Article
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The flood and its universality, a transcultural approach
André BUENO; José Maria Gomes de Souza NETO
Original title: O dilúvio e sua universalidade, uma abordagem transcultural
Published in The Kingdom of the Spirit
A transcultural analysis of mythography’s about universal floods in ancient civilizations reveals important narrative splits, which make explicit the problem of trying to unify them. In our text, we will seek to present and discuss some issues related to flood/deluge myths in civilizations from the Levant, passing through India and reaching China, an important counterpoint to Western narratives. This comparison allows us to understand the different epistemes from which these myths have been worked and disseminated, and the challenges for a heterotopic claim of narrative fusion.
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Grasping the Divine essence: Cusanus (1401-1464) and Wenck (†1460)
Marica COSTIGLIOLO
Published in The Kingdom of the Spirit
In this aim, I analyse some theories of De docta ignorantia (1440) of Nicholas of Cusa, criticized by Johannes Wenck. Some interesting themes emerge from the dispute between Cusanus and Wenck: for example, on the threshold of modernity the way thinkers use concepts and words to define transcendence, time, difference. Through this dispute, the end of the Middle Ages appears as a rich intellectual period and a harbinger of continuous insights and new interpretations.
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The Notion of Excessus in Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274)
Luís Carlos Silva de SOUSA
Original title: A noção de Excessus em Santo Tomás de Aquino (1224-1274)
Published in The Kingdom of the Spirit
The aim of this paper is to analyse the notion of excessus in St. Thomas Aquinas (Sth. Iª, q. 84, a. 7 ad 3). We will highlight the influence of the negative way of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite on human intellectual knowledge about God. The term excessus indicates the way of eminence (via eminentiae, per excessum) of our knowledge of the fullness of God’s perfections, that is, of his transcendence.
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Doctrinal features of early Christianity and medicine. From the Didascalia Apostolorum to Gregory of Nyssa
Manuel ORTUÑO ARREGUI
Original title: Los rasgos doctrinales del cristianismo primitivo y la medicina. De la Didascalia Apostolorum a Gregorio de Nisa
Published in The Kingdom of the Spirit
The aim of this paper has been to present the doctrinal features connecting early Christianity and medicine through the theological contributions of the holy fathers. Specifically, we have focused on the evolution of the doctrinal relationship from the Didascalia apostolorum to Gregory of Nyssa. In the analysis of this relationship through the texts we discover two ways of seeing the medicine of his time at the beginning of the diffusion and transmission of the Christian message and the beginning of its anthropology as opposed to paganism or Christianity. Basil represents a less scientific or rational medicine, and on the other hand, Gregory of Nyssa offers us a penitential and even pastoral medicine with evident Neoplatonic philosophical influences. In short, we can see an advance in the beginnings of Christian anthropology and its relationship with the medicine of the time, which can be summed up in the beginning of the ‘Theology of Illness’, which is fundamentally centered on penitential medicine.
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Cervantes’ Ginés de Pasamonte and his literary descendants: from The Pretended Aunt to Manuel Mújica Láinez
Jesús Fernando CÁSEDA TERESA
Original title: El Ginés de Pasamonte cervantino y su descendencia literaria: de La tía fingida a Manuel Mújica Láinez
Published in Returning to Eden
The study establishes how, as a result of a misreading of the episode of Ginés de Pasamonte in Don Quixote, a state of opinion was born that was later reflected in various relevant literary texts of the time, in poems by Quevedo, also in his Buscón or in the text of Avellaneda. This study also analyzes the presence of the Bracamonte family in comedies by Alonso de Castillo Solórzano, in the picaresque novel by Gregorio Guadaña and in La tía fingida, an anonymous work whose presence of this family is very significant in order to affirm or question the authorship of the work by Miguel de Cervantes. In the 20th century, Manuel Mújica Láinez associated the Bracamonte family with the rogues through the protagonist of his historical novel D. Galaz de Buenos Aires, halfway between the Lazarillesque genre and that of the novels of chivalry.
