Copyright (c) 2009 University of Nebraska - Lincoln All rights reserved. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub Recent documents in Faculty Publications, Classics and Religious Studies Department en-us Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:53:44 PDT 3600 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/92 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/92 Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:45:40 PDT Anyone familiar with amateur photography can imagine standing in a darkroom, watching the slow resolution of a picture as it sits in its chemical bath. First the main outlines of the image emerge from a blank background, and only gradually do the details follow. Frequently the content of the picture is only recognizable when all the details are clear, when what appear as large, oddly shaped objects resolve into distinct, recognizable ones. Such is the case with understanding of Wyclif's earlier, theological works. Without a familiarity with the details of fourteenth-century Oxford theology, its main players and positions, and their complex understandings of the relation of logic to theology, the writings of one particular theologian are likely to confusing at best, recognizable only by broad outlines that mayor may not have anything to do with the actual positions he takes. While some treatises of his Summa de ente, such as De universalibus or De composicione hominis might arguably be generally comprehensible apart from the mid-fourteenth century dialogue, others, notably De Trinitate, are not. A study of Wyclif's theology must consider a wide range of subjects, including issues of philosophical theology like his discussion of the necessity of created action and the freedom of human willing, his conception of how Being as such relates to the divine being and created being, and the nature of divine knowledge and willing. It would have to address Wyclif's complex understanding of how divine law relates to justice in creation with regards to the law of Moses, and more widely how the law of Christ applies in human dominium relations. Wyclif's ecclesiology and its ties to his understanding of the pastoral offices and the sacraments would need to be incorporated into the study, as orthopraxy figures very importantly in Wyclif's theological vision. Finally, Wyclif's conception of the ontology of Scripture and how its truths must be understood and realized in the world would figure significantly in a study of his theology. If such a study is more imaginable now than it was a century ago, when the Wyclif Society edited most of his Latin works, this is because scholars have been studying many of the topics listed with the care they require. This chapter will, I hope, contribute to that project by introducing two subjects essential to any Christian theology, namely, the nature of the Trinity and of the Incarnation. Three treatises of the Summa de ente deserve our attention: De Trinitate, De composicione hominis, and De Incarnacione, all composed between 1370 and 1372. Scholars have noted these treatises' likely function as Sentences commentaries, required of all candidates for the degree of a Doctorate in Theology. Such commentaries were generally also the place for taking up one's lance against rival philosophical and theological positions. So it will be important to see how Wyclif's positions on how the three divine persons relate in one nature, and how two natures relate in the person of the Incarnate Word function as likely responses to the Sentences commentaries of earlier Oxford luminaries such as Adam Wodeham and Robert Holcot. Wyclif envisioned his theology as a return to the orthodoxy of earlier figures such as Anselm, Augustine, and Robert Grosseteste, as is clear to anyone who has read him. These theologians endorsed a philosophical position more consonant with realism than with the conceptualism prized by many thinkers in early fourteenth-century Oxford. Wyclif expressly intended to show how ontological realism explicates the complex realities of the divine being and its assumption of a human nature in these treatises, and so our interest is in understanding both how realism functions in his philosophical theology of divine persons, and how his thought relates to that of his likely opponents. In both the metaphysics of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, a universal functions as a nature. In the Trinity, the divine nature is the universal, for which there are three particulars, namely the three persons, each of whom is divine through their instantiation of Divinity. In the Incarnation, the creature Jesus Christ is the result of hypostatic union of the Word, God the Son, with the nature Humanity, a universal by community, in the physical body of the man Jesus. In Christ, the part that normally is played by the created soul in a human being is played by Humanity, although this does not mean that Christ lacked a soul of any kind. In both the Trinity and the Incarnation, it will turn out that Wyclif's conception that the aggregate being arising out of the union of two distinct beings is itself something bearing ontological weight plays a part. Stephen E. Lahey http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/91 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/91 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:28:20 PDT Since the discovery of the scrolls from the Qumran caves in the late 1940s and early-to-mid 50s, the process of sorting, identifying, and editing the fragmentary manuscripts has occupied the attention of scholars. Now, as that period in the history of scrolls scholarship draws to a close, more and more attention has turned to the contents of the texts from the eleven caves in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran as a collection. Several things may be said about this collection. First, the majority of the texts are written in Hebrew, thus pointing to Hebrew as a living language (at least in literature) in the Second Temple Period. Second, a large percentage of the texts found in the caves (about 25 percent) are copies of books later considered part of the canon of the Hebrew Bible; there are also copies of books that were later grouped into the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Third, of the "previously unknown" works unearthed from the caves, the vast majority of them bear some relationship to the books that later became known as the Hebrew Bible. It is with classifying and understanding these manuscripts, both individually and in relation to one another, that scholarship is now occupied. Sidnie White Crawford http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/90 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/90 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:27:12 PDT In recent years, as scholars have begun the long overdue reinvestigation of the archaeology of Khirbet