Category: Announcements

General announcements

Bits and bobs

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Here’s some stuff that’s wandered into my in-tray.

Google is becoming a useful tool for biblical quotations.  While checking some of these by googling, I found myself looking at archive.org at several volumes of the critical text of the Vetus Latina.  A search on Vetus Latina brings up quite a number here.  I hope that Archive have checked the copyright tho.

How people find the energy to scan books I do not know.  I’m sitting here with a volume of St Augustine, and having to pause for breaks.  I know that I did a lot of this ten or twenty years ago.  How on earth did I do it?

It’s been a while since I get out my Plustek Opticbook 3600, and I couldn’t remember if it worked with Windows 10 or not.  At first try it didn’t work.  Looking at the manufacturer site did not look good either.  But there was a Windows 8 driver, which I installed.  Still nothing.  Anyway I rechecked the cables and… um, the cable was half-unplugged at the scanner.  When pushed in firmly then it all worked.  I’m using it with Finereader 12 at the moment.

Next up is a photograph of one of the lost streets of Rome, the Via Bonella, from 1907.

The now-lost Via Bonella, with the so-called Pantani Arch. Photo taken in 1907.

I plucked from here this modern image:

The columns are those of the forum of Nerva, to the left of the temple of Mars Ultor.  The modern street behind the arch, running left-right, is the Via Tor di Conti.  The orange building behind the arch is today the Forum Hotel, complete with a rooftop restaurant at which I had a terrible dining experience on my only visit to the building.

I do quite a bit of translating, so I was interested to come across an article, Translating for a Digital Archive.  This shows how the professionals do it, rather than people like me, alone in a room with a pile of dictionaries.  The project is to put British Library Arabic manuscripts online, and make the titles etc searchable in either Arabic or English.

As part of the BL’s [British Library] translation team, I work to produce and edit the Arabic language content for the QDL [Qatar Digital Library]. While the collection items themselves are displayed solely in their original language, all of the portal’s supporting and descriptive content is translated, as are the expert articles, meaning that the catalogue can be searched and used just as easily in Arabic as in English.

…

Our Toolbox: Translation management software

Like many large-scale translation projects, ours involves multiple translators, and several rounds of proofing and quality checks to ensure accuracy and consistency. To manage this, we use a piece of software called memoQ that includes two essential tools: a translation memory (TM) and a term base (TB). The TM functions as a bilingual database of previously translated segments of text; it works by storing pairs of original source-language content alongside its approved translation. When a new text is imported, memoQ breaks it into smaller segments on the basis of punctuation and line breaks, and automatically conducts a search for exact and partial matches. These are then presented to the translator for approval and/or review.

While a human expert still has the final say on whether to accept any suggestion from the TM, frequently only a minor edit is needed to make the old translation suitable for the new context. This serves the double purpose of saving time and maintaining consistency across the catalogue as a whole. Translation memories tend to prove their worth the larger they are and the more repetition there is in the content. Having grown over the years since the start of the project, our TM now routinely recognises a third of content in a new file, and often much more.

While the TM grows organically over time by compiling and storing translation segments, the term base is maintained manually. It works as a glossary for key terms, allowing us to suggest preferred equivalents for individual words or phrases, and/or to blacklist translations that should be avoided. As the TB is visible to all parties at all stages of translation and proofing, it helps to ensure the consistency of these terms in Arabic.

Authorities: making the most of memoQ

The TB has proved especially useful when it comes to translating authority files. An authority record serves to identify and describe a person, corporate body, family, place name, or subject term that is featured in a catalogue description. Each term is authorised and unique. As every record and every expert article on the QDL is linked to at least one authority file, they form an index through which users can search for all the content related to a specific term.

Read the whole thing.  I was unable to find an author’s name on it, curiously.

This idea of “Translation Memory Tools” sounded interesting to me.  I quickly found that several seem to be proprietary and expensive.  I did come across OmegaT, which is not, here.  But I suspect that none of my projects are large enough for me to use it.

Another interest of mine is hagiography, about which I know very little.  So I was interested to come across a seminar description (Seminar VII: Hagiography) at Lancaster University, with bibliography, and the following interesting introduction:

Hagiography, the historical genre which is the subject of this week’s seminar, comprises narratives concerned with the saints and their achievements, especially the miracles which God has performed through them and on their behalf. Six basic types of hagiographical ‘story’ or ‘scenario’ may be distinguished:

  • first, the vita, the story of the achievements that a saint performed in his or her lifetime;
  • second, the passio, similar to the former, but about a martyr who has died a violent death for the faith or for some other God-arranged reason;
  • third, the inventio or revelatio, the story of how a new saint or more often a saint’s bodily remains were discovered;
  • fourth, the translatio, the story of how a saint’s relics were brought to a church or moved to a new shrine;
  • fifth, the visio, the story of how a saint appeared to someone in a vision;
  • and sixth, the miraculum, the story of how a miracle was performed on the saint’s behalf by God.

