From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The mobile broadband provided by O2 is of poor quality, in that it took me over an hour to connect to it.  It is very slow, as is proven by my utter inability to download an interesting article from Alin Suciu’s site, despite trying for two nights running; the download always times out.

In desperation I opened a PDF that has sat on this laptop — my travelling laptop — for almost a year, and began to skim the pages.  It is a copy of J. J. Blunt’s On the right use of the early fathers: two series of lectures delivered in the university of Cambridge (1857)[1] which may be readily found online. 

The book is tedious.  The lecturer was responding to a volume written in French, and rewritten in Latin in 1631 by a French Protestant named Daillé, designed to show that Romanist appeals to the fathers had no authority. The volume, we learn, circulated widely.  Each chapter summarises one of Daillé’s arguments, and responds to it.  Blunt advises his hearers — for this is a lecture series — that the Latin version is to be preferred, as augmented from the original French.

The writer does not say so, but Daillé had recently been reprinted and translated into English, in 1843.[2] A less than charitable person might wonder whether Dr Blunt was, in truth, working from the English version that was readily available to him, while praising the Latin to his students.  Such little pieces of self-aggrandisement are  not unknown even today, I believe.  But perhaps we may give the good doctor the benefit of the doubt.

We need not dwell on Daillé.  The urgencies that led him to try to dismiss the fathers, arising from the period of the French wars of religion, are not ours.  Few Catholics  today will attempt to browbeat protestants with the authority of Augustine, and even fewer of those would be wise to try. 

On the other hand there are indeed Catholics who try to argue from the fathers that the early church was the church of the Council of Trent; and that those who believe the bible must also believe the teachings superadded upon it during a thousand years of superstition and ignorance.  Such is a possible opinion, but I myself, with Talleyrand, have always failed to see the necessity.  But it seems unlikely that this polemic will be rebutted in the manner that Daillé attempted, by throwing the fathers out with the indulgence-sellers.

We need not enquire too curiously whether the high-church Cambridge don of 1857 sympathised very much with the Hugenot of two centuries earlier.

The book contains interesting things, among the tedious material.  For instance the Methodist movement is already described as suffering from “decrepitude”, and its continued existence called into question. 

Daillé argues that the works of the fathers are in the main few and fragmentary, and tend to be directed to subjects now obsolete.  He instances, apparently, the anti-gnostic works.  Of course he could hardly have foreseen the manner in which 1960’s hippy fads have reinvigorated this ancient nonsense, but his general point as to their subject matter is valid, and Blunt admits it.  The other point is only partially true, of course.

Blunt responds that the fathers are unmethodical writers.  A study of the table of contents for most patristic works would not inform us as to what subjects are truly introduced.  In consequence, the works of the fathers frequently contain digressions on subjects which no reasonable person would expect to be contained therein, and from which their views on some very contentious subjects not present to their minds at the time — such as transubstantiation — may be inferred. 

There is truth in this; although inferring the opinions of writers on a subject that did not arise until after their time would seem to be a somewhat risky proceeding.

Daillé also accuses the Church of Rome of corrupting the text of the fathers, in the editions published under Catholic auspices during the 17th century.  This should be interesting, but I have not yet reached that portion of the book.

In the course of discussing the use of apocrypha by the fathers[3], Blunt discusses the case of Clement of Alexandria.  His remarks are sound, and worth reproducing.

But does the manner in which Clemens avails himself of Apocryphal writings affect his own credit as an author or a candid Apologist? Certainly he refers to the “Gospel according to the Hebrews;” to the “Gospel according to the Egyptians;” to the “Traditions of Matthias;” to the “Preaching of Peter” to a “certain Gospel” and perhaps to the “Acts of Peter.”

And often he refers without any remark whatever as to the value of the document he is laying under contribution.

But you will bear this in mind, a fact which Daillé altogether overlooks, but a very important one; that on one of these occasions he expressly speaks of no Gospels being of authority except the four.

“On Salome inquiring,” this is the passage, “when the things which she asked about would be known; the Lord replied, when ye shall tread under foot” (or have no need for) “the covering of your shame; and when two shall become one, and the male with the female shall be neither male nor female;” and then Clemens adds, by way of shaking the effect of this paragraph, which was advocating a cause to which he was opposed, “First, then, I contend, that we have not this saying in the four Gospels delivered to us, but in the Gospel according to the Egyptians.”[4]

I say this observation must be carried along with us, when we meet with other quotations from Apocryphal Gospels and like works in Clemens; for however he may not at the moment declare in so many words the comparative estimation in which he holds them, we have it under his own hands, that none of them rank with him at all as the four Canonical Gospels do.

For example, he adduces this same Gospel according to the Egyptians in another place, as follows: “But they who oppose themselves to the Creation of God by their specious continence, allege those things which were addressed to Salome, whereof I have made mention already. They occur, I think,” continues Clemens, “in the Gospel according to the Egyptians.'”

Now here you see the Gospel according to the Egyptians is cited without any notice of distrust in it or any mark of depreciation. Yet from the other passage, already laid before you, it appears, that though he is here silent about its merits, Clemens had no wish to disguise his real opinion of it.

(The paragraphing is mine)

I shall read more of Blunt, I think.  And perhaps I shall look at Daillé also.  These old disputes sometimes contain gems.

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  1. [1]Online here.↩
  2. [2]Jean Daillé, Treatise on the Right Use of the Fathers in the Decision of Controversies, Bohn, 1843.  Online here.  I haven’t looked at this.↩
  3. [3]p.63↩
  4. [4]Stromat. III, 13.↩

Cranmer, the ASA and its gay chairman

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Ten days ago I wrote an article on this blog, about the Cranmer blog, and some threats which it had received from the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).  The “crime” was that Cranmer had run an innocuous advertisement for the Coalition for Marriage, opposing the current demand by the gay lobby for gay “marriage”.  The ASA demanded that he ‘explain’ himself — a tactic of intimidation familiar from Canada — and they also demanded that he keep their bullying silent.

