It’s far, far too hot to do ANYTHING!!!
Turn off your computers, disconnect your wifi, and go out of your houses and frolic on the grass.
That should produce rain, and then we can all get back to work again.
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Chrysostom homilies which I just can’t access
There are a couple of homilies by Chrysostom in the Patrologia Graeca which do not seem to exist in English, and which ought to be interesting. They were delivered after he returned from his first exile, and attempted a reconciliation with his enemy, Severian of Gabala, who had been needlessly alienated by the arrogance of John’s staff.
Back in 2010 I found that in Migne there were three sermons; De Regressu Sancti Joannis (PG52, col. 421-424), De Recipiendo Severiano (col. 423-426), and Severian’s reply De Pace (col. 425). All three are given in Latin, and all seemed far too short to be full versions. Some time ago I learned that the Greek of the Severian existed, in a much longer version. It needs to be translated into English, but that project went nowhere.
At the time I asked a scholar specialising in Chrysostom whether Greek texts existed for the Chrysostom homilies. I got the less than precise reply, “look in the CPG vol. 2, after #4438, and also its supplement.”
This evening, two years on, I have finally managed to do it! And … well … it’s not #4438. De Regressu is CPG 2, 4394, and De recipiendo Severiano is 4395. 4396-4401 are further sermons concerned with his various exiles, 4401 being his last sermon.
The complete Greek text of De Regressu does exist. It was published by A. Wenger, L’Homelie de saint Jean Chrysostome “a son retour d’Asie”, in Revue des Etudes Byzantines 19 (Melanges R. Janin), 1961, p.110-123. This doesn’t seem to be online. The Latin text printed by Migne is assigned doubtfully to Annianus of Celeda.
The Greek text of De recipiendo Severiano is lost. All we have is Migne’s Latin, again doubtfully assigned to Annianus of Celeda.
Apparently Andre Wilmart, La collection des 38 homilies latines de saint Jean Chrysostome, JTS 18, 1918, 305-327; p.324 n. 36 talks about the former, and in n.24 about the latter. But this too I have been unable to access.
And the supplement to the CPG indicates that there is discussion of the mss and editions of the Latin version in W. Wenk, Zur Sammlung der 38 Homilien.[1] And that is offline too.
Hmm.
UPDATE: But I spoke too soon! Wenger’s text of De Regressu is at Persee.fr, here! I did search Persee. But only Google picked up the match. Evidently the search engine at Persee is useless!
UPDATE2: I discover that De Regressu has been translated into English as part of Pauline Allen’s John Chrysostom (1999). There is a Google books preview here. Apparently the Sources Chretiennes were bringing out an edition of Chrysostom’s letters at that point.
- [1]Wolfgang Wenk, Zur Sammlung der 38 Homilien des Chrysostomus Latinus : mit Edition der Nr. 6, 8, 27, 32 und 33, Wiener Studien, Beiheft 10, Wien, 1988.↩
A text describing different religions by Abu Qurra
One of the Syriac Christian writers who mention Persia is the 8th century writer Theodore Abu Qurra. Quite by accident I have stumbled across a French translation of an interesting text by him on the different religions of his time.[1] The abstract indicates its contents:
The Syriac Theodore Abū Qurra (c.750-c. 825), Melkite bishop of Harrân, has left many works. Among them, the Treatise (Mîmar) on the Existence of the Creator and the True Religion, in Arabic contains two outstanding chapters, translated and commented here.
First, a carefully organized account of religious in his time : Pagans (who will be called « Sabaens » later), Mazdaeans (of Zurvanite conviction), Samaritans, Jews, Christians, Manichaeans (who were practising specific interpretation of the canonical Gospels), Marcionites, Bardesanites, Muslims.
Second, a lenghty allegory which presents common points with the Hymn of the Pearl. Its expounding by the author aims at giving a definite clue to the discernment of the only true religion : God resembles man, and its up to human reason to judge in the matter.
The work is of course in Christian Arabic.
The first part is really rather interesting. Were there really still Marcionites and followers of Bardaisan in Syria ca. 800 AD, in the Abbassid period?
The work is preserved in a unique manuscript of the 17th century which is missing its opening section, ms. 373 of the monastery of the basilian monks at Deir al-Shir, wherever that is. The manuscript contains five works by Abu Qurra, and our text is on folios 2-59. The work was probably written around 780 AD, and has been edited Louis Cheikho in 1912, and again by Ignace Dick in 1982.
