Article
-
The Platonism and Neo-Platonism influence on Origen’s exegesis of the Bible
Eirini ARTEMI
Published in Rhythms, expressions and representations of the body
Keywords: Christian Platonist, Greek Philosophy, Neo-Platonism, Origen, Plato, Platonism, Plotinus, Proclus.
Origen is a Christian writer who knows very well not only the Bible and the Christian tradition until his day, but he has studied Greek philosophy and probably Greek literature. His knowledge of Greek philosophy and literature gives him an absolute privilege to deepen and enrich the meanings of the biblical language and terminology. Origen doesn’t adopt Greek philosophy without any critical thought. He accepts Platonism and Neo-Platonism ideas only if they were consistent with the church’s rule of faith. For him, the study of philosophy is understood as an exercise involving moral purification as well as intellectual training, as a necessary preparation for the study of Scripture. In this essay, we will show that Origen was a Christian Platonist, who accepts many things of Platonic philosophy and criticizes many others which do not belong to Plato but were expressed by some other philosophers as false Platonism ideas. Plotinus and Proclus showed a disliked view against Origen’s Christian writings, but they accepted his ideas concerning God and “the things”, deeming them raised by Greek philosophy. In Origen’s theological system, Neoplatonic features can be underlined. The knowledge of the Bible is for Origen the only truth, but Platonism and Neoplatonism provide a simpler and more natural explanation of the revelation of God.
-
Ptolemais of Cyrene (3rd century BC) and the musical theory in Ancient Greece
Laura CAROLINA DURÁN
Original title: Ptolemaïs de Cirene (siglo III a. C.) y la teoría musical en la antigua Grecia
Published in Rhythms, expressions and representations of the body
Keywords: Aristoxenics, Greek Music Theory, Perception vs. Reason, Ptolemaïs of Cyrene, Pythagoreans.
Giles Menage in his History of Women Philosophers mentions Ptolemaïs of Cyrene as a Pythagorean not entirely committed to that school, he thinks that she was probably a contemporary of the Empress Julia Domna, since by her example many women dedicated themselves to studies. Ptolemaïs is the only woman music theorist from Greek Antiquity whose texts are preserved, but we lack biographical data about her. Porphyry’s Commentary on Ptolemy’s Harmonica contains a series of fragments, of variable lenght, from Ptolemaïs’s Pythagorean Elements of Music. In these texts, the female author presents the epistemological commitmets and methodologies of various schools of ancient musical traditions that she divides into two large groups: the mousikoí or Aristoxenics and the kanonikoí or Pythagoreans. These schools have a different understanding of the use of perception and reason in relation to musical knowledge. Pythagorean music theory was base on mathematical principles, while Aristoxenus favored the use of sensory data. When dealing with these themes, Ptolemaïs dedicates herself to the philosophical problema of the scope of reason and perception, a discussion of the mind-body dilema that has traversed the history of philosophy addressed in a philosophical-musical setting. In this work I present and analyze the perserved texts of the female autor, which will allow us to measure the importance of this female figure in the history of philosophical thought about music, while at the same time rescuing her from oblivion in Western culture.
-
Fuente Ovejuna (1619) by Lope de Vega (1562-1635): Moral injury of the body and the breach of rites and social vitality
Victor Sales PINHEIRO; Ayrton Borges MACHADO
Original title: Fuente Ovejuna (1619) de Lope de Vega (1562-1635): a ofensa moral do corpo como quebra dos ritos e vitalidade social
Published in Rhythms, expressions and representations of the body
Keywords: Barroque Literature, J. M. Bernstein, Lope de Vega, Moral Injury, Recognition.