Well, they picked the wrong blogger.  The mighty and very widely-read Cranmer promptly published their threatening letters on May 11th and demanded an explanation in his turn. He also wondered why his blog was singled out, when the even mightier Guido Fawkes had run the same ad.

Much has happened since.

On May 14th Cranmer published his reply.

His Grace apologises to his readers and communicants for his brief absence from his cyber pulpit: he has been closeted with lawyers and advisers, and has downed one or two vodka-martinis (‘dirty’, two olives) along with sundry bottles of Rioja. It’s interesting how a request to comply with an official investigation and a demand to respond to a formal inquiry becomes distracting and all-consuming: the mere request is a formidable weapon of harassment in itself, sapping energy, time and money (vid. His Grace’s Collection Plate ‘donate’ button on the right: all solidarity contributions welcome).

In particular, apologies are due to those who objected to his use of the word ‘persecution’ in this context: certainly, he, being long-deceased and non-corporeal, is no longer risking life or limb in the proclamation of the gospel. But, with respect, none of those who judge are on the receiving end of the intimidation. In their correspondence, the ASA do not inform one of the limits of their powers: one is simply confronted with specific demands from an organisation styled ‘Authority’. And through all the hours spent consulting, considering and pondering, there is absolutely no clue as to the identity of these 10 complainants, other than that they include the ‘Jewish Gay & Lesbian Group’ (though it is not clear if the complaint was made by individual members of that organisation or corporately on behalf of all members [if the latter, His Grace would dearly like to hear from any affiliated gay or lesbian Jews who place the freedoms of speech and expression above state-imposed moral uniformity]).

The latter paragraph contains a lession for us all.  Note how commenters who support this kind of persecution have developed a standard tactic; they deny that the harassment actually is persecution. 

Of course harassment is persecution.  So what is the purpose of the denial?  Well, it confuses the response.  Instead of asking “why are you beating me?” the victim is sidetracked in a futile debate away from the evildoer onto whether the victim is using “correct language”.  The object is thereby to blunt attempts at self-defence.  It’s worth making a mental note of this, for I have seen the same tactic used in response to other descriptions of harassment of Christians.  Those who adopt this tactic must be considered either fools or enemies, and, I fear, usually the latter.

On May 16th more dirty details emerged.  The ASA, feeling the heat, published a disclaimer on their website.  They did not apologise for their conduct; no indeed: they asserted that their victim had misunderstood!  This cynical ploy to deflect criticism, while continuing their action, was dissected by Cranmer here, although at this point even he did not realise quite what the disclaimer was really about.

But here’s the interesting section:

One of the bloggers on whose blog the ads appeared has raised concerns about us contacting him as part of our investigation. We have long found it useful to ask, in confidence, publishers of ads subject to ‘offence’ complaints for their views, because they can give us a valuable insight into whether or not their readers are likely to be offended. They are not the subject of our investigation, as we have made clear to them in this case, and they are not compelled to respond. 

This sounds so utterly reasonable that His Grace must have been completely mistaken by both the tone and content of their initial communication. Silly him: what a stupid pile of ash to have got so scattered about and worked up over the sweet ASA’s polite request for titbits of information to provide them with important ‘valuable insights’. How unnecessarily histrionic of him to have used the word ‘investigation’ when none has been instigated and he is not even compelled to respond, as they ‘made clear’.

Sadly, this is untrue.

And so it was, as Cranmer proceeds to demonstrate.

On May 17th the ASA replied to Cranmer’s email; or at least, pretended to do so, while actually ignoring all of his questions.  The email was published and fisked.

A reasonable person might wonder what on earth is going on.  He might enquire why on earth a body whose role is to regulate dodgy advertising is writing threatening letters to a blogger?  Why is this body threatening Christian groups who suggest that God might heal?  On May 18th, all became clear. 

… former Labour MP Chris Smith, now Baron Smith of Finsbury PC, is not only Chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority; he is also Vice President of The Campaign for Homosexual Equality. Mr Smith is widely credited with being Britain’s first openly gay MP, …

But Lord Smith’s courage is not merely historical: he continues to advance his cause. And he does so by exercising an authority which it doesn’t actually possess. He became Chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority in 2006, and Vice President of The Campaign for Homosexual Equality in 2009. He ought to have been wiser and more discerning, for the Campaign for Homosexual Equality is a ‘direct descendant’ of the ‘highly political’ Homosexual Law Reform Society. And they make no secret about it.

If one is a direct descendent, one inherits certain characteristics and retains a distinct pattern of DNA. That Lord Smith is Vice President of a ‘highly political’ campaign is in no doubt: the objective remains that of advocating for ‘gay rights’ and agitating aggressively for favourable legislation, regardless of the extent to which each incremental change impinges upon the rights and liberties of others. The more militaristic homosexuals – often termed ‘gayers’ or ‘homosexualists’ – are now responsible for spreading the very sorts of oppression, persecution and alienation historically suffered by their co-sexualists.

And so now we know.  But this is by no means the end of the story.  Later that day there was a further response from the ASA.  With much conciliatory language, but no indication of any intent to withdraw their “investigation” — what you or I would experience as harassment — they stated that they were now going to go after a couple more blogs!  Cranmer’s comment was wry:

But the report in the Church of England Newspaper appears to suggest that the ASA has now indeed decided to seek the opinions of Guido Fawkes and ConservativeHome on this matter. While the former (being an Irish national with a blog hosted on overseas servers) will doubtless tell them where to go, the latter will tread more carefully.

