Polytheism impossible; or,the empty gods: Reasons behind a void in the history of roman religion

From the first decades of the nineteenth century, the gods of Rome have suffered discredit with respect to both the influence of Greek polytheism and the fervor of pre‐Christian and Christian monotheism. This attitude, not yet espoused by Gibbon and Herder, goes back to Hegel, whose system proclaimed the distressing emptiness of the mechanical gods of a religion already dead at the end of the third century B.C. This way of looking at Roman polytheism, propounded by a series of specialized studies published throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, gained even more ground with the appearance, in 1854, of Theodore Mommsen's History of Rome. The influence of the book as well as the personality of this unchallenged master of the German Universities were such that the theory of the death and the incoherence of the Roman gods spread throughout the universities of Europe, and continues even today to be determining in an important number of studies.     

阿波罗崇拜的起源与传播路线

阿波罗被认为是最具希腊性的神。然而,他最初并不是一个希腊本土的神。依据古代典籍的记载、结合语源学和考古学的成果来考察,可以得出的结论是:阿波罗是一个多种文化元素融合后塑造成的希腊本族神。阿波罗崇拜形成发展过程中所体现的文化交流和融合,正是希腊文明吸收周边文明的具体体现。对阿波罗崇拜起源和传播路线的考察,一方面是在文明交流的母题下进行的微观考证,另一方面又为文明交流史的研究提供了具体史料的佐证。     

Continence and Marriage: the Concept of Enkrateia in Clement of Alexandria 1

The paper studies the explicit and implicit references to Dionysus in the Greek magical papyri. It examines whether Dionysus undergoes the assimilation process to other gods and concepts and, more particularly, whether Dionysus' assimilation to Osiris is attested in the Greek magical papyri. Specific textual and interpretative problems are also addressed.     

Self-reflection,Egyptian Beliefs,Scythians and “Greek Ideas”: Reconsidering Greeks and Barbarians in Herodotus1

This article addresses the debate between Afrocentrists like Martin Bernal and classical scholars such as Mary Lefkowitz and Robert Palter concerning the origins of ancient Greek civilization. Focusing on the first half of Herodotus’ Histories, I argue that, although Greek cultural developments can be attributed to the Greeks themselves, Herodotus indicates that the conditions that made these developments possible were due to the prior Greek absorption of important aspects of Egyptian religion. Herodotus shows that the Greeks learned from the Egyptians to individualize their gods and to appreciate the humanity of women. This Egyptian influence, Herodotus suggests, is what allowed the Greeks, in contrast to the Scythians, to become an object to themselves within the context of stable city life. I conclude that this habit of self-reflection is the source of the uniquely Greek contribution to the art, philosophy, science and politics of the West.     

论狄奥尼索斯和阿波罗的关系

狄奥尼索斯与阿波罗的对立统一关系是尼采借助于古希腊的宗教和神话传说提出的一种艺术原则,但这种关系只是尼采应其时代的需要而做的一种创造,与两神在古希腊宗教体系中的实质关系还有一些差别。对古希腊的宗教来说,狄奥尼索斯崇拜不仅不是一个外来的因素,而且在时间上还早于阿波罗崇拜,两者之间的对立成分很少,而且存在着很多联系和相似性。同时,狄奥尼索斯与阿波罗通过这种联系,确立了彼此在古希腊宗教里的层次和地位。     

Signs from Above: Towards a Comparative Symbology of Bird Imagery in Medieval Near Eastern Popular Prose

This article presents excerpts from two near-contemporary works of popular prose from the medieval Near East: the Persian Dārāb-nāmeh and the Arabic Sīrat Banī Hilāl. In each, birds or birdlike characters (the sīmorgh and the crow, respectively) that share in having had theriomorphic, mythic significance in regional pre-Islamic traditions dispense premonitory wisdom to Muslim characters. Comparing these passages, the article contends that the characterization of these birds brokers a pietistic shift in symbolism between the pre-Islamic and Islamic context, while still maintaining the birds’ mystical significance and sustaining the trope of birds as winged, heaven-sent messengers. This modified association between birds and divine ministry is not only prominent in these two texts, but also in the Qur?ān and varied bestiaries, poetry, and belletristic works that comprise these texts’ cultural network.     

