D'Aubigne's Les Tragiques: A Protestant Apocalypse

PMLA ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 81 (5) ◽  
pp. 363-368
Author(s):  
Richard Regosin
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Temporal Dimension ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Biblical History ◽  
Working Out

Recent Studies on d'Aubigné's Les Tragiques have tended to bear out Henri Trénel's assertion in 1904 that the poet is “le plus biblique des écrivains français.” Since Trénel's catalogue of Scriptural references and Hebraisms in the poem (by which he sought to prove his point), d'Aubigné critics have given more thought to the significance of this accumulation of Biblical imagery, focusing particularly on d'Aubigné's continuing correlation of characters and events in Old Testament, early Christian, and contemporary sixteenth-century history. Henri Weber, whose view represents the most generally accepted interpretation, explains that this correlation provides the temporal dimension required by the epic poem. Moreover, by showing contemporary events to be a repetition of Biblical history, it raises those events to a symbolic level consistent with d'Aubigné's notion that the fortunes of the Protestants represent the working out of God's providential design for His modern-day chosen people. Henry Sauerwein suggests that the Biblical imagery represents d'Aubigné's attempt to approximate the style of the Bible in order to achieve a form suited to Les Tragiques as God's revelation of the destiny of the Protestant people to the divinely inspired poet.

scholarly journals “Varii errores qui ab origine mundi emerserunt”. The semantic scope of the term “heresy” in Philastrius’ of Brescia Diversarum hereseon liber

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 315-325
Author(s):  
Mariusz Szram
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Rule Of Faith ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Or Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church ◽  
Semantic Scope

The bishop of Brescia, Philastrius, author of the first Latin catalogue of he­resies, written between 380 and 388, presented in his treaty an extremely large number of heterodox movements: 28 within Judaism and 128 in early Christianity. This comes as a result of a wide understanding of the term heresis. For Philastrius this term was synonymous with the term error, recognized as any deviation from the universal truth in the history of the world, inspired by Satan as “the father of lies”, ocurring primarily in Judaism and Christianity. Among the early Christian views defined by the bishop of Brescia as heresy five groups can be distinguished. The first group includes mainly the erroneous views on fundamental theological questions contained in the rule of faith, such as the concept of a creator God and saviour Jesus Christ. The second set of he­resies, closely related with the previous one, contains the erroneous doctrines of anthropology, such as questioning the resurrection of the human body or the view of the materiality of the human soul. The third group includes the views related to the misinterpretation of Scripture, especially exaggerated literal interpretations of the texts of the Old Testament, as well as the cosmological views which do not agree with descriptions contained within the Bible. The fourth group contains the moral issues related to the based on laxism or rigorism way of life, as well as to the attitude of lack of deference to the laws of the Church, but non-threatening the primary truths of the Christian faith. The fifth group of heresies includes the movements defined by the authors of the late patristic period as a schizm, while the term schisma is not at all used by the bishop of Brescia in his work. The semantic scope of the term heresis in Philastrius’ treaty went beyond the noncompliance with the regula fidei. According to the bishop of Brescia each offense – whether in doctrinal teaching or practice of life, as well as with regard to the understanding of the text of Scripture – is a heresy because it offends God and the Church. Therefore, in Philastrius opinion one should not differentiate between superior and minor error, but equally condemn them as attitudes directed against God as the Father of Truth.

EARLY CHRISTIAN REPRESENTATIONS OF MAN BETWEEN THE BIBLE AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY – THE FEATURES OF THE RELATIONSHIP

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-111
Author(s):  
A. V. Laputko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
World View ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Final Design

The article examines the preconditions for the formation of Christian ideas about man. The emphasis is on the fact that the doctrine of a person has never been a separate problem of theology, and, consequently, was formed in parallel and within the basic tenets of Christianity. The author focuses attention on the contradiction in understanding the origin of representations of a person between the traditional branches of Christianity. On the whole, while remaining in common positions, each denomination identifies its own fundamental source of the origin of anthropological ideas, not taking into account the complex and contradictory path of interpenetration of the ideas of ancient Greek philosophy and Christianity. The author shows the path of formation of the main anthropological representations from the Old Testament notions to the New Testament, which receive their final design only in the works of apologists of Christianity brought up by the logic and culture of thinking of ancient philosophy. Thus, the birth of a new world-view anthropological paradigm, which remains one of the most popular and discursive in the modern world, takes place within the framework of a dialogue between ancient Greek philosophical thought and Old Testament ideas.

