Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
Here’s a couple of stray thoughts, relating to previous posts. Firstly, I can confirm that there is a translation into English of Theodoret’s Fabularum Haereticorum Compendium in the 1990 these by Glenn Melvin Cope, An analysis of the heresiological method of Theodoret of Cyrus in the “Haereticarum fabularum compendium”. I got hold of a copy today, […]
Today I had the chance to look for ten minutes at volume one of Vermaseren’s Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae (CIMRM). The second volume was inaccessible, unfortunately. The two volumes apparently parallel the two volumes in Cumont’s Textes et Monumentes, so I infer that the second volume may contain literary references. Vermaseren arranged his collection […]
I’ve been going through Cumont’s Textes et Monumentes and adding material from it to my page of literary sources for Mithras. One rather interesting snippet appeared only in a footnote, and was a quotation from Ambrose of Milan’s letters (which, fortunately, I have online), addressed to the emperor Valentinian. It seems that Ambrose knew so little […]
The great Franz Cumont, the founder of Mithraic studies, was not well served by his publisher. The latter permitted an English translation to be made, not of the whole Textes et Monumentes — which would have been of great use — but instead of merely the last portion of only tome 1, the Conclusions. The work was published […]
A chance query led me to Betz’ English translation of the Greek magical papyri. This is a collection of magical texts in multiple volumes discovered at Thebes in the early 19th century. The best known of these is the so-called Mithras liturgy, which is in reality just a spell like the rest. The reason it […]
When I encounter twaddle about the ancient world online, I always find it useful to gather all the relevant ancient sources. Long ago I did this with Mithras. I have just revised my collection and expanded it, and included also the references to Persian Mitra in Greek and Roman literature. The result is here.
I love modern legends. They have been the stimulus for much of what I have done online. The effort to research, access and document has given me many happy hours. This morning I was sitting in front of the monitor, looking for inspiration and stimulation. Then a Google Groups search on Mithras brought up this […]
Mike Aquilina sends me word of an exciting find in Syria: Syrian Archaeologists: Rare 3rd Century Frescos Undergoing Restoration at Hama Museum By H. Sabbagh Syria (Hama) – A group of experts from Poland are currently working to restore a number of rare frescos dating back to the 3rd century AD at the Hama Museum […]