... has shown us the fine picture of S Gregory which he has in his parochial school. The Saint is holding a scroll inscribed with the Angli/Angeli pun recounted in S Bede.
Interestingly, the sentence ends with a good example of cursus; the use of certain end-of-sentence rhythms employed by Cicero and then in the Papal Chancery from around 350ish until just after S Gregory's time (vide G G Willis Essays 1964): "esse consortes" is a neat planus. I must have a look and see whether S Bede himself was a cursus man. If he wasn't, this bit might indeed go back to S Gregory himself.
What other treasures has Fr Tim unearthed in Marvellous Margate which he will gradually reveal to us?
_____________________________________________________________________________
Might it once have been above an altar? Is there any evidence of the identity of the artist?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
A pity St. Gregory has so far forgotten his Latin grammar as to make 'facies' masculine.
A search on Google Books of “habent faciem et tales” demonstrates that the editions have “angelicam” rather than “angelicum”. Apparently, “angelicum” is a typo that made it into the artist’s document of his Requirements, and is not attributable to the doctor.
Splendid, Figule. I had not noticed that. I have now turned up the narrative in S Bede and found that the phrase ends " ....esse coheredes", not "consortes". I have a hypothesis: the unfortunate artist was let down by a priest upon whom he relied. This priest quoted from memory. And his memory let him down with regard to the gender of "faciem" . It also let him down with regard to the last two words. You see, "esse consortes" is a very common liturgical phrase: it occurs in the prayer every priest says every morning as he mingles water into the wine of the chalice. So this was a very easy slip for him to make.
This is rather interesting. It is an example of the sort of thing that happened more often in a basically oral society in which people relied more upon their memories than on the written word.
Actually, Father, I was using irony, a trait of the English to which you are frequently drawing the attention of 'foreign' readers.
He's got a lovely church in Margate, and the micropub scene in Thanet is second to none.
I do wish he'd change the Monday EF mass to suit my personal schedule, though. I can't do Mondays.
Post a Comment