Saturday, December 27, 2014

To give you an idea of Wylie's proceedings ...

1) History Forger James Aitken Wylie, 2) To give you an idea of Wylie's proceedings ...

Selected quotes of section titles and - in chapter 5 - actual text with my comments.

The History of Protestantism

by 'James Aitken Wylie'

Book 1 — Progress From the First to the Fourteenth Century


In other words, the 23 latter of the 24 books deal with 14th C onward. Even we Catholics usually don't dispute there is a Protestant continuity of some slight coherence from Lollards and Waldensians on.

Chapter 1 — Protestantism

Protestantism — The Seed of Arts, Letters, Free States, etc. — Its History a Grand Drama — Its Origin — Outside Humanity — A Great Creative Power — Protestantism Revived Christianity.

Chapter 2 — Declension of the early Christian Church

Early Triumphs of the Truth — Causes — The Fourth Century — Early Simplicity lost — The Church remodeled on the Pattern of the Empire — Disputes regarding Easter-day — Descent of the Gothic Nations — Introduction of Pagan Rites into the Church — Acceleration of Corruption — Inability of the World all at once to receive the Gospel in its greatness.

Chapter 3 — Development of the Papacy from the times of Constantine to those of Hildebrand

Imperial Edicts — Prestige of Rome — Fall of the Western Empire — The Papacy seeks and finds a New Basis of Power — Christ's Vicar — Conversion of Gothic Nations — Pepin and Charlemagne — The Lombards and the Saracens — Forgeries and False Decretals — Election of the Roman Pontiff.

Chapter 4 — Development of the Papacy from Gregory vii to Boniface viii

The Wax of Investitures — Gregory VII. and Henry IV. — The Miter Triumphs over the Empire — Noon of the Papacy under Innocent III. — Continued to Boniface VIII. — First and Last Estate of the Roman Pastors Contrasted — Seven Centuries of Continuous Success — Interpreted by Some as a Proof that the Papacy is Divine — Reasons explaining this Marvelous Success — Eclipsed by the Gospel's Progress


In other words, though this Protestant does not doubt Primitive Christianity was Protestantism, he can see no moment of any clear break of apostasy founding the Catholic Church, just a gradual decline.

Now, if Christianity were the work of man, a gradual decline would be pretty foreseeable. Even inevitable.

Look at the next shopping mall, and ask yourself if Greek and Gothic architecture have not declined.

Listen to the next hit, and ask yourself if Baroque and Classical Music have not declined.

So, to sum his position as given so far up:

  • Rome started pretty close to the Gospel and fell away from it;
  • The success of Christian mission at least appears to be a success, in the West of Rome;
  • But it was really a success of the Gospel (which Rome never openly attacked except according to Protestant anachronistic interpretations, but on the contrary purported and was by most seen as serving);
  • Wherefore this has nothing to prove Rome did not really fall away.


But where were the Protestants? If these were the Gospel, that is?

Chapter 5 — Mediaeval Protestant Witnesses

Ambrose of Milan — His Diocese — His Theology — Rufinus, Presbyter of Aquileia — Laurentius of Milan — The Bishops of the Grisons — Churches of Lombardy in Seventh and Eighth Centuries — Claude in the Ninth Century — His Labors — Outline of his Theology — His Doctrine of the Eucharist — His Battle against Images — His Views on the Roman Primacy — Proof thence arising — Councils in France approve his Views — Question of the Services of the Roman Church to the Western Nations.


OK, Ambrose of Milan a Prot? And I'm a baboon, next, why not?

The apostasy was not universal. At no time did God leave His ancient Gospel without witnesses.


That is, supposing there was an apostasy at all, a fair deduction of Matthew 28:18-20, isn't it? A Catholic calling Vatican II or even Pius XII apostasy can point to opponents keeping Catholicism alive despite, while detecting, and to non-adherents in worst aspects, keeping Catholicism alive despite, while neglecting. How many people who were even gushy on obeying Wojtyla as John Paul II have not, nevertheless, neglected the fact he was evolutionist and stayed themselves creationists, for one?

Well, we also know the Church is visible. God did not light a lamp to put it under a bushel. God did not found a city on a mountain so as to hide it better. In order to find it through history, we should not need to gloss over several centuries of a region summed up in a few names, and first name disputed if it belongs to our idea of the Church and last name very unknown and links between them very tenuous both as to doctrine - see previous article - and as to linking persons between the one's named.

Ambrose, who died A.D. 397, was Bishop of Milan for twenty-three years.


Saint Ambrose, otherwise we agree.

His theology, and that of his diocese, was in no essential respects different from that which Protestants hold at this day.


That we Catholics dispute.

The Bible alone was his rule of faith; Christ alone was the foundation of the Church; the justification of the sinner and the remission of sins were not of human merit, but by the expiatory sacrifice of the Cross;


Trentine Catholicism definitely underlines the latter part, which is why going to Confession is a sacrament and not a "pious work" like giving alms.

As to Bible alone, for rule of faith, any expressions he may have used that the Protestant twist in that sense were not meant to exclude tradition or magisterium. Similarily, as to Christ alone as foundation of Church, he never can have meant to say that St Peter was not at least his representative.

Btw, I'd like to see the exact words.

The wrongness of Wylie's analysis as to "figurative presence" hardly allows me to take just HIS word for this being the case with St Ambrose's faith.

there were but two Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper,


There were two or three Sacraments on which St Ambrose treated in De Mysteriis (Confirmation too, perhaps?). Ordination would have been so well known even by then that neophytes had no need to be told of it on the rim of the baptismal font. He had been a catechumen, he had been elected bishop, he had been baptised, confirmed, ordained priest and consecrated bishop on the same day.

Talking of marriage might have been inappropriate if he hoped some neophytes would choose virginity. Talking of extreme unction was hardly very pressing if all neophytes for whom he held the speech were young and healthy.

and in the latter Christ was held to be present only figuratively.


No, precisely wrong, in the Mannah, in the Desert, Christ was present under OT only figuratively, but in the Eucharist He is Really There, which is why NT is far more excellent than OT, see chapter 8 quoted in my previous article.

Such is a summary of the faith professed and taught by the chief bishop of the north of Italy in the end of the fourth century.


Such is a wrongful summary of it.

Now, here Wylie makes a pretty important admission, which is damning for his case:

It must be acknowledged that these men, despite their great talents and their ardent piety, had not entirely escaped the degeneracy of their age. The light that was in them was partly mixed with darkness. Even the great Ambrose was touched with a veneration for relics, and a weakness for other superstitious of his times.


Is venerating relics an act of Apostasy or not?

If it is, Ambrose of Milan was on this admission an apostate. If it is not, why excuse it in St Ambrose just so as to condemn it in others, as if it were if not totally apostatic at least highly suspect?

Obviously, Wylie wants to have it both ways. If Cardinal Beaton (who was killed by a Calvinist after burning some on the stake) venerated relics, this is proof he was an Apostate and that it was the true Christian faith he was persecuting. But if St Ambrose venerated relics, why let that come between Wylie and his desire to find very early Protestants AFTER Constantine?

But as regards the cardinal doctrines of salvation, the faith of these men was essentially Protestant, and stood out in bold antagonism to the leading principles of the Roman creed.


In bold antagonism? At least not at all true of St Ambrose! Especially not as regards the Roman creed of St Ambrose's own day. His disciple the Bishop of Hippo Regia was going to state "Roma loquuta est, causa finita est" in a Latin which was as posh as that of St Ambrose himself. In their day it may have given an air, not so much of me writing a Swedish grammatically of 19th C (when one ancestor of mine arrived there), but of me writing a Swedish in grammar, pronunciation, partly even word choice and phraseology mirroring the Swedish of Gustavus Adolphus in the 30 Years War, not so much of an US American boycotting Webster's spelling reform in favour of (!) British spelling, but of an English speaker trying to use the exact language of King James Version or Shakespear - with the exception that it was generally done, it was a requirement to be taken seriously as an educated man. Because one was proud of the Roman past. So were Sts Ambrose and Augustine. None of them is said to have ever opposed the Popes of their day one bit. So much for "bold antagonism" ...

Oh, I kind of get the rubber phraseology of Wylie! Not "in bold antagonism to the Roman creed" as visibly and testably there in their day, but only in bold antagonism to its "leading principles" ... as analysed by Wylie, of course.

I somehow don't think either St James (the greater or the lesser) would be very fond of Wylie bearing their name ... and I will not insult my patron St John by taking Wylie as a model. Wonder if some Catholic was thinking of him when Wylie Coyote was being invented. Oh, sorry, "Wile E. Coyote" ... and Chuck Jones was from Spokane ... well, probably just a wild association of mine, then.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St John's Day or Third Christmas Day
27-XII-2014

Friday, December 26, 2014

History Forger James Aitken Wylie

1) History Forger James Aitken Wylie, 2) To give you an idea of Wylie's proceedings ...

Wiki says:

James Aitken Wylie (1808-1890) was a Scottish historian of religion and Presbyterian minister. He was a prolific writer and is most famous for writing The History of Protestantism.


I have been reading some chapters of his book. I e of book one of his work.

His basic idea about Protestantism is that St Ambrose of Milan was a surviving real Christian despite living after Constantine, that there is a straight line from St Ambrose to Claudius of Turin, and a straight line from him to the Turin populace who protested against submission to Rome of its episcopacy, and these were then partly fleeing to Cologne and getting burnt as heretics, partly fleeing to Piedmonte and hiding in Waldensian valleys.

And from then on to Protestants.

Now, this cannot be.

Because St Ambrose was no iconoclast, unlike Claudius of Turin. Because St Ambrose believed the Real Presence, also, it might appear (and JAW absolutely thinks so) unlike Claudius of Turin. So, there is NOT a straight line from St Ambrose to Claudius of Turin.

In case anyone thinks I am making it up that St Ambrose believed the Real Presence, here is De Mysteriis chapter 8, by St Ambrose:

Chapter 8

Of the mystical feast of the altar of the Lord. Lest any should think lightly of it, St. Ambrose shows that it is of higher antiquity than the sacred rites of the Jews, since it was foreshadowed in the sacrifice of Melchisedech, and far better than the manna, as being the Body of Christ.

43. The cleansed people, rich with these adornments, hastens to the altar of Christ, saying: "I will go to the altar of God, to God Who makes glad my youth;" for having laid aside the slough of ancient error, renewed with an eagle's youth, it hastens to approach that heavenly feast. It comes, and seeing the holy altar arranged, cries out: "You have prepared a table in my sight." David introduces the people as speaking, where he says: "The Lord feeds me, and nothing shall be wanting to me, in a place of good pasture has He placed me. He has led me forth by the water of refreshment." And later: "For though I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff have comforted me. You have prepared in my sight a table against them that trouble me. You have anointed my head with oil, and Your inebriating cup, how excellent it is!"

