Modem Authors Research Articles

Ibn Hazm on homosexuality: a case-study of Zahiri legal methodology

This article discusses the views of the teologian and legal scholar Ibn Ḥazm of Cordoba (d. 456/1064) on homosexuality. Although reference is made to his literary work Ṭawq al-ḥamāma , which is rich in anecdotes on homoerotic attraction, the article focuses on Ibn Ḥazm's multivolume legal tract Kitāb al-Muḥallā , a work written from a Ẓāhirī, or literalist perspective. A step-by-step analysis of Ibn Hazm's legal reasoning on homosexuality, both male ( liwāṭ ) and female ( siḥāq ) is provided, and comparisons with the views of other jurist, especially Mālikis, are made. Unlike his Mālikī contemporaries, Ibn Ḥazm holds that homosexuality is not to be equated with fomication ( zinā ), which incurs the death penalty. Instead, he advocates a relatively mild punishment of up to ten lashes for homosexual practices, based upon his idiosyncratic interpretation of the revealed sources which is illustrated here. Although Ibn Ḥazm is believed by some modem authors to have had homosexual leanings himself, he categorically condemns sexual contacts between members of the same sex as immoral and sinful, and believes that homosexuals should be reformed.

Yawning?

Since antiquity yawning has attracted a moderate interest among philosophers, psychologists, physiologists, as well as educators, moralists and physicians. Organisms from birds to men and from the womb to the deathbed were found to be displaying it. While sometimes satisfying to the producer, its display is offensive to the lay observer. Hippocrates had it on his lists of useful ‘natures.’ Aristotle dropped a few words on the matter. Boerhaave elevated its function to the intellect of animals. Haller has commented on its relation to the acoustic system, blood-flow, and baby sleep. Darwin mentioned it in connection with emotional behavior. Some modem authors praised its beneficial effects on respiration and smell. In the 1960s, Ashley Montagu tried to correct the contemporary failure to explain the behavior by the fact of raised CO 2 and arterial compression. It also interested some neurologists, especially in its association with the encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s, with ‘spasmodic yawning,’ with epilepsy, not to speak of hysteria. As to boredom or its stimulus, a 40-page dissertation survives from the court of Frederick the Great of the 18th century condemning idleness, a subject that also inspired Blaise Pascal and William James. But in the Hindu world, public yawning was a religious offense.

(1479) Proposal to conserve the name Bouteloua gracilis (Kunth) Griffiths against B. gracilis Vasey (Poaceae)

The North American plains grass, blue grama, has for a long time been treated as a member of the genus Bouteloua Lag. as B. gracilis (A. Gray, Man. Bot., ed. 2, 553. 1856; Griffiths, Contr. U.S. Natl. Herb. 14: 375. 1912; Hitchcock., Man. Grasses U.S., ed. 2, 828. 1951; Bor, Grasses Burma, Ceylon, India & Pakistan 464. 1960; Correll & Johnston, Man. Vasc. P1. Texas 245. 1970; Gould, Grasses Texas 351. 1975; Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 66: 392. 1980 (1979); Holmgren & Holmgren in A. Cronquist & al. (eds.), Intermount. Fl. 6: 443. 1977; Soil Conservation Service, Natl. List Sci. P1. Names 1: 35. 1982; McVaugh, Fl. NovoGaliciana 14: 88. 1983; Sutherland in Great Plains Flora Association (ed.)., Fl. Gr. Plains 1141. 1986; Kartesz & Gandhi, Phytologia 69(4): 302. 1990; Hatch & al., Checkl. Vasc. PI. Texas 23. 1990; Watson & Dallwitz, Grass Gen. World 167. 1992; Columbus in J. C. Hickman (ed.), Jepson Man. 1239. 1993; Amow in Welsh & al. (eds.), Utah Fl., ed. 2, 796. 1993; Kartesz, Synonym. Checkl. Vasc. Fl. U.S., Canad. & Greenl., ed. 2, 1: 427. 1994). A few modem authors, however, recognise it in the segregate genus Chondrosum Desv. as C. gracile Kunth (e.g., Clayton & Renvoize, Kew Bull., Addit. Ser. 13: 246. 1986). Until recently, the authorship of the combination Bouteloua gracilis has generally, but incorrectly, been cited as (Kunth) Lag. ex Steud. 1840 (Gould l.c., 1975; Holmgren & Holmgren, l.c.), but the combination was not made validly until Griffiths (l.c.) did so inadvertently in 1912. Although Gould (l.c., 1980) corrected the situation by attributing the combination to Griffiths, a few later works maintained Steudel as the author (e.g., McVaugh, l.c.; Arow, l.c.). (For details see synonymy below).