Miracula are typically concerned with the wonders that were performed after the saint has died and become a resident of the heavenly kingdom. A hagiographical text might well combine many of these stories or ‘scenarios’. Many vitae continue on, for example, well-beyond the scene of the saint’s death to describe how his or her corpse was lost, re-discovered and then brought and enshrined in the church where it now rests. In these texts the true climax comprises the saint’s translatio and enshrinement. Miracula, furthermore, were often combined to form libri miraculorum, ‘books of miracles’, which sometimes (but not usually) extended beyond the usual few dozen items to encompass hundreds of episodes.

In its various manifestations hagiography was the mode of historical discourse most frequently deployed in the Middle Ages, generating many thousands of vitae and miracula and contributing substantial passages to many chronicles and rhetorical histories. The similarities (and sometimes, the lengthy verbal affinities) between these narratives naturally lead to the suspicion that most, if not all, instances contain much that has been borrowed from earlier examples or which has been re-fashioned so as to resemble the scenes found in key archetypes—such as the late fourth-century Life of St Martin of Tours by Sulpicius Severus—which exerted great influence over the development of the genre. This conclusion seems inescapable; but the process might sometimes involve an oral phase, prior to the writing up of the legend, in which the hero’s story assimilated many standard elements or was gradually re-fashioned with each act of re-telling, bringing it ever closer to the recognised archetypes. The few texts which admit importing episodes from the lives of other saints invariably claim that the story was true of some saint if not of the saint with whom the text is chiefly concerned or that there is so little doubt about the subject’s sanctity that the mis-attribution of a few stories will scarcely make any difference to his or her cult. As such admissions show, hagiography’s claim to authority rested, as in the case of ecclesiastical history, on its claim to record actual events—actual moments of divine intervention in the world.

I’d like to know which texts include those admissions of borrowing material.  I wonder how one could find out.

That’s enough for now.  I find that I have 197 items in my backlog folder, so perhaps I should have a push on getting them out!

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More Meta Sudans photos and a document on the demolition!

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The excellent Roma Ieri Oggi site continues to upload old photographs of Rome.  I confess that I find the twitter feed more accessible than the website, and of course it allows for feedback.

A couple of days ago, I browsed through the feed and came across something very interesting.  First there was a photograph of the arch of Constantine and the Meta Sudans, taken around 1930, a few years before the latter was demolished.  Here it is:

But underneath another tweeter, “Paolo (@vonhoeneim)” posted three contemporary documents about the demolition.  Here’s the tweet:

Dall’Archivio centrale di Stato, tre documenti sulla demolizione della Meta sudans. Questa venne abbattuta per non impedire i flussi del traffico automobilistico e non, come si dice, per far sfilare la camicie nere.

From the Central State Archives, three documents on the demolition of the Meta sudans. This was removed so as not to obstruct the flow of car traffic and not, as is said, to allow the black shirts to parade.

He attaches evidence, which I will upload here (for twitter is ephemeral):

I can’t read this. Can any reader do so?

This is from the “office of the governor” and reads:

= APPUNTO PER S.E. IL CAPO DEL GOVERNO =

Mi onoro informare l’E.V. che, con la lettera odierna, di cui unisco copia, ho sottoposto a S.E. il Ministro dell’Educazio ne Nazionale la questione delle risoluzioni da adottarsi per i ruderi della base del Colosso di Nerone e della Meta Sudante, in relazione ai lavori in carso per l’allargamento della Via di S. Gregorio.

Con devoto ossequio

Roma, lì 7 settembre 1933-XI

I.e.

I am honored to inform the EV. that, with today’s letter, of which I add a copy, I have submitted to his excellency the Minister of National Education the question of the measures to be adopted for the ruins of the base of the Colossus of Nero and the Meta Sudans, in relation to the work in progress due to the widening of the Via di S. Gregorio.

And then there is this:

I.e.

mento rapidissimo dalla zona alta dei quartieri dell’Esquilino del Laterano e dei Monti, con la Via del Mare e con la Stazione di S.Paolo Lido di Roma, Appunto a tale scopo è già previsto l’allargamento del Viale Aventino ohe costituisce la diretta continuazione della Via di S.Gregorio.

Il traffico già intenso ohe in Questi ultimi anni si svolgeva in tutte le ore della giornata lungo la Via di S.Gregorio è venuto aumentando enormemento dopo l’apertura della Via dell’impero, cosi da consigliare a questo Governatorato le opportunità di provvedere senza indugio all’allargamento della strada. Precisamente verso la Via dell’impero erano già e saranno sempre più frequenti le comunicazioni con la nuova strada, sicchè é evidente la necessità di facilitare per quanto è possibile i raccordi, tra le due grandi arterie della nuova Roma di Mussolini, ambedue importantissime non solo per la loro bellezza estetica ma per la loro rispondenza si bisogni del movimento cittadino.

