Category Archives: Patristica

My first copy of The History of the Church by Eusebius is the Penguin Classics edition translated by G. A. Williamson, revised, edited and with a new introduction by Andrew Louth (Penguin Books, 1989). This is the trade paperback edition (7 3/4 x 5 1/8 in. or 19.75 x 13 cm), which I prefer to the normal paperback sized edition of the same text that I’ve got squirreled away here somewhere….

Anyhow, I decided to start reading through Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History again as my nighttime relaxing reading before bed, and ran across a thorogouhly hilarious typographical error that I thought it would be a delight to share. It occurs in a section on Polycarp, the famous bishop of Smyrna, in which he runs into the arch-heretic Marcion (p. 117):

Polycarp himself on one occasion came face to face with Marcion, and when Marcion said ‘Don’t you recognize me?’ he replied: ‘I do indeed: I recognize the firstborn of Satin!”

Yes, there it is: “the firstborn of Satin!’

Here’s the Greek, which is quite snappy:

καὶ αὐτὸς δὲ ὁ Πολύκαρπος Μαρκίωνί ποτε εἰς ὄψιν αὐτῷ ἐλθόντι καὶ φήσαντι· ἐπιγίνωσκε ἡμᾶς, ἀπεκρίθη· ἐπιγινώσκω ἐπιγινώσκω τὸν πρωτότοκον τοῦ σατανᾶ.

Unfortunately, it seems that our Father among the Saints Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna wasn’t making a comment upon the unfortunate sartorial sense of the wretched heretic Marcion, shipwrecker of souls. The “Satin” is simply a typographical error for “Satan”. Unfortunately the typo really turns quite a dramatic moment into a rather silly thing. Hopefully it’s been corrected in later printings.

For first, in the vision of the statue, he was compared to gold, which is better than everything that is administered in the world.

In the vision of the beasts he was compared to a lion which is superior in its might to all other beasts.

He was compared again to an eagle which is more glorious than all other birds.

Whatever is written about him has been fulfilled in him. For the Lord said about him, “I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all the nations, and they will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. I have even given him the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven to serve him” (Jer 28.14; 25.11).

For when the king was like the head of gold, men served him like a king, and when he went out to the desert, the beasts served him as a lion.

When his hair was like that of an eagle, birds of heaven served him like an eagle.

When his heart was raised and he did not know that the power had been given to him from heaven, the yoke of iron was broken from the neck of the sons of men and he went out with the beasts, and instead of the heart of the kind, the heart of a lion was given to him.

When he became exalted over the beasts, the heart of a lion was removed from him and the heart of a bird was given to him.

When wings emerged from him like those of an eagle, he exalted himself over the birds, and then the wings were also pulled out and lowly heart was given to him.

When he recognized that the Most High had power in the kingdom of man to give ti to whom He wishes, then he sang praise as a man.

Aphrahat, Demonstration 5 § 16.>

I was in wonder as I crossed the borders of Paradise
at how well-being, as though a companion,
     turned round and remained behind.
And when I reached the shore of earth,
     the mother of thorns,
I encountered all kinds of pain and suffering.
I learned how, compared to Paradise,
     our abode is but a dungeon;
yet the prisoners within it weep when they leave it!

I was amazed at how even infants weep
     as they leave the womb —
weeping because they come out from darkness into light
and from suffocation they issue forth into this world!
Likewise death, too, is for the world
a symbol of birth,
     and yet people weep because they are born
out of this world, the mother of suffering,
     into the Garden of splendors.

Have pity on me, O Lord of Paradise,
and if it is not possible for me to enter Your Paradise,
grant that I may graze outside, by its enclosure:
within, let there be spread the table for the diligent,
but may the fruits within its enclosure
     drop outside like the crumbs
for sinners, so that, through Your grace, they may live!

St Ephrem the Syrian. from the Hymns on Paradise, 5:13-15. From Ephrem the Syrian: Select Poems, by Sebastian Brock and George Kiraz (Brigham Young University Press, 2006).

Since his mind was deranged and deluded by the devilish deceit in magic, and he was always ready to display the barbarous deeds of his own wickedness and demon’s wickedness through his magic arts, he came out in the open and, under the appearance of Christ’s name, induced death in his converts by slipping a poison into the dignity of Christ’s name—as though he were mixing hellebore with honey—for those whom he had trapped in his baneful error.