New Boraginaceae from Tropical America 3: A New Tournefortia from Ecuador and Colombia

Tournefortia gigantifolia, an unusual understory shrub, is described as new from wet forests in Ecuador and Colombia. It is distinct in its monocaulous or sparsely branched habit with large punctate leaves clustered near the stem apices. Its free anthers and unlobed fruits indicate clearly that it is a member of Tournefortia sect. Tournefortia, but its relationships with other species are not evident. RESUMEN. Tournefortia gigantifolia, un arbusto excepcional de sotobosque, se describe como nueva especie. Habita en bosques htimedos en Ecuador y Colombia. Es distintivo en su forma de crecimiento monocaule o con pocas ramas, con hojas grandes que presentan abundantes puntos en el haz; las hojas estan agrupadas cerca de los Apices de los tallos. Aunque esta nueva especie claramente pertenece al g6nero Tournefortia, secci6n Tournefortia, sur parentesco con las otras especies de la secci6n no esti claro. The pantropical genus Tournefortia L. comprises at least 150 species that are strongly centered in the Neotropics. Most modem authors have treated the genus in a broad sense (Nowicke, 1969; Gibson, 1970; Nowicke & Skvarla, 1974) and have included species in three sections, although the nomenclature has been confused. Johnston (1930) recognized section Cyphocyema I. M. Johnston, a group of perhaps 20 species confined to the New World tropics, and section Tournefortia (as sect. Eutournefortia), which comprises the vast majority of the genus with well over 130 species. One species of section Tournefortia occurs in eastern Africa (Verdcourt, 1988), four are found in Madagascar and the Mascarenes, and eight range from southern Asia through the Philippines to Australia (Johnston, 1935b). The more than 100 species that occur in tropical America are mostly South American, and the majority of these species are found in the Andean countries. The third section, sect. Mallatonia Grisebach, consists of three species widely distributed in the Caribbean, Indian, and Pacific oceans. Johnston's opinion on the placement of these species varied widely through his publications on the gen s (Johnston, 1930, 1935a, b, 1949, 1951), and some authors have followed Britton (1915) in recognizing these species as generically distinct, but they have often been grouped together. The genus has all but been ignored by modem monographers, and the last comprehensive treatment was that of De Candolle (1845). Since that time, the New World species have been treated only in floristic works and regional studies. The Central American species are comparatively well studied, having been treated for Veracruz (Nash & Moreno, 1981), Guatemala (Gibson, 1970), Nicaragua (Miller, in press), and Panama (Nowicke, 1969; Miller, 1988). Two studies of South American species of Tournefortia were published by Ivan Johnston that treated the species of Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina (Johnston, 1930) and the Guianas and adjacent Brazil north of the Amazon (Johnston, 1935a). Unfortunately, the Andean countries, certainly the center of diversity for the genus, have largely been ignored. E. P. Killip prepared, but never published (see Nowicke, 1974, for a more complete discussion of Killip's unpublished manuscripts), a treatment for the Andean countries, including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, and Killip's manuscript still exists in the archives of the National Herbarium at the Smithsonian Institution. While never submitted for publication, Killip's work did serve as the basis for two papers describing new species from the region (Killip, 1927, 1929). One more of the species recognized as new by Killip was later published by Nowicke (1974). Since Killip's effort there has been no comprehensive study of the Andean species, and new taxa from the northern Andean countries have been described individually (Johnston, 1956; Nowicke, 1974; Gentry, 1977; Gilli, 1983; Miller, 1989, 1995, 1997, 2000). While Killip's short papers published most of the new taxa that he recognized, several were never validly published; their use has nevertheless crept into herbaria from specimens that Killip annotated. One of these is for a plant from wet forests of northern Ecuador and adjacent Colombia that has never been described despite NovoN 10: 48-52. 2000. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.132 on Thu, 15 Sep 2016 05:51:44 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans (review)

