Translations of St Nicholas of Myra material on this website

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve just created a page on this blog with links to every post that contains a translation of one or the other of the medieval texts containing St Nicholas material.  It’s here.

Looking back, I started taking an interest in 2013.  The first translations of the legends appeared in 2015.  The most recent was earlier today.

That’s a long, long time.  And how things have changed.  Back in 2015, I was commissioning translations from the Greek of various short pieces.  In 2020, Google Translate suddenly became usable, at least for Latin.  And this year, we have the new AI Translators.  It’s possible to do stuff, even if you don’t have much knowledge of the languages.  It’s rather marvellous really!

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Methodius ad Theodorum (BHG 1352y) Part 4 – A Draft Translation using AI

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Sometimes the only way forward is to plunge in, and see what happens.  So I have taken the modern Greek translation of Methodius ad Theodorum by Ch. Stergioulis, and machine-translated it into English.  The results are attached, together with Stergioulis original, which has the ancient Greek facing the modern Greek, and footnotes at the end.

The ancient Greek original is preserved in a single Vatican manuscript, which gave the editor, G. Anrich, a lot of problems – so much so that he printed it in volume 1 of his Agios Nikolaos, and then printed a transcription of the manuscript in vol. 2, with corrections.  Some of his footnotes in vol. 1 betray bafflement; and so do some of Stergioulis’ footnotes!  Words otherwise unknown, I gather.  It’s clear that the text is corrupt.

I scanned Stergioulis’ translation into a Word document (attached).  Then for each chapter I did the following:

  1. Run the Greek through Google Translate and paste it into a Word document.
  2. Send a request to Bard AI, “please translate this from modern Greek into English, with notes”, followed by the Greek.  The notes were usually useless, but sometimes not.
  3. Send a request to ChatGPT 3.5, “please translate this from modern Greek into English” (this wouldn’t give notes), followed by the Greek.
  4. Manually modify the Google Translate output in the Word document using the output from the two AI websites.  Where all three agreed, this was no problem, and it was just a case of choosing the most pleasant version.  Where one disagreed, I looked a bit harder at it.  Where all three disagreed, I started looking up some key words in Greek dictionaries, and looked at the footnotes.  There was  in fact only one sentence, in chapter 10, where the meaning of a clause -“και φοβούμενος το λιχνιστήρι34 αυτής της ανθρωπαρέσκειας για την απόκτηση αγαθών – was completely unclear, and I got there in the end.

This was usually straightforward, not least because the chapters were small.

For a couple of chapters Bard AI threw a wobbly.  Instead of outputting a translation, it started to spew a message in Greek, basically saying “I am an AI model, I don’t know how to do that.”  It seems that it was ignoring the English part of my request string, thought that I was writing in Greek, and so it treated the Greek passage as itself a request to do something, not as something to translate.  I found that replying with “Could you translate that request from modern Greek into English?” did the trick, and caused it to translate instead.

Anyway, here is the output from this process.

The translation is readable enough.  I’m not sure how accurate it is – any comments, anyone?

UPDATE: final version here.

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Memory and the Internet: Dales Week, Montague Goodman, Ian Balfour, and Me

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Yesterday, on a whim, I went to Google and searched for “Dales Week”.  Few today will remember what this was.  The Dales Bible Week was a Christian festival held at Harrogate in the late 70s and early 80s.  It was very influential.  Tapes of the worship were in the hands of many of my friends.  Indeed I myself was converted there.  I still have the music book for “Songs of Victory.”

But Google returned almost nothing.  The top result was a post by myself (!), which only mentioned Dales Week incidentally.  Another two were to vintageworshiptapes.com, where a volunteer has rescued copies of the tapes and converted them to digital format.  A very worthwhile exercise; yet how little this is, compared to the thousands that attended, and the immense effect upon lives.  A mighty movement… has left little trace online.  Those three results were about all that there was.

In a way, this is not unexpected.  The work that God did in the 60s and 70s went almost unnoticed in the wider world.  Newspaper coverage of the time could be absurdly ignorant.  I remember that the Daily Telegraph had no idea at all, and wrote as if there were only two groups within the Church of England – the old-style Conservative prayer-book, and the trendy leftist unbelieving vicar, often depicted as “into” contemporary worship.  Both existed, but the Christians fell into neither category.  Neither of the others mattered at all, or left much trace behind.

No doubt this silence was God’s providence.  The rise in Christianity was deeply unwelcome to those who held secular power, and they would undoubtedly have done more to frustrate it, had they been aware.  Instead it progressed unhindered, or hindered only by local and short-lived outbreaks of opposition.

It is often said that Britain was saved from the horrors of the French Revolution by the rise of Methodism during the preceding decades.  Whether or not this is so, it can hardly have harmed the nation that large numbers were devout, hard-working, and selfless people.

Likewise it may be that in times to come, historians will look back and discover that this unheralded Christian renewal was the key movement of our times, the thing that changed attitudes away from the “if it feels good, do it” mantra of the secular 60s.

That Britain today is under the judgement of God, designed to bring repentance, may be inferred from the failure of every element of modern society, right down to the endless potholes that go neglected.  A man may not repent when addressed by a Christian .  Yet he may start to feel that “something needs to be done” when the suspension on his car fails!  What will our century look like, in the eyes of eternity?  But this we cannot know.

Seeing this silence led me to google something else.  I searched for “Montague Goodman”.  The name will be completely unfamiliar, I am sure. He was the author of a series of six books for boys, the “Wantoknow Series,” set at a school in England, which appeared in the 30s and 40s.  One of these books, “The Third Curiosity Book for Boys,” came into my hands as an isolated teenager whose only friends were books.  It didn’t matter so much what it was, so long as it was cheap, and it was certainly second-hand in the 1970s.  The volume was an omnibus and contained two books, “The Curiosity Club” and “Solomon Goes To School.”  The publisher was Paternoster Press, and the book itself was a “Victory Million Edition”, produced just after the war, on wartime economy paper.  There was also a series for girls, written by a certain Dorothy Dennison.[1]

The book was, in fact, Christian fiction.  But I had never heard of Christianity, and knew “religion” only from school assemblies.  So I really did not understand the book at all.  Yet it spoke to me.  Together with the Narnia stories, it was a praeparatio evangelica for when the gospel came to me, some years later.  It stands on my shelf even now.  But who was he?