Meanwhile the fellow-travellers and online warriors who live to support these kinds of persecutions were getting into high gear and shrieking at the victim, as is their custom.  On May 20th Cranmer dealt firmly with them too.

Through the past week of His Grace’s ASA saga, he has received dozens of highly critical emails and hundreds of condemnatory tweets impugning his integrity, orthodoxy and motives. Even this morning, one talked of his ‘hate mongering’ and it being ‘better to drown urself than persecute god’s children’. It is, perhaps, simply the price one pays for expressing an opinion or holding a view which is not quite harmonically consonant with the zeitgeist. If one wishes to avoid criticism, one remains silent and inert.

Most interesting was the endorsement of the persecution from a certain pressure group.  It was understandable in a way: there are some groups that can’t possibly fear state action targeted against ordinary people, and wouldn’t understand the need to resist tyranny:

But perhaps no comment has been more hurtful to His Grace than one received from Peggy Sherwood, President of the Jewish Gay and Lesbian Group. His Grace had politely requested their assistance in clarifying whether or not her organisation had complained to the ASA about the Coalition for Marriage advertisement which is now the subject of a formal investigation. Someone on their behalf had commented on this blog that ‘…this has been done in our name and without our knowledge or agreement’.

This, of course, contradicted the documentation received from the ASA, which informed His Grace that they had received 24 complaints, ‘including the Jewish Gay and Lesbian Group’, which, of course, shifted the weight of opposition from an insignificant number of sundry individuals to an organisation which potentially represents thousands. His Grace informed the JGLG that ‘the ASA have used your corporate identity to inform His Grace (and others) that the JGLG did complain (either about the advertisement being factually incorrect or ‘offensive and homophobic’). This would appear to be a false affirmation which the ASA have not bothered to check with you’. And he enquired to know if one of their members had misled the ASA that he/she was speaking on their behalf, and, since the President apparently knows the identity of this person, whether he/she might be prepared to contact His Grace directly. He also sought to discover what action the leadership of the JGLG might take against this person for (apparently) bringing the JGLG into disrepute.

He received a terse response, instructing him to ‘turn the other cheek’ and assuring him of their best wishes at all times, ‘except those occasions when he appears not to recognize the image of God in the image of others’.

Few will feel anything but revulsion at the cynical response.

On May 21st Cranmer responded to the ASA letter, and put it pretty straight.

It appears that the Advertising Standards Authority is no longer solely concerned with sales promotional advertising. …

By choosing to investigate a promotional campaign which sought merely to uphold the traditional view of marriage, it is clear that you have expanded your remit to incorporate the promotion of political causes and ideas, which the CAP Code states specifically is excluded from the scope of your competence, except where they are ‘direct solicitations of donations for fund-raising’. That is manifestly not the case with the Coalition for Marriage advertisement: the only direct solicitation was for people’s signatures upon a petition. That the campaign is political is in no doubt, because HM Government have decreed it so by their decision to investigate those schools which advocate support of the marriage petition, which a minister has referred to as ‘political campaigning’. Your decision to investigate the complaint with threats and menaces, contra your own online remit, constitutes bullying, harassment and intimidation, which amounts to censorship of the cause for the retention of traditional marriage and the idea that marriage is a union of one man and one woman.

By sending out ‘complaint’ papers which demand responses with such phrases as ‘We require you to respond…’ and ‘we will need to see robust documentary evidence to back the claims and a clear explanation from you of its relevance’; and by doing so with demands to answer your questions by a certain deadline with threats of punitive action for non-compliance, you fraudulently convey an excess of power and claim an authority which you do not, in law, possess. You impress upon the recipient that you are the superior moral agent, and that submission and obeisance are the only appropriate response. …

And Cranmer revealed that the ASA had cheated the public even more than anyone had realised:

Your recent claim (published on 15th May upon your website) that you were seeking His Grace’s voluntary assistance and ‘have made clear’ that he is ‘not compelled to respond’ is not supported by the facts. Not least because this was only ‘made clear’ in your second email to him (which was received at 5.40pm on 15th May). Indeed, it appears that your second email was sent solely to permit you to be able to claim publicly on your website on the same day that you ‘have made clear’ that there is no compulsion to respond. This is not merely mendacious; it is manipulative, which is further harassment.  …

This is not a public body being silly, therefore.  This really is the abuse of power for a political objective:

Your treatment of His Grace is oppressive because you appear to claim the authority of the British Government, the Office of Fair Trading and of the Courts to demand his personal reasons for supporting the English laws regulating marriage. You selected him alone from the blogosphere for this intimidation when larger and more powerful entities had also promoted the same advertisement. And your treatment of His Grace is partisan because, through your decision to escalate to ‘formal investigation’ sundry vexatious and invented complaints, and by your unlawful threats made with reference to the Courts and other available sanctions, you have sought to punish his support of a cause, which has become political, and his commitment to an idea, which is moral. Your Agency is charged with ensuring truth in advertising, not with advancing a political agenda by suppressing the free debate that underpins our democracy. …

It ought to be obvious to any objective, reasonable person, and also to any rational, impartial organisation, that a set of wedding photographs and a quotation from the marriage liturgy cannot possibly be offensive to any reasonable or rational person. They are only deemed to be so by those whose agenda is acutely political. The fact that you subjectively and unreasonably chose to escalate their complaints to the level of ‘formal investigation’ constitutes an intimidating attempt to encroach on the freedom of speech.

Later today, there was another development:

With impeccable (‘interesting’) timing, Lord Smith of Finsbury has come out in favour of the campaign for same-sex marriage.

