Category: Announcements

General announcements

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve not written any blog posts for a while, but this is because I have been working seriously on the QuickLatin code base.  The successes and failures of that effort are not of interest to others really.

One thing that I have done is to write a couple of web pages on my pages at Tertullian.org on working with legacy Ada code.  Ada is a very minority interest, and even basic things cannot be found by a Google search.  So I have written up a couple of discoveries.  It is always useful to do so.  Such bits of random information can have quite a long useful life.  For instance I was slightly bemused this evening to find that one of the most popular pages at Tertullian.org this week is a long-forgotten page on how to run the long obsolete Visual Basic 6 on Windows 10.

Microsoft do treat their developers badly.  Code written using their tools simply ceases to work after an upgrade or two.  Backward compatibility is never taken seriously.  This I have long known. I remember, years ago, writing some fairly elementary Microsoft C.  I then left it for a few years, and, when I came back to it, it did not even compile with the newer compiler.  But this fact has struck me again in the last week.

Meanwhile, the days are long and the heat is increasing.  It feels wrong, somehow, to sit at the computer all day.  As the cafes reopen, I intend to visit some of them.

A week ago my neighbour of ten years moved out .  He is to be replaced by someone new.  First signs are not encouraging.  But encouraging or not, the task of adapting to someone new, and their habits and noise and nuisance, will have to be undertaken.   I never liked this feeling of intrusion into my safe space, even in the days when I spent my weeks in hotels and naturally had random strangers in adjoining rooms.   How many of us like unwanted change?  Few, I would guess.  Yet change is the only certainty in life.  If only we all had country estates, with wide parkland around!  Yet even then, at breakfast the butler would surely bring us the news that our favourite footman was to leave, that there was blight in the oaks, flooding in the meadows, a leak in the roof, and so forth.  Change is inevitable, even if our capacity to cope with it varies.  I shall have to take time to adjust.

Meanwhile the disruption of all our lives, caused by Covid-19, grinds away at us all, 24/7. We’re all going about our business, but we do so as if we’re carrying a sack of rocks everywhere. Even little things like masks wear away at our energy. I try to remind myself that I am not able to give 100% with all this going on. That it is important not to try. That busy people risk burn-out. That I need to allow for the strain, to schedule downtime, to consciously offload, to ask “is this chore really essential right now?” To breathe, to drift, to accept that it’s ok to do less or nothing right now, and defer stuff to better days.

Anyway, it’s summer.  Shouldn’t we all try to get outdoors before the days draw in?  Of course we should!

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Online and downloadable: the 5th century Oxford manuscript of Jerome

Posted on by Roger Pearse

We take for granted so much these days.  The web has transformed the life of the researcher.  But sometimes we see something and we just marvel; because we remember how things once were, only a few years ago.

Long ago, maybe almost twenty years ago, I led a collaborative project online to translate the Chronicle of Jerome.  The work ends with the disaster of Adrianople in 378, and was written a year later, when everything was still in confusion.

We worked from a printed Latin text, which I scanned and placed online in a custom editor.

But it became clear, during the project, that the original work was colour coded.  Headings and columns were put in red.  There seemed no reason for our online edition not to show those colours.  But the printed text did not report this information.

Even then, the possibilities of online access were clear to some.  The Bodleian Library had a few manuscripts online, which was very unusual.  So we had access to a 9th century manuscript at Merton College Oxford.  But this was four colour, while Jerome’s preface only mentioned two.

However, at Oxford, in the Bodleian Library, there is a manuscript written around 450 AD.  It was written within a couple of decades of Jerome’s death, which is quite amazing.  The shelfmark is Ms. Auct. T. 2. 26.  As it happens, I have a reader’s card for the Bodleian, thanks to my student days.  So without much hope, in much  fear and trembling, I wrote to them and asked if I might examine it.

A gracious reply was forthcoming.  So soon after, I printed out the draft translation on paper, took my pencils, and drove to Oxford.  There I was received kindly in Duke Humphries Library, and the volume was brought out.  The librarian actually said that they were glad of an opportunity to bring it out of the vault.  And there I sat, little old me, marking up the print-out with the colours from a manuscript that had known the days of imperial Rome.

I had already laid out the complicated text in HTML, and I had made mistakes along the way.  I was amused, as I worked through the manuscript, to discover that the scribe had evidently made some of the same mistakes.  You always tended to write the year numbers first; and sometimes you kept writing them too long.  His erasures made clear that he had done the same.

