Christian Literature Research Articles

Slika Indije u apokrifima apostola Tome u srpskom rukopisnom nasleđu

In the Serbian literary tradition, both written and oral, there are special mentions of India. This paper particularly analyses the image of India in the translation of The Apocrypha of Apostle Thomas into the Old Serbian literary language. The basic text is The Acts of Apostle Thomas from early Christian literature. There are over five reductions on the subject and over thirty transcriptions that witness the popularity of this text in the Serbian written heritage. Thanks to them, we can now complete the ideas that had existed about this country in the Serbian literary tradition. India is presented as a country of duality, which is on the one hand mystical, full of riches, wisdom and wonders, while on the other hand it is wild, full of perils, "unbaptized", distant and cursed. Nevertheless, the writer of Apocrypha inserted some Christian traditions and with it, filled the holes of insuf-fi-cient knowledge of Indian customs, rituals and life. This paper also deals with questions rightly posed in the literature of every researcher of The Acts of Apostle Thomas, namely, whether the missionaries had travelled to India for religious reasons - that is, for the sake of preaching Christianity and baptizing the population in the Far East - and also if one of the them was indeed Apostle Thomas.

“When You Give Alms, Do Not Let Your Left Hand Know What Your Right Hand Is Doing”: Alms and Salvation in the Early Christian Tradition

The article is devoted to the analysis of ideas about charity in early Christianity, Judaism and in the Greco-Roman pagan tradition. The focus is on the formation of the doctrine of “correct” alms in the New Testament texts, “Didache”, in Clement of Rome, Polycarp of Smyrna, in the “Shepherd” of Hermas, in the writings of Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. These authors discussed questions about who and how to help, and what kind of reward awaits benefactors. At this time (1st — 2nd centuries), two discussions were going on in parallel in early Christian literature: about martyrdom “according to Christ” and about “correct” alms, and comparison of these discussions gives interesting results.

At the Origins of European Oriental Studies: an Unknown Letter by Benjamin Schultze to Georg Jacob Kehr

The Russian Archive of Ancient Acts funds hold an archive belonging to G. J. Kehr (1692–1740), who stood at the very origins of European Oriental studies. There is very little information about this person. His archive is very large and extremely poorly parsed. Among the letters preserved in it are messages from eminent personalities of those days. Some papers of G.J. Kehr are connected with the South of India (Tranquebar), where Lutheran priests who were part of the so-called Danish Royal Mission were working at that time. Among these papers there is a small letter from B. Schultze (1689–-1760). Schultze became the head of the mission in Tranquebar after the death of B. Ziegenbalg (1682–1719), its first organizer. Like Ziegenbalg, Schulze did a lot for the Christianization of the region and for the formation of Oriental studies as a science. He was the first among Europeans to study the Telugu language, published the grammar of this language, translated the texts of the Bible into it. He studied dakkhinī, a dialect of Hindustani. Schulze published a grammar of this language, outlining its basic rules in Latin. His letter below, addressed to Kehr, is obviously a continuation of the previous correspondence. Among other things, the message contains some rules for reading Tamil texts. In addition, valuable information is given about the work of missionaries on the translation of Christian literature into Tamil and about the activity of the Printing house established in Tranquebar. Finally, the letter mentions the names of people significant for the era (language teachers and translators), who probably formed a circle of acquaintances for both G.J.Kehr and B. Schultze.