For all the reasons previously observed, Lord Smith must now resign his position as Chairman of the ASA, who have aggressively and deceptively made demands of His Grace (and others) in relation to a Coalition for Marriage advertisement which merely sought to uphold the traditional view of marriage and English law as it presently stands. Lord Smith now declares that he desires to support the campaign to change that law, and he is apparently using the ASA to achieve his ends.

It is simply not possible for the ASA to assert impartiality and objectivity in adjudicating on matters relating to the promotion of traditional marriage. Lord Smith is simultaneously Chairman of the ASA and Vice President of The Campaign for Homosexual Equality. Now that he has ‘come out’ in support of the agenda of the 10 complainants who reported His Grace for disseminating ‘homophobia’, there can be no expectation that justice can be seen to be done.

Indeed not.  All is explained.

Cranmer is right.  Smith cannot properly remain as Chairman of the ASA.

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Facsimile edition of the ms. of Critoboulos’ History of the Fall of Constantinople to be published

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have written before about the history of Kritoboulos of Imbros, which describes the sack of Constantinople in 1453.  The author was a Greek renegade who entered Turkish service.  The text was published in a critical edition in 1983. An English translation from an earlier edition exists by Charles Riggs.  From the latter I learn that:

The original manuscript of this valuable work is one of the treasures of the Seraglio Point Museum Library in Istanbul today, and it is carefully guarded as such. It was discovered in the Library in 1865, and five years later was transcribed by Herr Karl Mueller and printed in Paris in Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Vol. V. The dedicatory Epistle to Mehmed was published separately by Tischendorf in 1870.

It seems that the Greek consul in Istanbul, Vasilis Bornovas, is an enterprising man who is interested in promoting the study of Greek in Istanbul.  According to this report, he started a school in Istanbul to teach Greek in 2009:

The General Consul of Greece in Istanbul Vasilis Bornovas, realized the Greek language and cultural interest by the Turks.  He opened a Greek language school in Sismanogleio Megaro, in Istanbul. According to the Greek Consul: “The first year of opening we had 50-60 students, but last year their number reached 200. This year we expect to have 500-600 students. As I am informed, Greeks express great interest about learning Turkish and in Greece there are 150 schools, while many people come to Istanbul in order to have lessons in TOMER (Turkish Language Learning Center)”.

From the website of the Canellopoulos Foundation here, I learn that he has now arranged for the publication of a photographic copy of the Istanbul manuscript, with Turkish facing translation, doubtless in the same cause of promoting mutual understanding.  The funding is mainly coming from this foundation, who are to be commended for such an interesting project.

The Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Foundation is contributing to the costs of publishing the Histories of Critoboulos of Imbros, in response to a proposal by Vasilis Bornovas, Embassy Attaché First Class and former Greek Consul General to Constantinople.

The book contains a Turkish translation of the historical writings of Critoboulos, and is expected to deepen understanding of the historical period of transition from the Byzantine to the Ottoman era.

I learned of all this today when I encountered a rather confused article here, which makes an announcement about this work.

An important manuscript was discovered in Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. … The manuscript found is of significant meaning, because it consists of information regarding the years before the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, but it also describes the early years after Constantinople was turned into Istanbul and became capital of Turkey.

The document belongs to Michael Critovoulos, a Greek politician, scholar and historian, who lived between 1410 and 1470. His birth-name was Kritopoulos, but he changed it to sound more ancient Greek-like.

He experienced the Siege and Fall of Constantinople and wrote about Mehmed II the Conqueror. … The chronicle of destruction and looting of the city by the Ottomans, in order to make it their capital, is also mentioned.

His book, according to the Turkish website Hubermonitor.com, was printed with the contribution of the Pavlos and Alexandra Kanellopoulos Foundation. This will be a bilingual issue, having the original manuscript and the Turkish translation by Aris Tsokonas on the one page and the colourful photocopy of the text on the other.

The consul is to be commended.  Fostering understanding is doubtless part of his job; but what an imaginative way to do this!  Long after all diplomatic endeavours have proven vain, and perhaps in centuries to come, when the names of Greece and Turkey have become merely a historical curiosity to some Chinese overlord of the world, the book that he made possible may transmit the work of Critoboulos to a remote future.

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Armenian mss photographed in Syria by HMML

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Via Paleojudaica I learn of an interesting article on the PanArmenian website.

PanARMENIAN.Net – Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at St. John’s University completed a manuscript preservation project in the Middle East shortly before the violence worsened in Syria, sctimes.com reports.

“This was our last current project in Syria, and we had done actually a series of projects – about six of them in Syria – in different locations,” said the Rev. Columba Stewart, executive director of the Collegeville-based library.

However, HMML-trained technicians in Aleppo, Syria, were able to complete the digitization of 225 Armenian manuscripts belonging to the Armenian Orthodox Diocese of Aleppo – one of the largest Armenian collections in Syria.

“We began the work before the current turmoil in Syria, and this particular project was finished just as the situation started to get bad in Aleppo, which had been quiet until fairly recently,” Stewart said during a call from Bethlehem. …

“We also work on Islamic projects, so our interests transcend particular denominations or religious groups because all of this handwritten manuscript heritage is really the heritage of all humankind,” Stewart said.

HMML has now completed a series of projects in Aleppo that have included important collections belonging to the Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholic and Greek-Catholic communities, for a total of 2,150 digitally preserved manuscripts. …

Adam McCollum is the lead cataloger of Eastern Christian manuscripts at HMML and will be responsible for getting the Armenian collection cataloged once it is at the HMML.

“Once the library has entered into a partnership with people who have collections of manuscripts, a studio is set up there with a digital camera, and entire manuscript collections are photographed and put onto hard drives and mailed back to us,” McCollum said.

