ran a mission in the 1890s at Cambridge, which met violent opposition.  There were many striking scenes, of the highest interest to any reader.  Barclay tells the story at some length.  Tatlow, however, dismisses it in half-a-sentence; that “the first meeting was broken up”.  It’s not a good moment for the reader. That’s when he discovers that anything interesting is not likely to be described.

It’s not a very honest Story either, in that it misleads the reader.  The basic facts are that the SCM was created by men from the CICCU.  Over time the SCM drifted away from these roots into the theological liberalism prevalent in the Edwardian period.  The CICCU found it difficult to remain part of an organisation that believed in a different God and a different religion, and – not without great heart-burnings – disaffiliated.  But Tatlow conceals the role of the CICCU in founding the SCM.  The SCM just happens to arise at Cambridge, in his account.

In fact less than a dozen pages mention the CICCU throughout the thousand pages of his work, which is astonishing.  What on earth does he fill up the pages with?  For most of that time the CICCU was the Cambridge representative of the SCM, as well as its founder.  He does describe a mission at Cambridge which Barclay also describes.  Tatlow does not mention that only one of the missioners was backed by the CICCU, or that the CICCU thought the mission a failure.  Instead he tells us that the mission “shook the university to the core”.  A striking phrase; but what this means in concrete terms is not stated.  Instead he moves on.  Barclay’s much briefer account tells us rather more, including the salient fact that the mission meetings were well-attended, but produced no conversions.

Tatlow likewise misrepresents the break with the CICCU before WW1, somewhere around page three hundred and something.  Five pages are devoted to this episode, nor is there a lack of criticism of the CICCU for refusing to change as the SCM had changed.  But there is nothing to tell the reader that the SCM was sawing off its own roots by forcing its founding organisation to leave.  The description is quite bitter enough, however, to explain that the CICCU were very right to leave.  Sadly, within forty pages, Tatlow is telling us how the members of the movement no longer knew what truth was, and started having inward-looking meetings to try to find out!  One suspects that these efforts were unsuccessful.

The book is really very hard to read.  There is not a trace of Christian conviction within it.  Like everything else about the SCM, it was intended to give a message to adults rather than for students.  But the overwhelming impression is of a little man toadying to bishops and senior ecclesiastics.

It may be relevant that Tatlow himself was not of high social status, at a time when Cambridge was the preserve of the upper class.  He was merely the son of an Irish land-agent, who managed the estates of Lord Kingston. Perhaps he always felt the need to doff his cap?  His ecclesiastical career was not exciting.  For all of his efforts he did not obtain any real preferment in the Church of England, becoming only a canon of Canterbury.  But his real achievement was to lead a gospel movement onto the rocks.  He died as late as 1957, by which time the SCM was far gone in decay.  I wonder if there are obituaries around?  They might be interesting to read.  There is a rather dishonest Wikipedia article on the SCM; Tatlow himself has no such page, and is clearly a forgotten figure.

The size and shape of the book is redolent of the late Victorian era.  I found myself wondering if he was ordered to write it by some imperious Barchester-type bishop, in order to fill a gap of that size and shape in his lordship’s palace library; and the bishop telling him firmly to “leave out the religious nonsense”.  It reads a bit like that!  There are some interesting photographs in it, however, which I have not seen elsewhere.

I really ought to make sure that Tatlow is online.  It is unlikely that anybody will consider it worth scanning otherwise.  There is no drearier sight than the “religion” section of a second-hand bookshop, full of rubbish, and Tatlow certainly belongs there.  But it is still data, with all its faults.  Even when Tatlow is wrong, or foolish, the fact that he thought so – that the secretary of The Movement thought in this way – is itself evidence.

Let us all hope that we use our lives more productively than he did.  Let us make absolutely certain that we do not write books like this.  The world does not need litanies of pointless self-congratulation, masking utter failure.  Only Hell enjoys such books; but one suspects they still go unread.

Edit: the CICCU split with SCM was before WW1, not after it, although there was an attempt at reunion in 1919.

Update: (Sept 2019).  The book itself is at Archive.org here: https://archive.org/details/TheStoryOfTheStudentChristianMovement/page/n6

Share

There will be stars: the life and death of Robert H. Schmidt

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Ancient technical texts are very hard to work with.  Not merely do you need the usual Greek and Latin language skills, and a feel for the customs of the ancient world.  You also need a specialised understanding of the discipline in question.  Not many of us have knowledge of alchemy, or farming methods, or architecture.  So the manuals on these subjects tend to be understudied and few are translated into modern languages.

I’ve written a couple of posts about Project Hindsight.  This is a project undertaken by people interested in astrology in modern times, but consists of translations of ancient astrological texts.  Such an enterprise can only be valuable, and the collection of translations deserves to be more widely known.  Most are out-of-print but can be obtained as PDFs.

But this week I learned that the principal translator, Robert H. Schmidt, has died.  He was only 67.  He was an independent scholar, and he did the sort of things we do here, so it is very much appropriate for us to commemorate him.

He dedicated his life to ancient astrology, and especially hellenistic astrology; to understand what it was, and translating the primary sources so that others could work.  In most cases he prepared the first ever translation of the sources into a modern language.  He self-published his translations, which inevitably means that they did not find their way into academic research libraries.  This is unfortunate, and it means that they remain obscure.

The funeral home has a web-page with an obituary here, written by Bill Johnston, who also supplied me with some additional information.

