Jacob Edessene's dispensationalism

Jacob, or James, was Miaphysite (or, "Jacobite") bishop of Edessa-Callirrhoë AD 684-7 - although he'd call it AG 995-8. He then retired to monasteries, first Tel 'Adda. There he dared define Christianity. Michael Penn has translated what remains of the definition.

Reasonably Penn pins this project in reaction to 'Abd al-Malik's supremacism, perhaps preparing for a debate. Jacob would stay in that abbey until AD 698; Ibn al-Ash'ath hadn't yet proclaimed his "nasirate".

The most striking part of this definition is its dispensationalism. In Jacob's thought, Christianity was practiced by Adam and Eve to the extent they were following God's Command. Christ was known to the Prophets, if they didn't know exactly how He'd show up. Christ's age is the sixth age. Outsiders may observe here sura 3's claim, that Christ was rather the culmination of Prophecy - for the Jews; not otherwise to distract from Allâh.

If God was holding back His epiphany in Christ's form, one can ask Jacob to what degree free-will can exist. I take it that his epistle on the qadar, as summarised Michael Cook, would follow this up.

Faliscan Spain

In a former life I suggested an aspect of Spanish, and of Italian dialect, to be Old Latin. The conjecture was that duenos > *buenos > bueno > buono. Spain got the bueno stage, mid-second-century; Rome got as far as bonu, restoring the -s perhaps-artificially because they had Greeks about. Hey, a Dominican blogger liked it over on his blog . . .

Today, let's discuss the famous f > h.

Ferdinand becomes Fernando in several Iberian postLatin dialects. In Castilian, the man is Hernan or Hernando. Similarly what should be filho is hijo. I'd been under the impression this was late. It has to be annoying to the Portuguese which makes some explanation why they are not part of Spain to-day.

But maybe it's not late. Faliscan has hileo. Some northern Italians have reported this shift in their dialects as well. Sicilians might have the excuse of Spanish occupation but I don't think this ever happened in the north; those guys had to deal with the French instead, whose Romance dialects as far as I know have no such shift.

Also northwest[-of-the-peninsula] Italy endured a Gaulish incursion. The late Republic had to call this place Cisalpine Gaul (Caesar being busy on the transAlps). I don't find anything like hileo in any Gaulish.

Propose here that Romanised Faliscans were recruited to settle Spain. Additional waves of Romans, who weren't Faliscan, came later and got to Lusitania and our Galicia.

The Dark Ages are not selection-bias

A kerfuffle has broken out on X upon Crémieux' memetic chart of what the Louvre displays to tourists. tl;dr it's Greek, with a bit of Roman and then a stark dropoff. The High Middle Ages get displayed again and then modernity.

That arrogant "History For Atheists" guy pipes in, such that the Cruel Sardaukar must spank him. Bryan Ward-Perkins, you'd think, should have been read aloud to the man, perhaps with hand-puppets. Now apparently O'Neill finds his buttcheeks insufficiently-rouged: this quaint “dark ages” designation by that insufferable data bro clownboy.

A descendant of Niall might feel that his family back in Eire weathered this storm fine. I can imagine an Arab saying similar - or, later, a Damascene. For the rest of us, Rome's collapse was a disaster. And not just the West: the Greek world contracted (only surviving after re-"Roman"ising) and today Iranians too will, if asked, or not asked, tell you of "two centuries of darkness".

The rot had already started, as the Sardaukar details. One interesting point is how Justinian was able to dislodge the Vandals with a smaller force. Some of that is Belisarios' skill. Some of that is because, economically, the middle class - including soldiers - could push for higher wages in the wake of Yersinia. We might believe an incremental improvement in military efficiency and a healthier soldiery. We do not see any such improvement in art. And certainly not in the sciences: a lot of Greeks and Syrians were retreating to flat-earth theory (Latins, being stubborn, stayed round-earth mostly). There's no way that theory helped out with naval tech or its knock-on, trade.

With fewer men and worse maps, the Arabs became more important as intermediaries, because they didn't need maps where they lived. That's where Henri Pirenne might jump in.

Now: where selection-bias might be cogent, is in the choice of Greek/Gaulish wares over principate-Roman in the Louvre. The French are, historically, taught to be descendates of the Gauls so their muséa may prefer that era. Also possible is that Julius Caesar trashed the place so hard it somewhat suffered its own mini Dark Age. Although here I am unsure. If I were running this museum I might play up the western "Roman empires" especially their Constantine III, as well as their rôle in staging reconquistas of Britain. We've recently mentioned Domitian II.

