Intentional ethics and hermeneutics in the Libellus de symoniacis: Bruno of Segni as a papal polemicist

The Investiture Contest has at regular intervals been considered as a ‘revolution’, largely because it contributed forcefully to the reorganisation of the Church in the centuries to come. But the Contest has also been seen as heralding a new and more critical way of thinking, in which the traditional reliance on authorities was giving way to new approaches to the textual past. These new approaches are best evident in an extensive polemical literature that accompanied the struggle. From the 1030s and until the end of the Contest with the Concordat of Worms in 1122, a number of contending issues were discussed by contemporary churchmen. One issue scrutinised was that of simony and the validity of sacraments of simoniacs. In the following, the Libellus de symoniacis of Bruno of Segni will be analysed in order to address several aspects. First, the Libellus shows a new and more critical approach to the textual past, foreshadowing the juggling with auctoritas of the twelfth century. Second, Bruno's analysis is a witness to the efforts taken to justify papal reform in the last decades of the eleventh century.     

Tracing the Roots of Municipal Archaeology in St Augustine,Florida: The Story of How ‘The Oldest City’ Connected Archaeology,Local Government,and the Public

Abstract

This article explores the history of public archaeology in St Augustine, Florida, and identi?es lessons that may be useful for archaeologists looking to develop a stronger relationship with the public. The City of St Augustine has developed an archaeology ordinance, it keeps an archaeologist on staff, and it boasts a grassroots non-pro?t organization dedicated to supporting archaeology in the city. This framework is the result of a conversation that has been taking place within the community since the 1930s. As public archaeologists seek new ways of establishing long-term relationships with community groups, this exceptional programme, which only exists because of community support, provides insights into how to build those relationships on a solid foundation.     

Idolatry and the Polemics of World-Formation from Philo to Augustine

This article examines the association of idolatry with erroneous ideas about the natural world in the writings of late antique Jewish and Christian authors. It follows two polemical genres. The first is the hexaemeral commentaries composed by Philo of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea and Augustine, which positioned the hexaemeron against the background of natural philosophy and used various critiques of idolatry to revise or refute pagan natural philosophy. The second genre is that of heresiology initiated by Irenaeus of Lyon and adapted by Augustine to refute Gnostic and Manichaean cosmological myths and disregard for the creation account in Genesis. The article analyses a variety of ways in which the prohibitions against idolatry figured in methodological questions about how to conceptualize the natural world, how to locate the sources of conceptual error, and how to distinguish those errors from truth.     

Scolding aesthetics in biblical literature

Abstract

The leading purpose of this study is to critically introduce a textual layer in the Bible which is both ideologically intriguing and aestethically appealing. The textual, Biblical layer in focus may be entitled “Scolding Aesthetics”, Accordingly, the Biblical narrator dexterously utilizes an intricate literary mechanism while harnessing it to a morel rebuke which he aims at a certain Biblical character (usually of high fame and reputation). Hence, scolding aesthetics may also be considered an intersection where Biblical literary artistry and moral values cross, interact and mutually produce a complex textual system.

The current study demonstrate the practice of that Biblical‐literary‐moral strategy through a close reading of three Biblical texts: Genesis, 12 (Abraham descends to Egypt) 2 Samuel, 11 (King David who does not participate in the war against the Ammonites) and Genesis, 3 (Eve's Fall). All three illustrations effectively surrender and display the aesthetic‐moral mechanism under consideration while plausibly proving as well how the “epidemic” textual layer of the Bible may deliberately lead astray. Accordingly, under the seemingly simple and “innocent” narrative one may excavate underlying currents of remarkably aesthetic intricacy which operates impressively as rhetorical tool of moral lesson.     

