Repainting the Treasury

 Though I love this old blog, my unfortunate choice of name (particularly the transliterated Greek in the URL) make this blog hard to remember and hard to find.  So I am porting the whole blog over to Undusted Texts (a new blog, not my old hand-made website).  This blog will remain, in all its old-fashioned glory.  Perhaps I'll get sick of the new-fangled look of the new blog and change it to match here; perhaps I'll be extra crazy and post both here and there.  We'll see what the future holds.  But, no matter what, this blog will remain in perpetuo.

Why Self-Publish Theology Translations?

Theology translations are not the most common works to encounter in self-publishing: the practice is better-known for genre fiction or memoirs.  In itself, though, it is simply a technique, applicable to any kind of written work.

What is it, then, that makes self-publishing appealing, especially for a work of this kind?  It is easier to see when we consider the three main styles of publishing: academic presses, mainstream presses, and self-publishing.

Academic presses are generally connected to a college or university, though they may be connected to independent institutes as well.  Such presses are best known for monographs, exceedingly erudite, often fairly slim, works on highly-specific subjects, sold for outrageous sums.  Typical academic books are priced highly because they have a low sales volume (very few people would generally be interested in reading them, so few sales made); in addition, the most common purchasers of such academic works are libraries at other colleges and universities, not individuals.  It is a sealed-off world of institutions publishing exorbitantly-priced books simply for each other to read.  Many theological translations end up here, being the result of and input for academic research.

This is not always the case: many academic presses will try to aim certain of their books at a wider public, and price them accordingly.  Many major universities—Princeton, Oxford, Harvard, etc.—are well-known for such publications.  These publications probably won't sell at the same volume as those from completely mainstream presses, but they will do well enough; the low prices can also be subsidized by other institutional funds.  (Though not always: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press has its Popular Patristics series, aimed, as the title says, at a wide audience, and the pricing reflects that.  However, the seminary is not rich enough to subsidize these publications, so manuscript submitters need to come with their own funding.  That's why I've never submitted any translations to them.)

Another aspect of academic presses is their institutional quality: generally, they aim to publish works coming from their own faculty.  They might also publish the works of other academics, if there is a match in specialties between academic and press.  Being an independent scholar, I have few-to-no contacts within academic institutions, and so I don't have any hope of publication in such presses.  Academic publications are also, as mentioned above, generally intended for academics alone, and I don't want my translations relegated to the ivory tower.

Mainstream presses are ruled by the marketplace.  A press may have a good intention, a specific aim with its publications, but those publications, at the end of the day, must make money, or the press will fail.  So mainstream presses will often forego books that fit perfectly with the aim and niche of their press, if the book will not be marketable enough.  For a mainstream book is an investment: there is payment to the author or translator; there is the upfront payment for the print run; there is advertising and marketing; there is the whole machinery of press staff to make everything run.  

That being said, there are some presses which, though not academic or institutional in the sense outlined above, may have an endowment or a powerful donor backing them.  In that case, the press may be able to publish the occasional book at a loss, if it befits the mission of the press.  But that is the exception, not the rule.

Self-publishing covers a wide range.  Some endowed or donor-backed presses, like those just mentioned, may be able to forego market forces completely: some donors may decide to treat a press as a money-losing ministry rather than a market venture.  In that case, the press is more akin to self-publishing than to a mainstream press.

Self-publishing in the past could require a hefty outlay on the author's part: he might have to pay for the whole print run, and then hope to sell enough copies to cover his costs (and a bit more).  The modern self-published author typically uses a print-on-demand service, eliminating this large starting cost.  There may be other costs: the author may hire a proofreader, an editor, a layout or cover designer, or possibly even pay for marketing.  But those things are not strictly necessary, unlike with a mainstream press.

If he wanted (and I know a self-published author of this kind), the author could simply do his own proofreading, editing, layout, cover design, and skip marketing.  At the bare minimum, the modern self-published author simply needs a properly-formatted manuscript, and his book can be available for sale.  

