Competing Political Theologies: Intra-Muslim Polemics on the Limits of Prophetic Intercession

Abstract

This essay revolves around an analysis of a polemical exchange between two highly prominent Indian Muslim thinkers in Delhi, Shah Isma'il Shahid (d. 1831) and Fazl-i Haqq Khayrabadi (d. 1862), over the limits of the capacity of Prophet Muhammad to intercede (shafa'at) on behalf of sinners on the day of judgment. While focusing on this polemical moment, it explores the question of how this ostensibly theological debate on the limits of prophetic intercession connected to a much broader political debate surrounding the sociology of sovereignty under conditions of political change and transition. It argues that the opposing arguments on the limits of prophetic authority made centrally visible in this debate were intimately connected to larger questions surrounding the normative status of social hierarchies, distinctions and monarchical modes of being in early nineteenth-century India.     

惠栋托名撰集《尚书郑注》考

有关惠栋托名王应麟著书一事,曾引起清中叶以来的许多学者关注。除《左传贾服注》与《论语郑注》外,清代学者还指认惠栋托名撰集另一部著作——《尚书郑注》。前两部著作由惠栋撰集,为今日学界所认可,但由于后一部著作鲜有人知,遂使其托名问题成为疑案。本文以清代文献中有关惠栋"托名"的说法为基础,据段玉裁所见的惠栋辑本《尚书郑注》和惠栋《九经古义》中的相关案语,论证出上海图书馆、国家图书馆藏旧题王应麟所撰的清钞本《古文尚书》即惠栋托名之作《尚书郑注》。经校对分析后,可以确定上图、国图藏本《古文尚书》属于同一版本系统。这一系统存在多种钞本,李调元刊刻《郑氏古文尚书》所据的"原本"即为其中之一。惠辑本《尚书郑注》曾在清代学术界广为流传,李调元对该著的订补与刊刻之功不可磨灭。     

Liturgy against apostasy: Marian commemoration and the Jews in Visigothic Iberia

One of the most remarkable features of the earliest surviving liturgy for a feast of the Virgin Mary from seventh‐century Iberia is its incorporation of polemical material directed against Jews. This polemical dimension is explored here in the context of contemporary theological polemics and Visigothic law, particularly in relation to attempts to baptize Jews by force. Evidence that ecclesiastical leaders opposed the policy but had to come up with strategies to prevent those baptized from apostatizing raises the possibility that the Marian liturgy was intended to communicate Christian doctrine and warn against Jewish error among recent converts, as well as to assert episcopal control over Christian identity in the Visigothic kingdom.     

Le prieuré de Saint-Zacharie en i403 d'après le Livre de raison de son prieur

Saint-Zacharie is a small township northeast of Marseille, some kilometers from the main Aix-en-Provence-Nice road. In the middle ages it possessed a priory of Benedictine nuns of St Zacharias which was a dependency of the abbey of St Victor at Marseille. This abbey appointed a monk with the title of prior to administer the nunnery at Saint-Zacharie, while the nuns themselves elected a prioress. The Livre de raison drawn up by Jean de Assana, prior in 1402, allows us to establish the convent's budget. It reveals the efforts undertaken to restore a situation which had been severely shaken by the troubles of the fourteenth century, and in particular to develop the domain, which furnished the greater part of the convent's revenues from the production of corn and wine. Only corn provided a cash surplus. The economy of the priory was thus fragile because insufficiently diversified. The house faced other problems too. The development of its spiritual life was no longer a prime aim: the abbey of St Victor on several occasions arbitrarily limited the number of its nuns. There were ninety-eight of them in 1322; twenty-four in 1402; five in 1461. What is more, they were reduced to an income which provided only a bare living so that the convent's possessions appeared to be being exploited mainly as a source of profit for the prior and for the financial benefit of the mother house of St Victor, the archbishop of Aix, and the papal court.     