Clarifying divine discourse in early modern science: divinity,physico-theology,and divine metaphysics in Isaac Newton’s chymistry

Isaac Newton, like many of his contemporaries, appears to have distinguished between the practice of divinity, founded on divine revelation, and philosophical considerations of God derived from the study of nature. This article evaluates these distinct modes of divine discourse through a close reading of the chymical content of Newton’s optical writings and his correspondence with Thomas Burnet regarding Genesis. Newton’s chymical exploration of divine activity in the natural world in Query 31 to the Opticks (1704) seems independent from Scripture in its physico-theological demonstration of God from natural phenomena and its divine metaphysical reliance on a priori concepts of God to establish principles of nature. Nonetheless, the sensorium analogy by which he explored divine agency in nature drew directly from the biblical doctrine of the imago Dei. Moreover, Newton used his chymical understanding of nature to access the natural-philosophical realities behind the accommodated words of the Mosaic creation account.     

Defending Political Augustinianism: Brague and Taubes on the “Divine” as a Common Conceptual Space

Augustine holds that each society needs to be oriented to “God and the good.” He invidiously compares the earthly city as receptive to the true God with the earthly city as opposed to the true God, and he resolutely holds that only an earthly city oriented to the true God can be genuinely described as just and legitimate. At first glance this “political Augustinianism” hardly seems very attractive to non-believers or defensible in the eyes of modern secular liberals, and yet in this article I wish to defend it and commend it universally, that is, to promote its benefits and critical insights beyond religious circles. I commend an emphasis on “the divine” (to theion), rather than on God (ho theos), as a bridge to God for believers but also, and more importantly in the West's present liberal pluralist context, as a common halting place where believers and non-believers alike can sense “the beyond” (Augustine's “God and the good”) in their midst. I develop my argument that the “divine,” thus understood, can provide us with a common conceptual space where we can abide, converse, and even agree: (i) by engaging with Jacob Taubes who powerfully criticises such an emphasis on the “divine,” (ii) by considering “divine” natural law as a bridge and halting place between immanence and transcendence, and (iii) by reflecting upon the work of Rémi Brague who has recently given powerful support to the importance and utility in the present intellectual climate of the divine (to theion) as a bridge to God (ho theos).     

Scandinavians swearing oaths in tenth-century Russia: Pagans and Christians

The Old Russian Primary Chronicle reports on four tenth-century treaties concluded on oath between unchristianised merchants coming from Scandinavia and the Greek emperor, describing the oaths and ceremonies, the objects used, and the gods invoked. This article presents an investigation into the oaths and the formalities performed on those occasions. The opportunity is given for a comparison with fragmentary data elsewhere in the Scandinavian area of the time, and for a clarification of the portrayal of the oath in its pre-Christian form. As the agreements were concluded on the eve of Russian’s official Christianisation, interesting encounters between pagans and Christians are signalised.     

Simon of Tournai's Stroke: The Image of an Irate Unbeliever

For centuries after his death in the late twelfth century, Simon of Tournai, a master of theology in the Parisian schools, had a reputation for being an unbeliever punished by God with a stroke. This article gathers the eight known medieval sources for his stroke and examines them from a mythogenetic perspective to demonstrate how different authors writing with different purposes, genres, and biases recast the image of Simon as an unbeliever for their own moral or polemical programs. I argue that since Simon's stroke was interpreted as divine action, presenting him as sinful was required to preserve divine goodness. The article also discusses the representation of Simon as irate as an element of didactic intent against unbelief, blasphemy, pride, anger, and luxuria. The article revises the date of Simon's stroke from c. 1201 to the 1180s or very early 1190s.     

To Avenge the Burnt Statues and Temples of the Gods: The Religious Background of the Greek Wars with the “Barbarians”

Abstract

In The Clash of Civilizations (1996) Samuel Huntington placed the Persian Wars at the beginning of the long line of clashes between civilizations. To the modern reader the emphasis Huntington puts on the role played by religion in defining Athenian civilization and its conflict with the “barbarians” appears to be consistent with Herodotus’ position on these wars. However, this position overlooks the fact that the ancient polytheistic beliefs and cults implied a particular attitude to religion, unlike that of monotheistic religions. In the ancient Mediterranean world the temples and sacred places were to be universally respected and any violation of this rule was regarded as sacrilege that justified persecution of the wrongdoers, whose ethnicity was of no, or only of secondary, importance. The purpose of this article is to survey the main passages in Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon that treat the wars between the Greeks and Persians and between Greek city-states, and to demonstrate that the line dividing defenders (or avengers) of divine cults from offenders of the gods was not drawn between Greeks and barbarians, but between defenders and offenders.     

