mardi 24 janvier 2012

Jonah and Mieszko

Καθολικός διάκονος : When we compare Jonah's mission with Jesus' mission we can see that Jesus did not have the kind of overwhelming response Jonah elicited.

Καθολικός διάκονος: Repent: Jonah & Jesus! http://scottdodge.blogspot.com/2012/01/repent-jonah-jesus.html


A S R (our common friend) : You make Jonah seem like such a dark story, when it's probably the funniest one in the whole Bible!

o Καθολικός διάκονος : It is hilarious and Jonah is an utterly ridiculous figure. It's hard to find light even in a fictional character who is unhappy with a God who seeks to save even those whom we hate. I absolutely love the Veggie Tales Jonah movie because it shows how ridiculous Jonah is. I have shown it to adult groups. Plus, keeping it short today.

o Hans-Georg Lundahl (ego) : If Jonah is fictional, whence come the Jewry and later Christendom of Northern Iraq? Like: if Ruth is fictional, whence comes King David and how come God permitted St Matthew to say a lie in the genealogy?

o Καθολικός διάκονος : I think we can chalk it up to immigration, as with the ancient Jewish communities that were rather far flung throughout the ancient Near East, probably most specifically the Babylonian captivity.

o Hans-Georg Lundahl : Ah, but how come they remembered it otherwise, as beginning with the prophet Jonah? Are you doubting US began with Founding Fathers and Poland Lithuania with marriage of Hedwig and Jogailo too?*

Catholicus Diaconus seems here to have deleted a post which I give the answer to:

o Hans-Georg Lundahl : Of course it remains the same. My problem is not with typology, but with not taking the story literally. Human fiction writers are able to make typology in made up characters, but God is able to make them in real persons.

o Καθολικός διάκονος : I'm not really sure where you are coming from with your questions (i.e., whether you are being serious or sarcastic). I think memories of the Babylonian captivity are well-documented in the Hebrew Scriptures. But if you are asking me whether I believe that Jonah is an historical account, my answer is simple, No. In fact, I think the truth of the book is lost by reading it in such a flat way. Either way, it is an inspired text, that is, scriptural.

o Hans-Georg Lundahl Check list:
  • Origen believes in typology but not reality of Flood/Arc of Noah
  • Theodorus of Mopsuestia believes in historic reality of Flood/Arc of Noah, but not typology
  • Saint Augustine states one must believe in both.


Applicable to Jonah too, and I cannot see any flatness in believing both historic fact and typologic dimension. And anyone denying historicity of purported origin of a community, is worthy to be asked if he doubts US had a George Washington too. Just to make things very, very clear, about first post on your blog:

Καθολικός διάκονος: Science & Theology http://scottdodge.blogspot.com/2005/08/science-theology.html


I do not agree with your naive belief in so called consensus, especially if it is modern, and neither did Sts Stephen and Isidore

o Καθολικός διάκονος : That is all fine and well, but let's stick with the text at hand and not multiply instances, thus complicating matters and being, if unintentionally, sophistic. It is not a question of Alexandria or Antioch, but a matter of dealing the text at hand and applying the appropriate exegesis. If you take the trouble to read my post you will see what I mean.

o Hans-Georg Lundahl : Well, appropriate exegesis is Hippo rather than Antioch or Alexandria. Speaking of typology, noticed St Paul in his story? Tarshish, unwilling witness, enemy of those he preaches to ... except there is a serialism in St Paul that differs in detail of course

o Καθολικός διάκονος : Feel free to believe in the historicity of the story of Jonah, many fine Christian people do. I won't get into name-calling and needlessly multiplying instances and confusing categories to make my point. My belief may be many things, but it is not naive. While my first post was a quite a few years ago now, I stand by it. There are certainly historical parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, which are to be treated and evaluated in a different way. Again, what I posted on Jonah does not preclude those, like you, who want to read it more literally.

o A S R : No, there wasn't. Neither were the writers of Jonah not aware they themselves were writing fiction.

o Hans-Georg Lundahl ‎: "My belief may be many things, but it is not naive." - Your belief in the Bible, like CSL's is not naive enough. Your belief in scholarly consensus is, until you prove it otherwise, too naive. So where is the tradition from these purported colleagues of Tolkien writing Farmer Giles? I see none, I see a tradition that it was regarded as historical.

o Καθολικός διάκονος : Jonah is the Israelite who believes Israel's chosen-ness is something just for them, not a responsibility to make God known among the nations. Hence, he is ridiculous and foolish, but God will not be thwarted by the petty and small-minded.

