Category: Announcements

General announcements

Orbis terrarum – the world in medieval chant

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Last night I was reading psalm 98.  Inevitably I picked up a parallel Latin-English psalter, and read it again in Latin.  In the Vulgate it’s psalm 97, of course.

One thing that I noticed was that “orbis terrarum” was the phrase used to mean “the world.”  Literally this means “the orb/circle/sphere of the earth.”  It’s a common Latin usage, which appears in Augustus, Res Gestae, Pliny the Elder, and indeed in Augustine.

But, because it was in the psalms, every monk from ancient times onwards must have chanted this regularly and memorised it.

Ps 98/97 in the Vulgate and Douai-Reims translation

It’s an interesting thought.

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New Website: The Original Douay-Rheims Bible

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Here’s something splendid – a website named Original Douay Rheims, created by a student devoted to putting online the original Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate bible!  It’s great to see ordinary people doing this on the web.  The link is here:

https://originaldouayrheims.com/home

The site is in progress, but there is already a lot there.

The site owner does not give his name, and asks for people to work with him, who are happy to do so anonymously.  What a wonderful thing to do.

Start of Psalm 97

A few words about the Douai-Reims version (DRV) may be in order.

The DRV is a translation of the Latin Vulgate bible, made around 1600 by exiled Catholics from England at the college in Douai (or Douay, as it was then spelled).  They were all actually based in Reims (Rheims) at the time when they did the New Testament, hence the name.  They used Coverdale’s version as a basis, but revised it to give a very literal translation of the Latin, to the extent of introducing latinate words.

Ownership of the DRV was a criminal offence for a century.  But it still became widely known, thanks to a protestant refutation, that printed the whole thing in a parallel column with the text of the Great Bible, in order to “demonstrate how unreliable it is”!  This was perfectly legal, and inevitably sold very well.  The translators of the King James Bible were certainly aware of it, as they were of other versions, and were influenced by some of its better translation choices.

A century and a half later, between 1749 and 1777, the DRV was revised by a Bishop Challoner, who brought the text more into line with the KJV.  This version is the “Douai Reims” that is most commonly encountered.  This revision is the text that is commonly found online, whereas the Original Douay Rheims site has the pre-Challoner text.

Prior to the internet, few people ever saw any version of the Douai-Reims.  But it is now freely accessible on sites such as Bible Gateway.  Such sites – which, alas, grow more commercial every day – can display the Vulgate and the Douai in parallel columns.

Bible Gateway parallel text

Many people also suppose that the DRV is the only translation of the Vulgate.  But this is not so.  Apparently the Ronald Knox translation is also from the Vulgate?  This Catholic Bible site allows you to have a three column view.

It is curious to notice how the same word is translated differently.  Why is “psallite” not rendered the same in vv4-5?

Anyway, it’s all useful to know about, and one of the blessings of the internet.

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An interesting problem – AI and Marius Mercator? … or not?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Here’s a pretty question, sent in by email.  I imagine that more such letters are in my future, but I am really not sure what to do with them.

I thought I would drop you a little note to let you know about a project that I have recently uploaded. This is my first attempt at using ChatGPT to translate a Latin text that I have been wanting to read for many years. It is Marius Mercator’s “Commonitorium de Coelestio”/”Commonitorium super nomine Cælestii”. I, of course, do not know Latin but I am familiar enough with Pelagianism (having studied it intensely for several years) to know what to expect and from that perspective the output text was pretty much what I expected. To my knowledge this has never been available in English before. I have put it up on the Patristics In English website here:

https://www.seanmultimedia.com/Pie_Marius_Mercator_Memo_On_Coelestius_With_Latin_Text.html

I am not sure of the value of AI translations. On one hand I feel like I was able to get a good understanding of a text that I had wanted to read for many years. On the other, one is left to wonder how accurate they are. At any rate, unless people come after me with pitchforks and torches like Frankenstein’s monster after reading it, I would like to do more translations like this on Pelagianism. Maybe Pope Zosimus will be next.

A translation of Marius Mercator would be very valuable to have.

But … this is an AI output.  Is it valuable?

