You know an Eð or fuþarc, sometimes called a “thorn” letter …
(Something a bit quirky or whimsical for a Friday…)
Right, one of the quirky facts about the English language is the fact that Saxon/Nordic (and other pre-medieval) runes and such crept into the English fonts. One case in point is the “thorn” letter which crossed over into (more…)
Hello All, just a quick note to say that there has been a slight hiatus in blog posts due to family sickness (and roughly 60 pages of papers due for two courses … slogging through various languages and tomes, sleepless nights, you know the usual wonderful routine of a PhD student.
Anyway, see you next week …
Just for a teaser … I will take this up when I have a bit more time. I found an interesting discussion of the 5 types of merit in Alexander of Hales, and which one Christ fulfils in his life and death. Should be fun.
I don’t often stray into the modern interest in theological panentheism as an explanation of the Christian faith in neo-Platonic categories filtered through Jakob Böhme and other German Idealists of the late 18th century and the early 19th century. (For obvious reasons … !) And it is only because I am working on a paper for a class on the philosophical foundations of modern theology that I am reading through it all. Frankly, for starters, Schelling et al. are not viable options for Christian orthodoxy given the flattening of the Creator and creature distinction into a dangerously open construction of the relationship between God and creation (Namely, God is a becoming totality/realization, a WorldSoul, and humanity subsists in Him as part of Nature and as a bit of the WorldSoul … separate sort of, but not really due to the neo-Platonic construction of immanence). In short God’s consciousness of Himself is mediated through human consciousness and develops in history over time. It’s really the grand-daddy of Open and Process theology … So how open is it? (more…)
Alexander of Hales (1183? - 1245) was a Franciscan monk born at Hales, Gloucestershire. He trained at Oxford and the University of Paris, and is known for his Summa Universae Theologiae, a massive series of at least 4 tomes depending on the edition. Francis Bacon is said to have quipped that Alexander’s Summa weighed as much as a horse! Alexander founded the Franciscan school of theology at the University of Paris. As you can find out from here, here, and here, Alexander was innovative in his use of Aristotle (at a time when they were banned!), Anselm of Canterbury, and Pseudo-Dionysius. His works were referenced and employed by Bonaventure and medieval theologians ever after. It is a treasury in its own right as a window into medieval theology prior to Thomas Aquinas (Thomas was 20 when Alexander, dubbed the Theologorum Monarcha, died).
His Summa is available for download one high quality image at a time from the Verteilte Digitale Inkunabelbibliothek project of the HAB housed at the Universität- und Stadtbibliothek Köln. The VDI have captured stunning images of this hand-copied text). By the way, if your Latin is shakey, this text isn’t for rookies as there are many abbreviations, misspellings by modern standards, and quite a bit of short-hand (see the post about Latin Abbreviations) - it is a literal manuscript. (If you want to try your hand at it, click here for a sample of the text I used)
The second part (membrum) of the first question considers whether theology is categorically distinct from other sciences, here are some of his thoughts in good scholastic order (first the common arguments, then his contra): (more…)
Every now and then I am asked what is the easiest language or the hardest language to study or what’s the best way to go about it. The wry and true answer is the easiest language to learn is the one on which you spend the most time! As far as the best way to go about it, vocabulary, grammar, reading and syntax are the key components and should be handled roughly in that order. But this is a brief list of helps that I have found some of them are free some not.
Here is a link to a handy book on Google Books. Abbreviations and Technical Terms Used in Book Catalogs and in Bibliographies by Frank Keller Walter, 1912.
Just a quick list of exceedingly helpful codices and lexicons for Latin Abbreviations. Most of these are for medieval uncial scripts, but many if not most of the abbreviations carried over into the printing of the 15th through 17th centuries. Of the four listed, Cappelli is probably the most exhaustive.
Chassant, Alphonse, Dictionnaire des abreviations latines et francaises usitees dans les inscriptions lapidaires et metalliques, les manuscrits et les chartes du Moyen Âge. Hildesheim, Georg Olms, 1965.
Cappelli, Adriano. Lexicon abbreviaturarum : dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane usate nelle carte e codici specialmente del Medio-Evo, riprodotte con oltre 14000 segni incisi, con l’aggiunta di uno studio sulla brachigrafia medioevale, un prontuario di sigle epigrafiche, l’antica numerazione romana ed arabica ed i segni indicanti monete, pesi, misure, etc. / per cura di Adriano Cappelli. Milano : Hoepli, c1990.
Lindsay, W. M. Notae latinae, an account of abbreviation in Latin MSS. of the early minuscule period (c. 700-850) by W. M. Lindsay. With a supplement (Abbreviations in Latin MSS. of 850 to 1050) by D. Bains. Hildesheim, G. Olms, 1963.
Pelzer, Auguste, Abreviations latines medievales. Supplement au Dizionario di abbreviature latine, ed. italiane, de Adriano Cappelli. Louvain, Publications Universitaires; Paris, Beatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1966.
Just a heads up on a lecture at the Meeter Center on Feb. 19. Just reading the advertisement was encouraging for Reformed missions! Click here for the Meeter Center site, here’s their advertisement:
What Calvin’s Theology Means to Chinese Society and its Culture
“In this lecture sponsored by the Asian Studies Program, Dr. Yi Sun of Renmin University of China, Beijing, will give a primary introduction to why Reformed Theology or Calvin’s theological thought is interesting to many Christians or scholars in Mainland China. The lecture will address this question from two perspectives: first the perspective of academic scholars who do their research in the field of Sino-Christian Studies; second the perspective of the Chinese Church. These two perspectives all point to a similar subject: Reformed Theology will play some kind of influence, not only to the Chinese Church, but also to Chinese society and its culture in the new developments of world view, civil society, and life pattern.
The lecture will take place on Tuesday February 19, 2008 at 3:30 PM in the Meeter Center on the fourth floor of Hekman Library. All are welcome and refreshments will be served.”
Samuel Rutherford (1600 - 1661) was a Scotch Covenanter that wrote several classic works of Presbyterian polity many of which are available on-line or via your favorite online rare-bookseller. But One book that has curiously not made it back into print is The Covenant of Life Opened, Or, A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace, Edinburgh: Andre Anderson, 1654. This would be is a helpful book indeed to bring back into reprint either facsimile or re-typeset. The main parts are pictured in the pic on the left of this title page.
Addendum: You can find a copy here at Reformation Heritage Books! How silly of me … I should have checked with my publisher first … (Thanks Marty!!) Added to RHB’s catalog on Monday 07 August, 2006.
This is a fascinating piece as Rutherford walks closely through the nature of the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace. I will be reading through this work over the next couple of weeks for fun (it’s only 200 pages) and as I bump something that strikes me as interesting I will be sure to post it here. In the meantime, here are points in the table of contents that caught my eye: (more…)
Fault, Guilt, and Punishment … sounds great right?
And yet it is the basic threefold category for understanding original sin from Augustine through the 17th century, especially in forensic terms. This is part of the common basis from the Medievals and Patristic period that shaped the thought of the Reformers on the concept of Sin. This is simply a list of 7 quotes from major 16th c. Reformers and 17th c. Reformed Scholastics mostly in relationship to Romans 5, but not limited to that. (Perhaps someday I will post Aquinas, Abelard, Lombard, Augustine, and others on the same topic. The other aspect that is interesting is that once the Adam-Christ parallel is understood in light of a federal and seminal union with Adam, it is relatively clear what Christ accomplishes on our behalf … (By the way, note the dates of the publications in the footnotes for a time-line) (more…)