Hebrew Studies 39 (1998) 248 Reviews allows one to identify it with the God of Israel. This seems to be at odds with the fact that there is no reference to God in the book, and Levenson does not fmd convincing any attempt to explain this phenomenon. But he rejects the conclusion that Esther is a secular book. The absence of religious rites is also disturbing, but, he comments, this should not be pressed unnecessarily, because Esther serves as the etiological legend for a festival, Purim. Levenson correctly points out that God seems to be responsible for the patterns of coincidences and the resulting reversals found in Esther. A unique characteristic of this commentary is that the author includes the Greek additions to the Hebrew text and provides a commentary for each one of them. He argues that the Septuagint of Esther is a translation of a lost Hebrew text similar, but not identical to the Masoretic Text. In agreement with David J. A. Clines (The Esther Scroll [Sheffield, 1994]), he argues that the additions, with their explicit use of religious language, have the purpose of assimilating the story to a scriptural norm. Yet, he leaves the door open for the possibility that the Masoretic Text might have been the innovator by eliminating all references to God from the story. This is a very useful volume for theologians, teachers, and pastors. Angel Manuel Rodriguez Biblical Research Institute Silver Spring MD 20904 J0447J.2566@compuserve.com HEROD: KING OF THE JEWS AND FRIEND OF THE ROMANS. By Peter Richardson. Pp. xxv + 360. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996. Cloth, $34.95. Herod: King 0/the Jews and Friend 0/the Romans has an introduction, thirteen chapters, a list of maps and abbreviations, a preface, acknowledgments , a chronology of Herod's life, a select bibliography, and indices of references to ancient texts, modem authors, places, and subjects. It is an interesting, well written, albeit poorly formulated biography of Herod. Richardson seems unaware of relevant aspects of Roman History or the modem understanding of Second Temple Judaism, depending on normative interpretations of Judaism rather than descriptive analysis of the data. Consequently, this work is not as useful as it could have been. Nevertheless, some chapters are well done, some conclusions are extremely good, and Richardson has amassed a great amount of well-collated and informative data about Herod for the reader's consideration. Hebrew Studies 39 (1998) 249 Reviews Although the work is replete with examples of flawed scholarship, only a few will suffice to illustrate the problems. Richardson claims to be objective (p. xii), but, when evaluating Josephus' material, his objectivity is only manifest when he disagrees, even tentatively, with the text (e.g., pp. 52-53. 60.69, 76-77. 110, etc.) or hesitantly agrees with it (e.g., pp. 129-130. etc.). For the most part. he uncritically accepts Josephus' interpretation of events. Many things Richardson accepts as correctly interpreted by Josephus or any of his sources and treats as "Jewish" are only to be so construed from a normative vantage, even today. Therefore, Richardson refers to "observant Jews" (p. 31), "Jewish tradition" (p. 40) and "practices of Judaism" (p. 73) as if there were one standard for all Judaeans. Ignoring the variant practices much less the existence of various sects of Jews in Judaea and the diaspora, he assumes that "Jerusalem" was "the cult center of all Jews everywhere " (p. 135); that there was a "heartland of Judaism" that was "more thoroughly Jewish" than other areas (p. 137); that "Jewish territory" was "governed by the laws and customs of Judaism" (p. 137), which Herod had breached (p. 237). He distinguishes between Jews and Hellenists as if some of the latter were not Jews (p. 214). Additionally, Richardson makes numerous unwarranted assumptions about the Romans. For example: "The rise of new Imperial forms of governance changed the Mediterranean world" (p. xiii); and "This was a period of transforming societal change. Class boundaries were altered during the transition from Republic to Empire" (p. xii). He refers to the Romans as creating "profound cultural and social changes altering forever conditions " (p. xiii). He suggests that the Romans viewed the unrest in...

Dishonour, Gender and the Parable of the Prodigal Son

The parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the most celebrated stories in the Gospel of Luke. Patristic commentators have heralded the parable as a great tale of repentance, while more recent criticism has focused on the effusive love of the father. This study joins many modem authors in their emphasis on the father's love, but will suggest that not only does the father behave in an unexpected manner, his actions are representative of another point of viewnamely, the view of women. Current anthropological examinations of the dynamics of honour and shame in Mediterranean cultures support such a thesis.