A Google search for Montague Goodman reveals very little about him, but more than when I last looked.  Another book in my possession tells me that he helped to organise the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (OICCU) after the First World War.  The OICCU had existed before the war, but had partaken in the collapse of the Student Christian Movement and ceased to exist.  The OICCU link was another contact with my own life, for I was a member of the OICCU in my student days in Oxford.

More googling shows that he seems to have belonged to the Brethren in later life, and was involved with youthwork at that church.  Another site tells me that he was “the brother of George Goodman, one of the early Brethren,” although I don’t know anything about that.  A seventh book “Solomon builds a temple” came into my hands a few years ago, and is concerned – alas – with churchmanship, the snare into which the Brethren fell.   More helpfully, a Brethren Archive site has begun to put  material online. A photograph appears there, together with PDF’s of this “Wantoknow Series,” and a few other pamphlets.  It tells me he was born in 1875 and died in 1958.  The google search showed that his will provided a bursary for students at London Bible College.

Montague Goodman, 6 May 1875 – 31 October 1958

That’s not really very much about a man who plainly spent a busy and productive life.

Then I made another Google search.  This took me to the website of Ian Balfour, a Scottish lawyer (d. 2022) who developed an interest in Tertullian.  The site seems to be a memorial, and I had never seen it before.  I remember Ian.  Indeed we corresponded, and he mentioned the Tertullian Project in one of his academic articles.  In fact we actually met when he came to the Oxford Patristics Conference.  He was a very gentlemanly, very legal figure.  He was most certainly a Christian, but disinclined to discuss this with me then.  I had not known of his passing.

But it is a small world.  For on his site here (no. 13) was a photograph of one of his relatives, plainly from the 1950s, with two other elderly men. One of them was … Montague Goodman!

The internet is a bit fake, in a way.  All of us who are online tend to treat it as the world.  But in fact relatively few people are online, and contributing.  Most people live and die, and all the important things take place offline.  Twitter might be in an uproar, but nobody knows, or cares.  Maybe we all need to spend less time at the keyboard.

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  1. [1]“DENNISON, DOROTHY. Author. (Mrs G Golden); b 1900, d ? She is probably to be identified with the author of several books for teenage girls in the 1930s and 40s, parallel to Montague Goodman’s series for boys. These were partly for Christian teaching and encouragement, part evangelistic, often in narrative form. Others were general school stories in the Enid Blyton genre, such as Mystery at St Mawe’s, Corrie and Co.(1948) and The Rebellion of the Upper Fifth (1949). The one hymn for which she is known, and for which she gave Scripture Union free permission to use, appeared in Golden Bells (1925 edn) and Hymns of Faith (1964), both with the name ‘Dennison’. Mr E F Golden of Maidenhead was one of the leaders of the 40-strong class of Maidenhead Crusaders in the 1950s. No.205.”↩

On the typing of Greek

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I remember when the pre-unicode SPIonic font was the best way to enter polytonic Greek text.  You typed in a series of characters – “qeo/j”, changed the font, and the same letters now displayed as θεός.  It related very well to the betacode way of doing things, and I think we all got on well with it.  All the same, unicode was definitely a better way of doing things, where the Greekness of the text was encoded in the very characters themselves, and not in their formatting.

Unfortunately typing up unicode is a pain.  It’s so much of a pain that I have a little routine in my elderly HTML editor (MS Frontpage 2003) that takes text entered in the SPIonic way and automatically converts it to unicode.  I’ve probably used this for over a decade.  Indeed I just used it to enter θεός just now.

But what do you do, if you need to OCR polytonic Greek?  Say in Finereader?  You will need to correct the characters within the editor, with the image text right there.  You can’t really use that trick to do it.  You need to be able to enter the characters properly.

In Windows 11 there is a polytonic Greek keyboard.  You have to install the Greek language, which will give you a modern Greek keyboard, and you can also install the polytonic alternative.

But the key mappings are a bit mad.  To me, at least, they feel deeply unnatural.  If I press “w”, I expect to get omega, ω.  Instead I get final sigma.  If I type u, I expect to get υ not θ.  And so on it goes.

A bit of googling reveals that you can change these things.  There’s a microsoft download called MSKLC, Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator 1.4.  You can start with the standard layout, save it out as a “source file” to some name of your choice, and alter all the mappings.  With considerable labour, of course.  Although the labour gets less if you realise that the “.klc” file produced is just a text file, and you can use Notepad++ to move stuff around.  Then you compile it up, and you can install your new layout.  Apparently uninstalling can be tricky tho: I’m told the trick is to use the same installer to uninstall, rather than the standard Windows Add/Remove process.  But I have yet to try.

I’ve been playing with this, and googling.  It’s a very old utility, and frankly rather outdated and clumsy.  One sign of this is that the characters on the page are teeny-tiny, and the accents are worse!  But it is still perfectly usable.  So far I’ve moved a few keys to where, as an old SPIonic user, I think they should be:

But the next stage is the accents and breathings.  How best to do this?

The MSKLC defines “dead keys” – keys that, when you press them, don’t seem to do anything, until you press another key.  So you press a key to give you an acute accent, and nothing happens; then you press alpha, and lo! You have a single unicode character, an alpha with an acute accent.