At the time I had no real idea of just how valuable this item was, or how decent the librarians were being in letting a random chap rock up and handle it.   It is probably priceless.  It is an actual ancient book, written when there was still a western Roman emperor on the throne in Rome.  The first hundred pages are modern, relatively – 15th century, replacing lost original pages.  But then the stiff old parchment appears of the old book.  The book also contains the only copy of the Chronicle of Marcellinus, which is a continuation of Jerome.

These memories came back to me today when I discovered that, at the Digital Bodleian site, the whole manuscript is online, and can be downloaded in full colour in PDF form.  The permalink to the manuscript is https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/71e1863f-9c42-4461-b948-393cd976765a/.  In fact I had a problem with the download, and the Digital Bodleian staff quickly fixed it (thanks Tim!).

Here is part of a random page (f.110v).  The left hand numbers are the years of the ruler “of the Romans”, the right hand “of the Jews”.  Tiberius appears, and the regnal years reset to 1.  The Olympiad is shown also.  The work is in columns on two pages, but this is the left side.

Bodleian Library MS. Auct. T.2.26, Jerome’s Chronicle, f110v (top)

I can say, from my own memory, just how amazing this is.  When I remember, less than twenty years ago, that access to this volume was basically impossible.  Nobody ever saw it.  But now… anybody can consult it, anywhere in the world.

It is hard to find words to say just how wonderful this is, and how overwhelming it feels, to see the PDF appear on my PC.  Unbelievable; and so very, very marvellous.

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A quotation from Augustine: “God doesn’t love you as you are; he hates you as you are.”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A tweet this evening:

God doesn’t love you as you are; he hates you as you are.

~Augustine

“You must be born again.”

But is it from Augustine?

In fact it is taken from M. C. Hollingworth, “Grace, confession, and the Pilgrim City: the political significance of St.Augustine of Hippo’s creation narratives”, Durham University thesis (2008), vol. 2, p.225, n.22, which is online here, but I will quote because such things vanish:

22 … Cf. Serm., IX, 9: ‘[God] doesn’t love you as you are, He hates you as you are. That’s why He is sorry for you, because He hates you as you are, and wants to make you as you are not yet., This thinking is presumably the background to Augustine’s exegesis of Matthew 7: 3-5, which features in a number of places in his writings.

Dr H. tells us that this is his own translation.

But of course we all want to check!  Augustine is a voluminous writer, so something just called “Sermons” tends to make the heart sink.  The bibliographical information refers to the Città Nuova collected edition of his works (contents here), to which nobody has access.  (I wonder whether Italians have collections of PDFs of these things?  I bet they do!)

Fortunately “Sermones” is listed in the Clavis Patrum Latinorum, as item 284, referencing the Patrologia Latina vols. 38 and 39.  And so when we look at the PL38, column 82, we find sermon 9, chapter 8, and the words:

Placeat tibi Deus qualis est, ama qualis est: non te ipse amat qualis es, sed odit te qualis es.

Which is our source.  The Latin for the whole sermon is online at The Latin LIbrary here.

Rather to my surprise, I find that I have on disk a copy of the English translation of this sermon, made by the “New City Press”, as part of their series, The Works of Saint Augustine: A translation for the 21st Century.  This volume has the title: Sermons, (1-19) on the Old Testament. Volume III/1. It was translated from the Italian edition above by Edmund Hill, OP, and appeared in 1990.  The sermon is entitled “Discourse on the ten strings of the harp”, preached in 420.  The division of the chapters presumably also from the Citta Nuova edition, and disagrees with the PL text.  Here is a chunk of it, talking about “Put off the old man and put on the new man”.  Page 267:

Such people are often tripped by thoughts like this, and they say to themselves, “If it were possible to do this, God would not be threatening us, he would not say all those things through the prophets to discourage people, but he would have come to be indulgent to everybody and pardon everybody, and after he came he wouldn’t send anyone to hell.” Now because he is unjust he wants to make God unjust too. God wants to make you like him, and you are trying to make God like you. Be satisfied with God as he is, not as you would like him to be. You are all twisted, and you want God to be like what you are, not like what he is. But if you are satisfied with him as he is, then you will correct yourself and align your heart along that straight rule from which you are now all warped and twisted. Be satisfied with God as he is, love him as he is.

