The big news is that Dr Isabella Image has today very kindly sent me a rather wonderful draft translation of an anonymous 4th century text, De solstitiis et aequinoctiis, about which I have written before. It’s never been translated before into any modern language, and it is full of interesting things. The author suggests that Christ and John the Baptist were conceived and born on the solstices and equinoxes, and argues this from the bible. The argument made is not entirely convincing to modern eyes, but it is very revealing of 4th century thinking. I hope to make this available online very soon.
The other news is that the postman brought me a copy of a French PhD thesis which I ordered from the ANRT last weekend. It comes handsomely bound, in standard softback academic book format. It’s certainly a huge step up from the pile of letter-sized photocopies that ProQuest send out. Indeed it is almost worth the huge sum that I paid for it. It contains an unpublished translation, about which I will post further another time. I wish I could have had a PDF, tho.
I’ve also placed my first inter-library loan for some time, for a volume of Charles W. Jones on Bede. This apparently contains a discussion of the manuscripts of the Irish computus forgeries. This was a loose end from my post a little while back about “Theophilus of Caesarea”, and I’ll post if I find something interesting. It will be interesting to see if ILL’s are working again. It will also be interesting to see what they charge me!