Well, in some ways, yes.  The Latin text has been put online, and the author has run it through ChatGPT which saves us all from having to do the same in order to get an idea of what it says.  He’s given it a read to check that the ideas of Pelagianism are actually there, which is a bonus.  Surely this is better, far better, than nothing?

But in other ways, no.  AI is not a translator.  It’s a search engine with a chatbot on the front, turning the search results into something plausible.  It can often produce excellent readable translations of a passage.  It can also generate material which isn’t in the source at all.  AI is a good tool, to reduce the amount of effort needed to produce a first draft of a translation.  But every word and every sentence needs to be checked, compared against the original, in order to produce a reliable translation.  The unwary reader will suppose that the AI output is a translation, when it is not.

What on earth do we make of this?

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Peter Chrysologus on the Kalends of January

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Until this evening I had never read a word about St. Peter Chrysologus.  He was bishop of Ravenna between 433 and 450, when the western imperial court was based there, and died young.  His fame rests on a collection of short, effective sermons that he preached, of which something less than 200 survive.  The sermons have been translated in the Fathers of the Church series; the first volume (FOC 17) was titled “selected sermons”, but two more volumes (FOC 109, 110) appeared which translated all the other genuine sermons.  In the editions there are sermons like 155, 155bis, and 155ter; the FOC editors sensibly went with 155, 155a and 155b.

Sermon 155a (bis) was published under the name of Severian of Gabala, Homilia de Pythonibus et Maleficis, printed in the Patrologia Graeca 65, col.27, and its true author only established in modern times.  It was under the name of Severian that I today encountered a portion of the text, and was led to investigate further.

So what is the sermon about?  Much the same as sermon 155, on the same subject: the public celebrations of the new year in Ravenna by the half-pagan populace.

In Ravenna on January 1 and January 3, there was a parade of people dressed up as pagan deities and animals, in what was called the pompa circensis, marking both public games (ludi compitales) and the inauguration of civic magistrates (nuncupatio votorum).  Some members of the congregation took part, and protested that such activity was just harmless amusement, a “ludus” or a “jocus”.  But Chrysologus rightly saw this as a pagan survival.[1]

Here is part of what he says about this, in sermon 155a (bis):

The days are now coming, the days that mark the new year [kalendis ianuariis] are coming, and the demons arrive with all their pomp, a full-fledged workshop of idols is set up, and the new year is consecrated with age-old sacrilege.

They fashion Saturn, they make Jupiter, they form Hercules, they exhibit Diana with her young servants, they lead Vulcan around roaring out tales of his obscenities, and there are even more, whose names must be left unmentioned, since they are hideous monsters; since nature does not produce such deformities, nor does creation have any knowledge of them, art takes great pains to mold them.

Moreover, human beings are dressed as beasts, they turn men into women, violate honor, mock good judgment, deride public criticism, ridicule the world with the world as their witness, and say that they are doing these things for amusement.

These are no amusements [ioca], no, they are not; they are sins [crimina]. A human being is changed into an idol; and if it is a sin to go to idols, what do you think it is to be an idol? …

Clearly you may not have altogether intended it this way, but on the whole this is how God judges the matter: namely, that you are the reason for the continuation and present-day survival of the obscenity that characterized the centuries that were under the sway of those whose cult is perishing day by day.

Indeed, there is not enough charcoal that can blacken the faces of such gods; and so that their appearance may reach the level of utter and complete terror, straw, skins, rags, and dung are procured from all over the world, and anything connected with human shame is put on their face. Among gods like these the one who is thought to be more magnificent is the one found to be more obscene among the obscene; and the one who is considered the most magnificent of all is the one who can make monsters themselves marvel at his being so uniquely deformed. …

In short, I beseech you, in the midst of evils cease doing evil. Believe me, believe me, I tell you, they would fade away to nothing if fake Christians were not going over to them.

Have a happy (and innocent) new year!

