Three variants of an old tale. About the dream and reality of Emperor Asa

The paper deals with three similar tales - Of too much Pride, the story about Emperor Jovinian from Gesta Romanorum (Oesterley, 1872), The Story of Tsar Aggey and how he Suf?fered for Pride (Afanasev, Narodnye russkie legendy, 1859), and Asa The Emperor (Danicic, Three Old Tales, 1872). The story about Emperor Asa, the third king of the Kingdom of Judah (2 Chronicles 14-16), is preserved in only one Serbian-Slavonic manuscript from the end of the 16th century (now in The Patriarchal Library of the Serbian Orthodox Church, No. 167). Its main motif is the atonement of sin (Emperor?s deletion of three verses written by a woman from the holy books). In three days of punishment he will find himself in the alternative reality (of the dream), on a rubbish dump, dressed in rags, uncertain who he actually is. At the end of his ?waking dream? enlightened Asa will solemnize the Providence of God. The aim of this research is to establish some important literary aspects of shaping Asa?s character.

Sextus Empiricus on Religious Dogmatism

I present a reading of Sextus Empiricus’ two major discussions of philosophical theology (PH 3. 3–12 and M 9. 14–191) on which they offer divergent but compatible strategies for suspension of judgement about specific theological tenets. In Section 1, I focus on PH 3. 12 and M 9. 49 in order to make the case that the two discussions follow the same philosophical agenda. In Section 2, I argue that Pyrrhonists can participate in religious cult without compromising their suspensive stance. In Section 3, I analyse the argument of PH 3 with an eye to the dogmatic proposals concerning the conception, existence, and providence of god that it targets. In Section 4, I turn to M 9 to show that Sextus relies on dogmatic material to make the case for suspension not only concerning divine existence but also concerning the natural or conventional origin of the concept of god.

The Harmony and Consent of Divine and Human Willing

Perkins argues for the harmony of a human willing that is genuinely contingent and characterized by capacity for opposite or contrary choices with the overarching providence of God. To accomplish this, he adopts a version of the theory of a divine “premotion.” This premotion is necessary to the eventuation of any and all events, whether necessary, contingent, or free. This resolution has affinities with the argument posed by Dominican or Thomist writers in Perkins’ time against the Molinist notion of middle knowledge. Conjoined with Perkins’ voluntarist reading of freed choice, it serves to explain how divine and human will only as taken together are sufficient to explain free acts of human beings.

Analisis Makna Simbol Batu Tallu dan Täbä Tallu Tentang Pemeliharaan Allah di Salutambun dengan Menggunakan Teori Ernst Cassirer

Batu and Täbä are symbols and cultural relics in Salutambun. The main ideas represented through Batu and Täbä were the providence of God in the history of the local people. Reviving this meaning is the main purpose of the author. The last few decades after the community was dominated by Christianity, the center of community attention switched to the background of symbol founders (non-Christians) and the emergence of the title of "Guardian of the village" indicating idolatry. Both of these problems bore rejection of the symbol, and the meaning represented in it began to be forgotten by society. By that, the author was encouraged to construct the meaning of symbols as well as show their relevance to Christianity. The methods used are qualitative research methods, with symbolic interaction strategies. The source of information is customary parents, some community leaders, and churches, as well as documents/records history of Salutambun. The collected data was analyzed using the symbol theory of Ernst Cassirer. After conducting research, it was discovered that Batu and Täbä represented God's providence and contributed to the preaching of the gospel.Batu dan Täbä adalah simbol sekaligus peninggalan budaya di Salutambun. Gagasan utama yang direpresentasikan melalui Batu dan Täbä adalah pemeliharaan Allah dalam sejarah masyarakat setempat. Menghidupkan kembali makna inilah yang menjadi tujuan utama penulis. Beberapa dekade terakhir setelah masyarakat didominasi oleh Kekristenan, pusat perhatian masyarakat beralih ke latar belakang pendiri simbol (non-kristen) dan munculnya gelar “penjaga kampung” yang mengindikasikan penyembahan berhala. Kedua masalah ini melahirkan penolakan terhadap simbol, dan makna yang direpresentasikan di dalamnya mulai dilupakan masyarakat. Olehnya itu, penulis terdorong untuk mengonstruksi makna simbol sekaligus menunjukkan relevansinya bagi kekristenan. Metode yang digunakan adalah metode penelitian kualitatif, dengan strategi interaksi simbolik. Sumber informasi adalah orang tua adat, beberapa tokoh masyarakat dan gereja, serta dokumen/catatan sejarah Salutambun. Data yang terkumpul dianalisis menggunakan teori simbol dari Ernst Cassirer. Setelah melakukan penelitian, ditemukan bahwa Batu dan Täbä merepresentasikan pemeliharaan Allah dan memiliki kontribusi bagi pemberitaan Injil.

