Ancient Greek Texts Research Articles

Further Evidence on the Ancient, Patristic, and Byzantine Sources of Barlaam the Calabrian's Contra Latinos

Abstract A. Fyrigos, professor of Patristic and Byzantine Philosophy at the «Universitas Gregoriana» and specialist on Barlaam the Calabrian (ca. 1290–1348), has recently edited B.'s anti-Latin works —twenty one works in number—written on the occasion of the ecclesiastical-political negotiations he held in Constantinople with the legates Francesco da Camerino and Richard of England during 1334 and 1335, focused on the Filioque and intended to promote some sort of union between the Eastern and Western Church. This edition, which is prefaced by a highly erudite philological and historical «Introduction», has been unanimously received by the scientific community as «an excellent, exemplary work» and «un contributo so stanziale alla storia degli studi barlaamiti» and the study of the first half of the Byzantine 14th century in general; and rightly so, because, at long last, due to the la borious and succes sful efforts of its author —who devotedly concentrated himself during the past three decades upon the famous Calabrian—, it enables us to approach and appraise B.'s Orthodox thought through his own writings, by putting aside the distorting exposition of it by Gregory Palamas. As far as I know, F.'s masterpiece has been reviewed no fewer than eight times. On my own part, I shall try to shed more light on B.'s texts by focus ing my attention on an aspect of great interest to philologists as well as historians of theological and philosophical ideas, namely, the question of the sources and literary patterns of B.'s Κατά Λατίνων. F. prudently notes (vol. I, p. VII) that in editing the texts «ha volutamente con centrato la sua attenzione sull'aspetto filologico e storico di essi», by putting aside the philoso phicotheological one, which, albeit closely related with the former, represents a clearly distinct aspect of any text. The parallels (marked by «cf.») as well as the cases of dependence (noted by «see») and imitations of various ancient, Patristic and Byzantine Greek texts noted here have primarily to do with the latter aspects, although it goes without saying that they often reveal hidden sides of the former. Let it be said in advance that B.'s texts are so rich in explicit or implicit encapsulations of ancient Greek as well as Patristic expression modes and ideas that a reader who is eager to scrutinize them more than F. and I have will certainly find many others.

Searching for schizophrenia in ancient Greek and Roman literature: a systematic review.

The aim of this study was to systematically examine ancient Roman and Greek texts to identify descriptions of schizophrenia and related disorders. Material from Greek and Roman literature dating from the 5th Century BC to the beginning of the 2nd Century AD was systematically reviewed for symptoms of mental illness. DSM IV criteria were applied in order to identify material related to schizophrenia and related disorders. The general public had an awareness of psychotic disorders, because the symptoms were described in works of fiction and in historical accounts of malingering. There were isolated instances of text related to psychotic symptoms in the residents of ancient Rome and Greece, but no written material describing a condition that would meet modern diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia. In contrast to many other psychiatric disorders that are represented in ancient Greek and Roman literature, there were no descriptions of individuals with schizophrenia in the material assessed in this review.

FROM FAITH TO FAITH: A FRESH EXAMINATION OF THE PREPOSITIONAL SERIES IN ROMANS 1:17

AbstractThis article examines and evaluates important interpretations of the εκ πιστεως εις πιστιν prepositional series in Rom. 1:17. It evaluates these interpretations in light of four criteria: (1) Is the interpretation consistent with usage of the construction in ancient Greek texts? (2) Does the interpretation address a theme of Romans that is prominent enough to account for its inclusion in the programmatic statement? (3) Is the interpretation consistent with Paul's normal modes of expression? (4) Is the interpretation compatible with the Hab. 2:4 citation? These criteria raise serious doubts about several well-established interpretations and suggest that scholars should more seriously consider the interpretation of Chrysostom and other Greek fathers.

Narratives of Transformation: Pilgrimage Patterns and Authorial Self-Presentation in Three Pilgrimage Texts

This paper explores a theme important in pilgrimage narratives from a variety of cultures: the expression of the author/pilgrim’s developing understanding of the meaning and significance of his or her pilgrimage. It does so through three case studies: readings of three first-person narratives from widely differing chronological, cultural and religious milieux. The first narrative is Aelius Aristides’ The Sacred Tales, an ancient Greek text written AD c. 170, which evokes the culture of Graeco- Roman healing pilgrimage; the second is Friar Felix Fabri’s Evagatorium in Terrae Sanctae (‘Wanderings in the Holy Land’), a Latin narrative of Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land written c.1484–8; and the third is Pierre Loti’s Un pèlerin d’Angkor (‘An Angkor Pilgrim’), a French text relating a personal (and initially nonreligious) pilgrimage to the temples of Angkor in what was then French Indo-China, published in 1912. These three narratives were produced in cultures with profoundly different traditions of pilgrimage, including its practice, its cultural meanings and the modes of its description. These significant differences immediately raise the question of the meaning and usefulness of attaching the label ‘pilgrimage narratives’ to all three texts, and invite a reasoning for the exercise of comparison across cultures and across time.

