"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
The Christian ought not to speak in a light vein. He ought not to make merry or tolerate merry-makers.I don't have access to Teodor Baconsky, Le rire des Pères: essai sur le rire dans la patristique grecque (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1996).
ὅτι οὐ δεῖ εὐτράπελα φθέγγεσθαι. ὅτι οὐ δεῖ γελᾷν οὐδὲ γελοιαστῶν ἀνέχεσθαι.