44. We must now pay attention, lest perchance any one seeing that what is visible (for things which are invisible cannot be seen nor comprehended by human eyes), should say, "God rained down manna and rained down quails upon the Jews," Exodus 16:13 but for the Church beloved of Him the things which He has prepared are those of which it is said: "That eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love Him." 1 Corinthians 2:9 So, lest any one should say this, we will take great pains to prove that the sacraments of the Church are both more ancient than those of the synagogue, and more excellent than the manna.

45. The lesson of Genesis just read shows that they are more ancient, for the synagogue took its origin from the law of Moses. But Abraham was far earlier, who, after conquering the enemy, and recovering his own nephew, as he was enjoying his victory, was met by Melchisedech, who brought forth those things which Abraham reverently received. It was not Abraham who brought them forth, but Melchisedech, who is introduced without father, without mother, having neither beginning of days, nor ending, but like the Son of God, of Whom Paul says to the Hebrews: "that He remains a priest for ever," Who in the Latin version is called King of righteousness and King of peace.

46. Do you recognize Who that is? Can a man be king of righteousness, when himself he can hardly be righteous? Can he be king of peace, when he can hardly be peaceable? He it is Who is without mother according to His Godhead, for He was begotten of God the Father, of one substance with the Father; without a father according to His Incarnation, for He was born of a Virgin; having neither beginning nor end, for He is the beginning and end of all things, the first and the last. The sacrament, then, which you received is the gift not of man but of God, brought forth by Him Who blessed Abraham the father of faith, whose grace and deeds we admire.

47. We have proved the sacraments of the Church to be the more ancient, now recognize that they are superior. In very truth it is a marvellous thing that God rained manna on the fathers, and fed them with daily food from heaven; so that it is said, "So man ate angels' food." But yet all those who ate that food died in the wilderness, but that food which you receive, that living Bread which came down from heaven, furnishes the substance of eternal life; and whosoever shall eat of this Bread shall never die, and it is the Body of Christ.

49. Now consider whether the bread of angels be more excellent or the Flesh of Christ, which is indeed the body of life. That manna came from heaven, this is above the heavens; that was of heaven, this is of the Lord of the heavens; that was liable to corruption, if kept a second day, this is far from all corruption, for whosoever shall taste it holily shall not be able to feel corruption. For them water flowed from the rock, for you Blood flowed from Christ; water satisfied them for a time, the Blood satiates you for eternity. The Jew drinks and thirsts again, you after drinking will be beyond the power of thirsting; that was in a shadow, this is in truth.

49. If that which you so wonder at is but shadow, how great must that be whose very shadow you wonder at. See now what happened in the case of the fathers was shadow: "They drank, it is said, of that Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were done in a figure concerning us." 1 Corinthians 10:4 You recognize now which are the more excellent, for light is better than shadow, truth than a figure, the Body of its Giver than the manna from heaven.


This is hardly presbyterian, and whether Claudius of Turin by considered the bread was a figure of the body of Christ or his words mean sth else, St Ambrose clearly does NOT mean that, since he says that the real body of Christ on which we Christians feed in the Eucharist is more excellent than the Rock and than the Mannah which were figures of it.

And since Waldensians have come to accept Presbyterian doctrine hereon, they are clearly NOT in line with St Ambrose of Milan.

Also there is no sign either that diocese of Milan (with neighbouring ones) was persecuted bloodily by Papacy between St Ambrose and Claudius of Turin, or that Claudius of Turin himself was more heavily attacked than a refutation of his errors and his writings considered erroneous (not the comment on Genesis, which is preserved) were not preserved as such, only by quotes from his opponents refuting him, or for that matter that any Waldensians were persecuted between Claudius of Turin and appearance of Waldensians and other heretics. This is a very far cry from his original claim that Protestantism is Christianity and from the claims of others it was persecuted between Constantine and earlist Waldensians identified as such as much as later. And that by Papal Rome. A very far cry indeed.

Now, was James Aitken Wylie forging history consciously or unconsciously?

I don't dare to judge, but supposing he was no liar it was at least a bit careless of him not to check the book De Mysteriis, which he wrongfully cites as proof St Ambrose knew of only two sacraments, when in reality those were the Sacraments he decided to treat in that book - because Catechumens had been held more in the dark about these two. And if he checked it, how come he missed chapter 8?

Hans Georg Lundahl
Marguérite Audoux Library, Paris
St Stephen's Day or Boxing Day
26-XII-2014

English Wiki : James Aitken Wylie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Aitken_Wylie


Newadvent site : Fathers : St Ambrose of Milan : On the Mysteries
http://newadvent.com/fathers/3405.htm

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

A Pipe and a Cup that show Christmas Spirit

Bashing Secularism : 40 Martyr Reflections: Saint John Kemble
http://bashingsecularism.blogspot.com/2008/11/40-martyr-reflections-saint-john-kemble.html


Contrast this with the story of the under sheriff coming to collect him for his martyrdom and joining him for a last smoke of his pipe and a final cup of wine. The story became famous and gave rise to the Herefordshire expressions "Kemble pipe" and "Kemble cup", meaning the last pipe or cup of a sitting. The custom was still recorded in the nineteenth century but was gradually lost with the disappearance of communal pipe sharing.


For this Christmas season, I am not directly citing the things that happened to him before that ... might come up on St Stephen's Day, though ...

Still some hours to the 24:th, and then still a day until it's really Christmas./HGL

Chronology for Exodus

Here is from someone* considering Exodus according to Bible was 1446 BC:

The starting point for such a study of chronology is in the monarchy, for 1 Kings 6:1 dates the Exodus a particular time span back from a regnal year of Solomon. For this starting point we may utilize Edwin R. Thiele’s chronology developed in his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Chicago, later published under the title of The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (1965). According to that chronology, Solomon died in 931 BC after a reign of 40 years. That means that he came to the throne in 971 BC. According to Thiele, dates that are given in the text that deal with the building of the Temple show that Solomon used a Tishri calendar to measure those regnal years (Thiele 1965: 29). The reign of Rehoboam who followed Solomon in Judah was calculated according to the accession year system which means that Year 1 started the year after Rehoboam, likewise Solomon, came to the throne. For Solomon this means that 971/970 BC was his accession year and 970/969 BC was his first full regnal year (Thiele 1965: 28–30). That makes 967/966 BC his fourth year. The Exodus occurred in the spring and Solomon’s Temple building began in the spring (the month after Passover), and thus the building began in the spring of 966 BC, between the two Tishri new years. This gives us the starting point from which to figure backwards, the spring of 966 BC.

The time period to add to this date is the 480 years that are given in 1 Kings 6:1. This goes back to the time when “the Israelites had come out of Egypt.” Adding those 480 years dates the Exodus to the spring of 1446.


Here is Haydock on 3 Kings 6:

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition.
3 KINGS - Chapter 6
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id882.html


It has a footnote to verse 1:

1: Year of the World 2092, Year before Christ 1012.; 2 Paralipomenon iii. 1.


The Year of the World here differs from St Jerome's Chronology and follows probably Vulgate - the translation St Jerome made but did not himself use for chronological purposes. Or even KJV/Masoretic text, and it's the chronology of Ussher. Whatever chronologist said the Temple was commenced 2992 anno Mundi, it is noteworthy that the reign of King Solomon was further back compared to Christ.

Since the beginning of the Temple was 1012 BC according to this chronology.

This is 46 years more than 966, so it would place Exodus in 1492 (a year notable on other side of Christ for Christian Recapture of Granada and discovery of Americas ... and some might count it as marking a Shepharadic Exodus from Spain too). St Jerome's Exodus date is 1510 ... not very far off. 18 years.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Victoria, Virgin and Martyr
23-XII-2014

* Amenhotep II as Pharaoh of the Exodus
févr. 22, 2008 - by William Shea PhD
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/02/22/Amenhotep-II-as-Pharaoh-of-the-Exodus.aspx

Sunday, December 21, 2014

À Qui la Gloire?

"Noël, c'est à l'origine la fête du soleil : rendons gloire au Soleil qui nous donne chaque jour la lumière et sans lequel nous ne pouvons vivre !"*


Non. Rendons gloire au Seigneur POUR M. Frère Soleil PAR QUI Dieu nous donne chaque jour la lumière.

C'est sans Dieu que nous ne pouvons pas vivre.

Les premiers trois jours, la lumière créée par Dieu ne venait pas encore du Soleil, qui ne fut créé que le quatrième jour. Et dans l'éternité, le Jérusalem céleste aura Dieu-fait-Homme Lui-même pour lumière, sans ni Lune ni Soleil.

La fête que nous allons célébrer a beau être à l'origine sur le solstice, néanmoins, c'est pas pour le Solstice, c'est pour l'Incarnation.

"Les Romains et les Germains avaient pris l'habitude de fêter avec éclat la renaissance du Soleil... Cette fête fut alors "récupérée" par l'Église, qui estimait que le petit Jésus était aussi le Christ Soleil..."

"Alors, son jour de naissance ne pouvait être que le 25 décembre... "


Pas tout à fait. C'est plutôt que le Vendredi Saint, un 14 Nisan selon le calendrier de Kaïphe (et Christ a pu le compter comme le 15 Nisan, s'Il avait observé la nouvelle Lune de Nisan**), selon les calculs coincidait cette année avec un 25 Mars, et Jésus étant Saint par Excellence, la Source de Sainteté, a donc dû soit être engendré soit naître un 25 Mars.***

Or, ça serait plutôt que l'Annonciation s'est faite un 25 Mars, donc en comptant neuf mois (les calculs sont basés sur mois romaines, évidemment) on tombe sur le 25 Décembre. Aussi, à son Baptême Notre Seigneur n'était pas encore 30 ans, aux Noces de Cana déjà passé les 30. Si donc le 6 Janvier commémore la date du Baptême, alors Notre Seigneur serait né vers 2 Février, mais si la fête du 6 Janvier commémore plutôt la date de Cana, alors le 30:e. anniversaire de Notre Seigneur a dû être plus tôt, vers ... 25 Décembre.

Rendons gloire à Lui, non pas juste pour nous avoir créé le Soleil 5199 ans avant Son Incarnation ("plus que quatre mille ans"), mais aussi surtout pour cette Incarnation que l'Église fête le 25 Mars quand la Vierge a sû, et le 25 Décembre quand on L'a vu.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi Georges Pompidou
IV Dimanche d'Avant
21-XII-2014

* lexilogos : Origine de Noël
http://www.lexilogos.com/calendrier_noel.htm


À part la faute et à part la gigantesque omission (sauf l'admission de trop peu), l'article est assez bon.