He doesn’t love you as you are, he hates you as you are. That’s why he is sorry for you, because he hates you as you are, and wants to make you as you are not yet. Let him make you, I said, the sort of person you are not yet. What he did not promise you, you know, is to make you what he is. Oh yes, you shall be what he is, after a fashion, that is to say, an imitator of God like an image, but not the kind of image that the son is. After all there are different kinds of images even among men. A man’s son bears the image of his father, and is what his father is, because he is a man like his father. But your image in a mirror is not what you are. Your image is in your son in one way, in quite a different way in the mirror. Your image is in your son by way of equality of nature, but in the mirror how far it is from your nature! And yet it is a kind of image of you, though not like the one in your son which is identical in nature.

So the quotation is indeed authentic.

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Translations of Mozarabic texts at Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A kind correspondent has drawn my attention to a website with new translations of Mozarabic texts – Latin texts from Islamic Spain, written by a certain Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, an Iraqi living in Great Britain.  The Latin text used is that contained in Juan Gil’s Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum.  The site also translates a few brief late antique chronicles.  The items can be found here: https://www.aymennjawad.org/articles/

I don’t know a thing about texts of this period and area, so I will quote:

At some point, [the author] started translating various Mozarabic texts, such as those by St. Eulogius of Cordoba about the Cordoban martyrs, and all the weirdness with Bishop Elipandus of Toledo (the guy who did a good job against the weird Davidic heresy of Migetius, but espoused his own version of Adoptionism; and then got snitty when called out by Beatus of Liebana and others).

Most of the items at the website are concerned with present day Jihadism – of no interest to us – but it is really useful to have this Mozarabic material.

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Eusebius, Letter to Constantia – an English translation by Cyril Mango

Posted on by Roger Pearse

It’s always a shock to realise that some important early Christian text has never been translated; or, at least, is inaccessible online.  Such was myi feeling on seeing a quotation from the letter of Eusebius of Caesarea to Constantia, sister of the emperor Constantine the Great.  The quotation was:

To depict purely the human form of Christ before its transformation is to break the commandment of God and to fall into pagan error.

The letter has not reached us directly.  Rather it was quoted as part of a dossier of texts assembled by the iconoclast synod of Hieria in 754.  In turn so those sections were also quoted in the acts of the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 AD in order to condemn them.   Other fragments exist, apparently.

I find that a translation of the material from Nicaea 2 was made by Cyril Mango from the PG 20, 1545 f. text, and printed in The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312-1453 (1972, rep. 1986),p. 16-18.  Here it is:

You also wrote me concerning some supposed image of Christ, which image you wished me to send you. Now what kind of thing is this that you call the image of Christ? I do not know what impelled you to request that an image of Our Saviour should be delineated. What sort of image of Christ are you seeking? Is it the true and unalterable one which bears His essential characteristics, or the one which He took up for our sake when He assumed the form of a servant?  . . . Granted, He has two forms, even I do not think that your request has to do with His divine form. . . . Surely then, you are seeking His image as a servant, that of the flesh which He put on for our sake. But that, too, we have been taught, was mingled with the glory of His divinity so that the mortal part was swallowed up by Life. Indeed, it is not surprising that after His ascent to heaven He should have appeared as such, when, while He—the God, Logos—was yet living among men, He changed the form of the servant, and indicating in advance to a chosen band of His disciples the aspect of His Kingdom, He showed on the mount that nature which surpasses the human one—when His face shone like the sun and His garments like light. Who, then, would be able to represent by means of dead colors and inanimate delineations (skiagraphiai) the glistening, flashing radiance of such dignity and glory, when even His superhuman disciples could not bear to behold Him in this guise and fell on their faces, thus admitting that they could not withstand the sight? If, therefore, His incarnate form possessed such power at the time, altered as it was by the divinity dwelling within Him, what need I say of the time when He put off mortality and washed off corruption, when He changed the form of the servant into the glory of the Lord God. . . ? … How can one paint an image of so wondrous and unattainable a form—if the term ‘form’ is at all applicable to the divine and spiritual essence—unless, like the unbelieving pagans, one is to represent things that bear no possible resemblance to anything. . . ? For they, too, make such idols when they wish to mould the likeness of what they consider to be a god or, as they might say, one of the heroes or anything else of the kind, yet are unable even to approach a resemblance, and so delineate and represent some strange human shapes. Surely, even you will agree that such practices are not lawful for us.

