Late Antique Literature Research Articles

Иудейская тема в позднеантичной галльской литературной традиции

The article examines the question of how and why the topic of Jews was raised in the Gallic Christian literature of the VI–VII centuries, what image of Jews in the minds of readers was formed by stories whose heroes were Jews, what forms of relations between Christians and Jewish people were consolidated on the basis of literary examples. The main sources are the works of Gregory of Tours, Venantius Fortunatus, as well as anonymous hagiographic works of the VII century. The article is written within the framework of intellectual and new cultural history, in order to obtain adequate conclusions, the authors analyze the language and textual features of narratives. The article shows that the Jewish theme was not independent in either the historical or hagiographic literature of late Antique Gaul, while addressing it allowed late Antique authors to give the reader an understanding of what place Jews occupy in Christian society, and what are the boundaries of relations with them. In particular, it is shown that the Jews were perceived within the framework of the history of Salvation as "sheep of another fold", a source of tension. The sense of danger emanating from them was reinforced in the minds of readers thanks to the anti-Jewish rhetoric. Jews in the eyes of the reader of late Antiquity should have been associated with unbelief, deception, disobedience; they should have caused physical rejection and disgust, they are associated with darkness, blood, and a stench emanates from them. At the same time, since these "others" within the framework of the history of Salvation should become part of the Lord's fold, late Antique literature actively uses the image of a worthy shepherd who devotes himself to preaching the Gospel to Jews and who, by the power of words or miracles, brings them into the bosom of the Church.

БЫЛИННАЯ ТРАДИЦИЯ РУССКОГО УСТЬЯ

Russian epic tradition of the village Russkoe Ustye, standing on the Indigirka River, is the subject of the study. The relevance of the research lies in the need to describe one of the regional epic traditions of Siberia at the modern stage in connection with the work of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the series “Bylinas” of the Russian Folklore Code. Accordingly, the purpose and objectives of the study are determined by a systematic approach to material, meaningful in connection with the history of inhabiting the region, the history of the recording epics in the region, and the consistent characteristics of each recorded epic plot. The article reviews the history of inhabiting the Russian Estuary: the discovery of the mouth of the Indigirka by the Cossack Ivan Rebrov in 1638, the construction of the town of Zashiversk in the middle reaches of the Indigirka, inhabiting the mouth of the river from Zashiversk and from the sea. The oral family traditions of the Russkoustians are given. The article also describes the history of the recording epics in Russkoe Ustye and from its inhabitants: political exile I. A. Khudyakov (1867–1869); V. M. Zenzinov (1912); graduate of the ethnographic department of Leningrad State University D. D. Travin (1928); Yakut local historian M. A. Krotov (1931–1932); Yakut writer, member of the ethnographic and linguistic expedition of the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Yakut branch of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences N. A. Gabyshev (1946); major Moscow bylinologist Yu. I. Smirnov (1982) and famous ethnomusicologist T. S. Shentalinskaya (1985). The main content of the article is the characteristics of local epics (25 texts). There is an almost complete absence of epics about Ilya Muromets (the only text is “Ilya Muromets and the Idolishche”). The popularity of the plot “Dobrynya and the Serpent” (six variants) is indicated, in which the name of Maria Izyaslavna, absent in European Russia, appears (instead of the traditional Zabava Putjatichna), linking (through the patronymic Izyaslavna) the epics of Russkoe Ustye with the onomasticon of Ancient Russia. The epic “Mikhail Danilovich – the minor hero” (six variants) is analyzed, in which the enemy Titus appears, unknown in the Russian North. It is assumed that this name in Russkoe Ustye was borrowed from the “History of the Jewish War” by Josephus Flavij, a monument of late Antique literature (75–79 A.D.), known in Russia in translation and very popular in the manuscript tradition. Probably one of the lists was brought to Russkoe Ustye. Josephus' Titus is the son of Emperor Vespasian, an enemy of Judea. In the “Arrival of the Lithuanians” (three variants), the names of “our” heroes – Tsar Elizar and his sister Maria Elizarovna (names that are absent in the Russian North) – may also be echoe of the “History of the Jewish War”, where several characters with the name Eleazar are called among the Jews. Other epic plots are also considered – “Surovets”, “Duke Stepanovich”, “Sadko”.