Plurality and the Rule of Love

Abstract

This article constructs a positive theological case for liberal multiculturalism through a close interrogation of the exegetical methods of Augustine of Hippo (354–430). Drawing out the political implications of the charitable hermeneutics of De doctrina christiana, I suggest that Augustine authorizes political theology to respond generously to multicultural practices of social co-existence and notions of “deep diversity.” In this guise, the Augustinian method of Scriptural reading provides a means of cherishing diverse cultural forms. Yet, alongside these inclusive affirmations, Augustine’s Scriptural politics suggests that liberal multiculturalism should not be an uncontested project for the Church. In place of a politics of separatist autonomy or passive tolerance, Augustine points us towards a radical politics of difference rooted in a fusion of truthfulness and love     

Portrayals of Non-North Koreans in North Korean Textbooks and the Formation of National Identity

This article examines the portrayal of non-North Koreans in North Korean textbooks to assess the influences on the formation of North Korean identity, and how such identity formation is important in Kim Jeong-il's retention of power. This study not only looks closely at textual representations; it also examines how political and ideological changes in North Korea had a critical influence on these texts. The study encompasses both lexico-grammatical analysis and the analysis of textual and visual images, based on an examination of six North Korean language textbooks published from 1954 to 2000. It demonstrates that North Korean identity is defined through the portrayal of non-North Koreans, particularly enemy others. The portrayal of non-North Koreans facilitates the formation of a solid North Korean identity – an identity that entails serving their political leaders, remaining vigilant against threats to their country, and liberating South Koreans from poverty and oppression by America and its puppet states.     

论古文字通假的文献释证法

破古文字通假,形音义释读在上下文中得以密合,是第一步的基础性工作,之后必须具备文献求证的实验过程。文献求证如何有效地进行,是古文字考释的方法论问题。本文以王辉《古文字通假字典》(2008年)为举证范围,从所据文献之有效度的强弱入手,将古文字通假的文献释证法分作六种类型依次加以论述。     

Enjoying the saints in late antiquity

The discovery at Mainz by Franĉois Dolbeau of a new collection of sermons of Augustine has enabled us to study, in far greater detail, the attitude of Augustine to the reform of the cult of the martyrs between 391 and 404. This study aims to understand Augustine's insistence on the need to imitate the martyrs against the background of his views on grace and the relation of such views to the growing differentiation of the Christian community. It also attempts to do justice to the views of those he criticized: others regarded the triumph of the martyrs over pain and death as a unique manifestation of the power of God, in which believers participated, not through imitation but through celebrations reminiscent of the joy of pagan festivals. In this debate, Augustine by no means had the last word. The article attempts to show the continuing tension between notions of the saints as imitable and inimitable figures in the early medieval period, and more briefly, by implication, in all later centuries.     

Textual context in the history of political thought and intellectual history

ABSTRACT

We can easily misread historical texts if we take ideas and passages out of their textual contexts. The resulting errors are widespread, possibly even more so than errors through reading ideas and passages out of their historical contexts. Yet the methodological literature stresses the latter and says little about the former. This paper thus theorises the idea of textual context, distinguishes three types of textual context, and asks how we uncover the right textual contexts. I distinguish four kinds of textual-context error, and offer practical tips for avoiding these errors. However, the beating heart of this paper is the history–philosophy debate: in contrast to the prevailing assumption that historical and philosophical analysis are fundamentally different, I show that a commitment to textual context, which should be entirely uncontroversial, also commits one to think philosophically.     

Women's rituals and women's prototypes review article *

In this short passage of the Libellus de virginitate servanda (epist. 22) Jerome incorporates a number of striking formulations from Tertullian's De oratione and De corona. The influence of Ambrose's De virginibus would also seem to be discernible. Jerome systematically enhances the stylistic finesse of the material he borrows. At the same time its inclusion also entails inconcinnities.     