But if you mean to ask of me the image, not of His form transformed into that of God, but that of the mortal flesh before its transformation, can it be that you have forgotten that passage in which God lays down the law that no likeness should be made either of what is in heaven or what is in the earth beneath? Have you ever heard anything of the kind either yourself in church or from another person? Are not such things banished and excluded from churches all over the world, and is it not common knowledge that such practices are not permitted to us alone?

Once— I do not know how—a woman brought me in her hands a picture of two men in the guise of philosophers and let fall the statement that they were Paul and the Saviour—I have no means of saying where she had had this from or learned such a thing. With the view that neither she nor others might be given offence, I took it away from her and kept it in my house, as I thought it improper that such things ever be exhibited to others, lest we appear, like idol worshippers, to carry our God around in an image. I note that Paul instructs all of us not to cling any more to things of the flesh; for, he says, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more.

It is said that Simon the sorcerer is worshipped by godless heretics painted in lifeless material. I have also seen myself the man who bears the name of madness57 [painted] on an image and escorted by Manichees. To us, however, such things are forbidden. For in confessing the Lord God, Our Saviour, we make ready to see Him as God, and we ourselves cleanse our hearts that we may see Him after we have been cleansed. . .

“the man who bears the name of madness” is Mani, of course.

According to David M. Gwynn, “From Iconoclasm to Arianism: The Construction of Christian Tradition in the Iconoclast Controversy”, in: Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 47 (2007), 225–251; 227 (online here), who discusses the letter, its authenticity and reception, further fragments may be added from the writings of the Iconophile Patriarch Nikephorus, which he references thus:

5. The best-known edition of the text is that of H. Hennephof, Textus byzantinos ad iconomachiam pertinentes (Leiden 1969) 42–44, of which there is an English translation in C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453 (Englewood Cliffs 1972) 16–18.  A new Greek edition of the surviving fragments has now been prepared by A. von Stockhausen, in T. Krannich, C. Schubert, and C. Sode, Die ikonoklastische Synode von Hiereia 754 (Tübingen 2002), although in her most recent article Claudia Sode is sceptical that any coherent text can be reconstructed from those fragments: C. Sode and P. Speck, “Ikonoklasmus vor der Zeit? Der Brief des Eusebios von Kaisareia an Kaiserin Konstantia,” JÖByz 54 (2004) 113–134.

It should be noted that Mango in fact does not reference Hennephof, but the PG edition.

It has to be said that Eusebius is not really addressing the idea of icons at all.  The Byzantine veneration of icons is not his concern, for this did not exist.  Rather he is a man who grew up when paganism was triumphant, concerned to prevent the continuation of pagan practices in the newly Christianised populace.

Interesting to learn little snippets about antiquity – such as that an image of Mani was being paraded around in procession by his devotees.  We gain something from every morcel of ancient literature.

Update: A. von Stockhausen writes:

My edition (not critical, but re-instating the fragmentary state of transmission and annotation parallels in his other works) with German translation and short thoughts on Eusebius’ position on images (interpreting prep. ev. III 10,13–19) is online here: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:29-opus4-81432

Thank you!

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m working on translating material associated with the council of Hippo in 393.  Not just the Breviarium of the canons, prepared for the council of Carthage in 397; but also a handful of canons that survived in more complete form, more or less by accident, outside of the main flow of canon law transmission.  To do so I work with various tools, including my own QuickLatin tool which I am continuously enhancing with small bits of syntactical information.  But yesterday I had to stop and do some real work on the code base.  I had never implemented code to handle “quidem” and the like, not least because I always know what it means.  But finally this absence annoyed me enough to do something about it.  Two days of hard work later, it is now functioning.

Tomorrow I will get back to working on five canons discovered by Charles Munier in Codex Vercellensi 165, fol. 199, and published in 1968 in the Revue de Droit canonique 12, p.16-29.  This does not seem to be accessible, but he printed the text in his edition of the African canons which I have.  I’m working through the first of these, which restrains clergy from ordaining minors without the permission of their fathers.

The manuscript is at the Biblioteca capitolare in Vercelli; which sounds like the chapter library of the cathedral.  Sadly these do not seem to be online yet; but no doubt they will be one day!

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Canons “37b, 38 and 39” of the Breviarium of the Council of Hippo (393)

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In Mansi’s edition of the Breviarium, canon 37 is longer than it is in Munier; and there are two more canons given.  Thankfully Munier does explain this, and in the interests of completeness, I think it’s worth giving the material here, to tie up a loose end.