The Christian invention of time. Temporality and the literature of late antiquity. By Simon Goldhill. (Greek Culture in the Roman World.) Pp. xvi + 500. Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. £34.99. 978 1 316 51290 6

The Christian invention of time. Temporality and the literature of late antiquity. By Simon Goldhill. (Greek Culture in the Roman World.) Pp. xvi + 500. Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. £34.99. 978 1 316 51290 6

Simon Goldhill, The Christian Invention of Time. Temporality and the Literature of Late Antiquity. (Greek Culture in the Roman World.) Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2022

Simon Goldhill, The Christian Invention of Time. Temporality and the Literature of Late Antiquity. (Greek Culture in the Roman World.) Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2022

The poetic specificity of Gilda's "On the Death of Britain" and the "Hesperica Famina": a pragmatic aspect and a dominant analysis. On the 135th anniversary of the birth of B. I. Yarkho (1889-1942)

Τhis article deals with the work of the British writer Gildas the Wise "On the Ruin of Britain" and the poetic text "Hisperica Famina", written in the British archipelago (presumably in Ireland). Both works are written in Latin and represent milestones in the history of the Hiberno-British literature of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. There is no consensus about dating to a year or at least a decade for both texts. "On the Ruin of Britain" was written presumably in the late V — early VI centuries; the Hisperica Famina are usually attributed to the second half of the VII century. "On the Ruin of Britain" contains a brief historical sketch and an protracted invective against the kings and clergy of Britons. The Hisperica Famina represent the Latin versification practice of Hibernian scribes. The methodological ideas of Boris I. Yarkho (1889-1942), set out in his fundamental work "A Methodology of Precise Literary Studies", serve as a conceptual basis for this research. On its basis, the author of the article identifies complexes of stylistic features and their compositional distribution which reflects poetic dominants common to Gildas and the author of the Hisperica Famina (so called faminator). The tendency of syntactic interlocking in the Hisperica Famina regularly prevails over the same tendency in "On the Ruin of Britain", it indicates that a specific attitude to the syntactical style, usual for the faminator and his poetic circle, began to form back in the Gildas's era. The common features of both texts show the prevalence of certain poetic dominants and can serve as a serious argument in defense of the thesis of the continuity from Gildas or writers of his circle to the faminator. The stylometry method may be very useful for comparing texts even if they they differ in genre and era.

Latin literature

Let me start with a fascinating volume that Paolo Felice Sacchi and Marco Formisano have edited on Epitomic Writing in Late Antiquity and Beyond, the first volume in the new series sera tela, devoted to ‘Studies in Late Antique Literature and its Reception’, edited by Marco Formisano. This inaugural volume gets the new series off to a very good start. Sacchi and Formisano offer a new approach to epitomic writing, seen as a typical product of late antique literary culture. The aim of the volume is to focus not so much on what is lost and cut out in the process of condensation, but on the value of the epitomic as a hermeneutic category as well as on its aesthetic value, both textual and visual. The individual contributions follow this editorial lead admirably closely, examining the interplay of repetition, fragmentation, dismemberment and re-composition, cutting and re-uniting, and defamiliarization, and showing how epitomic writing can be playful and entertaining, how it can represent a sophisticated act of interpretation, and serve as a ‘tool for investigating the very borders and paradoxes of language’ (12), even for conveying a spiritual experience.