Here again the default mapping seems a bit mad.  In SPIonic, you did the breathings using round brackets.  “(” was the rough breathing, “)” was the smooth breathing.  It helped that at least they looked a bit like the breathing.  You did the accent with the forward slash “/” and backslash “\”.  Not so in the default polytonic keyboard.

I think what I will do is to remap the keys so that this happens.

Of course that gives you a problem.  What do you do when you need brackets in your Greek text?  But this is an unavoidable problem.

There are legions of weird characters for Greek accents. I’m going to ignore nearly all of them.  If I get something weird, I can pull it out of charmap or something.

Once I have this keyboard, then at least I will be able to correct polytonic Greek text in my OCR tool.  If I get that far, I’ll upload it to GitHub or somewhere.

UPDATE (3 Feb 2024): It’s on GitHub here.

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St Valentine and the Martyrologium Hieronymianum

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Wikipedia is a fertile source of fake history.  Reading the article about St Valentine, I came across the following claim:

However, there is a reference to his feast day on 14 February in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum,[19] which was compiled between 460 and 544 from earlier local sources.

This appears around the web, as evidence that the feast day of St Valentine is attested as 14 February in the late 5th century.  That in turn then feeds into the huge, crude falsehood that Pope Gelasius I abolished the Lupercalia in 496, substituting St Valentine’s Day instead. In fact nothing of the sort is recorded in any ancient source.  In an older post I went through all the early sources for St Valentine here.

But what is the Martyrologium Hieronymianum anyway?  (It has the reference number CPL 2031) Well, it is a Latin list of dates on which certain martyrs are commemorated, with a preface supposedly by St Jerome – in fact not so – and which exists in a number of copies of the 8th century, which differ considerably.  Unfortunately it is also one of those annoying “texts” that does not really exist as a single item.

This happens a fair bit with certain genres of non-literary text.  Lawbooks, and church service books, and manuals of agriculture are not really books.  They are not literary texts, admired for themselves.  They are tools.  They are sources of information, which are inevitably updated in every copy with local information.  Consequently any discussion of them becomes a discussion of specific manuscript copies which still exist.  No two of these are alike.  But they tend to be grouped as examples of such and such a text.

Martyrologies are books of precisely this kind, constantly amended and evolved.  So there is no “Martyrologium Hieronymianum” as such.  What we have is a number of physical copies of a martyrology, attributed to Jerome in its varying prefaces, containing often similar lists of saints and dates; and often different ones.  The edition by de Rossi in the Acta Sanctorum for November, vol. 2, part 1, resorts to parallel columns, each derived from one of three manuscripts.  Here is p.20, with the entry for 14 Feb.

There we have it.  Valentine appears in just one of the three manuscripts, the “codex Epternacensis” – from Echternach -, which De Rossi tells us has the modern shelfmark Paris. BNF lat. 10837.  I learn from Lapidge, The Roman Martyrs, p.649 n. 3 that it is from the start of the 8th century AD.  I learn from Delahaye’s Commentarius Perpetuus in the Acta Sanctorum for November 2.2, p.92, that

…martyrologii contextus miserum in modum corruptus est et perturbatus…

… the order of the martyrology has been miserably corrupted and disturbed…

Which pretty much sums up what we see on the page.

The Echternach manuscript is online, and may be found here.  On folio 6v is our entry:

All well and good, except… this is not a manuscript of the 5th century.  It’s an 8th century manuscript.  The other two are both 9th century.  All three contain long lists of Gaulish saints, from which scholars infer that the ancestor of them all was at least significantly revised in Gaul at the end of the 6th century, around 592.

It has been argued that the base text in fact derives from Northern Italy, between 430-450 AD, and is based on three sources, none of which mention St Valentine: the Depositio Martyrum in the Chronography of 354; a Greek martyrology extant in Syriac translation dating to 411 AD, and a supposed ancestor of the Kalendarium Carthaginense, written between 505-535.

The value of these arguments must be evaluated by others, but what matters here is that, even by the 8th century, when the cult of St Valentine of Interamna (=Terni) was well established, only a single manuscript mentions it, and that only as part of a series of martyrs.  It cannot sensibly be supposed that this martyr was in the “original” text, whenever that was written.  If it had been in the supposed Italian base text, or even in the Gallic revision of 592, it would certainly be present in all three witnesses.

So the Martyologium Hieronymianum is of no value as a guide to when the cult of St Valentine was first established.  It certainly does not show, as Wikipedia would have us believe, that this cult was known in the 5th century AD.

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Nuisance “Discover more from” popup

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I discovered yesterday that a nagging popup has started appearing when trying to comment:

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I didn’t do this, so I’m sorry for the nuisance.  It turns out to be something WordPress silently added.  Supposedly  turned off by Jetpack -> Settings -> Newsletter, but in my case it was somewhere else!  Which I can’t find again: but a menu option “Newsletter.”

WordPress is beginning to annoy me.  It’s not sending notifications of comments to me either.  It’s doing stuff that I don’t want done.  Ho hum.

Update: Dashboard -> Jetpack -> Settings, look for drop-down at the top and change from “Security” to “Newsletter”, then turn off popup.

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The perils of AI translation

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Rather excited by the discoveries that AI would translate medieval Greek, I thought I’d try another attempt at that Ge`ez text that I put into Google Translate some time back.  That is a homily on St Garima by a certain bishop John.  I found the text on my disk, and put a paragraph into Bard AI.  Nope.  It wouldn’t play.  Then I tried ChatGPT 3.5.  That churned out the Nicene Creed, as a supposed translation.

You can’t trust AI.  It can and will generate garbage.  You have to be able to check.

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Methodius ad Theodorum (BHG 1352y) using AI on medieval Greek – part 3

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In the last post, we tried out various AI tools to translate the modern Greek version of Methodius ad Theodorum into English.  But in the previous post commenter Diego had considerable success doing the same with the original medieval Greek of chapter 3!  So I thought it might be interesting to see what might be done with the medieval Greek of chapter 4.