One digital copy of the Armenian collection will stay with Bishop Shahan Sarkissian and the Armenian Orthodox Diocese of Aleppo. HMML will keep an additional digital copy of the collection in a highly secure location.

“The general populace in these places is still pretty safe – at least at this point – but we have no idea what’s going to happen in the future,” he said of HMML’s continuing work in Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, as well as in Ethiopia, southwest India and Malta.

I think that we must all wish this enterprise well.  HMML is doing a rescue job here, and a very necessary one. 

Before the first world war, scholars were very excited to discover that the “mountain Nestorians” in the Turkish empire, in what is now the north of modern Iraq and Iran, were still speaking Syriac.  It was discovered that they had preserved manuscripts of various important patristic works previously thought lost.  They were based in the mountains in order to resist Moslem attacks, mainly by Kurds.  American missionaries set up a base at Urmia and copied whatever they could access.  The Archbishop of Seert, Addai Scher, became a well-known scholar and collected a number of irreplaceable items, including a complete Syriac translation of Theodore of Mopsuestia’s lost work, De incarnatione, discovered in 1905 and unpublished.  

Then the war came, and the Turks orchestrated genocidal attacks on the Armenians in 1915, but also on Christians generally.  Scher was murdered and his library vanished, taking with it any chance that men could ever read De incarnatione.  The losses of manuscripts in that period were severe. 

Likewise the violence in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein once again led to Moslem violence against Christians, and the loss of cultural treasures.

The revolutions going on at the moment — and I have no idea what is truly happening there, and I don’t believe our media reports — are very likely to involve the destruction of irreplaceable material. 

The work of HMML in making copies of manuscripts is undoubtedly a wise precaution.

Armenian literature itself is much better known than Old Slavic, but simply cataloguing those manuscript, as Adam McCollum is to do, will itself make material more accessible. 

I once wanted to learn if there was any catena material in Armenian.  I was defeated by the fact that all the titles, in the catalogues of manuscripts that I consulted, were in Armenian script and so unreadable!  A web catalogue will not have this problem.

Yesterday the Slavicists were talking about the need for a Clavis listing all works and authors known in the language, and assigning each a numeric reference.  Is there a Clavis for classical Armenian, I wonder?  If not, why not?

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A Clavis for Old Slavic, and a site for Slavic Chrysostom material

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Alin Suciu is rapidly becoming one of the most important patristic bloggers.  His blog regularly announces finds of new material for Coptic.   But today’s post — a guest post by Yavor Miltenov — relates to Old Slavonic / Old Slavic.  It’s very exciting indeed!

As a result of the work of generations of philologists, the researchers in the field of Byzantine studies have at hand numerous index-catalogues dealing with classification of texts. The most recent and significant of them are, of course, Clavis patrum Graecorum, Bibliotheca hagiographica Graeca, Clavis apocryphorum Veteri Testamenti, Clavis apocryphorum Novi Testamenti, and many others – a centuries-old tradition, that serves as a base for these exceptional reference books. Any study on (or even related to) certain medieval literary monuments must as a rule consult them, as they cover an enormous material, facilitate identifications of certain works, offer standardization, unification and classification, contain the primary bibliography, and represent not only the basics of our knowledge about one particular text, but also give an opportunity to study groups of texts and corpora. Recently, the intensive research has even brought the process to further development – an online Clavis Clavium will be built upon the base of previous indexes[1].

Now this last snippet is itself very interesting!  The reference states:

[1] As announced by Caroline Macé and Gert Partoens from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven at a recent meeting in Sofia.

That is something that I would like to know more about!  But the article continues:

It is a well-known fact, that almost all medieval Slavic literary monuments (9th–16th c.) are translations from Byzantine works: whole miscellanies, single texts, excerpts used in compilations. In this sense, their adequate study is possible only if a comparison with the Byzantine originals is made. In Slavic medieval studies, however, there is no such instrumentum studiorum that contains a) classification of the translated texts and b) reference to their Greek originals[2]. For this main reason the Slavic tradition, unlike the Armenian, Georgian, Arabic, Coptic, is not “visible” to the researchers of the Byzantine cultural commonwealth, it is not fully reflected in the above-mentioned and other Claves[3], and, finally, remains isolated and thought more as a subject to be researched by the “national philologies”, than as a full member of the Byzantine-Slavic cultural space in the Middle Ages.

This is sound thinking.  And it is quite impossible for an interested amateur like myself to get any idea of what exists in this language group.  It’s like a different discipline, like trying to  go surfing on Mars!  And this should not be.

In 2011 the Bulgarian Science Fund announced a call for Young Scientists Program. I and four other colleagues decided to apply with a project entitled “Electronic database Operum patrum Graecorum versiones slavicae: cataloguing and study of the writings of John Chrysostom in Old Church Slavonic” with the kind institutional support of Central Library of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Surprisingly, we won a grant and the project has started in the beginning of 2012!

The aim of our initiative is to elaborate a freely accessible Internet-based electronic corpus of medieval Slavic translations and their corresponding Byzantine sources.

This is good news, and the online aspect is very good news!  This will certainly help Chrysostom scholars to engage with the Slavic versions.  But Dr Miltenov continues:

I should admit that the inspiration of our idea is the Pinakes database, worked out by the Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes on the base of a card-index, developed for two decades in the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies in Toronto. So we have the model, we have some sources we may use[4], we know it will take years to input sufficient material and much more time to make text identifications of our own. We have in mind also that we have almost no base to build upon: most of the descriptions of Slavic manuscripts lack identifications of texts’ Byzantine originals, we do not have Patrologiae or series of critical editions (such as Sources Chrétiennes, Corpus Christianorum, etc.), and we have no previous experience with medieval Slavic text databases that are similar to ours.

