The New York Times quoted Yours Truly for the first (and surely last) time today.

Actually, the Times quoted Rock n Roll Hall-of-Famer Dion quoting me on the subject of St. Jerome.

An Italian-American bluesman records a song in Florida. An Irish-American disc jockey plays it at a radio station in Woodstock, N.Y. He tells a friend from his old neighborhood in the Bronx about the song. And before you know it, Mexican teenagers whose families replaced the Irish in the tenements and row houses of Mott Haven are tapping their toes to the tune.

Some song? You bet. Consider this: The song is “The Thunderer,” an homage to St. Jerome, an irascible scholar and a pillar of the early church. The singer? Better known for “The Wanderer.”

But Dion DiMucci, the Italian-American doo-wop legend from Belmont who goes by his first name, was only the messenger. The real link between him, the D.J. and Mott Haven is the parish church in Mott Haven, named for St. Jerome, which was the boyhood church of the Irish-American D.J., Big Joe Fitz.

Big Joe told the Rev. John Grange, a childhood friend and the current pastor of St. Jerome’s, about the song. He played it at Mass and at other events, and it caught on. Now he plans to make up shirts for the parish teams declaring themselves “The Thunderers.”

Dion, 68, who won fame early as the leader of a teenage group that toured with Buddy Holly, was touched by the gesture.

“That is amazing that a guy like St. Jerome who lived in the fourth century could bring people together,” he said. “Sometimes you think people are dead and forgotten. But they can actually bring you together in the best way.”

The song, from Dion’s 2007 album “The Son of Skip James,” is based on a poem by Phyllis McGinley, also titled “The Thunderer.” In it, Jerome emerges as difficult as he was smart:

God’s angry man,

His crotchety scholar

Was Saint Jerome,

The great name-caller

Who cared not a dime

For the laws of Libel

And in his spare time

Translated the Bible.

Dion had long been familiar with a quote of St. Jerome’s: “Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ.” He had casually mentioned that line to a friend, Mike Aquilina. Mr. Aquilina replied, “The Thunderer.”

The what?

“I said to myself, there is no such word,” Dion recalled. “But Mike told me about the McGinley poem and who St. Jerome was, how he translated the Bible from Greek into Latin. Then he translated it from Hebrew into Latin.”

But the saint wasn’t always perfect, Dion learned.

“He was a pretty uppity guy,” Dion said. “He was intolerant. He was so bright, he was like, ‘C’mon, get over it!’ He couldn’t be around people, so he lived in this cave.”

How could he not like a person like that?

“I thought you had to be humble to become a saint, but a priest told me it takes all kinds to make it to heaven,” he said. “I figure he’s like us, a little like us. Not that I’m a scholar or an academic, but you go ‘Wow! I got a chance.’ ”

Gosh, I want one of those tee-shirts. And you want to own an MP3 of that song about St. Jerome, if you don’t own it already! You can get it on Amazon or on iTunes.

When I found out I was quoted in the New York Times, I felt like Steve Martin in that great scene in The Jerk. He gets his name in the phone book and jumps for joy, shouting, “I’m somebody! I’m somebody!” The camera then does a quick cut to a psychopathic killer, armed to the teeth, opening a phone book to a random page.

Please pray for Sister Macrina, who blogs on the Fathers at A Vow of Conversation. She’s preparing to make her final profession as a Cistercian.

Born in Jerusalem, closely connected with the royal house of Edessa, Sextus Julius Africanus served as librarian at the Pantheon in Rome during the reign of Alexander Severus (third century). Talk about your inside tracks on history! They say his Chronicles filled many volumes, though only fragments survive. He corresponded with Origen, and he was an invaluable source for Eusebius.

Now, all the fragments have been collected, with two letters by Africanus, in one volume with and English translation and footnotes. Iulius Africanus: Chronographiae: The Extant Fragments is a very valuable book, whose pricetag certainly reflects that high value. Bryn Mawr Classical Review says:

Through the Chronographiae Africanus conceived the extraordinarily ambitious plan of fitting widely disparate strands of different histories into a biblical frame of time, beginning with Adam and culminating with the Resurrection. The resultant chronological system served as a basis for universal histories of which the Eusebian-Hieronymian version proved both influential and lasting. Perhaps the success of the latter ultimately guaranteed the dispersal and fragmentary survival of the model conceived by Africanus.

Hat tip: PaleoJudaica.

Many apologies for my relative silence. I’ve been down with some mystery bug, which seems to be affecting all major systems simultaneously. Last week I could barely stay awake. My fever broke Friday, but other symptoms are lingering. Raise an Ave for a poor blogger, please.

The Society of St. John Chrysostom promotes ecumenical dialogue of the east-west variety. Most members belong to Orthodox or Catholic churches. I’ve had the honor of speaking twice in the lecture series of the Youngstown-Warren, Ohio Chapter.

Next up in the series is Reverend Father Calinic Berger, patrologist, monk, and pastor. A visiting professor of dogmatic theology at St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary, Father Calinic got his doctorate under the generation of patristic luminaries at CUA, and it shows. The program will begin with vespers on Tuesday, May 13, at 6:30 p.m. He will speak on the subject “Priesthood: Foundations and Reflections.” The program takes place at Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church, which is at 626 Wick Ave., Youngstown, Ohio. For information, call 330-755-5635.