** À l'époque chaque mois, comme c'est encore une fois le cas dans le calendrier lunaire des Musulmans, on l'a vu dernier Ramadan, était calculée par vue de la Lune. C'est uniquement depuis Hillel II que les Juifs - déjà séparés des Chrétiens - ont un calendrier fixé en avance.

*** Quoique le raisonnement d'un Juif devenu Chrétien de type Hebrew Roots n'est pas mauvais : Il serait né à la naissance des agneau, comme Il est crucifié à l'égorgément des agneaux : et Il serait selon lui né début avril cette année là. Par contre, je préfère obéir à l'Église qu'à un raisonnement privé dans une question où l'unité est nécessaire.

Monday, December 15, 2014

When a Calvinist was lazy

Sometimes I find something good enough to share, but here I will even quote context in full, of one detail

Late in 1862, the Confederate army was well into its invasion of Maryland. Confederate Supreme Commander Robert E. Lee drafted a document called Special Order 191, which described in extreme detail every movement of every brigade of his army for the next several months. He gave copies of the order only to his most trusted generals, including Stonewall Jackson.

Jackson, however, was way too lazy to write up individual orders to each of his commanders, so he gave them all copies of 191. One of those commanders was Daniel Harvey Hill, who did what we always do with our tax forms and jury duty papers: he left them on the ground, in a box, wrapped around three cigars. He then forgot about them.

Several days later, the aforementioned Union scout, Barton W. Mitchell, found the papers at the campsite, probably thinking, "Holy shit! Free cigars!"

He recognized the cigar wrappings as looking important and sent them off to his commander. That guy, in turn, sent them to his commander. Through who knows how many chances for the scrap of paper to get lost, bled on, eaten by a horse or for the guy holding them to get blown up by a cannon ball, they survived until some aide somehow recognized it as Robert E. Lee's handwriting.

He gave it to Union General George McClellan.

And How Did it Change The World?

Ever heard of the Battle of Antietam? The bloodiest day in American history? The North won, and from that point on the South didn't really have a chance.

Well, the Union won because it basically had the equivalent to Prima's Official Strategy Guide on Robert E. Lee's Invasion of Maryland.


Read more: 6 Random Coincidences That Created The Modern World #4. The Cigar Box that Won the Civil War
By Fernando Espino | April 27, 2009 | 3,820,057 views (this will give them some more)
(I give this link with some hesitation, he doesn't seem to appreciate what a great artist Adolph was!)
http://www.cracked.com/article_17298_6-random-coincidences-that-created-modern-world.html


Serves the Calvinist right for Calvinists being main enactors of slavery in the 17th C. doesn't it? You see, I heard from a VERY great Civil War buff friend of mine (a Balkan man, like Zlatan) and he was a Southron admirer, that Stonewall Jackson was a Calvinist, he was so brave because he thought God had predestined everything anyway.

God sure had predestined that lazy moment of Stonewall Jackson's, and the cigar box, doesn't mean they lacked freewill!

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Octave of Immaculate Conception
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
15-XII-2014

Désolé pour le délai avec la Réforme suédoise, mais il y a "Frau HM"

Ich bin Frau H. M., der Auditor General von Unicaja Bank Madrid. Im Zuge meiner Abschlusspruefung, entdeckte ich eine schwimmende Fonds auf einem Konto, das 1990 bei der Cam Bank eroeffnet wurde, bevor der Besitz von Unicaja Gruppe gekauft wurde, ich bin der Abschlusspruefer der einem toten Auslaender Herr Kenny, der im Jahr 2004 starb, zugeteilt wurde


Bien, Frau H. M. (et pourquoi pas Frau H. M. L.), ça passe encore. Notons que Frau veut dire Madame, il s'agit donc d'une mariée, divorcée ou veuve, surtout d'une femme.

der Auditor General von Unicaja Bank Madrid.


Mais "der Auditor" c'est au masculin!

Je ne suis pas du tout sûr qu'un Allemand dirait "Auditor General", ça pourrait venir d'une mauvaise traduction sur Google Translate, ça pourrait aussi être un mot composé.

Mais je suis très sûr qu'un Auditor General est un homme et que si une femme a ce poste elle serait Auditorin General.

En plus, traduire "de" au sens génitif avec "von" est conversationnel, dans une lettre formelle c'est impossible. Soit on utilise le vrai génitif, soit on utilise "chez" c'est à dire en Allemand "bei".

Im Zuge meiner Abschlusspruefung


Avec Abschlußprüfung juste derrière cette lettre, elle pourrait peut-être plutôt être une Mademoiselle, non? En plus on ne devient pas auditeur général juste après une Abschlußprüfung. Qu'elle écrit le mot Abschlusspruefung n'est pas une vraie faute d'orthographe, car ß peut avoir ss comme substitut, et ü peut être remplacé avec ue, mais dans une lettre formelle un professionnel devra utiliser les signes correctes, les abbréviations convenues (ü est une abbréviation convenue de ue, et ß à l'origine de sz, mais de nos jours on le considère aussi comme équivalent de ss - encore, si c'était une Suisse allemande, Abschlusspruefung pourrait bien passer).

entdeckte ich eine schwimmende Fonds auf einem Konto, das 1990 bei der Cam Bank eroeffnet wurde, bevor der Besitz von Unicaja Gruppe gekauft wurde,


Dit-elle "eine Fonds"? Si c'est "le fonds" en Français, je crois qu'ici ça devrait être "einen Fonds", biensûr "schwimmenden" (aber was ist denn das?).

Pour "eroeffnet" la nuance de correctitude est la même que pour "Abschlusspruefung".

bevor der Besitz von Unicaja Gruppe gekauft wurde,


... von der Unicaja Gruppe!

ich bin der Abschlusspruefer der einem toten Auslaender Herr Kenny, der im Jahr 2004 starb, zugeteilt wurde


Oh, j'avais mal compris Abschlusspruefung alors. Je croyais que cet Abschluss était la fin d'études, et Abschlusspruefung un examen, mais il semble que dans le monde comercial et bancaire le mot se refère à la fermeture (Abschluss aussi) d'un compte.

Mon vocabulaire allemand est incomplet, vu que j'ai quitté Vienne à l'âge de 11 et 1/2.

Par contre FRAU H.M. ne peut pas être DER Abschlußprüf-ER, et ELLE ne peut pas être CELUI, DER .... zugeteilt wurde. Mais plutôt DIE Abschlußprüf-ERIN, DIE .... zugeteilt wurde.

Et pour Auslaender = Ausländer, voir plus haut. Encore, un vrai agent de banc saurait normalement pas seulement que M. Kenny est "étranger" mais aussi de quelle nationalité.

S'il vous plaît, continuez d'être si faibles en Allemand (et en logique d'affaires) la prochaine fois que vous essayez de tromper quelqu'un!

En prime:

Received: from ...(....[10.223.111.63])

Thu, 11 Dec 2014 11:27:12 +0100

X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 2.3

Received: from ... .com.mx ([201.134.92.83])


Si une adresse finit en .mx, peut-on croire que le spammeur (et même scammeur) se trouve au Mexique? Je ne serais pas trop étonné. Il y a là-bas des gens qui sont fiers d'un ancêtre Cristero, mais aussi d'autres qui les détestent, et qui probablement me détestent parce que je suis pour les Cristeros. Il y a même des gens qui me détesteraient parce que je trouve les actes de Cortez davantage correctes que ceux de Moctezuma.

De toute manière, sur les adresses la recherche me donne:

inetnum: 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255
netname: IETF-RESERVED-ADDRESS-BLOCK
descr: IPv4 address block reserved by the IETF

inetnum: 201.0.0.0 - 201.255.255.255
netname: NON-RIPE-NCC-MANAGED-ADDRESS-BLOCK
descr: IPv4 address block not managed by the RIPE NCC


En d'autres mots, ce ne sont de toute manière pas des adresses IP normales d'Europe.

Hans Georg Lundahl
BU Nanterre
Octave de l'Immaculée Conception
de la Bienheureuse Vierge Marie et
Ste Christiane la servante
15-XII-2014

Thursday, December 11, 2014

From Babel to Common Traits of Indo-European Languages - doing without a Mother language

I know, I have promised a French essay on the Swedish-Catholic noble exiles in Poland ... still upcoming!

Following examples of language confusion are taken from a meme found on "Silly Linguistics" which was termed "Language confusion #1", not all in tables there as here, but I put them so because I wanted my full sentences to be about a solution type (totally theoretical in the cases given):

AfrikaansGermanEnglish
HoekomWarumWhy, How come
WieWerWho
WaarWoWhere
HoeWieHow


If speakers of Afrikaans, German and English in South Africa and South West Africa had been cut off totally from Europe, would we not have seen attempts to uniformise the system? Would remaining differences not be more likely to be about words that could be taken as synonyms, rather than in meaning of homonyms?

A side note: on first and last line, "why" and "wie" would be very old forms, instrumentals of the masculine/neuter form. But diversified. In Swedish "hvi" used to exist, until loosing its h and being pronounced like "vi" = "we". Then the word "hvarföre" modelled after (extinct) "hvarför" and both probably after German "warum, wofür" replaced "hvi". This also happened in dialects where h remained, if any.

 SwedishNorvegianGermanEnglishEsperanto
expedition= office, expedition= office, expeditionrare, like English= expedition, not office 
semester= vacation= vacation= term= term? 
vi= we= we  = you
ni= you   = we
-en (on noun)the ...the ...pl.(occ. pl.) 


Meanings of "expedition" and "semester" might tend to uniformise in bilingual situations. Confer the meaning of "réaliser" in French Canadian. In US and Canadian English "realise" less means "bring about," "make real in the real world" than "make real to oneself," "understand the full implications of" while in French of France the latter meaning is unknown. "Un réalisateur" is what is called a "director", he takes a film from script to real moving pictures ready to be shown on theatres. But French Canadians nevertheless use "réaliser" like in English too. Why? How come? Well, they are often bilingual and their neighbours are speaking English.

Or "vi"/"ni"? If Esperanto and Swedish had been two neighbouring languages, would they not have tried to uniformise the usage, ideally by replacement?

Supposing Norwegian was beside with "I" for you and "vi" for "we", would not a probable (but not certain) oputcome have been to eliminate "ni" and uniformise "vi, I" rather than anything else?

But if Italian rather than Norwegian had been beside, with "noi, ci" for "we, us" and "voi, vi" for "ye, you", would not another outcome have been more probable? Noi for we, voi for you? Or even chi/tji (after ci), I (after Norw. I), or why not even - if we had had both Norwegian and Italian - suppose the polite form "Dere" could play a role?

All languages switch to Italian Chi for we, all languages switch to Norwegian polite Dere for you. That could possibly happen, and both equivocal forms would be eliminated.

