Author: Roger Pearse

Since late May, I have been beset by an almost farcical number of trivial circumstances, each requiring my full attention, yet of no importance once they are dealt with.  Without going into much detail, these have included an emergency house move at the end of June, yet I am still in boxes; and trying to refurbish and let my old house, so far without success after a month; and a huge number of other things of a similar nature.  One minor circumstance associated with this is getting the electricity and gas meters working correctly and my account with the provider set up.    If I tell you that I have been in contact with the CEO’s office a couple of times a week for the last month, and things are still not fixed, you will appreciate the sheer amount of time that has disappeared down the drain of the mundane and annoying.  Likewise yesterday afternoon and this morning were spent on  telephone calls and emails trying to get a gas boiler repair organised for a third property for which I am responsible, which, after 10 years of functioning perfectly decided to cause a problem now.  An elderly relative became seriously ill mid-way through the move, and I am obliged to have a video call 4-6 times a day to help her cope.

Beyond a certain point, you have to laugh.  The situation is so ridiculous that, if a passing aircraft accidentally shed part of its load while I was walking in a meadow underneath, and I was hit by a falling piano, this would not even raise an eyebrow.  Into every life a little rain must fall.  It seems to be my turn.  But what God wills is good.

On the positive side, I now live in a country village!

I mention all this because there are people out there who are doubtless wondering why they have not had a reply to some email, or why I don’t engage with them.  I do apologise, but I hope this will explain.

Over the last few days I have been advised to sit at the computer after meals for at least half an hour, and try to relax.  So I have returned to John the Deacon’s Life of St Nicholas, although only in a limited, non-stressful way.  Chapters 12 and 13 of the Mombritius edition of 1498 (?) have a text markedly different from that of the Falconius edition (1751).  Rather than trying to resolve this, I have decided to do a little light translating, and so I have worked on these.  Anything difficult I shall just mark in red and leave.

This weekend, I decide, I shall do nothing more, no chores, and do nothing other than stuff that I want to do.  The week is enough time to spend on the dreck.

I learned from a kind correspondent that copies of a St Nicholas related book were available fairly cheaply online at the moment.  I took the plunge, and the volume arrived today.

I’ve managed to make my first ever sale on eBay, of a set of noise-cancelling headphones.  I bought these for my last contract but one.  This was a government client, which put all the programmers in an office along with lots of noisy sales staff.  The programmers needed to concentrate.  The sales staff needed to make noise.  So the poor programmers perforce all bought headphones, out of their own money, to try to get enough quiet to think.  I did likewise; but I scarcely used them, as I got fed up and left after a month.  At least now they are off the floor.

I have a large pile of books that need to go as well.  I have my massive Oxford Latin Dictionary, which I never use and takes up a lot of space.  Moving home draws attention to such things.  But I’ll get to it.

In the 5th century an Egyptian priest was disciplined by Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, for describing Mary the mother of Jesus as Θεοτόκος, “theotokos”.  Cyril, the Patriarch of Alexandria, decided to use this as a pretext for a bid for supremacy in the eastern church.  After much wrangling, a council was scheduled at Ephesus in 431.  This was held before Nestorius’ supporters could arrive, and duly pronounced that Cyril was right and Nestorius was wrong.  When the other side did arrive, they held their own council and voted the opposite.

Both sides then appealed to the emperor, Theodosius II, who was in fact a cypher.  The imperial government was in the hands of the eunuch Chrysaphius.  Chrysaphius responded as any rational man would, and sent both combatants into exile.  Cyril then carried out a campaign of bribery of important individuals in Constantinople, to be allowed to return.  Incredibly a list of bribes is preserved among his correspondence.  A vicious political struggle followed, from which Cyril emerged victorious.

Thereafter this word became a watchword, that none might contradict, and to which all must subscribe as a test of loyalty.  These days we know something about the use of language to demonise your enemies and seize power.  In the jargon of 20th century communist society, Nestorius and his supporters were purged.  This word, Θεοτόκος, was the tool used to force them out, to seize their positions and property.  They’re still out there, fifteen centuries later.   As for Cyril’s supporters, drunk with power and their victory, they ran rampant for a decade, even going so far as to threaten the emperor’s sister, Pulcheria.

But when Theodosius died in 450 AD, Pulcheria married a general named Marcian, who convened the council of Chalcedon.  Payback time!  Chalcedon duly used the same technique to purge the extreme Cyrillians, and this led to yet another fifteen centuries of schism.

This distasteful series of events is one reason why the councils after Nicaea are never really taken seriously in the English-speaking world.  It is one reason why Cyril of Alexandria is regarded with distaste.  Nothing about this business has any meaning other than the ambition of a few reckless and greedy people.  The word Θεοτόκος is not scriptural, and if it had been, it was plainly simply a pretext for injuring others.

In English Θεοτόκος is usually rendered as “Mother of God”.  This does not help its case in any way.  The mind instinctively recoils from the idea that God, who is uncreated, has a mother!

But searching the web, I came across something interesting.  Is it possible that this is simply a very bad translation of the idea?

The following remarks (here) made me think:

Theotokos derives from the Greek terms: Theos / ‘God’; and tiktein / ‘to give birth’. Mary is the Theotokos, the one who gave birth to God. This single word sums up the meaning of Luke’s phrase: ‘Mother of the Lord’ (Lk 1:43) and represents a counterpoint to John’s teaching that the ‘Word was made flesh’ (Jn 1:14).

I find in Latin, likewise, Dei genetrix, rather than mater dei.

These may seem like small differences, but there is quite a difference between the idea of “one who gave birth to God” and “mother of God”.  The first merely summarises that Mary was the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God the Son incarnate.  The latter implies that God did not exist before Mary gave birth to him, any more than you or I existed before we were brought into the world.

