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.     

The Venerable Bede and Gregory the Great: exegetical connections, spiritual departures

This article revisits the familiar comparison between the thought and writings of Bede and Gregory the Great. Bede was keen to foreground his debt to Gregory and past assessments have illuminated aspects of it, but this investigation offers a more searching analysis of the interface between biblical exegesis and spiritual teaching, a subject that highlights Bede's frequent reliance on Gregory as well as his calculated departures from him. Accordingly, the article first examines the different ways Bede in his commentaries could deploy Gregory's writings as a source, then discusses the more pragmatic, less mystical thrust of Bede's thought that sets him apart from Gregory.     

Gregory the Great, the Rule of Benedict and Roman liturgy: the evolution of a legend

This paper relates the evolution of Gregory the Great’s reputation as creator of the Roman liturgy to the slow process by which the Rule of Benedict acquired authority within monasticism in the seventh and eighth centuries. It argues that Gregory composed the Dialogues to promote ascetic values within the Church, but that this work did not begin to circulate in Spain and then Gaul until the 630s, precisely when Gregory’s known interest in liturgical reform is first attested in Rome. The letters of Pope Vitalian (657-72) provide hitherto unnoticed testimony to the theft of Benedict’s relics by monks of Fleury c.660, marking a new stage in the evolution of monastic culture in Gaul. The paper also argues that the Ordo Romanus XIX is not a Frankish composition from the second half of the eighth century (as Andrieu claimed), but provides important evidence for the Rule being observed at St Peter’s, Rome, in the late seventh century. While Gregory was interested in liturgical reform, he never enforced any particular observance on the broader church, just as he never imposed any particular rule. By the time of Charlemagne, however, Gregory had been transformed into an ideal figure imposing uniformity of liturgical observance, as well as mandating the Rule of Benedict within monasticism. Yet the church of the Lateran, mother church of the city of Rome, continued to maintain its own liturgy and ancient form of chant, which it claimed had been composed by Pope Vitalian, even in the thirteenth century.     

The temptations of cult: Roman martyr piety in the age of Gregory the Great

Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) was arguably the most important Roman writer and civic leader of the early middle ages; the Roman martyrs were certainly the most important cult figures of the city. However modern scholarship on the relationship between Gregory and the Roman martyrs remains curiously underdeveloped, and has been principally devoted to comparison of the gesta martyrum with the stories of Italian holy men and women (in particular St Benedict) told by Gregory in his Dialogues; in the past generation the Dialogues have come to be understood as a polemic against the model of sanctity proposed by the Roman martyr narratives. This paper explores Gregory's role in the development of Roman martyr cult in the context of the immediate social world of Roman clerical politics of the sixth and seventh centuries. Gregory's authority as bishop of Rome was extremely precarious: the Roman clerical hierarchy with its well-developed protocols did not take kindly to the appearance of Gregory and his ascetic companions. In the conflict between Gregory and his followers, and their opponents, both sides used patronage of martyr cult to advance their cause. In spite of the political necessity of engaging in such 'competitive generosity', Gregory was also concerned to channel martyr devotion, urging contemplation on the moral achievements of the martyrs – which could be imitated in the present – as opposed to an aggressive and unrestrained piety focused on their death. Gregory's complex attitude to martyr cult needs to be differentiated from that which was developed over a century later, north of the Alps, by Carolingian readers and copyists of gesta martyrum and pilgrim guides, whose approach to the Roman martyrs was informed by Gregory's own posthumous reputation.     

Memorializing Gregory the Great: the origin and transmission of a papal cult in the seventh and early eighth centuries

This article examines the origins and early development of the cult of Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) in Rome, England, Gaul and Ireland. A first section analyses the earliest Life of the pope, written between 704 and 714 at the Northumbrian monastery of Whitby, arguing that it depended not upon oral tradition but upon early writings originating among Gregory's disciples in Rome and in part at least recorded by John Moschus. A second section relates this material to the development of Gregory's cult in the seventh and early eighth centuries, highlighting the activity of Archbishop Theodore in England. Although clerical rather than popular, the cult thus promoted established Gregory's reputation as a pastor, evangelist and father of the Latin liturgy.     

权威、法律权威与权威制约

权威范式是任何国家及其民众之必需。然而,权威具有创益和损益的双面孔,其不仅成为世人的福音,也可能转化为明的灾难。理性的态度应为：既要固守与阐发权威的专长,同时也要防止权威在界域之外的泛滥。同时,我们也需要塑造法律权威,并以此实现以权威制约权威,形成权威制约之循环圈,以符合生生相克之理。     

圣火,在长城与大海之间穿行

7月30日,奥运圣火"祥云"来到渤海之滨秦皇岛,将奥林匹克精神照耀在这片充满生机和活力的山海大地。"山海同欢庆",火炬从老龙头开始点燃,向秦皇岛奥林匹克大道公园传递……作为北京奥运会唯一的地级协办城市,秦皇岛对"祥云’的到来更有着一种浓重的期盼……一路上,《旅游纵览》的记者追随圣火的足迹,采撷到一个个动人的画面,感受到港城人民期盼奥运、参与奥运、奉献奥运的热诚……     

The Myth of Authority and the Authority of Myth

The view of local governors in the Russian Empire as all-powerful is overly simplistic and cannot in itself explain the Russian Revolution of 1917.     

民族地区建党建政对马克思主义理论的丰富与发展

中国共产党在民族地区建党建政的理论与实践丰富和发展了马克思主义的理论宝库,主要体现在：坚持以马克思主义为指导,探寻符合民族地区实际的建党建政思路;高度重视建党与建政的紧密联系,以党的建设带动政权建设;创新民族地区政权模式,实行民族区域自治制度;培养选拔高素质民族干部,确保各族人民当家作主;确立民族工作的主题,致力于各民族实现科学发展;高举爱国主义旗帜,始终维护民族团结和国家统一。