Православный реализм в творчестве Ф. М. Достоевского

The article aims to define the artistic method of F.M. Dostoevsky in the light of new ideas about the ideological content and poetics of the writer’s works. As is known, Dostoevsky worked in the gen-re of realism, he called himself a realist, and it is easy to notice the features of social, psychological, philo-sophical, and even political realism in his writings. At the same time, there was always something else in them, something more significant and adding unique originality to the writer’s works. A number of modern researchers (I.B. Avanesyan, A.A.Alekseev, V.A.Voropaev, M.M.Dunaev, V.N.Zakharov, Yu.V.Le-bedev, A.M.Lyubomudrov, L.I.Saraskina, K.A.Stepanyan, A.N.Uzhankov, and others) consider this phenomenon to be grounded in the cultural European Christian tradition. The results of the study of Dostoev-sky’s works by means of historical-cultural and comparative-historical methods generally confirm this as-sumption, but it needs significant clarification. Using the comparative typological method, the author of the article explores various points of view on Dostoevsky’s poetics, systematizes the results obtained on the ba-sis of an original methodological approach, and comes to the conclusion that the most precise term convey-ing the features of the writer’s artistic method is ‘Orthodox realism’.It is known that Dostoevsky called his method ‘complete realism’, ‘realism in the highest sense’, ab-solutely rejecting the label of a writer-psychologist. This circumstance has repeatedly attracted the attention of researchers. While studying various concepts and analyzing Dostoevsky’s own views on the goals and objectives of artistic creativity, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that ‘realism in the highest sense’ is based on the principle of transforming the Orthodox view of the world into artistic imagery –‘Or-thodox realism’. It has been the main principle of Russian literature since its appearance, having countless embodiments in the works of Russian writers. Dostoevsky creatively rethought the experience of European and Russian Christian literature and raised the method of Orthodox realism to an unattainable height.

The Thirteenth-Century Animal Turn: Medieval and Twenty-First Century Perspectives Thinking about Animals in Thirteenth-Century Paris: Theologians on the Boundary between Humans and Animals

<i>The Thirteenth-Century Animal Turn: Medieval and Twenty-First Century Perspectives</i> <i>Thinking about Animals in Thirteenth-Century Paris: Theologians on the Boundary between Humans and Animals</i>

Meghan R. Henning. Hell Hath No Fury: Gender, Disability, and the Invention of Damned Bodies in Early Christian Literature

Meghan R. Henning. <i>Hell Hath No Fury: Gender, Disability, and the Invention of Damned Bodies in Early Christian Literature</i>

Moral Principles that Christianity Implies

The Ancient sages regarded charity as the way of life and cherished it. Charity is regarded as a set of rules of morality. It can be said that virtue gradually cultivates man. It was the belief of the ancients that virtue gives creativity and encouragement to achieve the goal of human life, 'Salvation'. The ethical principles of such a belief are found in John Palmer's Christianity. The literature reveals that charity is rooted all over the world. From Sangam literature to modern literature, it speaks of charity. Charity is the foremost of all things. It is deeply ingrained in everyone's heart. Whether realize it or not, they do not follow. He who realizes it grasps it and seeks the truth. He does the real thing He feels the conscious one clings to charity. Charity is static and can be established everywhere, reflecting morality in a rational man It is a virtue that motivates one to think, such as the expression of impermanence. Charity is the standard way. Scholars have compiled many wonderful kinds of literature on ethics. They are the crutches that give birth to extensive and sustainable ways among human beings today. Charity highlights ethical considerations. Ethical ideas reflect, speak and bring out the sustainable lives of people. It makes people aware of the unstable world and leads to salvation. This article deals with doing good work as a moral principle, emphasizing charity, expressing gratitude, conveying impermanence, and loving. In literature, the flow of life is moral ideas. There is a lot of literature that is rich in ethical ideas. From the Sangam period to modern literature, many things are highlighted about the virtues to be followed by human beings in life. Thus, it reveals the moral principles laid down in the epic literature of Christianity.

The Shekhina and Other Divine Female Figures in the Late Middle Ages: A Synchronic Account

Medieval Kabbalistic literature, especially from the last third of the thirteenth century onwards, was very much preoccupied with the notion of a lower-most Sefirah which was perceived by the Kabbalists as female in terms of gender, a notion commonly referred to in scholarship as “Shekhina”. An important scholarly attempt to account for the appearance of this highly gendered version of the notion within medieval kabbalistic literature, focused on the somewhat earlier surge in devotion to Mary in the Christian west. This article proposes a different and much wider perspective on this question, contending that both the Christian preoccupation with Mary as well as the Jewish gendering of the Kabbalistic Shekhina, should both be seen as reflecting the various vicissitudes related to women and female gender concepts characterizing the medieval west in this period. Specifically, the article focuses on late medieval Christian literature describing divine or semi-divine female figures who were designated by Barbara Newman as ‘Goddesses’, suggesting that this literary trend, which is yet another reflection of the aforementioned preoccupation with women and female gender concepts in this period, could shed light on the gendering of the Shekhina in the Kabbalistic literature.