Born on December 22, 1950, Robert H. Schmidt obtained a scholarship to study mathematical physics at M.I.T. But he chose instead to go to St John’s College in Annapolis as part of their “Great Books” programme to read philosophy.  There he was a student of Jacob Klein, one of Heidegger’s students.  But he also learned the importance of reading primary texts in the original language and “discovered his love of the Greek verb”.  Instead of pursuing an academic career, he chose to become an independent scholar, and to translate ancient astrological texts.

He settled in Cumberland, in Maryland.  To support himself he initially worked as a printer, and in a range of other blue-collar jobs, but by middle age he was well-enough known to support himself through his publications and recordings of lectures and seminars – presumably on the subject of astrology, although Mr Johnston does not say so.

A draft of one of his papers, The Problem of Astrology (2000), may be found online here. It repays reading by those seeking to understand what he did intellectually.  At one point he says something which perhaps explains how a university-trained philosopher came to be interested in astrology. He asks what we actually mean by the word “astrology”?

Why the title “Metaphysics of Metaphysics?” [as a description of astrology] Now I chose that title very deliberately because, in my mind, metaphysics has two completely different meanings. My background being in the study of ancient and modern philosophy, when I heard the word metaphysics, I always understood it to mean the study of Being, as it was for the Greeks. It was a great surprise to me when I first went into a bookstore and looked for the metaphysical section expecting to find some new books on Aristotle, and found instead books on crystals, out-of-body experiences, meditation, occultism, and astrology. This was long before I was involved in the astrological world, by the way.

…  There is a statement by a Neo-Platonist philosopher named Iamblichus in a strange book called On The Mysteries. In this book another neo-Platonist Porphyry is directing a number of questions about the Egyptian religion to an Egyptian priest.

In the course of the answering of these questions the priest says that the men who translated the Egyptian sacred writings into Greek — and these sacred writings included the their magical, alchemical, and astrological writings, all generally attributed to one of their sages names Hermes — the men who translated these sacred writings into Greek were men who were trained in Greek philosophy, presumably the philosophies of the Athenian Greeks Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics.

Now, this is a very astonishing statement and it made a great impression on me.

Such are the chances of life.

Another article is here.  More materials can be found on his website, Project Hindsight.

Robert H. Schmidt died on December 6th, 2018. Mr Johnston writes:

A GoFundMe site has been set up on Ellen’s behalf to help with medical bills and funeral expenses at https://www.gofundme.com/support-robert-schmidt039s-medical-costs. We would like to give our sincere thanks to the many people who have contributed so far, and for the outpouring of condolences and expressions of appreciation for Bob and his invaluable contributions to the art and science of astrology through his remarkable research over the last two decades.

Few of us would find it possible to read an ancient astrological text with any enjoyment.  Yet he evidently did.  Most people who read such a text would find themselves baffled by the technical language.  But he was not baffled.  I do not myself possess any overview of the subject of Hellenistic Astrology; and evidently Mr Schmidt found the same, for he composed one.  He made all these translations, and did so from hard, granite-like material in Greek and Latin.  The world owes him a debt for so doing.  Few professional academics have ever even attempted such a  thing.  He did not receive recognition or honour for what he did.  But I suspect that little that has been written on astrology in the universities in the last 30 years will be half as useful or well-informed as his little series of self-published books.

Thank you, Mr Schmidt, for all your efforts.  You sought truth in the heavens.  May you find mercy and the real source of all heavenly truth on the Last Day.  Requiescat in pace.

Share

Ancient Greek / Latin translator available for hire

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A gentleman wrote to me enquiring if I knew anybody who could use someone with knowledge of ancient Greek or Latin, primarily patristic.  He’s a PhD student who is already doing some work as a volunteer.

Now I’ve not seen his work, and at the moment I can’t offer him some work myself. But if you would like to offer him some paid translation work, drop me a line and I will put you in contact.

I’d recommend that any such work starts with a  page or two, and see how that goes, before committing to a large project.  I generally find that I have to guide my translators a bit in matters of style!

Here are some excerpts (with his permission) from his letter.  I certainly will get him doing some Ephraem Graecus once things settle down here!

 I am very happy to see that you have turned your attention to Ephraem Graecus, since translating, producing critical editions of, and ascertaining the authenticity, authorship, dating, and doctrinal content of these works is a career goal of mine (an overwhelming task, I know).

In October 2017… I was asked by a philosophy professor at Christendom to deliver the first ever extracurricular, academic student lecture in the college’s history, which I did on the topic of Mary as Mediatrix of all graces in the previously untranslated hymns of Ephraem Graecus (the last time a major study was conducted on that topic was by J.M. Bover in 1926!).

Moreover, in May 2018, my college awarded me the William H. Marshner Award for Outstanding Senior Thesis, in exchange for my 146-page thesis on the cult of Mary and the saints, which included 295 citations from the Fathers which I personally translated from the Latin and Greek. A large amount of the research was in the area of Ephraem Graecus (42 citations of the 295).

…I am a volunteer Greek translator for Oxford University’s Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity Project. … I’d like to find a paid job in the area of Patristic translation/research.  … Would you happen to know of any scholars/professors in need of a translator or assistant?

I would add that … I am fluent in both Classical and Ecclesiastical Latin. Accordingly, the “ad” should probably say “Greek and/or Latin Patristics.” In fact, I am more than comfortable doing translations of any Latin texts from any time period – I have experience translating Classical, Patristic, Medieval, and Early Modern works -, though Christian texts would be preferable to me.

Contact him via my form here.

Update (March 2019): The gentleman has now gone silent, so I’m guessing that he is otherwise engaged.

Share