Monthly Archives: August 2010

RBOC: Moving Edition

  • I’ve been away for a while. I’m not quite back yet, but at least hooked up.
  • We’ve been caught in a protracted move. We’re finally in the new place but haven’t settled (so it’s not fully ours yet) and are nowhere near settled (we’re still stuck in a morass of boxes and misplaced furniture—and I still have another two storage units to finish emptying out…)
  • Blogging and most everything else will be light until things have settled out.
  • I’ve been having thoughts about the blog, blogging, and next steps which I’ll share as they become more firm in my head.
  • One change that is coming will be a shift of effort over to the St Bede’s Breviary blog. Based on the last update, much that’s over there is out of date, so I’ll be mostly deleting it and restarting. Once it restarts, however, it may be getting more material there than over here—for a time at least.
  • Too, I’ve got two presentations to get ready for in November, and I have no doubt there’ll be a certain amount of spill-over from thinking about those things into the blog.
  • So—I’ll still alive, I just won’t be around much for a while…

Random Thoughts on Monastic Bishops

The kids are already on vacation and we go to join them tomorrow meaning that M and I got to run together this morning (I just did a light 10 then relaxed while she did another 8 miles…). In the process, I found myself pondering once again Sulpicius Severus and the transmission of the monastic tradition from East to West. In particular, I’m considering the shift of the ascetic ideal from, essentially, hermits to bishops.

Consider–the main texts of the monastic movement in its initial eastern flourishing were Athanasius’s Life of Antony and the various collections of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. These were then translated into Latin by Jerome & friends. Suplicius who, in an unguarded moment in the Dialogues, lets slip that he hopes to replace Jerome altogether writes the Life of Martin, the Dialogues, and the Epistles. He shifts the ideal away from the unlettered desert hermit and places it onto the noble Gaulish bishop. Likewise, among Jerome’s correspondents are a number of letters to bishops–like those to Paulinus of Nola who turns out to be a friend of Sulpicius as well.

I’m not making an argument at the moment, more lining up some evidence and seeing what patterns emerge. It is fair to say, though, that both Sulpicius and Jerome seem to assimilate monasticism into the western hierarchies more firmly than what we see in the first generations of monastic writings from the East.

Furthermore, I’m now suddenly intrigued by the Celtic bishops. Authentic classical “Celtic Christianity”–as we’ve discussed before–was far more similar to desert asceticism than other models, and one of its most recognizable features is that the bishops were usually abbots. Is this some kind of anomaly or is this the logical outcome of the strand of tradition that runs through Sulpicius Severus?

Still pondering…

Astounding Moments through Modern Technology

I was doing some random reading around in Anglican liturgical texts contained in the Google Books archives. I came across this little gem. It is to be filed under: “Holy Crap! How totally random was that!”

Just after the title page in Vincent’s Chant-Book Companion to the Book of Common Prayer (1880) is a scrawled note by Harvard Library’s processing department when they received this particular volume on May 24, 1939. It reads “Estate of Rev. Charles Hutchins”…

As in, the Rev. Charles Hutchins who edited the Church Hymnal and, in 1897 produced the official authorized-by-General-Convention Church Psalter. Now I’m going to have to go back and look at Hutchin’s chant choices in a whole new light!

Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded…

Neither M nor I have been able to access the breviary this morning from our computers. We’re operating over a slow and limited (at times intermittent) internet connection. However, I’m getting word that others are having similar problems. If you’ve had issues like these, add a comment.

I’m looking into root causes. Tightening the code may help some, but I fear we’re encountering server load issues. I may need to upgrade the host to fully resolve the issue. I’ll keep looking into it and keep you posted.

Forced Hiatus

I haven’t been online much and will continue not to be. We’re in the process of moving but have hit some snags. The place where we’re staying has inconsistent internet so I can only occasionally get on. So—consider this the first part of my summer vacation. I know I have some piled up emails and hope to get through them soon as time and conditions allow…