Apocryphal Sources Research Articles

СРЕДНЕВЕКОВЫЕ ЦЕРКОВНЫЕ БЛАГОСЛОВЕНИЯ (BENEDICTIONES) В ДИАЛОГЕ КУЛЬТУР

Benedictions (Benedictiones) are liturgic rites in Catholic church, pronounced by a priest on individual occasions. Medieval studies viewed benedictions and sacramentals (sacramentalia) as a “clerical magic” due to multiple superstitions that surrounded these practices. The article uses Yu. M. Lotman’s communicative model of culture, which can be viewed as semiotically unbalanced (“core” and “periphery”, including foreign semiotic elements), to present destructive changes in this segment of the liturgy as temporary, corresponding to a certain phase of dynamic interaction of two separate cultures — the clerical one (written) and traditional (oral) culture of ordinary believers. The zone of their closest contact is the religious life in the parish, which the author correlates with the cultural periphery, where cross-border interaction takes place (dialogue between the “core” and “periphery”) thus producing the universal communication code (“semiotization”). It was at the level of the local parishes that a number of “unofficial” benedictions on different ordinary occasions (benedictions of fields, cattle, houses etc.) emerged in the 10th–11th centuries. Written in Latin, they were quite extended by specification, application of apocryphal sources, so the prayers mixed up with incantations using elements of folk oral tradition. Thus, the Church, represented by parish priests, got involuntarily involved in the process of creating a language understandable to its flock, adopting elements of traditional culture. Benedictiones deviating from strict orthodoxy vanish only in 16th century with the spread of printed literature and unification of liturgic books.

Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England by Brandon W. Hawk

Reviewed by: Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England by Brandon W. Hawk Natalie Whitaker Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England. By Brandon W. Hawk. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. In Preaching the Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England, Brandon W. Hawk disrupts traditional scholarship on Anglo-Saxon sermons, preaching, and religion by examining the use of apocryphal material in Anglo-Saxon media through a confluence of methodology that includes media studies and network theory. Early medieval scholars acknowledge the value of cross-linguistic transmissions between Latin and vernacular texts, but Hawk takes this a step further by building a methodological frame that can allow for developing a deeper understanding of not only these early medieval texts but also modern culture and media, “demonstrating how media across centuries are ineluctably connected and mutually help us to make sense of past and present” (21). Considering the current state of the early northern medieval field, and its problematic past, this scholarly intervention is valuable both as a change from traditional scholarship and as a way to become more politically aware of the effects of our studies. In this latter sense, its methodology can benefit not only those in early medieval studies but also scholars of other fields who study premodern texts, digital humanities, and media. In the introduction, Hawk asserts that this project “rests at the intersection of scholarship on Old English sermons, apocryphal sources, and transmission studies” (5) and importantly uses the term afterlife when referring to the texts, emphasizing the merit of this methodology not only for studying these particular texts within the limited field of early medieval English scholarship but also for transmission, translation, media, and network studies. He acknowledges from the beginning that there have been invaluable studies on Anglo-Saxon apocrypha and preaching, yet those look at the individual trees rather than the forest. This study takes a more outward look at the broader cultural intersections of these texts—how their use and adaptation reveal cultural contexts and implications. Hawk’s research follows the precedent laid by Samantha Zacher in Rewriting the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon Verse by focusing on the process of authorial reshaping of apocryphal texts and how this process of adaptation reveals important information about the culture beyond the text. Hawk lays out the first aspect of his disruption: that he is challenging the normative scholarly assumptions about apocrypha in Old English sermons. Previous scholarship has [End Page 158] taken an anachronistic perspective when it comes to apocrypha or has overgeneralized and inferred from Aelfric’s negative comments about them, assuming that Anglo-Saxons would all view apocrypha negatively. Hawk does not discount previous scholarship but synthesizes it within his study and with historical context. His approach makes this monograph not only valuable as an introductory text for those new to Anglo-Saxon religious and medieval apocrypha studies but also useful to those more versed in the field who are interested in reexamining these texts from a different perspective and innovative methodology. Following the introduction are five chapters that model Hawk’s methodology in varying ways, telescoping in and out from big data to the microcosm of specific texts while staying true to the organizational thread that the author has framed around the conceptualization of media networks and the transmission of apocrypha in sermons. In chapter 1, Hawk sets up his forest view of the study and examines the broader picture of networks and media in early medieval Europe. Rather than following previous scholarship focused on Irish influences, he takes the less traveled road of continental sources and transmissions of sermons. He explains further his methodology in the context of media and network theory, describing the multiple layers of media—in this case, sermons, preaching collections (homilaries), and manuscripts. These media are all interrelated yet hold different information that must be examined: a manuscript holds more information (its material information, marginalia, and so on) than does a collection of sermons or an individual sermon itself. With this perspective, the communication structure becomes just as rewarding to analyze as the content of the sermons is. The chapter also integrates work in digital humanities, drawing on the conceptualization of media networks for examining both Latin and...