Si presenta perciò in vista della facilitazione di tale raccordo una questione che, nome l’E.V. avrà veduto, ha vivamente in bere usato in queste ultime settimane la stampa cittadina o la pubblica opinione, e cioè la conservazione dei due avanzi monumentali della Base del Colosso di Nerone, e della Meta Sudante.

Come appare dalla pianta allegata, la base del Colosso di Nerone costituisce indubbiamente un gravissimo imbarazzo per lo comuninazioni fra la Via dell’impero e la Via di S.Gregorio, obbligendo i veicoli provenienti dalla Via dell’impero ohe seguono, come è prescritto, ma marcia a destra a girare al di là del rudero, inflettendo uno stretto arco per raggiungere il passaggio tra l’Arco di Costantino ed il Palatino. E’ stata da varie parti avanzata la proposta di demolire il rudero della base del Colosso di Nerone (dopo averne fatto i più precisi rilievi) e di lasciarne la traccia nella pavimentazione stradale, con un piantato in travertino o in gradito o con altro materiale acconcio, e collocando nei pressi una iscrizione, che ricordi l’esistenza del rudero, individuandone esattamente la posizione.

… very fast from the upper area of ​​the Esquilino del Laterano and Monti districts, with the Via del Mare and the S.Paolo Lido station in Rome. Exactly for this purpose the widening of the Viale Aventino is already provided, which constitutes the direct continuation of the Via di S.Gregorio.

The already intense traffic that in recent years took place at all hours of the day along the Via di S.Gregorio has increased since the opening of the Via dell’Impero, so as to suggest to this office the need to provide without delay for the widening of the road. Precisely towards the Via del’Impero connections with the new road were already and will be more and more frequent, so that the need to facilitate as much as possible the connections between the two great arteries of Mussolini’s new Rome, both very important not only for their aesthetic beauty but for their correspondence, requires action by the city.

Therefore, as the name of the E.V has been mentioned, a question presents itself for the facilitation of the connection that has arisen in recent weeks in the city press and public opinion, that is the preservation of the two monumental remains of the base of the Colossus of Nero and the Meta Sudans.

As appears from the attached plan, the base of Nero’s CoIossus undoubtedly constitutes a very serious problem for the connections between the Via dell’Impero and the Via di S.Gregorio, obliging vehicles coming from the Via dell’Impero to follow, as designed, but it runs to the right to turn beyond the ruin, inflicting a narrow arch through which to reach the passage between the Arch of Constantine and the Palatine. The proposal to demolish the ruin of the base of the Colossus of Nero (after having made the most precise recordings) and to leave its trace in the road pavement, with traced in travertine or in gradito or with other acconcite material, has been advanced, and placing an inscription nearby, which reminds us of the existence of the ruin, identifying its exact position.

Unfortunately the document breaks off there before discussing the Meta Sudans, which was treated similarly.  It looks as if the impetus came from the local authorities, rather than the national government, however, in their eagerness to be seen to cooperate.

Finally here is another picture from Roma Ieri Oggi, from 1900, showing the Meta Sudans from an unusual angle, through the arch of the Arch of Constantine:

Wonderful to see it.

The destruction of the base of the Colossus and the Meta Sudans took place very recently.  So much that we might want to know is probably freely accessible in Italian archives, to those who read Italian.  I wish that someone would go through them all and make it accessible.

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Manuscripts and text of the Vita S. Valentini: a review of the article by Edoardo D’Angelo

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve started to look at the photocopies that I obtained three days ago of articles in the Bassetti volume of papers about St Valentine.[1]  Naturally my first interest is the paper by Edoardo D’Angelo, “La Passio sancti Valentini martyris (BHL 8460-8460b): Un ‘martirio occulto’ d’età postcostantiniana?” (p.179-222), as it contains a discussion of the manuscripts and a new critical edition.

The first thing that struck me about the paper was its position.  If I were doing a volume of papers centred around a single literary text, and one of those papers was a critical edition of the text, then I would most certainly place it at the front.  I would also insist on a translation.  Doing so would be the natural way to begin such a volume and present it to the public.  Instead it is the seventh paper in the volume, and relatively one of the shortest.

The paper starts with a list of manuscripts containing the work, which is really very useful considering the small space in which it has to appear.  There are 118 manuscripts in all, and two of a slightly modified  version of the text identified as BHL 8460b.  Seven of these date from before 1000 AD, two before 900; and a further thirty-seven from before 1200.  These are all given.[2]  The remainder sadly are not; but of course there is no space.

