Agathias and Cedrenus on Julian

1963 ◽  
Vol 53 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 91-94
Author(s):  
Averil M. Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Recent Article ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century

In a recent article, Sir Maurice Bowra accepted the view of E. A. Thompson that the Emperor Julian did receive a Delphic oracle before setting off for the East—the lines quoted by Theodoret (HE III, 21, p. 200, Parmentier, and again in the Graec. Affect. Curatio, PG 83, 1069), and repeated by the eleventh-century Byzantine chronicler Cedrenus (1, p. 538, Bonn). When Cedrenus introduces the oracle he cites Agathias, the sixth-century historian: Ίουλιαòς δὲ μαντείαις καὶ θυσίαις καὶ ἐπῳδαῖς δαιμόνων καὶ ἀπάταις φραξάμενος, ὡς φησὶν Άγαθίας, κατὰ Περσῶν ἐστράτευσεν, ὅτε καὶ χρησμὸν ἔλαβεν ἔχοντα οὕτως…. Bowra therefore assumed that Cedrenus took his oracle from Agathias, ‘who may well have got his information from Theodoret’ (o.c., p. 428). And he also speaks of ‘the occasion mentioned, in different ways’ by Theodoret, Agathias, and Cedrenus, as though the fact of Cedrenus's having the oracle added something to the value of the story.

The Letter Collection of Barsanuphius and John

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Hevelone-Harper
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Spiritual Direction ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Spiritual Guidance ◽  
Traditional Practice ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
Wide Group ◽  
Civic Officials ◽  
Old Men ◽  
Letter Collection

The voluminous letter collection of Barsanuphius and John of Gaza contains 850 letters written by the two sixth-century anchorites who lived in cells near the monastery of Abbot Seridos in Tawatha a village a few miles southwest of Gaza. Barsanuphius and John, referred to as the Old Men of Gaza, were ascetic colleagues who wrote letters of spiritual direction to a wide group of disciples. The earliest manuscripts containing this correspondence date to the eleventh century; however, the collection was originally compiled by a member of Barsanuphius and John’s own monastic community (perhaps Dorotheos of Gaza) shortly after the death of John and the complete seclusion of Barsanuphius. The monk who compiled the collection followed a traditional practice among ancient editors, grouping the letters according to addressees, rather than chronologically. The collection begins with letters to individually named monks and continues with letters addressed to unidentified monks or the brothers of community collectively. The collection contains a series of letters to Aelianos, a layman newly elected as abbot of the monastery, and a large group of letters to lay Christians who sought spiritual guidance from the anchorites. The collection concludes with letters concerning episcopal elections in Gaza and Jerusalem and correspondence to civic officials and bishops in the region.

The Library at Monte Cassino

2020 ◽  
pp. 788-804
Author(s):  
Francis Newton
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Constantine The African ◽  
History Of

This chapter surveys the history of the library at Monte Cassino from the earliest known manuscripts beginning with the time of St. Benedict in the sixth century, continuing through the better Carolingian period and the monastery’s Golden Age in the eleventh century under Abbots Desiderius and Oderisius, and ending in the thirteenth century. Illustrious teachers and writers, including Paul the Deacon, Alberic, Alfanus, Constantine the African, Amatus, and Peter the Deacon, are discussed, as is the abbey’s production of important classical and patristic texts.

A Medieval Food List from the Monastery of Cluny

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
kirk ambrose
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Early Date ◽  
Medieval Food

The sixth-century Rule of Saint Benedict places a premium on silence and proscribes speaking at various times, including during meals. In keeping with the spirit of this mandate, the monks of Cluny, an extremely wealthy and powerful monastery in southern Burgundy, placed a premium on silence from a very early date. The earliest descriptions of a sign language used at Cluny are recorded in two of the monastery's customaries, compiled during the last quarter of the eleventh century. A host of signals are described, but, tellingly, these lists begin with those for food. There were practical reasons for this, namely mandated silence in the refectory, but it also might evidence the relish with which monks enjoyed their food. Indeed, the translation offered here suggests that the monks ate very well. Because the signals translated here are almost exclusively substantives, it would be nearly impossible to communicate any but the most rudimentary thoughts. That entire conversations were possible by means of gestures is suggested by contemporary criticisms of monks chattering away with hand signals. For our purposes, this would confirm the likely suspicion that the medieval monk enjoyed an even greater variety of foods than indicated here.

