Starting from three theatrical rewritings of the parable of the prodigal son played on the stages of the Jesuits, the Fair and the Comédie-Française, the article focuses on analysing dramatic, dramaturgical and scenic choices that correspond to the narrative processes of the parable to renew its approach at the beginning of the eighteenth century, which is the turning point of a movement of secularization of biblical subjects. The open guidance of the word of Christ as reported by Luke is followed (...) by another form of guidance towards various interpretations corresponding to the expectations of the spectator, and plural readings that give a perception of the literacy of the New Testament narrative. (shrink)

The Magasin des enfants (1756) by Leprince de Beaumont includes a Bible for children, based on an oralised rewriting of the famoust stories of the Old Testament. The story of Adam, we closely examine, is both representative of the skill of retelling and of the discursive pragmatic function. This paraphrase, which is also a parable, includes the reader in its device and reveals the functioning of reading. The story, coupled with a tale that turns out to be an allegory of (...) reading, implicitly displays the conditions of biblical hermeneutics. (shrink)

This is one more edition of Voltaire's "Candide", meant to highlight the wealth of philosophical and theological discussions hidden behind the apparently innocent veil of the most renowned fable of modernity. The rather extended apparatus accordingly consists of a series of short chapters by Filippo Bruni on the Enlightenment and Metaphysics, and in more detail, on theology, Free choice, the problem of evil, and happiness in an imperfect world and another by Sergio Cremaschi on the Enlightenment and morality, and in (...) more detail on moral universalism, religion without metaphysics, toleration, and pacifism. -/- Table of contents I. Before the text A trick for priests A scandalous book Garden with view -/- II. Text Candide or optimism -/- III. Context Biography 1. The seven years war 2. Calvinists and Socinians 3. Jiansenists and Gesuits 4. Marranos and inquisitors 5. Conquistadores and slave-traders 6. Paraguay under the Jesuits -/- IV. Co-text 1. Enlightenment and Metaphysics 1.1. Theology 1.2. Free choice 1.3. The problem of evil 1.4. Being happy in an imperfect world -/- 2. Enlightenment and morality 2.1. Universal morality 2.2. Religion without Metaphysics 2.3. Toleration 2.4. Pacifism -/- 3. Enlightenment and the images of other places 3.1. The image of Eldorado 3.2. The image of Paraguay 3.3 The image of the Islamic world 3.4. The image of the Jew -/- 4. The conte philosophique -/- Bibliography Lexicon Index of names and concepts -/- V. Reader’s guide. (shrink)

Voltaire, the pen name of François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), was one of the most influential leaders of the French Enlightenment. His defense of individual freedom of conscience and his criticisms of religious fanaticism and oppressive orthodoxy had a telling effect on Western history, inspiring several leading founders of America's new laws. This is the first English translation of many of his key texts from his famous pamphlet war for tolerance, written from 1750 to 1768, originally published under pseudonyms to avoid imprisonment (...) and to educate the average citizen. Included are "The Sermon of Rabbi Akib" (a searing attack on anti-Semitism), "Prayer to God" (from the famous Treatise on Tolerance), the hugely popular "Catechism of the Honest Man," "The Dinner at Count Boulainvillier's," and other witty, sometimes acerbic pieces that point out the errors in the Bible, the corruption of the clergy, and the religiously-inspired persecutions, both of his day and across the ages. Many of these pamphlets were burned in a losing battle by the authorities. With a lengthy introduction and copious notes by the editor and translator, plus an appendix including first-hand accounts of the battle by noted mathematician and French revolutionary Condorcet, Frederick the Great, Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith, and others, this excellent compilation will be a welcome addition to the libraries of anyone with an interest in human rights and freedom of thought. (shrink)

Dans les traditions juives et chrétiennes, on trouve, à côté d�un ensemble d�écrits canoniques (ensemble dont la définition précise varie d�ailleurs selon les communautés), toute une littérature «deutéro-canonique» (ou «apocryphe») et pseudépigraphe. Depuis longtemps, les spécialistes � en particulier dans le monde anglo-saxon � ont pris l�habitude d�analyser cette littérature sous l�angle de la «réécriture» des traditions bibliques. Cette approche soulève toutefois plusieurs difficultés, en particulier parce qu�elle tient pour acquise la fixation des traditions bibliques au moment où se constitue (...) ce qui deviendra la littérature «apocryphe». Au contraire, en dialogue avec plusieurs travaux récents, l�étude suivante défend et illustre l�idée qu�il convient d�approcher le problème du point de vue de la mise en place progressive de «traditions mémoriales» dans le judaïsme et le christianisme anciens. Dans ce processus complexe, le phénomène de la réécriture ne reflète pas nécessairement la soumission à un original considéré comme «autoritaire» ou normatif, mais témoigne bien plutôt de la très grande fluidité des traditions «scripturaires» recueillies par les communautés à cette époque. (shrink)

Voltaire (1694-1778), novelist, dramatist, poet, philosopher, historian, and satirist, was one of the most renowned figures of the Age of Enlightenment. In this collection of anti-clerical works from the last twenty-five years of Voltaire's life, he roundly attacks the philosophical optimism of the deists, the so-called inspiration of the Bible, the papacy, and vulgar superstition. These great works reveal Voltaire not only as a polemicist but also as a profound humanitarian. Selections include "Poem on the Lisbon Disaster," "We Must Take (...) Sides," "The Questions of Zapate," "The Sermon of the Fifty," homilies on superstition and the interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, and his famous "Treatise on Toleration.". (shrink)

Table of Contents: Illustrations Acknowledgments Conventions Introduction 3 Ch. 1 Kinds of Natural Philosophy 14 Ch. 2 Methods of Bookishness 49 Ch. 3 Modes of Argument 82 Ch. 4 Bodin’s Philosophy of Nature 116 Ch. 5 Theatrical Metaphors 153 Ch. 6 The Reception of the Theatrum 180 Epilogue: The Legacies of the Theatrum 225 Notes 233 Bibliography 331 Index 369.