The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene by Richard Greene

Reviewed by: The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene by Richard Greene Jake Grefenstette The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene BY RICHARD GREENE New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2021. Paperback: $20.00. xvi + 591 pages. ISBN: 9781324020264. Richard Greene’s The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene is a welcome addition to a recent surge in Greene scholarship—a surge made possible in large part by the biographer’s own prior research into his subject’s life and letters. I first read and enjoyed Richard Greene’s Graham Greene: A Life in Letters (Abacus, 2008) in 2015 for an undergraduate tutorial, which was set (appropriately enough) in the chaplain’s rooms at Oriel College, Oxford. After the tutorial, I recommended Richard Greene’s scholarship to friends both inside and outside the academy. I would do so (and indeed have done) again with this follow-up text, which offers a more narrative-driven and comprehensive account of Greene’s varied literary, romantic, and spiritual life. Two passages in The Unquiet Englishman will be of special interest to Newman scholars. The first comprises a nuanced interpretation of Graham Greene’s recurrent and challenging self-description as “not a Catholic writer but a writer who happens to be Catholic” (105). This formulation, which has just as often been understood as an ironic affirmation as it has a dismissal of (or even abdication from) his Catholic faith, is read by the biographer in light of Greene’s (equally recurrent, and equally challenging) appeals to The Idea of a University. Richard Greene points us to this seminal passage, which Graham would “trot out” ostensibly in order “to shut down discussion of the Catholic content of his work”: I say, from the nature of the case, if Literature is to be made a study of human nature, you cannot have a Christian Literature. It is a contradiction in terms to attempt a sinless literature of sinful man. You may gather something very great and very high, something higher than any Literature ever was; and when you have done so, you will find that it is not Literature at all (105).1 [End Page 83] The biographer here raises a classic problem: by framing himself in negative terms as “not a Catholic writer,” and by invoking Newman’s line (perilously out of context) that one “cannot have a Christian Literature,” has Graham Greene—wittingly or unwittingly—subordinated his Christianity to his craft? Richard Greene’s initial response to this problem is to endorse Ian Ker’s thesis: Graham Greene “has badly misread Newman”—for, properly understood, “Newman was merely arguing against the notion that one could study Catholic writers and exclude pagans” (105–106).2 But in the discussion that follows, Richard Greene admits a deeper sense of irony (and, by extension, understanding of Newman) than is usually allowed.3 Drawing on his (probably unparalleled) knowledge of the development of Greene’s thought and faith, the biographer locates this claim in a period of his life in which “Greene himself was explicitly struggling with the problem of how a Catholic sense of the soul and of providence altered the craft of fiction” (106). “Providence” is the key word here. Catholicism, for Graham Greene, is not merely a jersey that one sports; it is a totalizing description of the universe. To claim that he is “not a Catholic writer but a writer who happens to be Catholic” is only to ironize, since the nature of providence (as Graham understands it) is such that it extends to every corner of facticity and fiction.4 Such a view is intended to dismantle any clean distinction between “Christian” and “secular” writing. And indeed, this is the very theological drive underpinning Greene’s famous themes of grace and mercy, themes afforded often to his most helpless and hapless protagonists. Richard Greene’s key insight, I take it, is this: that “Greene’s sense of craft” is something finally “shaped by his faith—the faith and the craft are not separate” (106). The second passage for our consideration represents a remarkable development of Richard Greene’s own understanding of the Newman-Greene relationship. In his earlier Life in...

David Abulafia, The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean: Rethinking the Mediterranean in Jewish and Christian Literary Culture from the Early Roman Empire

As part of NTT JTSR’s series on Key Texts, the present article discusses David Abulafia’s monograph The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean. It explains Abulafia’s approach to the Mediterranean as a distinctive region in the context of the wider field of Mediterranean studies. The article then explores the potential impact of Abulafia’s specific approach on the study of Judaism and Christianity from the Graeco-Roman period, taking several Jewish and Christian literary texts from the early Roman Empire as case studies. It is suggested that Abulafia’s transmaritime approach to the Mediterranean as a region offers a range of potential research avenues that has not yet been exploited by scholars of ancient Judaism and early Christianity, inviting us to recognise the pivotal role of the Mediterranean Sea in ancient Judaism and early Christianity, both as a topos and as a shaping force.

