From my diary

I had intended to go to Iceland on holiday this week.  Unfortunately the gods decided otherwise, and Hecate breathed her poisoned breath on me on Saturday.  However all things work together for good, for those who love God, and no doubt this is for the best.

This leaves me here, wasting my time at home, and feeling too washed out even to do anything or read much.  Curiously this variant of the annual scourge doesn’t involve large numbers of tissues.  It should be over soon, I think.

One thing I have done (finally) is to forward the proof corrections for the Origen book to the typesetter.  There’s a general problem in the Greek fragments with the bold formatting, and I had intended to go through this and list the problems page by page.  But a quick look today reveals that it’s a general problem, and that every page has been mis-set wherever it went to multiple columns.  So really there’s nothing to be gained by me repeating that same message for every page.  So I have passed that one to the typesetter.

Back to the sofa for me, I think.  It’s not cold, and the sunlight is cheering, but the virus leaves one feeling so weak!  I shall lie there and read twitter.

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CSEL volumes to be typed up and made freely available online

An interesting announcement from the Open Greek and Latin Project, here at Digital Humanities Leipzig.

The Open Greek and Latin Project (OGL) recently signed a contract with Data Entry Company Jouve to OCR and encode Latin works and collections in accordance with the latest TEI EpiDoc standards.

First on the to-do list is the monumental Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL) and, in particular, the public domain (by European Law) volumes available here: once digitised and annotated, OGL will make these volumes freely available online for browsing and download. The contract doesn’t stop at CSEL so we’re currently busy at work discussing other items on our to-do list.

We look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration!

I think we must all wish them well.

They will need to take precautions about copyright, given how backward German copyright law is.  But there is plenty of CSEL material that is out of copyright even there.  And it might be a nice gesture to talk to the people at the CSEL, and work with them a bit.

Digital Humanities Leipzig might also find it useful to make it possible for people to contact them.  If their blog posts had a “tweet” button at the bottom, they would get tweeted and so become much better known!

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Augustine to Jerome on the inspiration of scripture

An interesting article at ThinkTheology.co.uk draws together some useful quotations from St. Augustine on the inspiration of scripture.

The quotations come from Augustine’s letter 82, addressed to St. Jerome himself.

For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it.

As to all other writings, in reading them, however great the superiority of the authors to myself in sanctity and learning, I do not accept their teaching as true on the mere ground of the opinion being held by them; but only because they have succeeded in convincing my judgment of its truth either by means of these canonical writings themselves, or by arguments addressed to my reason.

I believe, my brother, that this is your own opinion as well as mine. I do not need to say that I do not suppose you to wish your books to be read like those of prophets or of apostles, concerning which it would be wrong to doubt that they are free from error … (82.3)

But you will say it is better to believe that the Apostle Paul wrote what was not true, than to believe that the Apostle Peter did what was not right. On this principle, we must say (which far be it from us to say), that it is better to believe that the gospel history is false, than to believe that Christ was denied by Peter; and better to charge the book of Kings with false statements, than believe that so great a prophet, and one so signally chosen by the Lord God as David was, committed adultery in lusting after and taking away the wife of another, and committed such detestable homicide in procuring the death of her husband.

Better far that I should read with certainty and persuasion of its truth the Holy Scripture, placed on the highest (even the heavenly) pinnacle of authority, and should, without questioning the trustworthiness of its statements, learn from it that men have been either commended, or corrected, or condemned, than that, through fear of believing that by men, who, though of most praiseworthy excellence, were no more than men, actions deserving rebuke might sometimes be done, I should admit suspicions affecting the trustworthiness of the whole oracles of God. (82.5)

The translation is the 19th century one, which may be found online here.

I have never collected ancient statements concerned with the inspiration of scripture; doing so would certainly be an interesting and useful exercise.  But I do recall another passage of Augustine on scripture which deserves quotation here.  It is from De genesim ad litteram (On Genesis, literally expounded), book 2, chapter 9:

It is frequently asked what our belief must be about the form and shape of heaven according to Sacred Scripture. Many scholars engaged in lengthy discussions on these matter, but the sacred writers with their deeper wisdom have omitted them. Such subjects are of no profit for those who seek beatitude, and, what is worse, they take up precious time that ought to be given to what is spiritually beneficial. What concern is it of mine whether heaven is a sphere and the earth is enclosed by it and suspended in the middle of the universe, or whether heaven like a disk above the earth covers it on one side?

But the credibility of Scripture is at stake, and as I have indicated more than once, there is danger that a man uninstructed in divine revelation, discovering something in Scripture or hearing from it something that seems to be at variance with the knowledge that he has acquired, may resolutely withhold his assent in other matters where Scripture presents useful admonitions, narratives, or declarations. Hence, I must say briefly that in the matter of the shape of heaven the sacred writers knew the truth, but that the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, did not wish to teach men these facts that would be of no avail to their salvation.

This translation is as translated by J.H.Taylor, 1982.

All of this is sensible stuff.

