|
Post by peteri on Sept 27, 2017 22:28:26 GMT
Had a quick skim of an e-copy. ..... (quote from book) The writings of the Greeks ‘have all perished and are obliterated’: that was what John Chrysostom had said. He hadn’t been quite right, then: but time would bring greater truth to his boast. This seems to be from Homilies on the Gospel of John, Second Homily section 5. If so, the author is not dealing honestly with the text. Chrysostom was talking about how the disciples of the Greek philosophers used to scoff at the Gospel of John as the product of an uneducated man, but the influence of John has grown and grown while Plato and Pythagoras have become less and less influential. Peter.
|
|
|
Post by timoneill on Sept 27, 2017 23:32:01 GMT
If so, the author is not dealing honestly with the text. She seems quite good at that. Though I suspect she gets a lot of her material second or third hand.
|
|
|
Post by domics on Sept 28, 2017 10:07:32 GMT
If so, the author is not dealing honestly with the text. She seems quite good at that. Though I suspect she gets a lot of her material second or third hand. in Latin this passage is: "ac Graecorum quidem opiniones exstinctae deletaeque sunt."link'Opinions' and not 'writings'!
|
|
|
Post by domics on Sept 28, 2017 10:11:15 GMT
... makes a case for the Palatine Library being a victim of Christian arson Is he referring to Pope Gregory's burning of books in that library?
|
|
|
Post by humphreyfmclarke on Sept 28, 2017 13:22:46 GMT
It's not especially convincing. He says:
Commentators are right to see a link between the fire in the temple of Apollo in Rome and that in the temple of the same god in Daphne on 22 October 362, less than half a year earlier.¹⁹ While Ammianus does not blame the fire on Antioch’s Christian community either, the Christian community could have had a motive because Julian displaced the neighbouring martyr shrine when he arrived in Antioch.²⁰ Julian himself thought that Christians were responsible for the fire. One Christian author offers the implausible explanation that the building was struck by lightning.²¹ John Chrysostom, on the other hand, wrote that God burnt the temple to punish Julian, and he also propagated fire as an instrument necessary for Christians to extinguish “the fire of idolatry.”²² Some kind of religious motivation as the source for the fires both in Antioch and Rome can, therefore, perhaps be inferred. However, various reasons could have been the cause for any fire in the ancient world, and all we can say is that some Christians welcomed the accidental destruction of temples, especially since the Sibylline books were a prestigious symbol of Julian’s religious policy.
The fate of the Palatine library continued to fascinate scholars in the centuries to come. John of Salisbury wrote in the twelfth century that Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) not only persecuted astrology (mathesis), “as reported by our ancestors”²³ but also burnt the Palatine library so “that there might be more space for the Holy Scriptures”, causing its final destruction.²⁴ But as this is largely anecdotal, scholars have unanimously dismissed the trustworthiness of this later report at least on the case of its second point.²⁵
|
|
|
Post by James Hannam on Sept 29, 2017 13:40:38 GMT
It's not especially convincing. He says: One Christian author offers the implausible explanation that the building was struck by lightning. Why is that implausible? Buildings have been destroyed by lightning strikes many times. Andrew Dickson White has an entire chapter on how those stupid Christians refused to install lightning conductors so their churches kept burning down. J
|
|
|
Post by humphreyfmclarke on Sept 29, 2017 18:11:48 GMT
It's not especially convincing. He says: One Christian author offers the implausible explanation that the building was struck by lightning. Why is that implausible? Buildings have been destroyed by lightning strikes many times. Andrew Dickson White has an entire chapter on how those stupid Christians refused to install lightning conductors so their churches kept burning down. J I recall reading recently that Benjamin Franklin's kite experiments were prompted by the fact that eighteenth century Philadelphia suffered from frequent fires caused by lightning strikes. Then there was the fire of Amsterdam (1679) depicted by Jan Van der Heyden which was caused by a violent lightning storm. I'm sure cities in the ancient world were similarly vulnerable to lightning strikes.
|
|
|
Post by domics on Nov 6, 2017 11:21:17 GMT
in Latin this passage is: "ac Graecorum quidem opiniones exstinctae deletaeque sunt."link'Opinions' and not 'writings'! Another curious thing in Rohmann's translation of this same passage is this. He translates: "From the time that he was and the others,since then [the writings] of Pythagoras and of Plato, which seemed before to dominate, have been kept secret,..."The correct translation is: "From the time when both he and the other fishermen lived, the teaching of Pythagoras have fallen silent, as well those of Plato,..." linkWhy the omission of the reference to the fishermen? To 'keep secret' is not the same as to 'fall silent' as the first implies an intention by someone.
|
|
|
Post by domics on Nov 6, 2017 13:00:36 GMT
It's not especially convincing. He says: One Christian author offers the implausible explanation that the building was struck by lightning. Why is that implausible? Buildings have been destroyed by lightning strikes many times. Andrew Dickson White has an entire chapter on how those stupid Christians refused to install lightning conductors so their churches kept burning down. J Implausible? From Lucretius: "why does he [Jupiter] destroy the sacred temples of the gods and his own splendid dwellings with hostile lightning and smash to pieces well fashioned idols of the gods, robbing his own images of their dignity with a violent wound?" Greek and Roman temples with their metal decorations and tiles on the roofs were a frequent target of lightning. Later it will also happen to the churches: Well-known it is Leo I restoration of Saint Peter hit by a "ignem divinum".
|
|
|
Post by sandwiches on Nov 6, 2017 21:26:55 GMT
|
|
|
Post by timoneill on Nov 29, 2017 18:04:51 GMT
|
|
|
Post by ignorantianescia on Nov 30, 2017 8:42:38 GMT
Nice stuff. I see your review has been added already to the overview at Gegrammata. On spelling details, somewhere toward the end you have "desribing" rather than "describing" (first paragraph under "The Book Nixey Did Not Write") and "Constnatine ", a misspelling of "Constantine" in a quote from James O’Donnell (same section, second paragraph; don't know whether that was in the original or not).
|
|
|
Post by timoneill on Nov 30, 2017 9:22:21 GMT
Nice stuff. I see your review has been added already to the overview at Gegrammata. On spelling details, somewhere toward the end you have "desribing" rather than "describing" (first paragraph under "The Book Nixey Did Not Write") and "Constnatine ", a misspelling of "Constantine" in a quote from James O’Donnell (same section, second paragraph; don't know whether that was in the original or not). Thanks - fixed. I took yesterday off work and spent the whole day finishing this thing because I wanted to get it out of the way and work on something more enjoyable. So that last section was written at the end of a day in which I pumped out about 7,000 words. I'm sure there are other typos. I'm also expecting a response from Neil Godfrey, which I will enjoy ignoring completely. It drives him crazy.
|
|
|
Post by sandwiches on Dec 12, 2017 22:51:02 GMT
|
|
|
Post by sandwiches on Dec 18, 2017 17:59:15 GMT
|
|