The origins of each manuscript are not given, but we learn that nearly all of these are Italian, and all of the early ones.  D’Angelo infers from this that the text has an Italian origin.  It is always risky to argue from survivals, but it is not improbable in any way that the Life of St Valentine of Terni should originate close by, in Lazio.  The other content of the manuscripts likewise relates to Umbrian saints.

The 37 manuscripts include a manuscript from South Africa, from the “Grey collection”.  I don’t think that I have ever before seen reference to a medieval manuscript held in South Africa.  I would hope that the remaining South Africans are photographing the manuscripts as fast as they can before the barbarian rulers of that unhappy land destroy them.

The wide diffusion of the text and the Carolingian date of some of the copies tends to suggest an early date.  The quotation of two sentences verbatim by Bede in his Martyrology (CPL 2032) in the early 8th century provides a terminus antequam.  The text is most likely therefore of the 6-7th century.

The standard reference edition of the text is still that of the Bollandists in the Acta Sanctorum (AASS), under February 14.  This was printed in 1658, yet D’Angelo tells us that “Tale edizione seicentesca, fondata su una base decente di codici, ha retto tutto sommato all’urto del tempo e dell’avanzamento della ricerca.” (“This seventeenth century edition, founded on a decent base of manuscripts, has all in all survived the impact of time and the progress of research”), which is fair comment.  The AASS introduction states that it was based on five mss plus the Mombritius edition; but the footnotes to the text come from three manuscripts; “S. Maxim.”, “Regium.” and “Gladbas.”, six breviaries, and two printed editions, the Mombritius and Surius.  D’Angelo has clearly not had the chance to pursue this very far, but suggests that the “Regium” must be one of the 8 mss in the Royal Library in Brussels – reasonable, considering that the Bollandists were working in that area – and the “Gladbas” is probably ms. 72 in the library of the Bollandists, previously from the monastery of St Vitus Martyr in Gladbach.

The editor has produced his new edition based on the earliest manuscripts, plus a handful from the next 37, which he believes to be from the same geographical area.  This is reasonable up to a point; but what we do not see is proper stemmatics.  We all know that late manuscripts can contain truth which is not found in surviving earlier manuscripts.  There is also the problem that this is not a literary text, but a hagiographical one, where the copyist may feel free to alter the text.  The article is not nearly long enough to explore these questions properly, and so the new edition is not really as critical as it could be.  All the same it involves various small changes to the text printed by the Bollandists.

One decision made by the editor seems to me to be absolutely mistaken.  He has not normalised the spelling: we have “michi” rather than “mihi”, for instance.  The logic here seems to be faulty: we are told that the mss vary wildly, that we have no idea what spelling the author might have used (although I do not see why we care), and so he has compromised between the spellings of the manuscripts, in order to avoid “alle pericolosissime tentazioni di classicizzazione forzata” (the most perilous temptations of forced classicization”).  But we do not do this in our literary editions.  The variable spelling of Shakespeare, or even Jane Austen, are not respected in modern editions.  Spelling was not standardised in the past.  This was an evil, not a good, and it was a barrier to communication.  The editor should have used the standard spellings, and noted anything he felt was significant in the apparatus.

Short though the paper is, the author has also been obliged to discuss whether the content of the Life of St Valentine is in some way historical.  The attempt is made to show that it might be.

We learn that many people suppose the events in the story to belong to the reign of Claudius II Gothicus (268-270), because that is the setting for the martyrdom of Valentine the Roman in the Passio Maris et Martha, which may or may not be the same saint as our St Valentine of Terni.  The logic of this is poor: there may be two separate St Valentines, or they may be the same one.

The Prefect of the City of Rome in the Life is given as “furius Placidus”, “the furious Placidus”.  The Bollandists treated this as a joke by the author, but D’A. identifies him as a certain absurdly named Marcus Mecius Memmius Furius Baburius Cecilianus Placidus, praetorian prefect from 342-4 and prefect of the city from 346-7.  Other not very distinctive names are adduced to suggest that the story should be set in the same period.  None of this seems much more than speculation.  Nothing compels us to believe that these are anything but coincidences.

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  1. [1]M. Bassetti &c, San Valentino e il suo culto tra medioevo ed età contemporanea. Uno status quaestionis, Terni, 2012. ISBN-13: 978-8879885713.↩
  2. [2]The numeral for the shelfmark for the early MS in the Arch.Cap.S.Pietro has been omitted; unfortunate considering that there are 470 such mss.↩

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Today I had to drive for three hours each way for a job “interview” of around twenty minutes.  I already had a job offer, but I thought it wise to have a face-to-face meeting, and it proved very wise indeed.  The job looks like a stress-fest.  Not for me.

But I redeemed the travel time somewhat.  The road passed close by Cambridge University Library, so I stopped off on the way.  The volume that I wanted was waiting, for I had ordered it last night using the internet.  This was the Bassetti volume, San Valentino e il culto, on St Valentine of Terni, to which I referred in this post.  My intention was to photocopy the key articles within it, which I did, and then went on my way.

