A little more on those ancient icons from St. Catherine’s in Sinai that are visiting California from now till next March. (Oops, now the link is fixed.)

KVSS radio has posted a long interview with Yours Truly, anticipating our big pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi in May 2007. The St. Paul Center has posted a day-by-day itinerary for the trip. Do consider joining me and my friends Scott and Kimberly Hahn. It’s a life-changing experience, spiritually transforming, to walk in the footsteps of the apostles and martyrs, the Fathers and the saints. It’s also a learning experience, to walk amid the monuments of millennia of western culture — to meditate, up close, on Michelangelo’s Sistine frescos; to celebrate the Eucharist in the Basilica of St. Clement, built from the home of a first-century pope, built over the ruins of a pagan Mithraeum. That’s our history, our ancestry, our life story. It’s our cultural genome mapped out before our eyes. Let’s see it together.

We’ve lined up great guides, devout and expert, to walk us through the sanctuaries and ruins. Scott and Kimberly and I will lead learning sessions in the mornings and evenings, and sometimes at the historic sites as well. Through the meanderings of the day, we’ll offer further observations. And we’ll all have our meals together. It’s a time to establish lasting friendships over good food. I’ve never, ever had a bad meal in Italy.

Which do you want first: the good news or the bad news?

OK, but you’re just delaying the inevitable.

The wonderful news is that the great work of Aphrahat the Sage, his “Demonstrations,” is now available in its entirety in English. An Indian scholar, Kuriakose Valavanolickal, just published the second volume of his translation. To my knowledge, this is the first complete English translation of Aphrahat. In fact, till now it’s been impossible even to assemble all the Demonstrations from the various “selections” published in English since the late nineteenth century.

A little bit of backstory is in order.

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1911) places St. Aphrahat (sometimes rendered Aphraates) at the head of the long list of Syriac writers whose works have come down to us. We know little about his life. From his writings we learn that he was born of pagan parents during the second half of the third century, probably in the borderlands of the Persian empire. After his conversion to Christianity he embraced the monastic life, and was later called to be a bishop. One manuscript refers to him as “Bishop of the monastery of Mar Mattai,” whose ruins are near the modern Mosul in Iraq. His writings seem to have emerged between the years 337 and 345.

Aphrahat’s surviving works are his twenty-three “Demonstrations.” They’re homilies on morals and apologetics composed in the form of answers to an inquiring friend. They are a precious witness to the antiquity of many traditional Christian doctrines and practices — the value of celibacy, the perpetual virginity and Divine Maternity of Mary, sacramental confession, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the foundation of the Church on St. Peter, and the existence of six of the seven sacraments. Aphrahat’s arguments are saturated with Scripture. In fact, because of his numerous quotations from the Bible, his writings are valuable for the history of the biblical canon and interpretation. Since he was in dialogue with some of the world’s most brilliant rabbis, he was always mindful to draw from the Old Testament as well as the New. His defense of celibacy — which, in my opinion, is the finest of all time — leans mostly on the Hebrew Scriptures.

The great modern scholar of Judaism Jacob Neusner finds St. Aphrahat to be a model — “remarkable and exemplary” — for Jewish-Christian dialogue. Aphrahat is, he adds, “an enduring voice of civility and rationality amid the cacaphony of mutual disesteem.”

Aphrahat’s writings have dribbled into English, beginning in the late nineteenth century. The Protestant Edinburgh edition of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (NPNF2) included “select” numbers from the Demonstrations: 1, 5, 6, 8, 10, 17, 21, and 22. (But don’t spend too much time searching there for material on the Blessed Virgin or on celibacy.) In the 1930s, the Journal of the Society of Oriental Research published two more, Demonstration 2 (on charity) and Demonstration 7 (on penance). Then, in 1971, Rabbi Neusner came through with a boatload, about eight and a half Demonstrations, which he published with his outstanding study Aphrahat and Judaism: The Christian-Jewish Argument in Fourth-Century Iran. Neusner’s book, which is indispensable, includes Demonstrations 11-13, 16-19, 21 and part of 23.

Those three sources add up to a lot; but even taken all together they still wouldn’t give you everything by Aphrahat. And everything is certainly what you want.

For that we had to wait for Kuriakose Valavanolickal, who published volume one of his translation with HIRS Publications in Kerala, India, in 1999. Volume two came out this year from the St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, also in Kerala. These books are almost impossible to obtain in the United States. The only vendor I found to carry them was Merging Currents.

Which brings me to the bad news — very bad news. I visited the Merging Currents site today and discovered that they will no longer be accepting book orders after November 30. If you haven’t visited the site before, please do. MC’s catalog is enormous, and it includes many rare primary patristic texts (especially the Syriac Fathers) and otherwise unavailable secondary literature (by the likes of Sebastian Brock, but also by many fine Indian scholars). As of this morning, Merging Currents was sold out of volume two of the Demonstrations, but volume one was still there. Grab it while you can.