Without professional services, without marketing, the self-published author will rarely sell much.  If he is in it for the money, he will need to adopt many practices of the mainstream press, though he will always be at a disadvantage.  The mainstream press has connections with stores, with media outlets, with catalogs; only the rarest of the rare self-published authors is able to obtain a similar level of success as a mainstream press does.  But, because of the huge decrease (or, sometimes, almost complete elimination) of overhead, the self-published author can ignore market forces: his publishing can be more similar to a donor-backed ministry press, one that prints what he likes, what he thinks is worth printing, regardless of whether it sells.

Is the author's goal to make money?  Then self-publishing is an unlikely route: a mainstream press is the best shot (though most authors don't make that much).  Is the author's goal to have his book read?  Again, the mainstream press is the best bet: such a press has many well-trod avenues for getting readers to hear about books, as well as for getting books in libraries.  (Libraries rarely, if ever, accept self-published books.)  Is the author's goal simply to have his work available?  Then academic presses or self-publishing can be sufficient.  If he is a true denizen of academia, he should have connections to academic presses, and those would be his aim; if he is independent, then the ivory towers are locked to him.  Then he may turn to the mainstream presses, but, if they deem a book not marketable enough, then his last resort is self-publishing, or "copyleft" distribution.  The latter blocks out all hope of monetary recompense, and it often means there will be no hard copies of the book, nothing on Amazon, but it makes the work freely available to all with an Internet connection...as long as they're able to find it in the increasingly-hard-to-search Internet.  

Self-publishing is a middle ground between "copyleft" distribution and the mainstream press.  Like the former, it's an "anything goes" rubber-stamp: there's no submissions editor to evaluate a work's worth and marketability.  Hit "publish," and it's done.  Like the latter, though, self-publishing results in tangible books, in the distant possibility of a few royalties, and in access to a few channels to possible readers.  (Some may choose an Amazon-only distribution; with a bit of outlay, a self-published author may get in contact with other booksellers, such as via Ingram Spark's connections.)  That way, the author is able to piggyback on the search presence of big names like Amazon, so that his work has a bit more chance of appearing on a search than if it's only on a primitive, Grecian-named blog.

My goal is to have my work accessible, able to affect others, though I certainly wouldn't mind a bit of recompense (or, maybe, honorarium, if I want my "work" to really be "leisure": Pieper says that the products of leisure can never receive a wage, a recompense, or else leisure itself is overtaken by the "total-work-state").¹  The method for freest accessibility is my blog, with its "copyleft" distribution.  But I run into the issues of unfindability, as well as my pride in wanting to see my name in print.  So I aim for mainstream presses first, to connect in to their distribution and marketing channels (and, I freely admit, to make a bit of money); when that fails, I now turn to self-publishing, for it has the balance of easy access (I'm able to set the cost as I want, though restricted by the need to work around print costs and royalty structures) and a channel for findability—as well as the occasional ducat or two.

So it is that I've begun to self-publish—not genre fiction or memoirs—but semi-scholarly theological translations.  The benefits of self-publishing—ease of start-up, a channel for discovery, the non-necessity of marketability, etc.—apply to me as well as the composer of space operas.  Whether it will be any more effective than my blog for actually getting my work under the eyes of readers is unknown, but it's certainly worth a shot.  God sows even in the crags of the rocks, for good soil may yet be hiding where no one bothered to look.

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1 See Josef Pieper, Leisure and Worship (Muße und Kult), better known by the title of its English translation, Leisure, the Basis of Culture.^↩

Text ©2024 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the author.

St. Bruno of Cologne: Commentary on the Psalms, Prologue

 Introduction

St. Bruno (1030-1101) was from one of the leading families of Cologne; after being ordained as a priest in 1055, he was called to the college at Reims, which he led for eighteen years (1057-1075).  After being chancellor of the Archdiocese of Reims for a few years, he began to feel a monastic vocation.  After a brief time considering the solitary life with St. Robert of Molesme (1028-1111), later founder of the Cistercians, he instead turned to the coenobitic life and lived in an oratory in Chartreuse with a few companions: the first Carthusians.  His life of retirement was shattered when his former pupil, now Pope Urban II (1035-1099, r. 1088-1099), dragged him to Rome to act as his advisor.  He was able to refuse the pope's push to make him an archbishop, but he was not allowed to leave Italy, so he and his companions started a new oratory in Calabria, which is where he lived until his death.  