Moses and the Magistrate: a Study in the rise of Protestant Legalism

1975 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. D. L. Avis
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Law ◽  
Civil Laws ◽  
The Church

‘It is now disputed at every table’, declared Whitgift in 1574, ‘whether the magistrate be of necessity bound to the judicials of Moses’. Edwin Sandys told Bullinger of Zürich in the previous year that it was being maintained, to the great trouble of the Church, that ‘The judicial laws of Moses are binding upon Christian princes, and they ought not in the slightest degree to depart from them’. Though often neglected by historians as an important factor in the Reformation, the question of the validity of the Old Testament judicial (as opposed to moral or ceremonial) law frequently arises in the writings of the Reformers, and their various answers made no slight impact on the course of events. It bears directly on Henry VIII's divorce and the bigamy of Philip of Hesse; the treatment of heresy and the possibility of toleration; the persecution of witches; usury and iconoclasm; Sabbatarianism and the rise of the ‘puritan’ view of the Bible as a book of precedents, and the corresponding shift to legalism in Protestant theology. The question is also of fundamental relevance to the thought of the Reformers on natural law, the godly prince and magistrate, and the so-called ‘third use of the law’. This article is an attempt to survey, up to the end of the sixteenth century, the various interpretations of the Mosaic penal and civil laws, with particular reference to the development of legalistic tendencies after Luther.

Biblical History and Antiquarianism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jetze Touber
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Textual Criticism ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical History ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Paradoxical Results

In chapter 3 we chart the potential and the pitfalls of Dutch Reformed biblical philology after 1650, a period that is relatively unknown. Focusing on Old Testament scholarship, a number of case studies serves to trace the paradoxical results of biblical philology in this period, as practised by the likes of Johannes Coccejus and Campegius Vitringa: discussions about the ‘oracle stones’ umim and thummim, reconstructions of the temple described by the prophet Ezekiel, and erotic allusions in the Old Testament. When such specialized debates spilled over to the writings of non-professionals, such as Adrianus Beverland, this could lead to unconventional speculations, unwelcome from a clerical perspective. These case studies show how existing philological work on the Bible became tied up with the textual criticism articulated by Spinoza, how Dutch scholarship connected with international discussions, and how philology radiated from academic specialists to outsiders with their own claims to exegetical authority.

Creation

2019 ◽  
pp. 511-524
Author(s):  
Paul M. Blowers
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Wisdom Literature ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Many ◽  
Sacred History

Early Christian interpretation of Scripture on the theme of creation not surprisingly gave considerable attention to the Genesis account of the origins of the world, in part to counter the claims of Graeco-Roman cosmology, but more importantly to expound the latent theological meaning of the many details of the biblical cosmogony. But patristic exegetes were also keen on the fact that ‘creation’ in the Bible implied far more than beginnings; indeed, it designated the whole economy (oikonomia) of the Creator’s ongoing relation to the creation as set forth in sacred history and as requiring the further interpretative lenses of Christology, soteriology, and eschatology. Early Christian interpreters plumbed a wide variety of Old Testament texts beyond Genesis (especially the Psalms, Deutero-Isaiah, and the Wisdom literature). In their New Testament commentary they focused on such motifs as the subjection of creation to ‘vanity’, the work of Jesus Christ in recapitulating God’s creative purposes, and the eschatological renewal and transformation of the created universe in its relation to human salvation.

Cristología y exégesis en el Tratado XV In Iohannis Euangelium de Agustín de Hipona

Augustinus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-152
Author(s):  
Joseph L. Grabau ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Fourth Gospel ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Augustine Of Hippo ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Proper Role ◽  
Pelagian Controversy ◽  
New Directions

Augustine of Hippo was active in the period leading up to conciliar definitions of Christology, yet he displays remarkably distinct preferences in his treatment of Christ. Rather than repurposing his work to discover antecedent traces of the Chalcedonian definition –or the pervading influence of Nicene faith–one must remain open to Augustine’s own Christological method. For, in fact, as much as he held to a firm belief in the objective work of Christ and its proper role in the divine plan for human salvation, Augustine maintains a certain approach to biblical exegesis that reinvents our notions of Christology to include, primarily, exegetical praxis. A valuable example of this practice appears in the early ‘anti-Donatist’ homilies on John, in particular in the 9th and 15th where Augustine reads Christ into the whole of Scripture, beginning with Gen. 2:24-5. In so doing, the bishop of Hippo builds upon essentially Pauline interpretative strategies, even in his reading of the Fourth Gospel. The present contribution aims to identify those Pauline elements, chiefly among them the role of Eph. 5:31-2 and Rom. 5:14, the latter of which presents Adam as ‘forma futuri’ – that is, a prophet of Christ. In his reading of John 2 on the Wedding at Cana (homily 9) and John 4 (homily 15), Augustine develops a hermeneutic of recognising Christological prophecy in the ‘old testament’, and in so doing he develops the Pauline sentiment of Rom. 5:14 in new directions, applying it liberally to the successive Hebrew patriarchs. This new turn in studies of Romans, chapter 5, under the Christological programme of Augustine during his early anti-Donatist engagement, offers new light on possible early Christian interpretations of the Bible – especially welcome after so many reflections on Rom. 5:12 and its influence for the later Pelagian controversy.