We must always remember that there are only two groups of Christians; those whose ultimate authority is the word of scripture, and those who have come to think it is not the ultimate authority, and so, inevitably, give the last word elsewhere — invariably to the world, then to the flesh, and finally to the devil.  It is not enough to mean well; we must think well also.  It isn’t very clever to be so clever that we talk ourselves out of salvation.

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Photos of underwater basilica at Nicaea

A wonderful article in a Turkish newspaper here (via Twitter).  It seems that someone has uncovered the remains underwater of a basilica at Nicaea (modern Iznik), just offshore in lake Nicaea.  It’s thought to have been demolished after the earthquake in the 8th century.

Modern Nicaea is just a small Turkish town nestled within the massive double Roman walls, themselves set on a plain of endless olive groves.  It’s an evocative place, of a world before modern “development”.

I can’t make much sense of the article, even with Google translated, but the photos from the article are below.  Aren’t they wonderful!

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UPDATE: A new tweet from IsinElicin draws my attention to this article in English:

1500-year-old basilica discovered under Lake Iznik

A church which dates back to the year 500 CE was unearthed during excavations conducted under in the depths of Lake Iznik in Turkey’s western province of Bursa.

Professor Mustafa Sahin from Bursa Uludag University’s Archaeology department said that the first traces of the church was first seen 20 meters from the beach and that they have been conducting excavations to get more clues about the church.

Byzantine experts are still carrying out research to to find out who the church belonged to. They have predicted the ruins to remnants of St. Peters Church, which was mentioned in some Christian books, said Sahin.

It is not exactly known when the church was built, but archaeologists predicted that it must have been built in 500 CE.

The details of the church will be released along with the excavations.

Well done Dr Sahin.

Note that Bursa was Prusias in antiquity, and is today mainly an industrial city (with very, very large car manufacturing plants by firms like Renault).

UPDATE: A commenter has pointed out a brief article in Hurriyet which reads:

Remains of Byzantine basilica discovered at the bottom of Lake Iznik BURSA – Dogan News Agency.  January/28/2014

The remains of an ancient basilica have been discovered about 20 meters from shore in Bursa’s Lake Iznik, according to local archaeologists.

“We have found church remains. It is in a basilica plan and has three naves,” said Mustafa Sahin, an archaeology professor at Bursa Uludag University.

The foundations of the church are currently lying in water that is about 1.5 to two meters deep.

“This church’s remains are similar to the Hagia Sophia in Iznik. This is why we estimated that it was built in the fifth century A.D.,” said Sahin.

He said the structure was discovered while photographing the city from the air to make an inventory of historical and cultural artifacts.

After the discovery, the university informed the Iznik Museum Directorate and the Culture and Tourism Ministry, asking that the archaeological site be protected, Sahin said.

There are many rough stones at the site, he said. “This shows that that the structure collapsed. Iznik has gone through many earthquakes that destroyed such structures. The best known is the one that occurred in 740 A.D. Our first observations show that the structure collapsed in this earthquake and that the coastal side was submerged. The church was subsequently not rebuilt.”

(The foundations of the church are currently lying in water about 1.5 to two meters deep. It is estimated that the structure collapsed in an earthquake. DHA photo)

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Investigating “quotations” online – another blog

Regular readers will know that I sometimes investigate supposed quotations from the ancients which I have found online.  Often they prove to be bogus.

I came across a blog which does nothing but check quotations.  I’d never heard of it, and it deserves wider notice:

http://quoteinvestigator.com/

Recommended.

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What happened to the bindings of the Syriac manuscripts at the British Library

A very interesting post on this here:   The Syriac manuscripts in the British Library: what happened to the bindings? (Liv Ingeborg Lied).

Basically they were mostly discarded and rebound.

H/T Paleojudaica.

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Might we lose money (shock) if we publish open-access?

A correspondent has drawn my attention to the OAPEN-UK project, and the participation of Oxford University Press in it.

This means that, temporarily, some monographs are online as PDF’s on various sites and accessible to us all, e.g. here.

I think we must all be interested in  this project.  It’s quite an interesting idea:

OUP is participating in OAPEN-UK, a pilot funded by JISC Collections and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to gather evidence on the viability of open access monographs in the humanities and social sciences. Our participation is running for the duration of the final year of the trial, from September 2013 – September 2014.

OAPEN-UK works by matching pairs of monographs which are similar in subject area, predicted sales, extent and publication date, and then publishing one open access and publishing the other in the normal manner, as a control.

The titles randomly selected to be open access have been made available as a freely available PDF on the OUP UK Catalogue, Oxford Scholarship Online, the OAPEN Library, and on Google Books. These PDFs are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives licence (CC-BY-NC-ND). In addition to this, these titles continue to be sold and marketed in the normal way (customers can still purchase print copies or ebooks, for example).

The control titles are not made open access and are simply sold, marketed and distributed in the traditional manner.