Qumran, the complaint has often been heard that the existence of the texts from the eleven caves surrounding the site of Qumran has affected the archaeological interpretation of the ruins. Would Roland de Vaux, the excavator of Qumran, have identified the ruins as a communal settlement of a particular group of Jews, the Essenes, if he had not been aware of the contents of the scrolls, especially documents such as the Rule of the Community? The question is rhetorical; the answer, of course, is no. Thus, Pauline Donceel-Voûte can say, "with the finding of the scrolls, Qumran archaeology just seems to have stopped." I am happy to report that this is no longer true and that there have been many exciting and thought-provoking studies of Qumran archaeology recently, illustrated by the popularity of the archaeology sections at the Jerusalem Dead Sea Scrolls Congress in July, 1997. However, I would like to approach the relationship of archaeology and texts from a slightly different angle. While the discovery of the texts may have affected the interpretation of the archaeology, it is equally true that the archaeology affected the interpretation of the texts. That is, once de Vaux had identified Qumran as an Essene settlement, and especially once he had identified one of the loci (locus 30) as a "scriptorium" where scrolls were copied, the scrolls were identified as an Essene library. This influenced our understanding of the texts in this way: if the library was the collection of a particular sect, living in isolation in the desert, then the texts were not representative of a wider Judaism of the period. Now, this reasoning did not have much impact on the biblical texts, or even the previously known apocryphal and pseudepigraphical texts, which were obviously known and preserved outside of Qumran. It is the previously unknown non-biblical texts that were most heavily affected by this reasoning. They were unknown prior to the discovery of the scrolls and they were found in the eleven caves associated with Qumran; hence they must be Essene compositions, copied or even composed at Qumran. Thus, they were scrutinized for what they might say about Essenes, but not about Judaism in general (as if the two were completely separate!). So Frank Moore Cross could say "in [the Cave 4] texts we find a cross section of the literature of sectarian Judaism at the end of the preChristian era." Now, however, few scholars would accept that statement. The present consensus, as much as there is ever a consensus in Qumran studies, would run something like this: the best archaeological evidence suggests that Qumran was a community settlement of Jews in the first century BCE and first century CE. The scrolls found in the eleven caves in the approximate vicinity of Qumran belonged to the settlement, and can be understood as a collection. However, the majority of the texts were neither composed at Qumran nor copied there, and many of them are part of the general Jewish literature of the period, rather than representative of narrow Qumran sectarian thought. One group of Qumran texts affected by this reevaluation of the relationship of the texts to the site is the "Rewritten Bible" texts. Sidnie White Crawford http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/89 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/89 Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:12:24 PDT Duckworth's series, 'Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy', is an excellent resource for students as well as for their teachers. The overall quality of the volumes in the series is high. Many of the volumes, in addition to being valuable textbooks, offer much to interest scholars. On the whole, the volumes in the series are written in clear, accessible prose, with technical and theoretical terms defined. They are a suitable length (generally around 130 pages of text) for use alongside either a translation of the given play or the play's text in Greek. Most volumes begin with a chapter on the historical and performance context of the play in question, as well as a brief summary of the play's plot. The volumes then explore various issues, characters, themes, problems, or critical approaches in more detail. There is always a chapter on the play's reception (a welcome addition to the information usually presented in a handbook), usually at the end, and the volumes conclude with a guide to further reading, a glossary of terms, and a chronology of dates relating to the play's production, historical context and afterlife. A few volumes have illustrations. The series' editor, Thomas Harrison, is to be commended for achieving a high degree of both stylistic and formal consistency across the series, even as each author presents his or her position on important critical issues and interpretive questions. Anne Duncan http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/88 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/88 Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:37:59 PDT While the evidence for theatrical practice in the ancient world is admittedly spotty, we are fortunate to have anecdotal evidence concerning two different performances of Sophocles' Electra, both from the fourth century B.C.E., by two of the most famous tragic actors in ancient Greece, Theodorus and Polus, who apparently played Electra. The evidence suggests that their performances may have differed widely; it is even conceivable that the role was something of a yardstick for measuring great actors of the day (a la Hamlet). I will argue that these two "star" actors gave radically different interpretations of the character of Electra, partly due to an approach to performance affected by gender. The idea of interpreting a character is usually assumed to be foreign to ancient Greek theatrical practice, certainly in the fifth century B.C.E., yet I think the evidence leaves us with the conclusion that by the fourth century, "stars" were indeed interpreting characters, and possibly even bringing theories of acting to bear on their interpretations. This paper is thus an experiment in reconstructing the history of dramatic performance in the ancient world. Although the evidence is debatable and more questions will inevitably be raised than answers answered, my aim here is to broaden discussion of performance issues in ancient drama generally and in Greek tragedy in particular. Anne Duncan http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/87 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/87 Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:41:56 PDT The referee system in scholarly publishing offers us many benefits and also carries with it attendant problems. The problems need to be addressed. Referees are arguably the linchpins of academic scholarship: they do the heavy lifting for editors, they provide editors with vicarious expertise, and they monitor the gateway to publication and thus