Gregory's Work Research Articles

Lexicon Gregorianum, Worterbuch zu den Schriften Gregors von Nyssa (review)

Reviewed by: Lexicon Gregorianum, Wörterbuch zu den Schriften Gregors yon Nyssa Lucian Turcescu Friedhelm Mann , editor Lexicon Gregorianum, Wörterbuch zu den Schriften Gregors yon Nyssa Vol. 1 ; Vol 2 Leiden: Brill, 1999, 2000 Pp. xviii + 664; Pp. xi + 555$276. €225 (per vol.). Werner Jaeger, Hermann Langerbeck, and Heinrich Dörrie, the previous editors of the critical edition of the Gregorii Nysseni Opera (GNO), all thought of a dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa's writings, conceived along lines similar to those of G. Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament and C. Mayer's Augustinus-Lexikon. The Forschungsstelle Gregor yon Nyssa at the Westfälische Wilhelms University in Münster became the place for this enterprise, most recently under the direction of Wolf-Dieter Hauschild, who is also the head of the Seminar für alte Kirchengeschichte at the same university. As Hauschild tells us in the foreword to the first volume of the Lexicon, shortly after Dörrie's death in 1983, the Forschungsstelle was confronted with two problems which seriously affected the feasibility of the project: financial cuts and the absence of a number of volumes from the GNO. At the time of the publication of the Lexicon volumes reviewed here, GNO III/3 and 5 (De anima et resurrectione and Epistula canonica) and IV/1 and 2 (Apologia in Hexaemeron and De hominis opificio) still awaited publication; accordingly, older critical editions were used in those cases. Faced with these difficulties, the researchers at the Forschungsstelle [End Page 531] adopted a compromise solution: the projected Lexicon should be a combination of index, concordance, and dictionary. Friedhelm Mann, a research associate at the Forschungsstelle, was the designated editor. Over the years, his efforts to bring such an ambitious project to completion have been supported by other scholars, all of whom are duly acknowledged in the foreword. Projected in seven volumes, with the last one expected to appear in 2004, the Lexicon is the impressive result of more than three decades of dedicated scholarly research at the Forschungsstelle. In the introduction to the first volume, Mann explains how the Lexicon was produced, how it is to be used, and what it is meant to be. Like a word index, the Lexicon includes and explains all the occurrences of individual lemmata. Like a concordance, it tries to illustrate the use of individual lemmata where they are found. Variant readings mentioned in the critical edition of Gregory's own writings are also included in many cases. Yet, far from being a mere word list, this reference work documents Gregory's complete vocabulary, taking account of the syntax, meaning, and connotations of every occurrence of a key word in his writings. It is meant to serve as a philological, historical, philosophical, and theological tool. The complete Lexicon will comprise more than thirteen thousand entries (common words such as prepositions and pronouns are obviously omitted). Each volume will consist of approximately six hundred three-column pages. Sixty works by Gregory of Nyssa have been scoured. They are easily identifiable in the lemmata by numbers, the key for which is in the introductory section and on a loose page inserted in each volume for handy referencing. A notable absence in the list of works is Basil of Caesarea's famous Epistle 38 on the difference between ousia and hypostasis, a work which an increasing number of scholars attribute to Gregory of Nyssa today-a conclusion obviously shared by neither today's editors of the GNO nor the present Lexicon editor. A concept of interest for patristic scholars and theologians is, for example, . Occurring 2,251 times in Gregory's works, is dealt with on forty-two pages in the first volume of the Lexicon. The entry is divided into two main parts. First, as in an index, an overview is provided of the meanings of and Gregory's use of it in a formal (especially grammatical) way. Second, the occurrences of are arranged from the point of view of the subject matter, i.e., an overview of important themes connected with , whose occurrences are presented in the context in which they are used. Another example of a major entry is , which is...

Hume's influence on John Gregory and the history of medical ethics.

The concept of medicine as a profession in the English-language literature of medical ethics is of recent vintage, invented by the Scottish physician and medical ethicist, John Gregory (1724-1773). Gregory wrote the first secular, philosophical, clinical, and feminine medical ethics and bioethics in the English language and did so on the basis of Hume's principle of sympathy. This paper provides a brief account of Gregory's invention and the role that Humean sympathy plays in that invention, with reference to key texts in Gregory's work. The paper also considers two interesting and perhaps provocative ways in which Hume can be read through Gregory: first, sympathy as a principle of scientific discovery in Hume's science of man and moral physiology; and sympathy as gendered feminine in Hume's moral philosophy. Hume's principle of sympathy is at the core of Gregory's medical ethics and the histories of Western medical ethics and bioethics pivot on Gregory--and, therefore, on Hume--as it does on few other figures.