So I scanned the text using Abbyy Finereader Pro 15 – which treated it as modern Greek, and mangled the accents – and then ran it through (A) Bard AI, (B) ChatGPT 3.5, (C) Google Translate.  I had to split the sentences somewhat, and this wasn’t preserved in the AI translations, so I manually adjusted it.

Here’s the output:

4. Ἀλλά τούτο, εί καὶ παρέλκον, πλήν εις έγκεντρισμον θείου φόβου διηγήσασθαι συνεώρακα, ϊνα μνησθώμεν καὶ φοβηθέντες έκφύγωμεν τήν λέγουσαν απειλήν
A: But even though this is a digression, I have considered telling it for the sake of instilling the fear of God, so that we may remember and, being afraid, flee the threat that says,
B: “However, I have observed that even though it may be enticing, except for the purpose of instilling a divine fear, I narrate it simultaneously, so that we may remember and, being afraid, escape the threatening voice that says,
C: 4. But this, too, is irrelevant, except in the concentration of divine fear, as you tell us, we pray and, being afraid, flee from the so-called threat

«οὐ μὴ καταμείνη τό πνεύμά μου έν τοϊς άνθρώποις τούτοις διά τὸ είναι αυτούς σάρκας».
A: “My Spirit will not remain in these people because they are flesh.”
B: ‘My spirit will not remain among these people because they are flesh.’
C: “Do not let my spirit dwell in these people because they are flesh”.

είτα ευθύς ή σμικρότης τών ήμερων έπετιμήθη· φησίν γάρ·
A: Then immediately the shortness of the days was rebuked; for it says,
B: Then, immediately, the brevity of their days was reproved; for it says,
C: Behold the straightness or the smallness of the meek is despised;

«έσονται δέ αἱ ήμέραι αύτών ἑκατὸν είκοσι έτη»
A: “Their days will be one hundred and twenty years,”
B: ‘Their days will be one hundred and twenty years,’
C: “And the days of these are a hundred and twenty years”

, και πάλιν·
A: and again,
B: and again,
C: , and again;

«κραυγή Σοδόμων και Γομόρρας άνέβη πρός με· καταβάς οϋν δψομαι, εί κατά τήν κραυγήν αύτών συντελοϋνται· εἰ δὲ μή, ‘ίνα γνω».
A: “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has ascended to me; therefore I will go down and see whether they are acting according to their cry; if not, I will know.”
B: ‘The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah has come up to me. I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me; if not, I will know.’
C: “the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah went up to me; if I go down, I see, according to their cry they are done; but if not, let me know.”

και γάρ έξ άρχής σαρκομανία καὶ τον παγκόσμιον κατακλυσμόν καὶ τόν Πενταπόλεως έμπρησμὸν έφειλκύσατο, ο’ια καὶ νΰν τήν διηγηθεϊσαν θεηλασίαν.
A: For indeed from the beginning, carnality has brought about the worldwide flood and the burning of Pentapolis, and so now the theophany that has been described.
B: For from the beginning, he drew upon himself carnal indulgence, the worldwide deluge, and the burning of the Pentapolis, just as now he has brought upon himself the divine wrath that I have narrated.
C: and since from the beginning sarcomania and the universal cataclysm and the Pentapolis fire were spared, which they did not tell the story of.

δι’ ὸ έν άγιασμώ τό εαυτού σκεύος έκαστος κτησώμεθα· ούκ έσμέν γάρ εαυτών, ώς ό παρακλήτωρ θεού καὶ ύπερπρεσβενων Χριστού Παύλος ό ύιβηλός κέκραγεν, έπειδή τιμῆς ήγοράσΟημεν.
A: Therefore, let each of us acquire his own vessel in sanctification; for we are not our own, as the Paraclete of God and the ambassador of Christ, Paul the blessed, has cried out, because we have been bought with a price.
B: Therefore, let each one possess his vessel in sanctification, for we are not our own, as the advocate of God and the super-apostle Christ, Paul, cried out, ‘You were bought at a price.’
C: by which I sanctify myself, each one of us is a vessel; we are not for ourselves, as the intercessor of God and the ambassador of Christ, Paul the high priest, because of the honor of our king.

καὶ διά τούτο όφείλομεν δοξάσαι τόν θεόν έν τω σώαατι ήμών· ναός γάρ τού έν ήμϊν άγιου πνεύματός έστιν, ου άπό τον θεού έχομεν.
A: And for this reason we owe it to praise God in our body; for it is a temple of the Holy Spirit that is in us, which we have from God.
B: And for this reason, we must glorify God in our bodies, for our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit within us, which we have from God.
C: and for this reason we ought to glorify God in our house; for we are a temple of the Holy Spirit, which we have from God.

καὶ άνειμι λοιπόν τή διηγήσει μετά τὴν ύπόμνησιν καθ’ ειρμόν βαδιούμενος.
A: And I return, then, to the narrative, walking in order after the reminder.
B: Thus, having completed the narration, I proceed with the exhortation according to custom.”
C: and Anemi, therefore, recounted it after the reminder as he walked.

The value of this test is again distorted because so much of it is from the New Testament.

We’re getting something, but the quality isn’t great.  We got better from the modern Greek.  The inferiority of Google Translate (C) is noticeable.

I’ll try chapter 5, and see how we get on.

UPDATE (20 Jan 2024):  I tried combining this with the material from modern Greek.  This involved an awful lot of manual fiddling, because sentences end in different places.  I combined them using the Linux “paste” command, and prefixed each line with something identifiable.  Here are the results.  But I think this is just too time-consuming.