Evaluation of the influence of Hayden White on the theory of history is made difficult by his preference for the essay form, valued for its experimental character, and by the need to find comparable data. A quantitative study of citations of his work in English and foreign-language journals, 1973–1993, reveals that although historians were prominent among early readers of Metahistory, few historical journals reviewed White's two subsequent collections of essays and few historians-except in Germany-cited them. Those historians who did tended (...) still to cite Metahistory and often the parts of it devoted specifically to nineteenth-century historians.Literary critics, on the other hand, were relatively late to discover White, but during the "narrative turn" of the 1970s and 1980s his work was important for students of the novel and the theater. Recognition of it was especially marked in Spanish-speaking countries and in Germany.As a result, salient themes of White's later work-the ideological and political import of narrativization, the "historical sublime," and writing in the "middle voice"-have largely gone unremarked by historians and philosophers. Both these groups have tended to be irritated by White's bracketing of questions of historical epistemology; some have accused him of effacing the line between fiction and history, while White's numerous literary readers have generally applauded his tendencies in this direction. White however has consistently maintained that there is a difference, although not the one conventionally postulated. His exploration of writing in the "middle voice" brings his work full circle, in that it promises a "modernist" realism appropriate for representing the "sublime" events of our century. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;This thesis examines the influence and reception of John Locke in France and French-speaking communities in the period 1688 to 1734. We begin with the circumstances of the translation of Locke's works into French, a study of Locke's personal relationships and correspondence with French Protestants chiefly in the Low Countries, and a survey of early references to Locke in literary journals; these establish the initial patterns of dissemination of (...) Locke's ideas. ;Four areas are then examined in detail: the use made of Locke by those writing on natural law, especially Jean Barbeyrac in his influential translations of Grotius and Pufendorf; Locke's contribution to debates on natural order of words in natural languages and on methods of Latin-teaching, chiefly in the work of Du Marsais; the Jesuit educator Claude Buffier and his use of, and reservations about, Locke in the context of educational theory and empirical philosophy; and Locke's place in the debate, set by Cartesian and scholastic traditions, about metaphysical and epistemological questions such as animal souls and thinking matter. ;Voltaire forms the focus of the conclusion: his own study of Locke and his presentation of Locke's ideas are examined by means of his own correspondence and of a detailed study of the Lettres philosophiques and immediate responses to them in literary circles. We conclude that, although Voltaire was not the first French-speaking writer to discover and use Locke, he did importantly popularise Locke by presenting him coherently and comprehensibly. (shrink)

Tom Stoppard is not the sort of playwright one might call anti-intellectual, yet he has persistently singled out the field of academic philosophy for special assault in his plays. Stoppard’s antipathy emerges from a history of contention between the theater and philosophy in England, one that originates in Friedrich Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy and its particular reception at the hands of George Bernard Shaw. Stoppard offers an apotheosis of this disputation in his 1972 farce Jumpers, which imagines a marriage between (...) a philosopher and an actress meant to demonstrate the superiority of the theater as a mode of speculative discourse. (shrink)

Le théâtre, au lendemain même de la prise de la Bastille, s'était affirmé comme tribune révolutionnaire et « école du citoyen ». La décision, de la part des assemblées révolutionnaires, de transporter les cendres de Voltaire au Panthéon, ne pouvait manquer d'être une occasion pour célébrer le philosophe au théâtre et cinq pièces, toutes sur l'Affaire Calas, furent représentées entre le 17 décembre 1790 et le 31 juillet 1791. Les cinq auteurs centrent leur action sur le drame familial et sur (...) le climat de fanatisme religieux dans lequel elle s'était déroulée. Deux mots, fanatisme et fanatique, représentent la pierre de touche et font le passage entre l'époque réelle de l'Affaire Calas et l'époque de sa représentation théâtrale . Ils recouvrent l'événement et son moment historique précis, ils constituent une notion pour laquelle les philosophes s'étaient battus et prennent la valeur d'un symbole paradigmatique que la Révolution prétendait achevé. Les pièces s'articulent selon un continuel renvoi entre le temps réel et le temps de la représentation : le passé — le temps du fanatisme et du despotisme — annonce l'avenir — l'anéantissement de l'un et de l'autre — qui est le présent des spectateurs.The morning after the fall of the Bastille, theatre imposed itself as both a revolutionary pulpit and an "école du citoyen" . The revolutionary assemblies' decision to transfer Voltaire's ashes to the Panthéon was the occasion to celebrate the philosopher at the theatre : five plays, all regarding the Affaire Calas, where offered to the public between 17 December 1790 and 3 July 1791. All five authors based their plays on both the family drama and on the climate of religious fanaticism in which the former occurred. Fanaticism and fanatic are the words which act as the touchtone and which allow the transition from the historical period which is that of the Affaire Calas to its presentation on the stage . The plays acquire structure through constant cross-reference opposing the historical period and the time of the dramatic representation : the past, a time of fanaticism and despotism, foreshadows the abolishment of both in the future; that is, the spectator's present. (shrink)

Since antiquity, prologues are an opportunity to specify adaptations and translations, as well as to be polemical. In the 18th century, both these traditions merge into a new form: translation polemics in prologues. Such polemics, I want to argue in this paper, serve as a cultural and political medium of nation-building. This process becomes apparent in the reception of Voltaire in German-speaking theatre, particularly when it is mediated through English drama. The national antagonisms that are found in English Voltaire translations (...) (Hill, Miller) recur in prominent text such as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Hamburg Dramaturgy and Friedrich Schiller’s prologue To Goethe, On His Producing Voltaire’s »Mahomet« On The Stage in an effort to break new ground for German national theatre. (shrink)

Among the historical studies, Ben Rogers performs the unglamorous duty of providing a concise biography of Pascal in “Pascal’s life and times.” Henry Phillips examines Pascal’s study and use of Montaigne and Descartes in “Pascal’s reading and inheritance of Montaigne and Descartes.” This essay is quite informative about Pascal’s apologetic project and the use made of Montaigne and Descartes in that project. An especially interesting feature of this essay is the contrast of the Pascalian apologetic project and the Cartesian. Michael (...) Moriarty, in “Grace and religious belief in Pascal,” offers a very helpful way of distinguishing Jansenism from Calvinism, and from the Semi-Pelagianism of the Jesuits. In “Pascal and holy writ,” David Wetsel offers an exposition of Pascal’s use of the Bible as a “proof” of the truth of Christian belief. Richard Parish, in his “Pascal’s Lettres provinciales: from flippancy to fundamentals,” shows a progression of style and method that gained Pascal’s polemical work a lasting significance. The concluding essay of the collection, “The reception of Pascal’s Pensées in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,” by Antony McKenna, is an interesting survey of the generally negative reaction to Pascal’s emphasis on the hiddenness of God, and the correlative rejection of natural theology in favor of historical theology. (shrink)