Butler’s Lives of the Saints, all the original volumes in the late 1800s editions, are available from the Internet Archive, here.

A regular visitor, who wishes to remain anonymous, put them up. Here are the details:

(The archive can sometimes be finicky or slow, so if you get an error, just try again later.)

The four volumes are labelled there as volume 1, volume 2, volume 7, and volume 10. Volume 1 is Jan-Mar; Vol. 2 is Apr-Jun; Vol. 3 is Jul-Sep; and Vol. 4 is Oct-Dec. I think the source of the numbering confusion is that these volumes were produced just by binding the individual months’ volumes three at a time, so bound Vol. 3 begins with original Vol. 7.

Anyhow, they’re there. They’re huge and painfully slow to read because they’re all stored as graphic images. I am continuing to work on OCRing and proofing them to produce more usable versions, but I must admit I’m not working very fast. You can see from the page images why it takes so long–the print quality is abysmal, the pages are huge, and the extensive footnotes are in very tiny type!

Polish archeologists have found a patristic-era church in the Sudan.

Gashwin clarifies that Cardinal Newman isn’t quite on his way to beatification yet.

Perhaps the Alleluias were a bit premature … Basically, what’s happened is that the miracle has been officially recognized by the panel of medical experts. Or rather, they have determined that there is no natural explanation for the healing seen in this case.

There are still a few more steps before the Beatification can be officially proclaimed.

Gashwin Gomes brings us tidings of great joy: Cardinal Newman will soon be beatified.

Vatican City, Apr 23, 2008 / 03:12 am (CNA).- The Vatican has approved the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, the English convert and theologian who has had immense influence upon English-speaking Catholicism, the Birmingham Mail reports.

John Henry Newman was born in 1801. As an Anglican priest, he led the Oxford Movement that sought to return the Church of England to its Catholic roots. His conversion to Catholicism in 1845 rocked Victorian England. After becoming an Oratorian priest, he was involved in the establishment of the Birmingham Oratory.

He died in 1890 and is buried at the oratory country house Rednall Hill.

The Catholic Church has accepted as miraculous the cure of an American deacon’s crippling spinal disorder. The deacon, Jack Sullivan of Marshfield, Massachusetts, prayed for John Henry Newman’s intercession.

At his beatification ceremony later this year, John Henry Newman will receive the title “Blessed.” He will need one more recognized miracle to be canonized.

The case of a 17-year-old New Hampshire boy who survived serious head injuries from a car crash is being investigated as a possible second miracle.

Two of the fundamental texts in patrology, imho, are Newman’s Essay On Development Of Christian Doctrine and The Church of the Fathers. (Others would add The Arians Of The Fourth Century. But I’m tempted to add his collected works as well.)

Patristic (and Vatican) soundings on the question of Communion on the tongue.

Sorry for my absence. While Papa Benedetto was charming the people of the Eastern States (and a huge TV audience), I was away from all media on a father-son trip (planned long ago) to the Gettysburg Battlefield. I returned to looming, threatening, dark stormclouds of deadlines.

But there’s so much I’ve wanted to send your way.

Discovery Network has posted an interesting piece on earthquake archeology. Natural disasters may not interest you much, but they will if you’ve read Rodney Stark’s The Rise of Christianity (and its helpful sequel Cities of God). In a long discussion of natural disasters in antiquity, Stark notes that Antioch alone suffered from hundreds of significant earthquakes during the centuries when Christianity was just emerging. These caused the population to plummet, but the Church’s numbers to rise. Why? Christianity provided the most satisfying explanation for the “Why?” of natural disasters. What’s more, the Christian ethic of self-giving created a community that increased survival rates for those who were under Christian care. And if pagans survived thanks to Christian care, they were likely to convert.

The cultural effects were seismic, causing major tectonic shifts.

Anyway, the Discovery Network article does mention some early Christian centers. Use your imagination.

Sister Macrina continues her conversation on matters patristic, focusing now on “the way the Fathers often appear to be dealt with in western academic circles.”

…for patristics appears to be viewed largely in historical terms – if it appears in academic programmes then this is often together with Church History. Now I certainly have nothing against Church History. But my own interest in the Fathers is not simply to understand them in their historical context, important as this is. My interest in the Fathers is theological, but this is not simply an abstract interest in which they can be used as source material for building elaborate theological artifices or an armoury for defending particular positions. It is rather concerned with their life-giving role in passing on a living Tradition which is able to feed and sustain, but also challenge and transform.

Now this does not mean that we don’t need historical knowledge, nor does it deny that the Fathers are indeed a rich resource into which we can tap. And it also doesn’t exclude critical study, an appreciation of different traditions and our posing of awkward questions. But when such a critical approach loses its rootedness in the Fathers’ own commitment to ascesis, conversion and prayer, to being taken up in and transfigured into the Mystery of Christ, then it doesn’t seem to have much point.

New Testament scholar Darrell Pursiful alerts us to a new Yahoo group to discuss the Didache. He says:

The Didache is an ancient Christian document, often described as a “church order.” It is very old; in fact, many believe it is contemporary with the New Testament era (I would be one of those). There are even theories out there that make it a possible influence on some of the NT documents.

Darrell has been blogging much and well on the development of the ancient liturgies.