Alongside his teaching work, his founding of an order, and his role as a papal advisor, Bruno also wrote a few Scriptural commentaries.  Below is the prologue to his Commentary on the Psalms.

 

Commentary on the Psalms

Prologue

The psaltery is a kind of musical instrument that resounds from its upper hole.  And, since the melody of the psalms was played on such an instrument, this whole work rightly receives its name from its instrument.  For as the psaltery resounds from the upper [hole], so, too, this whole work resounds from the upper, that is, from the praise of God.  But the intention of this work is shown to be manifold, through the diversity of the individual titles.  For now it intends to prophesy the Incarnation, Birth, Passion, Resurrection, and other acts of Christ, now the salvation of the good and the damnation of the evil, in all of which God’s praises are aimed for.  For in His passion and other works, and in the salvation of the just by His humility and mercy, in the damnation of the impious through [His] justice, praises are found to be there.  Therefore, for good reason, this book is called by the Jews “Book of Hymns,” that is, the praise of God.  For “hymns” were, properly speaking, praises of God set in verse, but “psalms” were composed in lyric verse; so Arator¹ says, The Psalter is composed of lyric feet.

So three things are to be considered, in divine as well as secular books.  For, just as secular [books] tend partly to the physical, partly to the ethical, and partly to the logical, so, too, divine [books tend] towards the physical in some spots, so that physical figures are noted in it, such as the origin of the world in Genesis, and, in Ecclesiastes, many natural things are treated mystically.  And, in some places, logical things tend toward the ethical, like the Book of Job, and Blessed the spotless (Ps 119), and some other psalms.  And in some places, logical and ethical things tend towards the theorical,² that is, towards contemplation, namely, those which contain God’s mysteries, sublime in themselves, and far from common thought, as in the Song of Songs.  In which God is introduced as speaking to the Church, like a groom to a bride, by a miraculous mystery.  So even if, in some places, this book seems to tend towards the ethical, yet it principally tends towards the theorical, especially when it tends toward the mysteries of the Incarnation, Nativity, and other acts of Christ.

Indeed, it should be understood that there are many kinds of prophecies.  For some prophecies are through deeds, like the exodus of the sons of Israel, and their other deeds, “all” of which (so says the Apostle) “occurred to them in figure” (1 Cor 10:11).  Others, through speech: as it is said that God spoke to Moses and many other prophets, through angels, of things to come.  Others, through revelation, as many things were said to have been revealed to Ezekiel and Daniel in portents of dreams.  Others, too, through the hidden inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as David [and] the prophets were intimate with the mysteries of the Lord’s Passion and other acts, not through deeds or acts or some other revelation, but through the hidden inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

It should be noted, too, that, through the excessive agility of the Holy Spirit, the prophets spoke of future things as well as present and past things.  For every future thing is present to the Holy Spirit, and is known as if it were past.  It should also be noted that, when, in the psalms, Christ is sometimes introduced as praying and acting humbly, it is to be accepted in accord with His humanity, and, when [acting] sublimely, in accord with His divinity.  It should also be noted why the first psalm lacks a title, when the others are seen to have titles, namely, because it is to be considered as the title of all the other psalms.  For when, in this psalm, there is the intention of praising Christ, it intimates that, in all the others, He is to be treated of in various ways.  For the intention of this psalm is how Christ removed those three deaths by which the first man came to death, and, on the other hand, to praise Him because of His threefold obedience, which the first man lacked.  And it is the voice considering the prophet’s damnation of the human race, because of Adam’s disobedience, and foreseeing his future reparation through Christ.  And so it says this:

[Therein follows the commentary on Psalm 1]

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1 Arator was a 6th-century Latin poet from Liguria, best-known for a versified history of the Apostles. Remigius of Auxerre (841-908) also quotes this line of Arator's in his Explanations of the Psalms (PL 131:148A).^↩
2 St. Bruno is using is a neologism based on the Greek θεωρια (theōria), commonly used by the Greek Fathers to mean “contemplation.” Since logical and ethical originally derive from Greek roots, it seems St. Bruno wanted to continue the Grecian trend.^↩

^{Source: PL 152:637B-639C.}

Translation ©2024 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.