The Inochentism: Faith, Ritual Practices, and Sacred Spaces. New Data and Approaches

Abstract The Movement of the Hieromonk Inochentie of Balta, known in historiography as Inochentism, has attracted the attention of several disciplines, including cultural anthropology. This religious movement took place between 1909 and 1917 in Bessarabia, Podolia, the Kherson regions, and other areas of the Russian Empire, and it continues to have followers to the present day in the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, and Romania. The documentary base of the research in this field is provided by references to the relevant scientific studies published, oral history data recorded in the ethnographic fieldwork, and the press. The objectives of this article are to analyze synthetically the historical context in which the movement appears, the changes of exposure, and its forms; to mention and explain the attributions of the leaders and status within the group; to study the catechesis and ritual practices; and to describe the sacred spaces. Also, the eschatological prophecies, imagology representations, apocryphal sources and sacred texts, and behavioral and aggregation gestures are analyzed.

Infancy Apocryphal Literature as Source of Quranic Mary and Jesus: A Chronological Investigation

Apocryphal materials are different from the biblical accounts. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Western scholars of Qur'an & Islam applied the historical-critical method to decide apocryphal elements in the Quranic stories about Marry & Jesus, who are figures known from the Bible. The most common apocryphal sources that figures in the so-called copying are The Protevangelium of James, The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, and Coptic Gospel. The earliest person who popularized the hypothesis of origin/original sources of the Qur'anic accounts from these apocryphal stories into the Qur'an was Abraham Geiger in his book Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen? and on the same methodology, Rev. W. St. Clair Tisdall presented Christian apocryphal literature as sources of Qur'anic Jesus and Mary. Later on, apologists and missionaries, particularly orientalists claimed that the verses of the Qur'an are drawn from the apocryphal source material. The main object of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it analyses how the Qur'an and apocryphal infancy literature presents Marry & Jesus's infancy stories, on the other hand, it examines historical interrelations between Quranic & apocryphal texts can be described as the approaches in which texts refer to, and construct on other text.

Zmartwychwstanie Pańskie w norbertańskim rękopisie „Kontemplacyja męki i śmierci Chrystusa Pana [...]” (1662)

The subject of the article is the analysis of 17th century meditations about the Resurrection of Christ included in the manuscript collection of the Norbertine Sisters in Zwierzyniec. The reflection covers the traditions about the triumph of the glorified Lord, the women’s visit to the Lord’s Tomb, the announcement of the Resurrection to the women, Christ offering fish to his disciples, Christ’s meeting with Mary Magdalene and the disciples on their way to Emaus. The mode of presentation of these themes emphasizes a number of dogmas and truths of faith, mostly about the Resurrection of Christ and his divine nature. It is demonstrated in the article that the Norbertine texts were based not only on Gospels, but also on apocryphal sources and emblematic representations. The deliberations clarify that the author probably intended not only to report the course of events, but first of all to give a testimony of faith, to assert the real resurrection of the crucified Christ. An insight into the issue of the Resurrection of Christ in the light of biblical tradition and Old Polish literature is also offered.

L’Histoire évangélique du Leabhar Breac : à propos des sections 10‑13

The Gospel History from Leabhar Breac : About sections 10 to 13. The Leabhar Breac manuscript, dated 1430, is the best witness for a compiled Middle Irish Biblical History, made of a prose version of Saltair na Rann (for the Old Testament) and of a gathering of fourteen tracts (for the New Testament), most of them derived from apocryphal texts, and forming what is now labelled the Gospel History. This contribution proposes an analysis of four of the last five, still unedited, tracts. Number 10 and 13 focus on dated events which are milestones in chronologies : “Jesus’ Baptism” and “Jesus’ First Sermon”. The other tracts deal with the Twelve Apostles (their origin, history and death) and the Seventy-Two Disciples. This study aims at discerning the main sources, and the Hiberno-Latin treatises written on the same subjects. Though relying mainly on apocryphal sources, the compilation maintains several times it has observed a ban : some apocrypha such as the Infancy Gospels (the Pseudo-Thomas Gospel) have been excluded, and the compilator forbids himself to translate the Gospel text. An appendix gives the text of tracts 10 and 11 with a French translation.