I grew up in the mountains, where I did not know what men there are. But one day, prompted by a business matter concerning myself, I went down to the towns where men gather, and I saw them divided into different religions.
1. One group, who follow the religion of the ancient pagans, called me to come among them. They say that we should worship the seven stars, [i.e.] the sun, the moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury and Venus, and the twelve signs of the zodiac, because these are the ones that create and govern all creatures and which give good fortune and happiness, or bad luck and distress, in this world. Their prophet on this matter is the wise Hermes.
2. I left these people and the Mazdaeans approached me, saying “Leave them, they talk wind. Come to us, for our teaching is solid.”
They explained that their great god is called Zurvan, and Zurvan is Destiny. Before the world was created, he sacrificed for a thousand years so that a child should be born to him, and his wife conceived a son called Ormazd. After he had been conceived for 900 years, his father Zurvan doubted whether he had indeed been conceived, and that doubt engendered in the womb of his wife another child, i.e. the devil. Zurvan learned this and said, “Whichever of children comes before me first, I shall give him the kingship.” Ormazd, in his mother’s womb, had knowledge of this word and shared it with the devil. The latter, when he knew this, pierced the womb of his mother, came out by his own effort, and presented himself to his father. He was dark, black of face, and hideous. His father asked him, “Who are you?” He replied, “I am your son, the devil, born of your doubt. Give me then the royalty that you promised. Zurvan was sad, but as he did not want to go back on his word, he gave him royalty over the world for nine thousand years.
As for Ormazd, his mother gave birth to him at the end of a thousand years. He seemed like a completely beautiful light. He created the heaven and the earth and the different intermediary natures, in the beauty and brilliance in which this world is seen. All the same, the latter was in darkness, without light. Ormazd was sad, and sought counsel from the devil. He advised him to marry his mother. He did so and had relations with her. [His mother] conceived and bore the sun, for light by day. [The devil advised him] to marry his sister. He did so, and had relations with her. [His sister] conceived and gave birth; the moon, to illuminate the night. Likewise the Mazdaeans, like their god Ormazd, marry their mothers, their sisters and their daughters, so that they shall have children like the sun and the moon.
Such are their gods. In imitation of Ormazd, Madaeans are allowed to enjoy all the pleasures of the world, because that is why [Ormazd] created them.
Their prophet who, they say, brought this truth to them, is Zoroaster.
I wish I had time to do more of this text. It is really rather interesting. But … did Theodore Abu Qurra really meet all these groups; or is this a literary way to describe the contents of his reading?
“Mopetan Mopet” or “Mobedan Mobed” or “Moabedan Mobed”?
In the Life of Mar Aba, the German translation refers to the high priest as the “Mopetan Mopet”. But when I search the web, I find almost nothing.
Now a google search reveals almost nothing under that spelling. I know that a “Mopet” is usually given as “Mobed”, meaning “priest”, in our literature. So I quickly find references to “Mobedan Mobed” and “Moabedan Mobed”, and even “Mobedan-e-Mobed”. In fact the latter seems contemporary; a certain Rostam Dinyar Shahzadi held the title as recently as 2000.
There is no purpose in using an unusual transcription; it will merely cause interested persons to miss the material. So I think we had better use “Mobedan Mobed”.
Likewise how should we render “rad”, clearly a title? And … what is a “rad”?
In the Encyclopedia Iranica online on Syriac writings in pre-islamic Iran[1], there is some very useful information on titles as they appear in Syriac acts, including the Life of Mar Aba:
Modern translators and commentators have not always been able to recognize the titles of civil or religious officials under the disguise of Syriac writing, or have supplied fanciful transcriptions far removed from the authentic form of Middle Persian.
Among civil functions, we must mention the āmārgar (Syr. hmrgrd) “accountant” or, better, “treasurer” of the different administrative divisions of the empire, as we learn from the administrative seals. In the history of the patriarch Mār Abā, this treasurer is in touch with a harzbed < OIr. *harcī-pati- (Syr. ʾrzbd), which has been considered as a corruption of the term argbed “chief tax collector or taxation manager” (EIr. II/4, 1986, p. 400), an important function belonging to the royal family which is attested in the Paikuli inscription (Humbach and Skjaervo, 3.2, pp. 39-44). But Tafazzoli (1990) has shown that the Syriac word, spelled in the same way, is attested in the martyrdom of Guhišt-āzād, where this man is described as “chief of the royal eunuchs and fosterer of the king” (Šāpūr II). Hence this title of “chief of the eunuchs” can no longer be confused with the argbed “tax-collector.” …
The title of ēwēnbed (EIr. IX/1, 1998, pp. 87-88) “master of manners” is puzzling, for it looks like an administrative function, that of an archivist, or perhaps a financial role. But the Syriac sources indicate a religious function: in the history of Mār Pethion, the ainbed (Syr. ʿynbd/ʾynwd) is surrounded with a guard of horsemen, but in the martyrdom of Mār Abā, an ēwēnbed called Kardag is also a magus and judge of the empire (šahr dādwar), as was the great magus Kerdir in the 3rd century.
