Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 09-09-2013, 10:36 AM

The fire at the Temple of Peace c. 192 CE

http://rbedrosian.com/Libraries/Libr...Galen_Rome.pdf

This undoubtedly cleared the way for a 'restart' for Christianity both in terms of knowledge about the exact nature of Jewish revolt (Josephus now becomes our dominant source of information preserved and encouraged as it was by Irenaeus and company) and moreover it must have wiped out testimonials about Christianity and perhaps even by Christians.

Roger Pearse · 09-09-2013, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

The fire at the Temple of Peace c. 192 CE

http://rbedrosian.com/Libraries/Libr...Galen_Rome.pdf

This undoubtedly cleared the way for a 'restart' for Christianity both in terms of knowledge about the exact nature of Jewish revolt (Josephus now becomes our dominant source of information preserved and encouraged as it was by Irenaeus and company) and moreover it must have wiped out testimonials about Christianity and perhaps even by Christians.

Since that article was published, another work of Galen's referring to the fire and his losses has been discovered, quite by accident. In 2006 Peri Alupias was rediscovered. Some excerpts; other info here, here, and other articles on Galen, often bibliographical here. Note that I never was able to obtain a copy of the catalogue of Vlatadon monastery.

stephan huller · 09-09-2013, 01:24 PM

Thank you Roger. This is indeed valuable information. People talk about the loss of the library of Alexandria but this new discovery shines new light on this catastrophe. Can you imagine how many other works are still locked away inside of monastic libraries? A friend of mine told me that in eastern Orthodox monasteries they had two libraries - a library of super secret works and those for the general population of the monasteries.

Roger Pearse · 09-09-2013, 02:51 PM

It's a very interesting question. The Vlatadon monastery proved to have better texts than previously known of Galen's "On my own books" and "On the order of my own books" as well.

The detective work done by Wendy Pradels led her to a unique manuscript on Lesbos of homily 2 of Chrysostom's "Against the Jews". Homily 2 was a third the length of the other 7 homilies, and it had always been suspected that it was only a fragment. Pradels found a complete text.

stephan huller · 09-09-2013, 07:18 PM

http://www.academia.edu/565335/Galen...e_Peri_Alupias

Roger Pearse · 09-10-2013, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

http://www.academia.edu/565335/Galen...e_Peri_Alupias

Useful - thanks!

aa5874 · 09-10-2013, 08:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Thank you Roger. This is indeed valuable information. People talk about the loss of the library of Alexandria but this new discovery shines new light on this catastrophe. Can you imagine how many other works are still locked away inside of monastic libraries? A friend of mine told me that in eastern Orthodox monasteries they had two libraries - a library of super secret works and those for the general population of the monasteries.

Can you tell us who that friend is if it is not a secret? Perhaps there were three libraries but your friend does not know --it is a secret.:banghead:

stephan huller · 09-10-2013, 08:52 PM

Oh brother. It's hard to make jokes in a language that you don't have adequate familiarity with. Wait I dig up the reference.

stephan huller · 09-10-2013, 08:55 PM

Here is some of email from a while back I see that I remembered some of the details incorrectly. The point still stands though:

Quote:

Yes, I think that books did move around a lot from one monastery library to another, and also monastery library catalogues have always been incomplete and problematic. A fiar number of the earliest Slavic manuscripts are still in monastic libraries on Mt. Athos and Mt. Sinai, and many other early manuscripts can be found in other monasteries still. On Mt. Athos, the grand monasteries have attached sketai (roughly, individual hermitages), and manuscripts move (or until recently moved) quite freely from the monastery libraries to the sketai and back, as individual monks wanted to read them. And monasteries sometimes have more than one library.

At one Athonite monastery famous for its secretive ways -- I can't say which one without risking trouble for a younger colleague -- there is (1) the "main" library, widely known, (2) a second, usually inaccessible, library, not usually known to outsiders which my colleague was granted access to on one occasion, and apparently (3) a super-secret third library with a few great treasures in it. About this third library I have a revealing story. A senior colleague of mine (Antonin Dostal, a Czech and a Roman Catholic), now long deceased, was a great expert on early Church Slavonic, and particularly on its oldest manuscripts, which are written in an alphabet now called the Glagolitic alphabet. Known early manuscripts in that alphabet are, with perhaps one tiny exception, no older that the 11th century, though it was invented in the 9th century. We can show from this material that the alphabet had undergone some changes before the 11th century both in the shapes of the letters and in their inventory, and we can do a pretty good job of reconstructing the 9th-century original alphabet from which all the attested varieties developed. While Prof. Dostal was at this monastery, examining the holdings of its main library, one of the monks brought out a very large manuscript and gave him only a few minutes to look at it. Dostal recognized at once that it was *far* older than any Glagolitic manuscript he had ever seen, and its form of the Glagolitic alphabet seemed to be very, very close to the reconstructed original, or perhaps identical to it. And then the manuscript was whisked away, back into its hiding place. (I think the monk was deliberately teasing Dostal, perhaps even with a touch of cruelty.) When I related this story to my colleague who had actually been able to examine the contents of the second, secret library, he was astonished and said that he had not seen that manuscript, but that he had heard rumors of a third library in the monastery and supposed, as I did, that my story confirmed the rumors of the third library, where, no doubt, the manuscript was held that Dostal saw -- and possibly other great treasures as well.

09-09-2013, 10:36 AM	#1
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	An Important Reason Why So Few Pagan Testimonials to Christianity Have Survived The fire at the Temple of Peace c. 192 CE http://rbedrosian.com/Libraries/Libr...Galen_Rome.pdf This undoubtedly cleared the way for a 'restart' for Christianity both in terms of knowledge about the exact nature of Jewish revolt (Josephus now becomes our dominant source of information preserved and encouraged as it was by Irenaeus and company) and moreover it must have wiped out testimonials about Christianity and perhaps even by Christians.

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09-09-2013, 01:24 PM	#3
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Thank you Roger. This is indeed valuable information. People talk about the loss of the library of Alexandria but this new discovery shines new light on this catastrophe. Can you imagine how many other works are still locked away inside of monastic libraries? A friend of mine told me that in eastern Orthodox monasteries they had two libraries - a library of super secret works and those for the general population of the monasteries.

09-09-2013, 02:51 PM	#4
Roger Pearse Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: N/A Posts: 4,370	It's a very interesting question. The Vlatadon monastery proved to have better texts than previously known of Galen's "On my own books" and "On the order of my own books" as well. The detective work done by Wendy Pradels led her to a unique manuscript on Lesbos of homily 2 of Chrysostom's "Against the Jews". Homily 2 was a third the length of the other 7 homilies, and it had always been suspected that it was only a fragment. Pradels found a complete text.

09-09-2013, 07:18 PM	#5
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	http://www.academia.edu/565335/Galen...e_Peri_Alupias

09-10-2013, 08:52 PM	#8
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Oh brother. It's hard to make jokes in a language that you don't have adequate familiarity with. Wait I dig up the reference.

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