Month: October 2012

Academic integrity 2: Walter Bauer and the German Christian movement

Posted on by Roger Pearse

He was said to be a typical academic: desperate for admiration and inclined to intrigue. — Based on the Stasi file on Walter Grundmann[1]

Today I have been reading Susannah Heschel’s book The Aryan Jesus, from which I quoted previously.  The book is rather discursive than precise, but nevertheless it contains much interesting material.  It is, in the main, about the German Nazi-era Institute for the Study of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life[2], and in particular about Walter Grundmann, its director, who became a Stasi agent in post-war East Germany.

The volume gives an overview, sometimes rather biased, of the rise of hostility to Jews and Jewishness during the 20th century, and how this was reflected in the attitudes expressed in German scholarship.  In particular it is very good on how the demands of the secular world were aped by the liberal protestant churchmen, and on the great power of the German Christian Movement in that period.  The story centres on Thuringia and Jena.

The book does not make enough allowances for the mixed motives that always prevail in every period, nor for the distorting effect of 20-20 hindsight on people who had no contemporary knowledge that this or that agenda was being pushed at secret meetings elsewhere.

I should add that the book contains far too few references for my comfort, and I frequently found myself asking, “How do I know this is so?  What is the evidence for this?”, which is never a good sign.  If I am going to express some statement as fact, I should like at least to know the data on which it is based.

Naturally I was interested to see what the book had to say about Walter Bauer, author of Orthodoxy and Heresy (1934), which I have been examining elsewhere, and which posits that real Christianity was no more authentic than Marcionism, the movement which was supposed in that period in Germany to deny the validity of the Jewish element in Christianity.

Bauer does indeed appear, but only once.  In 1927 he published an article Jesus der Galiläer[3] in which he identified Galilee as definitely non-Jewish.[4]  It is unfortunate that Heschel does not quote him directly, as one would naturally prefer to hear the man himself than someone’s representation of him.  But what was the social context of such a claim?

If you dislike Jews, and yet are a normal German in the 20’s, you have a problem.  Because you belong to the official state church, the Lutheran protestant, and indeed you pay a tax collected by the state for its upkeep.  This official church worships … a Jew.

So what do you do?  Well, you try to claim that he wasn’t a Jew.  And during this period, according to Heschel, this is precisely what German scholars were trying to do.

The argument is not as daft as it seems at first.  The bible tells of the deportations from Israel, and the alien settlers around Samaria, and there were more settlements in the area in the Persian period.  Persians are Iranians, and Iranians are good Aryans.  Being a Galilean, Jesus might not have had a drop of Jewish blood in him.

Into this process, the article by Bauer fits precisely.  And scholars such as Grundmann and many others proceeded to refer to a gentile, indeed an Aryan Galilee, for just this purpose, in order to claim that Jesus was not racially Jewish.[5]

Likewise we learn from Heschel that a purged bible, which discarded the Old Testament, and edited the New, was actually issued by the Institute.  It is very remniscent of Harnack’s demand that the church should discard the Old Testament.

However I am not certain whether Heschel is representing events correctly in this.  From what she says, the publication seems to have consisted rather of selected extracts, all very much in conformance with Nazi ideology.  It is at this stage that the limited referencing leaves the reader in the dark.

Bauer’s work consists of rubbishing the history of the early church, in order to substitute for it another, designed to undermine the authority of the church by suggesting that ancient heresies are just as authentic as representative of Christianity.  In the light of current events when he published it, this takes on a somewhat sinister light.  These two publications by Bauer are very much in keeping with the Nazi trend of the times.  It would be good to know more certainly what Bauer thought he was doing.

Of course there is a terrific irony here.  For Bauer’s book owes its popularity to a translation in the 60’s, and the use of its narrative by post-hippie gnostic-kissing secular theologians, of much the same stamp but a rather different political outlook from the Nazis, and with the aim of promoting a rather different ideology.

God has his jokes with those who set out to oppose him, it seems:

Blow the trumpets, crown the sages,
Bring the age by reason fed.
He that sitteth in the heavens,
He doth laugh, the prophet said.

In between the free love, was there time for a quick “Sieg Heil” or two, to honour their intellectual mentor?