Around 500 AD Dionysius Exiguus compiled a collection of church canons, which included a good slab of material from Africa.  He gave the canons of the council of 419 and then inserted after them a digest of earlier African canons, which is referred to today as the “Register ecclesiae Carthaginensis“.  The canons are numbered sequentially as if a continuation of the canons of 419.

All this material was translated by the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers collection, so there is no need for me to do so.  But let’s give the Latin from Munier and NPNF English.

The extra material in canon 37 of the Breviarium is in fact from the Register, where it is canon 47.  The Register states that it is from the Council of Carthage on 13 August in 397, the same council at which the Breviarium was compiled.  So this is a little odd.

(“37”) De Donatistis placuit ut consulamus fratres et consacerdotes nostros Siricium et Simplicianum de solis infantibus qui baptizantur penes eosdem, ne quod suo non fecerunt judicio, cum ad ecclesiam Dei salubri proposito fuerint conuersi, parentum illos error impediat ne promoveantur sacri altaris ministri. (Munier, p.186)

Concerning the Donatists it seemed good that we should hold counsel with our brethren and fellow priests Siricius and Simplician concerning those infants alone who are baptized by Donatists: lest what they did not do of their own will, when they should be converted to the Church of God with a salutary determination, the error of their parents might prevent their promotion to the ministry of the holy altar.

From which we may infer that someone in that situation was indeed seeking to be ordained.

The “canon 38” is in fact canons 49 and 50 of the material from the Register, which also assigns it to the Council of Carthage in 397, but to a second session on 28 August.

(38) Honoratus et Urbanus dixerunt : Et illud nobis mandatum est, ut quia proxime fratres nostri Numidiae duo episcopi ordinare praesumpserunt pontificem, nonnisi a duodecim censeatis celebrari episcoporum ordinationes.

Aurelius episcopus dixit: Forma antiqua servabitur, ut non minus quam tres sufficiant, qui fuerint destinati, ad episcopum ordinandum. Praeterea, quia in Tripoli forte et in Arzuge interiacere videntur barbarae gentes – nam in Tripoli, ut asseritur, episcopi sunt quinque. tantummodo, et possunt forte de ipso numero vel duo necessitate aliqua occupari; difficile est enim ut de quolibet numero omnes possint occurrrere – numquid debet hoc ipsum impedimento esse ecclesiasticae utilitati? Nam et in hac ecclesia, ad quam dignata est vestra sanctitas convenire, crebro ac paene per diem dominicam ordinandos habemus; numquidnam frequenter potero duodecim vel decem vel non multo minus advocare episcopos? Sed facile est mihi duos adiungere meae parvitati vicinos. Quapropter cernit mecum caritas vestra hoc ipsum observari non posse.

Sed illud est statuendum, ut quando ad eligendum convenerimus, si qua contradictio fuerit oborta, quia talia tractata sunt apud nos, non praesumant ad purgandum eum qui ordinandus est tres iam, sed postuletur ad numerum supradictorum unus vel duo, et in eadem plebe cui ordinandus est discutiantur primo personae contradicentium, postremo etiam illa quae obiciuntur pertractentur; et cum purgatus fuerit sub conspectu publico, ita demum ordinetur. Si hoc cum vestrae sanctitatis animo concordat, roboretur vestrae dignationis responsione.
Ab universis episcopis dictum est: Satis placet.

Honoratus and Urbanus, the bishops, said: We have issued this command, that (because lately two of our brethren, bishops of Numidia, presumed to ordain a pontiff,) only by the concurrence of twelve bishops the ordination of bishops be celebrated.

Aurelius, the bishop, said: The ancient form shall be preserved, that not less than three suffice who shall have been designated for ordaining the bishop. Moreover, because in Tripoli, and in Arzug the barbarians are so near, for it is asserted that in Tripoli there are but five bishops, and out of that number two may be occupied by some necessity; but it is difficult that all of the number should come together at any place whatever; ought this circumstance to be an impediment to the doing of what is of utility to the Church? For in this Church, to which your holiness has deigned to assemble we frequently have ordinations and nearly every Lord’s day; could I frequently summon twelve, or ten, or about that number of bishops? But it is an easy thing for me to join a couple of neighbours to my littleness. Wherefore your charity will agree with me that this cannot be observed.