Geist – Gehirn – Mythos

Abstract Greek mythology developed ideas about the mythical birth of Athena from the head of Zeus in enigmatic allusions. Hephaestus performed the obstetrics. This cryptic mythologem, an imaginative structure of strange shape, contains a message from archaic Greece of unfathomable depth and furthermore has an extensive history of influence. After introductory remarks, the first part (A) of this paper contains a collection of the most important written sources that convey basic elements of the birth myth of Athena. Its allegorical interpretation was initially undertaken by Stoic philosophers. Therefore, the second part (B) first reconstructs the integration and transformation of traditional myths into Stoic philosophy. Because the Stoics used basic aspects of their psychology for this purpose, investigations into Stoic psychology and localisation theory follow in the third part (C). Chrysippus used these constructions for an allegorical interpretation of the birth myth of Athena. Therefore, the fourth part (D) analyses his exegesis of this mythologem, about which extensive information is available, and subsequently Galen’s criticism of it. The famous philosophising physician moreover developed his own allegorical interpretation of the birth myth of Athena, drawing on his wealth of knowledge about the anatomy and physiology of the brain. The analysis of some significant statements on the ‘cerebral birth of Athena’ then follows in the fifth and last part (E). Documents from late antique literature, from Byzantine exegetes of Homer, comments from early medieval writers, the reflection of a modern brain anatomist and interpretations of this myth from the 19th century are discussed. An outlook with information on interdisciplinary brain research concludes the study.

Late Antiquity, Literature, and the History of Religions. In Dialogue with Anna‐Katharina Rieger and Sarah Cramsey

This article presents some reflections on the relationship between literature, history and religion in Late Antiquity, which are meant primarily as a response to Anna‐Katharina Rieger and Sarah A. Cramsey, but also takes into consideration some of the other articles in this special issue.

Review: Religious Violence in the Ancient World: From Classical Athens to Late Antiquity, edited by Jitse H. F. Dijkstra and Christian R. Raschle

Review: <i>Religious Violence in the Ancient World: From Classical Athens to Late Antiquity</i>, edited by Jitse H. F. Dijkstra and Christian R. Raschle

Refiguring Abraham: On the Prophetological Reframing of the Biblical Patriarch in Sūrat al-Anbiyāʾ

ABSTRACT This essay illustrates the Qur’an’s theologically creative conversation with Late Antique literature through an analysis of the text’s depiction of Abraham in Sura 21. After a short overview of modern scholarly engagement with the Qur’an’s ‘biblical subtext’ and some subsequent methodological remarks, I examine the ancient and Late Antique Jewish background to the qur’anic story of Abraham in Terah’s idol shop. Here, I elucidate the theological and exegetical concerns prompting these haggadic speculations about the patriarch’s life. In a word, Jewish exegetes employed this story as a way of demonstrating the distinct righteousness of Israel’s lineal forebear. Then, through comparative analysis, I show that the Qur’an takes up and redeploys this motif in the service of articulating its own prophetology, thereby subverting the earlier genealogical framing of this story. Notably, this repackaging of the Abraham-Terah narrative serves a polemical goal. In the last resort, the Qur’an is keen to show that its own followers – not Jews or Christians – are the true heirs of Abraham.

De zwembroek van de apostel Petrus

The present article shows how in late antique literature Christianity and classical culture are intertwined like grapevines, by offering a literary comparison between Nonnus of Panopolis’ Paraphrase of the Gospel of John and his Dionysiaca. It gives an example of the way in which Nonnus’ spirit is present in both works, the former a biblical epic dictated by the rules of the paraphrase, the latter an exuberant free-flowing creative work on the pagan god Dionysus. After a brief sketch of the cultural context and the paraphrasing technique, I analyse Nonnus’ metaphors, relating them to the Gospel of John on the one hand and to the Dionysiaca on the other. I then demonstrate how Nonnus turns a simple remark about the apostle Peter jumping into the water (John 21:7-8) into a full-blown and vivid epic narration (Paraphrase 21.35-54). The swimming trunks of Peter show that the same writer’s blood pulses through both the Paraphrase and the Dionysiaca.

Spectators and Spectacle in Quintus’ Posthomerica

Abstract Quintus’ literary reputation is on the rise, in the wake of a general reappreciation of late antique literature. In my article I discuss Quintus’ use of embedded focalization: when we look at events through the eyes of one of the characters. Quintus uses this narrative device both in the same way as Homer, but also in original new ways. One such new way is the serial use of embedded focalization at the moment of arrival of a champion. The ample use of embedded focalization can be added to the list of stylistic features which contribute to the well-known visual aesthetics of late antique poetry, such as ekphrasis, miniaturization, enumeration, and the juxtaposition of episodic scenes. But I also argue that Quintus through the ubiquitous presence of spectators frames the action of his story as a spectacle, a race or gladiatorial show, which gods and characters and hence his narratees, watch as if sitting in an amphitheatre or circus.