Hell’s Kitchen: The Banquet in the Hereafter and the Reflexion of Zoroastrian Eschatological Motifs in the Qurʾān

This article discusses potential Zoroastrian prefigurations concerning the Qurʾānic imagination of tormenting and distasteful food in hell. Although research on paradise and hell in the Qurʾān and the Islamic tradition has recently undergone a significant revival, recognizing potential allusions to Jewish, Christian, and—to a lesser extent—ancient Arabic traditions, Zoroastrian texts continue to be largely neglected. While scholars have argued that the banquet scenes in hell have no antecedents in Jewish or Christian literature and should therefore be understood as echoing or rather inverting and perverting ancient Arabic evocations of generous hospitality, some remarkable parallels in the Zoroastrian tradition will be brought to attention here. It is thus intended to argue for the plausibility of a reflection of Zoroastrian ideas in the Qurʾānic milieu, particulary in relation to eschatological ideas.

Hell Hath No Fury By M. R. Henning (2021) and Divine Bodies By C. R. Moss (2019)

Hell Hath No Fury: Gender, Disability, and the Invention of Damned Bodies in Early Christian Literature By M. R. Henning (2021) New Haven: Yale University Press, xxii + 261pp. Divine Bodies: Resurrecting Perfection in the New Testament and Early Christianity By C. R. Moss (2019) New Haven: Yale University Press, xxi + 195pp.

Caught in Translation. Studies on Versions of Late Antique Christian Literature, edited by Madalina Toca and Dan Batovici

Caught in Translation. Studies on Versions of Late Antique Christian Literature, edited by Madalina Toca and Dan Batovici

Artwork Analysis of Anastasis Fresco at Khora South Chapel and Its Interaction with the Architectural Program

Bu makalede Kariye Manastırı güney şapelinde yer alan Anastasis freskinin ikonografik olarak çözümlenmesi ve bu yapıtın yapının mimari programıyla kurduğu ilişkinin irdelenmesi hedeflenmiştir. İlk olarak eserin yer aldığı Kariye (Khora) Manastırı mimari nitelikleri bakımından incelenmiştir. Eserin sanatçısı ve hamisi hakkında bilgi verilmesinin ardından, esere konu olan Anastasis temasının mitolojik kökeni irdelenmiştir. Anastasis freskinin yapımında kullanılan tekniğin özgün tarafları ortaya konmuştur. Yapıtın ikonografik çözümlemesi yapılırken Erwin Panofsky’nin geliştirdiği yöntemden faydalanılmıştır. Bu kapsamda Anastasis freski incelenirken ilk olarak biçimsel analizi yapılarak kompozisyonda yer alan figürlerin birbirleriyle ilişkileri irdelenmiş; ikinci aşamada teolojik ve alegorik bilgiler ışığında figürlerin temsil ettiği karakterler ve aktarılan kavramlar ortaya çıkarılmaya çalışılmıştır. Üçüncü aşamada ise yapıtın, dönemin koşulları içerisinde sahip olduğu anlamlar irdelenirken; yakın döneminde üretilen, benzer temaya sahip eserlerle de karşılaştırılmıştır. Son olarak yapının mimari ve ikonografik programları arasındaki etkileşim ele alınmıştır.Kariye Manastırı, mimari programla ikonografinin iç içe geçtiği, hatta ikonografiyle anlatılan hikaye dizisinin mimari elemanları belirlediği bir düzene sahiptir. Bu nedenle Rönesans’a öncülük yapan Bizans Sanatı ikonografisinin incelenebileceği özgün örnekler arasında sayılabilir. Kariye güney şapeli apsis yarım kubbesi üzerinde yer alan Anastasis freski, Hristiyan literatüründe önemli bir yeri olan diriliş temasını işlemektedir. Şapeldeki ikonografik programın bütünü düşüldüğünde diriliş sahnesi ana temayı oluşturmaktadır. Anastasis freskinin parekklesionda yer alması, mezarı burada bulunan Kariye Kilisesi’nin hamisi Metokhites’in ölümsüzlük / diriliş beklentisini de simgelemektedir.