 

Bérulle on the Samaritan Woman (Works of Piety XII, CIII)

 As a spur to check out my recent publication of a translated book by Bérulle (the Elevation Regarding Mary Magdalene), I decided to post a few more translated snippets of Bérulle.

Bérulle's Works of Piety (in its full title, Diverse Little Works of Piety) is an enormous hodgepodge of various writings, some sermons, some letters, some spiritual exercises, some little scribbles on assorted topics.  Two of them are included as appendices in my recent book, and I've translated a few others in the past (#6, #21, and #38).  Portions of two more are published here, as both relate to today's reading, the Samaritan woman at the well, St. Photini (Jn 4).  

The first excerpt comes from Works of Piety XII, which appears to originally be a letter to a Carmelite monastery in Salims.  The first section deals with the Samaritan woman; the later sections tackle a different topic, that of the dwellings of Jesus, since the Carmelites asked Bérulle for advice about deciding where to live.  The second excerpt is the complete Works of Piety CIII: however, since the piece was left unfinished, it can still be fittingly called an "excerpt," in my view.

The word "blest" in the below excerpts is a translation of heureux.  The word can mean "happy" or "fortunate"; when compounded to bienheureux, it becomes "blessed," as in "the blessed in heaven" (a blessed object is usually béni instead).  Heureux often recalls the more colloquial sense of "blessed" in English, like "have a blessed day," "I feel blessed to have such a husband," "that was a blessed time in my life," etc.  To keep it distinct from the more specifically-religious bienheureux, I translate the latter as "blessed" and heureux as "blest."

 

Works of Piety XII

On the Samaritan, and on the Three Dwellings of Jesus: in God His Father, in Our Humanity, on the Cross

 To the Carmelite nuns of Salims

I. The grace of Jesus Christ our Lord be with you forever. The lowest things of earth have their relation to God, and we ought to contemplate the adorable excellences and perfections of His divine being, in view of and in the experience of the lowness and littleness of our miserable condition; we ought to resemble those who, in lowering their gaze to the Ocean, see there the sky and the stars that shine in that polished crystal, as in a beautiful mirror in which the lightful stars imprint their beauty, their movement, and their light. So on earth we ought to see heaven, God in us, and the Creator in the creatures; for so they have been made as so many mirrors which represent to us His admirable grandeurs, and as so many means to guide us to Him. In this thought, I take pleasure in seeing the Son of God sitting beside the well of Jacob, and contemplating, in this dead water, the living water of the Holy Spirit; I also see that He renders a poor Samaritan woman capable of the highness of His thoughts, she whom He instructs and raises from earth to heaven, from sin to grace, and from this low exercise, that of drawing water from a well, to the highest mysteries of salvation. Mysteries then hidden from the great and from the knowing ones of that very age, and reserved for this humble and vile sinner, truly humble in her condition, since she herself goes to draw water, and so far, due to her need, but even more humble in her disposition, since she bears the manifestation of her sin so sweetly, so usefully, and so patiently; truly humble and blest in the election God has made of her, notwithstanding the lowness of her condition and the vileness of her sin; humble and happy, too, in this prompt and grand use that she makes of the grace that she has blestly met without thinking of it, at that well of Jacob. Everything seems fortuitous, but everything is blest and ordained by God in this story; a blest voyage, a blest tiredness, and a blest repose of Jesus on that field of Samaria, since it gives a new repose to Jesus in this soul; blest moment for this woman lacking a bit of water, since this moment and this need makes her find the King of time and of eternity, and the living source of the water which waters heaven and earth. God chooses and waits for this poor soul without her thinking of it, without her contributing to it, and chooses her to declare the secrets of heaven, the salvation of the earth to her, and to make her an apostle to her village, which learned from her what Jerusalem could not learn from the mouth of the Son of God Himself; and, what is remarkable, this village of Samaria has learned from this woman what the twelve apostles sent into that same village had not learned, as if the Son of God had suspended the use of their apostolate in order to confer it upon this vile sinner and most-blest penitent.