Détente as a Strategy: Greece and the Communist World, 1974–9

The transition to democracy in 1974 was a turning point in modern Greek history. The two Turkish invasions of Cyprus and the emergence of the dispute over the Aegean seabed complicated Greek security dilemmas. Apart from cold-war challenges, including the traditional ‘menace from the North’, the country had to face a new threat that was coming from within NATO. The implementation of a détente policy was motivated by political as well as security considerations. In terms of national security, the ‘opening’ to the Communist bloc aimed to balance the perceived Turkish hegemonism and ameliorate Greek defence problems. Moreover, following the humliating military dictatorship of 1967–74, a multidimensional foreign policy was also demanded by the vast majority of the Greek public. Last but not least, an active regional policy could also aid Greece's effort to secure accession to the European Communities. The article will analyse and interpret the political and security dilemmas that were posed by the international developments of the period and the ways these interacted with Greek perceptions to shape Athens’ new détente policy.     

Avestan xratu-

The specific sense that the word xratu- possesses in the Gāthās has not received the attention it deserves. As this article will show, this specific sense points to the eschatological foundation of Zoroastrianism. Eschatological concerns did not first develop in the frame of an established “monotheistic” religion; rather, Zoroastrianism arose from those concerns. The xratu- has a strictly eschatological function in the Gāthās. The noun retains this semantic capacity not only in the Young Avestan but also in the Middle Persian Zoroastrian texts. Iranian languages share the noun with Vedic and (archaic) Greek, where it has the basic meaning of the mental capacity to achieve proposed goals, hence practical intelligence, resourcefulness, or efficacy. If this is in fact the general sense that xratu- has in Iranian, as will be briefly pointed out, the specifically eschatological meaning that it acquires in the Gāthās must indicate the type of religious discourse to which these compositions belong. The noun may, further, have developed its eschatological meaning before the time of the Gāthās and already become a technical term. In this case, it would be legitimate to ask whether there are traces in the Gāthās that point to the institutional background of the term. There do indeed seem to be such traces. The term seems to have been used in the technical sense of the mental power to attain the divine sphere in the daēva cult.     

摩尼教耶俱孚考——福建霞浦文書研究

《舊約·創世記》中的猶太人之祖雅各在希臘文《約瑟禱文》、科普特文《埃及人福音》、《九姓回鶻可汗碑》粟特文殘片、摩尼教中古波斯文祈禱文、伊朗語贊美詩中化身爲天使,在希臘文咒文與護身符中成爲人們祈求的天神,在敦煌摩尼教漢文文獻《下部讚》中被稱爲"頭首大將耶俱孚",在福建霞浦文書中則被稱爲"俱孚元帥"、"耶俱孚大將"或"俱孚聖尊",成爲護法天神之一。雅各從以色列人之祖逐步演化爲中國民間宗教護法的曲折過程,誠爲中西文化交流史引人入勝之一例。     

Remarques sur l'emploi de l'ablatif et du génitif de qualité chez Tacite

Suetonius' Life of Augustus 52 emphasises Augustus' restraint with regard to divine honours and may have been written with the intention of contradicting Tacitus (Annales 1.10). Suetonius' statement that it was common for temples to be offered to proconsuls in the Republican period is not supported by the archaeological and epigraphical evidence. Two passages from Cicero's letters (ad Q.Fr. 1.1.26; ad Att. 5.21.7) have been seen as supporting evidence. They do not, however, necessarily provide evidence for the existence of temples to proconsuls, although it is possible that they may have been the source for Suetonius' statement.     

Tracing the Line of Europa: Migration,Genealogy, and the Power of Holy Origins in Ancient Greek Narrative Knowledge and Cultural Memory