First International conference on Early Christian Literature, Late Antique and Byzantine Hagiography. Literary connections between the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles and the Saints Lives-Portraits of Holy (Wo)men

-

The Oxford Handbook of Heracles ed. by Daniel Ogden

Reviewed by: The Oxford Handbook of Heracles ed. by Daniel Ogden Thomas J. Sienkewicz The Oxford Handbook of Heracles. Edited by Daniel Ogden. Oxford Handbooks, New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. xxxi + 571. Hardback, $150.00. ISBN: 978-0-19-065098-8. The Oxford Handbook of Heracles (henceforth Heracles) is a significant addition to Oxford’s invaluable series of handbooks. Heracles is the first of the more than forty Oxford handbooks on Classical topics to focus not only on a mythological subject but also on a single mythological figure. Other handbooks have focused on single authors like Hesiod or Thucydides or on topical subjects like warfare and sports. The scale of Heracles’ importance in antiquity more than justifies the existence of this handbook, which is the first wide-scale treatment of the hero in English. The 39 contributors to this volume have undertaken a truly herculean task, namely, to survey the ancient literary and iconographic references to Heracles and to examine the hero’s treatment in various ancient genres and media and from a number of thematic perspectives. The result is a handbook which promises to become a standard resource for anyone interested in Heracles, from the novice undergraduate to the advanced scholar. In his introduction, editor Daniel Ogden explains the need for, and structure of, this handbook, provides an overview of previous scholarship on Heracles and also offers three valuable chronological lists related to the hero’s labors: 1) ancient literary and iconographic references in the archaic and classical periods to various sets of labors (not necessarily twelve in number); 2) examples from the Hellenistic and Roman periods illustrating a more canonical list of twelve labors; and 3) a table which outlines the earliest references to each of the twelve labors and their geographic distribution, while emphasizing the Peloponnesian primacy of the labors. [End Page 113] The handbook proper has 38 essays written by an impressive group of international scholars. These essays are grouped in five parts, with each essay accompanied by an extensive bibliography. Part I, entitled “Before the Labors,” offers two essays dealing with the hero’s birth, childhood and his madness. There are twelve essays in Part II, one on each of the canonical labors. The hero’s parerga or side-labors are the subject of Part III, with seven essays on the following topics: brigands and cruel kings like Saurus, Cacus, Antaeus and Busiris; Heracles’ role in the Argonautic Expedition; the hero’s dealings with Troy (Laomedon, Hesione and the sea-monster); Auge and Telephus; the Gigantomachy; Oechalia, Delphi and Omphale; and Deianira, the hero’s death and his apotheosis. In Part IV the hero’s appearances in ancient epic, tragedy, comedy, the philosophical tradition and classical art are discussed in individual essays. More than one-third of Heracles is devoted to the twelve essays in Part V, entitled “Themes.” Here Heracles is discussed, in succession, as: quest hero; triangulated with Hera and Athena; rationalized and allegorized; master of geographic space; ancestor; connected with Macedonia and Alexander the Great; Greek cult figure; parallel to the Phoenician deity Melqart; Roman cult figure; tied with Caesar and the Roman Emperors; and referenced in early Christian literature and art. All these themes, it should be emphasized, deal with the hero’s appearance and interpretation in antiquity. Discussion of Heracles in terms of various modern theories of myth is not within the defined scope of this handbook. The final essay in Part V is a sweeping survey of Heracles’ reception from the end of antiquity to the 21st century. The wide range of topics covered in Heracles illustrates the many roles played by this hero, the diverse ways his myth was interpreted and used and his prominence across the entire Greco-Roman world throughout antiquity and beyond. While Heracles generally focuses on both the literary and the iconographic representations of the hero, the essays are accompanied by only 46 black-and-white figures. Most of the iconographic material is referenced via the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Kahil, L. et al., eds. 1981–1999, Zurich and Munich: Artemis; henceforth LIMC). Although the standard scholarly reference for mythological iconography, the print version of the LIMC is...

Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions

Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions

Raising the Roof in Cædmon's Hymn

Raising the Roof in <i>Cædmon's Hymn</i>

Robyn Faith Walsh, The Origins of Early Christian Literature. Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2021

Article Robyn Faith Walsh, The Origins of Early Christian Literature. Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2021 was published on October 1, 2022 in the journal Historische Zeitschrift (volume 315, issue 2).

Hell Hath No Fury: Gender, Disability, and the Invention of Damned Bodies in Early Christian Literature. By Meghan R. Henning

Hell Hath No Fury: Gender, Disability, and the Invention of Damned Bodies in Early Christian Literature. By Meghan R. Henning