But this should be decreed, that when we shall have met together to choose a bishop, if any opposition shall arise, because such things have been treated by us, the three shall not presume to purge him who was to be ordained, but one or two more shall be asked to be added to the aforesaid number, and the persons of those objecting shall first be discussed in the same place (plebe) for which he was to be ordained. And last of all the objections shall be considered; and only after he has been cleared in the public sight shall he at last be ordained. If this agrees with the mind of your holiness, let it be confirmed by the answer of your worthiness.

All the bishops said, We are well pleased.

It is shocking to read that “in Arzug the barbarians are so near”… and that Aurelius does not seem to consider this a more pressing concern than these legal minutiae.

The next item, “canon 39” is in fact from the council of 13 September, 401.  It appears as canon 72 in the Dionysius Exiguus’ Register.

(39)  Item placuit de infantibus, quoties inveniuntur certissimi testes, qui eos baptizatos esse sine dubitatione testentur, ne que ipsi sunt per aetatem de traditis sacramentis idonei respondere, absque ullo scrupulo eos esse baptizandos, ne ista trepidatio eos faciat sacramentorum purgatione privari. Hinc etiam legati Maurorum, fratres nostri, consuluerunt, quia multos tales a barbaris redimunt.  – Munier p.201

Likewise it seemed good that whenever there were not found reliable witnesses who could testify that without any doubt they were baptized and when the children themselves were not, on account of their tender age, able to answer concerning the giving of the sacraments to them, all such children should be baptized without scruple, lest a hesitation should deprive them of the cleansing of the sacraments. This was urged by the Moorish Legates, our brethren, since they redeem many such from the barbarians.

Sobering stuff to witness.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve now returned working on the letter of Aurelius and Mizonius, to which the breviarium or summary of the canons of the council of Hippo was attached, and with which it is usually transmitted.  This is basically done, although I’ve had to look up a few phrases.  It was much easier to do, after spending so much time with the canons, than I remembered.  The more Latin we do, the better we get; if, that is, we don’t cheat and gloss over difficulties with a paraphrase.  I’ll post that next week.  I’ll also look at whatever material survives about the Council of Carthage in 397, where the breviarium was compiled.

I’ve continued to work on the Tertullian Project Technical Update.  At the moment that means finding broken links and fixing them as best I can.  Some of these broken links are more than 20 years old.  In many cases all that can be done is to remove them.

One lesson that I have found is never, ever, to rely on images on another site.  There is one page which relies on a photograph of the first page of a manuscript at a famous library.  That photograph was paid for by me.  I commissioned that library, long ago, to make a photograph for me.   This was before digital cameras, so I got a colour slide for my money.  Later they placed an image on their website.  But … it has vanished.  It is no longer there.  Fortunately I kept a copy.

When I created the Roman Cult of Mithras pages, back in 2011 or 2012, one of my motives was to build a directory of images of Mithras online.  There were and are very many such photos, taken by tourists, in high resolution and full-colour.  These are far better than the reference photographs.  So it helps to be able to identify them.  I took a decision when I did so to hold local copies of all the images.  I knew that newspapers sometimes publish good photographs of finds.  I also knew that newspapers do not tend to keep articles online for very long!  Images appear and vanish.  The only solution is to keep the image locally.  The Tertullian Project Technical Update is proving the wisdom of that policy.

Identifying broken links is a chore.  There are various online sites, all of which limit you to a small number of pages unless you pay them.  I had some difficulty finding scripts online, until I thought to add “Github” to the search terms.  Indeed I adapted one PHP script to run locally for my own purposes.  But of course something like the Linkchecker python script is far better, even if it takes ages to run.

I’ve still got quite a few links to fix. That can happen in slow time, as I feel like it.

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Canons 37 of the breviarium of the Council of Hippo (393)

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The final canon, 37, in the summary of the canons of the council of Hippo is as follows.  I did get rather stuck at one point, so comments are very welcome.

37.  Placuit etiam ut, quoniam praecedentibus conciliis statutum est ne quis Donatistarum cum honore suo recipiatur a nobis, sed in numero laicorum, propter salutem quae nulli deneganda est — tantum autem inopia clericorum ordinandorum in Africa patiuntur ecclesiae, ut quaedam loca omnino deserta sint — servetur quidem in istis quod iam ante decretum est, sed exceptis his quos, aut non rebaptizasse constiterit, aut qui cum suis plebibus ad communionem catholicam transire voluerint. Si enim scriptum est quod duobus si convenerit Christianis, quidquid petierint, impetrabunt, non oportet dubitare quod, remoto scandalo dissensionis, universae plebis, in unitate [pacis]** redacta concordia, idonea sit impetrare de misericordia Domini, ut ipsius pacis compensatione et sacrificio caritatis aboleantur quae, maiorum suorum auctoritatem sequentes, repetitione baptismi commiserunt.