But of course I may be mistaken.  Bauer’s friends must fall back on the saying of the old atheist about the gospel: that it all happened a long time ago, and we must hope that it wasn’t true.

Let’s finish with the cover image from the book.  There are other interesting photos inside!

Altar of the Antoniterkirche, Cologne, in 1935
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  1. [1]Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany, Princeton, 2008, p.258; the quote is Heschel’s reporting of a report signed by “Ludwig”, Grundmann’s Stasi file, May 11, 1960.↩
  2. [2]The title originally referred to “study and eradication”, but I understand from Heschel that the reference to “eradication” was dropped in order to give the body a more independent and scholarly appearance.↩
  3. [3]Reprinted in Bauer, Aufsätze unde Kleine Schriften, p.100 f.↩
  4. [4]Heschel, p.60, referencing p.103 of the reprint.↩
  5. [5]Heschel p.153: “Thanks to the work of Walter Bauer situating Jesus in Galilee, Grundmann could easily present Galilee as standing in opposition to Judea; thanks to Assyriologists such as Paul Haupt (and ignoring Albrecht Alt), he could claim that Galilee had been populated by Aryans who had been forcibly converted to Judaism by the Hasmoneans, but who were not racially Jewish…”.↩

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been working some very long days this week, which has left no time for anything in the real world.  So here are a few notes about this and that.

On my bedside table here in the hotel is an interesting book, which I have had no time to read.  It’s published by the Cerf, and is entitled, Christianismes orientaux.  The unpromising title hides a very important book.  It’s essentially a patrology of the oriental Christians; Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, etc.  There’s an excellent bibliography after each section.  The blurb on the website reads:

Filling a gap in French literature, this work was conceived by its editors as an introductory guide to the languages and literatures of the Christian Orient.  Its six parts, consecrated to Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Georgian and Syriac, are intended to help beginners to orient themselves by means of a bibliography on the subject.  An overall introduction allows the reader to understand the essential unity of a religious thought which expressed itself in different languages, periods and places.

The only portion that I have even looked at so far is that on Georgian, written by Bernard Outtier.  It’s very excellent, I can see at once.  Sebastian Brock has said that he thinks that an English translation of this section would be a good thing, and I can see why.  I wonder if one could induce Dr Outtier to do the sort of thing that Sebastian Brock has done for Syriac; to produce a Brief introduction to Georgian literature in PDF form for circulation online, and perhaps an English tome on the same subject. 

The other item on my table has, I confess, at the end of some hard days of concentration, taken precedence over reading a volume in French.  It’s Assassins, volume 6 in the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.  It’s a thriller, of course, but it is marvellous to see Revelation translated into such a format so believably! 

It is really important to read Christian books.  The mental environment in which we swim will determine our attitudes.  People wrote them for us.  Enjoy them!

Mark Vermes has been in contact to say that the Chrysostom sermon that he is translating is nearly done.  I had hoped to get him to do a selection of other Greek texts as well, but sadly he will be otherwise engaged shortly.  Pity!

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Academic integrity or the lack of it – a thought about the Rollston saga

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I learn from Paleojudaica today that a US academic, a certain Christopher Rollston, is in trouble with his employer because of an article that he wrote on the leftist Huffington Post site, entitled The Marginalization of Women: A biblical value we don’t like to talk about.

The article makes clear that Prof. Rollston is a practising leftie.  Charmingly, he recites his faith in the current shibboleths of early 21st century liberal America almost in set terms:

Augusta National Golf Club finally accepts its first women members, and so a Leviathan of gender discrimination at long last makes a move in the right direction. Conversely, Todd Akin falsely states that a woman’s body has biological mechanisms to prevent pregnancy in cases of something he refers to as “legitimate rape.” One step forward, two steps back in our battle for women’s rights.

Emphasis mine.

Well, a man is entitled to hold political views, however daft or repellent they may be to sensible people.  In a free nation he is surely equally entitled to call for the expulsion of all blacks, all Jews, and all Mexicans from the USA, with the words “One step forward, two steps back in our battle for an Aryan America”.  Isn’t he?

Live and let live; the fact that he holds political views with which we disagree (or don’t) is no business of anyone else.  Isn’t it?

