Looking for Ethiopian Studies bibliography, with particular reference to hagiographical literature

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have an AI output with an English translation of the Ge`ez – Classical Ethiopian – text of the 15th century “Life” of Abba Garima by Yohannan.  It ‘feels’ more or less right.  But I don’t know any Ethiopian, and I cannot even read the language, so it’s impossible to say.

Today I scanned the Italian introduction, summary, and notes by Carlo Conti Rossini, the editor of the “Life”.  I’ve run that through Google Translate, and so I have enough to write some words about the text. The summary of the “Life” (a “gadl” in Ethiopic) seems to agree with the AI output, which is encouraging.

But of course Rossini was writing in the 1890s, which is a very long time ago.  It came to me that there must have been work on this text since then.  But where might I find this?  A google search gives little.  Knowing nothing about Ethiopian studies, I have spent some time today looking for bibliography.  This is what I found, rightly or wrongly.

  • Jon Abbink, “Ethiopian Society and History: A Bibliography of Ethiopian Studies, 1957-1990”, Leiden: African Studies Centre (1990).  Online here.
  • Jon Abbink, “Eritreo-Ethiopian studies in society and history:1960-1995”.  Leiden: African Studies Centre (2022).  Online here.

Thank heavens for the Leiden African Studies Centre!  Abbink writes:

The period before 1957 is relatively well covered in general bibliographies like the ones by R. Jones (see below item 39), H.W. Lockot (German language publications; item 48), and now, Paulos Milkias, item.58.

I.e.

39.  Jones, R.
1958    Ethiopia. In: Africa Bibliography Series, North East Africa, General/Ethnography/Sociology/Linguistics, pp. 19-39.
London: International African Institute.

48.  Lockot, H. W.
1982    Bibliographia Aethiopica. Die äthiopienkundliche Literatur des deutschsprachigen Raums.
Wiesbaden: Steiner, 441 p.

58. Paulos Milkias
1989    Ethiopia: a Comprehensive Bibliography.
Boston: O.K. Hall, 710 p

These I have not consulted.  Of course our interest is hagiographical literature.

Section 23 of Abbink is “Christian and Hagiographical Literature”, on p.281.  From this I learned of the existence of this:

  • G.W.B. Huntingford, “Saints of Mediaeval Ethiopia”, in: Abba Salama 10 (1979) p.257-341.  “Abba Salama” turns out to be “Abba Salama: A Review of the Association of Ethio-Hellenic Studies”.  It seems to be inaccessible, however.  But there are many references to it in relevant sources, such as:
  • Steven Kaplan, “Hagiographies and the History of Medieval Ethiopia”, in: History in Africa 8 (1981), pp. 107-123.  (JSTOR)  Summary, references here.  This looks useful.
  • G. Lusini, “A companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea”, in: S. Kelly, A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea, Brill (2020), pp.194-216.  This seems tremendously useful, and a PDF copy has strayed online here.

From the last I learned of the existence of a French translation of the “Life” of Abba Garima!

  • Gérard Colin, Saints Fondateurs du Christianisme Éthiopien: Frumentius, Garimā, Takla-Hāymānot, Ēwostātēwos, Paris: Les Belles Lettres (2017), pp.6-37.  This is modestly priced – 22 euros – unusually.

This, of course, I must consult if possible.  A library near me has a copy, so I have spent some time jumping through hoops in order to regain access to the premises.  The book is off-site, apparently, so I may have to wait a couple of days to set eyes on it.

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The Modern Origins of the “Easter Bunny”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The Easter bunny is not an ancient thing.  Like most of our traditions, it is rather modern in origin.  Our own Easter bunny is a chocolate item, mass-produced as part of the commercial Easter.  The concept of the “Easter bunny” who brings the chocolate Easter eggs is probably not much older.  It arises in the late 19th century and derives from a German folk story, the “Easter hare” or Osterhäse, who does much the same thing.  This Osterhäse is first recorded in 1682.[1]

If you read social media, you will quickly come across claims that all this is in fact derived from incredibly ancient pagan ideas.  That claim appears to go back to speculation by Jacob Grimm in the early 19th century.  But no evidence for it is known, and there is no evidence of any such custom before 1682.

The older traditions in Germany were somewhat different to modern ideas.  In a museum in Munich in Germany there are physical remains of the Osterhäse legend.  The Osterhäse is primarily non-edible; early edible examples are of pastry.  Then there are moulds for chocolate from 1890 onwards, probably brought back home under American influence.  The museum website states:

In the 19th century, the holiday hares were often made of cardboard, wood or fabric. Some had removable heads, inside of which small sweet treats were hidden — forerunners of present-day chocolate rabbits. Toward the end of that century, papier-mâché became the preferred material among bunny-makers. The realistic animals were then dressed in human apparel and set in common situations. The Hasenschule (hare school), for example, contains miniature classrooms peopled with bunnies and tiny egg factories. Mechanical bunnies, rare clockwork rabbits and hares made from tin and wood highlight the museum’s turn-of-the-century offerings. …

The Easter icon also assumes more palatable forms. Though early edible bunnies often consisted of pastry dough with a hard-boiled egg placed in the “stomach,” this hearty hare died a natural death (though the practice has recently been revived by some of Munich’s bakeries,) with the advent of chocolate bunnies. One of the earliest rabbit tin forms on view at the ZAM dates from 1890. Unique porcelain bunny molds, many in the shape of egg cups, stem from the potters of Thuringia, craftsmen who left their mark on the turn-of-the-century chocolate Osterhase.

It is a pity that the site gives no sources.  But again there seems nothing unlikely about any of this.