 II. But this discourse would take us too far from our subject; for the moment, I only want to note the art, the care, the goodness, the industry, and the abasement of the incarnate wisdom in dealing with the Samaritan woman, and in guiding this simple and poor woman from this dead and earthly water to the living and heavenly water of the Holy Spirit...

 

Works of Piety CIII

Catechesis of the Son of God to the Samaritan Woman, and Explanation of These Words: Si scires donum Dei (Jn 4:4)

One of the excellent catecheses of the Son of God is that which He made in the countryside of Samaria at full noon, and under a burning sun, which received in heaven received its light from that sun which was on earth. This catechesis occurs between Jesus, on the one hand, and a single female, on the other, in the absence of His apostles, where the Son of God Most High and the humble Son of Mary, the Son of God Most High lowers His grandeur, He speaks to this poor woman who seeks only for water from the earth, and He speaks to her about the water of heaven, and He prepares her to find a living spring and fountain of the heavenly water itself, who, at that time, is beside that well of Jacob, the very Father and the God of Jacob, the Messiah of the Jews, the Savior of the world. This catechesis is admirable in its circumstances, in its words, in its effects, for it contains, in a few words, the highest mysteries of salvation, announced through the very salvation of a simple little woman, who thinks only of earth and seeks only the water which is at the base of that well of Jacob, which can quench her bodily thirst. And, in a moment, He draws her from error to truth, from sin to grace, from fall to salvation, and from ignorance of herself to God, and to the knowledge and adoration of the Son of God on earth, the highest and most necessary point there was on earth at that time, the mystery of the Incarnation. Mystery adored by the angels, unknown to the devil, ignored in Judea, and revealed to this poor woman, who becomes, at that very hour, the apostle of Samaria. Blest woman, to have met Jesus and to have met the spring of living water, which bedews both heaven and earth, in seeking only to fill her jar with a little water from the earth! Now, in this high and admirable catechesis, which has only the angels as witnesses, and this single woman as catechist, and only Saint John, the beloved disciple, as secretary and evangelist; all is high, all is heavenly, all is grand, all is worthy of the art and of the wisdom incarnate and hidden on earth. But there is, among others, a little words which merits to be considered, to be adored, to be penetrated by our spirits, which is when Jesus says to this woman: Si scires donum Dei [If you knew the gift of God] (Jn 4:4). For this word marks for us a sigh and a languor of the Son of God, ravished in the excellence of this truth and in sorrow over the ignorance of it in the world, so high is this truth, and so important for the salvation of the earth! And it is for us to adore the thought, the sorrow, the languor, and the sentiments of the Son of God, and to penetrate this truth which is told us in the person of this poor Samaritan woman. What low and little things we know on earth, what vanities and curiosities we seek there, and there is no higher and more useful truth than that which is proposed here—Si scires donum Dei—and because of which the Son of God has more ardor and desire for the salvation of the world! If we think, we ought to have no other drive in our spirit to peel apart this truth: Si scires donum Dei. If we speak, we ought to hae no other sentence in our mouth, in order to tell our neighbor: Si scires donum Dei. If we proclaim, we ought to proffer no other apophthegm. If we write, our pen ought to note no other truth than these words: Si scires donum Dei. Words proferred by eternal wisdom for eternal salvation, and proferred with very sorrow and languor.

In this word, the Son of God invites us to enter into knowledge, si scires [if you knew]. But to enter into the knowledge of the gift of God, and, in these two words, He invites us to know both God and the gift of God. O God! O gift of God! O knowledge! O God Most High! O most excellent gift! O most perfect knowledge, and the only one sufficient for heaven and earth! From birth, we are all professors of ignorance, for we are born without knowing God, or the world, or ourselves, or God Who has created us, or the world which bears us, or ourselves, so present and so near an object, and the most beautiful spirits make profession of not knowing these things. And if we have some knowledge of them, it is weak, it is mixed with errors and darkness, even in the most living and the grandest lights of the saints! Now, the Son of God draws us from ignorance to the knowledge of God, and of the gift of God given to His creature.

 

Source: Jean-Paul Migne, ed. Œuvres complètes de de Bérulle (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1856), 926-927, 1119-1121.

Translation ©2024 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.