Sigisvult the Patrician, Maximinus the Arian, and political strategems in the Western Roman Empire c. 425–40

This study investigates the roles played by the barbarian general Sigisvult and the Arian bishop Maximinus in western imperial politics during the reign of Valentinian III. In c. 426/7 Sigisvult was sent to North Africa to subdue the rebel Count Boniface. He was accompanied by Maximinus, who, in the course of the campaign, engaged in a celebrated debate with Augustine. Maximinus helped achieve a non-violent settlement that returned Boniface and his German troops to the imperial fold. Sigisvult then returned to Italy and was appointed Patrician and Master of Soldiers after the assassination of Felix in 430. In 435, however, this position was transferred to Fl. Aëtius, who spent most of his time campaigning in Gaul. In 440, the Vandals attacked Sicily, and Sigisvult was placed in charge of the defence of the Italian coast. At the same time, an Arian bishop Maximinus, apparently the one who had debated with Augustine, was in contact with the Vandals. He may have planted disinformation that Sebastianus, the son of the now-deceased Boniface, was about to invade Africa. This resulted in a Vandal withdrawal, and both Italy and Sicily were saved. Sigisvult last appears in the mid-440s, and his subsequent demise, perhaps in the early 450s, may have resulted in the breakdown of a precarious balance of power and the murders of Aëtius and Valentinian in 454 and 455, which hastened the demise of the Western Roman Empire. In an appendix it is suggested that although Boniface called in Vandal auxiliaries in 427, he was not responsible for the Vandal crossing in 429.     

旨趣和方法的异同:论钱大昕与王鸣盛的地理考辨

乾嘉学者钱大昕与王鸣盛治学以考据见长,二者在历史地理领域的研究各有特点。钱大昕擅长运用缜密的考辨方法,致力于建置沿革的考证纠谬,成果丰硕。王鸣盛则重视地理考察,贯通古今史事,辨析形势险要,探究地理条件与历代兴亡、战争胜负的关系;同时又以《禹贡》为中心,将儒家经典中的重要篇章纳入地理考辨的范围,反映其学术研究的丰富性和多样性。钱大昕与王鸣盛的考证成果及历史分析对近现代历史地理研究具有重要的参考价值,其细密考证与归纳、概括的综合分析也具有方法论上的借鉴意义。     

Traditions of learning around the English Battle of the Books

This article calls for a reassessment of the Battle of the Books by arguing that the dispute did not simply oppose imitators of the ancients and supporters of modern critical scholarship, but that many scholars and critics were also attempting to support the authority of the ancients through their philological methods. A deep undercurrent of concern about the methods of philology can be traced in the development of biblical and patristic scholarship in the late seventeenth century. The article further emphasizes how the satirists (Swift especially) were aware of this strand of criticism, and yet how they hid their debt to it in order to portray textual criticism as a whole as a pedantic exercise. The Battle of the Books should therefore not be seen as a straightforward opposition between “supporters of the ancients” and “supporters of the moderns,” but as contention between doctrine and reason.     

乾嘉考据学派对20世纪新历史考据学的影响

20世纪新历史考据学不只是受西方史学影响,而且与乾嘉考据学有直接的联系。乾嘉考据学派与西方近代史学多有相通之处,20世纪的历史考据学治史所采用的理念和方法既来源于西方,也来源于中国传统史学。乾嘉考据学派对近代中国史学产生了重大影响,许多学者传承了乾嘉考据学的精神和方法,在借鉴传统史学优长的基础上引进西方史学的理念与方法,从而构建了新的理论体系。在民族史学近代化过程中,史学的转型离不开民族文化的载体,而乾嘉考据学本身的生命力适应了近代史学转型的要求。     

Bernard Lamy,Empiricism, and Cartesianism

Bernard Lamy (1640–1715) is frequently included among the Cartesian Empiricists of the second half of the seventeenth century. He has also been described as an Augustinian who dabbled in Cartesianism. While acknowledging that there are both empiricist and Augustinian elements in his thought, I argue that it ought not be forgotten that there are central components of his philosophy that are both anti-empiricist and in opposition to Augustine. My aim in this paper, though, is not (merely) critical; I hope to show that Lamy provides us with one more example of the diversity present among the various thinkers labelled as ‘Cartesian’.     