But what he really wants to talk about is the bible:

From Mesopotamia to Egypt, women in the ancient world were considered property — valuable property, but property nonetheless. And it’s true of the Bible’s view as well. Yes, there were biblical women who flourished in spite of the patriarchy, women like Ruth, Esther, Lydia and Priscilla. But women in the Bible were normally viewed as second class, if even that.

Emphasis again mine.  Well, this was true in biblical times, certainly.  All sorts of views are reflected in the scriptures.  The patriarchs engage in polygamy, for instance, but … the bible does not teach polygamy. And here we reach the problem with Dr Rollston’s article.

The hostility of the political left to the bible is well known.  What, then, does Dr Rollston have to say?  I’ve taken the first sentence of every paragraph:

The Decalogue is a case in point. … Because the Ten Commandments are so well known, it’s quite easy to miss the assumptions in them about gender. But the marginalization of women is clear.

Women are marginalized in the book of Proverbs as well.

The New Testament contains texts that marginalize women as well.

Of course, there are even more difficult texts, with men said to be willing to surrender women to horrendous violence.

Thankfully, some biblical authors who pushed back against the marginalization of women.

People today often wish to turn to sacred literature for timeless trues about social norms. … After all, to embrace the dominant biblical view of women would be to embrace the marginalization of women. And sacralizing patriarchy is just wrong. Gender equality may not have been the norm two or three millennia ago, but it is essential. So, the next time someone refers to “biblical values,” it’s worth mentioning to them that the Bible often marginalized women and that’s not something anyone should value.

He isn’t talking about attitudes reflected in the bible.  He’s talking about the bible.  He’s talking explicitly about biblical values.  He’s attacking them, and stating that biblical values are … “not something anyone should value”.  He is, in essence, accusing the bible of heresy, heresy against the One True Teaching, that of the political left in the early 21st century USA.

Doubtless he does not value biblical teaching.  And why should he?  An unbeliever is under no obligation to listen to the scriptures.  Let him genuflect humbly to a set of values made up by the babyboomers, if he so wishes, and is so uncritical in his politics.  Just because we may laugh at his credulity in political and theological matters — for of course we are much better informed, and our own political and religious views are above reproach — does not mean we should nail him head down to a lump of wood.  Live and let live.

All in all, so far, so tedious.

But I gather from Paleojudaica that his article has had consequences.  For, it seems, Dr Rollston holds a post at Emmanuel Christian Seminary.  His colleague, Paul M. Blowers, wrote a quick criticism of the article on Facebook, which was seen and roundly abused by a certain Tom Stark who wrote an article at great length in which he quotes the remarks of Dr Blowers here, and attacks him for objecting to them.  He also describes another article by a group of objectors as:

…a bloviating, self-important, contemptuous, slanderous, malignant, condescending, pretentious, cynically dishonest, and ironically oblivious piece of garbage.

The language of political hate is rather in evidence here, which again indicates that we are not dealing with any academic issue.

Even so, Mr Stark accepts:

Yes, as a faculty member at a faith-based educational institution, Dr. Rollston should not publish something in the public square that, say, contradicts anything he would teach in class or say to a Christian community. For instance, Dr. Rollston should not write a Huffington Post article in which he rejects Christianity or rejects the Bible.

And yet, as we have seen, Dr Rollston has done exactly that.  I fear that the problem is much simpler; Mr Stark shares the political and theological views espoused by Dr Rollston.

Various other bibliobloggers have written similarly. Tom Verenna wrote a response along the same lines.  Dr Blowers wrote an article here, rebutting the criticism, for which he too received the lynch-mob treatment.

The responses that I have seen all deploy the tired old “academic freedom” argument:  If you don’t allow our religious views to be expressed at your private college, if you don’t give us a platform, then you aren’t academics at all. I hope we all laughed to see this dreary old attempt at manipulation trotted out again.

The joke about this, of course, is that there is any amount of comment on the web on the policies of American universities, which state that several have developed a hideous political conformity, to the extent that expressing any non-left views at some of them risks harassment by the authorities!  Yet I do not hear similar complaints from the same people.

