Educated speakers are notoriously unreliable in analyzing their own language. If Chrysostom weighs two competing interpretations, his conclusion should be valued as an important opinion and no more. If, on the other hand, he fails to address a linguistic problem because he does not appear to perceive a possible ambiguity, his silence is of the greatest value in helping us determine how Paul’s first readers were likely to have interpreted the text.
Moisés Silva, Philippians, 27.
This brings us to the true function of decoration in a twelfth-century book. It was clearly not just because it was pretty. The twelfth century was an age which delighted in classification and ordering of knowledge. Its most admired writers, men like Peter Lombard and Gratian, arranged and shuffled information into order that was accessible and easy to use. Twelfth-century readers loved encyclopedias...Les us then consider book illumination in these terms. It suddenly becomes easy to understand. Initials mark the beginning of books or chapters (PL.85). They make a manuscript easy to use. It helps classify the priorities of the text...A newspaper does this today with headlines of different sizes...any reader of a modern newspaper will fiercely defend his choice of paper by praising the text, not the layout or illustrations. It is not surprising that the twelfth-century chroniclers from St. Albans, Lincoln, and Canterbury complimented the accuracy of manuscripts when what they meant was that they liked using them.
Christopher De Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts 99.
As for dogs which mount faithful guard, fawn affectionately on their masters, show such detestation of strangers, exhibit an astonishing ability to pick up a scent, and show such enthusiasm for the hunt, what does all this denote except that they are bred for the benefit of the human race?
Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods Book II
How beautiful again is the sea, and how splendid in its entirety, with its crowd and variety of islands, its picturesque coastlines and beaches! It is the home of so many different species of marine life, partly dwelling under water, partly floating and swimming on the surface, and partly encrusted on the rocks with its shells. The sea itself in its longing to embrace the land, sports on its shoreline, so that the two elements seem to merge into one.
Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book II
One of the greatest gifts bequeathed by the Greeks to Western civilization was the article. European intellectual life was profoundly impacted by this gift of clarity.
Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, 207.
