A gay clergyman in Pelusium

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Some problems are always with us. It is always hard to believe that someone is a deliberate villain, even when all the evidence points that way. Isidore of Pelusium was neither the first nor the last to encounter one; nor the last spiritual counsellor to discover that he was dealing with a rogue.

1228 (V.12) TO ZOSIMUS, PRIEST

Many people — perhaps it would be too harsh to say “all people” – scoff at you, and do so extremely violently and bitterly. I wish they were wrong! But when he who is your own brother, groaning and deploring on your account, has submitted to us the same report, indeed a report more overpowering, by begging us to drag you out, if possible, from this abyss of vice where you have grown old in your misfortune, often rejecting those who were exhorting you not to go with those to whom you have entrusted yourself, then I address this letter to you.

I do so that you may become master of yourself and that you may blush at the shame at your immodesty, at the old age towards which you are being drawn, at the sacred priesthood which you have acquired I do not know how, at the misdeeds and actual scandals, and that you cease to wallow in vice, acting the young man “on the threshold of old age”.

Indeed how will you exhort the young people to temperance, if you don’t even exhort yourself at the time of old age? How can you not tremble to behave thus and yet approach the altar? How do you dare to touch the immaculate mysteries?

I warn you — even if this pains you, the truth must be said in all frankness — stop acting like this, or at least keep away from the venerable altar; fear to attract one day the fire of heaven on your own head [1], to provide the weak with good reasons to use the sort of language which they like.

[1] An allusion to the fire which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. This indicates the sort of scandalous vices that Zosimus was practising. In other letters Isidore is equally frank: n° 671, 795, 1326 (5.77), 1508 (5.220), 1754 (5.389), 1729 (5.373), cf. Is. de P., p. 217, and n. 138.

1229 (V.13) TO THE SAME

I learn that a wise man, detached from riches and a defender of virtue [1], has met you, that he did all that was necessary to correct you, but saw himself dismissed without having achieved anything, without having been able to help you; your disease appeared stronger than his medical art. Whereas you should have, charmed by the beauty of his ideas, full of admiration for his intelligence and respect for the nobility of his feelings, put a limit to your vice, you dismissed him, not only as a failure, but even with an insult.

What must be done then? If nobody can be of any help to you, if even advice is merely treated as mistaken, if the laughter of people doesn’t matter, if the public scandal appears negligible to you, if you are inaccessible to the fear of God, if the threat of judgement makes you laugh, it seems that without knowing it we have been dealing with a heart of stone.

[1] Perhaps the sophist Harpocras or the cornes Herminos.

To the selfish, the church is merely an opportunity for self-advancement or plunder, not something with whose reputation they are in any way concerned.  Parallels with men of similar vices in our own days are not far to seek.

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Look again at Google Books; you will find more than you did last time

Posted on by Roger Pearse

On this hot summer’s day, I was idly searching in Google books for “library of the fathers” review “cyril of alexandria”, as I have done before in the hope of finding the review which caused Phillip Pusey to abandon work on the translation of the Commentary on John after only publishing one volume.

To my surprise, this time there was far more material.  We tend to forget that Google books is not a static collection, but is being continually enriched with more books and journals.  And although I have not yet found the article in question, I did find several reviews of Phillip Pusey’s work.  The Church Quarterly Review 23, p.32 contains a review of the second volume, published posthumously, which explains how Pusey tended to translate:

THE first-named of these volumes, which will apparently close the series inaugurated in 1838 under the name of ‘The Library of the Fathers,’ enjoys the advantage of a preface by Dr. Liddon, explaining the circumstances which have caused its appearance. In 1874 Mr. P. E. Pusey published the first volume of a translation of this Commentary, which, extending to S. John ix. 1, ‘was reviewed,’ we are told, ‘by an English critic in terms which rendered its humble and too self-distrusting author unwilling to resume it.’ We fear that these words may produce an impression which would hardly do justice to the case; the reader might infer that the critic was captious and inequitable. Now, we never met with the review in question ; but we are constrained to say, as we said on a former occasion (Church Quarterly Review, xv. 287), when reviewing another volume of Mr. Pusey’s translations from S. Cyril, that ‘ translation was not his forte’, and that when he attempted it, he seldom rose above the baldest ‘ construing,” very often so strangely worded as to associate his author’s name with mere grotesqueness. The fact is undeniable, however we may account for it; our own supposition is, that Mr. Pusey was debarred from success in this line by the very narrow range of literary interest to which he perforce restricted himself, when ‘ in his uniform filial love,’ in obedience to his father’s wish, he ‘ took as the central work of his life to make the text of S. Cyril’s works as exact as it could be made.”

The dreadful English of the first volume is indeed fully as bad as this gentle description suggests.

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Knowledge of the fathers before the ANF series began

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In the US version of Google books, I have come across a review of one of the volumes of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, in its original form of the Ante-Nicene Christian Library here.  Claiming or allowing others to believe that one has learning one does not seems to be something of a vice among scholars.  So how did scholars manage, before most of the fathers were extant in English translation?