The Sacrificium

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-41
Author(s):  
Rebecca Maloy
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Textual Structure ◽  
Liturgical Year

This chapter introduces the Old Hispanic offertory chant, called the sacrificium, as a prelude to the closer analysis presented in subsequent chapters. The author considers the musical and textual structure of the genre, its performance, and the thematic shape of the repertory as a whole. The genre connects thematically to Isidore of Seville’s description of the genre. Although the genre is likely to have emerged in the sixth century, a handful of sacrificia are probabe additions from the tenth or eleventh century. The use of different biblical versions suggests that these chants were created a different times, rather than being the product of a single effort. The texts develop the theme of sacrifice, themes associated with each part of the liturgical year, and with general characteristics of sainthood. The creators of the repertory used and adapted scripture to enhance these themes, sometimes in ways that were typical of the genre.

Epilogue

2018 ◽  
pp. 188-192
Author(s):  
Kriston R. Rennie
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
Interpretive Paradigm ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Legal Position ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
The Subject

The practice of monastic exemption changed forever in the late eleventh century. Most modern studies on the subject, in fact, begin their accounts with the pontificate of Urban II (1088–99). Paul Fabre is largely responsible for this enduring chronology and interpretive paradigm. He argued for the papacy’s intervention in a monastery’s spiritual affairs, which in turn marked a reversal of fortunes for the diocesan bishop, where previously he had maintained a foothold through the power of ordination. There is some truth to this claim, even if – as this book has demonstrated – the papacy’s involvement was a constant in monastic life and governance since the late sixth century. This landmark shift in monastic exemption practice nevertheless offers a fitting conclusion to this book. It signals a changing institutional and ideological character that provided a good constitutional model to twelfth-and thirteenth-century popes and canonists. The result was a decidedly more permanent dimension to monastic exemption, which served to define the papacy’s authority over secular and ecclesiastical authorities and the latter’s position within monastic communities. In this respect, exemptions from the late eleventh century came to be used as legislative expressions of the papacy’s proprietary rights – ties of dependency and promises of apostolic protection, whose special relationship provided monasteries with a profitable legal position....

Universals, Indian theories of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Taber
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
General Terms

Indian philosophers postulated universals for two principal reasons: to serve as the ‘eternal’ meanings of words, upon which the eternality of language – in particular, the Hindu scriptures, the Veda – is based, and to account for why we conceive of things as being of certain types. However, universals were seen as problematic in various ways. How can something exist simultaneously in numerous individuals without being divided into parts? How can a universal, which is supposed to be eternal, continue to exist if all its substrata are destroyed? In what sense can a universal be said to ‘exist’ at all? Is a universal distinct from or identical with the individuals in which it inheres? In light of such difficulties, it is not surprising that certain other Indian philosophers – specifically Buddhist philosophers, who did not accept the doctrine of the eternality of the Veda – rejected universals and took up a nominalist stance. They held that general terms refer to mentally constructed ‘exclusion classes’, apohas. The use of the term ‘cow’, for example, is grounded not on some positive entity common to all cows but on the idea of the class of things that are different from all things that are not cows. This proposal, which originated with Dignāga in the sixth century ad, was debated vigorously until the eleventh century.

Le monastère de Qol-e-Tut à la lumière des fouilles archéologiques

Afghanistan ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zafar Paiman
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Buddhist Art ◽  
Group A

The monastery is situated on a hillside south of the citadel of Kabul, in an area rich in Buddhist sites. The excavations begun in 2013 by the Afghan Institute of Archaeology has so far uncovered eighteen chapels on ten terraces containing the remains of colossal clay polychromatic bodhisattvas. Their number suggests that the site was dedicated to them. Only one chapel is occupied by a monumental Buddha, his stance, size and style showing him to be unique in the region. At the heart of the group a prayer room with benches and an enigmatic central circular element, surrounded by the bases of four columns, opens on to three chapels. The coins and ceramics discovered at Qol-e-Tut indicate that its existence extends at the earliest from the sixth century to at least the end of the eleventh century. This complex site therefore testifies to the remarkable development of Buddhist art in Kabul, to its originality and sustainability throughout the reign of the Hephtalites and the Hindu-Shahis, as has already been suggested by our excavations of the nearby monastery of Tepe Narenj. Together this contradicts the ancient Arab and Persian accounts dating the Islamisation of Kabul to the second half of the seventh century.