Kenya Rift International Seismic Project, 1989–1990 Experiment

Ever since Gregory's work at the turn of the century, the extensional structures extending through central Kenya have been recognized as the classic example of a continental rift zone. Because of the scale and variety of rift features present, this locality has fascinated geologists and geophysicists since its discovery.

What's the use: William King Gregory and the functional morphology of fossil vertebrates

In 1918 William King Gregory, professor of vertebrate paleontology at Columbia University, responded to a letter from Samuel Wendell Williston pertaining to the latter's retirement. Williston and Gregory were among the country's leading students of fossil reptiles, and Williston particularly desired Gregory as his successor at the University of Chicago. Gregory, however, noted that his specialized interests made him an inadequate candidate for the position: "The evolution of the locomotor apparatus, of food capturing apparatus, and functional and structural differences among classes, orders, etc," he claimed, "have so preoccupied me that I am largely ignorant of the daily work of paleontologists, the work in stratigraphy, correlation, migration, systematics, and field collecting." 1 Questions of functional morphology indeed dominated Gregory's work, and he turned down Williston's request. More important, a concern with such problems distinguished Gregory's interests from those of many of his colleagues, and led him to develop a dynamic program of research on the functional morphology of fossil vertebrates. On the basis of that research he offered important new interpretations and considerably expanded the domain of questions, methods, and insights within the field of vertebrate paleontology. Traditionally, vertebrate paleontologists had demonstrated little concern with questions of habit, use, or the relationship between form and function. Georges Cuvier, Vladimir Kovalevsky, and Louis Dollo had, of course, examined problems of functional morphology, and many others no doubt considered questions pertaining to the use and adaptation of parts.2 Nevertheless, most

The spring, the seed and the tree: Gregory of Tours on the wonders of nature

In the preface to his liturgical calendar The reckoning of the course of the stars Bishop Gregory of Tours (538–594) — author also of Ten books of histories and Eight books of miracles as well as of a Commentary on the understanding of the Psalter (of which, however, only fragments are preserved) — declares God's “wonders” of the natural world to be superior to the seven ancient wonders of the world. The reason for this is that the latter, being works of men, are subject to decay and destruction, while the former, as miraculous works of God, are divinely sustained and renewed daily or annually, thereby becoming imperishable. An examination of the associative contexts in which two of these wonders — the sea (enlarged to include water in its various forms) and plant life — occur in the rest of Gregory's works reveals several essential themes of his thinking not only about nature, but also about God, man and society. Thought, for him, nature as a (divinely sustained) system of regularities does exist as a kind of backdrop, sudden unpredictable divine — and sometimes diabolic — action in and through phenomena occupies the center of the stage. Gregory tends to see this action in the shape of what he regards as pre-existing images or patterns of invisible spiritual truth, to which the visible, even material, structure of events must necessarily conform. He shows, too, how this action could reflect as well as meet various needs of the individual and of society as a whole. An association which recurs almost constantly in his treatment of divine action in these natural phenomena, which he sometimes describes as analogous to that in man, is precisely that with the cluster of closely related concepts of renewal, rebirth and creation ex nihilo. Together with what appears as an extreme, as it were ‘poetical’, sensitivity to sudden perceptions and intuitions, something like a longing for and surrender to what he describes as “astonished admiration” may have helped to make possible his recognition of that which he designated as divine creative power in the world of visible reality as well as in man's inner experience. His seeing this as an essential dynamic of the holy may mean that he felt it to be a fundamental need and concern not only of the individual personality but also, more obscurely, of the society in which he found himself.

History of American paleoanthropological research on early Hominidae, 1925–1980

AbstractUnderstanding of the early stages of hominid evolution prior to 1925 was based primarily on comparative morphological evidence derived from extant primates. With the publication of Australopithecus by Dart in 1925 and subsequent research in South Africa, new possibilities for empirical assessment of early hominid evolutionary history were opened. It was Gregory's work, with Hellman, reported at the first meeting of the AAPA in 1930, that convinced many workers of the hominid status of Australopithecus. The debunking of Eoanthropus as a Pliocene hominid, far from having a totally negative effect, showed that cranial expansion had occurred after bipedalism in hominid evolution, demonstrated that chemical dating had come of age, and in a broader sense, had underlined that phylogenetic hypotheses are falsifiable by recourse to the evidence. The input of biological sciences into early hominid studies, as exemplified by Washburn's “new physical anthropology,” reduced taxonomic diversity and focused attention on paleoecology and behavior. The development of the multidisciplinary approach to field research, pioneered by L. Leakey and brought to fruition by Howell, was of fundamental importance in accurately dating and understanding the context of early hominids. Archaeology, primatology, comparative and functional morphology, and morphometrics have contributed substantially in recent years to a fuller understanding of early hominid evolution.American granting agencies have heavily supported early hominid research but patterns of funding have not kept pace with the change from research based largely on individualistic enterprise to multidisciplinary research projects.Future early hominid research, if funding is available, will likely be directed toward investigating temporal and geographic gaps now known in the fossil record and in more rigorous and multidisciplinary investigations of early hominid behavior.