The titles currently accessible which might be of interest to us are:

What is original about this initiative — and well done JISC for funding it — is that it extends the idea of open access beyond journals into monographs.

The main concern of publishers is naturally their profits.  This can’t continue, since every other aspect of the process is state funded.  But the question of whether open access means that sales cease is a very interesting one.

My guess — and it is only a guess — is that they will, but only slightly.

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Fancy translating some of the Glossa Ordinaria?

The Glossa Ordinaria is a Latin collection of patristic comments on scripture which circulated in the 9th century.  A project is underway to translate portions of it.

The editor, John Litteral, has asked me to post an appeal for contributors, which is as follows:

I have been working on the Gloss on 1 John, and have been getting some participation from a number of people, one lady (a gifted translator and very fast) in particular who has translated many glosses so far, and a few others who have been contributing a little as well.  We are at the fourth chapter of 1 John with the marginal glosses, and I have been working on the interlinear glosses, in which I am in the second chapter.

I was curious if you know anyone who might want to participate in any of it?  I am going to self publish it and donate 100% of the royalties to a Latin forum that I have been given permission to use.

Everyone who participates will be given recognition in the book.  I plan to have 1,2,3 John, and to call it ‘The Glossa Ordinaria in English- 1,2,3 John’.  My goal is to have a series of translations, and the series called “The Glossa Ordinaria in English”.

This of course is basically going to be a preliminary sort of thing, until the progress on the Gloss advances and the professions start producing the Gloss in English, which little has been done and is going at a snails pace. There are no critical texts of the Gloss to work with, only manuscripts and old versions such as Migne.

If you know any who might be interested in participating in any of it such as interlinear glosses, which are not difficult, or marginal glosses or anything at all, then they are more than welcome, and I can catch them up to speed where we are and what we are using.

It’s probably rather easy Latin, and might be quite a gentle way to get back into Latin, if your’s is a bit rusty!

You can contact John at jlitteral5@roadrunner.com.

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Chrysostom’s letters – more translations at Academia.edu, this time from Wendy Mayer

A couple of days ago I mentioned the 30-odd letters by John Chrysostom which had appeared in draft form at Academia.edu, and the project (not mine) to translate the lot.

Today I learn that Chrysostom scholar Wendy Mayer has also uploaded some draft translations of letters by Chrysostom.  They may be found here, and look very good indeed.  It is great to find these.

There are five letters given there, with copious notes.  They include Chrysostom’s two letters to Pope Innocent, and Innocent’s reply (letter 11), plus Innocent’s letter (14) to Theophilus of Alexandria, and Innocent’s letter to the people of Constantinople (letter 33).

The drafts have at the top wording such as:

Note: This is a new translation based prepared for Geoffrey Dunn for the translation volume to accompany his new edition of the letters of Innocent I, in preparation for CCSL. Posted with his permission. The Greek text is found in Sozomen, HE 8.26.

Which is fair enough, of course.  I think we may all thank Dr Mayer for generously making these drafts available.

It is also excellent news that a translation of Innocent’s letters is in progress.  Papal correspondence of the 5-6th century is a historical source of the highest value, and it ought to be more accessible than it is.

It seems as if an intriguing use of Academa.edu is developing.  People are starting to use it as a safe place to put work in progress, draft material which may or may not be published, and so forth.

I imagine that most people who work on some worthwhile research have to prepare working documents, draft translations of sources, and detailed notes, as part of the research project.  Most of this is never published, nor always publishable.  But it may be of great interest all the same to other workers in the field!  Now, suddenly, there is a place for such material.

The availability of such material can facilitate cooperative working with people who may otherwise never hear of the work already done.  It’s an excellent idea.

I get the impression that the site is gaining some real traction.  One to watch.

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The Roman sponge-on-a-stick

The Romans didn’t use toilet paper.  Instead they used a sponge on a stick.  Or at least, that is my understanding.

I’m not sure what our sources are for this, but one came my way this week.  It’s from Seneca’s Letters 70, ch. 20:

20.  Nuper in ludo bestiariorum unus e Germanis, cum ad matutina spectacula pararetur, secessit ad exonerandum corpus – nullum aliud illi dabatur sine custode secretum; ibi lignum id quod ad emundanda obscena adhaerente spongia positum est totum in gulam farsit et interclusis faucibus spiritum elisit. Hoc fuit morti contumeliam facere. Ita prorsus, parum munde et parum decenter: quid est stultius quam fastidiose mori?

20.  For example, there was lately in a training-school for wild-beast gladiators a German, who was making ready for the morning exhibition; he withdrew in order to relieve himself, – the only thing which he was allowed to do in secret and without the presence of a guard. While so engaged, he seized the stick of wood, tipped with a sponge, which was devoted to the vilest uses, and stuffed it, just as it was, down his throat; thus he blocked up his windpipe, and choked the breath from his body. That was truly to insult death![1]

I wonder if they had to share a stick?

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  1. [1]Latin from the Latin Library here; English taken from the Loeb translation, found here on Wikimedia Commons.