Our own Easter bunny is a modern development of the Osterhäse.  It is a modern American invention of the late 19th century.  As with so many American innovations, the author packaged up a somewhat older, less definite folk custom into something suitable for mass production and mass promotion.  I thought that it might be interesting to track down whatever information there might be about this event.

The story of the Easter bunny starts in the late 19th century in the United States of America, among German-speaking settlers in Pennsylvania.  These settlers brought with them this tradition of the Osterhäse, who brought the edible Easter eggs. He was often represented in in the shape of children’s toys, made out of various materials, or even made of cake or pastry.  [2]  But this old-time Osterhäse did not survive the transition to America.  There were few hares in Pennsylvania, or so the Somerset Herald averred in 1900.  Retellings of German folk-stories therefore replaced him with an “Easter Rabbit”, carrying out much the same job in children’s stories.

Our first mention of such an “Easter rabbit” is in 1883.  There we learn that the Easter Rabbit is a novelty.  In the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer of March 24, 1883, p.2, a Pennsylvania newspaper, we find, in an article about Easter:

In all ages the festival has been marked by many singular ceremonies, customs and popular sports. Most of these have fallen into disuse in this country, except the religious observances in the churches, the feasting upon eggs at home, and the presentation to friends of prettily colored or elaborately engraved eggs. Children are provided with all the colored eggs they want, and amuse themselves by testing the strength of the shells by striking the smaller ends of the eggs together, it being a rule among the youngsters that the egg that is broken falls a prize to the one that breaks it. Besides the natural eggs that play such a prominent part in Easter feasting, the confectioners reap a rich harvest in the manufacture and sale of candy eggs of various kinds and colors. Of late years, the rabbit appears as an innovation in the Easter customs, and to “bunny” is attributed the laying of the many beautiful eggs which fill the nests that good little boys and girls are apt to find on Easter morning. Some of these little rabbits are real works of art and look very natural indeed.

It isn’t clear whether this is an edible rabbit, but the chocolate eggs are real enough.

There are other references to the “Easter rabbit” in the preceding decade, including a poem in 1886.  But all those found in Google Books are descriptions of German folk tales, rather than modern customs.  It seems likely that these are simply translations of German material about the Osterhäse.

In “Wide Awake” 34 (1892), p.431 we read an interesting story of a German custom that did NOT reach us.  This is “the Easter Tree.”  The article refers to edible rabbits or hares – or sometimes lambs – made out of cake:

The Easter-tree is a delightful feature of the Easter season in Germany. It is not so universal as the Christmas-tree; for in Germany there is no household so poor but the Christmas-tree finds a place in it, even though its branches may spread scarcely wider than the flowers of a good-sized bouquet. The Easter-tree is more common in Northeastern Germany than elsewhere, and the tree-frolic is something all young people ought to know about.

For an Easter party, at which the frolic is to take place, a large tree, set upon a good-sized table, stands in the center of the room. The larger the room the better. The tree is hung with Oster Eier (Easter eggs) of every color and size. During the year the children gather many varieties of birds’ eggs and save them for decorating the Easter-tree. Hens’, geese and turkeys’eggs are also colored by boiling them in solutions of dye-stuffs — a strong one to make the deep colors, a weak one for the more delicate shades.

Loops of bright-colored ribbons, always of contrasting shades, are pasted upon the eggs to hang them by, tip downwards. Tinsel ornaments and pendants; curious sugar people ; cake animals, especially lambs and rabbits; Easter hens, and chickens; and dainty chocolate and sugar confections of every conceivable variety are fastened to the boughs, while underneath, upon the table or pedestal, sitting in special state, the wonderful Easter rabbit, or sometimes the Easter lamb, presides over the gifts and favors concealed in the Oster Hase‘s nest.

Hunting the Oster Hase‘s (Easter rabbit’s) nest is usually the great event of Easter morning for German children. The nest is sometimes made of small twigs and greens braided together in proper shape; or, if designed for the house, a pretty nest-shaped basket is lined with some kind of bright-colored material, and prettily decorated upon the outside with nuts and confections, and also with tinsel ornaments. Inside, the Easter eggs, gifts and favors are placed, and above these, instead of the conventional mother-hen, sits the Easter rabbit, generally made of cake or sugar.

Great secrecy attends the making of the nest by the older members of the family. When completed it is hidden either in the garden or house, and in the early morning the children, have a grand frolic “ hunting the Easter Hase’s nest.”…

There was evidently a lot of variation in the customs in Germany at this time.  The American custom would be much more focused, and far more commercial.

The earliest use of the term “Easter bunny” that I could find is in 1893, in the Marble Hill Press, Missouri, April 6, p.1, where on Easter Sunday “the little ones were jubilant over the well filled rabbit nests that they found everywhere.  That Easter bunny was indeed kind.”  But there is no mention of an actual Easter bunny as an item.

In 1900, in the Somerset Herald, April 18, 1900, p.1, we find more details of a well-established custom.

The origin of the American Easter bunny, or rabbit, was the European hare, but the hare is so scarce with us and so little known that it was changed to our more familiar rabbit. Probably, this is due to the confectioners, who adopted them first, and used them most, as they are not usually experts in natural history.

Tradition has it that the connection of the hare and Easter springs from the moon. Inasmuch as the date of Easter waits on the moon, it may be termed a lunar season, and from the earliest time the hare has been a symbol of the moon for several reasons. A few of the many may be given. …The hare myth is one of the most prominent among English popular. Easter customs, being perpetuated in almost every part of the world by innumerable customs for the most part each one purely local. Yet while these different practices are much diversified their foundation is universally the hare.

Among the people of Germany the Easter hare is almost as important a part of their nursery lore as their kindly St. Nicholas. The white hare, that steals in at night to fill the nests of good children with eggs, is just as firmly believed in and eagerly expected by the “kinderleins” as Kris Kingle. They go to bed with the chicken in expectation of his visit, but to sleep, oh, no. Then up at dawn to search for what he has left.