Emic, etic

I'd shuffled "emic" and "etic" into the bin with the pseudo-scholarly ramblings of Foucault and Derrida. Now that these days I'm less hostile to Foucault, Prof. Davila suggests to us we revisit emic and etic, on the Palestine issue.

Since my focus as a Justinianist is deep into the Roman era, I just use "Palaestina" for the region. "Tertia", out where the Arabs are at.

At base, this is why I restrict "AD" to mediaeval ℭ𝔥𝔯𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔲𝔪. Not only do Muslims and Maya not acknowledge our Dominus - the Christians weren't acknowledging His calendar, either. They used the Seleucid count. "AD" is, thus: etic. "AG" for the Seleucids is emic, as is "AH" (albeit also rather etic before 'Abd al-Malik's Caliphate) and the year-of-the-colony if we're talking preIslamic Araby.

On the flip side, etic language is why Erik Larson's publisher "Crown" is demonic, and why Larson should self-publish if he has a shred of honor left in him. They know what they did.

I'm not really here to please anybody, and I suspect neither is Davila - which is why I follow his blog.

BACKDATE 2/21

When China dethroned Allâh

The Shang worshipped the celestial deity 帝, pronounced Têks at the time they tell me (Mandarin di). Mongols, Turks, and probably ancestral Huns will call Him "Tengri". Then the Chinese killed Him.

Specifically: the Zhou were the deicides. In 1046 BC they overthrew the Shang and demoted their Yin rulers. The Zhou came up with a new ideology, of "Heaven": 天. This is a Whig understanding, that the emperor be emperor because he's got the Mandate. Maybe you got a better idea on how to emperor. You - and what army?

Various movements in Chinese history have raised such armies. A couple centuries ago, Jesus' little brother raised one (doubtless pulling from nonsense like this). Thing is... none of these armies have defeated Heaven.

Evangelists must ponder this upon the tree of woe.

The evolution of Oriental monasticism

Contemporary with Babay the Great at Bet-Abe, was Shubḥalmaran. In 2004, David Lane published his work, starting with The Book of Gifts. We are learning that Babay presided over a revolution in Eastern monasticism.

It was under Babay, that the Eastern monks adopted Evagrius the Pontic. Jerome himself (letter 133) had attacked this Evagrius; but I suppose later readers figured that Jerome attacks everybody so who-cares. A more pointed condemnation occurred under Justinian's synod AD 553 if you want to count that. Latin ℭ𝔥𝔯𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔲𝔪 will know Evagrius for listing the Se7en; well, eight, but we Latins merge sadness with wider acedia.

Among Babay's students was one Ishoʿyahb - Ishoʿyahb III. One of his first preserved epistles is Babay's eulogy. They were, then, in the same party. The present Paradise came from that catholicate. But not all east-Syrians agreed with Ishoʿyahb; and some dissidents may have looked askance at Babay as well. These dissidents are those who preserved Shubḥalmaran, and pieces of what became the Paradise.

Those scraps were collected at Sinai, whence M20N. The monks and nuns at Sinai would not consider themselves "Nestorians". Nonetheless they did keep these Oriental books... as, in the Orient, mah boi Jerome was translated.

Shubḥalmaran is in Ishoʿdnaḥ's book, and he contributed to the AD 612 debate. Otherwise - we're learning - Shubḥalmaran was a holdout of the old-school, from the days of Aphraates. Possibly how come Babay was NOT invited to the debate.

It may be that anti-Evagrian dissidents gathered under Shimʿon. After various synods, like that in Dirin, healed that schism; it may be that diehards fled west and bent the knee to us Melkites and Catholics.

Bird poo kingdom

Among the polities the Inca took over were the Chincha. The reason the Inca wanted that site was guano, which is not a Spanish word; here from seabird.

The paper claims the Moche already knew of this resource, which fertilised - what else - maize. Around AD 1250 the Chincha start using bird imagery on their pots. Possibly the birds' pots; DNA analysis might pick it up.

I do not find noted in this paper, the Huari. Perhaps because the Chincha were too far south, better contemporaries with the Tiahuanaco.

Around AD 1400, the Inca came knocking and annexed this kingdom. This is about when the Inca spread fame of the "Lunahuaná", that is the guano people - north of the Chincha. The paper reports that the Spaniards will observe that the Chincha lord ranked among the high notables in the Inca retinue.