They make your brain hurt don’t they? or at least your eyes!

For anyone out there working with primary sources (the very real deal - manuscripts, codices, tomes of patristic, medieval, and Reformation texts) in the fields of History of Exegesis, Greek Paleography, and any other variant of ancient Greek, especially inscriptions and abbreviations, the following little book is a rare gem.

Abbreviations in Greek Inscriptions: Papyri, Manuscripts, and Early Printed Books Ares Publishers, Inc. (Chicago: 1974) is a compilation by Al. N. Oikonomides (classics professor at Loyola University in Chicago) of monographs by Avi-Yonah, Kenyon, Allen, Ostermann, and Giegengack. Maybe 30 pages total, but definitely a must have (yes, it’s about a $1 a page … but if you really need it, well worth every penny!). As you can see, this isn’t Nestle-Aland 4 ed. (For a few more images, look here, here, and my personal favorites for epeidh and outos here.)

By the way, from my modest experience in 16th century texts so far, in a folio (~14 x 10) work these fonts are about a size 8 font. In a quarto (~10 x 8 ) about the same. In an octavo (~8 x 6) about a size 7 or 6, and in a sedecimo (~6 x 3) these bad boys are a size five or six font italicized!

(at least one more reason why the libraries of the world won’t ever <totally> be text-recognized in a database on Google Books …)

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), an Italian priest in the Dominican Order, is the foundational theologian for Modern Roman Catholicism. The Roman Catholic Church calls him the Doctor Universalis, Doctor Angelicus, and Doctor Communis. For a fair (as in acceptable) and brief summary of his life and work see here.  If you would like a good overview on his impact on philosophy, Frederick Copleston’s work History of Philosophy - vol 2 is a good source for an RC interpretation, as well as  his work devoted to the doctor, entitled Aquinas. Aquinas’ works also were heavily discussed and debated throughout the middle ages to the present day. For example, (more…)

Nicholas of Lyra (c. 1270 - 1349) was a French Franciscan doctor who was well known in his own day for his biblical exegesis and was studied voraciously throughout the period up to and including the Reformation, for example Martin Luther and his mentor Johann von Staupitz.  His Postillae Perpetuae in universam S. Scripturam was the first printed full commentary on Scripture (Rome, 1471). The exposition of the biblical text is methodologically in full agreement with Thomas Aquinas’ method of exegesis in the four ways (literal, tropological, anagogical, moral); or to put it another way, Faith, Hope, and Love founded on the literal meaning of the text, which itself can be traced back to Augustine. He would also interpret the Vulgate in light of Hebrew texts and even rabbinic literature. Thus in many ways he is a fore-runner to the Reformation. 

Nicholas comments in his work In Nomine Sanctae Trinitatis … de commendatione sacrae Scripturae in generali (see Migne’s Patrologia Latina vol. 113 cols 25 - 30) that Holy Scripture outstrips philosophers because philosophers are only concerned with this present life and must judge and determine based on this present life. On the other hand, Scripture aims at (more…)

Just a brief plug for several of the links under Library Digitalia. Short of subscribing to Early English Books Online (by Oxford and Chadwyck) or Eighteenth Century Collections Online (by Thomson Gale et al) and mortgaging your children and kidneys, you might have to dig to find primary sources, especially if you are monolingual. But have no fear, several sites I have been searching are (more…)

– the first line of Dudley Fenner’s Sacra Theologia, 1584. And the masthead for this blog …

So why start a new blog with Fenner’s quote?
As it was stated in the quote above, theology is knowledge of truth which is from God for living rightly and blessedly. I can’t think of a better way of putting it, so I thought I would kick off my new blog by making Fenner’s comment the masthead. Perhaps I will compile a list of “one-liners” on the definition of theology. But that’s a different post. For now, let’s just say, I like the fact that Fenner presses all of theology into living well and blessedly - that good wholesome concern with ends and means - the how and the why of the Christian faith absorbed in the beatific vision fully engaged with day to day life.

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