Category: Announcements

General announcements

The threat of copyright claims to the web

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An article in the Daily Mail today makes grim reading for every website author, if you pay attention and ignore the “eBook” angle:

eBook pirates cash in on Kindle sales boom as thousands turn to rogue sites for cheap downloads

… there are fears that their profits could be hit by a the sheer number of pirate eBooks available to download for free.

Creating pirate copies of published books is simple and can be done using a computer and a scanner in a relatively short period of time, or by converting the file format of a ‘bought’ ebook.

Freely available software which people can download to their home computers is able to convert just about any document file for reading on a Kindle or other ereader.

The Publishers Association issued 115,000 legal threats to websites to stop them offering free pirated books in 2011, a rise of 130 per cent on 2010.

Publishers are in talks with the Government and Google to find ways to combat the trade, which breaches their copyright.

They have asked Google to demote pirate websites to ensure they do not appear at the top of web searches for consumers looking to find eBooks. Pressure is also being put on internet service providers to shut down pirate websites.

The context put on this by the story is the piracy of just-published eBooks.  But the real story, for all of us, is the crackdown on copyright online. 

Remember that the publishers’ lobby has passed law after law that increases the term of copyright to absurd lengths — in the US it’s now about 95 years, in the EU it’s life of the author plus 70 years. 

What the publishers want, then, is the technology which will allow them to enforce all the worthless copyrights on long-out-of-print books, by allowing them to screw over websites that have put material from them online.  Amateur websites like myself will have very little defence against such claims.

The material that I have placed on the web is all out of copyright in the USA, to be the best of my knowledge.  I have always steered clear of doing anything liable to impact the profits of a publisher (although this is mainly because I actually do want those publishers to make money publishing Patristic texts, so that they publish more!)

But I confess all this makes me nervous.   The publishers are “in talks” with government, are they?  Well, website authors won’t be asked to those talks, of that we may be sure!

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An 1843 guidebook to Italy, Rome and the Papal states

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Quite by accident I have stumbled across an old guide-book on Google books.  It was published in 1843 by John Murray, and is full of interesting details on how to travel in these now vanished lands.  On page 8 there are details of arrangements for carriage travel, and then something on inns, concluding with some very wise words:

In cases of this kind it would be absurd to carry English habits and prejudices so far as to expect the comforts and conveniences of the great cities.  Travellers never gain anything by exacting or requiring more than the people can supply and if they have sufficient philosophy to keep their temper they will generally find that they are treated with civility and kindness.

That advice still holds, in hotels in places like Egypt.

The arrival in Rome on p.247 descends into details of inns and rental arrangements, all clearly the product of much experience. 

The ordinary currency of Rome is the “paul”, which ran at about 50 pauls to the pound sterling of those undepreciated days. How much is that, one wonders?  The National Archives calculator reckons that a pound in those days is equivalent to 50 GBP ($75) today, which would make the “paul” about the same as a modern pound, or $1.50.  The numbers do “feel” roughly right, although probably a little on the low side.  But such conversions are really valueless, and the reader must assess comparative value for himself.

On p.254 we get a survey of Rome, which includes this:

To the south and east of this district are the Palatine, the Aventine, the Esquiline and the Caelian, all of which, though included within the modem walls, are little better than a desert; their irregular surface is covered with vineyards or the gardens of uninhabited villas and they present no signs of human habitations but a few scattered and solitary convents.

It is different today, of course.

Another difference may be found on p.297.

Close to the Coliseum is the ruin the conical fountain called the Meta Sudans, which formed an important appendage of the amphitheatre. It appears to have been a simple jet issuing from a cone placed in the centre of brick basin, 80 feet in diameter. It was rebuilt by Domitian and is supposed to have been intended for the use of the gladiators after the labours of the arena. It is represented on several medals of the amphitheatre of the time of Vespasian, Titus, Severus &c. The fountain was constructed of brick work in the best style; the central cavity and the channels for carrying off the water are still visible. It was repaired a few years since, but these modern restorations may easily be distinguished from the ancient work.

