… it's time for another Kickstarter. I'm still hammering out some details, but plan to launch in November. If you have an interest in this area, I'd love it if you signed up to be notified and/or shared the link with someone who would be. Read on for more info…

www.kickstarter.com/projects/maj...

Is there anyone on Bsky who remembers this book? It's been out of print for a while, because it needs revising in the light of 5 more years of research & experience (including a proper translation of Umdat ul-Kuttab). Being unpaid work, I've simply not been able to prioritise this, so I've decided…

This is the feast of Wolfgang of Regensburg, d. 994. Otloh of St. Emmeram wrote his life and the earliest surviving manuscript of that text is the second part of Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 322. Here's the first page of that text.

The MS is digitized here: e-codices.ch/en/list/one/...

gotta disagree with this strongly: learning another alphabet like Telugu uses* is often the easiest part of learning a new language; learning a non-alphabetic script like the Chinese is difficult!

(*technically not exactly an alphabet, but basically)

sexy quod cuique tuendum est

Lots of strange little choices in wording, in fact. Hamas are called "latrōnēs Hamas", while Israel is simply "Isrāēlītae". Maduro is a "tyrannus" (and fair enough), but Trump continues to be simply "praeses".

"Pergunt nautae Americānī nāvēs venēnō ōnerātās mergere" ... Suntne venēnō ōnerātae? Suntne??

you sell yourself short, these are some of the best "things are stuff" posts out there

cozy autumn vibes

I feel honored that @thediasporist.bsky.social found my article "Two kinds of Staatsräson" worthy of reprinting🙏

Wow -- a sublime example

Yeah, I don't even mean to knock heresy, I just think people ought to be heretics for the right reaons, not out of sheer ignorance and arrogance.

No, I don't think he would have said it was God's essence, or made any such distinction. What it sounded like to me was full-on anthropomorphism.

*even normal for Catholics, lol

I mean yes, but the visible nature of Jesus is not his divine nature, or so I would think. Maybe this is normal for Protestants, maybe it's even normal for Christians and I'm just not aware of it...

I mean I'm not an expert in Christianity, maybe I'm misapprehending things! But I heard a clip of him making that claim in a podcast that discussed this most recent rapture fad, and it seemed extremely out there to me. And I just keep noticing vocal Xians having VERY idiosyncratic beliefs.

Oh yeah, Rapture is recognized by Evangelics, I meant the idea that he has seen God with his "own eyes". I'm pretty sure that is widely considered a heretical notion -- certainly in the Catholic church, and I think it would have offended every patristic author I can think of.

E.g. the guy who made the September rapture prediction (admittedly a fringe guy but it went viral with Evangelicals!) claims he has seen God "with his own eyes", which is wildly unorthodox

(I guess he probably doesn't call himself a traditionalist, but in so many words)

Have people written about how Christian right "traditionalists" often loudly preach ideas that have been deemed heretical since antiquity? What is up with that?

17. Speaking of Latin pronunciation, I think it's actually great and a sign of intercultural heritage, not of eurocentrism, that we have Latinate names like Confucius, Averroes, Maimonides. As Edward Said wrote, the very notion that East and West are separate entities is an artifact of Orientalism.

16. Should final vowels before initial vowels simply be elided or should they be merged together (synaloephe)? Grammarians consistently teach complete elision, but the name they use for this is synaloephe. Also, they have a specific term for elision of vowel+M, ecthlipsis. I think we should use it!

Yeah, that is the case sometimes. Cf. Vergil "trahit sua quemque voluptas".