Le prieuré de Saint-Zacharie en i403 d'après le Livre de raison de son prieur

Saint-Zacharie is a small township northeast of Marseille, some kilometers from the main Aix-en-Provence-Nice road. In the middle ages it possessed a priory of Benedictine nuns of St Zacharias which was a dependency of the abbey of St Victor at Marseille. This abbey appointed a monk with the title of prior to administer the nunnery at Saint-Zacharie, while the nuns themselves elected a prioress. The Livre de raison drawn up by Jean de Assana, prior in 1402, allows us to establish the convent's budget. It reveals the efforts undertaken to restore a situation which had been severely shaken by the troubles of the fourteenth century, and in particular to develop the domain, which furnished the greater part of the convent's revenues from the production of corn and wine. Only corn provided a cash surplus. The economy of the priory was thus fragile because insufficiently diversified. The house faced other problems too. The development of its spiritual life was no longer a prime aim: the abbey of St Victor on several occasions arbitrarily limited the number of its nuns. There were ninety-eight of them in 1322; twenty-four in 1402; five in 1461. What is more, they were reduced to an income which provided only a bare living so that the convent's possessions appeared to be being exploited mainly as a source of profit for the prior and for the financial benefit of the mother house of St Victor, the archbishop of Aix, and the papal court.     

Derrida and fidelity to history

In the first part of this paper Hugh Rayment-Pickard challenges Mark Bevir's assumption that Derrida does not care about historical or other kinds of truth. A consideration of Derrida's early work on Husserl shows deconstruction to be a kind of skepsis or epoche launched in search of the truth. Yet deconstruction reveals the truth as ‘undecidable’, which means that Derrida's commitment to the truth must take the form of ‘faith’. The second part of the paper considers an example of definite intentional meaning given in Mark Bevir's Logic: Petrarch's ascent of Mont Ventoux. On examination, Petrach's motivation can be seen to be radically divided between secular and religious concerns, a split vividly illustrated in his imaginary dialogue with St Augustine: The Secret. Finally, Rayment-Pickard looks briefly at Derrida's own dialogue with St Augustine, ‘Circumfession’, which also argues that human intentions are irreducibly complex and plural.     

Derrida and fidelity to history

In the first part of this paper Hugh Rayment-Pickard challenges Mark Bevir's assumption that Derrida does not care about historical or other kinds of truth. A consideration of Derrida's early work on Husserl shows deconstruction to be a kind of skepsis or epoche launched in search of the truth. Yet deconstruction reveals the truth as ‘undecidable’, which means that Derrida's commitment to the truth must take the form of ‘faith’. The second part of the paper considers an example of definite intentional meaning given in Mark Bevir's Logic: Petrarch's ascent of Mont Ventoux. On examination, Petrach's motivation can be seen to be radically divided between secular and religious concerns, a split vividly illustrated in his imaginary dialogue with St Augustine: The Secret. Finally, Rayment-Pickard looks briefly at Derrida's own dialogue with St Augustine, ‘Circumfession’, which also argues that human intentions are irreducibly complex and plural.     

'Nostrorum socordiam temporum': the reforming impulse of Bede's later exegesis

This paper attempts to provide a synoptic view of the thematic development of Bede's exergesis. It examines a selection of his commentaries written at different periods in his career and, by placing them against the social and political background of early eighth–century Northumbria, tries to indicate some important differences amongst them. The core of my argument is that, in contrast to his early commentaries, Bede's mature exegesis is decisively infused by the aims and concerns of his later non–exegetical works such as the Ecclesiastical History and the Letter to Ecgberht. It will be shown, for example, that earlier commentaries such as On the Apocalypse and On Acts devote less attention to pastoral concerns than do such later works as On Ezra and Nehemiah , On the Tabernacle and On the Temple . Further, the earlier commentaries contain fewer topical comments on the social and religious demise of contemporary Northumbria than the later exegesis (especially On Ezra and Nehemiah ), comments whose substance and tone align this later work with the reform program of the Ecgberht letter. By considering these and other related issues, my analysis has a twofold aim: to provide a better sense of the overall shape and development of Bede's commentaries, and to highlight the social investedness and intertextuality of his later writings as a whole.     

