Thoughts on Antiquity

In a Cairo manuscript there is a 4 page passage not present in the published text of the “Book of the Councils” by Severus of al-Ashmunein. A translator has been working on this for me, for 10 cents a word.
The first two pages have now arrived. Unfortunately they do not seem to be […]

I’d like to welcome two new bloggers. One you saw a couple of days ago, Peter Kirby, who you may know from his sites EarlyChristianWritings, EarlyJewishWritings, and the now retired Christian Origins blog.
The other is Bryan Cox, who’s old blog Biblaridion you might remember, and who is currently volunteering his time at the CSNTM. Let’s […]

Yesterday I was reading the collected letters of C.S.Lewis, and saw a description of Boswell as the best biography ever written.  As it is a favourite of mine, I concur.  But Lewis also gave second place to Lockhart’s “Life of Sir Walter Scott”. 
I’m not a great fan of much of Scott’s writing, but of course […]

If I look around the web for English translations of ancient texts, I am quickly struck by the degree to which patristic texts are commonplace, while classical ones are rare.  The difficult-to-use Perseus site continues its well-funded progress, it is true.  But amateur collections seem few.
These ruminations were provoked by the need to consult the epigrams […]

For some time I have been tracking down references in Arabic Christian texts to the idea that Zoroaster said something like “He who doesn’t eat my body and drink my blood will not know salvation”.  (The actual idea is fairly clearly bogus).
One of the possible witnesses is a passage in Severus ibn Mukaffa’, Book of the Councils.  […]

I am writing here now at Chris Weimer’s suggestion. It should be easier to make occasional posts of scholarly interest without all the pressure of performing as a blogging soloist. I will be discontinuing the blog format of the Christian Origins website. I appreciate the opportunity to blog here, and without further […]

No more bits have arrived. I spent last week discussing issues with Mr. A, the translator of the Greek. He is a bit prone to switch the order of the clauses in a sentence without obvious need, and this needed to be addressed.
One interesting thing: in order that we could discuss […]

An article in the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog points up a find of another stray page from British Library Additional 12150, which dates from 411 AD.
The manuscript was bought from the Monastery of the Syrians (Deir al-Suryani) (St. Mary Deipara) in the Nitrian desert by Archdeacon Henry Tattam in the 1840’s, but his […]

We’re now at Question 6 ad Stephanum, but an interesting question has arisen. What do we do about scripture quotations?
Where these are verbatim, we ought to use some recognised version. But which one? Worse, I have heard rumours that some copyright holders demand money to allow their version to be […]

Ciceronis Epistulae ad Atticum I.xiii:

Quae laudas ex orationibus, mihi crede, valde mihi placebant, sed non audebam antea dicere. Nunc vero, quod a te probata sunt, multo mihi ‘Αττικώτερα videntur.
And of those things which you praise from my speeches, believe me, they too were pleasing me greatly, but I did not dare before to mention it. […]