The 19th century saw the rise of Biblical Criticism in German universities, culminating in Wellhausen s radical revision of the history of biblical times and religion. For German-Jewish intellectuals, the academic discipline promised emancipation from traditional Christian readings of Scripture but at the same time suffered from what was perceived as anti-Jewish bias, this time in scholarly robes. Reclaiming the Hebrew Bible describes the German-Jewish strategies to cope with Biblical Criticism varying from an enthusiastic welcome, through modified adoption, to resolute (...) rejection.". (shrink)

This chapter examines the place of India in eighteenth-century debates over the chronology of human history. It begins with Voltaire, who strategically praised ancient Brahmanic religion for upholding a pure form of monotheism and an equally pure form of morality. Voltaire’s aim was to upset the primacy assigned to the Mosaic tradition foundational to the Catholic church. The chapter then turns to Herder and his effort to improve upon the historical methods of Voltaire. While Herder is often considered to have (...) developed positive views toward ancient Indian culture, the chapter shows that his commitment to a biblical chronology was consistent throughout his career. (shrink)

“René Girard’s thoughts on the connection between religion and violence are just now becoming known in Germany,” wrote the philosopher Eckhard Nordhofen at the beginning of 1995 in the influential German weekly Die Zeit.1 Was Nordhofen correct with this assessment back then, or was he rather mistaken? Had not a first phase of reception of Girard’s works in the German-speaking world already begun in the late 1970s, or at the latest by the mid 1980s? One must note, though, that Girard (...) was never in fashion during the 1970s or 1980s and that these first attempts to incorporate his works into academic discussion came from individual scholars such as the Swiss Jesuit Raymund Schwager; Konrad Thomas, a sociologist based .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Philosophers and the Bible: The Debate on Sacred Scripture in Early Modern Thought ed. by Antonella Del Prete, Anna Lisa Schino, and Pina TotaroPiet SteenbakkersAntonella Del Prete, Anna Lisa Schino, and Pina Totaro, editors. The Philosophers and the Bible: The Debate on Sacred Scripture in Early Modern Thought. Brill's Studies in Intellectual History 333. Leiden: Brill, 2022. Pp. xiv + 303. Hardback, €135.16.This volume has its origins (...) in an international conference held in May 2019 in Rome and Viterbo. In its scope and approach, it surpasses the average volume of conference proceedings, owing to the editors' wise decision to invite additional papers to enhance its thematic coherence. Even with this expansion, they managed to get the book published within fifteen months—a remarkable achievement. Apart from chapters 12 and 13, which are in French, the volume is entirely in English. Most authors are proficient enough, but there are occasional slips, for instance, redundant definite articles ("the scripture" [61], "truths of the faith" [251]) or mistranslations ("prevent men from attacking and killing themselves" instead of "… killing each other" [87]).The generous bibliographies, one for every chapter, are a treasure trove. They are up to date and mostly well balanced. Taking into account that all but two of the authors are Italian, the literature referred to is impressively international in scope—more so than one usually sees in edited volumes, where English rules supreme. Chapters 1 and 3, which deal with Italian philosophers, have few non-Italian titles, and chapter 9 (on Pascal) few non-French titles.Textbook histories of philosophy pay little or no attention to what philosophers have said about the Bible: as a matter of course, the subject is assigned to the realm of theology and religion. As the editors rightly point out in their introduction (1–2), that is to ignore the massive presence of Scripture in Western culture. They even speak of the "biblical foundations" of early modern and contemporary thought (2). While that appraisal may seem exaggerated, they certainly have a point when they insist on the far-reaching and lasting influence of the Bible on Western thought—science and philosophy included. That the subject has been overlooked by historians of philosophy may in part be due to the academic division of labor with its rigid demarcations between disciplines and a near absolute divide between sciences and humanities. This distorts our view of the early modern period, when these qualifications had not yet been coined and demarcations between what would become separate disciplines were altogether fluid. Those who are now called "scientists" were formerly known as "natural philosophers." The present volume therefore deals not only with [End Page 325] Ficino, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Conway, Pascal, Wolff, and other thinkers now primarily classified as philosophers, but also with Galileo (though not directly addressed, "the 'Galileo affair' constitutes the background of the book" [8]), Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton, as well as with influential figures who defy our habitual classifications, for example, Biddle or Mersenne. The book boldly situates itself in what has gradually become a broad tradition of interdisciplinary scholarship, cultivated by luminaries such as Eugenio Garin, Paul O. Kristeller, Amos Funkenstein, and Anthony Grafton.The subtitle of the book, The Debate on Sacred Scripture in Early Modern Thought, may conjure up images of a historical debate among philosophers, along the lines of, say, the German Pantheismusstreit (pantheism dispute) of the 1780s. A curious aspect of the involvement of philosophers (in the broadest sense) in matters related to the Bible, however, is that the "debate" was a confrontation of philosophers with theologians, clerics, ecclesiastical and very often also civil authorities, rather than a mere philosophical dispute. This also means that individual philosophers' freedom of expression varied considerably depending on their denomination and environment. Thus, Galileo clashed head-on with the Roman Catholic Church, Descartes sought the approbation of the theologians of the Sorbonne, the Jesuits who inveighed against Pascal did so with little or no interest in the biblical text (see D'Agostino's chapter 9, 169). The Reformation took the Word of God for its foundation, so that Protestant settings (England, the Dutch Republic, and the Lutheran countries) were... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Bible and the Priesthood: Priestly Participation in the One Sacrifice for Sins by Anthony GiambroneMichael S. HahnThe Bible and the Priesthood: Priestly Participation in the One Sacrifice for Sins. By Anthony Giambrone, O.P. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2022. Pp. xxi + 297. $22.99 (paper). ISBN: 978-1-5409-6186-0.In the Vatican II decree on priestly training, Optatam Totius, the council Fathers prescribe a five-stage pedagogical approach to the treating (...) of topics in dogmatic or systematic theology, such as the sacrament of holy orders. Consideration is to be given first to the witness of Scripture, then to patristic testimony, to subsequent historical developments, to Scholastic speculation, and finally, to the contemporary life of the Church, especially in the addressing of current problems. Although this genetic method of theological instruction may appear plausible and attractive on paper, in actual practice it runs certain risks. Among other things, the immediate relevance of what is to be considered in the final stage threatens to overrun or distort what is to be considered in the earlier stages, such that these sources are mined with too much of an eye to their applicability to present issues. Moreover, even if more equally balanced attention is paid to each stage, the danger arises that in covering so much ground one remains chiefly at surface level, inadvertently foreclosing appreciation for the depths of the mysteries in view and inoculating against the theological studiositas that drives toward greater [End Page 692] understanding. Further compounding the challenges of fruitfully implementing the council Fathers’ vision is the ever-widening divergence of specialization within theological subdisciplines, which too often renders the field Babel-like and crippled by mutual incomprehension. Perhaps nowhere is this tendency toward breakdown of communication more evident than in the disconnect between biblical studies and other theological areas—a tragedy of special import, given the stress placed by Optatam Totius and by other magisterial texts on Scripture as the foundational for theology.While there appears on the horizon neither a one-size-fits-all fix to the problems of theological integration nor an algorithmic means of implementing it, glimmers of hope remain. Holding promise, for instance, are recent trends toward the “theological interpretation of Scripture” and the continued emergence of a self-styled “biblical theology” which, while admitting of great variety in expression and emphasis, nonetheless constitute explicit attempts to bridge this particular gap. What the strongest of these and other endeavors tend to illustrate is that genuine theological integration is to be found not so much in methods or programs of study as in the actual thinking and writing of individual theologians and exegetes, who will approach the consideranda identified by Optatam Totius not as discrete stages of inquiry but as essential ingredients that ought to be creatively and responsibly blended in varying proportions, reflecting both their own particular specializations and their personal attentiveness to the pertinent biblical, patristic, historical, speculative, and practical concerns.A worthy example of such creative and responsible blending is Anthony Giambrone’s The Bible and the Priesthood, the second of seven planned entries in Baker Academic’s new series “A Catholic Biblical Theology of the Sacraments,” edited by Tim Gray and John Sehorn. In keeping with its stated focus on the Bible and Giambrone’s own training as an exegete, the book is chiefly a work of Scripture scholarship, yet it also thoroughly theological, and this not only in its concern with priesthood and the sacrament of orders, but also in how and why the author engages with the biblical (and extrabiblical) texts under investigation in treating these topics. Taking a cue from a 2019 essay by Pope Benedict XVI, Giambrone zeros in on certain “deep roots” of the ongoing priestly crisis that were identified by the late pontiff, including “a methodological flaw in the reception of Scripture as the Word of God” and a related “reject[ion]... of an authentically cultic priesthood in the New Covenant” (3). In directly countering the second of these problems across the bulk of its chapters, the book also exemplifies a corrective to the first, providing remedies to this “flaw” on both the hermeneutical and the... (shrink)