Before leaving Swedish "ni", it has a very interesting story. In correct Swedish "do you guys want to ...?" used to be "vilja ni ...?" but only since the latest clear change in Swedish. This phrase originated as (unrecorded or scarce recorded) "vilje ni ...". Which phrase in its turn came from "viljen I ..." - the standard form in 17th C Swedish and in Bible Swedish. That however has a curious verb ending. Indo-European -ete would give Germanic -ið, and Old English -aþ became all three plural persons, while Icelandic -ð remains, like German -et, the usual 2pl form. So why "viljen I" rather than "viljedh I"? Probably from German "wollen Sie" where the 3pl is a polite substitute for 2pl. And this third plural verb ending in its most abrased form (next to total extinction) became the initial of the modern Swedish 2pl personal pronoun - in nominative only. Other cases, like Er/Eder/Edher (general oblique, plus one form of possessive), it still starts in a vowel. And it is the same pronoun as "you", since y disappeared (year = år) in Nordic languages.

And would not - to get back to the list - Swedish -r replace German -en, German "der, die, das : die" replace Swedish -en, -et : -na? I mean, if Swedish and German had been two neighbouring languages, lots of bilinguals, neither having a written literature.

Except of course possibly where Swedish -en/-on was in itself plural (Husen, ögonen) ...

AfrikaansDutch
hetheeft
'thet


"'T boom heeft blaren!"

Obviously, all of these are purely theoretical, in real life all languages here already have their histories and their literature, and are not likely to adapt because of confusions where they get neighbourly. All are well aware that they speak same language as Swedes and Norwegians who are neither neighbours of Germans nor of Esperanto speaking populations. Or same language as Germans who are not neighbours of Scandinavians or Esperanto speakers. Or of having learnt Esperanto as an international help language. So none is likely even in such a situation to switch grammar. But this cultural background was not there just after Babel. So this kind of syncretistic mutual adaptation between language systems was then much more possible.

It has actually happened once historically. English and Old English have diverse systems of pronouns and articles - because of centuries of bilingualism in Danish/Norwegian.

To me - that is on my favourite guess, I do not pretend to know, only that linguists know no better - Proto-Indo-European was not a language like those arising immediately after Babel, it was a failed attempt at an Esperanto after Tower of Babel, and one which never achieved a complete lexicon, or as complete a lexicon even as Esperanto has. Though the lexicon might have grown to more complete than Quenya.

The problem with this model for an evolutionist linguist is not of the linguistic type. Rather, it's a question if people back when the commonalities between Indo-European languages are from were advanced enough to make such an attempt.

I am pretty sure, and Swaheli provides a key, if peoples coming from Semitic Lud, Hamitic Heth and Kaphthorim, Iaphetitic Iavan and Madan, were all cramped together in and around Anatolia, they would very soon try to eliminate too grating discrepancies. And we get Nesili possibly spoken by Ludians, or less likely by original Hethites (Hattusha was conquered, and when its language was later used as a sacred language this Hattili/Hattic remained distinct from Nesili/Hittite, it may be Fenno-Ugrian or related to Karthvelian), Lydian, Lykian and Phrygian certainly spoken by Ludians, Ionic Greek spoken by Iavanians, probably early Aryan (Indo-Iranian) spoken by Kaphthorim on Crete* and ALL of these adapting to common patterns - conjugations of verbs, words for close relatives (out of six words, Germanic is unique in keeping all six : Greek replaces "brother and sister", Latin "son and daughter", Slavonic and Baltic replace the word for "father" - as does Hittite and Gothic, going same way as Slavonic), certain bodyparts but intriguingly not others, numerals up to ten and the word for hundred, mostly too the word for twenty ... it is less a question of adopting wholesale all commonalities, but of adapting more or less to them.

Some of the words were from start given with different pronunciations according to language (as in Esperanto or Latin loans and neologisms in -tion), and these helped to determine shape of loans between the languages. Take "rotation" - a word in -tion, come into great use in modern astronomy and mechanics.

Let it land in 1) Copenhagen, 2) Malmö, 3) Stockholm and 4) Helsingfors or Åbo (Helsinki and Turku to Finnish speakers, I am here concerned with the Swedish dialect there) - it will immediately be pronounced in four different ways. 1/2 will have French R:s, and 3/4 will have Italian r:s. 2/3 will pronounce "ti" in between sh/ach-laut and Scots wh (combine retroflex, velar and labialised!), 1 will pronounce it like "si" in Polish or "tj" in Swedish, whereas 4 will have a sh of same type as English. In 4 the ending will be -n after a pure long vowel [-u:n], in 3 there will be an off glide [-u:wn], in 2 the offglide will nearly form a diphthong and there will be an unrounded on-glide [-euwwn] and in 1 you will have a diphthong starting with a clearly lower , namely mid-high vowel [-o:n/-oun/-o:wn]. These pronunciations obviously never came from a common pronunciation of that word in the even there hypothetically unified (spelled alike) mother language Dönsk tungu, but instead these pronunciations arise with instant diversification - in part where each speaker of Danish or Swedish had access to the word on paper, but also in part where a speaker from any of these areas hearing it in any of the other ones makes a kind of "phonetic translation" while adopting the word.

Saying this cannot have happened can have three roots, none of them quite reasonable to me:

  • Nostalgia or horror nostalgia for Urheimat (Scandinavia in 30's and 40's, Kurgan in 50's, Anatolia of Agricultural Revolution in 90's)
  • Considering the process too sophisticated for whoever spoke original words now so widespread
  • A kind of fear least this fate of a failed Indo-European Esperanto should become a prophecy about the present projects of world languages, whether English or Esperanto or other.


But reasons are also given.

"Languages very rarely borrow basic vocabulary or grammatic material from each other"

Depends on how close they are squatting on each other. Depends on how confusing bilingualism was before borrowings. And how attractive the other language is as a model.

"Why would words for relatives be common to very many different peoples?"

Courts and arranged/diplomatic marriages? Noted how "daughter in law" is one of the words that come up more than once?

"If it was a lingua franca, why din't it have numerals consistently all over, and what about currency?"

The numerals that are found over and over again are so basic they could be from liturgic instructions. Even true of "hundred" if the Greek custom of Hecatombic sacrifice has some prehistory. Lack of common numerals for thousand or for thirty or a common way of saying fortyfive might reflect aptness in code switching or lack or commercial interest.

"A lingua franca cannot have had the grammatical complexity of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit"

They can have shared and parallelled innovations. Conditional mood of Romance languages is an innovation. The Latin futures in -bo and imperfects in -bam are supposed to be innovations. The point about lingua francas is they are usually used, when at all by educated people, as a makeshift instead of a common educated language. Here I mean the lingua franca can also have had the social function of a high language.

"Original indo-european grammar was highly complex and survives only in incomplete form in whatever the daughter language we study."

The incomplete survival of a supposedly even more complex conjugation, of a supposedly eight cased declinsion, of supposedly fine shaded synonyms which have been taken over diversely in diverse languages, may be due to fact that many languages contributed. Is head *qwennos, *kaput, *kauput, *ghabhala/*ghabhalom (which latter is reconstructed for Greek kephalé, Lithuanian galva, Polish glów) a list of fine shaded synonyms in one original language, or are penn/céann, caput, heafod/Haupt, the Greco-Slavic forms a symptom of many languages at the very origin of the story?

"If Indo-European was originally meant as a lingua franca like Esperanto, why didn't they put it into writing?"

What if Nesili was far from only, but at least highest prestige form of the lingua franca? What if common words - like the pater gloss, different from Nesili attas - were exchanged below but not quite independently of Hittite?

Or what if the lingua franca was for religious taboo reasons an oral only language? I can imagine breakdown of Hattusha ushering in a ban against Hittite hieroglyphs among people nevertheless united "by Hittite" - i e by Indo-European.

"Nesili and Sanskrit are both to worn out to be original IE"

In Nesili, like in Mycenean Greek, like in Runes, the pronunciation is given with approximations. Sanskrit is too worn and a bit later than Nesili too. Plus original may have been unwritten.

And so on. Objections to my thyeory can be answered. PIE is not a refutation of Babel, and I would hardly class it as an immediate product of Babel either. Fenno-Ugrian can have been a rival attempt at making an Esperanto, which also failed to unify humanity (isä - apa : atya - apa may be same two words as attas :/: pater, but with pater compound, both apa- and -ter ending).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Pope St Damasus I
and St Daniel Stylite
11-XII-2014

* If the theory is correct according to which decryptation of Linear A really yielded an Aryan language.

Why were Babylonians so sure Apsu and Tiamat were different substances?

On Philologica and New Blog on the kid : 1) Flat Earth theories - Common Sense or Solar Mythology?, 2) Why were Babylonians so sure Apsu and Tiamat were different substances?, 3) Genesis among Myths - were they meant to be understood literally? Yes

On Assorted Retorts : 1) ... on Historical Adam and Eve, 2) ... on Genre of Genesis

Tiamat in Babylonian mythology stands for salt water. Apsu for sweet water. There is no deity of brack water. Not as far as I know.

Apsu has reemerged in my map of Babylonian mythology in a new spelling Ab-zu. And it has been told me (inter alia by Trey Smith) that the word actually means Abyss.

I have gathered that Enki stands for "lord of the Abyss" and for "lord of sweet water".

So, is water sweeter, the further down we get into the abyss, as long as it is not the abyss of the Sea? No. Sea water is salt because water from lands brings salts with it. The water gets these salts from the land. And the water from the Sea evaporates totally salt free from the Sea (where salt remains) and gets up in the sky as clouds, and falls down as rain. Unless air is polluted with sulphuric gasses, or such, rain drops are the water the most free from salt you can imagine.

If water gets down so deep it can never more reach the sea, it will probably have been salted by passing through too much soil so it may be nearly as salty or maybe even saltier as or than sea water. The Abyss is NOT where sweet water emerges.

Nevertheless, Babylonians had this idea. It is very firmly rooted in their mythology. And rain was not even seen as a source for drinkable water. Possibly the horror of rain was a memory of the Flood of Noah.

But we look at the rain bow and know it will not destroy us. If we want water sweet, we look, reasonably, to the sky. And after that (if not in practical order, at least in order of desalination) to water that is deep as wells, but not as deep as the abyss.

In doing so, we do not contradict the Bible, whose authors, unlike the Babylonians, never called salt water and sweet water two opposed elements and never said water is better the deeper down in the abyss you get it from. But which however does include some kind of references to the water cycle, which if unprecise are at least not erroneous if taken strictly literally.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Pope St Damasus I
11-XII-2014

Saturday, December 6, 2014

What if Joseph and Aseneth were ... Just Joseph and Aseneth?

Simcha Jacobovici and Barrie Wilson have published a book called The Lost Gospel: Decoding the Ancient Text that Reveals Jesus' Marriage to Mary the Magdalene.