If so, possibly we should all stop translating Theotokos as “mother of God”.  Whatever it may say in Greek, or may have said at the time, in English it is  a huge obstacle to most people.

One thing is certain, from all this.  The word Theotokos is a terrible word to describe Mary.  By its fruits you shall know it.  It is not biblical.  It can only be used by the logical reasoning of fallible men.  The doctrine is the product of the work of an ambitious fifth century bishop whom none of us like much, and who used it for the most evil purposes possible.  It became part of church dogma through a corrupt council and a process of bribery and corruption.  Let’s get rid of it.

I’ve been feeling guilty for not getting the August post out there from the Chronography of 354.  I have the draft materials on disk, but I do have to do some work, and I have had no time.  At least that is out there.

A correspondent wrote to me and mentioned Petrus Crabbe.  I wondered who he was, and drew a complete blank on a google search.  I located a version of the Franciscan Authors article behind a paywall, and had the sense to google the opening words.  This led me to an old version of their site, which in turn took me to the real thing.

I thought that it would be useful to those who come after if there was a brief Wikipedia article on Petrus Crabbe, so I drafted one.  It was stupid of me, I know, but I was a little curious.  But what a mess Wikipedia has become.  Once you just created the article.  Now you must now jump through endless hoops merely to start typing, and then your “draft” must get “approved” by somebody of unknown talents and learning.   Well, I wrote a few words, but needless to say this was promptly rejected by some uneducated deadbeat as “not notable”.  I don’t propose to waste life negotiating with such people.  But it shows how empty the claim “the encyclopedia that anybody can edit” now is.  If the internet as a whole had required website authors to seek approval before posting, it would not exist.  If Wikipedia had done so when it started, it would not now exist.  Silly people.  Luckily my own blog post (“unreliable source”, scream the muppets) should fill the gap.

These few days are incredibly hot, and it is really impossible to do anything here.  Fortunately I purchased some mobile aircon units a decade ago, and these are holding the heat at bay quite nicely.  Two days ago a venetian blind arrived, and is holding off the white heat of the afternoon sun quite nicely.

I found the plastic bag containing John the Deacon manuscripts on the floor, but I have transferred it to a cupboard.  One day I shall return to this.

I intend to let my old house, which I had to visit a couple of days ago.  Driving back, I passed the new crematorium that appeared a few years ago, down the road, a couple of miles away.  I remember driving past it and thinking rather morbidly that my ashes would most likely be buried there.  Now… clearly they will not.  What we assume is forever is often transitory.  I could never see how I would leave that house.  Yet here I am.

I have a feeling that the Lord has moved me out here, into a village in the countryside, for a reason.  I wonder what He is up to.  But “all things work together for good, for those that love God.”

Yesterday the removal men emptied my old house and brought all the contents to the new.  This included many bags full of books.  My library is not that large, and most of it is novels.  For I usually prefer to have scholarly materials in PDF form.

On seeing the shelves set up to receive them, one of the men said, rather than asked, “You haven’t read all these books, have you.”

I told him that indeed I had, and more than once.  I do not keep books that I will never read again.

He said nothing, but disbelief emanated from him.  Later I heard one of his workmates ask him if he had ever read a book, and he freely admitted that he never had.

So much that we take for granted is not true.  We live, surrounded by a vast number of people for whom the life of the mind is not merely something that they do not participate in, but it is something that they do not even believe in, or believe that anybody else does.  It’s just a way of showing off, or something.

Such people are very many in number, and probably the overwhelming majority of those whom we meet in life.

Are we perhaps the aliens, then?

It’s been a busy couple of weeks.  I’ve been moving house, for the first time in 24 years.  I made the decision less than three weeks ago, the let of the property was only agreed about 10 days ago, and I took possession 5 days ago.  Today they installed an internet connection, which  took most of the day, and means that now I can connect properly to the web once more.

Of course I have had no time to pack, or do anything than the most immediate tasks.  A man in a van transported some basic furniture to the new house.

In fact I have only two books, which happened to be in my bedside cabinet at the moment of impact.  These are my bible, and a copy of Per Beskow’s Strange Tales About Jesus.

This slim volume consists of a series of chapters, each dealing with some specimen of “modern apocrypha”.  The term was coined by E. J. Goodspeed, who published two volumes of the same kind dealing with mainly American examples of the genre.  Beskow is Swedish, and discusses a few more.

Modern apocrypha are pretended books of the bible which were in fact composed in modern times.  Invariably they were composed in English, or the language of the country in which they circulate, for each country has its own stable of these things.  For the most part they are ignored by scholarship.

I’m not going to discuss the modern apocrypha here, however.  I am very tired and merely offering a few idle thoughts.  Concentrating on the frauds and follies of mankind is a narrowing experience anyway.  We are not the intended audience for “Jesus in India” and other such things.

The middle-aged engineer who came to install my broadband proved talkative, and it came out that he was fascinated by ancient Egypt and longed to travel there.  “I wish I had travelled more when I was younger,” he said.  He knew very little, but I found genuine enthusiasm.  He had been ensnared a bit by “how could the Egyptians have built the pyramids” stuff.  Of course I didn’t rain on his parade: only an oaf would have tried to correct his mistakes.  Instead I nodded along.

It is so important that we never crush the budding enthusiasm of others.  It can be hard to tell where the balance lies.  In person his sincerity was obvious.  Online, it might be mistaken for wrongheadedness.

Over the next month I hope to get my books over here, and get things set up.  It is very much quieter here, and such a blessing.  God leads us into things, and it seems that a new season is underway in my life too.

I’ll get blogging again once things settle down.