This article explores the complex process of integrating Tycho Brahe's theories into the Jesuit intellectual framework through focusing on the international community of professors who taught mathematics at the College of Saint Anthony (Colégio de Santo Antão), Lisbon, during the first half of the seventeenth century. Historians have conceived the reception of the Tychonic system as a straightforward process motivated by the developments of early modern astronomy. Nevertheless, this paper argues that the cultural politics of the Counter-Reformation Church curbed the (...) reception of Tycho Brahe within the Jesuit milieu. Despite supporting the Tychonic geo-heliocentric system, which they explicitly conceived of as a ‘compromise’ between the ancient Ptolemy and the modern Copernicus, and making recourse to some of the cosmological ideas produced in Tycho's Protestant milieu, the Jesuits strove to confine the authority of the Lutheran astronomer to the domain of mathematics. Philosophy was expected to remain the realm of Catholic orthodoxy. Thus, while Tycho Brahe entered the pantheon of ‘Jesuit’ authorities, he nonetheless was not granted the absolute status of intellectual authority. This case demonstrates how the impact of confessionalization reached well beyond the formal processes of science censorship. (shrink)

Abstract:This article examines the use of astronomical chronology in Jesuit and secular works of history between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries. It suggests that the highly visible adoption of astronomical records in historical scholarship in Enlightenment Europe by Nicolas Fréret and Voltaire was entangled with debates about Chinese chronology, translated by Jesuit missionaries. The article argues that the missionary Martino Martini's experience of the Manchu conquest of China was crucial in shaping his conception of history as a discipline. Political events (...) that unfolded in seventeenth-century China had a marked effect on discussions about emergent world history in eighteenth-century Europe. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:690 BOOK REVIEWS Galileo, Bellarmine and the Bible. By RICHARD J. BLACKWELL. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1991. Pp. 272. $29.95 {cloth). Although this well-hound, manageable volume, complete with an artistic seventeenth-century dust jacket, has not received an official ecclesiastical "imprimatur," nevertheless, it is (according to this Dominican reviewer) both free from doctrinal error and filled with true and useful historical, philosophical, and theological information. Seemingly no (...) other case in the history of our western intellectual tradition has generated more controversy, more ill feeling, and more mutual misunderstanding across more lines of intellectual, political, and religious division than the "Galileo affair." Few people today are equipped historically, scientifically, philosophically, and theologically to discuss accurately the wide range of issues surrounding this unfortunate incident. A seasoned veteran of the strong historical, philosophical tradition of the Jesuit-run St. Louis University, and himself an active member of the Roman Catholic Church, Richard J. Blackwell, historian of philosophy and philosopher of science, has done a marvelous service to the academic community hy presenting us with this volume. In this well-researched, well-argued, and very readable manuscript, Blackwell helps to place Galileo's intellectual and ecclesiastical struggle within the broader historical, philosophical, religious, and theological context of rthe late 16th and early 17th centuries. Quoting the words of Olaf Pedersen, Blackwell considers the Galileo affair " not only as an episode in the history of science, but also as an important event in the history of theology" {p. 3). His principal purpose in writing this book is " to study the Galileo affair from this perspective " and, in particular, to understand "the role played by the Bible in the Galileo affair" (p. 3). Without attempting to praise, to blame, or to excuse, Blackwell sets out to understand precisely how it was that the historical, religious, and theological factors came to have such a profound effect on the scientific and philosophical questions of Galileo's time. He argues convincingly that the Roman insistence on upholding the traditional interpretation of certain key biblical passages can he understood adequately only within the historical and religious climate of postTridentine theology, Jesuit obedience, and strict adherence to the Thomistic synthesis of philosophy and theology. Toward this end, Blackwell brings together for the first time certain important texts, concepts, and historical arguments that help to alleviate some of the " murkiness " blurring our view of the Galileo affair, and help to make that incident more intelligible to our modern minds. BOOK REVIEWS 691 Blackwell argues that the Roman hierarchy was not so much concerned with the content of the new astronomy as it was determined to reassert itself as the authentic interpreter of Scripture and tradition. According to Blackwell, the new astronomy challenged not only the philosophy of Aristotle and the theology of Thomas Aquinas, but, perhaps more importantly, it challenged the ecclesiastical authority of the Roman hierarchy in its role as interpreter and teacher of the Apostolic faith. How could the new astronomy be anything but a hypothetical model, when it so clearly contradicted the words of Scripture as in· terpreted by the Church Fathers? How could mere mathematicians and astronomers insist on philosophical propositions that seemed to make the Bible false? No single individual was invested with the authority to interpret the Bible for the whole body of believers, as