British Library manuscript 17,202 which was acquired in 1847 is however not called "Jesus and Mary Magdalene" - it is called "Joseph and Aseneth".

Or rather The Story of Joseph the Just and Aseneth his Wife.

After giving a synopsis which is perfectly compatible with it's being a non-canonical book of on OT event, we have the comment of Simcha Jacobovici and Barrie Wilson:

If this story is really referring to the Biblical Joseph and Aseneth, right away we see problems with this text. In this account, Aseneth quickly moves to center [sic!] stage, whereas the Bible makes Joseph the primary figure.


Gospels also make Jesus Christ primary and St Mary Magdalene very secondary, and never mentions any marriage even. One difficulty more and the two difficulties here given also retained. If they can argue this against the identification of subject with Biblical Joseph and Aseneth, why not against identification of subject with Christ and Mary Magdalene?

How about sifting gnats and swallowing camels a bit less?

Bible DOES mention Joseph's wife was Aseneth. And Bible DOES contain names Joseph and Aseneth.

And the difficulties of Asenath (other form of her name) being centre of stage in the manuscript and Joseph being so in the Bible is not a real one. The manuscript very clearly purported to bring more information about their story than the Bible gave.

Would a Jewish text have described Joseph as "God's Son"?

I was interested in nephelim and once tried to look up how Kimchi (sometimes cited by Haydock comment) thought about the Sethite and Angelic scenarios. I found another Jewish site. "Sons of God" could according to it ALSO have been Cainites (taking wives less pious than Cainites started as - a parallel to the Sethite scenario, but a somwhat different evaluation of Nod) OR princes.

Oh ... "bene Elohim" could have been princes? Well, in that case, would not Joseph qualify as a "ben Elohim"? He was a prince.

Plus, the words are the words of Aseneth before the heavenly man (who is not Joseph!) appears to her. I e "before she knew better".

Plus, the text need not have been Orthodox Jewish (if you take the term as extending both to real Orthodoxy during OT and fake Orthodoxy after rejecting the true Christ), it can have been para-Jewish - or the rejectors of Christ can be giving a real interpretation a bad reputation.

In Egyptian Pagan parlance - recall that Aseneth had been raised as daughter of an Egyptian priest - any just man was "son of" the god whose justice he was working. The words need mean no more than "legitimate representative of". So, no, these words do not single the Joseph of the text out as being a smokescreen for Jesus. Unless it is a genuine account from OT times, in which Joseph being called this by Aseneth underlines how he foreshadows Christ. Typology, you know.

And the heavenly ceremony she attends may well have taken place and foreshadowed Christianity, so that Egyptian Jewry, recalling Joseph and Aseneth, would easily accept the Gospel as they did many of them under leadership of Aquila. See Acts.

The question "in what way would future generations find refuge in Aseneth" can be answered different ways by Christians according to whether they believe the text could be genuine or not.

Finding refuge "in her" could mean finding it in her - and subsequent to her in St Mary Magdalene's - example. Of confession and repentance. Her name being associated to this is immaterial.

Or the promise could be a fake because the text is, as far as theology is concerned, a fake. Which does explain why it is not canonical, but so would other scenarios.

Or, if Joseph is a type of Christ - Aseneth is a type of the real Bride of Christ, of the Catholic Church. In that sense the promise of finding refuge in her makes sense, typologically.

Her origins as raised by an Egyptian priest signify then the Gentile conversions to Catholicism.

In 570, a monk could very calmly copy this text without finding his Christian faith in any way compromised by it - and in 14th November 2014 Simcha Jacobovici and Barrie Wilson have sunken so low as to get hysteric about why it could not possibly be about Joseph and Aseneth, but simply must be about a physical marriage between Christ and St Mary Magdalene, contradicting the tradition of the Church. Well, in times when "i" or "sqrt(-1)" can be described as a real Mathematical object, we might not be surprised at bad logic in more important places too.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Nicolas of Myra
6-XII-2014

Flat Earth theories - Common Sense or Solar Mythology?

On Philologica and New Blog on the kid : 1) Flat Earth theories - Common Sense or Solar Mythology?, 2) Why were Babylonians so sure Apsu and Tiamat were different substances?, 3) Genesis among Myths - were they meant to be understood literally? Yes

On Assorted Retorts : 1) ... on Historical Adam and Eve, 2) ... on Genre of Genesis

We know Egyptians and Babylonians in ancient times thought, mythologically at least, that Sun went over Earth disc at day time and under Earth disc at night.

Dogons seemingly still do, when they aren't too Westernised.

We also know Ancient Egyptians, Babylonians and Dogons too perhaps believe(d) in a Flat Earth.

We have all heard how people before Eratosthenes, and some have even heard how people before Columbus believed Earth to be flat due to "common sense" or over relying on senses as per common sense preference for believing them as long as not proven wrong.

But I have another theory. Flat Earth could be a by product of the solar mythology, the habit of telling just so stories about what the solar spirit (which they mistook for a deity or even the major one, when it's just an angel servant of the true God) did during the night and how this relates to the state of the dead (who live in a cave - according to their mythology - below the Earth disc and see the Sun when he goes down to them each night).

We hope the best for our departed. One way of looking at their fates is they live in the Netherworld (as indeed even the best did before Christ harrowed Hell). Failing to know about Christ coming one Easter, Pagans thought Sun came down to confort them every night. That rather than common sense interpretation might be behind more than one Flat Earth Cosmology. When later round Earth was accepted, Sunworshippers might have invented the Isle of the Blessed in in the West - Tír nan Óg of the Gaels. But we have seen even Americas are peopled by Men, not ghosts.

Apart from that, common sense and primitive humanity, both pre-Flood and post-Babel, may have been undecided as much as Catholic dogma and as previous Hebrew Scripture on shape of Earth.

It is uncommonly sophisticated to not even once clearly state a belief in a flat earth if everyone around Bible authors or everyone around all Church Fathers did. So, presumably as in the one latter case they didn't, which we know, neither did the Hebrews in the former case - or their prophets were stopped by God every time they would otherwise have made a blunder by being too "sophisticated" - according to contemporary human lights.

At Joshua's Long Day Globe-Earth also got a proof in China and Mongolia. West of Sichuan (17 km and onward West) it was a long day. East of it, it was a long night. People from both sides of the 125° E meridian meeting must have been able to conclude Earth was round. Eratosthenes comes 1000 years later.

Meanwhile round Earth knowledge - if any such was gained by the conclusion I think would have been obvious back in Joshua's time around where now we have Sichuan and also Chinese areas south of it - was suppressed in China. Perhaps by migration of those recalling a long night to the Americas. Or perhaps by destruction of documents under Shi Huang Ti. Perhaps some one after two centuries concluded Earth being round had to be in the Middle of the Universe and someone else got it wrong as China being in the Middle of the Earth Disc. And by the great authority attached to one who had said what was misunderstood or even the great authority attached to the one misunderstanding, the China as Land of the Middle of Earth Disc, and not Earth as Mid Point of a Globe formed Universe, was accepted. These three ways are how I can imagine that China remained or became Flat Earth believing.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Nicolas of Myra
6-XII-2014

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Kurukshetra War and Joshua's Long Day

First of all I have to distance myself from the kind of Catholic - if so you will call them such! - which considers that Holy Writ is not factual. Then I would distance myself from the kind of Evangelical or Protestant or Puritan who considers Holy Writ and all its wonders is factual and are factual, but nothing outside Holy Writ of wonderful is factual. Third and most important, from the kind of ecumenist who would consider not only Trojan and Kurukshetra Wars as factual as the battle of Gilgal, but also the Pagan accounts as holy as the Hebrew one and the theology as true in all three, theologically contradicting each other and yet all three equally true. No.

That said, Trojan and Kurukshetra Wars being factual, but Apollo and Krishna not holy, Gilgal Battle being factual and God who heard Joshua being truly holy, we get into some more humdrum problems, like corroborative evidence, dating, etc. And on an intermediate level, which I take first, cosmology.

On a page on Joshua's long day, I see a Galileo quote, which attacks the cosmology of the scholastics. Here:

Introductory quote:
Witness Galileo Galilei, an early and vocal proponent of heliocentrism and regarded by many as the first true physicist. In 1613 he wrote in a letter to Castelli why Joshua’s long day should not be believed:

Galileo quoted within quote:
And first I ask the adversary if he knows by what motions the sun is moved? If he does know, he must reply that it is moved with two motions, that is, an annual motion from west to east and an opposite diurnal motion from east to west. Hence, in the second place, I ask if these two movements, so diverse and almost contrary to one another, both belong to the sun and are equally its own? They are forced to answer no; that one alone is its own and particular motion, which is the annual, while the other is not the sun’s at all, but that of the highest sky, called the Prime Mobile, which sweeps along with itself the sun and the other planets and also the starry sphere, constraining them to make one revolution around the earth in 24 hours, with a motion (as I said) almost contrary to their natural and proper motions.

So I come to the third question, and ask them by which of these two motions the sun produces day and night, that is, by its own or from the Prime Mobile? It is necessary to respond that day and night are the effects of motion of the Prime Mobile, while from the proper motion of the sun not day and night, but the different seasons, and the year itself are produced.

Now if the day depends not on the sun’s motion, but on that of the Prime Mobile, who can fail to see that in order to prolong the day it is necessary to stop the Prime Mobile, and not the sun? ... It being therefore absolutely impossible, in the arrangement of Ptolemy and Aristotle, to stop the motion of the sun and to lengthen the day, as the Scripture affirms to have happened.

Follow up remarks after ending Galileo quote:
In his challenge, Galileo sets up a straw man and thus exemplifies the ignorance of the Bible which is so characteristic of humanity. True, if one ascribes the annual motion to the sun and the diurnal (daily) motion to the stars, then Galileo’s argument is correct; but the Bible does not fall into such simple traps. The Bible clearly indicates that the sun is to rule the day. This means that the daily motion is unique to the sun and has nothing to do with the annual motion. The sun’s period is exactly 24 hours. The stars’ daily motion nearly matches the sun’s period, being about 3 minutes 56 seconds less than the sun’s period. Over the course of one year this amounts to one extra revolution about the earth, namely, the annual effect. (The north-south annual motion of the sun can be shown to be due to the difference between the sun’s period of revolution and the rotation rate of the rest of the universe.) When viewed from that perspective, Galileo’s argument falls flat on its face. Both motions are from east to west, but the sun’s motion is roughly 1/365th slower than that of the cosmos. Thus the motions are not “almost contrary” but are almost identical. Yet no theologian has ever come up with a better argument against Joshua’s long day than has Galileo at this one point.