to tenure and promotion. Their presence in the editorial process is the guarantee to deans and program directors that scholarship is scholarship. Referees are also, however, the bottleneck of the publication system. Dilatory or slothful referees idly and thoughtlessly put careers on hold. The system needs changing. People with this much power should be trained. The only requirement for referees is the trust of an editor that the referee is knowledgeable in the subject area. Referee selection parallels the old way of publication where, as recently as the 1970s, authors were published because they knew the editors. In publication, of course, there has been a (mostly) salubrious change. This change has not yet befallen the selection of the referee. Everyone who does it is an amateur at it, and, too often, it shows. Thomas Nelson Winter http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/86 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/86 Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:16:52 PDT Does the predication of a relation between two things imply that each of the relata have attributes predicable as well? In Volume I, Ch. 52 of The Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides discusses this, and he seems to imply that it does. I will argue, using Aristotle's discussion of relativity as a predicate in Bk. 5, Ch. 15 of Metaphysics, that it does not, and I shall use this to discuss the consequent improved utility of an analogy Maimonides constructs between God and creatures in I.53. To do this, I shall need to recount a logic of analogy for Maimonides that he might initially contest, but given our improved picture of relativity, I think Maimonides would agree to its utility in the end. It might be objected that there is no need for a logic of analogy in Maimonides's work; analogy is dismissed as a way to talk about God, and much of Volume I of the Guide is indeed an attempt to create a referential structure through which we can predicate about God. My project is not meant to supplant Maimonides's work; it is; rather, to augment it. If we can chart the great gulf between God and creatures by means of an analogy that Maimonides himself provides by clarifying it somewhat, on medieval Aristotelian grounds, perhaps the referential system that Maimonides constructs will itself be made clearer, even less perplexing. "Plain text" and "page image" versions appear here separately to abide by conditions set by the ACPQ. Stephen E. Lahey http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/85 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/85 Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:28:20 PDT Can we take a medieval metaphysician out of his scholastic robes and force him into a metaphysical apparatus as seemingly foreign to him as a tuxedo might be? I believe that the terminological and conceptual differences that appear to prevent this can be overcome in many cases, and that one case most amenable to this project is the medieval problem of universals. After all, the problem for the medieval is, at base, the same as it is for contemporary philosophers, as for Plato: How do we account, ontologically, for many tokens of the same type? If one object has the property x and another, distinct object has the "same" property x, how to explain the apparent "sameness" of the property x? Is x one property or two? I will argue that William Ockham's ontology, when considered in light of some contemporary philosophical thought, is remarkably fresh and vital, able seriously to be considered as a tenable position, so long as we are clear about what Ockham is saying. This clarity is no easy task, since so much of what Ockham said is rooted in an Aristotelian metaphysics most philosophers have, rightly or wrongly, abandoned. Our discussion will be an ontologically basic one; we will get clear on what Ockham believes there is, and how he believes there can be many tokens of the same type. A more detailed consideration of his logic of terms is precluded by the elementary nature of the discussion. Stephen E. Lahey http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/84 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/84 Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:14:14 PDT The connection between poetry and enchantment in Greek literature is by now a familiar subject. The poet enchants (θέλει) his audience as a magician chants a spell or administers a drug, causing pleasure and the forgetfulness of pain in the listener. As with most other poetic topoi, this one goes back to Homer, to figures like Circe, the Sirens, and even Helen. In this paper, I will argue that two witches from Hellenistic poems should be regarded as poet-figures: Simaetha in Theocritus' Idyll 2, and Medea in Apollonius' Argonautica. Theocritus and Apollonius use the performing female voice of the witch to suggest a kind of performance context and an authenticity for their work. By simultaneously focalizing and objectifying the young, nubile witch as she performs her spells, the Hellenistic poets enchant and seduce the reader. Both Simaetha and Medea use magic to achieve their ends, and both seem to have enchanted their readers, yet neither one is typically read as a poet-figure. The reason for this is bound up with the way in which both poets portray these witches: as young, inexperienced, nubile girls, potentially powerful but also vulnerable. Their gender, youth, and inexperience tend to lead critics to view them as the objects of men's charming language (Delphis, Jason) rather than as the agents of magical, poetic charms themselves. Critics also seem led, over and over, to psychological interpretations of the witches' characters rather than to structural or symbolic analyses of the way the witches stand in for the poet in their respective poems. Anne Duncan http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/83 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/classicsfacpub/83 Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:00:50 PDT In Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae, the women of Athens, infuriated by Euripides' too-accurate portrayals of lustful and treacherous women, are plotting against him. Euripides and his kinsman come up with a plan to dress the kinsman in women's clothes and send him into the women's meeting as a spy. In order to dress the kinsman up, they stop at the house of Agathon, a notoriously effeminate tragic playwright, and ask to borrow some of his women's clothing and personal grooming items. The "robing scene" with Agathon has often been taken to be a straightforward, if devastating, mockery of a historical figure's peculiarities. The figure of Agathon in this comedy, however, serves a far more complicated function: he is a site for the investigation of identity, and in particular for the degree to which the self has an essential and stable nature. Anne Duncan