the Church had so painfully learned from the lessons of the Protestant Reformers. That authority lay solely with the "Church," that is, with the Roman hierarchy, the Pope in union with a council, as was clear from the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent. Moreover, strict obedience was the order of the day as many Jesuit thinkers so agonizingly came to realize. Blackwell divides his own text into seven chapters: (1) Trent and Beyond; (2) Bellarmine's Views Before the Galileo Affair; (3) Gali· leo's Detour into Biblical Exegesis; (4) Foscarini's Bombshell; (5) The Bible at Galileo's Trial (6) The Jesuit Dilemma: Truth or Obedience ; and (7) Reflections on Truth in Science and in Religion. In the first two chapters, he establishes a context for the Galileo affair by discussing :the theological interpretation and importance of the Council of Trent... (shrink)

This research focused on one of the messages in the Lord’s Prayer, particularly Matthew 6:12 about prayer for forgiveness and forgiveness to others in order to suggest a concept revision for the sake of a rather normative modern Arabic audience. In the Smith-Van Dyck version, asking God for forgiveness serves as the basis for forgiving sinners by using the present and future form of the verb نغفر كما (as we will forgive). This translation is in contrast to 1881 Jesuit Arabic (...) Bible, which used the past tense غفرنا كما and أعفينا فقد (as we have forgiven) as written in the Greek Bible as ὀφειλήματα ‘debts’ by referring to the debt metaphor. This study examined the Arabic translation of Matthew 6:12 in the perspective of Nida and Taber’s semantic adjustments. In light of the research findings, it was clear that the semantic adjustment and grammatical adjustment in the translation did not run on the grammatical structure of the Arabic language. The translation into Arabic also did not comply with the original source of the text, but it was accentuated by the interpretation of ‘debts’ into ‘sins’.Contribution: In conclusion, this fact can be seen from the choice of the word ‘نغفر’ and the use of the future tense (fi’l muḍār’i) as opposed to the source text that uses the past tense (fi’l māḍy). (shrink)

This essay will investigate the context – in terms of both sources (by means of influence, transformation, or contrast) and ancient reception – of the concept of the dynamic unity of the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father (John 10:38, 14:10, 17:21) in both ‘pagan’ and Christian Middle-Platonic and Neoplatonic thinkers. The Christians include Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa, but also Evagrius Ponticus and John Scottus Eriugena. The essay will outline, in ‘Middle Platonism’, (...) the hierarchical theology of a first and second God (and sometimes a third), and in Neoplatonism, Plotinus’ three hypostases arranged in hierarchical order, which will be contrasted with Origen’s and the Cappadocians’ three divine hypostases that are equal – like those of Augustine. Thus, for Origen not only is the Son in the Father, as in a ‘pagan’ Middle and Neoplatonic scheme, but also the Father is in the Son, in a perfect reciprocity of dynamic unity. Origen subscribes to this reciprocity because, as I argue, he is no real ‘subordinationist’, but the precursor of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan line (the Cappadocians, especially Nyssen, developed and emphasised the notion of equality, bringing the three Hypostases of the Trinity to the level of Plotinus’ One, but the premises were all in Origen’s theology and his concept of the coeternity of the three Hypostases and their common divinity: Nyssen, like Athanasius, even use Origen’s arguments in his own anti-Arian polemic, as we shall see). Origen even interpreted Philo’s theology, also close to so-called Middle Platonism, in a non-subordinationistic sense, attributing to the Hypostasis of Logos/Sophia the various dynameis, such as Logos and Sophia, that Philo used most probably in a non-hypostatic sense. I shall also demonstrate how Gregory of Nyssa, significantly following Origen, in his work Against Eunomius used John 14:10a to refute the philosophical argument of Eunomius, who had a profoundly subordinationistic view of Christ with respect to the Father. Gregory’s solution is that neither the Father nor the Son are in an absolute sense, but both are in a reciprocal relation or σχέσις, what I shall present as Gregory’s own version of the dynamic unity (in turn grounded in Origen). I shall also concentrate on the use that Gregory makes of John 17:21-23 to argue that the unity of the Father and the Son, and of all believers – and eventually all humans – in them, is substantiated by the Holy Spirit, who is seen as a bond of unity. I shall study how the notion of the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father relates to the parallel statements in John 14:10, that Christ is in the disciples (and all believers) and these are in Christ – what I will call an ‘expansive’ notion of dynamic unity – and John 17:21, that just as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, so the disciples and all believers too should become ‘one’ in the Father and the Son. Here, as I shall argue, Middle and Neoplatonic henology comes to the fore as a possible background and interpretive lens at the same time. I shall show how Origen joined it to the unifying force of charity-love (agape), in turn a central theme in John, and how Evagrius, performing his exegesis of these verses, interpreted henosis. A coda will explore the corollary of the Divinity ‘all in all’, which is not only a central tenet of Origen’s theology, but also of that of Proclus. It will be pointed out how this concept relates to the issue of the dynamic unity within the divine. (shrink)