The most important article was Edoardo D’Angelo, “La passio sancti Valentini martyris…”, which contains a critical text of the Life of St Valentine that I have been translating, together with a list of manuscripts and an attempt at a stemma.  I have extracted the Latin text  of the Life, this evening, using my trusty Finereader 14.  It will be most interesting to see how and where it diverges from the text as given in the Acta Sanctorum, which I have been translating.  I’ve not seen any obvious changes so far.

One deviation is regrettable.  D’Angelo has decided to number the individual sentences of the Life, which is fine. But he also decided to ignore the section/chapter numbers from the Acta Sanctorum.  This is not fine.  It means that anyone with his text before them cannot locate material mentioned in any prior scholarship; they will have to find the Acta Sanctorum text.  Likewise any subsequent scholarship using his edition and numbering system will force the reader to obtain access to an obscure Italian volume of collected papers, held in relatively few research libraries.

D’Angelo is not the only editor to commit this sin. A little while ago I found that Zacharopoulos, a modern Greek editor of Theophanes of Nicaea (see here), did exactly the same.  This was even more of a problem because the Sotiropoulos editio princeps is almost completely inaccessible without an international flight.

Every new edition should always indicate the divisions or page numbers of the very first edition, the editio princeps.  It’s only considerate towards those who will use your work.

For Valentine, I might see if I can rectify this problem myself somehow, by giving a concordance or something on this blog.

    *    *    *    *

It’s slightly odd to think that I have made brief raids up to Cambridge like this for more than twenty years now.  It means that I have witnessed a lot of change there.

In fact every time I visit Cambridge University Library something is different.  It is not always better.  For instance some strange person has moved the photocopiers out of a dedicated room and scattered them around the building.  Staff are becoming used to bewildered visitors hunting for a machine.

Likewise I am not an alumnus of Cambridge.  It is merely the nearest research library that I can use.  Because of this, I have to pay a fee to use the library, and outsiders like myself are second-class readers in many little ways.

This time the change was about photocopying.  In reception I asked to put some money on my library card in order to pay for photocopies at the machine.  To my surprise they deducted some odd amount, on the pretext of the VAT tax.  A notice in the photocopier room in the West Room informed me that university members got their photocopies ex-VAT.

I confess that I wasn’t aware that national taxes on the supply of goods and services do not apply if you are a member of certain universities.  This sounds unlikely, in fact.  I suspect that the taxman will take a dim view of this approach, once he becomes aware.  But of course he shall not learn it from me.

The other thing that made me smile was that they made me fill out a paper form, in order to add money to my card.  I suppose we must expect pettifoggery from library staff.  The more conscientious they are, the better for the books, but the worse for low-status readers like myself.

I confess that, in my exasperation at all this tomfoolery, I expressed myself less politely than I might have done.  Luckily there was no harm done this time.  But it is always a mistake, as well as uncharitable.

I shall see what Bassetti’s volume looks like tomorrow!

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Yesterday and today I’ve been working on a translation of the “Saint’s Life” of St Valentine of Terni / Interamna.  I started this a few months ago, and then got diverted.  It’s only ten chapters in the Acta Sanctorum, two sides of a page.  It is mildly incredible that nobody has translated this.

Anyway this evening I got to the end of chapter ten.  So the first pass all the way through is complete.  However I think that a few scattered sentences were left uncertain last time, so I need to produce a draft for these too.

After that, I shall have to read through it, and revise it.  I also need to read the prefatory material, and take a look at modern material, in order to write a short introduction.  This will probably happen next week, so the Life will go online when that happens.   I have engagements Monday-Wednesday so probably this will be at the end of the week; but who knows?

I never did gain access to Bassetti’s volume on St Valentine.  I think that, for 80 dollars, I can live without it.

An email late last night invited me to investigate the background to the text printed in Migne as Athanasius’ Exposition on the Psalms.  The “work” is actually a collection of catena extracts, assembled by the Maurist fathers in the 18th century.  They went through the 11th century catena of Nicetas of Heraclea, and copied each extract that Nicetas ascribed to Athanasius – a risky proceeding.  If I had nothing else to do then I might look into it, but of course I do.

My time at home is probably coming to an end.  I started applying for contracts a couple of weeks ago, and I now have an interview with an old client, plus four other irons in the fire.  I would expect to start work in July.  I suspect that it will be good for me to get back to work, surrounded by busy people with things to do.  But I expect that it will be quite a shock to the system, after almost five months at home.   It does mean that I need to get my projects to a suitable point to stop.