This essay explores the place of the mythical heroine Europa in the narrative knowledge and cultural memory of ancient Greece and modern Europe. Early Greek sources make reference to several women named Europa, only one of whom is Agenor's (or Phoenix's) daughter abducted by Zeus who made her the member of a divine lineage. However, during the fifth-century BCE, the diverse “Europa” figures came to be identified with the Phoenician princess; and the foundations were laid for the abduction story to take on its modern notion as founding myth of Europe. This elevation to founding myth can, in part, be attributed to Europa's membership in a family of eponymous founders. From the Archaic through the Hellenistic periods, Europa's kin gradually grew as various myths were integrated with each other—myths, which shaped identities by creating memory through storytelling. Mythical family bonds came to be seen as biological facts and served both to consolidate local identities and to affirm a Panhellenic identity in times when inner and outer boundaries had to be negotiated as a consequence of migration, colonization, or warfare. The high degree of migration and the dense genealogical network in the narratives of Europa's kin allowed many different groups to lay claim to this narrative knowledge and in doing so, created new myths and cults, interpretations and evaluations of a family well-established in the Greek mind on account of its holy origins. Thus foundation myths surrounding Europa helped to define cultural and ethnic space shaped by migration and the dialectics of unity and plurality. As such, these myths remain relevant to Europe today.     

Les sermons sur saint Antoine et le bon usage de la prédication comme ‘vertu’

Abstract

One of the main reasons for Saint Anthony of Padua’s holy fame and reputation is his activity as a preacher. This article begins with a review of the hagiographical legends referring to preaching as a virtue or gift of divine grace, and the importance of Iulianus of Speyer’s works in spreading the concept of preaching as a virtue is hightlighted. Then follows a discussion of a series of texts written between about 1250 and 1350, which seeks to shed light on the identification of recta et fructuosa praedicatio (right and fruitful preaching activity) with Anthony’s wisdom (sapientia) or knowledge (scientia). It can be seen that this message was expounded over a relatively broad timespan from the 1280s onwards. There is also evidence of an interdisciplinary problem, which seems to involve not only the preachers belonging to the Order of Friars Minor, but also those who were called to preach to them from outside the Order itself. Three possible reasons for the appearance of preaching on the list of virtues are suggested. It may have originated from the attempt to assimilate contemporary preachers with the model of holiness provided by Anthony or from an effort to create a counterbalance to the vices of the tongue that were supposed to plague the preachers’ audiences. It may also be an indicator of a more general debate on praedicatio as a gift of divine grace in opposition to those who believed it was merely the result of a studied technique.     

修昔底德的“命运”说

"命运"说是修昔底德历史思想中的重要内容。在《伯罗奔尼撒战争史》中,"命运"一词主要指机遇、运气(包括好运和厄运)等人类无法预见、非人格化的力量,而与神意无涉。它通常表现为人力无法预计和支配的偶然现象和事件,与人的智慧、谋算、预见力相对立,并对人的心理和活动产生很大的影响。修氏承认"命运"对人事的影响,但更强调人的智慧、远见和理性的判断在人事成败中的作用。修氏的"命运"说,体现了古希腊思想的进步。     

Ancient Greek Myth in Angelos Sikelianos

Abstract

In the introduction to Angelos Sikelianos: Selected Poems, the translators speak of Sikelianos's ‘mythological attitude … toward life’ and of his conception of myth not so much ‘as a rhetorical or metaphorical device but as a spontaneous creation of the human soul directed toward the revelation of a hidden spiritual life’, in short, of mythology as a kind of religion closely related to Schelling's perception of the function of myth. These remarks, written originally some years ago, may have their just proportion of truth, but in keeping with most introductory remarks, they strike me as rather too general, rather too undiscriminating when one brings them face to face with Sikelianos's practice at different moments of his career. I want to try to be more discriminating by considering the role of myth – specifically ancient Greek myth – in the poet's work both early and late in his career. I think it is a changing role, perhaps not in his fundamental association of gods with a contemporary landscape and his revelation of those mysteries that lie hidden in our everyday lives, but in the mode of this association and this revelation, and in the depth of their poetic significance.     

Myths of ancestry

This article examines the national significance of fifth‐century BC Greek sculpture and especially the so‐called Elgin Marbles. It examines the significance of these archaeological remains not for the Greek nation but for the British, and specifically the English, nation during the nineteenth century. The national significance of fifth‐century BC Greek art lies in its incorporation into nineteenth‐century debates concerning the identity of the English nation. At a time when physical appearance or race was accepted as an important and, indeed, determining component of the ‘self’ and a measure of collective belonging, Greek sculpture, which was primarily figural in its subject‐matter, came to be seen as an image of the English ‘self’. The belief in the Greek identity of the English caused a Greek revival in English life and art. In life, this revival took the form of care for the body and the imitation of the athletic practices of Greek youth through the practice of sport in English school and university education. It was thus that nineteenth‐century English youth turned itself into a work of art.