We are more and more convinced that this invaluable library is destined to work a revolution in the Christian world. Many educated ministers have hitherto been dependent on the mere statements of professed Biblical scholars. They could not find time amid the pressure of daily parish duties to study in the original, countless tomes of erudite Greek and Latin fathers. Our age, with all its superior advantages, was rendering the achievement constantly more difficult by its rush and intensity. Now the treasures of past ages are exposed to the gaze of any clergyman having ordinary attainments and leisure. Indeed, a learned acquaintance in the originals with the works composing the ante-Nicene Library was mostly a sham and an egoism. It presumed the undivided study of years. It presumed the possession of rare and expensive books. It presumed usually a chair in a Theological Faculty.
                   — The Church Review, vol. 23 (1871), p.148

I fear that the same might be said today in rather more cases than we might like to suppose.

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Review of James Hannam’s “God’s philosophers”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve now written a review of James Hannam’s book God’s philosophers: how the medieval world laid the foundations of modern science, and it’s available here. 

The book is very useful and should help to correct many misunderstandings.  I suspect it would film well, and wouldn’t be surprised if some form of TV programme comes out of this.

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Update on Eusebius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Two more fragments of Eusebius’ work on the gospels have come into today, which is great news!  These two are translated from the Coptic.

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British Library don’t know what “manuscript” means?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

From the BL, a request for clarification of my FoI query, “how many images of manuscripts did you license for online use last year?” How did I define ‘manuscript’, they asked?  I responded as courteously as possible by referring them to their own catalogue of manuscripts.  I suspect that I am dealing with a department that doesn’t get asked much about these!  Still, they’re turning it around promptly which is good, and better than I expected.

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Russian site with loads of original language Greek patristic texts

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve just discovered this link:

http://patrologia.narod.ru/

It includes masses of Greek, including Adamantius; plus the Syriac New Testament, and much else. Thanks to Evangelical Textual Criticism for this one.

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Adamantius, De recta in deum fide

Posted on by Roger Pearse

One stray ante-Nicene work that never appeared in the Ante-Nicene Fathers collection is a dialogue On the true faith in God attributed in the manuscripts to an otherwise unknown Adamantius.  Of course Origen was known as Adamantius also, but the author of this work holds anti-Origenist views. 

The work consists of a dialogue in two parts, held with the pagan Eutropius as arbiter, on which is the real Christianity.  In the first part, the author disputes with two Marcionites.  In the second a follower of Bardesanes is refuted. 

The text makes use of now lost works by Methodius, and therefore cannot be much earlier than 300 AD.  It is extant in the original Greek in at least ten manuscripts, and also in a translation by Rufinus.  It was published in the Patrologia Graeca 11, and a critical text exists in the GCS vol. 4 (1901) which is online, albeit only to Americans and contains both the Greek and Rufinus’ Latin.  An English translation by Robert A. Pretty was published in 1997 by Peeters, but sadly is offline.

I have been sent a quotation from the work, or rather what is apparently a paraphrase of a passage from it, which is as follows:

“What right has he [a heretic] to assert that the Messiah wrote the gospel? The gospel writer did not refer to himself as the Christ but to Jesus who he is proclaiming.”

I have no idea where in the dialogue this can be found.  Does anyone have any ideas?

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Placing stuff online – how much the British Library make from charging people for this

Posted on by Roger Pearse

My Freedom of Information request to the British Library got a reply a couple of days ago.  I asked:

I note that the BL charges a fee to websites that use digital images of pages from manuscripts from the BL collection.

Please would you let me know, for each of the past 5 years (either calendar or financial, whichever is more convenient):

How many requests were made for use of BL collection images of these items on third party websites.

How much income was received by the BL in consideration of the use of BL collection images of these items on third party websites.

Looking into the finances of one of our public research libraries can only be interesting and illuminating!  I got back an interesting reply that didn’t quite answer the question, as regards manuscripts, and instead gave figures for all items in the collection.  I think someone read my question a bit too quickly, perhaps!!  So I’ve asked them to review it.

They sent the reply in a non-searchable PDF, unfortunately.  (Curiously they stick a copyright notice on the information – habit, I suppose). Here’s the reply.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 – REQUEST 0929

We have considered your request and provide answers to your questions in turn below.

‘How much income was received by the BL in consideration of the use of BL collection images on third party websites.’

The revenue generated by charging for rights to reproduce images of items in the British Library collections for the previous five financial years (April to March) was as follows:

£                               2004/5     2005/6       2006/7         2007/8          2008/9
Total revenue    296,889      273,528     274,496        278,287         352,748

The number of requests for rights to reproduce images for which a charge was made was as follows:

  2004/5 2005/6 2006/7 2007/8 2008/9
Requests 1952 2090 2270 2770 1728

In certain cases, we waive the charge for rights for reproduction of images. Our records do no enable us to produce precise figures for this period but the approximate number of these is in the region of 800 per year.

This is very helpful, and quite interesting, all by itself.  Only a handful of requests each year, to one of the world’s richest libraries?  That feels wrong.  But who is doing the paying?  The sum is not really that high, for a major government institution, and probably can be broken down further.  We need more info, that’s for sure.