Tragical Mimesis and Biblical Interpretation I

This chapter moves straightaway into the first, and foundational, form of early Christian tragical mimesis, the interpretation of tragic (and tragic-comic) biblical narratives. “Dramatic” interpretation was not a method all its own but drew upon both literal and figural reading of the scriptural texts, and focused on mimetic re-presentation of the narratives in ways that highlighted and amplified their tragic elements. It served a primarily “contemplative” mode, or theôria, of reading tragic narratives, conducive to a tragical vision of sacred history. The chapter turns to some case studies of tragical or dramatic interpretation of the primitive tragedies in Genesis: the precipitous fall of Adam and Eve and their recognition thereof; and the tragic sibling rivalries of Cain and Abel and Jacob and Esau. Attention is given to the specific Aristotelian elements of tragedy (plausible or realistic plots; characters’ fateful miscalculation, or hamartia; reversal of fortune, or peripeteia; discovery, or anagnorisis; pathos, et al.) which patristic exegetes discerned in these stories. Mimetic or dramatic interpretation enhanced these elements all the more as means to draw audiences into the cosmic significance of the narratives related to moral evil, the legacies of sin and death, the fear of determinism, and the justice and providence of God.

Visions and Faces of the Tragic

Despite the pervasive early Christian repudiation of pagan theatrical art, especially prior to Constantine, this monograph demonstrates the increasing attention of late-ancient Christian authors to the genre of tragedy as a basis to explore the complexities of human finitude, suffering, and mortality in relation to the wisdom, justice, and providence of God. The book argues that various Christian writers, particularly in the post-Constantinian era, were keenly devoted to the mimesis, or imaginative re-presentation, of the tragic dimension of creaturely existence more than with simply mimicking the poetics of the classical tragedians. It analyzes a whole array of hermeneutical, literary, and rhetorical manifestations of “tragical mimesis” in early Christian writing, which, capitalizing on the elements of tragedy already perceptible in biblical revelation, aspired to deepen and edify Christian engagement with multiform evil and with the extreme vicissitudes of historical existence. Christian tragical mimetics included not only interpreting (and often amplifying) the Bible’s own tragedies for contemporary audiences, but also developing models of the Christian self as a tragic self, revamping the Christian moral conscience as a tragical conscience, and cultivating a distinctively Christian tragical pathos. The study culminates in an extended consideration of the theological intelligence and accountability of “tragical vision” and tragical mimesis in early Christianity, and the unique role of the theological virtue of hope in its repertoire of tragical emotions.

Learning to Lament: Complaining to God about the Decline of the Church

In this paper I want to consider using the book of Lamentations as a metaphor for understanding the suffering occasioned by the decline of the Western church, specifically the drastic fall in church membership and participation witnessed in Britain from the mid-twentieth century to the present. It is my contention that the church needs a way in which to speak its own hurt and disappointment with God, its heart-cry and its complaint, and that Lamentations provides a theological framework in which it might parse the various elements of its grief with the aim of understanding church decline within the providence of God. Lament gives the church the permission and the language to blame God for its decline, and to seek God as its singular hope for a future.