In America the hare, or rabbit figures most conspicuously at the confectioner’s, where he may be found of all sizes and kinds, wheeling his barrow full of eggs, or drawing one large enough to be a triumphal chariot.

The earliest result from a search in Google books is in 1900, in two children’s books.  One of these is a poem that “The Easter Bunny is coming to town,” and the trivial use of the term implies that the “Easter bunny” was already in widespread use.

Grimm’s ideas were not unknown either.  An article in 1900 links the bunny to Grimm’s “Ostara.”

But let’s now fast forward almost a century.  The Somerset Herald article back in 1900 had already highlighted the very conspicuous role of the confectionery trade in promoting the Easter Bunny.  In fact it is claimed in various online articles that we know the name of the man who originated the chocolate Easter bunny, along with a photograph of one of his original promotional bunnies.

This story begins to appear very recently indeed.  In 1989 there is an article in the New York Times by Anne Driscol, published March 20, 1988, “Part-Timers Find a Sweet Workplace.”  This is a profile of a certain Ben Strohecker of Harbor Sweets near Boston.

He says the inspiration for his latest creation, an Easter bunny with an assorted nut and candy center, was equally serendipitous. He says his grandfather, Robert L. Strohecker, earned the title Father of the Easter Bunny Business because of his promotions of chocolate rabbits, including a 5-foot chocolate rabbit sculpture created in 1890. Although a photograph of the elder Strohecker and his sculpture had been hanging for years at Harbor Sweets, it was not until a colleague noticed the photograph elsewhere that the idea for what became the Robert L. Strohecker Assorted Rabbit was born.

No photograph of the 5-foot bunny is included.

The next article is in 2023, in the food section of Slate, by Emily Nussbaum, July 03, 2023, “The American Museum of Natural History’s “Chocolate” show is full of empty calories.”.  This reviews a “Chocolate” exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History, although again no photograph appears.

Better yet, you’ve got your photo of an immense Easter bunny, circa 1890. Five feet tall, the rabbit possesses the chalky dignity of an Egyptian sarcophagus, and it stands, golemlike, beside it is its creator, Robert L. Strohecker. The label reveals that Strohecker is “the ‘father’ of the chocolate Easter bunny”—pretty much the best epithet one could hope for in this life.

A 2010 article from the Smithsonian Magazine clearly draws upon an internet search.

The tradition of chocolate Easter bunnies dates back to 19th-century America, which borrowed it—and the Easter Bunny in general—from Germany. Sales started to take off around 1890, after a Pennsylvania man named Robert L. Strohecker featured a 5-foot-tall chocolate rabbit in his drugstore as an Easter promotion.

By the turn of the 20th century, newspapers noticed “the growing popularity in the States of the chocolate rabbit” among Easter confections, and by 1925, a catalog from the R.E. Rodda Candy Co. featured guitar-playing bunnies, suggesting that perhaps ordinary chocolate bunnies were old hat by then.

These articles have produced a certain number of descendants.

A detailed 2023 article by Kerry J. Byrne at Fox News (2023) tells us of a first generation German American named Robert L. Strohecker (b. 16 Jan 1864, d. 31 Mar. 1932).  He was a salesman for the W. H. Luden confectionery factory in Reading, Pennsylvania, which began in 1879 by selling cough drops.  Strohecker sold their products in the region, travelling in a horse-drawn wagon among the German settlers.  He is said to be the “Father of the Chocolate Easter Bunny.”

The source for all these claims appears to be a certain Ben Strohecker of Harbor Sweets.  Their website tells us:

Our chocolate rabbits are named for Robert L Strohecker, grandfather of Harbor Sweets’ founder Ben Strohecker. Grandpa Strohecker’s early promotions of chocolate rabbits earned him the title of “Father” of the Easter bunny business.

In the photo (circa 1890) Grandpa Strohecker stands next to his 5 foot chocolate rabbit. The chocolate rabbit was constructed at Luden’s factory in Reading, PA where Grandpa Strohecker was connected with William H Luden in the manufacture of candy. The chocolate rabbit was displayed in the window of the local department store. (The names of those who got a nibble are lost to history!)

A picture is displayed:

There seems no real reason to doubt this story, but all the same, one would prefer some corroboration of it.  We’re being offered a story about events of a century earlier from the mouth of one man with a commercial interest in telling it.  Is there anybody in the USA who could undertake some detective work here?

I did wonder whether a 19th century entrepreneur could have a grandson active in business in 1988.  Robert L. Strohecker was b. 1864, d. 1932; Ben Strohecker was aged 60 in 1988, so born 1928 (he died in 2016).  So that at least looks possible.

It is certainly correct that Robert Lincoln Strohecker worked for William H. Luden in Reading, Pennsylvania, because we have his obituary which tells us so.  Strohecker’s obituary appeared in the Reading Times April 1, 1932, telling of his death aged 68 the previous day, and that he worked for Luden for 43 years, thus from 1889.  There is sadly no mention of the chocolate bunny.

It is also the case that in 1902 W. H. Luden was one of three local companies manufacturing chocolate Easter eggs in the area.  A detailed description of the process is given in the Reading Eagle in March 23, 1902, p.10: “Home Firms Busy on Easter Goods,” which describes “the growing popularity in the States of the chocolate rabbit” and describes this as characteristic of the USA, and distinctive from other nations.

Our modern custom is decidedly commercial, and the marketing activities of a factory in Pennsylvania prior to 1902 would very much fit this profile.  It also correlates with the newspaper reports.  Whatever the role of this Robert L. Strohecker, there must have been men exactly like this active at the time in this way.  And they built a monster industry.