The Eighth-Century Sermon De reddendis decimis in London, British Library, MS Royal 5.E.XIII and Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, MS Aug. perg. 254: Edition, Translation, and Commentary

This article explores the history and textual relationships of the unpublished tithing sermon De reddendis decimis. The sermon, which was likely composed in the eighth century, survives in two manuscript witnesses of the eighth and ninth century, both of which have strong Hiberno-Latin affiliations. In addition to presenting an edition, translation, and full commentary on the text, I trace the sermon’s transmission history and manuscript context, and reveal its debt to a variety of late-antique, early-medieval, and apocryphal literary sources. The collocation of these material, textual, and orthographical features, I argue, locates this sermon’s origin in a Continental monastic center under the strong influence of Irish textual and intellectual traditions.

Apocryphal Literature, the Characterization of Satan, and the Descensus ad Inferos Tradition in England in the Middle Ages

This article discusses the role of apocrypha, specifically, the Gospel of Nicodemus in transmitting theological concepts that are not developed in Scripture and considers how such texts were transmitted across the centuries. In particular, this article examines the contribution of the Gospel of Nicodemus and other apocryphal sources to the characterization of Satan, as developed in the descensus ad inferos tradition in England throughout the Middle Ages and also considers how authors’ varying intents, the needs of audiences, and modes of presentation may have impacted the manner in which characters were portrayed and the event was structured.

Iconography of The Birth of the Virgin Mary on the Basis of a Homily of St. John Damascene

As a consequence of the fact that the New Testament mentions few episodes and very few details of the real life of the Virgin Mary, among the Eastern Christian communities several apocryphal legends, that tried to supply this hermetic silence around the birth, infancy, youth, adulthood and death of the Mother of Jesus, arose during the first centuries of Christianity. These apocryphal accounts were then taken up and interpreted catechetically as a useful devotional matter by many Church Fathers, theologians and ecclesiastical writers. The reflections of these prestigious thinkers formed a solid corpus of doctrine, from which very important Marian devotions and liturgical feasts would soon follow. A primordial milestone in this “imaginary” life of Mary is her supernatural birth, after her miraculous conception in the bosom of her old and sterile mother Anne. As a natural fruit of these heterogenous literary and theological sources, from the tenth-eleventh centuries the medieval Byzantine and European artists approached with remarkable enthusiasm the iconographic theme of the Birth of the Virgin Mary as a significant episode of her life. On this basis, in this article we propose a triple complementary objective. First of all, after outlining the essential content of the apocryphal sources, we will broadly analyze the various theological theses that we believe are deductible from the emotional reflections that St. John Damascene expresses in a homily on the subject. Secondly, we will analyze some Byzantine and European paintings on the Birth of Mary, in order to determine to what extent the apocryphal accounts and the doctrinal statements of the Damascene are reflected in the characters, situations, attitudes, accessories and scenographic elements represented in these depictions. Finally, we will state some conclusions that we believe to be plausible in relating the Damascenian texts and the pictorial works of reference.