Sed hanc rem placuit non confirmari, priusquam inde transmarina ecclesia consulatur.

Note that “pacis” is found in Mansi’s text, but not in Munier.

Here’s my attempt to translate this:

37.  It was also agreed that, seeing that it was ordained by preceding councils that a Donatist shall be received by us, not with honour, but among the number of the laity; on account of the salvation which must not be refused to any, – for the churches suffer so much from the lack of ordained clergy in Africa, so that some places have been entirely deserted –  it [the rule] shall be maintained even in those who already [crossed over] before it was decreed, but excepting those who either did not wait to be rebaptised, or who wished to cross over to the Catholic communion with their congregation. For if it was written “that if two Christians shall agree,** whatever they ask, they shall obtain”, [then] it is not right to doubt that, having been freed from the scandal of dissention, the concord of the whole laity in [the] unity [of peace] having been restored**, it shall be proper to procure from the mercy of God, that, in a return** of his peace with the return of peace and by the sacrifice of charity, those people shall be abolished who, following the authority of their forefathers, have committed** the repetition of baptism, in exchange for peace itself and by the sacrifice of charity [i.e. thanks to this sacrifice of charity], those things [sc. sins] that following the authority of their ancestors, they committed by the repetition of baptism, may be abolished.

But it was agreed that these things are not to be confirmed, until after the church overseas has been** consulted.

The bit in Italics is an allusion to Mt. 18:19, which in the Vulgate and Douai is:

Iterum dico vobis, quia si duo ex vobis consenserint super terram, de omni re quamcumque petierint, fiet illis a Patre meo, qui in caelis est.

Again I say to you, that if two of you shall consent upon earth, concerning any thing whatsoever they shall ask, it shall be done to them by my Father who is in heaven.

“duobus si convenerit Christianis” – I have assumed this is an impersonal verb plus dative.

“redacta concordia” – I’m reading this as an ablative absolute, “concord having been restored”.

The bit that I am unsure about is “ut ipsius pacis compensatione et sacrificio caritatis aboleantur”.  I don’t see how the dative [update: or not!] fits with the verb, to be honest.  Anybody got any ideas?  And … “compensation”?  [Update: see comment below by Alexander Macaulay – thank you!]

This is the last of the canons in the Breviarium.  Mansi gives a couple more, followed by the signatures of the bishops, but these are not part of the Breviarium, but rather material from the Council of Carthage in 397, in which the Breviarium was put together.  We’ll have a look at this context material in a bit.

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Canons 29-36 of the breviarium of the Council of Hippo (393)

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Let’s have a few more canons.

29.  Ut nulli episcopi vel clerici in ecclesia conviventur; nisi forte transeuntes hospitiorum necessitate illic reficiant; populi etiam ab huiusmodi conviviis, quantum potest fieri, prohibeantur.

That none of the bishops or clergy shall dine together in the church; except perhaps those travelling may refresh themselves in that place through the necessity of being guests**; the people shall also be prohibited from meals of this sort, as much as possible.

“hospitiorum”, literally “of hospitalities”?

30.  Ut paenitentibus secundum differentiam peccatorum episcopi arbitrio paenitentiae tempora decernantur.  Et ut presbyteri inconsulto episcopo non reconcilient paenitentes; nisi absentia episcopi, & necessitate cogente.  Cuiuscumque autem paenitentis publicum et vulgatissimum crimen est, quod universam ecclesiam commoverit**, ante apsidam manus ei imponatur.

That, for penitents, the durations of the penitences shall be decided by the decision of the bishop according to the different kinds of sins/sinners.  And that presbyters shall not reconcile penitents without consulting the bishop; except in the absence of the bishop (and) from urgent necessity.**  But wherever the offence of the penitent is public and very widely known, so that it affronted the whole church, hands shall be laid on him in front of the apse (of the church).**

“commoverit” is “noverit” in Mansi, “known.”  “from urgent necessity” is an ablative absolute present, lit. “when necessity is compelling”.  “in front of the apse”, i.e. in full view of everyone.