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From Palma to Princeton: Reconstruction and translation of the (lost) Gothic-Renaissance staircase of Calle del Agua
Enric MALLORQUÍ-RUSCALLEDA
Original title: De Palma a Princeton: Reconstrucción y traducción de la escalinata (perdida) gótico-renacentista de la Calle del Agua
Published in Returning to Eden
In this paper, the staircase on Calle del Agua in Palma de Mallorca, previously considered lost, is studied from its documented Gothic-Renaissance historical context by Domenge Mesquida and Byne to its heritage significance. Specifically, it explains my experience as a researcher with the staircase, having to face complex challenges in identifying, reconstructing, and translating into English the inscriptions that adorn it. For the first time, the transcription and translation of the text on the stairway –medieval Catalan prayers– are presented, accompanied by photographs, thus highlighting its cultural and spiritual relevance. The collaboration of the curator from the Princeton University Art Museum in this significant discovery of Mallorca's architectural legacy is also acknowledged.
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Aquinas’ Reading of the Aristotelian Noetic Doctrine in De Anima 3, 5
Luiz ASTORGA
Original title: La Lectura de Santo Tomás de la Doctrina Noética Aristotélica en De Anima 3, 5
Published in Returning to Eden
The goal of this paper is to show that Saint Thomas Aquinas’ reading of the Aristotelian text in the treatise On the Soul (Περὶ Ψυχῆς, De Anima) regarding the nature of the human intellective faculty – especially in the critical passage of Book III – is not only true to Aristotle’s intentions, but is also more correct and complete than the one put forward by many of Aquinas’ modern critics, who only admit in Aristotelian doctrine a passive intellect and an active intellect.
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Conversio ad creaturam and distentio animi: Considerations on non-being in the problems of evil and time in Augustine of Hippo
Bento Silva SANTOS; Adriano BERALDI
Original title: Conversio ad creaturam e distentio animi: Considerações sobre o não-ser nos problemas do mal e do tempo em Agostinho de Hipona
Published in Returning to Eden
The present article is dedicated to trace thoughts about some identifiable correspondences between Augustine of Hippo's conceptions of evil and of time through the indication of a relation between the movements of the voluntary defection of the will and the dispersion in the temporal mutability of the human creature in its link with non-being. To this end, some aspects of these conceptions will be examined both as worked out in De libero arbitrio and those elaborated in the Confessions, more specifically in Book XI (and to a certain extent in X), both works of the hyponensis where they appear, we believe, mutually implicated through the notions of conversio ad creaturam and distentio animi respectively.
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Paradise (c. 1551-1554) as royal scenery: approach to La Gloria, by Titian, in the historical-biographical context of Charles V
Carlos Jesús SOSA RUBIO
Original title: El Paraíso (c. 1551-1554) como escenografía regia: aproximación a La Gloria, de Tiziano, en el contexto histórico-biográfico de Carlos V
Published in Returning to Eden
La Gloria, also called Il Paradiso by Tiziano Vecellio, its author, is perhaps the greatest pictorial creation that the Venetian created during his last years of service to Emperor Charles V. Although it has been defined as a work where the coexistence of the theological, eschatological and dynastic factors reaches the character of a paradigm, and even though its greatness goes beyond the format, there are still numerous doubts that hang around it, fundamentally related to the motif represented, the identity of quite a few characters and the reasons that led to their commission. This research compiles and expands some of the assessments made throughout the history of the canvas, trying to shed a light on doubtful aspects and, along with the religious and private motivations as the driving force of its commission, also allude to those of ideological roots, given the context of religious wars and turbulence of faith in which Titian executed his creation.
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Fall and redemption of the knight in Curial e Güelfa
Sonia GROS LLADÓS
Original title: Caída y redención del caballero en Curial e Güelfa
Published in Returning to Eden
In this paper we propose a reading of the Catalan chivalric novel Curial e Güelfa, following the moral itinerary of the hero from the perspective of the Scriptures, with the intention of adequately assessing the profane character of the text, in our opinion, primarily anthropocentric, secular, and pagan, linked to an Italian humanistic context.