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  1. [1]See R. Arbesmann, “The ‘Cervuli’ and ‘Anniculae’ in Caesarius of Arles,” Traditio 35 (1979): 111–13.  JSTOR.↩

Augustine’s “Enarrationes in Psalmos”, on Ps. 97/96:5 in the Vulgate – “terrae” or “terra” once more?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Augustine frequently preached sermons on the psalms until his later years, after 415, when he preferred to dictate treatises.  Indeed he mentions doing so in his letter to Evodius (lett. 169).  The result was a ramshackle mass of psalm-related material.  None of this has reached us independently, but instead it was organised into “decades”, probably by his own secretaries and scriptorium in Hippo, and transmitted in large chunks.  The title “Enarrationes in Psalmos” is not ancient either, but was coined by Erasmus.  This information I draw from the fascinating and illuminating English-language introduction to CSEL 94, part 2 – Enarrationes in Psalmos 61-70, by Hildegund Müller.

Naturally this included a discussion of Psalm 97 (in the Hebrew and KJV) / 96 (LXX and Latin). In the Latin, verse 5 reads:

Montes sicut cera fluxerunt a facie Domini; a facie Domini omnis terrae.

The mountains melted like wax, at the presence of the Lord: at the presence of the Lord of all the earth.

but quite a few versions of the text read:

a facie Domini omnis terra.

and all the earth at his presence.

I talked about this in my last post, which provoked many interesting comments.  It seems that “omnis terrae” reflects the LXX Greek correctly, and indeed the Hebrew original, although the Latin is a translation of the LXX.

Here is the relevant section of Augustine.  The repetition of the verse tells us at once that this is expository preaching.

Montes fluxerunt sicut cera a facie Domini.

Qui sunt montes? Superbi. Omnis altitudo extollens se adversus Deum, factis Christi et Christianorum contremuit, succubuit, et quando dico quod dictum est, Fluxit, melius verbum inveniri non potest. Montes fluxerunt velut cera a facie Domini.

Ubi est altitudo potestatum? ubi duritia infidelium? Montes fluxerunt sicut cera a facie Domini. Ignis eis fuit Dominus, illi ante faciem eius sicut cera fluxerunt; tamdiu duri, donec ignis ille admoveretur. Complanata est omnis altitudo; modo blasphemare Christum non audet: et paganus non in eum credit, non eum tamen blasphemat; etsi nondum factus est vivus lapis, tamen victus est durus mons.

Montes fluxerunt sicut cera a facie Domini, a facie Domini omnis terrae: non Judaeorum tantum, sed et Gentium, sicut dicit Apostolus [Rom. III, 29]; non enim est Judaeorum tantum Deus, sed et Gentium. Dominus ergo universae terrae, Dominus Jesus Christus in Judaea natus, sed non Iudaeae tantum natus: quia et antequam natus omnes fecit; et qui omnes fecit, omnes refecit. A facie Domini omnis terrae.[1]

9. The mountains melted away like wax from the presence of the Lord.

Who are the mountains? The proud. Every high thing that exalts itself against God [16] shuddered at the deeds wrought by Christ and by Christians, and sank down. If I say this in the same words that the psalm used, it is because no better expression could be found: the mountains melted away like wax from the presence of the Lord.

What has become of those towering authorities? Where now is the rock like obstinacy of the unbelievers? The mountains melted away like wax from the presence of the Lord. The Lord came to them as fire, and they melted in his presence like wax; they were hard only until the fire was applied to them. Every hill has been levelled, and dare not blaspheme Christ nowadays. A pagan may not believe in him, but dare not blaspheme him. Even if such a person has not yet become a living stone, at least the stony mountain he or she once was has been brought low.

The mountains melted away like wax from the presence of the Lord, from the presence of the Lord of all the earth.[17] He is Lord not of the Jews alone, but of the Gentiles too; for God is God not only of Jews but also of Gentiles, as the apostle teaches.[18] As Lord of the whole earth the Lord Jesus Christ was born in Judea, but born not for Judea alone, because even before his birth he made us all, and he who made all has remade all. From the presence of the Lord of all the earth.[2]

The Latin here is the Migne edition, Patrologia Latina 37, col. 1243.  This reprints the 18th century Maurist edition.  The English is from the New City Press translation, which actually (and correctly) signals the alternative reading and translates it.

The Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 39, pp.1360-1, also has “terrae”.  But this is not a critical edition, but also a descendant of the Maurist edition.

In fact, at this moment, there does not seem to be a critical edition of this portion of the Enarrationes.  Over the last decade,the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL) series have been producing volumes of a critical edition – the first ever -, as CSEL 93, 94 and 95.  But I could not see that the relevant volume has appeared.  (Why are publishers’ websites so universally dreadful at listing series?)

The biblical text of the Psalms used by Augustine differs significantly from the Vulgate “Gallican” Psalter, or so Müller states (p.32 f.).  This is the Latin translation of the LXX by Jerome, who also made a translation direct from the Hebrew.  The fact is that Augustine was using the Vetus Latina, the Old Latin version of the psalms, familiar to his audience.

The closest parallel text, to that used by Augustine, is found in the Verona Psalter, a bi-lingual Greek and Latin manuscript of the 6th century, in uncials, apparently written in northern Italy.  This has the shelfmark: “Verona, Chapter Library I (1), but sadly it is offline.  More details of this Psalterium Veronensis can be found in R. Weber, Le Psautier romain et les auttres anciens psautiers latins, Rome (1953) p.x-xi.  From this I learn that a transcription was published by J. Bianchini in 1740 in Rome under the title of Vindiciae canonicarum Scripturarum Vulgatae Latinae editionis.  This is online here at the Internet Archive, but – caveat lector – the reader is warned that page 1 is preceded by 456 pages of “introduction”.

Our portion is on p.170 (p.626 of the PDF).  The Greek text, on the left, is given in Roman letters.

And here we see… “terra”.

In the Stuttgart Vulgate (5th ed., p.892), we find “terrae”, but a footnote “terra” in MSS “SKΦc”.  In vol. 2 of Sabatier’s edition of the Old Latin, p.192, he gives a “versio antiqua”, i.e. before Jerome, from a ms., with “terra” and a “Vulgata hodierna”, as Jerome’s translation of the LXX, also “terra”.  Only the version from the Hebrew is “terrae”.

So, is “terra” a Vetus Latina reading, straightened out by St Jerome, but persisting through liturgical usage?  In my state of ignorance, it seems like it might be.

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  1. [1]Taken from this site, which professes to offer the Migne text: PL 36, 67-1026; PL 37, 1033-1966; this portion PL 37, col. 1243.↩
  2. [2]St Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, volume 4, p.446. Series: The Works of St Augustine. A Translation for the 21st Century, Part III – Books; volume 18: Expositions of the Psalms 73-98. New City Press (2002)↩

Ps. 97/96:5 in the Vulgate – “terrae” or “terra”?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

On Sunday night I settled down with my bible to read psalm 97 in an English version.  But having done so, I remembered that I had given myself a parallel Latin-English book of psalms, as a Christmas present.  Other versions are around, but this is the Philip Magnus White, Psalms and Canticles: Latin and English Psalms and Canticles for Recitation (2019) (Amazon).  This gives the Vulgate Latin text and the Douai-Rheims English translation of it.

Anyway I got the volume out.  Pleasingly it’s about the length and width of a normal bible, although much slimmer, and the text is a reasonable size.

Of course in the Latin, this is psalm 96.  So I read the Latin, and tried to understand each phrase, and then checked against the parallel English.  But then I came to verse 5:

Montes sicut cera fluxerunt a facie Domini; a facie Domini omnis terra.

The mountains melted like wax, at the presence of the Lord: at the presence of the Lord of all the earth.

How interesting to see “facie Domini”, the face of the Lord, rendered as “presence of the Lord.”  It’s all useful stuff, when dealing with medieval Latin, much of which is Vulgate fan-fiction.  Reading the Vulgate Psalms is a great way to improve your medieval Latin, and fun to do.

But then I looked at the last words, “omnis terra”.  This… looks wrong.  “Omnis” is the genitive adjective, but “terra” is nominative.  It ought to be “omnis terrae.”

I googled “omnis terra” and “omnis terrae”, and quickly found hits for both.  Some online Vulgates have the one, some the other.  Which is right?  Is there some funny usage unknown to me?