o Hans-Georg Lundahl : I believe that too - and that he existed.

o Καθολικός διάκονος : Anyway, a blessed Sunday to you both.

o Hans-Georg Lundahl : You want to exonerate Israelites from producing him and his likes?

o Καθολικός διάκονος : At least those who did not view their chosen-ness in that narrow way, among whom one must number the author of this short text. Since I am not sure where this is headed, I will warn up-front that anything I even perceive as being anti-Semitic will be deleted.

o Hans-Georg Lundahl : What if the author was Jonah - after a conversion similar to that of St Paul? Including of course two stages, the storm and whale's belly and the bush that went down under the hot sun. ‎(wondering if this is going to be deleted)

o Καθολικός διάκονος : A conversion like that of St Paul would not have been possible for the author of Jonah because the Christ had not yet come, let alone been killed and resurrected. Who knows how the author of Jonah came to see the responsibility of chosen-ness? It just matters that he did and that he wrote about it in an inspired way, a way that is highly relevant for those who, by virtue of Jesus Christ, came share in the covenant.

o Hans-Georg Lundahl : I consider the recorded two step conversion of Jonah as a conversion like that of St Paul.

o Καθολικός διάκονος : Except for the small matter, which is essential to the story, that Jonah is never converted.

o Hans-Georg Lundahl : As far as I can see, he is at least converted when writing this autobiography. ‎(third person does not rule out autobiography, so did Moses and Caesar) If not at heart, at least in words and deeds. Here is anyway ...

...Haydock: http://kjbibleonline.com/jonah-4/


Afterthought: It seems possible that a diaspora could have takena fictional precursor, in the mere light of human evidence of this one matter. But the Ninevites converted under Jonah were not the first precursors, it seems, there was rather before them the Assyrian officer who was cured from leprosy by a bath in the Jordan. And that first recorded pious man in Nineve after Nimrod is too well attested to be dismissed as a mythicalised precursor of people who were really first, because his story is quite well known from Palestine./HGL



o *A S R : Poland actually began in 966 with the conversion of Mieszko. Or actually, that's a useful fiction, because there was no such thing as Poles until very late in the game.

o Hans-Georg Lundahl : There was a Poland before Poles, just as their was a Francia before anyone spoke French - I have no trouble with Poland beginning with Mieszko. Saying there was no Poland before Poles is ethnocentric. There are instances of political unities harbouring more than one ethnicity or starting with only part of it.

o A S R : No, there were no Poles of whatever ethnicity before Poland.

o Hans-Georg Lundahl : I did not say there were Poles before Poland. I said there was a Poland, founded by Mieszko, before Poles were united as a nation. @‎A S R
- Mieszko I of Poland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mieszko_I_of_Poland:


Mieszko I (ca. 930 – 25 May 992),[2] was a Duke of the Polans[3] from about 960 until his death. A member of the Piast dynasty, he was son of Siemomysł; grandchild of Lestek; father of Bolesław I the Brave, the first crowned King of Poland; likely father of Świętosława (Sigrid), a Nordic Queen; and ....


Of course I do not agree about the theories ruling out he was blind.

Siemowit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemowit:


Siemowit (also Ziemowit) was, according to the chronicles of Gallus Anonymus, the son of Piast the Wheelwright and Rzepicha. He was considered one of the four legendary Piast princes, but is now considered as a ruler who existed as a historical person.[1]


Piast - Siemowit - Lestek - Siemomysl - Mieszko - as far as I can tell they all existed.

Afterthought: Piast was of course contemporary of Popiel. And Popiel was eaten to death by persecuting mice. About as horrible as Jonah is funny (along with the Gepetto and Pinocchio story and the Sindbad story, which are obviously indebted to Jonah.) Logically, if you call Popiel mythical it is difficult to say Piast was historical. Ultimately people calling Popiel and Piast, Jonah and the Whale fictions, are people not believing either God or the devil capable of altering the zoologically recorded behaviour of animals./HGL

lundi 16 janvier 2012

Pecia system, history and using my blogs in analogous manner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuscript_culture#Pecia_system :

The pecia system was developed in Italian university cities by the beginning of the thirteenth century and became a regulated procedure at the University of Paris in the second half of the century.[5]


Via wiki from: - note [5] -Rouse, Richard H., and Mary A. Rouse. Manuscripts and Their Makers : Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris, 1200-1500. 2 vols, Illiterati Et Uxorati. Turnhout, Belgium: Harvey Miller, 2000. p.85.