This article proposes a study of the conception of moral injury in the baroque thought of Lope de Vega, based on the analysis of his work Fuente Ovejuna, in which one explores the Lope’s reflection on a local tyrant who disrespects and violates the citizens of Fuente Ovejuna, from the verbal insult, disdain for gifts, breach of rites, culminating in the rape of Laurencia. The study proposes to carry out a fusion of horizons, searching how much the Lope’s social thought regarding moral and social offense can contribute to the reflection on the social process of recognition, that is, how in a society its members manage to recognize themselves as peers, who respect and include each other. Therefore, the dialogue carried out takes place between the Lope’s thought extracted from Fuente Ovejuna and the theory of recognition by J. M. Bernstein. In the first topic, comedy is analyzed as a study of customs, emphasizing how much the dramaturgical tradition has been not merely fictional, but an investigation about morals, politics, and psychology, by its writers, so that Lope can appear as a thinker in this article. In the second topic, a narrative of Fuente Ovejuna is made, to form an understanding of the object. In the third topic, an analysis of various parts of Lope’s work is carried out, in which violations, disrespect and the breaking of ties and rites that imply damage to social self-understanding and vitality of themselves are perceived. The fourth topic presents first step of the core of the analysis, that is, how Lope explains the paradigm shifts to delve into the change in the understanding of moral offense, moving from honour to dignity, from morality to the body, and from man to the figure of the offended woman. In the fifth topic, having formed Lope’s social understanding in Fuente Ovejuna, a dialogue is carried out between this and Bernstein’s theory of recognition, to make explicit the contributions of Lope’s thought to the understanding of moral formation and recognition.
-
Musica Dolorosa – Symphony of the Sublime and the Grotesque
Antonio Celso RIBEIRO
Original title: Musica Dolorosa – Sinfonia do Sublime e do Grotesco
Published in Rhythms, expressions and representations of the body
Keywords: Body, Middle Ages, Music, Self-flagellation, Sin, Soul.
The present work intends to briefly analyze the role of the music in the mortification of the human body as atonement for sins, either voluntary as in the ritual of self-flagellation, and/or imposed for corporal punishment being both perceived as a source of pleasure, pain, desire, and expiation culminanting in the spectacle of scourging. Starting from the concept of the duality of the soul and the body, as suggested by several medieval allegories, the paper aims to make correlations between music, body, desire, religious fanaticism and madness in European Middle Ages, being these relationships the corporeality of musical and religious experience, i.e. through the experience of (self)-imposed flagellation, ascestics would insist the human body would function as a musical instrument where it skin, tendons, throat, torso could be beaten, strechted, plucked, and strummed to produce resonances that were in accord with the pitch and timbre of the crucified Jesus, whose exposed ribs and extended sinews turned him into the harp of the salvation in countless medieval allegories.
-
Sensations and traditions in the discursive configuration of the miracles of liberation of Christian captives (Los Milagros de Guadalupe, 15th and 16th centuries)
Lidia Raquel MIRANDA; Gerardo Fabián RODRÍGUEZ
Original title: Sensaciones y tradiciones en la configuración discursiva de los milagros de liberación de cautivos cristianos (Los Milagros de Guadalupe, siglos XV y XVI)
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Christians, Community, Guadalupe, Sensation, Tradition.
The paper analyses the miracles CXXXI, CXLVII, CLXIIIIII and CLXXXIIII of Los Milagros de Guadalupe, referring to the liberation of Christians from captivity held by the Moors during the 15th and 16th centuries. The sensory, corporal, and affective marks of the subjects of discourse, and the intertextual traces of literary traditions –that of the bestiaries, the evangelical one and that of miracles– identify the distinctive conditions of the sensory and literary community of Guadalupe that gave rise to the collection of miracles. The examination gives an account of the expressive resources used by the friars in charge of the production and propagation of the miraculous stories to establish Christian orthodoxy around the figure of the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe and the symbol and historical fleshing of the captives.
-
Philosophy & Art: The Dispute between Faith and Understanding (1303). The Allegory in philosophical thought and Baroque Art: Ramon Llull (1232-1316) & Vermeer (1632-1675)
Luís Carlos Silva de SOUSA
Original title: Filosofia & Arte: A Disputa entre a Fé e o Entendimento (1303). A Alegoria no pensamento filosófico e na Arte Barroca: Ramon Llull (1232-1316) & Vermeer (1632-1675)
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Allegory, Art, Faith, Johannes Vermeer, Philosophy, Ramon Llull, Reason, Understanding.
The purpose of this article is to analyse the work of Ramon Llull (1232-1316), Disputatio fidei et intellectus (1303), comparing it with the painting by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), The Allegory of Faith (ca. 1672-4). The statute of the Allegory is examined in Llull and Vermeer. It is argued that both work with the theme of the personification of the Allegories and that, in the relationship between faith and reason, the transcendence of the mysteries of the Christian faith is preserved, without hindering the power of reason.