I went to Weber’s Biblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, the Stuttgart critical edition.  Interestingly this prints the psalms in facing pages, one with the Latin translation of the LXX, the other with the Latin translation of the Hebrew.  And…. “terrae” is the reading printed.

The apparatus indicates that some of the medieval codices have “terra”.  It’s easy to see why, once you’ve worked with medieval Latin copies of texts.  These invariably engage in the evil practice of abbreviation, which means that “ae” would be written as an “a” with a curly stroke springing from the top right.  Of course such strokes are easily omitted.  Thus does “terrae” become “terra”.

The previous verse may explain the mistake.

Illuxerunt fulgura ejus orbi terrae; vidit, et commota est terra.

His lightnings have shone forth to the world: the earth saw and trembled.

The line does actually end with “terra”.  The copyist’s eye could easily mistake the last word on the line above for the word on the current line.  The same might be true when somebody today is transcribing a Latin text.

So… it’s a simple error.  Which has made its way online.  Bible Gateway have the error; others have the correct reading.

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The Megiddo Mosaic

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.  A social media post drew my attention to this article in The Sun:

AN ANCIENT mosaic with the inscription “God Jesus Christ” is being dubbed the greatest find since the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The massive discovery “confirms” Jesus’ divinity about a hundred years before the Council of Nicea – fundamentally changing our knowledge of early Christianity.

I confess that I thought that this had to be a hoax.  The pictures did not reassure me.  But it seems that it is not.  The mosaic in question was discovered in 2005, and a preliminary publication was made in Y. Tepper, L. Di Segni, Leah, with contribution by Guy Stiebel, “A Christian Prayer Hall of the Third Century CE at Kefar ‘Othnay (Legio): Excavations at the Megiddo Prison.”  Israel Antiquities Authority, (2005).  This is online here.

and does indeed have such a text on it.  According to this rather more sensible site, the mosaic dates to 230.

The reason that the story has appeared is that the mosaic has been lent recently to the Museum of the Bible in Washington, and material about it appears on the website here, complete with photographs of the inscriptions.  These highlight various words, but not, curiously, the “God Jesus Christ” stuff.

The inscriptions mention the man who commissioned the inscription: Gaianus, also called Porphyrius, centurion, our brother, has made the mosaic at his own expense as an act of generosity.  Also named is Brutius the workman who did the actual work, a woman who paid for the table in the centre of the room, and four other women.

The so-called “Akeptous inscription” is the one in which we are interested.

Προσήνικεν
Ἁκεπτοῦς
ἡ φιλόθεος
τὴν τράπε-
ζαν Θ(ε)ῷ Ἰ(ησο)ῦ Χ(ριστ)ῷ
μνημόυνον.

“The god-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.”

This image comes from the Museum of the Bible website and highlights the word “Akeptous”.

Much more interesting is the abbreviated words on the last line but one:

….  ΘΩ  ΙΥ  ΧΩ

= Theō Jesou Christō

Greek inscriptions are not my thing.  So I was rather grateful to find an article online by Christopher Rollston, “A Stunning Trio of Early Christian (3rd century) Inscriptions from Biblical Armageddon: ‘God Jesus Christ,’ Five Prominent Named Women, a Named Centurion, a Eucharist Table, and Two Fish” which examines in detail and transcribes exactly all the inscriptions.  It is very dry, as it should be, but excellent and very useful.

I’d like to end with a linguistic query.  “Ἁκεπτοῦς” looks to me like a 3rd declension genitive.  My Greek is sufficiently feeble that I cannot see what the nominative would be.  Would anybody like to comment on this, and the syntax of the sentence?

Some bits are clear enough:

Προσήνικεν (3rd Aorist active, it was set up) … Ἁκεπτοῦς … ἡ φιλόθεος (nominative singular feminine, the god-loving) … τὴν τράπεζαν (accusative singular feminine, direct object, “the table”) ….  Θεῷ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ (dative singular masculine, “to God Jesus Christ”) … μνημόυνον (accusative singular, the second accusative, “as a memorial”).

