Article

1. God Can not be Understood. God's Incomprehensibility in the Liber XXIV philosophorum (Chapters XVI & XVII) and its Roots in the Western Philosophical Tradition

   Jan G. J. ter Reegen

   Original title: Deus não pode ser conhecido. A incognoscibilidade divina no Livro dos XXIV Filósofos (XVI e XVII) e suas raízes na tradição filosófica ocidental

   Published in Expressing the Divine: Language, Art and Mysticism

   Keywords: Being beyond being, First cause, First principle, Ineffability.

   The Liber XXIV Philosophorum in its XVIth e XVIIth thesis tells us about the ineffability of God as a consequence of His excellence and also in view of the fact that God can only think Himself. In this paper we will try to examine the base and dimensions of this statement, studying it as a part of a long tradition in ancient and medieval philosophy, i.e. Neoplatonism, and especially in the Liber de Causis.

2. Heaven versus Hell: The vision Tnugdal and the voyage of the soul in search of salvation (12th century)

   Adriana Zierer

   Original title: Paraíso versus Inferno: a Visão de Túndalo e a Viagem Medieval em Busca da Salvação da Alma (séc. XII)

   Published in Expressing the Divine: Language, Art and Mysticism

   Keywords: Heaven, Hell, Seven deadly sins, Tnugdal.

   The Salvation in Middle Ages was connected to the idea of voyage. The medieval man saw himself as a voyager (homo viator), a walker between two worlds: the ephemerous earth, place of tentations and the Heaven, the kingdom of God and of celestials beings. If the individual suceeded in maintain his body pure, he would obtain the salvation, but if he failed his soul would be condemned with eternal chastiments in Hell or provisorial in the Purgatory. It was a medieval paradox the fact that the soul could only be saved by the body. Because this sentiment of guilt, broght by the Original Sin, the population usually searched for salvation by means of a voyage, for example the peregrinations to achieve the Saint Earth (Jerusalem). These displacements were insecures (bad trails, menace of robbery and of diseases) and seen as a form of salvation since the pilgrim never knew for sure if he would come back or not. He wanted to experience in his flesh what Christ and other martyrs had suffered. Another means of salvation was the isolation from the rest of society in search of a life connected to God, such as the hermits and monks did. Because of their despite for terrestrial pleasures and their lives consacrated in prayers and fastings to God, they were considered the purest in terrestrial society. The benedictine monks dedicated themselves to write Visions with the purpose of presenting the chastiments and pleasures of the souls in beyond. Their intention was to show to the people the correct rules of behavior to obtain the salvation. The exempla, such as the Vision of Tundalo, present the types of chastiments based on the seven capital sins, and the actions that should be performed to reach the Paradise: to give alms, to go to mass, to give riches to the Church and to avoid lust. Un common element from the Visions is the emphasis in the sensations of the five senses. For example, stink in Hell and perfume in Heaven. Tortures are explained by the use of darkness, screams and sorrows, in opposition to clarity, singing and happiness. In Iconography, with the Seven Deadly Sins, by Bosch, and The Final Jugdement, by Fra Angelico, the structure of the Visions is confirmed. The topos of the beyond, in the case of the Heaven, are characterized by an edenic landscape represented by gardens, chants, fountains, angels and leafy trees. Once in Hell, the geography presuppose some obstacles such as ways with narrow brigdes, boiling rivers, mountains, lakes of ice and monsters. Thus, the individual in Middle Ages wanted the salvation more for the fear of Hell than from the glories of the Heaven, and the human soul debated herself between the desire for the pleasures and the dread of the infernal abyss.

3. The Mystical Transformation of Medieval Lyrical Topoi in Ramon Llull's (1232-1316) Llibre d'amic e Amat

   Jordi Pardo Pastor

   Original title: La transformació mística dels tòpics lírics medievals dins del Llibre d’amic e Amat de Ramon Llull

   Published in Expressing the Divine: Language, Art and Mysticism

4. The simbolical representations of the Devil in Ramon Llull and Dante Alighieri (13th & 14th centuries)

   Klítia Loureiro and Ziza Scaramussa

   Original title: O Diabo e suas representações simbólicas em Ramon Llull e Dante Alighieri (séculos XIII e XIV)

   Published in Expressing the Divine: Language, Art and Mysticism

   Keywords: Dante Alighieri, Devil, Hell, Midle Ages, Ramon Llull.