There seems no doubt that the modern Easter bunny, then, is the product of the confectionery industry around 1890.  It drew upon older, vaguer traditions of an “Easter Hare” – or other animals – among German immigrants.  These ideas were translated into English and given sharp marketing.  The pepped-up and commercialised Easter Bunny went out and conquered the world.

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  1. [1]See the excellent article on a whole range of myths at https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2018/03/easter-and-paganism-2.html#:~:text=The%20Easter%20Rabbit%20is%20pagan,was%20a%20rabbit%20or%20hare.↩
  2. [2] http://www.munichfound.com/archives/id/45/article/759/ ↩

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve now trudged all the way through the remainder of the Life of Abba Garima, taking each paragraph and getting Gemini AI to translate it into English.  Why Gemini?  Well it was there on my list of AI sites, and I used it at random.  For the immense chapter 7, I broke this down into smaller paragraphs, and this worked.

I tend to believe that what I am getting out of Gemini is indeed what the Ethiopic text says, more or less, although I have no way to be certain.  At one point the name of a monarch came up, and I asked for a transcription into Roman letters of the passage.  The result verified the presence of the proper name.  That’s encouraging.

Gemini was often reluctant to translate the text, claiming “I’m just a poor LLM, I only know a subset of languages.”  I responded, “Try again” and invariably it then decided that it did know Ge`ez after all.  What this means, stripped of the fake “AI” stuff, is that the search simply failed first time, and worked the second time.

This seems to be what AI is.  It’s just a search engine.  Nothing more.  The talky bit on the front is just a chat engine, such as banks use on websites to demoralise customers who need help and make them give up.  The LLM is a big flat file containing the database that it is searching.  That database is composed of a vast amount of data, including a large quantity of pirated books.  The whole “AI” stuff is just nonsense, to camouflage that it’s engaged in massive copyright violation.  The search brings back stuff from pirated grammars etc, and assembles them into an English narrative.  As with every search engine, sometimes it guesses wrong, or gets unreliable data.  But “AI” has to choose something in order to pretend to be human.  So you get bogus stuff sometimes.  It would be interesting to know how well AI works in other languages, like French, German, etc, where there may be much less pirated data in the database.

Back to Abba Garima.  I realise that Rossini appended notes to his edition, explaining various points in the text.  The philological notes are of no use to me.  But I have now decided to OCR his Italian and see what else he says about the text.  I think it may be of interest.  We’ll see.

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Experiments with Amharic and technology (part 4)

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I now have a corrected electronic text of the homily of Yohanan, bishop of Axum, in honour of St Garima.  I’ve numbered the paragraphs as an aid to myself, since I cannot even read the Ethiopian alphabet.  It probably needs work.  But here it is:

Today I started plugging paragraphs into DeepSeek.  I also tried asking it to interleave the sentences, Ethiopic, then English.  This did work, although curiously DeepSeek had trouble with the Ethiopic alphabet.

The first six chapters went fairly well.  Here they are:

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God. I have placed my trust in Him and believed in Him forever and ever. Amen.

1. The Homily delivered by Saint John, Bishop and Archbishop of Aksum, concerning the greatness and glory of Saint Isaac. And he said: Listen and understand, O my beloved brothers, what I will tell you. I saw a woman being mocked by a crowd, and as they were laughing at her and at our Lady Mary, they were saying concerning her Son, Christ: “He was not born of a woman; His birth is impossible.” These people did not believe in Christ. And as I stood there, I grew angry and stomped my foot upon the ground where that woman was standing while she spoke. And behold, at that very moment, the King of Heaven and Earth came forth. And when she spoke thus, the Holy Spirit descended upon me.

2. I tell you, I saw a man and a woman who came to me with wealth that my Lord had given me for the nourishment of your souls, the greatness and struggle of this righteous man. There was a man whose name was Mesfiyanos, king of Rome, and his wife’s name was Kefngya. For she was barren and childless, having nothing. And the two of them lived grieving for twelve years. These were righteous people who gave alms to the poor and needy and to churches. One day she went to offer sacrifice and entered the church where there were images of Peter and Paul and our Lady Mary. She stood between the three images and prayed before Mary, saying: “Give me a son who will glorify you and glorify your Son, and if he does not glorify your Son, let my womb be cursed.” And that image responded as if saying “Oh!” She offered her sacrifice and returned home. From that time she conceived and bore a son and gave thanks to God. They named him Isaac; Isaac, the joy of his mother, the splendor of his father. When he was forty days old, they took him to the church and baptized him according to Christian tradition. All the people gathered in the church of Peter and Paul. The chief bishop stood before the Ark of the Covenant and blessed him, saying: “May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who blessed our holy forefathers bless you.” When the chief bishop blessed the child, a great light shone upon him, bright as the sun, moon, and stars. All who saw this marveled and glorified God, then offered sacrifices in their churches. The queen returned home with her child, and they celebrated a feast with great joy. When he turned twelve years old, they brought him to a teacher who instructed him in the Law, the Prophets, the Apostolic books, and their commentaries. They ordained him as a deacon. He further learned church canons, admonitions, plants, and animals. His parents consulted one another, saying: “Let us arrange a marriage for our son while we still live, that we may rejoice in his offspring.” As they were making these plans, an angel of God appeared to Mesfiyanos in a dream saying: “Many souls perish—will you not save them? A great church shall be built through him.” The king awoke and went to his wife, saying: “Last night an angel of God came to me and told me that through him miracles and wonders shall be performed.” The angel said to the queen: “I have come to command you to build and establish a church, that you may rejoice in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

3. When his father died, the nobles and dignitaries of Rome gathered and mourned for Isaac as he wept bitter tears. They enthroned him in the royal seat, and he reigned for seven years. During his days there was joy and peace. Afterwards, Saint Pantaleon came to him and said: “O my beloved Isaac, your earthly kingdom is temporary, but the kingdom of heaven is everlasting. The earthly kingdom will perish and pass away, but the heavenly kingdom will not pass away. Have you not heard what our Lord said in the Gospel: ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away’? Or what Paul said about this world: ‘It is passing away, and those who weep should live as though they were not weeping, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who use the world as though they were not using it, for the form of this world is passing away’? My son Isaac, do not neglect the love of God.”

