Aristotle, Metaphysics IV.4 (1006a), trans. W. D. Ross.
Saturday, September 5, 2020
"not to know of what things one should demand demonstration, and of what one should not, argues want of education."
ἔστι γὰρ ἀπαιδευσία τὸ μὴ γιγνώσκειν τίνων δεῖ ζητεῖν ἀπόδειξιν καὶ τίνων οὐ δεῖ·
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
I have hoped exceedingly
Lord, listen to my cry; all my trust is in your promise. | Lord, listen to my cry; all my trust is in your promise. | Dawn finds me watching, crying out for you, | all my trust is in your promise.Response to the reading, Morning prayer, Liturgy of the hours,
Vocem meam audi, Domine; In verba tua supersperavi.
Vocem meam audi, Domine; In verba tua supersperavi.
Praeveni diluculo et clamavi.
In verba tua supersperavi.
Did St. Jerome coin the term supersperavi (which Lewis & Short translates, perhaps erroneously (?), as "I have hoped exceedingly" (though super doesn't ever qualify spero therein)) for the purpose of translating the ἐπήλπισα (ἐπελπίζω) of the Septuagint? He uses expectavi whenever, in Ps 119 (vv. 43, 74, 81, and 114), he is translating יָחַל. ἐπελπίζω ("buoy up with hope, pin one's hope on, hope in, hope besides") is present in classical Greek (Liddell & Scott), but superspero, not (I suspect) in classical Latin (though I haven't yet checked the second edition of the Oxford Latin dictionary).
Sunday, August 30, 2020
Pseudo John Chrysostom? "Your resignation assumes God is dead. Do not be so certain. He who embraced death has defeated its power over us. He who went down to hell liberated every city held captive by hell's despair. Christ is risen! Open the doors of your comfortable despair, that the great storms of hope may blow life into us again."
"In the year 387, an old preacher named John Chrysostom climbed into his pulpit in Antioch on Easter Sunday. It had been a hard year for the city. Rome had conscripted most of the men into the army to fight distant wars in the north while women and children remained behind to scavenge for food. The people despaired that their lives would ever get better. Chrysostom boldly told his congregation: 'Your resignation assumes God is dead. Do not be so certain. He who embraced death has defeated its power over us. He who went down to hell liberated every city held captive by hell's despair. Christ is risen! Open the doors of your comfortable despair, that the great storms of hope may blow life into us again.'"
See M. Craig Barnes, Extravagant mercy: reflections on ordinary things (Ann Arbor, MI: Vine Books, 2003), 183, as confirmed for me in detail by my colleague Sharon Taylor. I have not been able to find this paragraph in Google behind that point, and have searched also a number of other full-text databases, but without success. Also, it is not present in CPG 4612, the only one of Chrysostom's paschal homilies to be dated—i.e. to 387 (21 April 387)—therein. I have not yet tried Thesaurus Linguae Graecae more broadly, but to me the English looks suspiciously contemporary. As of 29 August 2020, Dr. Barnes hadn't remembered where he got it. Could it be, at best, somebody's loose paraphrase or even summary (of something else)?
Update, 31 August 2020: "As a provisional response," says Dr. Server J. Voicu, an important (Pseudo) John Chrysostom specialist at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome, "the passage is undoubtedly spurious. 'Christ is risen!' is a popular expression for Eastertide in the Byzantine churches, but Chrysostom never uses it" (note to me dated 31 August 2020). (Nonetheless, Dr. Voicu allows that, pending a definitively disconfirmatory search of Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, it could be a very loose paraphrase of an ancient text.) And by the way: lest someone object that the famous Catechetical sermon on Easter (Sermo catecheticus in pascha), "read every year for more than a millenium during the Orthodox 'Paschal Vigil'" (Panayiotis Papageorgiou, "The Paschal Catechetical Homily of St John Chrysostom: A Rhetorical and Contextual Study," The Greek Orthodox theological review 43, no. 1–4 (Spring 1998): 93), and in many other liturgical churches today, is loaded with the acclamation, that homily falls under the "Dubia et spuria" section of Clavis patrum Graecorum (CPG 4605) and the "Spuria" section of Migne (PG 59, cols. 721-724), though Papageorgiou (above) appears to be among those who, not surprisingly, dissent.
See M. Craig Barnes, Extravagant mercy: reflections on ordinary things (Ann Arbor, MI: Vine Books, 2003), 183, as confirmed for me in detail by my colleague Sharon Taylor. I have not been able to find this paragraph in Google behind that point, and have searched also a number of other full-text databases, but without success. Also, it is not present in CPG 4612, the only one of Chrysostom's paschal homilies to be dated—i.e. to 387 (21 April 387)—therein. I have not yet tried Thesaurus Linguae Graecae more broadly, but to me the English looks suspiciously contemporary. As of 29 August 2020, Dr. Barnes hadn't remembered where he got it. Could it be, at best, somebody's loose paraphrase or even summary (of something else)?
Update, 31 August 2020: "As a provisional response," says Dr. Server J. Voicu, an important (Pseudo) John Chrysostom specialist at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome, "the passage is undoubtedly spurious. 'Christ is risen!' is a popular expression for Eastertide in the Byzantine churches, but Chrysostom never uses it" (note to me dated 31 August 2020). (Nonetheless, Dr. Voicu allows that, pending a definitively disconfirmatory search of Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, it could be a very loose paraphrase of an ancient text.) And by the way: lest someone object that the famous Catechetical sermon on Easter (Sermo catecheticus in pascha), "read every year for more than a millenium during the Orthodox 'Paschal Vigil'" (Panayiotis Papageorgiou, "The Paschal Catechetical Homily of St John Chrysostom: A Rhetorical and Contextual Study," The Greek Orthodox theological review 43, no. 1–4 (Spring 1998): 93), and in many other liturgical churches today, is loaded with the acclamation, that homily falls under the "Dubia et spuria" section of Clavis patrum Graecorum (CPG 4605) and the "Spuria" section of Migne (PG 59, cols. 721-724), though Papageorgiou (above) appears to be among those who, not surprisingly, dissent.
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