This is why, being still in the beginning, we have to think about technical solutions and scientific criteria which will last. Our Clavis has to be supplied with bibliographic and specialized data, to be user friendly, to include opportunities for expansion, permanent upgrade and publication of various types of materials (Greek and Old Church Slavonic works, manuscript catalogues, articles, books, iconographic images, etc.). In this sense it is important to prepare carefully the appropriate software and to build a model for texts description that has all the necessary metadata. We are working on these methodological issues now and I hope I’ll be able to tell you more about the development of the project soon, here on Alin’s blog.

I’m looking forward to it.  A Clavis itself would be a wonderful thing.

The main enemy of this project will be the urge to be “perfect”.  This urge, to publish nothing until it is “just so”, has caused many a promising initiative to disappear.  I hope that they will remember that the best way to eat an elephant is to do so a little at a time!

Well done, Yavor, and thank you so much Alin for hosting it!

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Matthieu Cassin on the chapter titles of Contra Eunomium I

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In the Sources Chretiennes edition of Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra Eunomium,[1] there is an annex which is of wider interest.  Annex II — p.359-364 — was written by Matthieu Cassin, and summarises rather nicely the question of indices and chapter titles in the manuscripts of this work. 

I know that French is a closed book to rather too many anglophone scholars, so, in the interests of wider access, here is my own English translation of portions of it. 

The kephalaia of book I

Immediately preceding the text of Contra Eunomium, the majority of the manucripts include a list of chapters of book 1, either as a summary or a table of contents.  The numbers of these chapters are then given in the margins of the text, at the location corresponding to the beginning of each chapter.  Some manuscripts, whether or not they preserve the table at the front, also give the title of the chapter, either in the body of the text or in the margin.  Finally others, which don’t include any portion of the chapters titles anywhere, still retain traces of marginal numerals.  The antiquity of this system of structuring the work is confirmed by the witness of the indirect tradition: in fact the Treatise against Damian written at the end of the 6th century by Peter of Callinicus, patriarch of Antioch, furnishes us with ample citations of the Contra Eunomium of Gregory, and specifies the chapter from which the passages come. These indications correspond, in the vast majority of cases, with the system which appears in the Greek manuscript tradition, except around the great lacuna in the later parts of the book. In fact the text which Peter knew had not yet suffered this loss, and the numbering accordingly had not been disturbed in this area by the loss of an important section of the text.

The following table gives in the first column the number of the chapter, in the second the paragraph where the chapter begins; if the latter does not begin at the start of a paragraph, the difference is signalled by + or – and specified in a note, giving page and line from the edition of W. Jaeger. The following columns, which each correspond to one of the witnesses of the text, indicate if the chapter mark is present (+) or absent (-) from the manuscripts, or if it has not been possible for me to determine its status (?); signalled by a ≠ is a reported difference from the norm. The indication ‘mut.’ is utilised when the manuscript is mutilated for this portion of the text; ‘lac.’ signals the lacuna of chapters 29-31.

The copies of manuscripts where the original is extant are not represented in this table, except for D, which allows us to fill in some of the lacunas of S. B. (Lesbiacus 6), to the extent that it gives a single chapter numeral (κβ’), on f. 340v, in its usual place in the text.

The manuscripts not cited do not include any indication of chapters: mostly these are recent copies, except for V (Vaticanus gr. 447, 12th c.). The latter manuscript, on the other hand, indicates the position of chapters for book III, and for the Refutation; the manuscript from which it was copied, like L, had undoubtedly deteriorated since it was written, and the marks of the chapters were no longer visible. Two manuscripts could not be consulted (Hagion Oros, Mone Vatopediou, 541; Sinai, Mone tes Aikaterines, Metochion 8). Another, equally inaccessible to me, signals the beginning of chapters and their numeral, according to the catalogue which describes it (Brescia, Bibl. civica Queriniana, A IV 3).

There then follow five pages of data on the chapters, which may be conveniently viewed in the SC edition itself. Dr Cassin resumes the story afterwards as follows:

The editio princeps of 1618, based upon recent manuscripts which did not specify the positions of the chapters, could not indicate them. Fr. Oehler, who was in a position to consult manuscripts which carried the numbers of the chapters in their margins, such as L or M, did not report them in his edition, which appeared in 1865. W. Jaeger, whose position on this point is less than clear, chose not to indicate their position, believeing that the manuscripts did not agree among themselves, even though he had access to the majority of the witnesses of the text.

All this is of great interest.

Firstly the work of Peter of Callinicus indicates that by the 6th century at least, the chapter titles were as we see them. Since the transmitted text is likewise equipped, this must be strong evidence that the titles, divisions, and numerals are authentic. Secondly the tendency of scribes to interfere with them seems to be shown — it’s not quite clear from the article — by tinkering with the numbering once a lacuna had appeared in chapters 29-31.

If the summary, the chapter titles, and the marginal numerals are all authorial — and it looks like it — then we have to ask whether this is an innovation by Gregory; or whether, in fact, he is merely adopting a trend active in his own time.

Speculating, I would suggest the latter.  Half a century earlier, Eusebius of Caesarea had given summaries in his Ecclesiastical History (doubtless based on earlier Greek histories which did the same), but also in his theological works like the Praeparatio Evangelica.  It is less clear whether these items had made it into the text, or whether there were numerals.  But who can say?  The influence of the EH on all Greek patristic literature means that possibly this was the catalyst.  Is it possible that the division of theological books into chapters with numbers and marked in the body of the text is a 4th century innovation?  And that it spreads to the Latin world in the 5-6th centuries?