What was it anyway?

A stationer divided his books into pecie. Each pecia was rented out and copied. Then returned and rented out and copied by the next one on the list. And so on till every copier had made a full copy of the book in question. Does this mean that the books were copied faster? Not for each one copying - except insofar as a certain sloppiness may have been subtly encouraged - but their work was more simultaneous, hence more compressed in time in relation to the exemplar. So, whatever work it was could get copied in many copies at once, from just one exemplar.

Say that one work like a Bible book takes twelve hours of work to copy. One copier would need it twelve hours and intersperse it with other hours of rest or prayer and so on. He would take, say:

- Monday: Assignment after hora nona, 15:15, start real work after 30 minutes preparation at 15:45, write on to 18:00 call for Vespers. 2:15 of 12, 9:45 to go. Hold it! He had to take a pause for praying the Rosary during 15 minutes, because he was getting stiff: only 2 of 12, 10 to go.
- Starting Tuesday:
- Vesper, Meal time, Compline, Sleep, Matins, Lectio Divina, Lauds, Prime at 7 - 7:20.
- 3/4 of an hour's work 7:25 to 8:10, prepare for Low Mass. 9:15 to go.
- Low Mass with Communion 8:15 - 8:45, no time for work but for a Rosary before Tierce at 9:00-9:15, High Mass 9:15 - 10.
- Return to work after a graciously permitted snack at 10 to work at 10:10, stays at work to 11:55. 1:45 less, from 9:15, leaves 7:30 to go.
- Sexta hora at 12, lunch at 12:15-13:00. Repose 13:00-14:55.
- 15, hora nona.
- 15:15 there is no need to prepare, so work proceeds directly, 15:15 - 18 = 2:45, but this time two pauses for Rosary, leaves 2:15 effective work. 5:15 to go.
- Starting Wednesday:
- Vesper, Meal time, Compline, Sleep, Matins, Lectio Divina, Lauds, Prime at 7 - 7:20.
- It might have been breakfast if he was not on daily communion. But not on a Wednesday, a fast day. However, that leaves him extra time for spiritual reading up to Low Mass, since work schedual is lower.
- Low Mass (with Communion?) 8:15 - 8:45, no time for work but for a Rosary before Tierce at 9:00-9:15, High Mass 9:15 - 10.
- No snack, directly to work at 10:05. Up to 11:55 leaves 1:50, but counts as a slow version of 1:30, since he is fasting. 3:45 to go.
- 12:00 Sext up to 12:15.
- Back to work 12:20, no lunch yet! 12:20 - 14:55 = 2:35, minus a Rosary Break, 2:20, counts as slow version of 2. 1:45 to go.
- 15:00 - 15:15, Nona Hora.
- 15:20, lighter lunch up to 15:40.
- 15:45 - 18 - finishes book! Triumphant Colophon written on last page! No, not quite.
Only then can book be handed to next scribe, but that cannot happen until after
- Starting Thursday:
- Vesper, Meal time, Compline, Sleep, Matins, Lectio Divina, Lauds, Prime at 7 - 7:20.
- Correction time! I will not calculate that one.
- Only then can colophon be written and only then can the book be handed on to next scribe.


Wow!

BUT, divide text into pecie of 12, and twelve scribes can be working on it in parallel - twelve copies in same time. And of course, that could not happen till after book production became commercial, right? Of course, by then a man would hire the pecia for a day, make two or three copies, or four if he was quick, next pecia next day, same number of copies:

monday - tuesday, tuesday - wednesday, wednesday - thursday thursday - friday, friday - saturday, saturday - monday (no work on sunday)


... which multiplied by two weeks means that in two weeks twelve men had made 36 copies if they average on 3 copies per day and pecia. And the monks were of course too stupid to do that? That is of course why monks' Bibles cost a fortune and nearly nobody could afford them?

Not quite. Absense of evidence is not evidence of absense. The pecia system started in Italian University cities c. 1200 and came to Paris by 1250. And before 1200? Do we have studies proving the monks did not use a similar system to make cheaper copies? No. Pecie are known to modern academics since: L. Destrez, La Pecia dans les manuscrits universitaires du XIIIe et du XIVe siècle, Paris, J. Vautrain, 1935 But the proofs imply not just this production as such but also the commercial relation between stationer owning exemplar and students serving as book copiers. Each pecia had a pecia mark. The student had a signature, a pecia number was added, with attestation of correction. Just as colophons on whole books, pecia marks on each pecia of a book served to register the fact it had been corrected - but pecia numbers were also a way of tracing copies to copiers - and making sure they had not overcopied for gain. Stationer records "five pecie for p" and if after that an example is found with the sixth pecia or two different with the 3d pecia for p, maybe p was not trusted next time? And that system, which to us proves the actual use of pecie is of course absent from monastic work. For the simple reason that monks do not have individual gain, excepting the possibility to be a little lazy now and then. An individual monk could sell nothing to noone.

