{"id":837,"date":"2011-09-01T15:35:22","date_gmt":"2011-09-01T20:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/?p=837"},"modified":"2011-09-02T09:00:37","modified_gmt":"2011-09-02T14:00:37","slug":"august-in-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/august-in-england\/","title":{"rendered":"August in England"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Jeff W. Childers, Carmichael-Walling Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity in the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University, offers some reflections on his recent research trip to England:<\/em><\/p>\n

August in England<\/strong><\/h2>\n

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

I can think of several good reasons to go to England in August<\/strong>:<\/strong>\u00a0 For one thing, it is cooler. Whereas the high temperatures in Abilene, Texas during the first week of August were consistently around 106\u00ba, the same week in Oxford, England saw highs between about 70\u00ba\u201382\u00ba. The hills are green and there are trees. The culture is delightfully diverse, and the food equally so. Also, there is no better place to have a Will-and-Kate sighting than England.<\/p>\n

But none of these things drew me to England this time. Instead, I was lured there by two of my favorite things: old libraries and ancient manuscripts. Surprising as it may seem, the U.K. is home to some of the world\u2019s great collections of ancient Syriac manuscripts.<\/p>\n

As you may recall, Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, still in use today but flourishing especially in Christian communities in the Middle East during the 3rd\u201313th centuries. Many old Syriac texts survive and remain to be studied, but these days I am especially interested in the 5th-century Syriac translation of John Chrysostom\u2019s\u00a0Commentary on the Gospel of John<\/em>. With the help of ACU and the Loeb Classical Foundation, I am preparing this lengthy text for publication and translating it into English in order to make it available to a wider readership. But that requires getting my hands on the manuscripts themselves\u2014thereby explaining this year\u2019s travels to\u00a0St Catharine\u2019s Monastery at Mt. Sinai<\/a>, the\u00a0Vatican Library<\/a>, and now several libraries in the U.K.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Jeff at the British Library, London<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

First on the list<\/strong> is the British Library<\/a> in London (BL), home to 10 of the surviving manuscripts, whose dates span the 6th\u201313th\u00a0centuries. In fact, the BL has hundreds of very old Syriac manuscripts. This is thanks to Moses of Nisibis, a 10th-century monk who collected Syriac books when he was traveling to Baghdad in order to ask the caliph for tax breaks. He acquired many old manuscripts along the way, bringing them back to his monastery at Wadi al-Natrun (Scetis) in the Egyptian desert, where they stayed until most of them were relocated to European libraries in the 18th\u00a0and 19th\u00a0centuries. The BL ended up with the largest portion, by far. The oldest dated biblical manuscript<\/a> in existence \u2014in any language\u2014is a Syriac manuscript of the Pentateuch from this collection, now residing in the BL.<\/p>\n

I spent many hours poring over the Syriac Chrysostom in the Asian & African Studies reading room, taking breaks only to grab a quick lunch in the Library caf\u00e9 with my friend and colleague, Bill Rankin<\/a>. Bill was also conducting research in the BL, working on\u2014appropriately enough\u2014the history of the book. Alongside several long and fairly complete manuscripts that I needed at the BL, I was also able to look at a recently identified fragment that had originally been part of a larger manuscript at St. Catharine\u2019s Monastery.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Jeff at the University of Birmingham, England<\/p><\/div>\n

The other known piece of that same manuscript brought me to the<\/strong> second library on my list<\/strong>, that of the University of Birmingham<\/a>. Though my time there was brief, it came with an extra treat: staying at a hotel adjacent to the Cadbury Chocolate factory<\/a> in suburban Bournville. The aroma was caloric.<\/p>\n

Naturally, I also spent time in Oxford. But although I was briefly in Oxford\u2019s Bodleian Library<\/a>\u2014and in the world\u2019s oldest continuously functioning Library at my own Merton College<\/a>\u2014my time at Oxford was dominated by the International Conference on Patristic Studies<\/a>, where I read a paper<\/a> about my recent work and sought feedback from other Syriacists and Chrysostom-specialists. Their input was very helpful.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Merton College Library, Mob Quad, Oxford<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Since my alma mater<\/em> had none of the manuscripts I needed, I left Oxford and went to The Other Place<\/a> and the third library on my list<\/strong>, the resting place of two fairly late Syriac manuscripts awaiting my inspection. Although the manuscripts turned out not to be as useful as I hoped, the library staff were very helpful and quite nice.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Cambridge University Library<\/p><\/div>\n

After several airplane flights and train journeys, I now have all the manuscript data I need to finish work on my project! Now I need only the time, the energy, and the focus. Somehow Sir Henry Savile, Warden of Merton College and Queen Elizabeth\u2019s Greek tutor, was able to find time while translating the King James Version of the Bible to publish in 1610 a massive 8-volume folio edition of Chrysostom\u2019s works in Greek<\/a>, “the first major work of patristic scholarship to be published in England”[1]<\/a> and “the one great work of Renaissance scholarship carried out in England.”[2]<\/a> While I don\u2019t expect the modest Chrysostom project of this Mertonian to have quite the same impact as Savile\u2019s opus<\/em>, his work inspires me to get it done!<\/p>\n

As Chrysostom himself exhorts near the beginning of his Commentary on John<\/em>, “Let us give diligent attention to the book that is laid open before us\u2026” (Memra 2.11). His ancient meditations on John lay open before me, and as I read and translate them line-by-line, I am learning the truth of his insistence that the hard work of constant digging in the study of sacred things pays off in the discovery of pure gold for the soul (Memra 40.1).<\/p>\n

\"\"

Jeff in the British Library\u2014relaxing, or happily shackled to the books?<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n

[1]<\/a> Jean-Louis Quantin, The Church of England and Christian Antiquity. The Construction of a Confessional Identity in the 17th\u00a0Century<\/em> (Oxford: University Press, 2009), 405.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[2]<\/a> Adam Nicolson, God\u2019s Secretaries. The Making of the King James Bible<\/em> (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 167.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Jeff W. Childers, Carmichael-Walling Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity in the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University, offers some reflections on his recent research trip to England: August in England ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I can think of several good reasons to go to England in August:\u00a0 For one thing, it is cooler. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1505,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[64100,6643,2967,467,64101,2767,64103],"class_list":["post-837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-history","tag-england","tag-library","tag-research","tag-sabbatical","tag-syriac","tag-translation"],"yoast_head":"\nAugust in England - ACU Graduate School of Theology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/august-in-england\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"August in England - ACU Graduate School of Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dr. Jeff W. Childers, Carmichael-Walling Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity in the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University, offers some reflections on his recent research trip to England: August in England ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I can think of several good reasons to go to England in August:\u00a0 For one thing, it is cooler. 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