scholarly journals Hypatius of Ephesus: A Note on Image Worship in the Sixth Century

1952 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J. Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Recent Article ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Patristic Literature ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Wrongful Use ◽  
Iconoclastic Controversy ◽  
The Church

In a recent article Professor Norman H. Baynes discussed the evidence for opposition to religious art prior to the outbreak of the Iconoclastic Controversy. In the course of his illuminating article, he called attention to an important fragment of patristic literature which was first published in recent years and which but for Professor Baynes might have remained unnoticed. It is an excerpt taken from the Miscellaneous Enquiries (Συμμικτὰ Zητήματα) by Hypatius of Ephesus, who was archbishop of this most important see from 531 to about 538 and in addition one of Justinian's most trusted theological advisers. Professor Baynes used the text to illustrate the fact that prior to the Iconoclastic Controversy “any general cult of the icons in such extreme forms as later appears in the apologies of the iconodules would seem dangerous and a wrongful use of a practice which was tolerated only in the interest of the weaker members of the church.” (p. 95). The text, however, is also important from other points of view. Since it is difficult Greek and since the trend of Hypatius' thought, though entirely logical, may not be clear at first sight, it is advisable to submit here a translation of the document, accompanied by explanatory notes. The writer gratefully acknowledges that he owes much to Diekamp and Baynes for an understanding of the document.

History and Theology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ionut Holubeanu
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
International Conference ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
Orthodox Theology ◽  
The University ◽  
Historical Periods ◽  
Church Historians

This volume includes the studies presented at the international conference “History and Theology,” which was organized by the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at the University “Ovidius” in Constanta and conducted online on November 17-18, 2020. Through this conference, the organizers wanted to resume a previous initiative, from 2007, which sought to intensify communication and rapprochement between secular and church historians. As such, in 2007, 2008, and 2009, three international conferences were organized at the Faculty of Theology in Constanta in which lay researchers and theologians presented different results of their respective scientific projects. This volume includes 22 studies that analyze topics related to different historical periods. In the study “Anchor of Faith: The Cult of St. Clement in Eastern Europe (ca. 500 to ca. 1050),” Florin Curta and Ethan Williamson analyze the evolution and spread of the cult of St. Clement of Rome in Eastern Europe on the basis of hagiographic, liturgical, artistic, and archaeological evidence. According to the oldest preserved hagiographic texts, the place of martyrdom and the first miracles of St. Clement was the Cherson in the Crimea. His following there is documented as early as the sixth century. The rediscovery of his relics in 861 by Constatine the Philosopher led to the revitalization of the cult of this saint throughout Eastern Europe. In the tenth and early eleventh century, the veneration of St. Clement as a great mediator and miracle-worker spread to Moravia, Bulgaria, Poland, Kiev, and Constantinople.

Origins of the Olympics to the Sixth Century bce

2021 ◽  
pp. 64-73
Author(s):  
Ulrich Sinn
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Millennium

The tumulus at Olympia, later a cult site of Pelops, dates to the mid-third millennium bce, but cult activity and the altar of Zeus are evidenced only from the late eleventh century. Votive tripod ornamentation from the tenth to the eighth century reflects myth and warfare, not athletics. Weapons and armour from all over Greece were dedicated in abundance in the late eighth to early seventh centuries. The sacred precinct was extended and the stadium built at about 700 bce. The tumulus became a Pelops Heroön about 600 bce. Texts like Pindar O.10 that portray Pelops as the Olympics founder reflect the biased view of the Eleans. The site was much earlier a sanctuary for Zeus and other deities to promote agriculture and cattle, then prominent at the site of the oracle of Zeus Olympios, and finally as the festival site. The oracle functioned importantly in matters of warfare and colonization, especially in the Greek west.

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