It’s all deeply tedious, all this special pleading.  Anyone is allowed to hold any views they like, in a free country (although I believe quite a number of US Republican bloggers believe that, if you hold views of the political right, this does not apply to you).  But no-one is entitled to demand, as of right, that other people pay for him to advance those views.

There is no special moral principle here.  If I join a university founded by atheists, I can hardly take their money and use it to attack atheism.  To do so would be dishonest.    If I wish to abuse them, I must stop taking their money.  Likewise, if I take money from scientology (which God forbid), I cannot honestly write an article in a major publication holding up L. Ron Hubbard to ridicule.  To do so is dishonest.  If I gain employment from the National Union of Perverts and Paedophiles (will become a privileged minority in California by around 2020, if history is any judge), I cannot take their money and write against them in the national press.

This elementary moral point has always been ignored by those who call themselves liberals, since these can rarely find anyone willing to voluntarily fund them.  Instead they assert a right to loot the funds of others.

In a state university a diversity of views should certainly be permitted, which reflects the fact that the taxpayers who pay for the staff are entitled to expect that academics who share their political or religious views are not prevented from holding a post there.   Whether this is indeed the case in a liberal theological college, or a liberal controlled university in the modern US, we need not enquire curiously.  But this is not because the university is “neutral”; nor does it imply that Catholic universities are not universities, or any of the other hysterical claims being advanced.  It is simply because there is no agreed basis for belief.

Tom Stark has written, I gather, that Christopher Rollston may now be under investigation at his employers.  Considering the nature of the article that Dr Rollston has published, I would hope that this is so.  For that article makes pretty clear that, to him (at least as edited by the Huffington Post), the bible is not the final authority of faith and morals.  That exalted role is reserved for the edicts of those who control the media agenda in the time and place in which he happens to live.  And a person holding those views can hardly continue to take the money of those who believe differently.  But of course Dr Rollston may not hold the views that the article pushes at every person who can read; for we must never forget the power of the editor of a site.

There is indeed a question of academic integrity here, and of integrity among “bibliobloggers”.  There is nothing very fine about campaigning for other people to endorse your views at their own expense.  On the contrary, it is a selfish, greedy, intolerant game.  I’ve read quite enough paragraphs asserting that the article states “uncontroversial views” — yes, of course, any views you agree with are “uncontroversial”, if you are self-centred enough.

I would ask all those who have written “in support” of Dr Rollston — really of the sentiments of the article in the Huffington Post, for I know nothing against the man himself — to ask themselves if they would feel the same if he had written in support of an Aryan America.  If they would not, then I suggest they withdraw their comments and search their souls.

For the measure we give is the measure we will undoubtedly get.  It was the legislation of the liberal Weimar Republic that made the Nazi state possible.  Those who establish the principle that academics who conform to societal values, and reject the values of their employers, may not be expelled for so doing, may not enjoy it, when those societal values change.  And if history teaches us anything, it teaches us that societal values change, and often violently.

For the right to create a private university, where the evil of the times does not seep in, where the commissar may not meddle, is of inestimable value in an oppressive state.  In communist Poland it was the Catholics who kept things alive.  To continue to exist, such universities must expel those who would wreck their purpose, or cease to exist.  There is, after all, nothing very praiseworthy about the man who, supported by every engine of the state, demands that a minority “tolerate” him.  On the contrary, we should treasure these islands of rebellion and different thinking against the certainties of “society”.

Live and let live.

UPDATE: Within 12 hours of my writing the above, mentioning the lack of openness to different views alleged against some US universities, comes the news that “Gaullaudet University has put Dr. Angela McCaskill, its chief diversity officer, on paid leave because she signed a petition to put gay marriage before the voters of Maryland…”.  That is, she signed a petition which suggested that this particular policy should be voted on rather than just enacted.  Apparently that is grounds for disciplinary action.  I don’t believe this (deaf, black) woman is an academic; but it shows how little respect for dissent there is in US universities.

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Ephrem Syrus, Hymn 22 against heresies now online in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Adam McCollum has kindly translated this lengthy hymn by Ephraim the Syrian into English for us.  The translation is public domain; do whatever you like with it, personal, educational or commercial.

These files can also be found at Archive.org here.

I will produce an HTML version when I can.