Sadly the remaining concrete core of the meta sudans was demolished by Mussolini in 1936.  A photograph from 1922 must be one of the last:

The Meta Sudans outside the arch of Constantine, ca. 1922

This one from the 1880’s gives an excellent impression of the fountain, and its surrounding basin:

The Meta Sudans, ca. 1880

There are many images of the meta sudans to be found in Google Images.

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Michael Bourdeaux: Religious Ferment in Russia (1968) now online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

By permission of the author (who is also the copyright holder), I have created a PDF of Michael Bourdeaux’s book, Religious Ferment in Russia: Protestant opposition to Soviet Policy, Macmillan, 1968.  It joins the other three books from the founder of Keston College.  These are all  here:

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/keston/index.htm

I have also made sure that the PDF of the original page images is present for all books.

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The arch of Constantine, the meta sudans, and the arch of Titus in 1575

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I suppose all of us have stood next to the colosseum and looked up the slope towards the arch of Titus, at the entrance to the forum.  Du Perac, in 1575, did the same.  His illustration of the scene shows the arch of Constantine to the left, as it still is (the colosseum is immediately to the left, out of view); before it, the vanished “meta sudans” (the concrete core of which appears in 1922 photos, before being demolished by Mussolini as part of a traffic widening scheme), and to the right, the view to the arch of Titus, still embedded in the remains of the medieval Frangipani fortress, exactly as the later cork model shows it.

Click on the image for the full size image (from the BNF in Paris).

It’s interesting that somehow the scene, with walls indicating people’s fields and property, is more “real” somehow than the rather institutional view that one gets today.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve done some more editorial work on the Origen book today, and I’ve sent the book — which is really starting to assume a book-like form now — to the translator for his input.  I’ve been staring at the pages for the best part of the last three days, and I think I’ll award myself the rest of the day off! 

I’ve also received two more old books on religion in the Soviet Union by Michael Bourdeaux of Keston College.  I might see if I feel like passing one of these through the scanner.

It’s dull and grey here, although we had flickers of sun at lunchtime.  It’s hard to wake properly, I find.  On a whim I went down to Pin Mill and had lunch in the Butt and Oyster pub.  I sat in the room with a bay window over the river.  The tide was out and the mud-flats were exposed.  Sunlight illuminated the woods and lawns of the large house across the river.  Nobody was about on the river.  A few large working barges were drawn up near the hard, as they always are.  Few people there, and the place looked little changed since my last visit, which was, I fear, probably a dozen years ago.  But it’s very mild — 12C at lunchtime isn’t bad for New Year’s Eve.

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Coptic-Arabic gospel catena also known in Ge`ez?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

This evening I found the following snippet in Google Books, given as in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1989, p.380:

… Ethiopia’s access to foreign commentaries (including that of Iso’dad of Merv and the other Syrian scholars) is through the Geez version of Ibn at-Taiyib’s exegetica and the Geez adaptation of Coptic-Arabic Catena….

Now call me daft, but this sounds as if the Coptic gospel catena published by De Lagarde, which was translated into Arabic, was then onward translated into Ethiopic, or more precisely Ge`ez.  And that someone out there knows this.  It’s in a book review of some kind.

Unfortunately I have no access to the article in which this appears.  Poking around the website for the JRAS of 1989, p.380 belongs to Michael Loewe, of “East Asian civilizations: a dialogue in five stages. By Wm. Theodore de Bary. (The Edwin O. Reischauer Lectures, 1986.) pp. xi, 160. Cambridge, Mass, and London, Harvard University Press, 1988. £15.95.”  That doesn’t sound right, nor does the abstract look right.  Cambridge University Press greedily demand 20 GBP to access the article, the swine. 

Wish I could find the article.  Anyone got any ideas?

UPDATE: I think the Google Books snippet must be in error in some way, probably in the page number?  I’ve found the book itself reviewed above, and it has nothing relevant in it.

UPDATE: Found it!  I took the snippet and pasted it into the general Google search, and up it came as a JSTOR review in JRAS 1990, p.379f.  The article is a review of Roger W. Cowley, Ethiopian Biblical Interpretation, CUP, 1988.  Now that sounds like an interesting book.  Amazon list it at a fantastic price, unfortunately.