Source:
Geocentricity : JOSHUA’S LONG DAY
http://www.geocentricity.com/astronomy_of_bible/jld/


First of all, I am not at all sure Galileo was in the letter arguing that "Joshua's long day should not be believed" at all. I rather think he was arguing "Joshua's long day should not be explained as the scholastic Geocentrics do." Arguing non-factuality of Biblical history was as yet far from even wayward Catholic minds, unless he was especially perverted by Averroës - a Muslim who had argued a thing could be true "in theology" (Ibn Rushd meant Muslim Quran and Sunna exegesis etc, but Christian Averroists pushed this to apply to Christian real theology) while being false in philosophy and inversely. And even if he were, he would hardly have had the courage to write like that to a Catholic. The words that go ...

It being therefore absolutely impossible, in the arrangement of Ptolemy and Aristotle, to stop the motion of the sun and to lengthen the day, as the Scripture affirms to have happened


... must in all probability be introducing a passage in which Galileo argued for a phenomenological approach to a historically accurate account, as Heliocentrics YECs do now. Probably, the quote was taken out of context by someone else than Geocentricity, by some Secularist who is touting Galileo as a hero.

Second, I disagree with the assessment that the passage cannot be taken quite literally within the scholastic approach which Galileo very correctly attributed to his opponents. So, I disagree strongly with Galileo's rejection of Geocentrism and mildly with the Geocentricity's rejection of scholasticism.

Of course, one can take in a somewhat obvious sense the principle "if Prime Mobile is moving west, Sun is moving along with it" to imply "if Sun is not moving west, Prime Mobile is standing still".

But actually Prime Mobile is moving - as said - 3 minutes (?) 56 seconds faster than Sun, so Sun is anyway not tied to Prime Mobile. The proper movement of the Sun is making the day usually 3 minutes 56 seconds longer than the rotation of the Prime Mobile. This time it made the day over Holy Land 24 hours, 3 minutes and 56 seconds longer (instead of just 3 minutes 56 seconds longer) than the rotation of the Prime Mobile. So, the change in movement was really in the Sun. It changed its absolute movement between Earth and High Heaven (above Prime Mobile) to a stillstand. It changed its relative movement in relation to rotation of Prime Mobile and of aether moving with it to equal speed opposite direction, if the scholastic explanation is true. So did the Moon, except its opposite movement is greater than that of the Sun, as far as the angle is concerned - a Lunar day is one hour longer than a stellar day.

Update : if you have ideas how and even if this squares with Habacuc 3:11, feel free to tell me!


Geocentricity has a Hebraising attitude which translates in a clear preference over an empty space with sun, moon, stars all going of their own movement westward and sun lagging only behind without positively going eastward at all even in relation to a rotating aether, over God turning a rotating aether around us and Sun, Moon and other planets lagging behind by a positive opposite movement effected by angels. St Augustine in a passage misconstrued by CMI Heliocentrics as implying indifference if earth moving around its axis instead of Universe/Heaven around earth, was really stating indifference between the view here ascribed to scholastics (Heavens move, aether is a substance, Sun, Moon, Stars daily move along with its rotation) and the one here defended by Geocentricity (Heavens are an empty unmoving spave, Sun, Moon, Stars move each at their pace through it every day).

My preference of scholastic view has two theology related roots. One is that God moving Heaven around us and angels moving Sun and Moon and planets but not stars opposite direction (and some angels moving stars back and forth as seen in so called "parallax") shows God as a superior over angels and them as depending totally on Him. Hebrew version only shows them as obeying Him, but as being themselves the sources of movement. The other is this that the Sun on the long day allegorically symbolises Christ as we rout our sins under His justice. So, empty-space version with Sun's own movement westward gives the Sun an unusually easy day. Rotating space version with Sun's own movement eastward gives the Sun an unusually hard day - as Christ's day on the Cross.

Anyway, whether Joshua so to say ordered Sun to "stop a chariot" as having it stand still or to "arrange a boat for a standstill" as driving hard against the current (and succeeding MUCH better than a boat in a river!), Joshua's words are very appropriately adressed to the Sun. Nowhere does the passage imply that stars and heavens also ceased rotating.

Sun governing day in Biblical language is also no problem for the scholastic view, since days are not counted in the periods of Prime Mobile rotations, but in the 3 minutes 56 seconds longer periods of Sun's moved placing mostly along with it and slightly moving against it so as to get slower. Because Sun governing day means days is period of sunlight.

Now, what does all this have to do with Trojan and Kurukshetra wars?

For one thing, as I said, because I will not consider mankind as so unequal between elected and temporarily bypassed peoples (for the duration of Old Testament after Tower of Babel, and speaking largely, not as if every individual was bypassed) that all marvels recorded by Greeks and Hindoos must be considered as inventions of poets.

And of course I have already argued that Trojan War happened after Joshua's long day, that Agamemnon had heard of it, perhaps through Philistine's knowing what had happened in the Holy Land and very certainly from the Long Day being objectively observable all over the world, as a very long day, or a very long night, or a very long sunrise or sunset. This was - I have also argued - why Agamemnon hoped to get a similar miracle by praying to Helios and failed. The Sun angel worships God and does not answer Sun worshippers.

But why get into Kurukshetra War in the context? I have previously considered it happened around the time when Hindoos date their Kali Yuga era, that is with Krishna dying a little before the Flood (I checked Kali Yuga and Roman Martyrology for 25 December which gives year after Creation, Flood, Vocation of Abraham, Exodus etc in which Christ was born - Kali Yuga starts 155 years before the Flood), and since this was way before Joshua's long day, one would expect Mahabharata would be of no help at all.

But I have also considered that Mahabharata as we have it is a kind of rehashing with many differences of detail from what happened in any War - in my view a Civil War of Nodian civilisation - so that we do not really know if "Krishna" was or wasn't guilty of telling "Arjuna" so bad theology as Bhagavadgita, or was perhaps used as a mouthpiece by a post-Babel poet (descending from Regma/Raamah the son of Kush or perhaps from Havilah son of Ioctan or from both) like the way in which Scipio and Laelius were used by Cicero in "Dream of Scipio" (where the eschatological theology is nearly acceptable except for temporality of paradise and reincarnation and consequent lack of resurrection of the bodies) or in "Laelius on Friendship".

Now, I have just gotten challenged on when Kurukshetra War happened. I had for months and up to a year or more (no use being dogmatic, Mahabharata is not Gospel truth) considered it was pre-Flood.

I learned from one person that he considered it was about the time of the Trojan War.

Now, a lesson from this is not to trust Hindoos too much. If Krishna died when the start of Kali Yuga implies, he died pre-Flood and pretty certainly spoke Hebrew rather than Sanskrit or any kind of Indo-European. So he would have (with same meaning of nickname) have been called Kush. And he would have lived so far behind any possible date post-Babel of poet that we could not know how much inaccuracies and misunderstandings had heaped on each other and perhaps this man was guilty of a very much lesser sin than of posing as a god, but was divinised by ancestor worship and given posthumous "theophanies" like after speaking Mahabharata. Bhagavadgita.

If on the other hand Krishna lived around the war of Troy, he can really have used hypnosis or worse, real magic by demons, to impose himself as a god on Arjuna as Odin did later in Uppsala. But in that case, dating him to have died 155 years before the Flood would mean that Hindoos really outdid each other in exaggerating the ancientness of the matter. "He died five years ago." - "Five years? Are you joking! It's a god, it must have been fifty years ago!" - No, five hundred!" and you have an auction going on how long ago it was, highest bidder wins, for same reasons that pushed Egyptian Pagans to say world was 40,000 years old when it was really only some 5,500 when a Church Father (or more than one) commented on this mania for high ages - one which of course Evolution believers have trumped by some billions of years, making Kali Yuga look like small beer by comparison.

However, I set out to look up if there was some kind of support for the later date for the Kurukshetra War. And I came across this page:

DATING THE KURUKSHETRA WAR
http://ignca.nic.in/nl002503.htm


And one quote set me looking for a kind of correlation with Joshua's long day, hence the earlier part of this essay.

Here it is:

The other dignitaries present on the dais were Dr. M.K.L.N. Sastry - Hon. Secretary, Mythic Society, Prof. P.V. Krishna Bhat - Hon. Coordinator, IGNCA-SRC and Shri K. Narahari - Managing Trustee, Apte Trust. The opening session set the tone for the mind stirring sessions with various interpolations found in the Mahabharata. Several scholars put forth their perception and calculated derivations. Dr. S. Balakrishna (NASA, USA) proved the occurrence of 'two eclipses in (a span of) 13 days prior to Mahabharata'. Analysing the astronomical possibility of Vyasa's statement in Bhishma Parva "Amavasya occured on the 13th day. Two eclipses in a month, on the thirteenth day." he presented the data of eclipses during the period 3300 BCJ (Before the Calendar of Julian Ceaser) to 700 BCJ visible at Kuruxethra, using Lodestar Pro software. He stated the possibility of 672 eclipse pairs, ten 'thirteen day lunar first' eclipse pairs and concluded that 2559 BC eclipse pair was nearest to the text of Mahabharata.


So a Westerner at NASA can laugh at Joshua's long Day,* while a Hindoo at NASA can try to date Mahabharata from eclipse pairs? Apparently yes!

But the thing that set me looking was this: of the two eclipses, one could have been a supernatural event recorded in the Bible. Mahabharata was certainly written too early for The Sun Gone Dark over Calvary to be it. Otherwise I would have tried to ask myself if there could have been a real lunar eclipse visible in India thirteen days before or after Crucifixion which gave something falsely considered as an eclipse while not being such. Indeed, "Vedic astronomy" (whenever it was written down, unless it was very much too early which is difficult to check) may have gotten the idea of eclipses caused by Rahu rather by the solar eclipse that was clearly not moon caused than by failing to explain lunar eclipses from a flat earth, as is also possible.

However, if Crucifixion is too late for the two eclipses 13 days apart according to Mahabharata, what about Joshua's Long Day? Which is why I did the search which led me to - Geocentricity's page.

But back to their page about dating Mahabharata. They cannot agree (though all are sure Kurukshetra War happened).

But the dates for say eclipses 13 days apart, lunar first, if they would point to a definite time around 1500 B.C., would that really have dated Kurukshetra War?

You see, I am somewhat of a novelist myself. I have a half written novel about Susan Pevensie (after the train crash that killed off her family and friends - should perhaps give her friends she doesn't lose in it) and I wanted a chapter about her visiting Narni in Italy, a place which Antiquity called Narnia and which C. S. Lewis very consciously chose to give a name to Narnia in that other world. So, the chapter takes place in very late 1949, I wanted to know what the weather was like there then and of course I can't. So, I used a weather report for same day I was writing it, and since that was also same few days, it was assumable that the weather just possibly COULD have been like that when Susan of my novel visited Narni in my novel on St John's Day 1949.