When the message arrived, Isaac saw it and wept bitterly. He rose at night and prayed, saying: “O my Lord Jesus Christ, I beg and implore You to hear my prayer and grant the request of Your servant Isaac. Show me the straight path that I should walk.” He rose at night from his chamber and went to a secret place outside the palace, departing by night. The angel Gabriel appeared to him, prepared a chariot and canopy for him with shining wings, and brought him from Rome to Aksum in ninety days, traveling by night on the back of an eagle, arriving at the third hour.

4. When the messengers of Father Pantaleon arrived after ten months and four days, they told the man of God, who marveled and trembled, saying: “O my son Isaac, have you not heard what David the prophet said: ‘Your works and my soul will be satisfied when I awake with Your likeness’? What I have done secretly, do not hide from me under the earth. What I have seen with your eyes, write it all in your book. Listen, my son, to the greatness of God who has called us from all things, just as He called you under the wing of the eagle.” As they spoke of God’s greatness, they remained until daybreak.

5. Saint Isaac said to Father Pantaleon: “Father, clothe me in the monastic garb.” Father Pantaleon replied: “Do you know, my son, what the monastic garb means?” Saint Isaac answered: “Yes, I know, father. Have you not heard what our Lord said in the Gospel: ‘What is exalted among men is an abomination before God’? As Paul said: ‘What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword? Neither death nor life, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.’ I desire to be bound to Christ and to be bound tightly.”

When Father Pantaleon heard these words from Saint Isaac’s mouth, he prostrated himself and blessed God, saying to Isaac: “May God strengthen you in keeping His commandments.” Then he took the monastic garb and clothed him, blessing him with these words: “May our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed Anthony and placed upon his head the crown of monasticism, sanctify your garb. May God who blessed Father Macarius and Father Synoda bless your garb. May He who gave Elijah’s mantle to Elisha when he ascended to heaven and brought down the cloak for him—and with that cloak Elisha struck the waters and crossed over, raised the dead, and cleansed lepers—likewise sanctify your garb. May God who sanctified the priesthood of Melchizedek sanctify your priesthood.” They remained together for one year.

6. When the other saints heard that Saint Isaac had renounced the kingdom and embraced monastic life, they came to him. Among them were Abba Likanos from Qusṭinṭinya (Constantinople), Abba Yima’ata from Qosya, Abba Ṣəḥma from Antioch, Abba Guba from Cilicia, Abba Afṣe from Isya, Abba Maṭa‘ from Rome, and Abba ‘Oṣe from Caesarea. When the saints gathered, they met with Abba Pantaleon and Saint Isaac, and they were united in spiritual love. They lived together in one house, devoted to prayer. Among them, there was no one who sought personal gain, nor anyone who desired material possessions or the pleasures of the world. They remained for a period of one year.

The first 5 chapters are from DeepSeek.  I then asked it to do chapter 6, and the monstrously long chapter 7.  The results were weird, and then DeepSeek crashed.  I then tried ChatGPT on chapter 6, which is what you have above.  The DeepSeek version was about the same.

The ChatGPT version of chapter 7 was quite different in every way from that produced by DeepSeek.  Here’s DeepSeek, the opening bits:

7.  While they lived in this way, a governor of Aksum came to them and said: “There is a great beast, a king of the land of Ethiopia, to whom all the nobles bow down and offer gifts. They bring him a beautiful maiden of good appearance, and they perform sacrifices and offerings. When she is brought before this beast, he defiles her and then devours her. This beast has reigned in this manner for fifteen years.”

This beast was 170 cubits long and 4 cubits wide, with one cubit for its tail. Its eyes were like fiery coals, and the pupils of its eyes were like black pots. Its entire body was like a serpent and a dragon. When it ate, it would consume 17 oxen, and they would bring before it 10 sheep, 10 goats, 1000 chickens, 100 lambs, and countless birds. Upon its head were horns measuring three cubits. When it moved, its voice could be heard from a distance of eighty days’ journey.

When the brothers heard this, they marveled and were astonished. They trembled and said to the governor: “Do you truly speak the truth?” He replied: “Yes, truly. If you do not believe me, let one of you come and see.” Father Pantaleon said to Saint Isaac: “My son, what shall we do?” Saint Isaac replied: “Let my brother Oz go and observe this beast. If it is as he says, then you too must rise and pray.” …

Here’s ChatGPT:

7.  And when they came and reached him, a certain nobleman from Aksum spoke to them and said: “Hail, great king, the ruler of the nation of Ethiopia!” And they all bowed before him, the nobles, and presented to him the honorable and righteous virgin of the Lord. And they performed hymns and praises, and she came before him, the king, and prostrated herself. And she continued to remain pure. And the king was astonished.

And they stayed there for fifteen years. And the king stood in honor of her for one hundred and eighty days. And he prepared four feasts in her honor. And one of these feasts was the greatest. And his eyes shone like flames of fire, and his pupils were as bright as polished metal. His appearance was as dazzling as the sun and lightning. And when he spoke, seventeen scribes recorded his words. And they made a proclamation across the land.

