Tag: New Blogs

New(ish) Patristic Blog – The Three Pillars

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve just become aware of a blog that started in 2021 called The Three Pillars.  It’s written by Scott Cooper, another layman like myself.  The blog is devoted to church history stuff, just as I do here.  It’s very nice to see a new blog in this space!

Recent posts include:

The first of these is an extremely interesting experiment.  The author modestly confesses that he has almost no Latin, so it must have taken some courage to venture out there and have a go!   What he has done is to get the Latin text, and translate it bit by bit using ChatGPT.  This he is controlling using Google Translate.  The output is in two columns, Latin on the left, English on the right, so be aware of this if you are viewing it on a handheld mobile device.

I’ve only glanced at a few lines, but it’s not bad at all; certainly better than no translation at all.   Fascinating!

One glitch that happens in Google Translate is that it omits a clause; but using two services should catch that.  I would imagine that over time the author will find his Latin improving enormously, just as mine did back in the late 90s.

Great stuff!

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Another patristics site

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’d like to recommend Fourth Century, an academic blog.  One excellent thing that they have done is to indicate the authors contained in the Clavis Patrum Latinorum and Clavis Patrum Graecorum.  There are various lists of authors and works, all very useful.  Translations are clearly indicated with authors.  The intention is to raise the quality as compared to amateur sites, and a praiseworthy aim it is.  My thanks to Ben Blackwell for the tip.

Talk of the CPL and CPG raises the question: isn’t it time these were online?  Thick expensive books available only in research libraries were the best we could do in 1990.  In 2008, these roadmaps of ancient literature should be online.

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