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More on “Magganum” and St George

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Following yesterday’s post, a kind correspondent wrote to tell me of a Greek word in wiktionary that seems relevant, μάγγανο.  This noun may be a form of war machine, but also a type of crane, or a windlass.  The email continued:

The -um endings in Latin coincide with the Greek ending -on, hence, “magganon”.

It is a byzantine war machine like a catapult, but also a windlass or a winch.   I looked into the biographies of Saint George, and one of the tortures he was made to suffer by the relentless persecuter Diocletian was a wheel, to which he was strapped, and as it was turned (by a windlass?) his body was slashed by various sharp objects.

This is an icon of that torture:

St George on the wheel

Another tidbit, regarding the term “magganon”: a modern, composite Greek word for the instrument used for drawing water out of a well (πηγάδι) = μάγγανο-πήγαδο.

The icon is very helpful.  It shows George, tied to the wheel with rope, and the swords positioned underneath to injure him.

Now this does indeed look like the right approach.  There are mentions in the Life of daggers, right next to the references to “maggana”.  It works!

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What does “magganum” mean? Looking for the Commentator Cruquianus of Horace

Posted on by Roger Pearse

While working on the Life of St George, I came across an unusual word, “magganum”.  Whatever it was, it was being used during the tortures inflicted on the saint.  The dictionaries were really not very helpful!  Gaffiot thought it could mean “wine barrel”, but also pointed me to “maganum” which Du Cange thought meant “war machine”.  Unhappily Arndt’s text of the Life is essentially a transcript of a medieval manuscript, so the spellings cannot be relied on; while a similar Passio was printed by Huber, but Huber didn’t know what the word meant either!

This evening I had a go with Google.  A site called Dicolatin knew of the word, but suggested that it simply meant “wooden barrel”.  Another site seemingly based on LSJ suggested that it meant “a wine-vessel made of wood, Schol. Cruq. ad Hor. C. 1, 9, 8.”

What on earth was that reference, tho?  Luckily the same page expanded this a bit, “Schol. Cruq. u. Acro Hor. carm. 1, 9, 8.”, and a bit of googling revealed the meaning.  This gnomic phrase indicates the scholia from Cruquius on the “carmina” of Horace, book 1, poem 9, line 8.

But who is Cruquius?  And where can I find his scholia?

Cruquius turns out to be an old editor of Horace, who printed an edition in 1578 in Antwerp, reprint 1579.  Cruquius had had access to four manuscripts from a Dutch monastery, all destroyed a decade earlier during the wars of religion.  These contained interesting comments on the text, explaining individual words.  These scholia were ancient, and contained in no other manuscript.  For lack of a better term, the unknown ancient author of the scholia is known as the “Commentator Cruquianus”.  This, then, is what I needed to access.

But where on earth could these scholia be found?

It turns out that there are several sets of ancient scholia on Horace.  There are scholia from the 3rd century AD by Porphyrio;[1] other scholia by pseudo-Acronis.[2]  Any search for “Commentum in Horatium” brings up endless editions of both in Archive.org.  There is also a four volume Scholia in Horatium, by H. J. Botschuyver, Amsterdam 1935-42.  But this was inaccessible to me.

But I was unable to establish if anyone had ever reprinted the scholia from Cruquius.  Nor could I locate his edition in Google Books.

Eventually I had a lucky break: I found a reprint of Cruquius, from 1579.  It’s online here at Google Books.

On page 28 is the text of the Commentator Cruquianus on Carmen I.9, line 8.  It reads:

diota. vas еst vinarium duas ansas habens, quasi duas auriculas, unde nomen habet: aliud еst quod Magganum dicitur, vas vinarium ex ligno confectum.

This is an explanation of the word “diota” in the line of Horace: “a vessel is a wine-container having two handles, like two ears, from which it gets its name: otherwise it is what is called “magganum”, a wine-container vessel made out of wood.”

Which is what I was looking for.  Is it the right meaning for St George?  Well, I shall now have to go back and look at the context.  But it was interesting to find these ancient scholia!

UPDATE: The meaning in the Life of St George is in fact “windlass” – see my next post!

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  1. [1]Meyer, Pomponii Porphrionis Commentum in Horatium, 1894. Online here.↩
  2. [2]Keller, Pseudacronis scholia in Horatium vetustiora, 1902. Vol. 1 online here; vol 2 here.↩

Discovery of unpublished letter by Eastern bishop on Easter, from the time of Nicaea, mentioning the Acts of Pilate

Posted on by Roger Pearse

There are still treasures out there, slumbering in forgotten manuscripts in the collections of the west.  French scholar Pierre Chambert-Protat today announced on Twitter that he has discovered a previously unknown ancient text in manuscript Montpellier 157.  This 9th century manuscript, copied in 848, is a collection of extracts on Easter, assembled by Florus of Lyons.

Dr C-P is researching Florus, which is how he came to look at this manuscript, and to realise that the first item in it was unknown.