Original : 4. Ἀλλά τούτο, εί καὶ παρέλκον, πλήν εις έγκεντρισμον θείου φόβου διηγήσασθαι συνεώρακα, ϊνα μνησθώμεν καὶ φοβηθέντες έκφύγωμεν τήν λέγουσαν απειλήν
A (Bard AI) : But even though this is a digression, I have considered telling it for the sake of instilling the fear of God, so that we may remember and, being afraid, flee the threat that says,
B (ChatGPT3.5): “However, I have observed that even though it may be enticing, except for the purpose of instilling a divine fear, I narrate it simultaneously, so that we may remember and, being afraid, escape the threatening voice that says,
C (Google Tr) : 4. But this, too, is irrelevant, except in the concentration of divine fear, as you tell us, we pray and, being afraid, flee from the so-called threat
D (Modern Gk) : Διηγήθηκα, λοιπόν, σύντομα τούτο το γεγονός, αν και ήταν περιττό, προκειμένου να μπολιάσω στις ψυχές το θείο φόβο, για να θυμούμαστε με φόβο την απειλή (εν. του θεού) πως:
E (ChatGPT3.5): So, I recounted this event briefly, even though it was unnecessary, in order to instill divine fear into the souls, so that we may remember with fear the threat (of God) that:
F (Bing AI) : So I briefly narrated this event, although it was unnecessary, in order to instill divine fear in our souls, so that we may remember the threat (of God) that
G (ChatGPT4) : I have thus briefly recounted this event, though it was unnecessary, in order to instill divine fear into our souls. We must remember with fear the divine threat that

Original : «οὐ μὴ καταμείνη τό πνεύμά μου έν τοϊς άνθρώποις τούτοις διά τὸ είναι αυτούς σάρκας».
A (Bard AI) : “My Spirit will not remain in these people because they are flesh.”
B (ChatGPT3.5): ‘My spirit will not remain among these people because they are flesh.’
C (Google Tr) : “Do not let my spirit dwell in these people because they are flesh”.
D (Modern Gk) : “δεν θα παραμείνει πλέον το πνεύμα μου στους ανθρώπους τούτους, διότι κυριαρχούνται εξ ολοκλήρου από σαρκικά φρονήματα”17 και έτσι να γλιτώσουμε απ’ αυτήν.
E (ChatGPT3.5): ‘My spirit will no longer remain among these people, for they are entirely dominated by carnal thoughts’17 and thus to be saved from it.
F (Bing AI) : “my spirit will no longer remain with these people, because they are entirely dominated by carnal thoughts”17 and thus save ourselves from it.
G (ChatGPT4) : “my spirit shall no longer remain in these humans, for they are entirely dominated by carnal thoughts” (17) and thus save ourselves from it.

Original : είτα ευθύς ή σμικρότης τών ήμερων έπετιμήθη· φησίν γάρ·
A (Bard AI) : Then immediately the shortness of the days was rebuked; for it says,
B (ChatGPT3.5): Then, immediately, the brevity of their days was reproved; for it says,
C (Google Tr) : Behold the straightness or the smallness of the meek is despised;
D (Modern Gk) : Κι ευθύς αμέσως ορίστηκε ένα μικρό χρονικό διάστημα πριν την καταστροφή. Είπε, δηλαδή:
E (ChatGPT3.5): And immediately, a short period before the destruction was appointed. He said, namely:
F (Bing AI) : And immediately a small period of time was set before the destruction. He said, that is:
G (ChatGPT4) : A short period was immediately set before the destruction. It was stated:

Original : «έσονται δέ αἱ ήμέραι αύτών ἑκατὸν είκοσι έτη»
A (Bard AI) : “Their days will be one hundred and twenty years,”
B (ChatGPT3.5): ‘Their days will be one hundred and twenty years,’
C (Google Tr) : “And the days of these are a hundred and twenty years”
D (Modern Gk) : όλες οι υπολειπόμενες μέρες της ζωής τους θα περιορισθούν μόνο σε εκατόν είκοσι ετη”18.
E (ChatGPT3.5): ‘all the remaining days of their lives will be limited to only one hundred twenty years’18.
F (Bing AI) : all the remaining days of their lives will be limited to only one hundred and twenty years”18.
G (ChatGPT4) : “All their remaining days shall be limited to only one hundred and twenty years” (18).

Original : , και πάλιν·
A (Bard AI) : and again,
B (ChatGPT3.5): and again,
C (Google Tr) : , and again;
D (Modern Gk) : Και συμπλήρωσε:
E (ChatGPT3.5): And he added:
F (Bing AI) : And he added:
G (ChatGPT4) : And it was added:

Original : «κραυγή Σοδόμων και Γομόρρας άνέβη πρός με· καταβάς οϋν δψομαι, εί κατά τήν κραυγήν αύτών συντελοϋνται·
A (Bard AI) : “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has ascended to me; therefore I will go down and see whether they are acting according to their cry;
B (ChatGPT3.5): ‘The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah has come up to me. I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me;
C (Google Tr) : “the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah went up to me; if I go down, I see, according to their cry they are done;
D (Modern Gk) : “κραυγές πολλές ανέρχονται από τα Σοδομα και τη Γομόρρα προς εμέ• οι αμαρτίες τους είναι πάρα πολύ μεγάλες. Θα κατεβώ, λοιπόν, εκεί, για να δω, αν πράγματι οι αμαρτίες τους είναι όπως οι κραυγές που ανέρχονται προς εμέ ή όχι.
E (ChatGPT3.5): ‘Many cries rise from Sodom and Gomorrah to me; their sins are very great. So I will go down there to see if their sins are as the cries that rise to me or not.
F (Bing AI) : “Many cries are coming from Sodom and Gomorrah to me; their sins are very great. So I will go down there to see if their sins are like the cries that are coming to me or not.
G (ChatGPT4) : “Many cries rise up from Sodom and Gomorrah to me; their sins are exceedingly great. I will go down there, then, to see if their sins are as the cries that rise up to me or not.