As the Deep River Rises

Abstract The present essay seeks to offer a conceptual framework for grappling with climate change from within the sources of Jewish law (halakhah), a discourse rooted in the Hebrew Bible but developed in the rabbinic literature of Late Antiquity and then in medieval and modern codes and commentaries. Halakhah reflects deeply-held intellectual, theological, ontological, and sociological values. As a modus vivendi, rabbinic law—variously interpreted by Jews of different stripes—remains a vital force that shapes the life of contemporary practitioners. We are interested in how a variety of contemporary scholars, theologians, and activists might use the full range of rabbinic legal sources—and their philosophical, jurisprudential, and moral values—to construct an alternative environmental ethic founded in a worldview rooted in obligation and a matrix of kinship relationships. Our essay is thus an exercise in decolonizing knowledge by moving beyond the search for environmental keywords or ready analogies to contemporary western discourse. We join the voices of recent scholars who have sought to revise regnant assumptions about how religious traditions should be read and interpreted with an eye to formulating constructive ethics.

ПОЕТИКА ПОЕМИ ОРІЄНЦІЯ “COMMONITORIUM”

Poetry is a kind of discourse distinct from ordinary, everyday speech; it is an institution, a kind of speech that a society has marked as special, with special rules applying to its production and reception. Didactic poetry is a kind of poetry that it aims to instruct (Toohey, 2013: 2). In didactic poetry the reader is invited to consider not just the message and the brilliant language of its exposition, but what lies behind the message, the human values and the vision which the poem embodies. The article analyzes the work of Orientius “Commonitorium” and his role as an innovative writer of Latin didactic poetry as well as his position in the landscape of late antique literature of the 5th century AD. The aim of the article is to show to what extent the defining characteristics of the genre can be found in Orientius’ poem “Commonitorium” and to trace the permutations of these features throughout the text. A full range of issues, which scholarship on Orientius has hitherto neglected, will be studied: the “poetics” of the work, that is the poetic selfawareness expressed in the poem, as well as techniques of composition, rhetorical argumentation, strategies of persuasion and narration, intertextual allusions, relationship with contemporary works and other aspects. Scientific novelty. Whereas Latin poetry flourished under the reign of Augustus (27 BC – 14 AD) and the first century AD, only few poetic works survived which were produced in the later second and third century AD. After a long period of silence, Latin poetry had its comeback in late antiquity when in the 4th century AD various writers started composing poetic genres again. Instead of Rome, other locations became important breeding grounds for the production of literature, especially Gaul, where writers such as Ausonius, Paulinus of Nola, Sulpicius Severus, Sidonius Apollinaris and others were active. Whereas the genres composed by late antique writers were more or less the same as in Classical literature, most of their works differ in content and meaning (Gasparov, 1982: 2; Johnson, 2000: 335–337). Late antique writers were deeply familiar with their Classical literary predecessors, but due to the influence of Christian religion, the character of Latin literature produced in late antiquity also differs significantly from the works which were written by pagan writers in the preceding centuries. This article discusses the work of a poet who has been rarely studied so far. Orientius, whom the majority of scholars now identify with the homonymous bishop of Augusta Ausciorum (modern Auch, France) in Southern Gaul, is an important representative of didactic poetry and his work constitutes an important example in the history of the genre. His didactic poem with the title “Commonitorium”, in elegiacs was probably written around 430 AD. In conclusion, the “Commonitorium” presents itself as a serious poem concerned with issues of paramount importance to humanity. The question of what exactly the “Commonitorium” endeavours to teach is indeed of major importance for understanding the work. It claims to be truly universal work, encompassing everything that exists. Within two books, Orientius reveals to his readers/students the way to reach salvation, both gives us specific, concrete information and tells us how we should live our lives, how we should relate to our fellow human beings and to God.