How valuable the SC series is!  For increasingly I notice that they include a section of just what the manuscripts actually contain.  As Dr C. rightly observes, editors simply ignored this stuff.  Those days, thankfully, must be behind us.

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  1. [1]Gregoire de Nysse, Contre Eunome I, SC 524, 2010: Greek text by W. Jaeger from WNO I.1, translation by Raymond Winling.↩

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I am cursing WordPress very much indeed.  I’ve just translated three pages of a French article, and written some comments of my own, pressed “publish”, and it then demanded I log in — to my own blog — again and discarded most of it.  That’s an hour of my life gone.  It’s almost beyond bearing.

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Stick with your work

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Some wise words from the Trevin Wax blog today:

Stick with your work.

Do not flinch because the lion roars.
Do not stop to stone the devil’s dogs.
Do not fool away your time chasing the devil’s rabbits.

Do your work.

Let liars lie.
Let sectarians quarrel.
Let critics malign.
Let enemies accuse.
Let the devil do his worst.

But see to it nothing hinders you from fulfilling with joy the work God has given you.

He has not commanded you to be admired or esteemed.
He has never bidden you defend your character.
He has not set you at work to contradict falsehood (about yourself)
which Satan’s or God’s servants may start to peddle,
or to track down every rumor that threatens your reputation.
If you do these things, you will do nothing else.
You will be at work for yourself and not for the Lord.

Keep at your work.
Let your aim be as steady as a star.
You may be assaulted, wronged, insulted, slandered,
wounded and rejected, misunderstood, or assigned impure motives;
You may be abused by foes, forsaken by friends,
and despised and rejected of men.
But see to it with steadfast determination,
with unfaltering zeal,
that you pursue the great purpose of your life and object of your being
until at last you can say, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.”

– Anonymous

Of course on this blog we wonder who wrote it and where it comes from…

There’s an excellent article by Seth Barnes on Responding to unfair criticism; it appears in a comment to this.  A Google Books search reveals nothing before 1998.  It would be interesting to know the source.

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The Letter of Pilate to Tiberius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

One item that floats around the web is the Letter of Pilate to Tiberius.  It appeared in English translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 8 (here), and from there to all sorts of other places.  Another translation appears online in The Lost Books of the Bible, 1926[1]

Here is the ANF translation:

The Letter of Pontius Pilate
Which He Wrote to the Roman Emperor, Concerning Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Pontius Pilate to Tiberius Caesar the emperor, greeting.

Upon Jesus Christ, whose case I had dearly set forth to thee in my last, at length by the will of the people a bitter punishment has been inflicted, myself being in a sort unwilling and rather afraid. A man, by Hercules, so pious and strict, no age has ever had nor will have. But wonderful were the efforts of the people themselves, and the unanimity of all the scribes and chief men and elders, to crucify this ambassador of truth, notwithstanding that their own prophets, and after our manner the sibyls, warned them against it: and supernatural signs appeared while he was hanging, and, in the opinion of philosophers, threatened destruction to the whole world. His disciples are flourishing, in their work and the regulation of their lives not belying their master; yea, in his name most beneficent. Had I not been afraid of the rising of a sedition among the people, who were just on the point of breaking out, perhaps this man would still have been alive to us; although, urged more by fidelity to thy dignity than induced by my own wishes, I did not according to my strength resist that innocent blood free from the whole charge brought against it, but unjustly, through the malignity of men, should be sold and suffer, yet, as the Scriptures signify, to their own destruction. Farewell, 28th March.

So what is this item?  The ANF introductory notice is very unhelpful.  New Testament Apocrypha[2] does not mention it at all.  Nor does a Google Books search produce much.

Fortunately I have on my shelves a copy of J. K. Elliot’s The Apocryphal New Testament[3] and this has a section on the apocryphal Pilate literature.  Our item appears on p.206-8.

The work is written in renaissance Latin, probably in the 16th century.[4] The letter cannot be traced any earlier than the renaissance,[5].  It was composed in Latin[6].

Tischendorf printed the Latin text,[7] based on four witnesses, which he obtained from earlier publications:

  • Chas. — the text printed by Chassanaeus in part 4 of his catalogi gloriae mundi, 1571.
  • Flor. — the text printed by Florentinius in Martyrolog. vet. Hieronymi, p.113 (and reprinted by Fabricius).
  • Bodl. — the text printed by Abrah. Gronovius in the preface to his edition of the works of Tacitus in 1721, from an ms. or mss. of the works of Tacitus from the Bodleian library in Oxford.
  • Ven. — the text which Tischendorf himself obtained from a manuscript in Venice, Marcianus class. X. num. CXXXIV.  The ms. is 16th century.

The text had previously been edited by Fabricius[8], Thilo[9], and Giles[10].

Note that the Letters of Pilate and Herod exist in a Syriac version of the 6-7th century,[11], followed by that of Walker in the ANF in 1870.[13]  Another translation appeared in 1915 from A. Westcott.[14]

A Google search reveals an “epistola Pilati” is contained in the British Library ms. Cotton Titus D. xix, on f.88-89, but this is probably the epistola Pilati ad Claudium.[15]

There is also a Letter of Tiberius to Pilate, in Greek.[16] This also is a late production, not earlier than the 11th century.  This takes an unfavourable view of Pilate and alludes to a journey by Mary Magdalene to Rome to accuse Pilate.[17]