The Generalized Torquist: Specification and Estimation of a New Vocabulary-Text Size Function

The aim of this study has been to construct and test a new model for vocabulary size (V) and text length (N) or V – N relationship. In this study we propose and estimate a new V – N function, the generalized Torquist, for which the elasticity parameter varies with the text length. As its name suggests, the generalized Torquist function includes the Torquist function as special case and thus permits testing using conventional statistical techniques. Thus, it enables us to shed new light on the relationship between V and N. We apply the new generalized Torquist function to eight ancient Greek texts. To our knowledge this study is the first to estimate such a generalized Torquist function using ancient Greek texts. This study, in addition, makes use of the concept of elasticity which can serve not only to explore the relationship between changes in N and V but also as a powerful tool to analyse text similarity pattern.

Co-occurrence patterns and lexical acquisition in ancient Greek texts

Many recent studies have demonstrated that the analysis of word co-occurrence patterns can be a valuable tool for the acquisition of lexical knowledge from unstructured texts. The success of these studies raises the question of whether these results can be replicated in other languages and, in particular, in ancient Greek texts. The adaptation of these techniques for the acquisition of lexical knowledge could provide the foundation for useful philological and lexicographical research tools and multi-lingual information retrieval applications. One method that has proven useful in the study of Greek texts is the use of co-occurrence data to calculate mutual information scores. The approaches used for English language texts, however, require some modification for use with ancient Greek. This paper will describe the methods and modifications required for the analysis of collocational data from unstructured ancient Greek texts so that they produce useful results.

Aeschylus' Use of Psychological Terminology: Traditional and New

Sullivan focuses on eight key psychological terms - phr n, thumos, kardia, kear, tor, nous, prapides, and psych - that appear frequently in ancient Greek texts but which have a wide range of possible meanings. Gathering instances from The Persians, Seven against Thebes, Suppliants, Agamemnon, Choephoroi, and Eumenides (instances from Prometheus Bound, whose authorship is in question, are treated in notes and an appendix), Sullivan first examines each psychic term separately. She then discusses instances of the terms in each play, examining the meaning of the psychic term in the context of the play in which it appears and providing details on Aeschylus' usage. This book sheds light on the rich and sometimes elaborate way in which Aeschylus uses psychological terminology and is an excellent reference for classicists, psychologists, philosophers, and scholars of comparative literature.

Tragedy and enlightenment: Athenian political thought and the dilemmas of modernity

Weaving together ancient Greek texts postmodernist theory, Christopher Rocco addresses the debate between modernity postmodernity that dominates contemporary theory. Interpreting Greek drama within a critical framework informed by contemporary theorists Foucault, Habermas, Horkheimer Adorno, Tragedy Enlightenment makes a sophisticated argument for the continuing relevance of the classical past, focusing on the subject of democracy. The starting point for Rocco's analysis is the impasse in contemporary political cultural theory over the possibility desirability of democracy in a postmodern world. After explaining the competing positions in the current debate, Rocco argues that ancient Greek tragedy dialoguespecifically Sophocles' Oedipus, Plato's Republic and Gorgias, Aeschylus' Oresteiasuggest alternate constructions for this other postmodern problems. Rocco gives a detailed analysis of the contemporary divide over the theories of Jurgen Habermas Michel Foucault provides a provocative reading of Horkheimer Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment. This original contribution to political cultural discourse brings us to a new understanding of familiar texts will alter the grounds of debate for students scholars of the classical the contemporary worlds.

Some applications of computers to the study of ancient Greek texts: A progress report

The author presents a progress report on his computer‐based research on Hellenistic Greek texts and summarizes practical procedures he developed in the course of his study of the Pseudo‐Philonic De aetemitate mundi. He discusses word‐length as a chronological criterion, the formation of testable hypotheses concerning matters of style, and ways to display a text so as to expose its structure. He seeks to promote the use of quantitative methods in Greek philology and to encourage the use of computers in the study and teaching of Greek but is also at pains to point out limitations inherent in the techniques he advocates.

New Light on the “Chaldaean Oracles”

Hans Lewy's posthumous book, the fruit of many years' devoted study, should arouse fresh interest in one of the most tantalizingly obscure of ancient Greek texts. The Chaldaean Oracles were a divine revelation in bad hexameter verse; its authors were believed to be gods (speaking through the lips of entranced mediums?), but it was given to the world, as Lobeck guessed and Bidez finally proved, by one “Julianus the theurgist,” who lived under Marcus Aurelius. It is of serious concern to historians of religion, as the last important Sacred Book of pagan antiquity, and to historians of ideas, as one of the major influences which shaped the later development of Neoplatonism from Porphyry to Psellus. Unfortunately it has come down to us only in fragments.