A solar history of acedia in the Latin Middle Ages and its intersection with melancholy in Henry Suso

ABSTRACT The midday demon, who attacked the solitary monk with vicious temptations – above all, that of acedia – is a conventional motif in late antique and medieval ascetic literature. At the noon hour, the demonic assault was vigorous and ranging. But medieval spiritual writers like Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) and Richard of Saint Victor (d. 1173) also described noontime as the high point of mystical experience. Both notions hark back to biblical statements made in the Psalms and Song of Songs and were elaborated by medieval thinkers through exegetical rumination. This paper studies the propinquity of these two notions in the symbolism and vocabulary of medieval spiritual writers, and in so doing documents the biblical and monastic contribution to unfolding ideas about melancholy. As examined in Saturn and Melancholy pathological melancholy would traditionally refer to the complex of symptoms associated with sloth and sadness that beleaguered the uprooted and antisocial ascetic. But after the introduction of the Aristotelian problem to Latin writers, a contrasting view appeared in the early thirteenth century, which held melancholy for a benediction of mystical or theophanic frenzy. This paper unmoors melancholy from its classical sources and, beginning from the ambivalence of the noonday motif, argues that the traditional literature of mystics and ascetics prepared for this remarkable shift.

Reading kephalaia: The Composition of Evagrius Ponticus’ Ad monachos Reconsidered

Abstract How Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399) composed his highly influential treatises of short and succinct chapters (kepahalaia) is bewildering and has been discussed by many scholars. In this essay the literary composition of Evagrius’ To monks in monasteries and communities, or Ad monachos, a typical text of short chapters, is examined from a literary perspective by relating the text to literary conventions, common in late antique literature and in rhetorical handbooks and exercises (progymnasmata). It is demonstrated how the teaching develops gradually in accordance with a pattern for a so-called amplified argument (epicheireme) codified in Pseudo-Hermogenes Progymnasmata. By this arrangement of the teaching, the reader is offered, not just a random taste of various aspects of the monastic life, but a set of specific conclusions to implement or to be aware of practically in the life as monk; conclusions that are perceptible not at just a cursory glance, but at a careful and repeated reading.

Review: Rhetorical Strategies in Late Antique Literature. Images, Metatexts and Interpretation, edited by A. Quiroga Puertas

Review: Rhetorical Strategies in Late Antique Literature. Images, Metatexts and Interpretation, edited by A. Quiroga Puertas

Jewish National Decline and Biblical Figures as ClassicalExempla: Moses, Aaron, Joshua, David, and Elisha inDe Excidio5.2.1

AbstractThe fourth century of the Common Era was a period significant for witnessing the effective birth of Christian historiography and the (putatively) definitive separation of ‘Jew’ and ‘Christian’ as distinctive identities. A text emerged, known as Pseudo-Hegesippus orDe Excidio Hierosolymitano(On the Destruction of Jerusalem). This text illustrates how Christian historiography and Christian anti-Jewish ideology at that time could engage with the traditions of classical antiquity. In particular, this article argues that Pseudo-Hegesippus deploys figures from the Hebrew Bible in the mode of classicalexemplaand that it does so within the largely classical conceptual framework of national decline. For Pseudo-Hegesippus, biblical figures presented as classicalexemplaserve to illustrate the historical decline of the Jews until their effective end in 70 CE (when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple). One passage,De Excidio5.2.1, and its enlistment of five Hebrew heroes illustrates this point particularly well. The use of exemplarity and the theme of national decline employed there help us appreciateDe Excidioas a distinctive contribution to early Christian historiography and anti-Jewish literature in late antiquity; this expands our ability to imagine the ways in which fourth-century Christian authors could conceive of and articulate Jewish history in classical terms.

Rhetorical Strategies in Late Antique Literature. Images, Metatexts and Interpretation ed. by A. Quiroga Puertas

Rhetorical Strategies in Late Antique Literature. Images, Metatexts and Interpretation ed. by A. Quiroga Puertas

Bossy matrons and forced marriages: Talmudic confrontationalism and its philosophical significance

Abstract This article introduces the confrontational theology of the rabbinic literature of late antiquity by means of a well-known, yet ill-understood legend. It goes on to argue that Talmudic confrontationalism comes coupled with an insistent dialogism that, unlike any other major human undertaking, displays a profound awareness of the indispensable role of external normative critique in the process of changing one’s mind.