So, above scheme for book copying in a monastery might have been varied if there were six or twelve monks in the scriptorium. If each put the pecia copies on his table, pecie might have been exchanged between them - and we cannot know for certain, since only after the pecie are put together do the monks add a colophon to the book.

Of course, we do have one kind of semi-indication that pecie were not used: chapters use Anfangs that start after end of previous chapter, middle of a page. Would not an organisation in pecia stop such a method? Not quite. Say an Anfang was written as starting the word on a line middle of the page, first the letter for the Anfang was written as a small letter, and only later expanded to a large capital letter. And Anfangs fit neatly under last lines of previous writing. Pecie? Yes, there could be nifty ways of getting the pecie to fit into the space allotted precisely by these Anfangs. Vary line numbers for diverse sections, and you vary the place for the next Anfang. A last pecia could start middle of first page with the small letter for adding the Anfang, then be written as a whole until finished, then add previous pecia with last lines going on to the last one, and then writen Anfang on last one. And so on. Even so, the colophon would not be written until all of the pecie were assembled in a book, if written in a monastery.

So, actually, I think varying prices for vellum had more to do with cheapness of cheapest copies available than pecia system being only invented before 1200 in Italy. But I may be wrong. My take is: an old manuscript in a monastery falling apart and monks wanting a better reuse of it than just - sorry to say this - toilet paper. The falling apart of folia or duplos or quartos making up a volume would be a handy way to start new copies being made from it. At the same time, this procedure would, if starting with pecie from oldest manuscript in monastery, have guaranteed copies from as old a text as possible. It would have made sense, even if not the particular kind of commercial sense envisaged by the stationers and the students. That is my only argument so far for saying this happened. Plus one more: stationers and students might be too hurried to invent such a thing themselves without the aid of calmer monks.

Unless, of course, the pecia system was in use among the slaves of a bibliopola under antiquity: in that case it might simply be inherited. Except that papyrus rolls were less easy to divide in pecia, perhaps?

There is another argument against monks having used the pecia system: the high value of known copies, like the book of Kells. So? They were free to vary their procedure as they thought fit, as long as they delivered a product of the desired quality!

So far my historic argument. Now for the proposition I am making. I actually am not just writing my blogs as blogs for free as simple as that, but that too. I am giving them a double function. My authorisation at:
http://hglundahlsblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/de-retour.html#furtherusenote
... means that beside the normal function, there is also the function of your online page being offered as pecia for your small scale commercial printing. Printing, not handcopying, unless you realy want to do that for fun. If you are very poor, just take it. If you are a little better off or manage to become so by my offer, do use the account on the link "donativo" for remunerating me. Oh, big publishers are also entitled to the offer, in their case I count on them giving about royalty. Only it would have been complicated to state that as a separate condition. So, I trust, first to God, next to your generosity, honesty and plain sense of fair play and fun.*

That it is technically possible can be seen by my examples.**

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque Duras, Paris
13 Jan, Octave of Epiphany, 2012

*I am basically repeating this offer:
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2011/09/be-my-unwin-or-hooper-if-you-like.html
** http://hglwrites.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/il-aurait-du-rester-peintre-1-8/
- I handwrote, so that I could prove I was writing these things. First essay contrasts behaviour of Hitler and Chesterton after being no longer painters. If Hitler was the better painter of them, in a technical sense at least, Chesterton was clearly the better no-longer-a-painter of these.

lundi 9 janvier 2012

On St Maria Goretti and Alessandro Serenelli

Link:

The Catholic Defender: St. Maria Goretti

My comment (whether it be published or not):

Have you noted that even St Maria G. and her woer Alessandro S. lived under an attack on family?

She was a bit less than 12. Under Papal State administration - which ended 1870 - they could have married a few months later.

Under the new rules of "Kingdom" of Italy ("King" excommunicated and voting in Italy was at the time a mortal sin), the only way she could get out of waiting six years, till she was 18, was getting pregnant. That was basically what Alessandro proposed and she rejected.

If you do not believe me, check a historian you do believe for my facts.