Scripture, Prophecy, and Knowledge of Christ in Origen

2021 ◽  
pp. 170-191
Author(s):  
Claire Hall
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Knowledge Of Christ ◽  
Somatic Sense ◽  
The Trinity

This chapter examines why Origen focuses closely on Christ and what it means for understanding prophecy. It argues that Origen’s focus on Christ can be understood as a response to the challenges of Marcionism. Earlier chapters examined somatic prophecy: that is to say, predictions of the future. Early Christian writers interpreted Old Testament prophecies as predictions of Christ, and doing so was an important anti-Marcionite strategy. However, christological prophecies were not only read in a somatic sense, that is, as predictions of Christ’s incarnate life. Many verses in the Bible were also read as pneumatic prophecies of Christ not as an incarnate human in time, but as the second person of the Trinity, outside time. As Origen claims, prophecies of this kind can ‘teach much theology’, functioning as pneumatic revelations of Christ as Logos and of God’s triune being. In answering the Marcionites’ claims that Old Testament prophecies were unreliable, Origen had to formulate positions on scripture’s epistemological status and also on how scripture relates to knowledge of God. This chapter therefore examines both Origen’s explicit response to the Marcionites, but also his notions of time, inspiration, and revelation, and examines a case study of John the Baptist as a prophet who unites the three senses of prophecy. It concludes that Christ is at the centre of Origen’s thought about prophecy, as the ultimate content of all somatic, psychic, and pneumatic prophecy.

The ways of the Bible: an interpretation of antique and biblical motives in the works of M.A. Voloshin

2019 ◽  
pp. 177-190
Author(s):  
E.B. Smagina
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
General View ◽  
Book Of Revelation ◽  
Biblical Poetry ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical History ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
Revolutionary Period

This article is about the evolution of the poetic work of Maximilian Voloshin in the context of Russian history of the early twentieth century. It reflects the formation of the religious and philosophical worldview of this poet-philosopher. The hypothesis is discussed that under the influence of tragic events, wars and revolutions, the biblical motives increasingly replace the antique ones, and the contemporary historical events are interpreted in terms of biblical history. In this connection a general view of the subject is given, as well as an analysis of the language, metrics, imagery and style of Woloshin's poetry at different moments of his creative work. It appears that if earlier the poet often tended to adapt antique verse and strophe to the Russian syllabo-tonic poetry, in the works of the epoch of wars and revolution he imitates the biblical poetry several times, and then he goes on to an unrhymed tonic verse, with the line divided into two hemistichs. Thereby the antique images, topoi and metaphors give way to biblical allusions, combined with realistic details of the period of terror and mass executions. It is proved that Crimea-Cimmeria, which had previously been an area of the ancient oecumene for the poet, an abode of the ancient gods, appears as an arena of the fulfilled prophetic and apocalyptic visions of the Bible in the post-revolutionary period of his work. It is alleged that history itself, which had previously been depicted as a cycle, according to ancient tradition, turns into a vector of destruction. Concerning the Old Testament history, the poet's attention is mostly attracted to prophetic books, and he chooses the most mystical images from the New Testament, chiefly from St John’s Book of Revelation. Moreover, some Gnostic motifs are combined with the Biblical ones. The cosmic allegory of Christ as the spirit "crucified" in the matter is considered as an example which goes back to the Gnostic teachings of Late Antiquity. It is also concluded that Voloshin’s hope for a future revival of Russia after passing through the crucible of trials also fits into the framework of the biblical tradition.

The Concept of Palestine: The Conception Of Palestine from the Late Bronze Age to the Modern Period

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Masalha
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Political Geography ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Master Narratives ◽  
The Bible ◽  
School History

The Concept of Palestine is deeply rooted in the collective consciousness of the indigenous people of Palestine and the multicultural ancient past. The name Palestine is the most commonly used from the Late Bronze Age (from 1300 BCE) onwards. The name Palestine is evident in countless histories, inscriptions, maps and coins from antiquity, medieval and modern Palestine. From the Late Bronze Age onwards the names used for the region, such as Djahi, Retenu and Cana'an, all gave way to the name Palestine. Throughout Classical Antiquity the name Palestine remained the most common and during the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods the concept and political geography of Palestine acquired official administrative status. This article sets out to explain the historical origins of the concept of Palestine and the evolving political geography of the country. It will seek to demonstrate how the name ‘Palestine’ (rather than the term ‘Cana'an’) was most commonly and formally used in ancient history. It argues that the legend of the ‘Israelites’ conquest of Cana'an’ and other master narratives of the Bible evolved across many centuries; they are myth-narratives, not evidence-based accurate history. It further argues that academic and school history curricula should be based on historical facts/empirical evidence/archaeological discoveries – not on master narratives or Old Testament sacred-history and religio-ideological constructs.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document