Law, Farce, and Counter-Kingship in the Semur Fall of Lucifer

Introduction: Lucifer and World of Basoche In this essay I offer a new reading of fall of Lucifer, opening episode of Passion de Semur, a fifteenth-century Burgundian mystere extant in a single copy dated 1488. This two-day religious play, which dramatizes Lucifer's fall through Christ's resurrection, is a composite work, augmented in several stages, perhaps over more than a century. Graham Runnalls has meticulously reconstructed work's textual evolution, from a simple Passion Play to a more extensive drama featuring Old Testament episodes and a host of new comic and grotesque characters. (1) The entire first section of play (lines 1-3419), from angelic fall to John Baptist's appearance, was probably added during a second stage of revision. (2) This added section features allegorical characters and episodes such as traditional debate between Ecclesia and Synagoga and trial of heaven preceding Christ's incarnation, as well as a greatly expanded cast of devils. (3) Such an extensive expansion may have involved several different revisers, yet, Runnalls notes, all modifications in Stage II reflect a tendency towards learned, literate and scholarly: use of Latin lines, introduction of allegorical characters, dramatization of a wide range of apocryphal sources, long speeches including didactic sermons, complex versification--all of these features are of a piece, stylistically. (4) Building on these observations as well as suggestive remarks made by play's editor, Lynette Muir, I analyze Semur's distinctive Lucifer episode in relation to a learned, literate, and performative milieu: world of culture and festive performance in late fifteenth-century Burgundy. The Lucifer episode, in which this slippery figure makes elaborately specious arguments, dallies with dubious allegorical characters, and is crowned king of world, creates a parodie spectacle that recalls traditions of local festive societies and associations of law clerks (basoche societies), which shared many performative practices, including mounting comic plays and yearly electing their kings in public ceremonies. While auspices for Semur play are unknown, and we cannot link drama to any one such fraternity, prominence of mock discourse combined with particular parodie action shows influence of basoche culture on play's reviser. I contend that Passion de Semur, and Lucifer sequence in particular, not only feature mixture of grotesque and sublime that is typical of mysteres, but more specifically foreground a set of vocational identifications and performative practices prominent in Burgundian civic life. (5) The Lucifer sequence highlights cultural importance of basoche societies while obliquely referencing threats of censorship and repression under which they operated during fifteenth century. While recent criticism of Passion de Semur has highlighted its ties to contemporary piety, I look closely at Lucifer episode in relation to secular performance traditions to show how religious drama might have promoted interests of particular urban groups and performed political commentary. (6) While identities of play's reviser(s) are unknown, author of fall of Lucifer segment was clearly learned in rhetoric and terminology. Jody Enders argues, Medieval students' extensive training in disputation would have impressed upon them dramatic potential of rhetoric of judgment in a wide variety of contexts. (7) It is in tradition of clerks of royal courts, or basochiens, of Paris and other grandes villes, including Dijon in Burgundy, that we find most vividly what Marie Bouhaik-Girones calls the intimate link between judicial practice and theatrical practice during this period. (8) Originating in Paris, societies of law clerks, essentially legal apprentices, formed during Middle Ages for purposes of vocational improvement and common amusement. …

From Body to Icon: The Life of Sts Peter and Paul in the Murals of S. Piero a S. Piero a Grado (Pisa)

The narrative cycle that adorns the central nave in the Basilica di S. Piero a Grado in Pisa (ca. 1302) comprises various episodes from the lives of Sts Peter and Paul drawn from biblical and apocryphal sources and local legend and fashioned after the portico frescos in Old St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. While previous studies have engaged mainly with the chronology and circumstances of the edifice's construction, the iconography and political implication of the frescos, which are a unique compilation of the narrative, have gone unnoticed. By analyzing the cycle from within the medieval notion of icon and image making, this article proposes that the painted narrative evokes a theological argument concerning the sacredness of the image and the power it possesses. It demonstrates that the fragmented narratives chosen for the murals are organized in three thematic groups, revealing the process by which the saints’ real, corporeal bodies become transformed into icons. Functioning as a visualized theology that ...

Une homélie inédite sur la décollation de Jean-Baptiste attribuée à Jean Chrysostome. Introduction, édition et traduction d’après le ms. Ochrid, Musée National, Inv. 1 (Mošin gr. 72)

The present article offers the editio princeps of a pseudochrysostomian homily on the Beheading of John the Baptist as found in the manuscript Ochrid, National Museum, Inv. 1 (Gr. 72). The first part of the introduction contains a list of the hagiographical and patristic entries in the manuscript. In the second section we endeavour to identify the patristic and apocryphal sources of the homily and submit the text to a concise literary analysis. It is shown that it goes back to Chrysostomus’ Homilia XLVIII in Matthaeum. One interesting feature of the sermon is the allusion to certain liturgical features for the birthday holiday: the readings of Psalms and Isaiah implied by the homilist (§ 31) have not been hitherto attested. The Greek original is accompanied by a French translation.

La version arménienne du Martyre de Philippe grec : passages encratites et manuscrits inédits

The Armenian version of the Martyrdom of Philip holds some pieces with an encratite flavour absent from the Greek. The present analysis shows the coherence of their content and vocabulary with regard to other encratite sections of the Acts. This is a trace of their early origin. The Armenian version represents an essential document for critically restoring the Greek as well as for understanding the doctrinal orientations which guided the translator in his task. It helps recovering, at last, the Armenian religious milieu in which the translator has worked. More specifically, these extracts represent an important tool to a better understanding of the diffusion of encratite movements, eustathians in particular, in Armenia. Besides, this contribution underlines the importance of apocryphal sources for a better understanding of the diverse religious aspects of Early Christianity in Armenia, notably aspects that have been suppressed by the Church. This article also offers to scholars a synthesis on the transmission of the Greek and Armenian texts, with a list of 14 unpublished witnesses of the Armenian Martyrdom.