From the mouth of babes,strength: Psalm 8 and the book of Isaiah

ABSTRACT

As a response to my previous article on Geshur, Nadav Na’aman has recently brought up the history of Geshur. Much is at stake concerning the methodological approach in how archaeological data and the Hebrew Bible are used to reconstruct ancient realities. Geshur is a prime example of how archaeological data should not be interpreted and used. Na’aman’s hypothesis on Geshur is built on conjectures, obscure readings, textual emendations, arguments from authority, lack of methodological discipline, and circular reasoning. The reconstruction of Geshur highlights the importance of investigating the core of the arguments concerning any proposal on ancient Israel.

Geshur may well have existed, but unless something substantial can be said of Geshur, the name is as hollow as the names of the Hivvites, Girgashites, and Perizzites. We do not know when it existed or what its culture, extent, religion, or capital was. The biblical references could well go back to a very small entity or a small town that grew in importance in the transmission of the text. In sum, we do not know much more than its name and perhaps the very approximate area, but this information amounts to next to nothing.     

《史记》早期版本源流研究

《史记》自问世以来 ,经两千余年的流传 ,产生了众多的写本、刻本 ,构成了庞大的《史记》版本体系。研究《史记》各本的文本形态及各本之间文字的异同 ,是为《史记》版本学。本文客观地疏理了历代《史记》版本研究的状况 ,评述了前人研究的成就及不足 ,揭示了《史记》版本的传承系统。     

The Gender of Grace: Impotence,Servitude, and Manliness in the Fifth‐Century West

This essay attempts to stage an encounter between post‐Foucauldian approaches to masculinity in the ancient world on the one hand, and the reading of Augustine of Hippo's idea of Original Sin as a disjunction of the will, put forward in Robert Markus's Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of Saint Augustine. Emphasis is placed on Book XIV of the City of God, where Augustine emblematises the result of Original Sin not –pace Foucault – through an image of irrepressible lust, but rather through that of the impotent male, humiliated by his inability to embody his desire.     

The Religion of the Secularists

Both “religion” and “secularism” are constructs distinctive of the West. They both arise from the peculiar history of Christianity. Hence the double face of modern “religion.” It may cover any inherited cultic practice, safeguard ethnic values, and be respected under multiculturalism. But at the same time it may refer to the intellectual and moral commitments which mark us off socially from others, annoying the secularists. Julian, the first modern‐type secularist, reacted against the Constantinian establishment of the “new religion” by ordering the priests of the old Hellenic cults to adopt the Christian style of social indoctrination to outclass those vulgar innovators. But the Fall of Rome produced the intellectual masterpiece of Augustine which redefined the saeculum and set the framework of modern secularity. Augustine had perceived reality in three dimensions: cosmic, social, and personal. At each level the rationalising logic of Aristotelian science had fixed the pattern of things, by analogy. The whole must be coherent if it is to be true. But the empiricism of Jerusalem had delivered a universe open to change and likely to end. In society power was no longer the proof of virtue. The heart itself was deceptive. Twenty‐first century secularism insists upon such experimental truth, social choice and passionate commitment. This holy trinity is our legacy from the “new” religion.     

Now More than Ever: Terrorism,Asymmetric Warfare,and the Just War Tradition

Abstract

For more than fifteen hundred years, the just war tradition has provided guidance about when wars should and should not be fought. It has also incorporated standards for how wars should be fought. The tradition rejects the claim that all use of force is evil, suggesting instead that in some circumstances the failure to use force is wrong. War is never desirable, but sometimes it is both right and necessary. The just war tradition helps us understand when this is true. The tradition developed to help control conventional warfare, but it is no less applicable to the terrorism and asymmetrical warfare prevalent in contemporary conflicts. In a world where American military power is unmatched, any opponent's best option is some form of asymmetric warfare. Such warfare is frustrating to conventional forces and tempts them to respond with an "all's fair in war" approach that is both morally wrong and militarily counterproductive. Neither pacifism nor "realism" deals adequately with the challenges of twenty-first century warfare. Only the just war tradition provides clear guidance about when and how it is right to go to war and places this in the context of establishing a peace based on justice and equity.