Benedictus Pererius as a 16th-century Jesuit integrated Platonic and Neo-Platonic sources in his philosophical and theological works as long as they were compatible with Catholic theology. His commentary on Genesis and his theological disputations on St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans gave occasions to calibrate philosophy against theology. Pererius judges that pagan thinkers may be laudable for acknowledging the existence of God but cautions Christian readers as to the orthodoxy of such findings. Against the Protestant literalist interpretation of the Bible (...) at the expense of philosophical theory of nature Pererius dealt with the questions of immortality and of the pagan notions of divinity and examined the role of philosophical heroes like Socrates and Hermes. Thus he welcomed philosophy as a potential source of religious thinking. (shrink)

En 1997 la parution de La Bible en littérature marquait une étape importante du dialogue entre les études littéraires et les études bibliques [Beaude 1997]. Issu d’un colloque qui s’était tenu à Metz trois ans plus tôt, le livre visait à « mettre en lumière les alliances que nouent la littérature moderne, principalement d’expression française, et la Bible aux XIXe et XXe siècles » [Beaude 1997, p. 7], et concrètement à décrire chez tel ou tel écrivain le travail de réécriture (...) opéré à partir d... (shrink)

The known contents of Isaac Newton’s private library include a book seldom noticed by biographers or historians of science: a 1662 edition of the Eloquentia bipartita of the Jesuit scholar Famiano Strada. Contents include two lectures, originally given in Rome early in the century, that offer a fictitious account of a contest a century before, in which the leading humanists of the day had squared off against one another, each dressed up like his favorite ancient poet. These curious lectures reveal (...) a forgotten link between the workings of poetic influence in the classical tradition and Newton’s paradigm-shattering theories of mechanics. (shrink)

This article highlights some paradoxical aspects of Voltaire's admiration for Racine. He paid little attention to Racine's plays as dramatic entities, followed received opinions, and made many unfavourable judgements, especially concerning Racine's mix of tragedy and galanterie. What he idolized was Racine's use of language and his poetic skill. He thus removed Racine's tragedies from the contingencies of the theatre, and transformed them into an eighteenth-century linguistic and cultural ideal that he used for polemical purposes in a war against Shakespeare (...) and encroaching barbarism, leading the Romantics subsequently to reject the `Racine' he had been so influential in creating. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Reception of René Girard's Thought in Italy:1965-Present1Federica Casini (bio) and Pierpaolo Antonello (bio)Italy provides an important national cultural context for the global mapping of constantly growing interest in René Girard's thought and in mimetic theory. Girard is widely and unquestionably recognized as one of the most influential thinkers of our times. Interviews, public interventions, and excerpts of his books are featured quite regularly in Italian national newspapers and (...) magazines, and, as a result, Girard's name is known outside narrow academic circles.2 All his books have been translated into Italian, including several unique titles, which are available neither in French nor in English, and which are collections of previously unpublished occasional papers or essays.3 The reception of his thought has not been confined to any specific disciplinary ambit; it has been discussed, among others, by philosophers, literary critics, social scientists, cognitive scientists, theologians, and psychoanalysts.4 This article aims at providing a chronology of Girard's reception in Italy, while surveying the critical literature and the intellectual response to his theory, from the publication of his first book to the present. [End Page 139]From the 1960s to the 1980s: Lies and Truth (About Girard) and the Early Reception of His BooksThe first Italian translation of Mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque5 was released by Bompiani in 1965, with a title that was both misleading and symptomatic: Struttura e personaggi del romanzo moderno (Structures and Characters in the Modern Novel). The reference to structuralism, which was the theoretical fashion of the day in Italian literary circles in the mid-1960s, and the pigeonholing of Girard's exegetical scrutiny as novelistic criticism testify emblematically to the difficulty of classification, plus the substantial misunderstanding that the book withstood both in Italy and in other parts of Europe at that time. To omit mensonge and vérité from the title of the Italian edition is to ignore the "truth" of the matter, that the book was also a mediation on the structure of human desire, extending outside the limits of representation and literature, branching out into a theory of human behavior and the social dynamic that had a profound psychological, anthropological, and sociological reach. Moreover, Mensonge romantique is a meditation on modernity (the novel being its most emblematic form of representation) and the consequences of the unleashing of increasing levels of "internal mediation" within bourgeois society. The reception of this volume was quite cold, and it was reprinted only in 1981, after the wave of discussion stirred by the publication of the Italian translation of Violence and the Sacred. The only review published between 1965 and 1979, by the literary critic Enzo Golino, appeared in 1966 in L'Espresso,6 a weekly magazine that has played, and still plays today, a determinant role in the presentation of Girardian texts to the general public in Italy.Given this minimal reception, it is not surprising that the publication of Girard's groundbreaking work, La Violence et le sacré, in 1972,7 was largely ignored in Italy, in spite of the discussion it stirred in French intellectual quarters and the cultural exchange that Italian intellectuals have always maintained with Parisian cultural circles. The only review that appeared in Italy was by Paola Daniela Giovannelli, a literary critic and an expert on Italian theater, showing that the new work clearly still suffered from the same kind of disciplinary classification and reception as Mensonge romantique. In fact, it appeared in the literary journal Lingua e stile, and it discusses the anthropology of sacrifice and the interdisciplinary perspective, ranging from ethnology to psychoanalysis to myth, that feature in La Violence et le sacré in terms of a "theatricalization" of anthropology, mainly due to Giovannelli's disciplinary interests and the book's focus on Greek tragedies.8 [End Page 140]However, Girard's name finally burst onto the intellectual scene in Italy in 1980, when the Italian translation of Violence and the Sacred was released by Adelphi, with the title La violenza e il sacro.9 This marks the "official" entrance of Girardian thought into the Italian cultural debate, as the volume was hailed by a series of... (shrink)