‘Die judden sollen dis spiel in iren husen bliben! [The Jews should remain in their houses during this play]: The Ghettoisation of the Frankfurt Jews as Mirrored in Urban Plays

This article deals with the Jewish-Christian relationship in the late Middle Ages as reflected in medieval drama In fact, Frankfurt is one of the earliest centres for German liturgical plays. The ‘Frankfurter Dirigierrolle’ [Frankfurt Direction Scroll] dramatises the persistent conflict between Jewish and Christian burgher in the first half of the fourteenth century. This play's anti-Judaism is situated in a Frankfurt where Christians and Jews lived side-by-side and enjoyed the same legal status. Following the establishment of the ghetto in 1462 (the so-called ‘Judengasse’), the ‘Frankfurter Passionsspiel’ [Frankfurt Passion Play] depicted an even more aggressive anti-Judaism by using biblical and apocryphal sources or by inventing new scenes.

Counterfeit Kulchur

‘An education,’ said Ezra Pound (Guide to Kulchur, New York: New Directions, 1970, 52), ‘consists in “getting wise” in the rawest and hardest boiled sense of that bit of argot’. In American gangster dialect, circa 1930 ‘getting wise’ means wising up to the way the world really works. To be educated in Pound's terms is to realize that the world is run by gangs, that power is a ‘symbiosis of public government, organized crime and private wealth with deep connections’ to both (P. D. Scott, Deep Politics, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996, 74); that the legitimated overworld of politics, multi-national corporations and international finance is linked in myriad ways the underworld, a situation that remains unchanged today. Pound's importance, even his nobility, lies in his unremitting attempt to ‘wise us up’ and to promote a benign underworld of artists as the true bearers of culture in a world increasingly dominated by criminal greed. That this attempt led him astray politically and morally there can be no doubt, but his allegiance to Mussolini, his eventual anti-Semitism and his steady course rightwards from the mid-1930s onward, should not blind us to what he saw as his mission, which was nothing less than to save what was salvageable from the wreckage of twentieth-century Europe. Necessarily then, Pound's great work, The Cantos, is both the secret history of the world and a utopian program relying throughout on information and beliefs outside the mainstream. As many readers have noted the poem has aspects of a muck-raking project and as such is invested in ‘secret history.’ By necessity, this aspect of history in the poem is documented throughout by evidence culled from unofficial and in many cases apocryphal sources that compromise the integrity of his epic project. The most obvious of these are The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which enter the source field of the poem relatively late, in The Pisan Cantos, but this notorious forgery will not be discussed here. Rather, this essay connects Pound's concept of ‘the great bass,’ which he articulates in Guide to Kulchur to Peter Dale Scott's thinking about ‘deep politics’ and ‘parapolitics’ – concepts that have a clear relevance to the idea of secret history.

Holy Week in the "Heart of the Philippines": Spirituality, Theatre, and Community in Marinduque's Moriones Festival

The week-long Moriones Festival on the island of Marinduque, south of Manila, weaves together a complex mix of events including street theatre, processions, religious ceremonies, and a three-night sinakulo that dramatizes the history of salvation with a focus on the Christ story. Present throughout the week's events are the morions, caped and elaborately costumed local men enacting a vow or panata, whose identities are disguised by large headpieces and full-face carved masks meant to resemble Roman centurions. The leading morion is the Roman centurion Longinus, who according to apocryphal sources, was the lance-wielding soldier present at the crucifixion and whose sight was miraculously restored by Christ's blood. The ubiquitous morions and the transformation and martyrdom of Longinus provide an active, experiential route into the story of Christ's sacrifice for many Catholics in Marinduque during Holy Week.