Those of you who want to learn more about Aphrahat, but would rather spend less on a book, can, of course, buy the expanded edition of my bestseller, The Fathers of the Church. I have a chapter on the Persian Sage, with selections from his writings.

But until the books arrive … St. Aphrahat, pray for us — that we readers of the Fathers may find another passage to India.

Ben C. Smith continues his excellent series on the development of the New Testament canon in the early Church. The latest installment begins his discussion of the canon as Eusebius knew it. This post’s especially interesting because Eusebius considered books under four categories: undisputed, disputed, illegitimate, and spurious. Ben’s post gives you a rare glimpse into the state of canonical affairs early in the fourth century. You’ll find out, for example, why the Apocalypse of John was included simultaneously in two lists: Undisputed Books and Illegitimate Books. Tolle, lege.

My co-author Chris Bailey read the recent news stories about the Dead Sea Restrooms and offered this definition: “An archaeologist is someone who thinks he knows where the Essenes kept their latrine and doesn’t head in the opposite direction.”

The question echoes down the millennia: Do you hang the scroll so that it unrolls from the top or from the bottom?

Go visit Aliens in This World, where Maureen gives us a rundown of patron saints (some of them patristic saints) for the most popular boys’ and girls’ names.

I missed Augustine’s birthday yesterday, but Adrian Murdoch didn’t. He points us to an online companion to the Confessions.

Phil gives us a fresh translation of Sulpitius Severus’s account of St. Martin and the beggar.

Ioannis Georganas at Mediterranean Archaeology alerts us to free content at the website of the journal Classics Ireland, the journal of the Classical Association of Ireland. The content is indeed free and quite good. I can’t figure out how to link to the articles, but I’m sure you’ll find them (if I did). Of interest:

Evelyn Waugh, Helena and the True Cross (vol. 7, 2000)

In Search of Diocletian (vol. 4, 1997)

The Bones of Saint Peter (vol. 3, 1996)

Today Father Z concluded his remarkable Patristic Rosary Project. I don’t have a biretta to tip, so I’ll give a nudge to the ornate Georgian cap that I wear to annoy my teenagers. [ ;-)

Just a little late for St. Leo’s day, Bread and Circuses brings us an unforgettable image of the over-the-top portrayal of Attila the Hun by my fellow northeastern Pennsylvanian Jack Palance. The 1954 melodrama, Sign of the Pagan, was just a little too early to co-star Charlton Heston as Pope Leo.

Today’s the feast of St. Martin of Tours, one of the most beloved characters of late antiquity. He’s near to my heart because his image, in living color, dominates the doorway of my favorite Pittsburgh-area Mexican restaurant (Mendoza’s, if you must know).

As I mentioned day before yesterday, you should spend some time listening to the life of St. Martin by Sulpitius Severus (recorded by the the Divine Miss M, Maria Lectrix). You’ll learn that Martin was born into a pagan family and named after Mars, the god of war. As a young child, he was drawn to Christianity, and he enrolled himself as a catechumen. He delayed baptism, though, as was common in the fourth century; and he became a high-ranking military officer, like his father before him.

Do listen, but don’t just listen to his life. There’s also good readable material on the Web. Take a gander at Catholic Community Forum, whence I swiped the lovely image below, and Wikipedia, whence I swiped the following story:

While Martin was still a soldier at Amiens he experienced the vision that became the most-repeated story about his life. He was at the gates of the city of Amiens with his soldiers when he met a scantily dressed beggar. He impulsively cut his own military cloak in half and shared it with the beggar. That night he dreamed of Jesus wearing the half-cloak Martin had given away. He heard Jesus say to the angels: “Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptised; he has clad me.”

You can read the story, book length, in Martin of Tours: Soldier, Bishop, Saint and in Early Christian Lives (Penguin Classics).

Oh, and this is the unforgettable image I see whenever I take the family out for fajitas.

St. Martin, pray for us today! Win us the grace to see Christ wherever He begs our attention.

KVSS radio has posted audio of Bruce and Kris McGregor interviewing me on the subject of Pope St. Leo the Great. Scroll down the page till you see it.

Today is the memorial of Pope St. Leo the Great, who reigned 440-461 A.D. Those years were, in the words of the Chinese curse, interesting times.

Within the Church, Leo is best known for his great Tome, the letter that served as a summary of christological doctrine — the final punctuation mark on a century of disputes over Jesus’ person and nature(s). The Tome was accepted and ratified by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. But Leo makes the secular history books because he was able to reach peace with a seemingly implacable military power — and, in doing so, he stanched the flow of blood that had soaked the lands and swelled rivers all across the Europe.

By the year 440, the Empire in the West was a mess. The Emperor might pretend to rule, but except in Italy itself the real rulers were the barbarians who had conquered most of the provinces.