In this first original collection of essays on Catholic Biblical Ethics ever done in English, renowned Jesuit moral theologian James Keenan brings together distinct voices from numerous cultures and language groups. The result is a volume representing a truly global community of Catholic ethics scholars. The Bible and Catholic Theological Ethics deepens contemporary understandings of the relationship between the Holy Bible and the world of Catholic ethical reflection. Like the four other books in the prestigious CTEWC Series, this volume aims (...) at offering a more systematic, comprehensive, and global perspective than typical Anglo-centric or North American-focused offerings. (shrink)

Presentation, par Marie-Helene Cotoni Parcours critique : une anthologie R. Pomeau : Histoire d'une oeuvre de Voltaire : le Dictionnaire philosophique portatif Y. Florenne : Voltaire, ou de la raison et de la deraison par alphabet Etiemble : Preface au Dictionnaire philosophique R. Pomeau : La documentation de Voltaire dans le Dictionnaire philosophique J. Cazeneuve : La philosophie de Voltaire d'apres le Dictionnaire philosophique J.Deprun : Le Dictionnaire philosophique et Malebranche M. Delon : Voltaire entre le continu et le discontinu (...) A. Becq : Le "catechisme chinois" Ch. Mervaud : Philosophie et ecriture breve : le Dictionnaire philosophique portatif R. Desne : Voltaire etait-il antisemite? J.-M. Moureaux : Ordre et desordre dans le Dictionnaire philosophique M.-H. Cotoni : Voltaire et la Bible R. Granderoute : Le Bestiaire du Dictionnaire philosophique portatif Ch. Mervaud : Les cannibales sont parmi nous. L'article Anthropophages du Dictionnaire philosophique P. Retat : Le Dictionnaire philosophique de Voltaire : concept et discours du dictionnaire Bibliographie. (shrink)

The starting point of this study is the observation of a new importance of philosophy « in the post-metaphysical era » (according to the expression of J.-L. Schlegel) in the analysis of the religious fact and the significance of the Bible in Western culture, including the most contemporary. The recent Chilean film El Cristo ciego/Blind Christ by director Christopher Murray (2016) offers an emblematic example of the problems posed by the interpretation of a work that questions the mystery of transcendence (...) in a context marked both by the radical immanence of the characters’ experience and by the explicit and massive reference to the New Testament. The short narratives of the main character will be analyzed as parables (exegetic approach) and will be interpreted in the light of the Christology of liberation (cf. Jon Sobrino) and the philosophy of deconstruction (cf. J.-L. Nancy), which will lead to the question of the epistemological coherence of the proposed analysis. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) est l'un des penseurs contemporains les plus lus parmi les théologiens, qui ont très tôt salué sa capacité à porter la philosophie au devant de la Bible et de la théologie. Des théologiens des Facultés de Heidelberg et de Strasbourg voudraient ici, pour la première fois, rendre compte de la réception théologique de l'oeuvre philosophique de Paul Ricoeur dans leurs champs respectifs : l'exégèse biblique (M. Oeming, G. Theißen), l'histoire du christianisme (A. Noblesse-Rocher), la théologie systématique (F. (...) Rognon, D. Frey), et la théologie pratique (F. Lienhard, J. Cottin). (shrink)

Descartes's notion of subjectivity changed the way characters would be written, performed by actors, and received by audiences. His coordinate system reshaped how theatrical space would be conceived and built. His theory of the passions revolutionized our understanding of the emotional exchange between spectacle and spectators. Yet theater scholars have not seen Descartes's transformational impact on theater history. Nor have philosophers looked to this history to understand his reception and impact. After Descartes, playwrights put Cartesian characters on the stage and (...) thematized their rational workings. Actors adapted their performances to account for new models of subjectivity and physiology. Critics theorized the theater's emotional and ethical benefits in Cartesian terms. Architects fostered these benefits by altering their designs. _The Mind-Body Stage_ provides a dazzlingly original picture of one of the most consequential and confusing periods in the histories of modern theater and philosophy. Interdisciplinary and comparatist in scope, it uses methodological techniques from literary study, philosophy, theater history, and performance studies and draws on scores of documents from several countries. (shrink)

Unlike all preceding theorists of cometary tail formation, Newton introduced a mechanism in which a comet's tail was produced by the convection of rarified ethereal particles which carried with them particles from the comet's upper atmosphere, which in turn became heated by reflecting of the sun's rays. The centrality of the action of the ether particles in this theory made it problematic, as a consistent theory of the ether was not then available. As a result, the theory was not wholly (...) accepted even by some of Newton's closest colleagues and disciples. This paper briefly presents Newton's theory of tail formation and examines its reception, primarily in England. I review seven accounts of cometary tail formation that were developed in a Newtonian framework and published between 1696 and 1757 by William Whiston, David Gregory, Henry Pemberton, Voltaire, Colin Maclaurin, J. T. Desaguliers, and Benjamin Martin. Newton's comet theory showed both philosophical and practical defects typical of his better known work, and I identify four major issues that early Newtonians disputed. These disagreements show that we still have much to learn about the way Newton's physics was studied in the 18th century. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In theater, stage directions function as a particular genre in which the author’s voice is inscribed in the text to indicate the paths of representation. In Werewere-Liking Gnepo’s La veuve diyilèm, they play a broader role. There is a narrative function, sometimes author’s, sometimes character’s that, in a dialogic movement of reception/understanding, triggers multiple independent and polyphonic voices and consciences. To verify this statement, we will discuss the Bakhtinian reflections that will be essential for this study. RESUMO No teatro, (...) as didascálias funcionam como um gênero particular em que há a inscrição da voz do autor no texto para indicar os caminhos da representação. Na obra La veuve diyilèm, de Werewere-Liking Gnepo, elas desempenham um papel mais amplo. Há uma função narrativa ora autora, ora personagem que, em um movimento dialógico de recepção/compreensão, desencadeia múltiplas vozes e consciências independentes e polifônicas. Para constatação dessa afirmação, discorreremos sobre as reflexões bakhtinianas que serão imprescindíveis para este estudo. (shrink)