The saint as patron in the work of Gregory of Tours

Gregory of Tours and his world have long been out of fashion; but despite modern neglect of his works, Gregory gives us access to an understanding of many important aspects of late antiquity, among which is the role of the saint as patron. Saints appear as patrons throughout Gregory's works; the focus of this study is his account of the miraculous deeds of St. Martin. The role of the saint as patron is best understood against the background of the recent work of Peter Brown on holy men in late antiquity; several other scholars have also emphasized the importance of patrons in the Roman world. Appeals to the saints in Gregory's world are to be understood as one manifestation of the Roman ritual of appeal to a patron. More important than their afflictions are the social circumstances of those who appeal to St. Martin and analyzing some others in detail, we can demonstrate that the most important elements in those appeals are the social weakness of the appellants, their need for a saintly patron, and Martin's role as a model saintly patron in Gregory's world

St. Gregory Palamas

Six centuries ago, in 1368, a man who had been dead only nine years was canonised by the orthodox church and raised to the dignity of Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, and of Cyril as a defender of orthodoxy. The sexcentenary of his death, 1959, saw the publication of three volumes—the first being one of the ‘Mâitres Spirituels’ series, the second an introduction to the study of St. Gregory, and the third and most important a critical edition of St. Gregory's major work: Treatise in defence of the Holy Solitaries. All three were the work of Jean Meyendorf who can rightly claim to have been the first scholar to have offered a full-dress sympathetic study to the west of a neglected and much misunderstood theologian. Unfortunately Meyendorf's work is spoilt by his inability to understand the reformed tradition. Nevertheless he has countered or at least challenged a settled assumption of western theology that the great christological debates saw the end of any lively thinking and dogmatic development in the Eastern Church. Harnack in his History of Dogma Vol. IV was only repeating what was already a long received opinion when he said that from the codification of dogma by John of Damascus those dogmas ‘had become a sacred inheritance from the classic antiquity of the Church but they had as it were fallen to the ground. The worship of images, mysticism and scholasticism ruled the Church’ (p. 352).But even Harnack gives at least a passing nod to St. Gregory when he admits that ‘no doubt another rather important dispute agitated the Church in the fourteenth century–the Hesychastic controversy–but’, he adds, ‘dogma, and to some extent the Church, remained ultimately unaffected’ (p.353).

Gregory Nazianzen in the Service of Humanist Social Reform

In 1539 Sébastien Gryphius, noted humanist printer of Lyon, published a French translation of Sermon Fourteen of Gregory Nazianzen, περί ϕιƛοπτωχίαs or De amore pauperum. It was entitled De la cure, et nourrissement des Pauvres, Sermon du Benoist sainct Gregoire Nazanzene, surnommé par excellence Theologien and it was the first of Gregory's works to be printed in French. Though the edition is included in Baudrier's Bibliographie lyonnaise, it has so far escaped the notice of specialists working on Gregory Nazianzen. What is important about the edition, however, is not that it is a bibhographical ‘first,’ but that it reveals some new dimensions of humanist interest in the early Fathers of the Church.Of the three known copies of La cure et nourrissement des Pauvres, one is in the Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Genève, where it is bound with another work printed by Gryphius in 1539, La Police de l’aulmosne de Lyon; a second belonged to Baudrier and was also bound with La Police de Vaulmosne; and the third is at the Archives de la Charité et de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Lyon.

Stanford's Compendium Geography and Travel

ONE of the characteristics of the age of synthesis in which we live is a desire on the part of the people of Great Britain for a better knowledge of the Britains beyond the seas. Hence spring Imperial conferences and schemes for reciprocal education; hence, also, a crop of volumes dealing with the geography, history, and conditions of the colonies. Among these not one has been written with a deeper insight into the problems which confront a young nation than Prof. Gregory's work on Australia and New Zealand. It is too much the custom for writers to judge the measures of a new country by old-world standards, and to commend or condemn them according to the degree of their correspondence. But a moment's reflection will disclose the fallacy of such a criterion. If the problem of colonial administration could be satisfactorily solved by imitating ancestral patterns, what is the reason for the frequent failure of nations which systematically follow this course? why should it be thought necessary to utter warnings against the attempt to import Berlin into Uganda? and how is the success which attends the experimental and empirical methods of Great Britain to be explained? Stanford's Compendium Geography and Travel. (New issue.) Australia. Vol. i. Australia and New Zealand. Second edition, re-written. By Prof. J. W. Gregory Pp. xxiv + 657. (London: E. Stanford, 1907.) Price 15s.