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We should blog in the Holy Spirit, and we should read blogs filled with the Holy Spirit

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Echurch Blog asks what biblical principles should guide bloggers, referencing a tremendous (if long) article by Bryan Chappell over at Gospel Coalition.  It’s full of good things:

The reason some of today’s advocacy journalism and web commentary are so dangerous to Christians is not because we are blind to their biases. Rather, the danger lies in our tendency to think that, since we agree with the viewpoints of certain commentators, therefore their digs at, and disrespect of, opponents are acceptable among us.

Blocs of Christians grow to appreciate certain commentators because they seem willing to say what we would like to say but our biblical instincts have made us hesitant to express. At first, we chortle at the sarcasm and scorn with guilty pleasure that our enemies have been made to squirm. But, over time, we no longer feel guilty, and then the real damage is done. Christ’s testimony erodes when his people grow so accustomed to verbal disdain that we begin to believe such speech is permissible for us. When the church fills with people holding so little regard for her spoken witness, then her redemptive purposes are far removed from her daily priorities.

We must determine whether our web tastes have been cultivated by the world or by its Creator. Returning evil for evil is not a Christian option. When the speech habits of the world become the unexamined practices of the redeemed, then it is time for correction and repentance. We correct by letting those in our own camps know when their commentary has moved beyond the bounds of biblical ethics and Christian love. We repent by, first, confessing that we are as wrong to receive gossip and slander as to spread it, and, second, by refusing to consume or visit the publications and sites that claim to be Christian and do not honor Christ’s commands.

Well said.  It’s easy to let things into our heads.  It’s far harder to get them out.  And what comes in will shape our attitudes.

I discovered an example in myself only today.  I’m not politically correct.  I loathe and despise the brainwashing that I have endured for the last 15 years.  It’s evil, stupid and perverse, and those setting the climate of what can be said, and what cannot, are people whose guiding principle is “if it feels good to me, then do it.”

Now I am the proud owner of the Official Irish Joke Book, in four volumes.  I haven’t read any for years.  But today I pulled down book 3 — “book 2 to follow”, as the cover says — on my journey to the bathroom.  While engaged in brushing my teeth, I proceeded to dip into it.  And … I found myself flinching at the jokes.  What was entirely proper light humour, published in 1985, is now something that cannot be said or thought.  But that isn’t my point.  Despite my thorough opposition to such brainwashing, I too have been conditioned.  My reflex flinching told me that.

I wasn’t “disgusted” or “horrified”, thank heavens.  The books are entirely innocent, after all.  But I suddenly saw how effective the suppression of such material, and the endless repetition of “you can’t say that”, must have been.  I suspect my reflex was simply that I have become used to the idea that such material will produce shrieking abuse.  And so even I have been influenced, against my will.

The environment in which we immerse ourselves will shape who we are.  For this reason, we must choose what that environment is.

Some Christians ration the amount of non-Christian culture they permit themselves, for just this reason.  But there are risks in so doing, not least because in our culture most modern Christian material is derivative or second-rate.  Since Christians are a despised minority — let’s call it what it is — this is natural.

But I have derived considerable benefits to my imagination this year, simply from disposing of my DVD player and reading a lot of Christian novels.  I really have.  It has helped shape my attitudes to God, to my life, and to the world.

I can feel it happening.  I’m working through the Left Behind series at the moment.  I have no view on the theology espoused by its authors, but it has been a blessing.  I have read various legal thrillers — a genre with which I am otherwise unacquainted — purely for the Christian worldview.  And I have benefitted.  It has lightened my imagination.

With every blogger, what comes out is what is inside.  In my case, as you will appreciate, there is rather a lot of ancient history and patristics inside!  That is not wrong.  But I also need to work on the question of which blogs I read.  I only have one Christian blog that I regularly read, and so I need others.  I do not mean “blogs written by Christians” but rather “Christian blogs”, written in obedience to the biblical principles mentioned above.

And so do we all.

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Chrysostom’s Easter Sermon — an online mystery

Posted on by Roger Pearse

At the Trevin Wax blog today I read the following, Hell was in turmoil:

Let no one lament persistent failings, for forgiveness has risen from the grave.
Let no one fear death, for the death of our Saviour has set us free.