Since the tramp was naturally lecherous, and was encouraged by the respect that had been shown to his professions, he trumped up a phony allegory for his dupes. He had gotten hold of a female vagabond from Tyre named Helen, and he took her without letting his relationship with her be known. And while privately having an unnatural relationship with his paramour, the charlatan was teaching his disciples stories for their amusement and calling himself the supreme power of God, if you please! And he had the nerve to call the whore who was his partner the Holy Spirit, and said that he had come down on her account. He said, “I was transformed in each heaven in accordance with the appearance of the inhabitants of each, so as to pass my angelic powers by unnoticed and descend to Ennoia—to this woman, likewise called Prunicus and Holy Spirit, through whom I created the angels. But the angels created the world and men. But this woman is the ancient Helen on whose account the Trojans and Greeks went to war.”

St Epiphanius, Panarion, 2.2,2-4. Charles Williams’ translation.

One wonders what truth lay behind this depiction of Simon and his associate. The description of passing through the heavens and the name Ennoia show a relation to other Gnostic trends. Interesting, but garbled.

She turned to the East, and raising her eyes to heaven and stretching out her hands, she began to pray in a whisper. One could not hear separate words, so that Zosimas could not understand anything that she said in her prayers. Meanwhile he stood, according to his own accord, all in a flutter, looking at the ground without saying a word. And he swore, calling God to witness, that when at length he thought that her prayer was very long, he took his eyes off the ground and saw that she was raised about a forearm’s distance from the ground and stood praying in the air. When he saw this, even greater terror seized him and he fell on the ground weeping and repeating many times, “Lord have mercy.”

From The Life of our Holy Mother Mary of Egypt (St Nectarios Press, 1992)

Notice the woman in the ragged clothing in the image above. Her feet are not touching the ground! That is St Mary of Egypt. It is from the mosaic of the Last Judgment at the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, on the island of Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. St Mary of Egypt is shown leading the group of resurrected monastic women Saints in prayer. It brings a smile to the face, does it not? That combination of text and image is always fun when it happens.

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this today to me forever
By power of faith, Christ’s incarnation;
His baptism in Jordan river,
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb,
His riding up the heavenly way,
His coming at the day of doom
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of cherubim;
The sweet ‘Well done’ in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors’ faith, Apostles’ word,
The Patriarchs’ prayers, the prophets’ scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord
And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the star lit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea
Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward;
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart’s idolatry,
Against the wizard’s evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave, the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.
By Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

Translated by Cecil F. Alexander, 1889.

I really need to dig out the Latin and translate this myself. All that parallelism and rhyming is, aside from being representative of a very Victorian preference for translating metre, indicative that the Latin is not accurately reflected. No doubt some fun bits are missing.

i. (1) Now it was (foretold) in type and prophecy that there would come a high saint, noble and honourable, in Leinster, namely in Glendalough, to speak particularly, to rescue and repel men from paganism by the preaching of the word of God, for the healing of leper, and blind, and deaf, and lame, and all kinds of sick folk, to raise the dead, to put down the mighty and lift up the wretched, and to drive away plagues and pestilences, to check thieves and crimes and strange monsters, and to instruct all kinds of perverted folk who opposed the will of God. (2) Now Patrick, son of Calpurnius, the chief apostle of Erin, prophesied of this Coemgen thirty years before his birth, and that he would cause a chief city (monastery) to be built in the aforesaid glen, for the refection of companies and strangers, of guests and pilgrims, and that he would bring with him to Glendalough some of the mould and relics of the apostles and righteous men who are at Rome. (3) And it is written in this life that for obtaining remission of sins from God it is the same for any one to visit Rome, and (to visit) the relics and bed of Coemgen, as is customary, with penitence, and humility, and lowliness of heart.

Continue reading “Life of Saint Coemgen”

The basic structure of Ephrem’s understanding of the interpretation of Scripture may be summarized along the following lines. Scripture possesses two kinds of meaning, the outer historical meaning, and the inner spiritual meaning, ‘the hidden power’ as Ephrem sometimes calls it. These two coexist as intimately as do the humanity and divinity in the incarnate Christ. Ephrem’s belief in the presence of the ‘hidden power’ could be said to correspond to the traditional doctrine of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures.

The inner meaning, or ‘hidden power’, is as objectively present in Scripture as is the outer historical meaning. But whether its presence is actually perceived by the reader or hearer of Scripture is another matter, for this inner meaning can only be perceived by the inner eye, and the light by which that eye operates is the light of faith. That light is always available, but the individual inner eye can at will shut this out, or dim it. Whether a person makes any use of this inner mode of vision in the first place, and then, the extent to which she or he does so, is thus ultimately a matter of free choice, the exercise of free will. Put in different terms, the extent to which an individual can see with this inner eye will depend on the extent to which he or she is open to the continuing inspiration of the Holy Spirit. To appreciate the inspiration of the biblical text the reader must himself be open to the inspiration of the Spirit.

Sebastian Brock. The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem the Syrian (Cistercian Publications, 1992), page 162