The Syriac sources also inform us of religious titles: the mowbeds (Syr. mwhpṭʾ), of whom there are three categories (Gignoux, 1984, pp. 197-98). At the highest level stood the Mobedān mobed (Syr. mwbdnmwb(y)d), who is also called in Syriac ršʾ d-mgwšʾ “chief of the magi”; the Great Mobed (Syr. mwhpṭʾ ḥd rbʾ); and the provincial Mobeds, who are in charge of specific regions. According to the situation, the Grand Mobed had to stay at court, but could also travel to the provinces, no doubt as representative of the Mobadān Mobad. The latter title seems to have appeared from the 6th century on.
The different categories of judges are well documented: the rads and the dādvars, as well as the dastvars. The Rad is apparently the highest of religious judges and may, at the same time, be the Mobed (Gignoux, 1984, p. 201). The legal treatise Mādayān ī hazār dādestān indicates that, in the procedure of the ordeal, judgment cannot be pronounced in the absence of the rad. He is attached to a province, and he is distinct from the ēwēnbed. …
The article continues with a vivid description of the distinctly oriental processes of examination and justice, well worth reading, and then a bibliography.
- [1]Philippe Gignoux, “Syriac Language ii. Syriac writings on pre-islamic Iran,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, 20 July 2009, available at www.iranicaonline.org/articles/syriac-language-ii-syriac-writings-on-pre-islamic-iran.↩
Life of Mar Aba – chapter 21
21. When the holy one heard this, he praised God: “I praise you, Lord Christ, Lord of all kings and King of all lords, that you have done me, a weakling, this great honour, that I am persecuted and reviled, because I confess you in truth as God, your Father and the holy, life-giving Spirit, and that I, for the sake of your great and terrible name, have been handed over by your persecutors to prison and imprisonment. Show your mercy, O Lord, to me and to all your holy church, which is useful and profitable for the glory and increase of your holy name.”
Then he said to the Mopetan Mopet, “The earth in all its fullness, the world and all its inhabitants, belong to the Lord.”[1] Boldly he took the Rad of Azerbaijan by the hand and said, “Come, take me wherever you have been ordered to take me; see, I am happy with you.” The vigorous fighter (ἀγωνιστής) went to the field of combat in the strong power of Christ, and after his struggle had lasted seventy days, by the power of Christ he had not been overcome by the magians, but was strengthened by the struggle. The lamb of Christ emerged victorious, so that he might go and battle with the young lions.
After the Rad handed him over to the captain (aïnbed) and the gendarmes of the province, the Christians at the court of the King of Kings arose; they went with the blessed one and accompanied their spiritual father, who was being sent by his enemies to prison. They remembered the spiritual milk, which they had drawn constantly from his teaching, and the good shepherd, who taught and pastured them on the meadow of his spiritual words, and of which they were deprived. Some wept and sobbed, others tore their clothes and hair, others kissed his tortured feet and took grace from his footsteps.
The blessed one was very sad, and worried about what he saw his flock do, more than a wet-nurse, and they wept more than children if their mother is taken into captivity. Lastly he prayed in great pain, blessed them, and handed them over to God and the words of his grace, and so they parted.
I had not realised that the preceding chapters were all still taking place at court. I must go and look back at what I wrote.
Clearly the Rad of Azerbaijan is worried about being involved in such high politics, where he stands to gain nothing, and where, if anything happens to Mar Aba, he might fall foul of the king’s displeasure; for clearly the King of Kings is allowing all this rather than ordering it. Mar Aba sees the chance to conciliate him and seizes it.
- [1]I.e. that wherever he is, God is with him.↩
Life of Mar Aba – chapter 20
20. But since the Christians at court clamoured violently and shouted because of the blessed one, the King of Kings ordered that he should not be thrown into prison. He was handed over to the Rad of Azerbaijan, named Dad(d)en, a man evil and hardened against everyone, but who through God’s grace was gentle, friendly and peaceful to the blessed and his disciples.
