Friday, 1 February 2019
John Gavin: Betrayal and Contemplation:Eriugena’s Neoplatonic Interpretation of the Last Supper
In Perphyseon V, Eriugena offers a reflection on the different approaches to Christ by Judas and Peter in the Last Supper: Judas, who remains at the level of the material, becomes the betrayer of Christ’s flesh; Peter, who ascends through the material to contemplation, comes to know (cognoscere) and love Christ’s mind. This passage is complemented by Eriugena’s treatment of the Eucharist in his Expositiones in Ierarchiam Coelestem, in which he discusses the movement from the material perception of the sensible elements to the immaterial understanding (intellegere) of Christ. The major themes in these passages—material reality as both deceptive and anagogical; contemplation as an ascent to participatory understanding—come from the Christian Neoplatonism that Eriugena inherited from Pseudo-Dionysius and other Patristic thinkers. This paper will examine the roots of Eriugena’s appropriation of these themes in his interpretation of the Last Supper, as well as his creative adaptation and application of these ideas in his approach to Christian philosophy.
Dermot Moran: Eriugena on the Five Modes of Being and Non-Being: Reflections on his Sources
In this paper I shall examine Eriugena’s quinque modi or ‘five modes’ of being and non-being as outlined in his Periphyseon, especially in Book One, and to which he returns in Book Three, and I shall evaluate the current research concerning its sources and its originality. Eriugena’s immediate Latin sources have been suggested as Augustine, Marius Victorinus, and Frigudius, but he was also deeply influenced by passages in the Greek Christian Fathers, especially Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius, and Maximus, particularly on God as “non-being” or nothingness (nihilum). I shall examine the relevant texts and evaluate Eriugena’s original contribution in the Periphyseon.
Willemien Otten: Eriugena as the last patristic cosmologist
According to a well-known label, Bernard of Clairvaux is called the last of the Fathers, an honorific that appears based on his near biblical, virtuoso Latin style. Not based on style but rather on the content of his thought, I argue in this paper that there is much to be said for calling Eriugena the last great patristic cosmologist. His texts hark back to the days of Origen but also to Gregory of Nyssa and, especially, Maximus the Confessor. Standing in the cosmological tradition, he displays more affinity with Eastern than with Western authors, as the cosmology of Augustine and, before him, Ambrose is much more wrapped up with their biblical hermeneutics as known from their commentaries on Genesis and the Hexaemeron. With Augustine writing a book on the self (Confessions) and on God (On the Trinity) but not on nature, one could argue, as this paper will do, that Eriugena’s Periphyseon is in fact the natural theology that Augustine could have written but never did write. The paper will analyze what the upshot is of this assertion, seeing it in the context of the perennial question whether to consider Eriugena more a western or an eastern thinker. It will furthermore ask what, if anything, we should make of the hexaemeral exegesis that so determines Eriugena’s path of return in the Periphyseon.
David Lloyd Dusenbury: The World City: A Reconstruction of Nemesius of Emesa’s De Natura Hominis
This paper will sketch a new and coherent interpretation of Nemesius of Emesa’s conspectus of late-antique anthropology, De Natura Hominis (ca 390). The Stoics held that “the world … is like a city and a polity”. Their Hellenistic ‘world city’ theory likened “human nature” (natura hominis) to “a code of civil law” (Cicero Fin. III 62–67). Now, the bishop of Emesa rejects numerous Stoic tenets. His ‘world city’ is not theirs. Moreover, he criticizes aspects of the Platonic ‘world city’, as set out in the Timaeus. Nevertheless, for Nemesius – as for the Stoics, and late-antique Platonists – the human person is a natural-born world-citizen who is in communion with the whole of creation, and indeed with the Demiurge, since humankind is a “child of God” (θεοῦ τέκνον). Thus, Nemesius opens the Nat. Hom. with an elaborate description of divine creation as οἰκείωσις, and his (unfinished) text closes with a closely argued defence of divine providence as διοίκησις. Nemesius accepts in Nat. Hom. 1 that humankind is “by nature … a political animal”, and his description of human nature is thoroughly political. It is the idea of a ‘world city’ which gives structural and conceptual unity to Nemesius’ Nat. Hom. – a unity which his 19th and 20th-century source-critical interpreters failed to recognize.