But can Ἁκεπτοῦς be a nominative female name?

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“Galenalia” – A Fake Roman Holiday

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Today I came across a troll offering the following curious claims:

St Valentines – was Galenalia in the pre Christian time and Lupercalia in the Pagan Calendar and Easter – was the first festival of the Pagan year celebrating renewal or rebirth celebrating the god of fertility – Ostara, and for a bonus point – Christmas – was Saturnalia

Of course the author neither knew nor cared whether any of this was true.

But what on earth is “Galenalia”?  Well, I did what any modern would do, and Googled.  I got this sparkling bit of AI output:

Galenalia was a pagan festival that celebrated Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and trade. It was celebrated by the Celts after the midwinter festival of Imbolc. The festival was centered on the idea that being single is better than being with someone who is not a good fit.
Some of the ways women celebrated Galenalia included:

  • Leaving home for weeks at a time
  • Traveling with other women
  • Gathering the animal pelts of their boyfriends
  • Setting the pelts on fire
  • Eating winter squashes and root vegetables
  • Placing flowers on the graves of former lovers

In the 5th century, Pope Gelasius I combined the traditions of Galenalia with other holidays to create Valentine’s Day. The pope used the Roman love lottery, where men would draw the name of a Christian saint and live a year expressing that saint’s beliefs. Over time, Valentine’s Day became a holiday to celebrate love.

Thankfully Google now references this generated drivel to the source websites, which turned out to be:

Plus an entirely irrelevant link – hey, this is AI – to an NPR article.

The first of these links appears to be the real source and … it is a satire site, subtitled “Daily Humor since 1998”.

The Pagan Origins of Valentine’s Day – By Kathryn Doyle

Chocolates. Wine. Romance. These are common elements of modern Valentine’s Day, but they’re a far cry from the holiday’s origins more than 2,000 years ago, when the holiday was first marked as a festival of breaking up with long-term boyfriends.

What we know as Valentine’s Day was celebrated by ancient pagans after the midwinter festival of Imbolc. The “Galenalia” festival was dedicated to Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom, trade, and recognizing that being single is better than staying with a dead-end guy.

The worst of the winter had passed and women no longer needed to rely on a man as a source of life-saving body heat at night. Mothers and daughters would gather their boyfriends’ animal pelts, set them on fire, and feast on winter squashes and root vegetables until the fires burned out.

Thanks to the writings of Catullus and other Latin poets of the late Roman Republic, we know that women would celebrate Galenalia by leaving their homes for weeks at a time, traveling together on “gal-cations,” apparent sojourns in search of spiritual renewal following the death of old relationships. To the north, Iron Age Celts placed bouquets of flowers on the graves of sacrificed boyfriends.

In the 4th Century A.D., right when Christianity was starting to heat up, Pope Julius I sought to establish a new holy day to memorialize not one but several saints named Valentinus who were all brutally martyred in different, inspiring ways. He wisely chose to adopt and absorb the traditions of Galenalia as part of the new feast day, assigned to February 14th on the Julian calendar. This resulted in the short-lived transition holiday “Minervalentines’s Day” which became “Galentine’s Day” which became the “Valentine’s Day” of modern parlance.

Valentine’s Day was popularly embraced, but over the years church leaders worked to change the focus from pagan breakup customs. They downplayed dumping or sacrificing boyfriends, especially by the Middle Ages when the crusades were becoming a real PR fiasco. Instead, religious tracts encouraged women to “get back out there, mingle, not look for anything serious, necessarily, but be open to having fun.”

In later years, breaking up with boyfriends would actually be condemned as heresy, which historians attribute to the church’s desire to propagate as much as possible in the face of massive plague-related personnel losses.

You would have thought that joke was fairly obvious, but evidently not.

Just for safety’s sake, I did take the time to look at the RealEncyclopädie 13 / Bd. VII.1 (Fornax-Glykon), col. 576 (p.146 of the PDF that goes around).  Needless to say there was no entry.  The nearest was a poetic epithet “Galenaia”, applied to deities to whom sailors pray for a smooth voyage.

It’s a hoax, people.