He has generously uploaded pre-prints of two articles on the subject at the French HAL repository.  The first here discusses the manuscript and its contents.  The second, here, is entitled, “Une source inédite sur la question pascale au concile de Nicée : le Liber Timothei episcopi de pascha“[1].

The letter is by a certain bishop Timothy to an unidentified group.  His intention is to specify how they should calculate the date of Easter, and avoid falling into the errors of a certain Stephanus (recently condemned and otherwise unknown) and four other types of error.  In the process he attacks those who want to fix the date of Easter to the Roman Julian calendar – shades of our own time! – and those who reference the apocryphal Acts of Pilate.

The language is Latin, and contains various hellenisms, not well-understood always by the Latin translator.  The subject matter seems to belong to Asia Minor or Syria, where many different methods of calculation were known.  However the work seems to be known to St Augustine, which indicates that copies were in circulation in the south of Spain or in African in the second half of the 4th century.

He intends to publish the text with French translation in the Sources Chrétiennes series.  In the mean time he gives a summary of the contents, which seems well worth reproducing here (translation mine):

§ 1 — The love which community receiving this letter have for the Gospels, as well as their faith, deserve congratulations.

§ 2 — Though now separated from them by his office, the author desires anyway to increase and strengthen the faith of this community.

§ 3 — First important reminder: there is no other truth than Christ.

§ 4 — More precisely, this letter aims to recall the meaning of Easter at a time when some are emptying this festival of meaning, as for example Stephanus did.

§ 5 — Easter must be related to 1 Cor. 5:7-8:  Nam and Pascha nostrum immolatus is Christus: ita solemnia celebremus not in fermento malitiae and nequitiae, sed in azymis sinceritatis and ueritatis.

§ 6 – The figure of this sacrament was given in Exodus, along with the main rituals.

§ 7  — The Jews sacrificed only in figure, because the true sacrifice is that of Christ, the true lamb. [Quoted in the Liber XXI Sententiarum]

§ 8 — The rituals set forth in Exodus prefigured the Christian Passover typologically. [Quoted in the Liber XXI Sententiarum]

§ 9 — These days the Jews can no longer even follow the concrete provisions of the Law, and therefore they are in contravention of them on all points.

§ 10 — But it is the case of Christians that must be examined. For it is not enough to remember Christ: it must be done at the right time. The redeeming virtue of the sacrament is at stake.

§ 11 — Some people want to hold to the fourteenth day of the month, because of the Mosaic Law. But this is to cancel the sacrifice of Christ who freed us from it, as Paul has already said.

§ 12 — Furthermore, they cannot conform to the other precepts of the Mosaic Law, and therefore cease to be Christians without becoming Jews again. They are not anyone anymore.

§ 13 — And why do those who sanctify Sundays all year long refuse to sanctify the first Sunday of the year, the root and foundation of all others?

§ 14 — Basically, it is as if they do not even believe in the resurrection. If they believed in it, they would not neglect the day of his suffering. We must fast and rejoice at the right time. And these times, according to the evangelical precept, are days: not lunar cycles, which are right for the Jews.

§ 15 — The fake “Acts of Pilate” cannot be invoked either: their testimony is incompatible with the Gospels. Now the Gospels check the prophecies; while the fake Acts, well, we do not even know where they come from. From private or public hands? But which ones? It’s a low-grade swindle.

§ 16 — In a certain sense, they fall into the error of those who don’t intercalate a month to keep the solar and lunar calendars in step: to celebrate the Easter on a different day is like celebrating the Easter of a different Christ.

§ 17 — They fear that this intercalation may make them celebrate the Passover/Easter of the unclean. But it’s because they did not understand the calendar. Intercalation is not there to introduce disorder, but to restore order: it is the law of nature. And those who want to fix Easter according to the Roman calendar create an absurdity, since the Passover/Easter is a Jewish holiday, not a Roman holiday.

§ 18 — It is not a question of celebrating Passover with the Jews, but on the contrary, that the Christian perpetuation of this feast constitutes an accusation against the Jews. The calendar shift must serve this purpose.

§ 19 — But the worst of all are those who make Easter on the fourteenth of the month and commemorate the passion on the following Friday: they celebrate the passion after the resurrection, as if they suffered because Christ was risen!

§ 20 — This disruption of Easter disturbs all the rest of the liturgical calendar: these Christians fast when we rejoice, and vice-versa. Their behaviour is a denial of all faith, a denial of Christ himself.

§ 21 — It is necessary, indeed, a terrible audacity not to observe the great day upon which all of the sacred history converges; the day of divine victory; the day that so many miraculous signs have saluted; the day when, for Christians, everything begins; the day of true sacrifice. Who neglects it excludes himself; who observes it saves himself.

§ 22 — And that is all that should be said about it, in a few words so that the assembly standing up is not tired out too much.