The Lord has destroyed death by enduring it.
The Lord vanquished hell when he descended into it.
The Lord put hell in turmoil even as it tasted of his flesh.

Hell was in turmoil having been eclipsed.
Hell was in turmoil having been mocked.
Hell was in turmoil having been destroyed.
Hell was in turmoil having been abolished.
Hell was in turmoil having been made captive.

Hell grasped a corpse, and met God.
Hell seized earth, and encountered Heaven.
Hell took what it saw, and was overcome by what it could not see.

O Death, where is your sting?
O Hell, where is your victory?
Christ is risen, and you are cast down!
Christ is risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead.

This was attributed to Chrysostom, “An Easter sermon”, as translated by Andre Lavergne at Worship.ca.  The full version is here, and references a translation by  Frank Dobbs.

I think most of us are somewhat wary of unreferenced material of this nature, splendid and true though the statements are.  A PG reference would be so much nicer!

I find in Quasten (III, p.455) a reference to two Easter sermons, PG 50, cols.433-442, Contra ebriosos et de resurrectione, and PG 52, 765-772, described as “of doubtful origin”.

But surely Chrysostom must have preached more than 2 sermons at Easter?  In the CPG, vol. 2, p.573, I find a number of entries:

  • 4605, Sermo catecheticus in pascha, PG 59, 721-724.
  • 4606, In sanctum pascha sermo 1, PG 59, 723-726; followed by 6 more sermons of the same kind, all published by P. Nautin in Sources Chretiennes 36, SC27 and SC48.

Hmm.  Let’s look these up.  And we find … yes, the first item is the source.

It’s very short fragment of only a couple of pages, plainly mutilated.  Both the Lavergne and Dobbs translations translate the whole of Migne’s text.  It is placed by Migne, the PG editor, among the spuria, and the other sermons likewise.

A PDF of the Greek text, probably from the TLG, can be found here.  A manuscript of the text is online, BL Add. 14066, on f.4.

Let’s see what Nautin has to say about these items.

In SC 36, he discusses sermones 1-3 (CPG 4606-8).  All this material is transmitted under the name of Chrysostom.  But both Henry Savile and Bernard Montfaucon rejected this authorship.[1]  And Nautin states that the 7 homilies are not by the same author.  Homily 6 is attributed to a pseudo-Hippolytus; but there are several authors in the collection.  He does feel that the works must date from the late 4th – early 5th century.  Unfortunately he does not discuss our text.

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  1. [1]SC36, p.26.↩

The Antikythera mechanism — return to the wreck site

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The Guardian reported on 2nd October:

Between 1900 and 1901, the sponge divers retrieved a string of stunning antiquities, including weapons, jewellery, furniture and some exquisite statues. But their most famous find was a battered lump that sat unnoticed for months in the courtyard of Athens’ National Archaeological Museum, before it cracked open to reveal a bundle of cogwheels, dials and inscriptions.

It has taken scientists over a hundred years to decode the inner workings of those corroded fragments, with x-ray and CT scans finally revealing a sophisticated clockwork machine used to calculate the workings of the heavens (video).

Dubbed the Antikythera mechanism, it had pointers that displayed the positions of the sun, moon and planets in the sky, as well as a star calendar, eclipse prediction dial and a timetable of athletics events including the Olympics. …

But one of the most intriguing mysteries relates to the wreck on which it was found. What’s still down there?

The wreck lies in around 60 metres of cold, rocky, current-swirled water – not an easy place to visit. The sponge divers who salvaged its cargo worked in clunky metal diving suits with little understanding of the dangers of diving at such depth. By the time they abandoned their project, two of them had been paralysed by the bends, and one was dead. They left behind stories of abandoned treasures, including giant marble statues that rolled down the steep slope from the wreck and out of reach.

The undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau spent a couple of days at the wreck site in 1978 and brought up some precious smaller items, including some coins from the Asia Minor coast, which suggested that the ship sailed from there around 70-60 BC (probably carrying war booty from Greek colonies back to Rome). But even with their sleek scuba gear, Cousteau’s divers could spend only brief minutes on the seabed without risking the bends.