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Origen project update

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The project to translate Origen’s exegetical works on Ezekiel has been dormant for so long than many readers will not remember it.  But again the idea is to commission a translation of these things, print them in book form with facing text, sell enough copies to recoup the cost of translation etc, and, once that is done, place the translation online where it can be freely available.  This kicked off in 2009.

The project was slightly torpedoed by the appearance of Thomas Scheck’s translation in 2010 in the Ancient Christian Writers series.  When the project started, there was no English translation of any of this material.

But our book is larger.  Origen wrote 25 books of commentaries — all lost, except 1 fragment in the Philocalia, 14 homilies (which exist only in the Latin translation by St. Jerome),  and scholia.  Substantial material by “Origen” is quoted in the medieval Greek bible commentaries, made up of ‘chains’ of quotations from the Fathers, (=catenas) on Ezekiel.  This includes parts of the lost Greek text of the homilies, plus material probably from the scholia, as well as spurious material.

We’ve done the lot.  We started with the material in PG 13, but the translator, bless him, searched out material in Mai and Pitra and elsewhere that isn’t in the PG13.

Once again we should be doing a service.  Scheck only did a translation of the homilies in Jerome’s Latin version.  We’re doing the lot; Jerome, the Greek, the fragments, everything we can find.  The Greek fragments have always been neglected.  De la Rue, in 1733, collected them; and no-one much has made any effort with them since.  There’s a text-critical project there, if someone would grab hold of it.

An evil thought has just hit me: I bet that there is material in Coptic, if we actually have any Coptic catenas on Ezekiel.  But here my knowledge stops.  I don’t know much about Old Testament catenas.  Hmmm.

Anyway today has been busy.  Up first thing and rushed to the laptop.  I’ve done a lot to the preface to the Greek fragments, although it needs revision by printing off and sitting down with a biro.  I’ve created a spreadsheet of all the bits, and marked the status of all of it.  And I’ve updated all the files that need revision with a banner at the top listing what needs to be done.

Which turns out to be … not much.

I’ve also heard back from the translator (who is on holiday, but still answering questions), that he has some time next week.

I think we’ll finish it off, at least as far as pre-editorial work is concerned, next week! 

I’ll send the translator a drop of the book in zip form at the end of today.  Meanwhile, I have stuff to write.

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Anyone know where I can get an electronic Greek text of the LXX for Ezekiel?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

There must be one, surely?

I don’t know what the critical Greek text is, but that’s the one that I would prefer.

Any help gratefully received!

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve written a new beginning to the introduction to the Greek fragments of Origen’s works on Ezekiel.  The existing introduction is full of good stuff, but starts off a couple of rungs above the ground level! 

It was tricky to do, as well.  My first effort didn’t work, and I had to try again before getting anywhere.

I’ve also moved the files for the book into a directory and placed them under version control (in SVN).  I did this for the Eusebius book, and, although I never needed to go back, it was a considerable comfort knowing that one could!

And … somehow the afternoon has gone.  That was 5 hours work. 

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Searching for Lommatzsch

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m going through the Greek fragments of Origen’s works on Ezekiel at the moment.  The first thing I need to do is to get straight in my head just where all of them come from.  The translator has done a marvellous job of assembling material, but I got very confused from the emails, both at the time and afterwards.  The fault was entirely mine, in that I didn’t gather all the primary materials myself.

The real source for most of them is Migne, PG 13 (1862), cols. 662-826.  Migne reprints an edition by the Maurist editor, Charles Delarue.  But … the GCS editor, Baehrens, who printed the Latin text plus some Greek fragments, had no access to Delarue.  So he used a reprint by Carl Lommatzsch. 

Confused?  That, dear friends, is a clear explanation, compared to what I started with this afternoon!

I’d like to look at these editions and make sure.  Google books has some volumes of Lommatzsch’s edition, but Archive.org, bless them, have the lot!  Lommatzsch vol. 14 is, therefore, right here.  It looks exactly like Migne.

What I really want is De la Rue’s volume, but it doesn’t seem to be on Google books.

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