Vyasa could very easily have taken weather and astronomic observations from when he was writing and transposed it back to when he was writing about, not as if it were sure to be the same, but because it was realistic. Tolkien did a similar stunt when giving realism to LotR, the phases of the Moon when Gollum leads Frodo and Sam mimic those of the month when he was writing the chapters.

Dating the astronomy of Mahabharata may very well be a better help to dating the composition than to dating the war.

And no, the Gospels are not related to the life of Christ with as much room as between Trojan War and Homer or Third Punic War and Cicero or Kurukshetra War (if pre-Flood) and the real poet of Mahabharata (who was certainly post-Flood). They are in two cases written by eyewitnesses (Sts Matthew and John) and in two cases by people having spoken to such (St Mark to St Peter - though the exact account of how it happened differs somewhat between the Stromatist and St Augustine - and St Luke to the Blessed Virgin Mary and quite a few more).

How do I decide which is which? Well, I rely on tradition. When diverse traditions are in conflict, I rely on the best one. And that has helped to decide my Christian Catholic faith (I was my first years a little God fearing but even more Evolution believing and Comic book believing Pagan) as much as the faith has helped me subsequently to distinguish between a better or a worse tradition.

On Krishna tradition has it:

He died 3102 BC - he was in the Pandava-Kaurava war - which took place in Kurukshetra - he was a deity - and Hindoo dynasties descend from him or Arjuna directly, with no intervening Flood.

As a Christian I cannot find the first and last of these in agreement but must choose. Whichever choice I make, Hindoo tradition bungled some facts.

As to his being a deity, the options for a Christian are false theophany or bungled memory.

As to criticising my own Christian tradition the same way, well, I can in a way be said to evaluate it rationally on similar criteria when engaging in Apologetics and putting myself in the position, as far as I can, of my non-Christian opponent, if he would only be sufficiently rational to adopt those criteria. But unlike Hindoo tradition not being integrally acceptable, because Christian tradition primes over it, I have no criterium on which to rule out integrality of Christianity being true. Equal value of all traditions is a supposition, I value Greek and Roman over Mahabharata tradition and perhaps Mahabharata tradition a bit over the Nordic one in moral theology, but under it in factuality of heroic legend. Or even in metaphysics. Science based criticism of the Christian faith breaks down over how much of it is sham science either originally made or ulteriorly exploited as Christianity attacks. Supposed contradictions in the Bible break down over how ill the critics finding them know the Bible, know what tradition it belongs to (some take Rabbinic tradition over Catholic when it comes to moral meaning of passages in Moses, poor guys!) or know even the common place effort of friendly logic to try as many explanations as possible for a claim being possibly true before concluding it was not just a lie but a very clumsy and incomprehensible one at that.

And criticising tradition for being tradition rather than documentary archaeological fact misunderstands the role of tradition in general theory of knowledge very totally. It is, as I recently had the help of fellow Catholics on FB to point out, by oral tradition that we know that the form A belongs with the name "ay" and the sounds of "s-A-me, f-A-ther, f-A-t, f-A-ll" and the digraph EA ("ee and ay" or "ee-ay") having sounds of "r-EA-ding, [have] r-EA-d, gr-EA-t" ... of course though originally known by tradition it is tested by meaningfulness in context after context - but that is also true of almost any tradition, and it is mostly on ultimate questions where testing is difficult that they go wrong, not on humanly observable factual ones.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou Library
St Andrew Apostle and
First Sunday of Advent
30-XI-2014

PS: Why would I have considered it at all likely that Joshua's long day would have been considered as an eclipse in India? Because I was mistaken on two items. One, what time of the day the Sun stopped. I thought it was in the evening, like in the Iliad, but the Sun actually stopped over Gilgal at zenith. Which makes the day version rather than the night version of the event visible further East back then. By c. 90° even. The next problem is I was mistaken on how far East India is of Holy Land in terms of angle of the globe. I thought it might be about 90°. So, I test my theory today (1-XII, day of St Eligius).

I look up Gilgal. Are there coordinates there? No. But a reference to a site of Modern Israel that is close by. I look up that site. Argaman Coordinates: 32°10′20.99″N 35°31′18.84″E.

If I add 90° to 35° I get 125° East. Am I in India? No. I do a google and get a glimpse of a search 50° N 125° E. How far N actually matters less. But that locality must have been seeing the Sun due West if Gilgal saw it 32° S of mid high point of the sky, declining neither East nor West. So I redo the google, and I get here:

confluence project : 50 ° N 125° E
http://confluence.org/confluence.php?id=6643


And I am - mentally - with the writer Rainer Mautz who was there - physically on a bike - in 27.7 km (17.2 miles) W of Sizhan (Hēilóngjiāng), Nèi Měnggǔ, China. Accuracy is supposed to be 66 m (216 ft). That is far East of India and as far East as one has to get in order to have seen the Long Day as a Long Sunset. India saw it as a long day, as was mapped on Geocentricity page, a story of a long day in India.

* I was trying to find the relevant post on Bad Astronomy with my defense of Geocentrism and Joshua's Long Day in the comment section, but I found sth else by NASA Astronomer Phil Plait:

Bad Astronomy : Moon hoax: why not use telescopes to look at the landers?
By Phil Plait | August 12, 2008 10:00 am
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/08/12/moon-hoax-why-not-use-telescopes-to-look-at-the-landers/


if the landings were real, why not point Hubble or some other telescope at the landing sites and take pictures of the landers? ... The answer is pretty surprising to most people, but the science doesn’t lie.

The basic idea is that when the astronauts left the Moon, they left behind several artifacts, including the base of the lunar module (called the descent stage) and the rovers (for Apollo 15, 16, and 17). The descent stages were a little over 4 meters wide (the landing legs spread out were 9 meters across, but are narrow, so the bulk of the stage would be easier to see). The rovers were about 3 meters long and 2 wide.

Those numbers sound like you should be able to spot them with, say, Hubble. But can you?

The question here is one of resolution: how big does an object have to be before a telescope can resolve it, that is, see it as more than just a dot?


Wonderful news for the guys who seem to think telescopes can accurately directly measure parallax angles of 0.76 arc seconds or less. Some guys have the idea we get to measure stellar distances of 13.5 billion light years simply by parallax angle and trigonometry. But 0.76 arc seconds is just 4 light years. Look at Phil Plait's words again, and see if it seems he considers that an angle that can be measured directly even by Hubble!

Update: Ha! I found the post I was looking for:

BadAstronomy : That NASA look
By Phil Plait | July 26, 2010 12:00 pm
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/07/26/that-nasa-look/


Though the post is by Phil Plait, the guy I most argue against on the thread is Neil Haggath. So much indeed that when I link to the post from my own, I even attribute the post to Neil Haggath. Here is my own btw, tried to link to it in a short link on the thread, but the url-burner has ceased functioning, so for "o-x.fr/1po1" (as per on thread) I now give you:

deretour : Moontruth? Why?
http://hglundahlsblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/moontruth-why.html


Where I had argued that theories of Apollo landing hoax, interesting as they are, are not necessary at all for Geocentrism per se.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Extreme badness of computer scanned text retype

1) Extreme Badness of Google Translate (Copy Pasted both texts), 2) Extreme badness of computer scanned text retype, 3 a) basic english blog This will be. Easy. b) I was wrong. c) Reading level/blog readability test : Server Failure: The name server was unable to process this query.

Note, I am not speaking against scanned pictures, but when a scan results in the computer making texts rather than images. In Project Runeberg's version of Nordisk Familjebok, I have no problem reading the text from scanned images, but more than once I have had to correct the text produced under them. Here is a typical and pretty bad example. First a Bible text in English translation, then the scan produced text, then the real Latin words:

  • If the world hates you, remember it hated me first.
  • Si imtndus vos odil scitofeqnia mcpviorem Kobis odio halmit
  • Si mundus vos odit scitote quia me priorem vobis odio habuit.


This post has three sixes in the post ID. Possibly someone was trying to excommunicate* me and warning me it was an "antichristian" thing to expose computer scanned texts.

Or to warn me that "Si imtndus vos odil scitofeqnia mcpviorem Kobis odio halmit" was offensive to the Sacred Word of God. But it is not my invention. I found it here:

Lettres apostoliques de S. S. Léon XIII, tome 7
http://www.liberius.net/livres/Lettres_apostoliques_de_S._S._Leon_XIII_%28tome_7%29_000000873.pdf


So you decide who is Antichristian - me for writing this, or some other guy for trying to scare me by unjust excommunications, or neither, if you prefer to think of the three sixes as a coincidence. For my own part, I am not adding a signature here, for that reason.

* Just because of that I also found I had spelled the word "ecommunicate"!

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Challenge to Chomsky from a Latinist

ille mi par esse deo videtur, ille, si fas est, superare divos, qui sedens adversus identidem te spectat et audit dulce ridentem


This sentence IS grammatical in Latin.

Now, how do you parse that with a tree diagram? If you feel it is too long, abbreviate:

IMPEDV,I,SFE,SD,QSAITSEA.*

Now, parse!

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi Georges Pompidou
St Cecily
22-XI-2014

Wikibooks : The Poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus/51
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Poetry_of_Gaius_Valerius_Catullus/51


*I obviously mean : IMPEDV,I,SFE,SD,QSAITSEADR.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

What did Saint Thomas Really Say About Biblical Inerrancy?

1) New blog on the kid : Tit for tat ..., 2) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : What did Saint Thomas Really Say About Biblical Inerrancy?

Here is a quote from a blog post in which it is suggested that matters in Scripture exist which to believe is never essential to the faith even if you know they are there:

In the Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas responds to an objection that everything in scriptures is a matter of faith:

"[O]f things to be believed some of them belong to faith, whereas others are purely subsidiary, for, as happens in any branch of knowledge, some matters are its essential interest, while it touches on others only to make the first matters clear. Now because faith is chiefly about the things we hope to see in heaven, 'for faith is the substance of things hoped for,' [Hebrews xi.1] it follows that those things which order us directly to eternal life essentially belong to faith; such as the three Persons of almighty God, the mystery of Christ's incarnation, and other like truths. . . . Some things, however, are proposed in Holy Scripture, not as being the main matters of faith, but to bring them out; for instance, that Abraham had two sons, that a dead man came to life at the touch of Elisha's bones, and other like matters narrated in Scripture to disclose God's majesty or Christ's incarnation."


Sweethearts Seeking Sanctity : Geocentrism: A Dangerous Pseudoscience
http://sweetheartsseekingsanctity.blogspot.com/2014/05/geocentrism-dangerous-pseudoscience.html


Now, there is such a thing as a footnote (number 45) giving us the reference for this quote:

Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q. 1, a. 6, ad 1, quoted in William E. Carroll, "Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas," Revue des Questions Scientifiques 171 (2000): 319-347


Before agreeing with the next words of the blog post, namely ...