Pity and Judgment in Greek Drama: A Response to Professor Alford

the thin, interested self that has been advocated by liberal theory and constituted by liberal practice. He frames his thoughtful analysis with a summary of A. O. Hirschman's account of the process whereby early modem authors, first, lost faith in the capacity of reason to control the and, second, set about to transform these dangerous passions into orderly and predictable interests. Professor Alford suggests that a more promising approach can be found in Greek drama, which, he argues, pits the civilizing passions, and especially against the violent and retributive passions that had defined the heroic ethic of the archaic world. By suppressing the passions and seeking to ground civilization on impersonal interests and contracts, early modem authors only set the stage for these passions to erupt in an angry pursuit of power and domination; by recognizing the legitimacy of the passions and seeking to educate them in a cultivation of pity, the dramatists propose a more inclusive, and hence less pathological, ground for civilization. While there is much in this paper with which I agree, I shall focus in this response on one disagreement: I shall argue that in associating the dramas with the case for the passions (or emotions), Professor Alford accepts a dichotomy between reason and the passions that fails to capture their subtle interpenetration in the dramas. The danger here is not just the possibility of misunderstanding classical drama; it is the possibility of misunderstanding what contemporary liberal democrats might learn from the dramatists. The poets build the healthy democratic polis on a foundation of friendship (philia) and sympathetic understanding and judgment (suggnome). Precisely because it defies the reason/passion dichotomy, this foundation avoids the risks, so terrifying to Hobbes and many other seventeenthand eighteenthcentury writers, of building our shared lives on the untempered passions. Many, if not all, of the extant tragedies examine the painful transition from the tribal world of Homer to the polis, and the importance of resisting

Brodoa, a New Lichen Genus in the Parmeliaceae

The lichen Brodoa, comprising the so-called Hypogymnia intestiniformis group, is here segregated from Hypogymnia s. str. on the combined basis of a difering morphology, spore size, cortical structure, substrate, ecology and distribution. Phylogenetically, Hypogymnia s. str. appears to be more closely allied to Cavernularia and Menegazzia than to Brodoa. The hypogymnioid lichens are a distinctive, yet controversial (Krog 1982), assemblage of foliose genera within the Parmeliaceae whose members are characterized by swollen or inflated, erhizinate lobes and, in most cases, the presence of atranorin in the upper cortex and physodic acid in the medulla. For the purposes of the present paper, this group will be defined as embracing three genera predominantly of boreal and temperate distribution, namely Ca- vernularia Degel., Hypogymnia (Nyl.) Nyl. and Me- negazzia Mass. Although originally described be- tween 1854 and 1938, these genera have received widespread recognition only within the last two or three decades: earlier they were usually included in the classic form genus Parmelia Ach. Among the first modem authors to remove the hypogymnioids from Parmelia were Santesson (1943) and Krog (1951) who, impressed by the anomalous morphology and chemistry of these li- chens, reinstated Menegazzia and Hypogymnia, re- spectively, to accommodate them. Santesson's con- cept of Menegazzia has remained unchallenged to the present time. However, of the four subgenera originally united by Krog under Hypogymnia, two -

The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition

Part One: The Unraveling of the Peace 1. A Troubled Peace 2. The Separate League 3. The Alliance of Athens and Argos 4. The Challenge of the Separate League 5. The Battle of Mantinea 6. After Mantinea: Politics and Policy at Sparta and AthensPart Two: The Sicilian Expedition 7. The Decision to Attack Sicily 8. Sacrilege and Departure 9. Athenian Strategy and the Summer Campaign of 415 10. The First Attack on Syracuse 11. The Siege of Syracuse 12. Athens on the Defensive 13. Defeat on Land and Sea 14. Retreat and Destruction ConclusionsBibliography General Index Index of Modem Authors Index of Ancient Authors and Inscriptions

The Prelate and the Pachyderm: Rear Guard and Vanguard Drama in the French Theater

IT HAS BEEN CUSTOMARY to divide the theaters of Paris into three groups. The Boulevard traditionally produces fluffy plays of pure entertainment, and is primarily interested in commercial success. A second group includes the subsidized theaters, the Comedie Frangillse and the Theatre National Populaire, devoted to the dramatic classics, both ancient and modem. The last group produces serious plays by modem authors, either in the philosophical, poetic, or avant-garde vein. It is sometimes called the avant-garde theater, sometimes the literary. Such a division today is highly artificial, for the large plush theaters of the Boulevards have frequently forgotten commercialism and turned to the plays of serious thinkers like Sartre or Camus, while the Comedie Frangaise has sometimes been led astray into the facile fields of frothy and insubstantial commercial comedy. Moreover, since the reforms effected by Andre Malraux a year or so ago, the purposes of the subsidized theaters have been more clearly defined, and through the experimental theaters placed under the direction of Jean-Louis Barrault and Jean Vilar, a helping hand has been extended to young writers exploring new ways of dramatic expression.