‘You say that the Messiah has come …’: The Ceuta Disputation (1179) and its place in the Christian anti-Jewish polemics of the high middle ages

This article suggests that the ‘Disputation of Ceuta’ provides a link between the Christian anti-Jewish polemical discourse of the twelfth century, produced largely for internal consumption, and the active missionising of the thirteenth century. Having purportedly taken place in the North African port of Ceuta between a Christian merchant from Genoa and a Jew from Ceuta at the time of Almohad rule (1179), the disputation displays the signs of a major shift in the Christian contra Judaeos strategies. Unlike other twelfth-century works of this genre, which address a variety of points central to Jewish-Christian debate, the Ceuta Disputation is remarkably consistent in its emphasis on one particular issue – that of the coming of the Messiah. The messianic content of this disputation thus foreshadows the central thrust of the thirteenth-century Dominican mission to the Jews, which finds its fullest expression at the Barcelona Disputation of 1263. The article explains the prominence of this theme in the period by suggesting that the extraordinary emphasis on the Messiah in the Ceuta Disputation could be the result of the Christian protagonist's meeting with the North African Jew face-to-face and discovering that the Messianic promise was a subject of considerable interest for his opponent. More importantly, regardless of whether the discussion in Ceuta had or had not taken place, the new Christian attitude towards anti-Jewish polemics expressed in the Disputation's text was most likely inspired by real-life discussions between Jews and Christians.     

《说文》训“词”例考释兼及许慎的虚字观

本文在<说文>训"词"例穷尽性统计的基础上,从字形演变、出土文献用例、传世文献用例等方面,对<说文>训"词"例字进行了类分析与研究,补增<说文>训释语气词的8种条例,并兼及许慎的虚字观.     

‘You say that the Messiah has come …’: The Ceuta Disputation (1179) and its place in the Christian anti-Jewish polemics of the high middle ages

This article suggests that the ‘Disputation of Ceuta’ provides a link between the Christian anti-Jewish polemical discourse of the twelfth century, produced largely for internal consumption, and the active missionising of the thirteenth century. Having purportedly taken place in the North African port of Ceuta between a Christian merchant from Genoa and a Jew from Ceuta at the time of Almohad rule (1179), the disputation displays the signs of a major shift in the Christian contra Judaeos strategies. Unlike other twelfth-century works of this genre, which address a variety of points central to Jewish-Christian debate, the Ceuta Disputation is remarkably consistent in its emphasis on one particular issue – that of the coming of the Messiah. The messianic content of this disputation thus foreshadows the central thrust of the thirteenth-century Dominican mission to the Jews, which finds its fullest expression at the Barcelona Disputation of 1263. The article explains the prominence of this theme in the period by suggesting that the extraordinary emphasis on the Messiah in the Ceuta Disputation could be the result of the Christian protagonist's meeting with the North African Jew face-to-face and discovering that the Messianic promise was a subject of considerable interest for his opponent. More importantly, regardless of whether the discussion in Ceuta had or had not taken place, the new Christian attitude towards anti-Jewish polemics expressed in the Disputation's text was most likely inspired by real-life discussions between Jews and Christians.     

Adgar's Gracial and Christian images of Jews in twelfth-century vernacular literature

This article concerns the adaptation and translation into the Anglo-Norman vernacular of an existing tradition of Latin miracles of the Virgin by the twelfth-century poet William Adgar. Adgar included many older ideas about Jews in his version of the stories, but also borrowed themes and language from contemporary courtly romance literature in order to suit his intended audience of lay nobles. In doing so, he portrayed Christian characters as the embodiment of loyalty and other courtly values. At the same time, he began to portray Jews according to courtly types of treachery. New implications emerged in his work about the general moral character of Jews, in contrast to previous works that commented mainly upon the nature of Jewish belief. Recent scholarship on Christian-Jewish relations in the twelfth century has begun to pay increasing attention to the movement of new Christian ideas about Jews outside of scholarly and ecclesiastical circles. The study of vernacular literature has an important place in this scholarly debate, since the move to the vernacular broadened the audience among which the new ideas about Jews could be spread.     