« Les Acta apocrypha apostolorum dans le corpus homilétique vieil-anglais (Xe -XIe s.). Aelfric : De passione apostolorum Petri et Pauli et Cathedra Petri »

The present article is part of a research project about the presence and use of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles in the Old-English homiletic literature, and more specifically in AElfric's Homilies and Saints' Lives (end of the Xth century). There is first of all his homily for the feast of Peter and Paul (June 29th), which after an exegetical part on Matthew 16, tells the story of Peter's then of Peter's and Paul's fight against Simon the Magician in Rome and their martyrdom and death. The Latin source used is the story as told in the Pseudo-Marcellus Passio sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli. Then there is the text in AElfric's Lives of the Saints for the 22nd of February, Cathedra Petri, in which, after an enumeration of Peter's miracles according to the Acts of the Apostles, he tells the story of Peter's daughter, Petronilla, also according to the Pseudo-Marcellus text. The article shows how AElfric uses his apocryphal sources as sermon material for the edification of the `people', in spite of his r...

L’origine de la scène de la nativité dans l’art paléochrétien (d’après les sarcophages d’Occident). Catalogue et interprétation

The article deals with the first representations of Nativity – the Birth of Christ – in Early Christian art. The analysis, consisting of a detailed catalogue of collected examples, covers the period of the 4th century and, as far as it makes use of the existing and published material, is limited to Roman sarcophagi of this period. The fact that the sarcophagi can claim exclusiveness in this respect, highlights some of the issues important for the development of Early Christian art, such as the importance of the city of Rome and the influence of its workshops during the Late Roman empire. The research has led the author to raise once again the often debated issue on parallel development of Christian iconography in painting (catacomb frescoes) and sculpture (sarcophagi reliefs) of the period. It shows namely that no existing examples of the Nativity scene are to be found in the painting of the Roman catacombs and that the rare recorded examples can be conclusively dated to much later periods than the bulk of examples on the sarcophagi. The content of the Nativity scene during this period, starting with the simple presentation of the manger surrounded by shepherds and the two animals, as found on the earliest examples (second quarter of the 4th century), is gradually growing to include other motives taken from the Gospels or apocryphal sources. At the same time, Roman iconographical “formulas” are not to be found in the Eastern provinces where influence from Constantinople is increasingly present. The answer to these differences partly lies in the rapid organisation of the liturgical calendar in Rome (where we officially encounter, for the first time, the feast of the Nativity on December 24 around 330) and its influence on the development of Christian iconography during this period. The research however upholds the importance of “technical” considerations when analysing the origin and use of some of the Biblical motives on the sarcophagi, especially the ones usually destined for the lid area. It is an interesting fact that the entire study should be able to focus on one particular century (4th), one particular production (sarcophagi) and one particular geographical area (the city of Rome). [Author]

The socio‐economic time dimension in Talmudic literature

Attempts to analyse some of the aspects of economic time as presented in biblical and apocryphal sources, and as debated in the Talmudic tomes. Also asks, what is time and what is its social significance? The notion of time and its proper utilization is a major topic of discussion and significance in Hebrew scriptures, Talmudic literature and in subsequent Jewish thought. Demonstrates the scriptural and Talmudic approach towards the time phenomenon and, in particular, the utilization of time as an economic vehicle with respect to “time preference” ‐ the placing of a higher value on present rather than future goods; “waiting time” ‐ the Talmudic theory of interest; “lost time” ‐ the Talmudic theory of foregone opportunities or opportunity lost, and the subtle distinction between “waiting time” and “lost time”, all theoretically insightful and economically significant.

The Hierosphthitic Topos, or the Fate of Fergus: Notes on the N-Town Assumption

Asked to identify fate of Fergus, many students of medieval drama would be apt to cite fate of York play, known variously as portado, the arrest [arret] of Virgin's or simply after Jew who attacked bier being carried by apostles. Although York records are not altogether straightforward, certainly guild charged with performing this play was, at various times, discharged of its duties. In 1431 crowd control was raised as an objection to play, but reformist ideas were also afloat, for another argument against play was that death and funeral of Mary had no basis in scripture. Although special pleading of goldsmiths in 1431 makes their evidence suspect, fifty years later guild assigned to produce Fergus still wanted to be quit of their responsibility. They succeeded, a success that probably accounts for ultimate loss of text.l The loss is unfortunate because we would like to know more about York play. Was Fergus indeed beaten in play as documentary evidence suggests? Certainly there is no such beating in typical apocryphal sources; neither does any such action occur in only extant English play preserving arrest of funeral, N-town Assumption. There fate of attacking Jew corresponds to details of apocryphal texts: hands by which he intended to overthrow bier of Virgin Mary are instead fixed to it. It is this fate that one critic has referred to as the strange miracle of Fergus's hand. 2 In fact it is not so strange at all: such miracles are a commonplace of shrine literature.