There were ten thousand warriors, and one hundred thousand men armed with shields and spears. And they gathered before him in great numbers. And his voice was heard from afar, resounding like thunder. And the land trembled at his voice. And his presence was mighty, and all the nobles fell before him.

The DeepSeek text is at least plausible.  The ChatGPT is not.

What I will try doing is getting each to translate it, sentence by sentence, interleaved with the Ethiopic.  I’ll see what that does.

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Admin

Posted on by Roger Pearse

There are weird PHP errors affecting the blog tonight.  One visible is

Warning: Undefined variable $silent in /usr/home/rpearse/public_html/weblog/wp-content/plugins/footnotes-for-wordpress/wp-footnotes.php on line 156

I would guess my hosting company has broken something.  I will investigate tomorrow.  My apologies.

Update:  The hosting company, the excellent Pair.com, advised me that they upgraded PHP 7.4 to PHP 8.2, as 7.4 is end of life.  This caused the break.  They fixed it by adding two lines to the top of the .htaccess file in the root /weblog directory:

AddType application/x-httpd-phpx .php
Action application/x-httpd-phpx /fcgi-bin/php7_wrapper.sh

It looks as if WordPress have not updated their code to the latest version of PHP.  I hope that this will be fixed soon.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m working away on this Ethiopian homily of John, bishop of Axum, on St. Garima.  It was printed in 1898 by C. Conti Rossini,[1] but without translation.

Well, I don’t know any Ethiopian at all, and I don’t even know the alphabet.  There are 31 consonants, each of which has seven variants, I gather.

But I knew that it was possible to get Google to turn images into electronic text, and a couple of experiments with ChatGPT and DeepSeek quickly showed that the resulting output file could be understood by AI and produce English text.

So I need to get a decent electronic text.

My first step was to take the PDF, extract the pages with the Ethiopian text on them, and pull them into Finereader.  Finereader does NOT support Amharic, but it has useful image editing tools.  I trimmed the 24 pages down to the bare text – no footnotes, no headings, and exported them as images to a directory.

I then bundled these images up into a PDF using my incredibly elderly Adobe Acrobat Pro 9.0.  I then went into Google Drive and uploaded the PDF.  Then I right-clicked on it in Google Drive, and opened it in Google Docs.  This caused Google to OCR it, thereby creating an electronic text.  I then downloaded this in Word format.

I’ve checked the results into a local Git repository – so that I can always go back if I screw up the file.

And now, page by page, I am going through what Google has given me, removing obvious crud and irrelevant line breaks.  It seems to insert a small amount of garbage between pages.

Wish me luck!

There are other free Amharic OCR websites online, and these seem to do a reasonable job too.  But I’ve stuck so far with the Google Docs output.

Incidentally DeepSeek offered the opinion that the text is not in Amharic, as I had expected, but in Ge`ez, Classical Ethiopian.  Luckily it doesn’t care.

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  1. [1]C. Conti Rossini, “L’omilia di Yohannes vescovo di Aksum in onore di Garima,” Actes du Congrès International des Orientalistes, Section Sémitique (Paris, 1898).Online via here.↩

Michel van Rijn (1950-2024)

Posted on by Roger Pearse

So … Michel van Rijn is dead. Art dealer, forger, smuggler, conman, criminal, informant and inkslinger: whose long-vanished eccentric website exposed many a dirty deed in the art world.

Apparently he died last year, aged 73, on 25 July 2024, in Italy.  There was a notice in Het Parool, which published material from him in the past, and another Dutch site here.

The art world is not my area of expertise.  Men have always bought and sold precious things, and always will.  Other men have sometimes tried to stop them, for various reasons.  Some of those involved are villains.  Some are rich men rescuing what would otherwise be destroyed.  Consequently the world of art dealing is one of secrecy and rumour, and no small amount of slander and dishonesty.  In addition the world of Coptology has long been dominated by people whose self-interest exceeds their devotion to scholarship, as James M. Robinson makes clear in his many articles on the Nag Hammadi codices.

But it is well for those interested in antiquity to be aware of this world.  More than twenty years ago, I became aware that four Coptic manuscripts had been discovered somewhere, around 1983, and had found their way into the hands of the Cairo dealers, and then onwards internationally.  This is entirely normal.  Most such discoveries are made by fellaheen, tilling the soil, and the dealers keep agents in the villages for precisely this reason. Indeed if they did not do so, it is likely that papyrus finds would simply be destroyed by the finders.

Among these manuscripts was a previously unknown gnostic “Gospel of Judas.”  This was published in 2006.  The whole story is told by Herbert Krosny in his The lost gospel : the quest for the Gospel of Judas Iscariot (2006), which I used to have but seems to have vanished in a recent house move.

My own interest led me to the website of Dutch art dealer Michael van Rijn.  This was a huge farrago of art-world gossip, obviously unreliable – and probably by design – hurling accusations of dodgy dealings at all sorts of people.  It was strangely formatted, and yet deeply entertaining.  How widely read it was I cannot say.

Van Rijn had become aware of the find, and he had also acquired photographs of some of it, and a rough translation.  I corresponded with him, and found him by email to be a charming yet clearly very unreliable person.  He published what he had on his website, and I mirrored some of it on my own.  The trail of what I could find out is still online here.  He was even interviewed by the BBC, who seemingly did not realise the importance of what he had, and chose to run end-credits over footage of him reading unpublished material from the work.

A 2006 photograph of Michel van Rijn.

In the end his website was shut down, in 2006.  This shut-down took place well before the orchestrated censorship of the last few years, in days when such things were still unthinkable.  So I can only infer that he had annoyed some very important people indeed.  What happened afterwards I know not.  There is a 2012 interview with him by Jake Hanrahan here, although, as ever, I do not know how much of it you can believe. He cultivated his image as a rogue.  He appeared in a 2016 film.  The last I heard of him, he was living in Italy.