Adjectival Endings after Alle, Beide, Mancher, Samtliche, Solcher, and Welcher

On the subject as to what endings (weak or strong) should be used following the above-named words there has been much controversy. This problem is not new, but during the course of centuries usage has favored more and more the weak endings for adjectives that follow alle, beide, mancher, saimtliche, solcher, and welcher. In the case of alle the weak ending is generally the one accepted today. In the older periods of the language the strong declension was used. For example, Fiietrer says mit aller guter iibung' as listed by Behaghel, who as well as Wilmanns gives many such examples. A few such endings still occurred in the 18th century where Lessing writes alle rechtschaffene Christen, and Herder alle alte Schriftsteller'. However, the leading grammarians agree that the weak form is the standard form today. The weak declension of an adjective after alle has recently been affirmed in an article dealing with this topic and published in this journal.4 The 1957 edition of Duden states: Ausnahmslos folgt auf alle und keine die schwache Beugung'5 and alle ehrlichen Menschen is given as an example. Among modem authors confirming this usage I quote: alle andern,6 des Dankes aller .... Beteiligten,7 die GroBmachtstellung aller europdischen Staaten,8 ohne alle scherzhaften Wendungen.9

Theological Problems of Conversion

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PRoviNCE oF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C. VoL. XI OCTOBER, 1948 No.4 THEOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF CONVERSION T HERE exists a rather curious discrepancy between the very lively interest taken nowadays in apologetical, oecumenical, and other works which by their very nature tend to result in conversions to the Catholic Church, and the almost complete lack of reflection among Catholics on the problems connected with these conversions. This lively interest hardly needs demonstration. It can be measured, for example, by the numerous stories of converts which are being published and read and which furnish the principal material for psychological studies of conversion (Starbuck, James, DeSanctis, Th. Mainage, 0. P.) The lack of theological reflection is shown, among other instances, from the fact that the Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique does not even mention the word conversion ; the Dic·tionnaire Apologetique de la Foi Catholique and the Lexicon Fur Theologie und Kirche have only very short articles on the subject and they are more historical than theological . In this study, we intend only to examine some of the theological problems related to conversion and indicate certain solutions; all of these problems could not be studied in one article. 409 410 C. F. PAUWELS It must be noted immediately that the word " conversion " can have several different meanings, all of these meanings having some connection between them. The different uses of the same word have been the cause of much confusion in the psychological study of conversion as we understand it. Conversion can mean (and it is in this sense that we write of it) a change of religious conviction, and notably the acceptance of the Catholic faith. It indicates a motion to something new from something old; therefore it has a counterpart in apostasy, and if we attend to the fact that as an old conviction is given up a new one is acquired we note that every conversion can be called an apostasy. Conversion in this first sense, however, implies something more than a merely intellectual act, for whoever accepts the Catholic faith enters the Catholic Church and intends to live a Catholic life. In another sense, conversion may mean the justificatio impii, the change from a bad life to a good one. In this sense, conversion has been the object of numerous theological studies, and has been considered by St. Thomas 1 and the modem authors. The latin term, conversus, has been used to designate a laybrother in the same sense. It should be noted that a conversion to the Catholic faith always implies some change from a bad to a good life, in this respect at least that the Catholic standards of good and bad must be accepted with the faith; therefore, almost every convert, even if he could be called a good Christian before his conversion, has to make some changes in his manner of life. Still, one can be a bad Catholic and a sinner at the same time, and such a one needs the justificatio impii without needing any change of faith. On the other hand, many non-Catholics are already in a state of grace before they are converted to the Catholic faith. Hence a connection between these two kinds of conversion is not only possible, but necessary. In a third sense, conversion may mean a change in religious life without any change of faith. This kind of conversion is studied by ascetical and mystical theologians.2 We call it a 1 Summa Theol., I-II, q. 113. 'Cf. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ways of the Spiritual Life, London, 194~. THEOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF CONVERSION 411 conversion when a man changes from a humdrum religious life to a more serious one, from carelessness about venial sin to a systematical endeavor to reach perfection. Although this kind of conversion implies no change in religious conviction and is thus very different from the first kind, it should be noted that the acceptance of the Catholic faith, which is the fullness of revelation and grace, must bring about in the life of good Christians who are in a...