Adgar's Gracial and Christian images of Jews in twelfth-century vernacular literature

This article concerns the adaptation and translation into the Anglo-Norman vernacular of an existing tradition of Latin miracles of the Virgin by the twelfth-century poet William Adgar. Adgar included many older ideas about Jews in his version of the stories, but also borrowed themes and language from contemporary courtly romance literature in order to suit his intended audience of lay nobles. In doing so, he portrayed Christian characters as the embodiment of loyalty and other courtly values. At the same time, he began to portray Jews according to courtly types of treachery. New implications emerged in his work about the general moral character of Jews, in contrast to previous works that commented mainly upon the nature of Jewish belief. Recent scholarship on Christian-Jewish relations in the twelfth century has begun to pay increasing attention to the movement of new Christian ideas about Jews outside of scholarly and ecclesiastical circles. The study of vernacular literature has an important place in this scholarly debate, since the move to the vernacular broadened the audience among which the new ideas about Jews could be spread.     

川端康成《睡美人》解味

《睡美人》为川端康成晚期作品。它的荒诞内容使读者感到困惑。探讨《睡美人》的深层内涵又是把握川康成整个创作不可缺少的。如果我们联系《睡美人》之前的整个川端创作,了解他在其他作品中以不同形式反复演奏的主题,理清其发展脉络,我们会清晰地看到这篇重要作品的坐标。川端从创作伊始就存在的“恋母情结”、“处女崇拜”,在20世纪50年代对“入魔”、“入佛”的阐释,贯穿一生的“生死轮回”思想都在这篇不长的作品中作了川端式的诗意抒发。作品散发现代主义的颓废情调,这是不言而喻的,然而它又体现了川端以东方文化传统对人生哲理的独特思考,全篇充满禅理,为此它又是一篇不容忽视的川端的典型作品。     

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.     

Farms and families in ninth‐century Provence

Information about the people recorded in 813–14 on the estate of St Victor de Marseilles shows that although considered to belong to the monastery they were an independent peasant class. Family size and structure varied: some farms were run by the labour of the family which included unmarried sons and ‘married‐in’ sons‐in‐law; other farmers employed living‐in servants in husbandry. The mountain sheep farms had large groups of unmarried young people. Inheritance systems ensured that the peasant family property remained intact over the generations and provided support for unmarried sons who remained to work there.     

Carl Schmitt on land and sea

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), one of the leading conservative legal thinkers of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, is best known today for his critique of liberalism. Between the late 1930s and mid-1950s, Schmitt wrote numerous articles and two books addressing the mythical and geopolitical significance of land and sea. In recent years, these texts have begun to attract attention from historians as well as theorists. This article reconstructs the origins of Schmitt's theories about land and sea, and shows how they developed in the context of his efforts to delegitimize the British Empire and justify the persecution of Jews. It also explains how Schmitt selectively misread the history of maritime law in order to critique the ‘freedom of the seas.’ Finally, it reveals that the meaning Schmitt ascribed to ‘the opposition of the elements of land and sea’ changed dramatically to suit his political needs. For all their evocative qualities and insights, Schmitt's texts on land and sea do not constitute a coherent theory, but rather a shifting field of polemical positions in search of theoretical support.     

‘The face of the one who is making for Jerusalem’: The Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral and Joy1

This paper examines the Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral (c. 1256–80) from the perspective of two interrelated concepts: the heavenly Jerusalem and joy. Building on previous scholarly discussions of the choir’s unusual creativity and profusion of organic and iconographic decoration, it traces connections between the choir and the rich corpus of writing on the joys of the heavenly Jerusalem. In juxtaposition with the hagiography of St Hugh, this opens a valuable seam of meaning and offers a possible explanation for the choir’s decorative intensity. It also reveals a number of ways, previously unnoted, in which Hugh of Avalon and his spirituality are recalled by the choir built to house his relics.