   This article intents to recover the fundamentals elements of the conception of Devil and Hell in the medieval culture, particulary in the 13th and 14th century. We have analized the vision of the Devil and Hell discrived by Ramon Llull (1232-1316) in no Livro das Maravilhas (1288-1289), Doutrina para Crianças (1274-1276) and Livro dos Anjos (1274?-1283?), briefly comparing his conception with Dante Alighieri and his Divina Comédia (1307-1321).

5. Pletho's Nomoi - A Case of Polytheism in the Latebizantinian Era and its Reception in the Islamic World

   Anna Akasoy

   Original title: Ein Beitrag zum Polytheismus in spätbyzantinischer Zeit und seiner Rezeptionìn der islamischen Welt

   Published in Expressing the Divine: Language, Art and Mysticism

   Keywords: Byzantinian Philosophy, George Gemistos Pletho, Islam.

   During his stay in Italy as a member of the Greek delegation at the Council of Union in Ferrara/Florence in 1438/9 George Gemistos Pletho criticized the intellectuals of the Latin West heavily for their overestimation of Aristotle and their disregard of Plato. Meanwhile he blamed the Arabic commentators of the Aristotelian corpus Avicenna and Averroes for this misinterpretation, Islam is used as a positive example in Plethos historical writings. On the other hand Pletho s works were received in the Islamic world as well through the Arabic translation of his Nomoi done at the court of Mehmet II. This article offers a short overview of the different aspects of the relation between Pletho and Islam and the transliteration and translation of the Arabic translation of his Compendium Zoroastreorum.

6. Visio et amor Dei: Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464) and John of the Cross (1542-1591)

   Prof. Dr. Raúl Gutiérrez

   Original title: Visio et Amor dei - Nicolás de Cusa y Juan de la Cruz

   Published in Expressing the Divine: Language, Art and Mysticism

   Keywords: John of the Cross, Knowledge of God, Modes of knowledge, Nicholas of Cusa, Self-Knowledge.

   In the light of Nicholas of Cusa s idea that the diverse finite modes of understanding God are founded in the Absolute itself, and thus constitute modes by which the Absolute sees itself, the author interprets the distinction between the beginners , the advanced and the perfect as diverse modes of understanding oneself, God and the world, thus confirming that John of the Cross has a clear awareness of the mediating and constitutive function which the subject has with respect to reality.

7. A Different Expression of the Divine: Jewish Knowledge on Geography Spaces in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

   Márcia Siqueira de Carvalho

   Original title: Uma outra expressão do Divino: O Conhecimento do Espaço Geográfico pelos judeus na Idade Média e no Renascimento

   Published in Expressing the Divine: Language, Art and Mysticism

   Keywords: Geographical Knowledge, Jews, Voyages.

   Voyages, since Antiquity, are important sources for topographical descriptions. Thus, religious persecutions, pilgrimages and commercial routes played a major role for geographical knowledge. This article focuses Jewish geographical knowledge in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

8. Presentation

   Moisés Romanazzi Tôrres

   Published in Mirabilia 3 (2003)

9. The Medical Wars: Proximity of Etnic and Geographic Frontiers between athenians and ethiopians in the VI and V B. C. Centuries

   Cristiano Bispo

   Original title: As Guerras Médicas: Proximidade de fronteiras étnicas e geográficas entre atenienses e etíopes nos séculos VI e V a. C.

   Published in Mirabilia 3 (2003)

   Keywords: Persians Wars, athenians, ethiopians, ethnics contacts.

   This article presents the Persian Wars as a historic factor able to agglutinate the ethnic and geographic frontier between athenians and others ethnics groups if his kept relations. However, our attention will be look upon in this abstract the interactions existing among athenians and ethiopians in the VI and V B. C. Centuries.

10. De haruspicum responso: religion and politics in Cicero

    Claudia Beltrão da Rosa

    Original title: De haruspicum responso: religião e política em Cícero

    Published in Mirabilia 3 (2003)

    Keywords: Cicero’s Discourses, Republican Rome, Roman Religion.

    Analysis of aspects of the roman religion, as put forwards in Cicero’s De haruspicum responso