Today is All Saints’ Day, and I have been looking at the entry for this in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, and attempting to learn some real history about the origins of the medieval festival.
The ODCC has no footnotes, just a short bibliography. The first of these is Eisenhofer’s *Handbuch der katholischen Liturgik, *erster band (1932), which I was delighted to discover online at a magnificent German site devoted to Catholic literature, the Deutches Liturgisches Institut. In the entry, the dedication of an oratory in St Peter’s by Gregory III (731-741) “in honor of the Redeemer, his holy mother, all the apostles, martyrs, and all the perfectly righteous who have fallen asleep throughout the world,” is refe…
Today is All Saints’ Day, and I have been looking at the entry for this in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, and attempting to learn some real history about the origins of the medieval festival.
The ODCC has no footnotes, just a short bibliography. The first of these is Eisenhofer’s *Handbuch der katholischen Liturgik, *erster band (1932), which I was delighted to discover online at a magnificent German site devoted to Catholic literature, the Deutches Liturgisches Institut. In the entry, the dedication of an oratory in St Peter’s by Gregory III (731-741) “in honor of the Redeemer, his holy mother, all the apostles, martyrs, and all the perfectly righteous who have fallen asleep throughout the world,” is referenced to Duchesne’s edition of the Liber Pontificalis, vol. 1, 194-204; but also to “Kellner, Heortologie 241”. The latter is “Heortologie oder das Kirchenjahr und die Heiligenfeste in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung.”
A quick Google search reveals that the Kellner book – by our old friend Heinrich Kellner, who translated all the works of Tertullian into English – exists online, in a 1901 edition; and also, blessedly, in an English translation of 1908, both issued by Herder.
The 1901 edition seems to be the wrong edition, but I can find no later one before 1908. The material is on page 178. The English translation is p.323.
But a worm of doubt entered my soul as I looked through the English material. Because sometimes, in books of this vintage, the English translation omits some of the footnotes. I encountered just this with Franz Cumont’s book on Mithras, translated into many languages. And it was utterly infuriating. Fascinating claims, unreferenced: but if you looked at the original, there was indeed a reference.
So I looked at the German. And… I cursed heartily. Yes, the English translation had two footnotes: the German had five!
Footnotes in English translation
And…
This is laziness by the translator and publisher and nothing else.
And there is worse. Note that the English in footnote 1 gives the Patrologia Graeca reference with “l” instead of the correct volume, 50. Mysteriously the Liber Pontificalis entry is different in footnote 3.
Check these things, boys. Don’t take it for granted.
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