Cosmology is one of those subjects in scriptures which do not “order us to eternal life” but serves to “bring out” or illustrate a matter of faith and to “disclose God’s majesty.” Since cosmology is not a matter of faith, it follows that it cannot be doctrine. If I believed the entire universe went around the moon, I would be mistaken, but I would not be a heretic.


... let us see if the William E. Carroll from whose article "Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas," might not have dishonestly given the context in a truncated fashion. Did either of the two Sweethearts Seeking Sanctity, specifically Anthony whose blog post it is, bother to look up Summa theologiae II-II, q. 1, a. 6, ad 1?

I happen to know the passage rather well, since some time before 2000. I will give you the whole article:

Article 6. Whether those things that are of faith should be divided into certain articles?

Objection 1. It would seem that those things that are of faith should not be divided into certain articles. For all things contained in Holy Writ are matters of faith. But these, by reason of their multitude, cannot be reduced to a certain number. Therefore it seems superfluous to distinguish certain articles of faith.

Objection 2. Further, material differences can be multiplied indefinitely, and therefore art should take no notice of them. Now the formal aspect of the object of faith is one and indivisible, as stated above (Article 1), viz. the First Truth, so that matters of faith cannot be distinguished in respect of their formal object. Therefore no notice should be taken of a material division of matters of faith into articles.

Objection 3. Further, it has been said by some [Cf. William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea] that "an article is an indivisible truth concerning God, exacting [arctans] our belief." Now belief is a voluntary act, since, as Augustine says (Tract. xxvi in Joan.), "no man believes against his will." Therefore it seems that matters of faith should not be divided into articles.

On the contrary, Isidore says: "An article is a glimpse of Divine truth, tending thereto." Now we can only get a glimpse of Divine truth by way of analysis, since things which in God are one, are manifold in our intellect. Therefore matters of faith should be divided into articles.

I answer that, the word "article" is apparently derived from the Greek; for the Greek arthron [Cf. William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea] which the Latin renders "articulus," signifies a fitting together of distinct parts: wherefore the small parts of the body which fit together are called the articulations of the limbs. Likewise, in the Greek grammar, articles are parts of speech which are affixed to words to show their gender, number or case. Again in rhetoric, articles are parts that fit together in a sentence, for Tully says (Rhet. iv) that an article is composed of words each pronounced singly and separately, thus: "Your passion, your voice, your look, have struck terror into your foes."

Hence matters of Christian faith are said to contain distinct articles, in so far as they are divided into parts, and fit together. Now the object of faith is something unseen in connection with God, as stated above (Article 4). Consequently any matter that, for a special reason, is unseen, is a special article; whereas when several matters are known or not known, under the same aspect, we are not to distinguish various articles. Thus one encounters one difficulty in seeing that God suffered, and another in seeing that He rose again from the dead, wherefore the article of the Resurrection is distinct from the article of the Passion. But that He suffered, died and was buried, present the same difficulty, so that if one be accepted, it is not difficult to accept the others; wherefore all these belong to one article.

Reply to Objection 1. Some things are proposed to our belief are in themselves of faith, while others are of faith, not in themselves but only in relation to others: even as in sciences certain propositions are put forward on their own account, while others are put forward in order to manifest others. Now, since the chief object of faith consists in those things which we hope to see, according to Hebrews 11:2: "Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for," it follows that those things are in themselves of faith, which order us directly to eternal life. Such are the Trinity of Persons in Almighty God [The Leonine Edition reads: The Three Persons, the omnipotence of God, etc.], the mystery of Christ's Incarnation, and the like: and these are distinct articles of faith. On the other hand certain things in Holy Writ are proposed to our belief, not chiefly on their own account, but for the manifestation of those mentioned above: for instance, that Abraham had two sons, that a dead man rose again at the touch of Eliseus' bones, and the like, which are related in Holy Writ for the purpose of manifesting the Divine mystery or the Incarnation of Christ: and such things should not form distinct articles.

Reply to Objection 2. The formal aspect of the object of faith can be taken in two ways: first, on the part of the thing believed, and thus there is one formal aspect of all matters of faith, viz. the First Truth: and from this point of view there is no distinction of articles. Secondly, the formal aspect of matters of faith, can be considered from our point of view; and thus the formal aspect of a matter of faith is that it is something unseen; and from this point of view there are various distinct articles of faith, as we saw above.

Reply to Objection 3. This definition of an article is taken from an etymology of the word as derived from the Latin, rather than in accordance with its real meaning, as derived from the Greek: hence it does not carry much weight. Yet even then it could be said that although faith is exacted of no man by a necessity of coercion, since belief is a voluntary act, yet it is exacted of him by a necessity of end, since "he that cometh to God must believe that He is," and "without faith it is impossible to please God," as the Apostle declares (Hebrews 11:6).


New Advent > Summa Theologica > Second Part of the Second Part > Question 1 Faith > 6 Article Should the things to be believed be divided into a certain number of articles?
http://newadvent.com/summa/3001.htm#article6


Let me first stress the question posed in the article. Whether the object of faith can be divided into a certain number of articles (Apostolic Creed having 12 or 14 depending on division, the Creed of St Athanasius having 40). Not whether everything in the Bible is to be believed. Especially not whether some things in the Bible are not to be believed.

Let me then stress what the first objection was, I quote again from the New Advent site:

Objection 1. It would seem that those things that are of faith should not be divided into certain articles. For all things contained in Holy Writ are matters of faith. But these, by reason of their multitude, cannot be reduced to a certain number. Therefore it seems superfluous to distinguish certain articles of faith.


What is taken for granted is that Bible is inerrant in every aspect. What is being argued is that since Bible has an infinity of aspects, faith cannot be divided into a finite number of articles.

Now, let me quote the answer in full, unlike what William E. Carroll did. I will stress words he left out.

Reply to Objection 1. Some things are proposed to our belief are in themselves of faith, while others are of faith, not in themselves but only in relation to others: even as in sciences certain propositions are put forward on their own account, while others are put forward in order to manifest others. Now, since the chief object of faith consists in those things which we hope to see, according to Hebrews 11:2: "Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for," it follows that those things are in themselves of faith, which order us directly to eternal life. Such are the Trinity of Persons in Almighty God [The Leonine Edition reads: The Three Persons, the omnipotence of God, etc.], the mystery of Christ's Incarnation, and the like: and these are distinct articles of faith. On the other hand certain things in Holy Writ are proposed to our belief, not chiefly on their own account, but for the manifestation of those mentioned above: for instance, that Abraham had two sons, that a dead man rose again at the touch of Eliseus' bones, and the like, which are related in Holy Writ for the purpose of manifesting the Divine mystery or the Incarnation of Christ: and such things should not form distinct articles.


What does Anthony conclude?

Biblical cosmology cannot be doctrine.

What should he conclude?

Biblical cosmology cannot be a distinct article of faith.

What is the difference? One is that there are doctrines that are not articles of faith in themselves.

But another is that each distinct article of faith - which are finite in number - gives occasion to a potentially infinite number of doctrines - one for each Bible passage that is actively contested in relation to the article.

There is a connexion. Every doctrine is about an article of faith or about a commandment in the decalogue or related to the double command of charity or about a petition in the Lord's Prayer.

So, Biblical cosmology can touch, primarily as articles: first one saying God is Creator, and the one which says the Holy Ghost has spoken through the prophets.

There are obviously articles of cosmology which are not Biblical. Earth not being a globe but instead a disc can not very well be reconciled with Holy Writ once we know geography, since the latest flat earth maps show land masses as having a midpoint in North Pole (probably after a Hindoo idea) and three corners verging towards the South rim: Americas, Africa, SE Asia. Bible requires four corners. We could get four corners more easily if we allow the globe to be a globe and do not distort the landmasses to suit an idea of North Pole as "centre point" and "South rim as periphery".

But as Anthony suggested with a wrong example, if I were a flat earthist, I would be wrong but not an heretic. I could for instance be ignorant of geography and count Jerusalem as centre of a flat disc and Americas as a fable. That would be wrong, but not heretical. The four corners would be the same as one version of what I consider they might be: NW, NE, SE and SW corners of the Old World, a k a Europe, Asia and Africa. My other option, as a round Earth admitter (let's not call it globe earth believer, it is not doctrine) would be to replace Cape of Good Hope with Cape Horn as SW corner. And to see Atlantic Ocean as a secondary incursion into the four cornered land mass. Of course a third option would be to consider the four corners as referring to a pre-Flood landmass, in which case flat earthers would just possibly be able to say, escaping heresy, that after the Flood the fourth corner is missing. And still adher to the North Centre/South Rim map. I would not do that. Four corners does just not require it.

But there are other articles of cosmology, which, though not articles of faith are still to be believed because they are in the Bible.*

As the "objection 1" states as a premiss and as the "reply to objection 1" does not argue against.

I am sorry, but William E. Carroll has - 14 years ago in Revue des Questions Scientifiques 171 (2000): 319-347 - given himself to the abject practise of quote mining - of using a quote, not only to make a point strange to the person quoted, but even worse, to make it appear, by truncation of context, that the person quoted agrees with one. At least on one essential where this is not the case.

Before finalising such an accusation, I must of course read that article, I have not done so yet. But I find it significant that Anthony quotes a piece lacking the final words that clarify context and the meaning in which faith "is not directed to" things like Abraham having two sons (at age hundred, later he had more) or Elisha's relics raising a man from the dead. I must either think Anthony was an inattentive reader of William E. Carroll, or that Anthony was himself quote mining William E. Carroll - or that, as my main suspicion lies - William E. Carroll was deliberately quote mining. This is way beyond just sloppy.

Now, if and when I read the article from 14 years ago, I will give an update on whether my culprit is William E. Carroll. Meanwhile I will pubish this post of mine, link to it under the post of Anthony, and hope that this time he publishes it. He has already twice not published comments (he has comment validation on, I have free comments) I wrote under it.

My main suspicion of Anthony is that he took the quote as given by Carroll on faith - on human faith in a fellow Catholic or supposed such. And never bothered to check it himself, since he counted on such a publication not publishing anything without checking.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque Marguérite Audoux
St Elisabeth daughter of the King of Hungary
widow in Marburg**
19-XI-2014

* All real discoveries of Galileo through the telescope, observations as opposed to his conclusions, are not concerned. There were in both processes 1616 and 1633 just two theses where he was uttering something in conflict with Biblical cosmology.

** In oppido Marpurgi, in Germania, depositio sanctae Elisabeth Viduae, Regis Hungarorum Andreae filiae, ex tertio Ordine sancti Francisci, quae, pietatis operibus assidue intenta, miraculis clara migravit ad Dominum.