This paper deals with a development of the ancient thought on mimesis in its modern reception as regards a certain idea of theatre. It defends the hypothesis that the figure of the character, as set up in Diderot’s Paradoxe sur le comédien, has its source in a curious reversal of the Platonic mimesis. After presenting the main tenets of Plato’s reflection on mimesis and of Diderot’s theory on character, showing their convergences and contrasts, it is analyzed how such a conceptual (...) turnaround has historically taken place, by establishing a chain of reception from Plato to Diderot passing through Cicero and the Renaissance artists. (shrink)

L'auteur concentre son approche de l'activité théâtrale dans les collèges jésuites à la fin du XVIe et au début du XVIIe siècle sur la figure mal connue de l'acteur. Elle se livre à l'analyse détaillée d'un certain nombre de textes pour y décrypter le portrait « en creux » de l'acteur chrétien, un antiacteur investi de toute la force de vérité dont le comédien singe l'image. Mais l'article inscrit, plus généralement, l'acteur des drames religieux jésuites, le plus souvent (...) écrits par les professeurs des collèges, dans le cadre de ces collèges, qui constituent la garantie ultime, puisque l'acteur en est l'élève, et n'est nullement apprenti-comédien, de la différence spécifique de ce théâtre. (shrink)

Context: The thoroughly second-order cybernetic underpinnings of naturalist theatre have gone almost entirely unremarked in the literature of both theatre studies and cybernetics itself. As a result, rich opportunities for the two fields to draw mutual benefit and break new ground through both theoretical and empirical investigations of these underpinnings have, thus far, gone untapped. Problem: The field of cybernetics continues to remain academically marginalized for, among other things, its alleged lack of experimental rigor. At the same time, the field (...) of theatre studies finds itself at an impasse between post-structuralist semioticians and embodied cognitivists regarding key onto-epistemological issues. A program of research framing and utilizing naturalist theatre as a second-order cybernetic/cybersemiotic laboratory holds much promise in addressing both matters and lending credence to Ross Ashby’s assertion that “the discovery that two fields are related leads to each branch helping in the development of the other.” Method: After establishing the nature of the onto-epistemological deadlock within theatre studies, this article examines the application of cybernetic heuristics within naturalistic theatre, leading to a second-order cybernetic analysis of its processes of production and reception and the outline of an experimental program for exploring these processes further. Results: Foundations for a model of naturalist theatre as a cybersemiotic laboratory grounded in a novel operationalization of Gordon Pask’s conversation theory. Implications: The proposed laboratory could result in the generation of quantitative and qualitative research pertaining to several dimensions of second-order cybernetics; particularly cybersemiotics, which, as a result, may end up better positioned to help dissolve onto-epistemological deadlocks between constructivists and realists of all stripes across the academy and beyond. Constructivist content: I argue that an analysis of naturalistic theatre’s processes of meaning-making filtered through the constructivist ontological agnosticism of second-order cybernetics offers a productive middle way forward for those on both sides of the social constructivist/embodied cognitive realist divide, within and beyond theatre studies. The article draws upon the works of Gregory Bateson, Søren Brier, Ranulph Glanville, Heinz von Foerster, and Niklas Luhmann. (shrink)

This article examines the understanding and use of Scripture in the evangelistic endeavors of “awakened” pietistic francophone Swiss Protestant missionaries in 19th-century French Canada. It begins by sketching the roots of this transatlantic initiative in Le Réveil, the Continental francophone expression of the Second Evangelical Awakening. It then shows how within this movement historic Protestant Bible-centeredness converged with an intensified pietistic expectation that receptive contemplation of Scripture could evoke profoundly experiential and transforming encounters with the divine. The records of the (...) Swiss missionaries also display a mystic-like apprehension of Scripture’s luminosity, and of conversion as a comprehensively illuminating and radiant experience. This account challenges the assumption that mystical tendencies necessarily lead to privatized spirituality, while illustrating how a distinct form of evangelical spirituality stimulated missionary endeavor and shaped missionary practice. (shrink)

C'est d'un nouveau positionnement de la Bible dans la culture dont il s'agit aujourd'hui, et pas seulement d'une nouvelle manière de la recevoir et de la lire, bien que ces deux aspects soient inséparables. L'Ecriture s'est progressivement sécularisée et transformée en " classique " parmi d'autres. Simultanément, l'accès au texte s'est " démocratisé ". Désormais, il ne jouit plus d'aucun privilège statutaire par rapport à d'autres grands textes de l'humanité : tous sont soumis à la même méthodologie plurielle qui évolue (...) continuellement, tout en se voulant contrôlable par le plus grand nombre. Dans ce contexte, la pratique ecclésiale de lecture qui continue à considérer le texte comme inspiré n'est plus qu' " une pratique parmi d'autres ". On en vient donc aujourd'hui à une situation paradoxale où le canon des Ecritures, largement discuté par les historiens et les théologiens, est en réalité accepté par la culture, tandis que l'inspiration pose problème sans avoir bénéficié jusqu'à maintenant d'une même traitement, voire d'une simple attention. Cette situation peut révéler un état de " crise " dans la réception et l'intelligence des Ecritures ; elle peut aussi être reçue comme une " chance ".Today, it is a question of a new positioning of the Bible in culture and not only a new way of receiving and reading it, although these two aspects are inseparable. Scripture has been gradually secularized and transformed into a "classic" among others. At the same time, access to the text has been "democratized." In the future, it will no longer enjoy a privileged status in relation to other great texts of humanity: they all undergo examination from the same multiple methodological approach that is constantly evolving, while seeking to be verifiable by as many people as possible. In this context, the ecclesial practice of reading that continues to consider the text as inspired is no more than "one practice among others." This has resulted today in a paradoxical situation in which the canon of the Scriptures, widely discussed by historians and theologians, is in reality accepted by the culture, whereas inspiration poses a problem without having benefited until now from the same treatment, or even given any attention. This situation could reveal a state of "crisis" in the reception and understanding of the Scriptures: it could also be welcomed as "good fortune". (shrink)