No one has been back since. Now, after years of negotiations with the Greek authorities, Brendan Foley, a marine archaeologist based at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, finally has permission to dive at Antikythera. He’s working with Greek archaeologists including Theotokis Theodoulou of the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities.

This week, the team begins a three-week survey using rebreather technology, which recycles unused oxygen from each breath and allows divers to stay deeper for longer. The aim is to survey the wreck site properly for the first time, to find out once and for all what has been left down there – and to check down the slope, to 70 metres depth or more, to see if those stories of runaway statues are true.

And, of course, what if there is further ancient technology just sitting there, unrecognised?

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The Qasr el-Wizz apocryphon

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Alin Suciu has another marvellous post on an item entirely new to me.

When the High Dam was built in the 1960s, almost the entire Nile valley between Aswan and Wadi Halfa had been inundated in order to create the Lake Nassar. As the waters were rising, many archeological sites were destroyed, while others, such as the well-known temples of Abu-Simbel, were removed from their original location and re-erected elsewhere. During the construction of the dam, more precisely in October-November 1965, the archeological team from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago was excavating a Christian monastery at Qasr el-Wizz, situated just a couple of kilometers north of Faras, in Lower Nubia. …

Perhaps the most exciting discovery of the Chicago team at Qasr el-Wizz was a small parchment book written in Coptic. The manuscript was found almost intact, virtually the entire text being preserved. The Qasr el-Wizz codex was initially housed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, but was later been moved to the new Nubian Museum in Aswan.

The codex is quite short (only 17 folios), is dated to the 10th century, and contains  two items:

  1. A revelation of the risen Christ to the apostles, delivered on the Mount of Olives. “It contains a dialogue of the apostle Peter with the resurrected Christ concerning the eschatological and soteriological function of the Cross.”
  2. “A hymn sung by Jesus whilst the apostles are dancing around the Cross”.

The first item has long been known in Old Nubian, and was published by F. L. Griffith in The Nubian Texts of the Christian Period, Berlin, 1913 (online here).

The second is more interesting: it is an abbreviated version of the “Hymn of the Cross” found in the so-called “Gospel of the Savior”, P. Berol. 22220, published by Charles Hedrick back in 1997-ish — a report about it was one of the first items on my newly created website — and apparently this is also found in the so-called “Strasbourg Coptic Gospel”, which is unknown to me.

An English translation was prepared in typescript by Egyptologist George R. Hughes in 1965, for private use, which Alin rediscovered in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.  He did place it online, but felt obliged to remove it after a communication from Artur Obluski, whom he may have thought was writing on behalf of that institution. 

That is rather a pity, surely.  I have always thought of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago as a rather forward-looking body.  The availability of an admittedly obsolete translation of this obscure item can only benefit everyone by raising awareness of the text.  It is, after all, very obscure.  I had never heard of it, and, given my interest in ancient texts, that means that practically no-one has ever heard of it.

Perhaps I might write to that institution and ask whether they really have any objection.

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Where to find the “Clavis Coptica”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An interesting post at Alin Suciu on some new Coptic fragments of ps.Severian of Gabala made reference to a mysterious “Clavis Coptica”.  A google search left me none the wiser, so I thought that I’d better write something.

It looks as if “Clavis Coptica” is an informal reference to a “Clavis Patrum Copticorum”, which exists in a pay-only-access database.  If you look at this page it gives you these details.

It’s very disappointing to find something like this offline.  Only a handful of people will ever be able to use it.

UPDATE: Alin Suciu has now posted himself on this question here.  He asked Tito Orlandi, who replied:

The Clavis Coptica (or Clavis Patrum Copticorum) is the complete list of the literary and Patristic works which form the Coptic literature, modeled on the example of the Clavis Patrum Graecorum (by Geerard) and the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca/Latina/Orientalis.

Each work has an identification number of 4 digits, which may be quoted as: cc0000.

The list is presently found on the web page of the Corpus dei Manoscritti Copti Letterari
(http://cmcl.let.uniroma1.it) accompanied by information on manuscripts, content, and critical problems.

The bare list (id. number, author-title) will soon be found for free on the Hamburg web page of the CMCL. A printed Clavis Coptica is in preparation.”

It is very good news that the list will be accessible to us all.

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