And now… he is gone.  Whether he made the world a better place, or a worse one, I cannot say.  But there is no doubt that he made it a more entertaining one.

Farewell, old inkslinger.  May you find mercy at the hands of One to whom all answers are known, and from Whom even fewer secrets are hidden.

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Experiments with Amharic and technology (part 3)

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Back in August 2023, I found that it was possible to scan in some of an Ethiopian text, part of the Life of Saint Garima.  Unfortunately the results from machine translation were disappointing.  ChatGPT was no better.

This evening I was writing my last post, and remembered these efforts.  So I pasted those chunks of text into ChatGPT.  Here’s the first:

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God above all, I have renounced everything and believed in Him until the end of the world. Amen.

The sermon delivered by Saint John, the Bishop of Aksum, concerning the greatness and honor of Saint Isaac:

He said, “Listen and understand, my beloved ones, what I will tell you. I saw a woman who was suffering greatly, trembling and in distress. And she called upon Our Lady Mary, saying: ‘For the sake of the Son, Christ, this woman is not yet born.’ They said to her, ‘Whoever does not believe in Christ and remains doubtful, they shall be humbled and brought low under her feet.’

Then, at that moment, the King of Heaven and Earth came forth. And she said, ‘The one who is greater than Moses shall come.’

Plausible.  Here’s the second chunk:

And it happened on one night that a book was opened, read, and written down. And he arose for prayer in the church. And the angels wrote for him the Gospel at the fourth hour and interpreted it for him. And the angels of God descended and stood before him, and our Lord Christ comforted him. And his message was heard throughout all the land. His prayer and blessing remained with us.

Also plausible.

Perhaps I should have another go at this!

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

This morning I spent driving around, picking up some medicine for my girlfriend’s cat, and then taking her out to lunch.  After lunch, in my last post I uploaded the Life of Isidore of Pelusium (BHG 2209).  This afternoon I scanned in the Greek for a miracle story of St George, the miracle of the demon (BHG 687k); and ran it through ChatGPT.  It’s in the comment to this old post here.

I’d still like to do a translation of the 8 letters of Isidore of Pelusium to Cyril of Alexandria.  I have the Greek for this, thanks to the TLG.  Although tomorrow morning a cheese scone beckons, so it may have to wait a bit.

This evening while sitting in the bath I began to think about what else we could do with this interesting combination of imperfect OCR, plus the ability to get AI to correct the scan errors, and some other languages than Greek and Latin.

A little while ago I used Google Docs to scan in some Ge`ez – which worked -, and then I tried to get AI to translate it.  The last bit failed completely.  I think, given time, that Ethiopian languages will become possible.

I wonder how long ago that attempt was?  I think it was two years ago, after I encountered a legend about Abba Garima copying the bible in a single night.  (Indeed it was!  Amharic, rather than Ge`ez tho. See here and here.)

The technology has come on quite a bit since then.  I must try again.

What other languages might we do this with?  Well, what about Armenian?  Or Coptic?

Interesting thoughts!

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A “Life” of St. Isidore of Pelusium (BHG 2209) now online in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

This  short11th century “Life” was printed by Morton Smith without a translation.  I thought it would be interesting to translate it.  I include the Greek text.

Here it is:

The files are also available on Archive.org here.

As usual, I make this file and its contents public domain.  Do whatever you like with it, personal, educational or commercial.

Here’s the translation, for those who will never download the files!

    *    *    *    *

The Life and Conduct of Our Holy Father Isidore of Pelusium.[1]

1. This divine Isidore, who was called marvellous in both life and word, and who shone in both respects brighter than the sun, had Pelusium as his homeland; and this city was renowned among those in Egypt; and from a devout root, a more devout offshoot sprouted, for from his earliest youth, he immediately embraced virtue wholeheartedly; and he showed that he cherished this as an inalienable possession always; and [he avoided] the things in which youth delights, generally being averse to them; I mean childish games and youthful frolics; and the luxury that weakens the soul and enslaves it to the pleasures of the flesh; and simply all the other things that hinder the mind from understanding what is good; but the things that lead to perfect detachment and the highest contemplation of divine things, these he embraced wholeheartedly; I mean self-control in all things, and the finest education, which lightens the soul and lifts it to heavenly things; for having fallen in love with wisdom, and having honoured her according to the divine precepts of Solomon, being adorned and preserved by her, he was seen [to live accordingly] throughout his life; for the wise man says, “Love her, and she will guard you; honour her, that she may adorn you, that she may place on your head a crown of graces and protect you with a crown of beauty.” [Prov. 4:6, 8-9]

2. Guided by these admirable exhortations and training himself, the admirable Isidore devoted his entire mind to the pursuit of wisdom.  He diligently studied all of divine Scripture, both the New and also the Old Testaments, and mastered thoroughly the entire education of the Greeks.  For those who love elegance, this also is necessary, in order to illuminate and eloquently express the thoughts of reason to those who receive what is said with goodwill, rather than with malice.   Indeed, a truly intelligent and wise person should not avoid all the teachings of the Greeks, but rather should select from them and study them thoroughly.  For even these [studies] can benefit the devout and God-loving soul.  Just as the teachings of the Church are of no use at all to the lazy and indifferent, due to their inherent sloth and negligence, so too for the diligent and studious even external learning can be most useful.  Like a bee flitting among flowers and gathering the best from each, so too did the great Isidore engage in the noble trade of knowledge from his youth until extreme old age, becoming a living library.  But why dwell on these matters when there are far greater things to recount?