It sounds extremely interesting!  Well done Drs. Chambert-Protat and Camille Gerzaguet for making this known!

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  1. [1]Pierre Chambert-Protat et Camille Gerzaguet, “Une source inédite sur la question pascale au concile de Nicée : le Liber Timothei episcopi de pascha“, in: Revue bénédictine 128, 2 (2018), p. 225–229. DOI : 10.1484/j.rb.5.116420.  Preprint here.↩

Commercial use of my stuff by someone else?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Today I received an email from “Delphi Classics” asking if they could use the Eusebius translations from my website for an upcoming eBook of the works of Eusebius.  These consist of translations now out of copyright, which I scanned, plus material that others sent me, and stuff that I commissioned myself.  They’re not offering me money, of course.

It was bound to happen.  Indeed it has probably happened already, without my knowledge.  It’s a funny feeling, to think of someone else making money out of my hard work.

They’re not intending to contribute anything – they just see a commercial opportunity.  Maybe they are right.

I have sent them an email of consent, all the same.  The purpose of everything I do is to make stuff freely and widely available.  If these people can get the works into the hands of more people, then this is well and good.

I do not believe that there is any real money in the fathers. I’ve never made a penny from what I do.  I owe all my interest to the work of the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, by Harry Plantinga, back in the day, who made the original Ante-Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers available to us all for nothing.  I can hardly do otherwise.

Copyright can be a real obstacle.  Long ago I used to be interested in a role-playing game called Empire of the Petal Throne.  This never became very widely known.  The author, M. A. R. Barker, was obsessed with control of the publishing rights.  This concern came out all over the place; and I always felt that it must have limited the circulation of EPT material.  I never wanted to do that.

So I’ve let them do what they want.  I hope that they sell a shed-load of Eusebius books.  Who knows who will read them and be inspired?

All the same, it’s still a funny feeling.

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Norwich Cathedral and the Latin origins of modern English liturgies

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I passed the weekend in the English city of Norwich.  On the Sunday I attended the sung eucharist at Norwich Cathedral with a friend.  I confess that I have never attended a Sunday morning service at a cathedral in my life, so it was a new experience.

Norwich Cathedral

The interior was very bare.  The stonework had been stripped of any plaster that it might have had in medieval times.  In some arches there was obvious whitewash.  I couldn’t help feeling that this was rather a pity.  The building would look better with a bit more colour.

It was also cold inside.  The temperature outside was sweltering, and had been so for two days.  But the great mass of medieval stone had not warmed up as yet.  These buildings can never have been anything else.

The huge building was mostly empty. The service took place in the nave, west of the huge stone rood screen which completely hid the altar from the nave.  The congregation was mostly elderly and no greater than an ordinary parish church.  Looking at them, it was obvious that they could not possibly afford to maintain this vast building.  They did make quite an effort to be welcoming to visitors.  Indeed my friend and I were collared and asked to help carry up the elements to the clergy during the eucharist, which was a surprise.

The choir was a visiting choir named Amici Coro, who were superb.  They were supported by equally or even more excellent organ playing.  I confess that I do like excellence in music, so long as it is not empty and cynical.

The service book was a local creation, with the cathedral on the cover.  Initially I couldn’t follow it at all!  This was because the service only used the material printed on the right-hand pages.  The material on the left hand pages, in a font and design identical to that opposite, was merely for information.  It’s quite hard to understand why anybody would do such a thing, but then the regulars all know.  Churches are often bad at this sort of thing.

But some of the material printed opposite did catch my eye.  It consisted of Latin versions of the material that we were saying.

Now I’m still working on the fifth-century Life of St George, and in one chapter there are quotations which are in fact from ancient liturgical material.  Some of these actually appeared in the Norwich cathedral service book.  For instance one section read:

Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram.
Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, miserere nobis.

I.e.

Who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Who takes away the sins of the world, receive our prayer.
Who sits at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us

The “qui tollis” caught my eye, having seen similar constructions in the Life.  The nominative “qui”, “who”, followed by the 2nd person singular “tollis”, “you take away”, made me rub my eyes.  Rendering as “you who take away”, “you take away” or “who takes away” – none of them a very exact translation on the face of it.

It made me realise that there is a tradition here, of words pronounced in western churches for nearly two millennia, about which most people, including myself, are utterly ignorant.  It isn’t even obvious to me where to start to find out.

I came to Christ in an Anglican church using a modern English liturgy.  I remember once attending a Roman Catholic service in my college days and being surprised to find much the same words being used.  But I have never heard anyone discuss what they were.

Is there a simple, brief introduction to such matters available?  Designed for the layman?

Suggestions would be most welcome in the comments.

My thanks to the people and clergy of Norwich cathedral for the welcome that we received, as complete and obscure strangers.  We were invited to the coffee afterwards, and everyone was most friendly.

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