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Animal Rights History Timeline » [BCE-CE] Antiquity » Areopagites

Senate of the Areopagites

Photius of Constantinople, Bibliotheca

quoted in Wonders of the Little World by Nathaniel Wanley

Photius of Constantinople [c810-897], Bibliotheque [a collection of books Photius has read, with notes and sometimes copious extracts [from] pagans and Christians, Acts of Councils, Acts of Martyrs (Catholic Encyclopedia)] quoted in The Wonders of the Little World; or, A General History of Man, by Nathaniel Wanley [Google Books] (1678; London, 1806).

Photius, the learned Patriarch of Constantinople, observeth in his Bibliotheque, a wonderful judgment given in the city of Athens: he saith, "the senate of the Areopagites being assembled together on a mountain, without any roof but heaven, the senators perceived a bird of prey which pursued a little sparrow, that came to save itself in the bosom of one of their company. This man, who naturally was harsh, threw it from him so roughly, that he killed it; whereat the court was offended, and a decree was made, by which he was banished from the senate:" where the judicious may observe that this company, which was at the time one of the gravest in the world, did it not for the care they had to make a law concerning sparrows, but it was to show that clemency and a merciful inclination, was so necessary in a state, that a man destitute of it was not worthy to hold any place in government, he having (as it were) renounced humanity. (291)

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Roger Pearse "has placed online the text of J. H. Freese's English translation of [Photius of Constantinople's Bibliotheca] codices 1-165 [tertullian.org]. This was published in 1920, but no further volumes ever appeared. This text is now in the public domain. The remainder has not been translated into English, with the exception of selected codices by N. G. Wilson in 1994. The whole has been translated into French by René Henry—not very well, according to Wilson." Therefore, at this time, I have been unable to verify the quote from Photius referenced by Wanley in the above passage.