On the advice of the devil, the enemy of truth, the Mopetan Mopet and the noble magians secretly arranged to send down the holy one into his custody in the province of Azerbaijan, which is eclipsed by error[1], in a district (rûstâkâ) darked by paganism named PRHRWR, in a village named SRSCH by the magians, which is the birthplace of magianism.
There the magians of the whole Persian realm gather together in order to learn the foolish mutterings of Zardusht bar Spidtahman[2], people who are the enemies of all truth. They wander about in droves and bands, follow their masters, talk and argue in the nonsense of their errors, stuttering and yelling and gnashing their teeth like wild pigs. The blessed one would have to endure the sights and sounds of the wildness and pugnacity of the people, who had never heard the name of Christian, faced with his his greeting and attempt to talk rationally to them.[3].
They placed a watch on him. And because of Satan’s influence, they did not allow him the slightest relief from his pains, which they made him endure so that he would quickly depart from this life.
The description of the conditions sounds rather hagiographical, but the order for banishment to a remote magian stronghold seems likely enough.
UPDATE: Revised after reading chapter 21, as Mar Aba is still at court; but I am not confident still about parts of this.
- [1]“die durch den Irrtum verfinstert ist” — I am not sure that I have rendered this correctly.↩
- [2]Zoroaster.↩
- [3]Not sure about this sentence at all: “Welchen Anblick und welches Anhören der Wildheit und Streitsucht von Leuten, die nicht einmal den Christennamen hören, seinen Gruß annehmen und mit ihm wie Menschen reden mochten, vermochte der Selige auszuhalten.”↩
Life of Mar Aba – chapter 19
The negotiations proved fruitless. Mar Aba felt that he had the backing of the king, and the magians suspected that this might be so. They resolved to find out.
19. A few days later, the King of Kings saw the blessed one on the road; he spoke to him and accepted the salutation which the godly one made him. This excited the envy of the magians and they again brought him before their assembly. When he appeared before them, one arose as prosecutor and said, “This one used to be a pagan and the son of a pagan, and later became a Christian.”
Then they all clapped their hands and said, “This man is deserving of death.” Then they drew up a document of the investigation and read it to each other.
They showed him the piece of writing, which they had drawn up against him, and said, “If you do our will, and write and sign with us, that you do not forbid those who have married their stepmother, sisters and stepdaughters, as well as those others who (have contracted marriages) forbidden by your scripture, do not come before the court, do not bring any magians and pagans into Christianity, and do not forbid the Christians to eat the flesh left over from magian sacrifices, then we will leave you free and we will not throw you into prison. Go into your house and manage your Catholicate. But if you do not listen to us, then we will draw up an indictment (purschaschnâmag) against you and throw you in prison.”
The Catholicos said, “God, whom I serve, forbids me to transgress the true Christian faith, which I hold and teach, and to do you will in any of the above matters. For anyone who does something like this denies Christ and is no Christian.”
After they heard this, they sealed the indictment and ordered that he be thrown into prison.
Beware of “elevated vagueness”
Via Trevin Wax I encounter this post by John Piper, referring to Fred Sander’s post about Victorian liberal preacher F. W. Robertson:
There is a connection between skilled vagueness and concealed immorality. Why else would a man use great gifts to make things unclear unless he was afraid of clarity? And fear of clarity in preaching is a good sign that something besides doctrine is being concealed.
Indeed so. The justification of evil is nothing new. John Bunyan encountered those who attack Christianity from an self-chosen elevation, and pictured them as Mr High-mind in Pilgrims Progress. Christian is arrested at Vanity Fair for preaching, and brought before the court.
Then went the Jury out, whose names were, Mr Blindman, Mr No-good, Mr Malice, Mr Love-lust, Mr Live-loose, Mr Heady, Mr High-mind, Mr Enmity, Mr Liar, Mr Cruelty, Mr Hate-light, and Mr Implacable; who every one gave in his private Verdict against him among themselves, and afterwards unanimously concluded to bring him in guilty before the Judge.
And first among themselves, Mr Blind-man the Foreman, said, “I see clearly that this man is an Heretick.”
Then said Mr Nogood, “Away with such a fellow from the earth”.
“Ay,” said Mr Malice, “for I hate the very looks of him.”
Then said Mr Love-lust, “I could never endure him.”
“Nor I,” said Mr Live-loose, “for he would always be condemning my way.”