-
Structuring the tradition in the old Catalan Literatures: from Ramon Llull (1232-1316) to Bernat Metge (1340-1413)
Júlia BUTINYÀ
Original title: Estructurant la tradició en les lletres catalanes antigues: de Ramon Llull (1232-1316) a Bernat Metge (1340-1413)
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Bernat Metge, Crown of Aragon, Humanism, Middle Ages, Ramon Llull.
To contribute to structuring the tradition in the Catalan letters of the Middle Ages, links are exposed that root the thought of the great humanist, Bernat Metge, in the great medieval philosopher, Ramon Llull. This link allows us to observe the continuity that, in one way or another and with greater or lesser intensity – and often with leaps of eras-, can be seen in the different literatures. According to the present proposal of textual concomitants, in the Crown of Aragon and through both authors, the connection between tradition and modernity occurs with high intensity in the 14th century itself, right at the beginning of the change in mentality and sensibility.
-
The Protagoras, by Plato (c. 427-347 a. C.), in dialogue with the Ethical Writings, by Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
Wilson Coimbra LEMKE; Bento Silva SANTOS
Original title: O Protágoras, de Platão (c. 427-347 a. C.), em diálogo com os Escritos Éticos, de Santo Tomás de Aquino (1225-1274)
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Dialectic, Philosophy, Plato, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Virtue Ethics.
In his dialogue on the Sophists, entitled Protagoras, Plato deals with the nature of virtue, basically discussing whether it is something teachable. Some scholars, however, have designated this dialogue as aporetic, that is, inconclusive. We must, therefore, try to answer those questions that Socrates and Protagoras may have left unsolved on that occasion. Now, most of these questions were taken up in some works by Plato’s most famous disciple and, later, resolved in the Ethical Writings, by Saint Thomas Aquinas, such as the “Treatises on the virtues” (Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance), contained in the Second Part of the Summa Theologica, the Disputed Questions on the Virtues, and the Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Hence, we must consider them here in the light of the great Aristotelian-Thomist synthesis. To do so, we use the scholastic method of disputatio, in which a quaestio is debated, structured in four articles, addressed by the Athenian philosopher to the great medieval Doctor. The article first discusses whether virtue is a science. The second, whether virtue can be taught. The third, whether virtue is one or multiple. And the fourth, if someone voluntarily acts badly.
-
Deadly passions in the life of Christians: A comparative study according to Isidore of Pelusium (c. 360-450) and Theodore Stoudites (759-826)
Eirini ARTEMI
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Diseases, Isidore of Pelusium, Passions, Reconciliation, Salvation, Theodore Stoudite.
Adam and Eve served their passion of gastrimargy and their ambition to become gods without the grace of God. The result was their exile from Paradise and death. The incarnation of Logos, His crucifixion, His death on the cross and His resurrection gave a second chance of man’s salvation. Unfortunately, people do not put into practice this gift of their reconciliation to God. In this paper, we will compare the opinion of two important Church Fathers, Isidore of Pelusium and Theodore Stoudite. It is important to underline for what kind of passions these Church Fathers speak. Do they relate the passions only with monks or general with Christians? How can we get rid of a passion? Can their teaching be put into practice in nowadays? Which is the worst passion according to them? Are diseases and pandemic a punishment of God for our sins? Of course, we should explain that the passions in the life of a Christian can be proved deadly, but they have no connection with the view that diseases are punishments from God for our passions.
-
Commercial networks between the Byzantine Empire and Europe, including the British Isles
Elena Ene DRAGHICI-VASILESCU
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Byzantine Empire, Commercial networks.
In the literature concerning Byzantium usually the historical phenomena are analysed as they took place along the Eastern-Western axis of its territory. What my paper proposes is an alternative to this approach. Because of the need to circulate goods between the Mediterranean and the North Sea, roads were constructed to connect the two, and along these both merchandises (textiles, metal objects, etc.) and cultural items as manuscripts, ivory for book covers, pigments for painting, etc. were transported. The same thoroughfares and points of connection within a large network were used for religious purposes and by the military. I adduce testimonies to make a strong argument that the division ‘North-South’ within the Empire was as important as that ‘East-West’.