J. Christopher Edwards: The Epistle of Barnabas and the Origins of the Accusation that the Jews Killed Jesus
Following a trend which becomes disturbingly common in later NT and Early Christian literature, the Epistle of Barnabas affixes blame for killing Jesus on his opponents, variously labelled “Israel,” “a synagogue of evil people,” or most frequently “them.” The accusation that Israel, or Jews, are directly responsible for inflicting Jesus’ wounds ostensibly began alongside the desire to remove culpability from Pilate, since the detail that Jesus was crucified by a Roman official for political crimes would cause difficulties for Christian evangelism in the Roman world. The desire to shield Roman officials is easily observed in the canonical gospels. However, the author of Barnabas offers another rationale. He asserts that Israel killed Jesus because God himself predictively accused Israel of abusing and crucifying Jesus: “God says that the wounds of his flesh came from them” (Barn 5.12b). This scripturally based accusation does not appear in the canonical literature. It most likely originates in the late first or early second century, and Barnabas is its earliest extant witness. Early Christians, who desired to adjust their collective memories and shield Roman officials, ultimately found it necessary to establish a scriptural foundation for the accusation that the Israel killed Jesus, to demonstrate that “God says that the wounds of his flesh came from them.”
Elena Narinskaya: Exodus stories and their reception in Abrahamic Religious Traditions: A case study of stories of Moses in Jewish, Christian and Muslim sources
Moses is an inspirational prophetic figure in Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious traditions. This study journeys through the Abrahamic faiths of Oriental persuasion and illustrates their respective depictions of the Moses’ stories. Each step of the research examines the stories of the Prophet Moses in the biblical narrative of Exodus, in the exegesis of the Palestinian Jewish Midrash, the Christian writer Ephrem the Syrian and in the passages of the Qur’an. The research shows the relationship between the four primary sources and consequently between the religious traditions, which they represent. Hence, the proposed research explores into the question of continuity of the Abrahamic religious traditions and their common heritage in Syria, Palestine, Arabian Peninsula region in Antiquity/Middle Ages (from the third to the seventh century CE). In exploring the differences and similarities between the Hebrew Bible, Jewish rabbinical commentaries, Syriac Christian exegesis and the Qur’an, this study seeks for a deeper understanding of the Prophet Moses in the religious history of humanity. In doing so the study offers a collaborative portrayal of the figure of Moses from the point of view common to all three of the Abrahamic religions. The overall attempt of this research is to consider the exegetical writings of the Midrash, Ephrem the Syrian, and the Qur’an under the umbrella term of the common tradition of biblical exegesis of Abrahamic oriental heritage. This study explores the varying perspectives of each of the religious traditions, and also unites them in their common endeavour to interpret the figure of Moses in relation to the biblical narrative of Exodus, as well as in relation to the respective religious traditions of each other. This research describes a two-way process of exegetical endeavour between the studied sources. On the one hand, the exegetical writings of the Midrash, Ephrem, and the Qur’an are presented in this book as being inspired by the original biblical narrative of Exodus. On the other hand, their exegetical accomplishments feed back into the biblical narrative about Moses, enriching it with new insights, colours and depths. Consequently the study in this research steps into the area of overlap and influence between the original sources and describes different levels of collaboration between them.
Wednesday, 14 March 2018
Postdoctoral positions available on Greek New Testament commentaries
ITSEE (the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing at the University of Birmingham) is currently advertising three postdoctoral fellowships.
All involve work on Greek New Testament commentary manuscripts, to start this autumn. One is on the AHRC-funded Codex Zacynthius project, using multispectral imaging to recover the text of the earliest catena on Luke. Two are on the ERC-funded CATENA project, producing a catalogue of commentary manuscripts, identifying different stages in their history and development and making electronic transcriptions and editions of their text.
The posts would be suitable for patristics scholars with experience of working with Greek manuscripts.
Further details and links to the application portal may be found at:
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BIK271/
or
Candidates may apply for one or more of these positions. The deadline is 11th April 2018.
In addition, the CATENA project is advertising a funded doctoral studentship on the Pseudo-Oecumenian Catena on Romans, suitable for candidates with expertise in Greek and an interest in manuscripts. Further information and application link at:
Closing date 9th April 2018.
Informal queries may be addressed to Dr Hugh Houghton by email (links on the webpages above)
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