3. After this admirable man had attained sufficient knowledge, he turned towards to the monastic life, fleeing the disturbances of the world as capable of harming [the soul]. He judged that it was better to die to the world and to live for Christ, and he left the city and settled in the ‘mountain’[2] of Nitria.  There, after spending considerable time in asceticism, the wise man truly practiced the genuine philosophy.

4. Although the blessed one had chosen this solitary way of life, desiring to have God alone as the witness of his virtue, he became well-known throughout Egypt.  Indeed, he even became known to the one who adorned the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria.  This great man was Athanasius, the champion of the orthodox faith, and a valiant opponent of disreputable heresies.   At his orders the divine Isidore was enrolled in the priesthood of the church, in Alexandria, although reluctantly and only after being persuaded by him.[3]

5. In this sacred duty, is there any need to state his devotion to virtue? What labour and sweat did he not put in?   He was above all a watchful eye, not just over his own affairs, but also for the welfare of others, and more so for their needs than for his own.  For he neglected his own interests in order that others should benefit.   This is why he wrote continuously wise letters to everyone.    To those nearby he gave instruction in person[4] urging them to do what was right.  With those far away he communicated through letters that could guide their souls, to bishops, priests, deacons, monks, and nuns, to rulers and to the ruled; and to everyone alike, high and low, he spoke with equal love.

6. Sometimes he praised those who excelled in virtue, and exalted them in his writings; at other times, he corrected those who went astray, with great wisdom and understanding. In all things he showed a caring and God-loving spirit.  But it was not possible for this blessed man, living so virtuously, to escape the schemes of the evil demon.  For how could it be otherwise, because that devil exists and from the beginning opposes all that is good.

7. After the great Athanasius departed this life for his dwelling in heaven, and after his successors [did likewise], the leadership of the church of Alexandria passed to Theophilus, the nephew[5] of the blessed Cyril[6].   What can be said that is equal to the great storm that he endured?  To what severe trials was he subjected?  For the enemy, who was envious of the virtue of the God-loving patriarch[7], and trying to strip him of it, sowed hatred [in his mind] against this divine man.  At the same time he tried to hinder contentiously his God-pleasing and beneficial works.  He turned Theophilus the patriarch, who had been God-loving in all things before this time, into an enemy through his hostility toward the great Isidore.  The utterly wicked one prevailed so much that he even made Theophilus expel from the priesthood one who was truly worthy of the heavenly altar, contrary to all justice and reason.

8. This [affair], I believe, was like some kind of filthy stain rubbed onto the patriarch.  Yet the truly admirable Isidore did not argue or protest at all.  Nor did he struggle against the one who fruitlessly wronged him, and tried to harm him in every way, both by hand and foot.  Instead, one might say, in a manner worthy of himself, he returned from the Church to the mountain where he had previously dwelt alone, and ascended again, deeming it unworthy for distress to ruin the tranquillity of his own thoughts.  At the same time, he did not wish to increase the judgment against Theophilus through hatred toward himself, the disciple of the peaceful and gentle Christ.  The attack of the wicked and strife-loving devil became for him an opportunity for and voluntary contribution towards greater virtue.

9. But even while dwelling “on the mountain,” and devoted to stillness, the blessed one took thought to encourage everyone towards virtue to [the best of his] ability, even from afar. He knew that this was the chief part of salvation.  So he worked constantly, sending exhortations and instructions through letters, and he never neglected to teach and urge everyone toward virtue.  Day and night, at every hour, he made this his concern, serving as a rule[8] and a guideline[9], so to speak, placed in front of everyone, although he required rest due to old age, and rather needing assistance himself because of his multitude of years.  For his life was extended to nearly a hundred years.  Yet even in old age he flourished and showed energy in building up those near him.

10. Since it was necessary for him, as a man, to die, he fell into a brief illness, which was spent in discourses of thanksgiving and salvation. Also there were the prayers of the assembled monks and laymen to take leave of him in his final moments.  Indeed too many to count gathered together, asking for his prayers, and chanting hymns for his departure.

11. When, through the hands of God who gave him life, the blessed on entrusted his blessed soul [to God], his honourable remains were laid in earth with a large escort and and great honour.  [His tomb] gushed streams of miracles for all who approached it in faith.  The day of his departure[10] was the fourth of February.

12.  O Isidore, best of all priests and monks, wise and God-inspired, entreat Christ unceasingly to be the guardian and protector of the realm for our orthodox emperor.  Glorify him with the greatest trophy monuments[11] over enemies. Grant him strength against every adversary, and to be the mightiest hand in wars.  And at the end, grant him the imperishable kingdom of heaven, mercifully granting him forgiveness of sins (graciously releasing the chains of life’s transgressions), and the divine enjoyment of a paradise of delight, which may we also enjoy, to His praise and glory, to Whom be glory forever and ever.  Amen.

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  1. [1]The paragraphs are usually a single sentence, composed of clauses connected by semi-colons. I have broken this into shorter sentences.↩
  2. [2]A place of solitude.  ὅρος: 1. Sinai in Genesis, the Mountain of the Transfiguration; 2. a place inhabited by monks (Lampe).↩
  3. [3]Isidore was probably born in 370 AD, but Athanasius died in 373.  This mistake indicates that the text cannot be anywhere near contemporary to Isidore.↩
  4. [4]Lit. “spoke with a living voice.”↩
  5. [5]This should read “the uncle.”↩
  6. [6]St. Cyril of Alexandria.↩
  7. [7]θεόφιλος: The name “Theophilus” means “God-loving.”↩
  8. [8]κανών.↩
  9. [9]στάθμη, a carpenter’s line.↩
  10. [10]τοῦ μεγάλου τελειώσεως, lit. “his great completion”↩
  11. [11]τρόπαιον.↩