Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
While working through the output of my scan of Ibn Abi Usaibia, I have just come across a mildly amusing OCR error. It’s caused by the fact that “ī” is often read as “f” or “r”.
Thus I have just seen a reference to “Ibn Barrf‘s defence of al-Harfrf”. It should, of course, be “Ibn Barrī’s defence of …”.
Ibn Barrf sounds like such a good name, tho!
Up to page 840 with correcting the OCR of Ibn Abi Usaibia.
I also got my Christmas cards done and posted today, complete with financial enclosures for teenage nephews. The latter is important — an uncle is not expected to send goodies, but to relieve the financial strain.
It took me three goes before I was happy with my circular letter. It’s a hard thing to write, as you mustn’t just regurgitate whatever you did with last year.
Obviously it’s probably best to omit things like the period under observation in Broadmoor, that you were sacked recently for being useless at your job, or your recent exciting discovery that you like Barry Manilow’s music. People don’t need to know these things. “Restraining order” can be such an unpleasant phrase. So humour them.
You know it will be read at Christmas, so it ought to be positive. Do you want to be thought of as the chap whose letter is left until last?
You know it may be read by people facing difficulties themselves, so you probably don’t want to remind them of things they may also face, and which may worry them — like whether any of us will ever be able to afford to retire.
You know that some of those reading it may be suffering financially — which means you don’t moan about (e.g.) how difficult you find it to park your new Ferrari in the garage. Nor, I should add, do you advise them helpfully that getting the butler to do it is the answer. Why provoke resentment among the ever-shrinking number of people who will send you a card at Christmas?
No, be bright, be positive, and try to leave people with a smile!
A correspondent has drawn my attention to a couple of sites with Romanian translations of the Fathers on them:
As for [patristic literature in] Rumanian (i.e. translations from Fathers) I might estimate that there are some 50-60 volumes of PG authors and 5-10 PL authors translated, from 1700 up to our own days.
There are also internet sites with works of the three Holy Hierarchs:
However, I don’t know a page linking all these sites.
You may be asking why we care. Well, I tried the last site. I don’t know any Romanian, so I used Google translate. I found that it really worked quite well. In particular I found this translation of Chrysostom against Jews and Gentiles that Christ is God here. At points I had to rub my eyes and check that it was not in English to start with.
So I think there are treasures to be found there.
A correspondent writes with an interesting query about a novel book cradle for copying manuscripts.
Most used are the copy stands, and I found an Austrian system called “Traveller’s copy stand”.
But last year I saw in Athos someone using a portable device with 2 glass windows and a system allowing the camera to change position for taking pictures of both pages of an opened manuscript.
Do you happen to know the name of this device? I would like to get more info on it, but I don’t know what to look for.
Copying manuscripts is the very devil to do. You can’t open the thing flat, so it ends up in a book rest open at 45 degrees. You want the camera facing each page at 90 degrees. So you have to take one side of the book, turning the pages; and then flip the book around and do the other side. It’s a faff.
I think the “Austrian travellers’ copy stand” is mentioned here. A description at a vendor site is here. I wonder what it costs?
But does anyone recognise the description above? If so, info very welcome!
UPDATE: From the comments, it seems to be the Ion Book Saver. I want one!
UPDATE: There’s a very poor demo of it on YouTube here, but it gives an idea. It also states that UK price will be 129 GBP. A comment on the video says release was postponed to December 2011.
A major, major answer to prayer came through today. It was something that affects my ability to get work, so it could make quite a difference to the Pearse household finances over the next few months. The diet coke will flow tonight!
When my mobile rang with the news, I was walking on a path through a churchyard in Norwich city centre, and I found it hard to refrain from a jig of joy. (Passers-by, however, no doubt edged noticeably away from this capering, heavily muffled, manically grinning figure.)
I’d written this prayer off, you know. I’d written “rejected” against it. Literally written, in fact.