Original : εἰ δὲ μή, ‘ίνα γνω».
A (Bard AI) : if not, I will know.”
B (ChatGPT3.5): if not, I will know.’
C (Google Tr) : but if not, let me know.”
D (Modern Gk) : Οπωσδήποτε θέλω να μάθω!”19.
E (ChatGPT3.5): I definitely want to know!’19.
F (Bing AI) : I definitely want to know!”19.
G (ChatGPT4) : I definitely want to know!” (19).

Original : και γάρ έξ άρχής σαρκομανία καὶ τον παγκόσμιον κατακλυσμόν καὶ τόν Πενταπόλεως έμπρησμὸν έφειλκύσατο, ο’ια καὶ νΰν τήν διηγηθεϊσαν θεηλασίαν.
A (Bard AI) : For indeed from the beginning, carnality has brought about the worldwide flood and the burning of Pentapolis, and so now the theophany that has been described.
B (ChatGPT3.5): For from the beginning, he drew upon himself carnal indulgence, the worldwide deluge, and the burning of the Pentapolis, just as now he has brought upon himself the divine wrath that I have narrated.
C (Google Tr) : and since from the beginning sarcomania and the universal cataclysm and the Pentapolis fire were spared, which they did not tell the story of.
D (Modern Gk) : Πράγματι, εξ αρχής η σαρκολατρεία20 προκάλεσε και επέφερε τον παγκόσμιο κατακλυσμό και την πυρπόληση της Πεντάπολης21, όπως και τη μόλις διηγηθείσα θεϊκή τιμωρία (των Πατάρων).
E (ChatGPT3.5): Indeed, from the beginning, idolatry20 provoked and brought about the worldwide flood and the destruction of Pentapolis21, as well as the divine punishment (of the Patari).
F (Bing AI) : Indeed, from the beginning, idolatry20 caused and brought about the worldwide flood and the burning of Pentapolis21, as well as the divine punishment (of the Patari).
G (ChatGPT4) : Indeed, from the beginning, flesh worship (20) caused and brought about the global flood and the burning of the Pentapolis (21), as well as the divine punishment of the Patara just narrated.

Original : δι’ ὸ έν άγιασμώ τό εαυτού σκεύος έκαστος κτησώμεθα·
A (Bard AI) : Therefore, let each of us acquire his own vessel in sanctification;
B (ChatGPT3.5): Therefore, let each one possess his vessel in sanctification,
C (Google Tr) : by which I sanctify myself, each one of us is a vessel;
D (Modern Gk) : Για το λόγο αυτό ας διαφυλάττει ο καθένας το σώμα του ως σκεύος αγιασμού’2.
E (ChatGPT3.5): For this reason, let everyone preserve his body as a vessel of sanctification.
F (Bing AI) : For this reason, let everyone preserve his body as a vessel of sanctification’2.
G (ChatGPT4) : For this reason, let each one keep his body as a vessel of sanctification (22).

Original : ούκ έσμέν γάρ εαυτών, ώς ό παρακλήτωρ θεού καὶ ύπερπρεσβενων Χριστού Παύλος ό ύιβηλός κέκραγεν, έπειδή τιμῆς ήγοράσΟημεν.
A (Bard AI) : for we are not our own, as the Paraclete of God and the ambassador of Christ, Paul the blessed, has cried out, because we have been bought with a price.
B (ChatGPT3.5): for we are not our own, as the advocate of God and the super-apostle Christ, Paul, cried out, ‘You were bought at a price.’
C (Google Tr) : we are not for ourselves, as the intercessor of God and the ambassador of Christ, Paul the high priest, because of the honor of our king.
D (Modern Gk) : Δεν ανήκουμε στον εαυτό μας, όπως έντονα διακήρυττε ο μέγας Παύλος, αυτός που διαρκώς ικέτευε τον θεό και παρακαλούσε συνεχώς τον Χριστό, γιατί έχουμε εξαγορασθεί με πολύτιμο τίμημα, το αίμα του Χριστού.
E (ChatGPT3.5): We do not belong to ourselves, as the great Paul strongly proclaimed, he who constantly implored God and continually besought Christ because we have been redeemed with a precious ransom, the blood of Christ.
F (Bing AI) : We do not belong to ourselves, as the great Paul strongly declared, he who constantly implored God and continuously prayed to Christ, because we have been redeemed with a precious price, the blood of Christ.
G (ChatGPT4) : We do not belong to ourselves, as the great Paul fervently proclaimed, who constantly supplicated God and continuously implored Christ, for we have been bought with a precious price, the blood of Christ.

Original : καὶ διά τούτο όφείλομεν δοξάσαι τόν θεόν έν τω σώαατι ήμών· ναός γάρ τού έν ήμϊν άγιου πνεύματός έστιν, ου άπό τον θεού έχομεν.
A (Bard AI) : And for this reason we owe it to praise God in our body; for it is a temple of the Holy Spirit that is in us, which we have from God.
B (ChatGPT3.5): And for this reason, we must glorify God in our bodies, for our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit within us, which we have from God.
C (Google Tr) : and for this reason we ought to glorify God in our house; for we are a temple of the Holy Spirit, which we have from God.
D (Modern Gk) : Γι’ αυτό και οφείλουμε να δοξάσουμε τον θεό με το σώμα μας, χωρίς να το μολύνουμε• γιατί είναι ναός του Αγίου Πνεύματος που κατοικεί μέσα μας, και το οποίο έχουμε λάβει από τον θεό23.
E (ChatGPT3.5): Therefore, we must glorify God with our bodies without defiling them, for it is the temple of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us, which we have received from God23.
F (Bing AI) : Therefore, we must glorify God with our body, without defiling it; because it is the temple of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us, and which we have received from God23.
G (ChatGPT4) : Therefore, we owe it to glorify God with our body, without defiling it; for it is the temple of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, which we have received from God (23).