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Review: Saints of Ethiopia – An English Translation from Scriptorium Press

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Scriptorium Press is a new publisher, and offers a growing series of English translations of hagiographical texts.  Most of these are from the Greek.  All of them seem intended for use by the educated general reader with an interest in the lives of the saints.

An interesting volume is their Saints of Ethiopia (140 pages, C$16).  ISBN 9798300901172. This is an anthology of texts which throw light upon the origins of the Ethiopian church.  This is a welcome attempt to make this little-known area of orthodox life more accessible.

Not everything in it is newly translated.  The editors do not seem to know Ge`ez, and so they have done their best with whatever they could translate.

The volume contains translations of the following texts, which are translated from the following sources.

  • On the Captivity of Frumentius (from Rufinus, Church History, book 1, c. 9; PL 21: 478-480)
  • The Life of Saint Moses the Ethiopian (from Palladius, The Lausiac History, c. 22; PG34:1063-70)
  • The Sayings of Abba Moses (from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers/Apophthegmata Patrum – Alphabetical Collection; PG 65:281-9)
  • The Life of Saint Pantaleon the Recluse (CSCO 26, Scriptores Aethiopici 17, 39-56)
  • The Martyrdom of Saint Arethas (in 9 chapters; BHG 166-166b; Anecdota Graeca 5 , Paris (1883), p.1-62.)
  • The Life of Saint Jared the Melodist (CSCO 26, 3-21).
  • The Cannibal of Kemer.

The first of these tells the story of how Christianity came to Ethiopia, and is therefore an excellent introduction to the rest.  The next two, about Moses the Black, relate to life in Egypt, but are probably an inevitable inclusion.

The remaining texts will be less familiar.  The Life of Saint Pantaleon is a 15th century Ge`ez text, for which a reader must otherwise consult the modern Latin translation of Rossini.

The Martyrdom of Saint Arethas and his companions – the martyrs of Najran, ca. 523 AD – is a Greek text.  It records the war of the Christian Ethiopians against the Jewish Himiyarite king responsible.  It makes use of earlier texts extant in Syriac, and makes a very welcome addition to the literature for this period.

The Life of Saint Jared (or Yared) the Melodist is a Ge`ez text of unknown date – the saint is 6th century -, but considerable length.  It is a very useful thing to have.  The editors have perforce abbreviated it, and they have included E. Wallis Budge’s translation of the corresponding portion of the Ethiopian Synaxarion.  This interesting figure seems to have begun the musical tradition of the Ethiopian church, and created a system of musical notation.

The Cannibal of Kemer is an extract from the Book of the Miracles of Our Lady Mary.  This is an Ethiopian translation of an 11th century Coptic text.  The version given here is that of Budge, somewhat modernised, rather than a new translation.

The translation style is perfectly good and clear.  It is sometimes a little stiff – “Jared sojourned in Aksum” is perhaps not a phrase found in current use – but probably from following the text particularly closely.  Anybody who has had to work with dictionaries will know that the need for an exact equivalent often has this effect, where an older English had a word, but modern English does not.  It’s probably right to stick with the older word.

For some of the texts, the footnotes are extensive, and very useful to the general reader.  Few of us will be familiar with any of the context, after all.  These are admirably done, identifying unfamiliar people and places, and referring to other texts.  For others the notes are fewer – the Life of Pantaleon is much more annotated than the Life of Jared, for instance.  But I do not think this will trouble the reader.

Something that is missing in the book is running titles.  This is consistent with the style of the series, but in an anthology, it makes it harder to find particular texts.  I suspect that copies of the book will get corners folded down, or sprout postits, at the start of each text.

The 23 page introduction assumes no knowledge of the origins of the Ethiopian church, and therefore stands as a useful primer for newcomers.  The statements made are all carefully referenced, and so, in a short space, it gives a vast amount of useful information.

As in other volumes, the short bibliography is at the back.  At the front there are two nice and very necessary maps of the region, and of the location of important Ethiopian monasteries.

All in all this volume is a success.  It gives us texts in English that we did not have before.  It collects useful material.  May it sell well and bring knowledge of Ethiopia to many.

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