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  1. [1]Copied from the Cowper translation of 1867.  The introductory words may be found on Cowper, p.389, here.↩
  2. [2]W. Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, 2 vols, Eng. tr. 1991.↩
  3. [3]J. K. Elliot, The Apocryphal New Testament, Clarendon 1993.↩
  4. [4]Z. Izydorczyk, The Medieval Gospel of Nicodemus, Arizona, 1997, p.8, gives the following description: “Epistola Pilati ad Tiberium: Pilate reveals that he sentenced Christ partly through his own weakness but partly through his loyalty to the emperor. This letter, which again presents Pilate in a positive light, was written in Renaissance Latin, probably in the sixteenth century.” and “Geerard, Clavis no. 68; Starowieyski, Apokryfy, 476″. Online here.↩
  5. [5]Elliot, p.206.↩
  6. [6]Elliot, p.207↩
  7. [7]Tischendorf, Evangelia Apocrypha, Leipzig, (2nd) 1876, p.lxxvi-lxxviii, p. 433-4. Online here.↩
  8. [8]J. A. Fabricius, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti, 4 vols, Hamburg, 2nd ed., 1719. p.300-1.↩
  9. [9]J. C. Thilo, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamentum, vol. i, Leipzig, 1832, p.801-2↩
  10. [10]J. A. Giles, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti: The uncanonical Gospels and other Writings, London, 1852, vol. ii, p.14; so J.K.Elliot, but in the online copy of that work, I found that the reference did not seem to be correct.↩
  11. [12]↩
  12. [11]Texts and Studies, 5, p.xlviii.[/ref] but the Letter of Pilate to Tiberius is not  one of these.

    The first English translation was made in 1867 by B.H.Cowper[12]B.H.Cowper, The Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents relating to the History of Christ, Edinburgh, 1867, p.398-9.  Cowper tells us, p.xx, that he is translating Tischendorff.  There is no introduction to the “Epistle of Pontius Pilate” in Cowper.↩

  13. [13]A. Walker, Apocryphal Gospels, Acts and Revelations, Ante-Nicene Christian Library vol. 16, Edinburgh, 1870.  The Ante-Nicene Fathers series is a rearranged and pirated US edition of the Edinburgh series.↩
  14. [14]A. Westcott, The Gospel of Nicodemus and Kindred Documents, London, 1915, p.119-20. I was unable to access this, but possibly US readers may be able to do so, in which case I should be glad of a copy.↩
  15. [15]A catalogue online here, where the work follows the Gospel of Nicodemus.  Compiled by Nigel Ramsay, who gives a bibliography including, “The Gospel of Nicodemus. Gesta Salvatoris, ed. H.C. Kim (Toronto, 1973), chapter xxviii. [Epistola Pilati.]”↩
  16. [16]Epistola Tiberii ad Pilatum. Edited in Texts and Studies, second series, vol. 5, 1893.  Introduction on p.xlix-l; Greek text on p.77-82.↩
  17. [17]See this post on this letter.↩

Advertising Standards Authority threatens the Cranmer blog

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The Advertising Standards Authority, a minor government body which exists to stop dodgy businessmen running dishonest adverts, has started to engage in some curious activity lately.  For instance it recently told a Christian group that it couldn’t mention God’s healing powers on its website (why?). Of course there must be some specific person — an atheist, perhaps? — responsible.  I wonder just who the evil-doer is?

Today I learn via the eChurch blog that the ASA has decided to threaten the Cranmer blog, on the grounds that an advert that appeared on his site supporting marriage is “homophobic”. 

Oh, and they demanded that he keep quiet about the threats.  Being a brave man, he rightly told them to go to hell.  Bullies love silence!

I do hope that this is raised in Parliament.  The ASA clearly needs reform, once it starts behaving like the Gestapo.  For there can be no free speech, when this kind of thing is going on.

Read the post in which Cranmer — well done! — blows the gaff on this.  The tone of the communication from the ASA is sickening.

Apparently there have been a number of complaints about one of the advertisements His Grace carried on behalf of the Coalition for Marriage. He has been sent all manner of official papers, formal documentation and threatening notices which demand answers to sundry questions by a certain deadline. He is instructed by the ‘Investigations Executive’ of this inquisition to keep all this confidential.

Since His Grace does not dwell in Iran, North Korea, Soviet Russia, Communist China or Nazi Germany, but occupies a place in the cyber-ether suspended somewhere between purgatory and paradise, he is minded to ignore that request. Who do these people think they are?

In the US and Canada, it is a recognised form of attack on someone to denounce them for their opinions to some officious “human rights” body, which will then solemnly harass them for months or years for daring to say something inoffensive.  In real courts people are considered innocent until found guilty; in the kangaroo courts like the ASA, they are guilty until they can prove that they are innocent of Wrong Thinking.  And so, we see, Cranmer is required to “justify” what he wrote. 

In this process, it matters not whether the victim is found guilty — because “the process is the punishment”, as Ezra Levant — himself attacked in this way — put it.  Few will dare to volunteer for months or years of harassment, merely for expressing an opinion.

It reminds me of the bad old days in the reign of Charles II, when Samuel Pepys was kept hanging on and hanging on under arrest, by his political enemies, who simply kept deferring the hearing (at which, in the end, he was found not guilty of being inclined to Roman Catholic opinions — the ridiculous charge made against him).

So … who was it that denounced this UK blogger to the authorities?  Well, we’re not told.  Anonymous accusations … the lovely fruit of the hater and the bigot.

The ‘Issue’ here is that 24 anonymous complainants, ‘including the Jewish Gay & Lesbian Group’ (doubtless disclosed to give weight to the allegations), challenged whether the claim ‘70% of people say keep marriage as it is’. However, His Grace is not required to respond to that point, since he did not conduct the research. But it transpires that 10 of these 24 complainants objected that the ads were ‘offensive’ and ‘homophobic’, and he is requested to respond to these allegations ‘under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 4.1 (Harm and offence)’.

And so the punishment begins. 

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