I will keep you updated!

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Medieval library catalogues

Posted on by Roger Pearse

One of the most interesting books to delve into, if you have a little Latin, is Gustav Becker’s Catalogi bibliothecarum antiqui.  This was published in 1885 and consists of reprints of all the catalogues of medieval abbeys.  Books were treasures in medieval abbeys, which could be pawned for cash, and inventories were therefore taken of what books the abbey owned.

You can see three such catalogues, all for the very well-endowed abbey of Corbie in Northern France here.  Here is the first one, the shortest, from the 11th century, with Becker’s note of where he was reprinting it from:

§55. Corbeia = Corbie. saec. XI.

HI CODICES [LIBRI Delisle] REPERTI SUNT IN ARMARIO
SANCTI PETRI.

        1-3. Expositio Cassiodori super psalterium in tribus libris. — 4. Hieronymus in Isaiam prophetam. — 5. item Hieronymus super Ezechielem libri V. — 6. Herenei [Irenaei Mai] episcopi Ludunensis [Lugdun. Mai.] contra omnes hereses. — 7. Augustinus de natura et origine animae ad Renatum. — 8. epithalamium Origenis in cantica canticorum. — 9. lex Romana ab Alarico rege abbreviata. — 10. libri veterum sedecim. — 11. Libri Novellarum sex Theodosii I, Valentiniani I, Martiani I. — 12. lex Burgundionum. — 13. lex Gothorum. — 14. Iulius Frontinus de geometria. in eodem Siculus Flaccus de agris. — 15. Chigenus [Hyginus. Mai.] Augustus de limitibus statuendis. — 16. Euclides de figuris geometricis. — 17. item Augustinus de solutionibus diversarum quaestionum. — 18. concordiae evangelistarum libri IIII sancti Augustini.

        19. ecclesiastica historia Eusebii. — 20. excerptiones Eugypii. — 21. retractatio in libris confessionum Augustini. — 22. tractatus sancti Ambrosii de officiis. — 23. expositio Hesychii presbyteri super leviticum. — 24. Rufinus in librum numeri. — 25. historia Hegesippi. — 26. codex pragmaticus Tiberii Augustii. — 27. tripertita historia. — 28. Augustinus de opere monachorum. — 29. liber sancti Ambrosii de trinitate ad Gratianum imperatorem. — 30. homiliae Origenis de Balaam et Balac et in eodem Iohannis de reparatione lapsi. — 31. Tertullianus de resurrectione carnis, de trinitate, de spectaculis, de munere, de prescriptionibus ereticorum, de ieiuniis adversus fisicos, de monogamia, de pudicitia. — 32. Augustinus de utilitate credendi. — 33. Salvianus episcopus de gubernatione Dei.

        34-43. libri sancti Clementis numero decem. — 44. Hieronymi libri tres in Zachariam prophetam. — 45. item Hieronymus in Hieremiam prophetam. — 46. collationes abbatis Piamon de tribus generibus monachorum. — 47. Ambrosius episcopus de fide ad Gratianum imperatorem. — 48. Augustinus de trinitate. — 49. homeliae Origenis in genesim. — 50. Hieronymus de nominibus urbium vel locorum. — 51. Ratbertus Paschasius de corpore et sanguine Domini. — 52. Fulgentius episcopus de remissione peccatorum. — 53. altercatio Atici [Attici Mai.] orthodoxi et Cretoboli [Critobuli Mai.] heretici. — 54. Hieronymus in Danihelem prophetam. — 55. Optati Milibitani [milivetani Mai.] episcopi libri septem ad Parmenianum scismaticam. — 56. Eusebius de fide adversus Sabellium. — 57. Augustinus de singularitate clericorum. — 58. libri duo Hieronymi contra Rufinum presbyterum. — 59. item Hieronymus contra lovinianum. — 60. Firmiani Lactantii liber de falsa religione.

(Mai Spicilegium Roman. V, 202-3. ex Ms. 520 reginae Christinae, parvam partem dedit Delisle Mém. de l’institut de France. Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. t. 24, 339. vel in Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes Ser.V. tom.Ip.512. cf. Montfaucon bibl. Mss. II, 1406.)

Many of these books and names will mean little to most of us.  Irenaeus Against Heresies is there; a rare Tertullian also.  Eusebius’ Church History is there, plus Eusebius “Adversus Sabellium” must mean his five books Against Marcellus, in a Latin version; I had not known until this moment that such existed.  Augustine and Ambrose and Jerome are all well represented.  Origen’s Homilies on Genesis are present.  And so is Euclid, amazingly enough!

Paging through Becker is to gain an idea of what books were really circulating in the west in the Middle ages, at least before 1300 when he ends.

But what about the Greek East?  What sort of inventories exist for Greek monastic collections?  I would very much like to know; because I don’t know of any equivalent book for these.

Book lists do exist.  A 16th century list — probably part of a bookseller’s bait-and-switch scam — is here.  But what about the abbey inventories?

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