Publisher of medieval texts and Christian classics

Joined November 2023
Latin is a nice language.
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"I see the heterodox assailing the holy Church of God in these days, under the pretence of higher wisdom, and bringing forward works in many volumes in which they offer expositions of the evangelical and apostolic writings, and I fear that if I should be silent and should not put before our members the saving and true doctrines, these teachers might get a hold of curious souls, which, in the absence of wholesome nourishment, might go after food that is forbidden, and, in fact, unclean and horrible." —Origen, Commentary on John, Book V
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Replying to @KPW1453
Originally buried in Jarrow, as we discuss in our book: scriptoriumpress.ca/#bede
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ἀλλά με δεσμῷ δήσατ᾽ ἐν ἀργαλέῳ, ὄφρ᾽ ἔμπεδον αὐτόθι μίμνω, ὀρθὸν ἐν ἱστοπέδῃ, ἐκ δ᾽ αὐτοῦ πείρατ᾽ ἀνήφθω. εἰ δέ κε λίσσωμαι ὑμέας λῦσαί τε κελεύω, ὑμεῖς δὲ πλεόνεσσι τότ᾽ ἐν δεσμοῖσι πιέζειν Odyssey, Book 12.161–164
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"Since we are twofold, fashioned of soul and body, and our soul is not naked, but, as it were, covered with a veil, it is impossible for us to go to the spiritual apart from the bodily. So just as we hear with our bodily ears audible words and understand something spiritual, so through bodily sight we come to spiritual contemplation." St. John of Damascus, On the Holy Images III.12
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Beware the siren song of those preaching a "re-enchantment" of the West. We don't need pagan romanticism as a corrective to materialist nominalism.
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Replying to @bmiloy @Gregoresate
Apparently mine is a neo-medieval theocracy lol
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A further corroborative element has also come to my attention recently. Proclus' De malorum survives only in a 13th-century Latin translation by William Moerbeke. What a lot of people don't know is that the 11th-century Byzantine prince Isaac Komnenos produced a Greek paraphrase of it entitled Περὶ τῆς τῶν κακῶν ὑποστάσεως. This was first edited and published in the early 1970s, long after Stiglmayr and Koch's thesis. Isaac essentially created a 'metaphrasis' (in the medieval sense) of Proclus' work, abridging and Christianizing it and adding some further arguments of his own, but his Greek is still very valuable to scholars for reconstructing the original wording of Proclus' work. Here are the respective openings of Proclus' De malorum and Isaac's version: Proclus: What the nature of evil is, and where it originates [are questions that] have already been examined by some before us, who have pursued the theory of evil neither incidentally nor for the sake of other things, but have considered evil in itself, whether it exists or not, and if it exists, how it exists and from where it has come into being and existence. It is, however, not a bad thing that we too, especially because we have the time for it, summarize the observations rightly made by each of them and, before them, the speculations of the divine Plato on the essence of evil things. For we shall understand more easily the words of those predecessors and we shall always be closer to an understanding of the problems once we have discovered the thought of Plato and, as it were, kindled a light for our subsequent inquiries. (Opsomer & Steel, p. 57, translation modified). Isaac: Of the nature of evil, what it is and where it originates, has been examined before us by the great Dionysius the Areopagite (ὁ μέγας Διονύσιος ὁ Ἀρεοπαγίτης), who considered evil in itself, whether it exists or not, and if it exists, how it exists and from where it has come into being and existence, and he presented in turn the difficulties regarding this question and provided their solutions. For our part, we shall by all means be closer to an understanding of the problem once we have reproduced the observations of the aforementioned saint on the nature of evil and endeavoured to discover his thought, kindling from that source, as it were, a light for our inquiries. (Trois études sur la Providence vol. iii, ed. Daniel Isaac, Belle Lettres: 1982).
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