And the city of Rome itself, once mistress of the world, was no longer even mistress of the tattered remnant of the Empire. The capital of the West had moved to Ravenna, a city protected on one side by the sea and on the other sides by swamps. The Emperor could be safe there, even if his people weren’t safe in the rest of Italy. Meanwhile, as Rome and the West decayed into anarchy and poverty, Constantinople and the East continued to prosper.

Where did that leave the pope? When Rome ruled the world, it seemed natural enough that the bishop of Rome should rule the Church. And the see of Rome had been founded by Peter, the chief of the Apostles. But now Rome was a backwater compared to Constantinople, and the bishop of Antioch might fairly point out that Peter had founded his see, too. How could the bishop of Rome claim authority over the whole Church?

Just as the question was beginning to seem most urgent, a pope came along who had exactly the right answer. His name was Leo, and history remembers him as Leo the Great. Leo’s answer was that the pope held his authority as the heir of Peter. Christ had given Peter authority over the other disciples, and the bishop of Rome inherits that authority over the other bishops.

In Roman law, an heir took on all the rights and duties of the deceased. So Peter, the holder of the keys to heaven and the power of binding and loosing, would pass those powers on to his heir, his successor as bishop of Rome; and that successor would pass them on to his heir, and so on down the line. That gave Rome the important edge over Antioch. It was true that Peter had founded both sees. But he had died at Rome, and that made the Bishop of Rome his heir.

Leo was not inventing this inheritance, but explaining it. It is implicit in the appeals of many Fathers to the judgment of the papacy: St. Athanasius, St. Basil of Caesarea, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Cyril of Alexandria … Theodoret of Cyr put it eloquently: “If Paul, the herald of the Truth, the trumpet of the Holy Ghost, had recourse to the great Peter, in order to obtain a decision from him for those at Antioch who were disputing about living by the Law, much more do we small and humble folk run to the Apostolic See to get healing from you for the sores of the churches. For it is fitting that you should in all things have the pre-eminence, seeing that your See possesses many peculiar privileges.”

Now, in the mid-fifth century, during the reign of Peter’s forty-forth successor, a new horde of barbarians had appeared from the east. The Huns were more terrible than any of the tribes who had come before them. Their chief, Attila, was cruel and brilliant, a master of strategy and one of the most successful generals in history. He built an empire that stretched across Asia and into Europe. He had already ransomed and plundered the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire; now he headed for what was left of the West. At least half a million assorted barbarians came with him. The destruction they left was so complete that the Romans started to call Attila the “Scourge of God.”

In 451, the Huns entered Gaul and did their usual pillaging there. But just as Attila was about to take the city of Orleans, an enormous army of Romans and Visigoths fell on him from behind, taking the Huns completely by surprise. For perhaps the first time, Attila was forced to retreat. But the allied army caught up with him in Champagne, and a terrific battle followed in which more than three hundred thousand men died. It was perhaps the greatest clash of armies Europe had ever seen. (Reliable historians say that a small neighboring stream was swelled to a raging river by the blood spilled on the field.) Attila was defeated and forced to abandon the province.

A year later, in 452, Attila was ready for revenge. This time he swept into Italy. It seemed as though nothing could stop him. The marauding Huns completely depopulated whole sections of Italy. Cities were wiped off the earth, their populations dead or enslaved. With terrifying speed the Huns were approaching Rome itself. The useless Emperor Valentinian was about to abandon all Italy to its fate. Could anyone save Rome from total destruction?

It was time for Pope Leo to step in. If armies could not stop the Huns, then only a greater power would do. Trusting in the protection of God, Pope Leo set out without an army to face the Scourge of God.

Everyone was surprised when Attila received the Pope with honor and hospitality. Something about the great Pope Leo impressed even the unstoppable conqueror. By the time the Pope was through conferring with him, Attila had agreed to leave Italy and make peace with the Empire, in return for an annual tribute. Thus Pope Leo, alone and undefended, accomplished what the best Roman generals and their hundreds of thousands of soldiers hadn’t been able to do. Attila turned around and marched back across the Alps, headed back for his own empire.

He never made it. On the way home, he fell violently ill and died. His empire almost immediately fell apart, with his sons and vassals fighting bloody civil wars.

In spite of all the chaos in the Western Empire, the emperors continued to murder each other on a regular schedule caring more for their own fleeting power than for the safety of the Empire. Maximus murdered Valentinian, and Valentinian’s widow was so distraught that she invited the Vandals, who by now had settled in Africa, to come and avenge the murder. The Vandals took the opportunity to pillage Rome in 455. Pope Leo could do nothing to stop them, but he did at least manage to persuade them not to kill the inhabitants and burn down the buildings.

Leo possessed great power when he ruled on earth. Yet he holds greater power today, as he intercedes before the throne of the Almighty. St. Leo, pope and peacemaker, pray for us, who live in interesting times, and violent times.