From my diary

A sudden rush of emails has arrived.  I can only conclude that the summer is over, people are returning to their bulging email inboxes, and dropping emails to me.  Apologies to anyone that I have not yet replied to!

One of the most interesting came from a mathematical gentleman interested in the calculation of the date of Easter.  He had found a 2006 page with an English translation of material by Dionysius Exiguus, and emailed me some interesting and difficult questions. Part of the difficulty was that I didn’t actually remember anything about that page, after almost twenty years!  I ended up hunting through old emails, and writing a preface explaining what it is, which I placed here.  I also tracked down the Latin text used, that of Rodolphe Audette of Laval University, Canada, uploaded some time before 2000, and long since gone.  I placed a copy here.  I did expand the æ and œ ligatures, however.  I really ought to revise the preface, which I started to translate and then gave up!

The research materials for a post on a certain Philo of Carpasia are gathered, and all I have to do is write it.  I’d never heard of the chap.  But it seems that he was a bishop in Cyprus, appointed by Epiphanius of Salamis, and the author of an extant allegorical commentary on the Song of Songs.  The commentary is real; the information about his biography is frankly sketchy.

I hope that everyone enjoyed their summer.  It is now time to start booking for winter breaks!