You see, I have a notepad by my bed, in case I think of something that I want to remember, and the prayer was on that. I’d realised that I needed to pray for it one evening when in bed, and scribbled it in there. Because there’s nothing worse than trying to fall asleep while trying to make sure you remember something, and many of my best ideas come to me in bed, or in the middle of the night, and I think of things that I need to pray about.
After all, God does not answer all our prayers. I didn’t hold it against Him, of course. In many cases the things that we ask for would be bad for us.
But on this one, little did I know that matters were in hand. Tonight I shall cross out “rejected” and write “fulfilled”.
I think that it is a good habit to write down what we have prayed for, and to tick them off as they are answered. God answers many more of our prayers than we realise, yet how many of us fire off a prayer and never think of Him again in that respect? It builds confidence, once we realise that God is listening, and doing, much more for us than we might otherwise notice.
When the news came through, I promised two people on the other end a bottle of something as a solid form of thanks. This led me to think that I need to thank God also. Which means a donation to some useful charity. There’s always the Salvation Army, or the London City Mission.
But I wish that I knew of a charity that helps people like me, rather than the poverty-stricken working class types. The latter have many charities to help them. But I fear that a goodly number of university educated people need help and find it not.
I do wish Amazon wouldn’t use courier company YODEL to deliver books. I ordered two on Wednesday. Neither arrived; instead I came home today to find a snippy little card inviting me to negotiate with a robot at the YODEL site for delivery, and sit at home and wait. I’ve just cancelled both orders, and placed one with BookDepository instead. The other might conceivably arrive tomorrow; if it does, I’ll accept it, and ring up and pay again; if it doesn’t, BD will get my order.
It’s funny how ideas persist.
A mention of the word “Dracula” led me to think of the historical Rumanian noble who adopted the title, which means “little dragon”, and is the diminutive of the Latin “draco” or “dragon”. He did so,* because the “draco” was the standard of the late Roman armies, and so it was a symbol of imperial power and authority.
I don’t know whether the armies of Byzantium continued to use the “draco” standard into the dark ages, such that the Rumanians were familiar with it into the middle ages. How long had it been, I wonder, since an emperor had despatched an army in the east under that standard?
The last Roman army in the west was defeated by the Franks in 484 AD. Yet the golden dragon was the symbol of the kingdom of Wessex, and later of England, as it resisted the Vikings, and it flew in the wind at Hastings in 1066.
After the fall of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the dragon was still seen in Wales, where the Red Dragon is still the symbol of the principality.
How many, of those who see the heraldic medieval image below, think of the reality behind it, a last memory of the power, might and majesty of Valentinian and Theodosius?
* Postscript: I have received various emails pointing out that Dracul had various immediate reasons to use the title. I was thinking, rather, of how the “draco” symbol attracted a desirable status in the first place: from ancient Rome.
A busy day. Up early, and an email brings an enquiry as to whether the cult of Mithras may have arisen in Commagene — we have no evidence for this –, and invoking the name of Roger Beck. This obliges me to read Beck’s paper, and write a reply, and then I am disturbed by my cleaning lady who has come in and, finding the curtains still drawn and everything silent and in disarray, wonders if I am lying dead upstairs or something.
Out then to the library to return Ulansey’s book, and to do some tiresome banking chores. Then back this afternoon, and I do some more proofing on Ibn Abi Usaibia. Page 767 passes my eye.
Then I notice the date; it is the 8th of December, which means that Christmas cards will need to be sent, and a Christmas letter composed to go with them. I start writing an account of what I have done this year. After three pages I become conscious of just how many heavy tasks I have undertaken this year. In fact it gets a bit depressing, and, not wishing to write a letter of moans and groans, I stop and go down the supermarket.
This time of year is hard on us all. The days are short, the sun is low, and there isn’t enough light. The fresh air helps, and I reflect on the amount I have had to do, and the amount I have had to spend on various dull, stressful but necessary tasks, and the way that I tend to fill spare time with tasks. Time to load-shed, perhaps.
Do you know what? I think I shall bunk off, and just do nothing for a while. I don’t commit even to a blog post tomorrow or Saturday. I suspect that I need some downtime!