“Hang him, hang him,” said Mr Heady.
“A sorry Scrub,” said Mr High-mind.
“My heart riseth against him,” said Mr Enmity.
“He is a Rogue,” said Mr Liar.
“Hanging is too good for him,” said Mr Cruelty.
“Let us dispatch him out of the way,” said Mr Hate-light.
Then said Mr Implacable, “Might I have all the world given me, I could not be reconciled to him; therefore let us forthwith bring him in guilty of death.”
And so they did;…
Mr High-mind may speak softly. But he is just as much an enemy of truth as the others, and less honest than most.
Life of Mar Aba – chapter 18
18. As the Mopetan Mopet and the magians recognised that they had been refuted by the blessed one with these words, they sought out another method to link the issue with the command of the king. The Mopetan Mopet said, “If in your (holy) scriptures it says, ‘If you do this, you do rightly’ and if is it written in another text, that you should not do it because it is not right, and if the King of Kings says to you, that this, which you are commanded to do, you shall not do, and to do what it says not to do, will you obey the orders of the King of Kings and do his will, or will you transgress his command?”
The Catholicos said, “Far be it from the King of Kings that he, with respect to the good which is commanded of me, and the evil, which is forbidden to me, shall order me not to do good and to do evil.”
The Mopetan Mopet and the magians said, “But what if he does?”
The Catholicos said, “He does not.”
And as they pressured him so much, he said, “If he commands it, I will at that time answer, ‘God the Creator and Lord of all things must be obeyed rather than men.'”
They said nothing in reply.
Online sources and the classroom
Jona Lendering has written a thoughtful article here on the problem on online websites and the classroom. As the author of the respectable Livius.org site, he isn’t theorising, and his words need to be listened to.
If students cannot check the information – if they cannot know how the facts* have been established and which explanatory model is used – students must avoid a website. That’s the first basic lesson.
This means that in the present situation, students must just avoid the internet and check their library. Books are a far better source of reliable information.
Note that I would prefer to use the word “statements” here, for the website probably is not giving facts.
Now Jona is right. You can use the web to gather lists of possible sources, as a first stab (only a first stab) at a reading list. But it is entirely possible that the selection of sources presented online is itself misleading. Manipulation of the reader by omission of reliable sources and inclusion of unreliable sources is, sadly, becoming commonplace.
Nor is this all.
There used to be a time, not so long ago, that the universities “sent out” information, which society “received”. This is the “sender-receiver model”. The internet now offers society a possibility to talk back: the “debate model”.
Look at the Wikipedia, where activists can change articles to make them suit their own agendas. Or, if activists create a lot of noise, they can silence the voice of reasonable scholars.
I have experienced this myself, and I know others have had the same experience. Yet Wikipedia is the first result in most Google searches.
He then goes on to a rather political question, where Jona perhaps does not make his point as clearly as he might. But the point is a critical one. So let me paraphrase.
A government minister in his country has referred in a non-condemning way to Intelligent Design.[1] Scientists have attacked her. Non-scientists have defended her. But anyone doing a web search will only find the non-scientific stuff. Why? Because the scientific publications are all behind paywalls! So … anyone who looks into this will only get one side; and it happens to be the non-scientist side.
And worse yet, because only one side is heard:
You get the impression that she is the victim of a smear campaign by unthinking scientists.
Silencing one side, while the other occupies 100% of the public perception is an incredibly powerful a weapon to manufacture opinion. It has been used for this purpose by the political left in our society since around 1980, as a way to advance and normalise crazy causes, with great success. It is now being used to promote freakshow causes like “gay marriage”, and opposition — and everyone was opposed to this as recently as two years ago — is hardly heard. It’s a very, very powerful way to control what people think.
So it is not a trivial matter to observe that, for practical purposes, a situation has been created where bad information is the only kind available. Not at all.
The second basic lesson about online information is that, as long as there is no free access, bad information drives out good.
And to some fields of research, the damage is already done.
I hope that this verdict is overly negative. But it is hard for those of us who remember a world before the internet to imagine how the generation thinks, that does not remember a time before Wikipedia. Perhaps Jona is right here too.
Jona sums up:
To sum up: at this moment there is no good reason why students should use the internet. Let’s face it: the internet has failed.
As a tool for classroom learning, it most certainly has, although not for popularisation.
Paywalls are one of the reasons why.
- [1]I have no opinion myself on Intelligent Design, since I don’t know anything about it, although I do know some of the politics around it.↩