31. Ut virgines sacrae, cum parentibus a quibus custodiebantur privatae fuerint, episcopi vel presbyteri, ubi episcopus absens est, providentia gravioribus feminis commendentur; aut simul habitantes invicem se custodiant: ne passim vagando ecclesiae laedant existimationem.

That the holy consecrated virgins, when they have been separated from the parents by whom they used to be watched over, [then] bishops or presbyters, where the bishop is absent, shall be entrusted with providing** for these important women shall be entrusted by the providence of the bishop (or presbyter, if the bishop is absent) to more dignified women; or likewise the inhabitants in turn shall watch over themselves: lest by wandering in many places they may injure the reputation of the church.

Treating “providentia” as an accusative present participle of “provideo”, taking the dative.

32.  Ut aegrotantes, si pro se respondere non possint, cum voluntatis eorum testimonium sui** periculo proprio dixerint, baptizentur.

That the sick shall be baptised, if they are unable to answer for themselves, when their own people declare** (that there is), in particular danger, evidence of their wish.

Mansi gives “possunt” rather than “possint.”

“sui” gave me quite a bit of trouble, but all the variants seem to understand it as a nominative.  So I treat it as a nominative plural “their own [people]”, and the subject of “dixerint”, treated as subjunctive here “shall say”, because of “cum” meaning “when”.  This understanding is supported by Mansi’s text variant here, “hi qui sui sunt”, “those who are of them”.  Then I assume that some part of “esse” should be understood, followed by “testimonium”, “evidence”.  I’m not quite sure about why “periculo proprio”, either dative or ablative.

33. Ut scenicis vel apostaticis conversis vel reversis ad Dominum gratia vel reconciliatio non negetur.

That grace or reconciliation shall not be denied to actors or apostates converted or reverted to God.

Actors enjoy a poor reputation, I see.

34.  Ut presbyter non consulto episcopo virgines non consecret; crisma vero numquam conficiat.

That a presbyter shall not consecrate virgins without consulting the bishop; indeed he shall never sanctify** the chrism.**

“conficio” is used by Niemeyer “to accomplish the sacrifice of the mass”; Blaise as “consecrate”.  Usually it would be “prepare”.  Chrism is consecrated oil used for anointing during baptism.

35. Ut clerici in aliena civitate non immorentur, nisi causas eorum justas episcopus loci vel presbyteri locorum perviderint.

That clergy shall not linger in a strange town, unless the bishop of the place or the presbyters of the places have been overseeing** their justified lawsuits.

“perviderint” is future perfect active indicative, “shall have overseen”, so a paraphrase seems right here.

The next canon gets quoted a lot.

36.  Ut praeter scripturas canonicas nihil in ecclesia legatur sub nomine divinarum scripturarum.

Sunt autem canonicae scripturae: Genesis. Exodus. Leviticus. Numeri. Deuteronomium. Jesu Nave. Judicum. Ruth. Regnorum libri iiii. Paralipomenon libri ii. Job. Psalterium. Salomonis libri v. liber xii Prophetarum Minorum. Item Isaias. Hieremias. Ezechiel. Danihel. Tobias. Judith. Esther. Esdrae libri ii. Machabeorum libri ii.

Novi autem testamenti: Evangelia libri iiii. Actus Apostolorum liber i. Pauli apostoli epistolae xiiii. Petri ii. Johannis iii. Jude i. Jacobi i. Apocalipsis Johannis.

Ita ut de confirmando isto canone transmarina ecclesia consulatur.

Liceat etiam legi passiones martyrum, cum anniversarii dies eorum celebrantur.

That, other than the canonical scriptures, nothing shall be read in church under the name of the divine scriptures.

Moreover these are the canonical scriptures: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 4 books of Kings, Chronicles 2 books, Job, Psalms, 5 books of Solomon, 12 books of minor prophets.  Likewise Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Tobit, Judith, Esther, 2 books of Ezra, 2 books of Maccabees.

Moreover of the New Testament: Gospels 4 books, Acts of the Apostles 1 book, Letters of the Apostle Paul 14, 2 of Peter, 3 of John, 1 of Jude, 1 of James, the Apocalypse of John.

Thus that the overseas church shall be consulted concerning confirming** this canon.

“confirmando” is a gerundive, requiring to be confirmed, “concerning this canon that needs to be confirmed”.

Only one more (long) canon to go.

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