Original : καὶ άνειμι λοιπόν τή διηγήσει μετά τὴν ύπόμνησιν καθ’ ειρμόν βαδιούμενος.
A (Bard AI) : And I return, then, to the narrative, walking in order after the reminder.
B (ChatGPT3.5): Thus, having completed the narration, I proceed with the exhortation according to custom.”
C (Google Tr) : and Anemi, therefore, recounted it after the reminder as he walked.
D (Modern Gk) : Προχωρώ, λοιπόν, μετά την υπόμνηση των παραπάνω στη διήγηση, και ολόγος μου θα έχει ως εξής:
E (ChatGPT3.5): I proceed, therefore, after the reminder of the above in the narrative, and my discourse will be as follows:
F (Bing AI) : So, after the above reminder, I proceed with the narrative, and my speech will be as follows:
G (ChatGPT4) : I proceed, therefore, after reminding the above in the narration, and my speech will be as follows:

Hmm.

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“…whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God” – a fake quote

Posted on by Roger Pearse

There are many pages around the internet which say something like this:

The feast of St. Valentine of February 14 was first established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among all those “… whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God.”

But the quotation is never referenced.  Often it is not applied to St Valentine, but to St George instead.  Sometimes people mention the “Canon of Pope Gelasius”.

In fact the wording is an old – at least 19th century – and loose translation of a passage from the Decretum Gelasianum.  Latin:

item gesta sanctorum martyrum, quae multiplicibus tormentorum cruciatibus et mirabilibus confessionum triumphis inradiant. quis catholicorum dubitet maiora eos in agonibus fuisse perpessos nec suis viribus sed dei gratia et adiutorio universa tolerasse? sed ideo secundum antiquam consuetudinem singulari cautela in sancta Romana ecclesia non leguntur, quia et eorum qui conscripsere nomina penitus ignorantur et ab infidelibus et idiotis superflua aut minus apta quam rei ordo fuerit esses putantur; sicut cuiusdam Cyrici et Iulittae, sicut Georgii aliorumque eiusmodi passiones quae ab hereticis perhibentur conpositae. propter quod, ut dictum est, ne vel levis subsannandi oriretur occasio, in sancta Romana ecclesia non leguntur. nos tamen cum praedicta ecclesia omnes martyres et eorum gloriosos agones, qui deo magis quam hominibus noti sunt, omni devotione veneramur;

Rendered in B. Neil & P. Allen, Letters of Gelasius I (492-496), Brepols (2014), p.160:

Likewise the deeds of the holy martyrs who beam forth among their multiple and excruciating torments the amazing triumphs of their confessions. What catholic could doubt that they suffered those things and more in their struggles and did not bear all these things by their own strength but by the grace and help of God? But according to an ancient custom, by an unparalleled security measure in the church of Rome both those deeds whose authors’ names are totally unknown and are thought to be written by unbelievers or private persons, being unnecessary or less appropriate than the order of the matter was, are not read: like those of a certain Quiricius and Julitta, like those of George, and passions of others of this kind, compositions produced by the heretics. Therefore, these are not read in the holy church of Rome, as has been said, to prevent even a slight chance of derision from arising. However, for our part, we – together with the aforesaid church – reverence with all devotedness all the martyrs and their glorious struggles, which are known better to God than to human beings. Likewise we accept with all honour the lives of the Fathers, Paul, Antony, Hilarion, and all the hermits, those at least which the most blessed Jerome wrote.48

The reference to St George is genuine –  indeed a 5th century “Life” of St George exists, which is indeed rather dreadful and probably heretical.  But this has nothing to do with St Valentine.

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Methodius ad Theodorum (BHG 1352y) in modern Greek – part 2

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Using AI and a dictionary, let’s try out the translation approach from my last post on a further chapter of this modern Greek translation of the Life of St Nicholas by Methodius.  Here’s the text, hopefully with few OCR errors:

4. Διηγήθηκα, λοιπόν, σύντομα τούτο το γεγονός, αν και ήταν περιττό, προκειμένου να μπολιάσω στις ψυχές το θείο φόβο, για να θυμούμαστε με φόβο την απειλή (εν. του θεού) πως: “δεν θα παραμείνει πλέον το πνεύμα μου στους ανθρώπους τούτους, διότι κυριαρχούνται εξ ολοκλήρου από σαρκικά φρονήματα”17 και έτσι να γλιτώσουμε απ’ αυτήν. Κι ευθύς αμέσως ορίστηκε ένα μικρό χρονικό διάστημα πριν την καταστροφή. Είπε, δηλαδή: όλες οι υπολειπόμενες μέρες της ζωής τους θα περιορισθούν μόνο σε εκατόν είκοσι ετη”18. Και συμπλήρωσε: “κραυγές πολλές ανέρχονται από τα Σοδομα και τη Γομόρρα προς εμέ• οι αμαρτίες τους είναι πάρα πολύ μεγάλες. Θα κατεβώ, λοιπόν, εκεί, για να δω, αν πράγματι οι αμαρτίες τους είναι όπως οι κραυγές που ανέρχονται προς εμέ ή όχι. Οπωσδήποτε θέλω να μάθω!”19. Πράγματι, εξ αρχής η σαρκολατρεία20 προκάλεσε και επέφερε τον παγκόσμιο κατακλυσμό και την πυρπόληση της Πεντάπολης21, όπως και τη μόλις διηγηθείσα θεϊκή τιμωρία (των Πατάρων). Για το λόγο αυτό ας διαφυλάττει ο καθένας το σώμα του ως σκεύος αγιασμού’2. Δεν ανήκουμε στον εαυτό μας, όπως έντονα διακήρυττε ο μέγας Παύλος, αυτός που διαρκώς ικέτευε τον θεό και παρακαλούσε συνεχώς τον Χριστό, γιατί έχουμε εξαγορασθεί με πολύτιμο τίμημα, το αίμα του Χριστού. Γι’ αυτό και οφείλουμε να δοξάσουμε τον θεό με το σώμα μας, χωρίς να το μολύνουμε• γιατί είναι ναός του Αγίου Πνεύματος που κατοικεί μέσα μας, και το οποίο έχουμε λάβει από τον θεό23. Προχωρώ, λοιπόν, μετά την υπόμνηση των παραπάνω στη διήγηση, και ολόγος μου θα έχει ως εξής:

Next, the pre-AI Google Translate output:

4. Therefore, I briefly related this event, although it was unnecessary, in order to instill in souls the divine fear, so that we remember with fear the threat (of God) that: “my spirit will no longer remain among men these, because they are completely dominated by carnal thoughts”17 and thus escape from it. And right away a short period of time was set before the disaster. He said, in other words: all the remaining days of their lives will be limited to only one hundred and twenty years.”18 And he added: “many cries go up from Sodom and Gomorrah to me; their sins are very great. I will therefore come down there, to see whether their sins are really like the cries that come up to me or not. I certainly want to know!”19 Indeed, from the beginning flesh worship20 caused and brought about the global flood and the burning of the Pentapolis21, just as the just-narrated divine punishment (of the Patras). For this reason let each one guard his body as a vessel of sanctification’2. We do not belong to ourselves, as the great Paul strongly proclaimed, he who constantly begged God and constantly begged him Christ, for we have been redeemed with a precious price, the blood of Christ. Therefore we ought to glorify God with our body, without defiling it; for it is a temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, and which we have received from the god23. So, after reminding the above, I proceed to the narration, and my thesis will be as follows:

Now time for AI.  I asked “Can you translate something for me from modern Greek into English.”  The ChatGPT 3.5 output using a free account:

The narrator recounted, therefore, briefly this event, although it was unnecessary, in order to instill divine fear into the souls, so that we may remember with fear the threat (of God) that: “My spirit will no longer remain among these people, for they are entirely dominated by carnal thoughts”17 and thus to be saved from it. And immediately a small period before the destruction was appointed. He said, namely: “all the remaining days of their lives will be limited to one hundred twenty years”18. And he added, “Many cries rise from Sodom and Gomorrah to me; their sins are very great. So I will go down there to see if their sins are as the cries that rise to me or not. I definitely want to know!”19. Indeed, from the beginning, idolatry20 provoked and brought about the worldwide flood and the destruction of Pentapolis21, as well as the divine punishment (of the Patari). For this reason, let everyone preserve his body as a vessel of sanctification. We do not belong to ourselves, as the great Paul strongly proclaimed, he who constantly implored God and continually besought Christ, because we have been redeemed with a precious ransom, the blood of Christ. Therefore, we must glorify God with our bodies without defiling them, for it is the temple of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us, which we have received from God23. I proceed, therefore, after the reminder of the above in the narrative, and my discourse will be as follows:

That seemed a bit odd, so I tried again:

So, I recounted this event briefly, even though it was unnecessary, in order to instill divine fear into the souls, so that we may remember with fear the threat (of God) that: ‘My spirit will no longer remain among these people, for they are entirely dominated by carnal thoughts’17 and thus to be saved from it. And immediately, a short period before the destruction was appointed. He said, namely: ‘all the remaining days of their lives will be limited to only one hundred twenty years’18. And he added: ‘Many cries rise from Sodom and Gomorrah to me; their sins are very great. So I will go down there to see if their sins are as the cries that rise to me or not. I definitely want to know!’19. Indeed, from the beginning, idolatry20 provoked and brought about the worldwide flood and the destruction of Pentapolis21, as well as the divine punishment (of the Patari). For this reason, let everyone preserve his body as a vessel of sanctification. We do not belong to ourselves, as the great Paul strongly proclaimed, he who constantly implored God and continually besought Christ because we have been redeemed with a precious ransom, the blood of Christ. Therefore, we must glorify God with our bodies without defiling them, for it is the temple of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us, which we have received from God23. I proceed, therefore, after the reminder of the above in the narrative, and my discourse will be as follows:

Now Bing CoPilot:

  1. 4.  So I briefly narrated this event, although it was unnecessary, in order to instill divine fear in our souls, so that we may remember the threat (of God) that “my spirit will no longer remain with these people, because they are entirely dominated by carnal thoughts”17 and thus save ourselves from it. And immediately a small period of time was set before the destruction. He said, that is: all the remaining days of their lives will be limited to only one hundred and twenty years”18. And he added: “Many cries are coming from Sodom and Gomorrah to me; their sins are very great. So I will go down there to see if their sins are like the cries that are coming to me or not. I definitely want to know!”19. Indeed, from the beginning, idolatry20 caused and brought about the worldwide flood and the burning of Pentapolis21, as well as the divine punishment (of the Patari). For this reason, let everyone preserve his body as a vessel of sanctification’2. We do not belong to ourselves, as the great Paul strongly declared, he who constantly implored God and continuously prayed to Christ, because we have been redeemed with a precious price, the blood of Christ. Therefore, we must glorify God with our body, without defiling it; because it is the temple of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us, and which we have received from God23. So, after the above reminder, I proceed with the narrative, and my speech will be as follows:

Well, this chapter is studded with quotations from scripture, so that skews things a bit.  One would expect scripture to be handled OK by pretty much any system.

Now again there are odd words.  σαρκολατρεία is rendered as “flesh worship” by Google Translate, and “idolatry” by AI.  WordReference.com doesn’t know the word.  Hum.

But what strikes me most here is that I need to compare closely the various different versions of text and translation.  Doing it on a paragraph is cumbersome.  I need to split the text into sentences, and interleave the various versions.

It’s also rather cumbersome using the websites to access ChatGPT.  There is a command-line interface.

I need to upgrade my tools before I do any more on this.

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