A study of Hippolytus of Rome and his treatment of Presocratic Philosophy, used as a case study to argue against the use of collections of fragments and in favour of the idea of reading "embedded texts" with attention to the interpretation and interests of the quoting author. A study of methodology in early Greek Philosophy. Includes novel interpretations of Heraclitus and Empedocles, and an argument for the unity of Empedocles's poem.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews Catherine Osborne. Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy: Hippolytus of Rome and the Presocratics. London: Duckworth, 1987. Pp. viii + 383. NP. A quick look at Kirk, Raven, and Schofield's standard The PresocraticPhilosophers(Cambridge University Press, 1983) or Barnes's recent Early GreekPhilosophy (Penguin, 1987) reveals a clear distinction between (a) direct quotations (ipsissima verba) of the Presocratics and (b) testimonia (doxographic or otherwise) about their thought. This bifurcation (...) into original fragments and testimonia is called into question by Osborne in her book. For Osborne, the standard procedure of identifying fragments within a larger context and then interpreting the fragments without reference to that context is to be put aside "in favour of reading the text of the Presocratics as embedded texts within the context of the interpretations they were selected to illustrate" (183). This new methodology is not offered by Osborne as applicable across the board, for all the Presocratics. It is a nonstarter for, say, Parmenides, for whom we have (obvious) verbatim quotation in Simplicius (and consequently no need to take into account the Simplician context). But in the case of some other Presocratics we are not on such secure grounds. Or so Osborne thinks, and the book illustrates her hermeneutical principles with reference to Heraclitus and Empedocles as their thought is embedded in the text of Hippolytus of Rome's Refutation of All Heresies. Osborne's strategy proceeds in two distinct stages: (1) She first offers us a couple of examples of Hippolytus's interpretive skills, both of which, in different ways, reveal him as a pretty reliable (if biased) and interesting philosophical and textual exegete. In this regard she presents Hippolytus's discussion of Aristotle's doctrine of substance in the Categoriesand Metaphysics Z (in the context of Hippolytus's refutation of the heretic Basileides) and, secondly, his reworking of Irenaeus's life of Simon Magus, the reputed founder of gnosticism. Aristotle is a particularly good test case because we can, of course, check Hippolytus's report against the original. Having done so, Osborne is led to conclude that "little of interest can be derived from the limited amount of material that is quoted directly from Aristotle" (183; cf. also 66). Nonetheless, for Osborne comparison with Aristotle's text reveals Hippolytus as not bereft of philosophical acumen, even though his interpretation is colored by the particular polemics in which he is engaged. In sum, then, Osborne understands Hippolytus as an intelligent (if biased) interpreter of Aristotle and not a particularly good source for ipsissimaverba. (2) On the basis of these conclusions about Hippolytus as a source for Aristotle's metaphysical theory and for the life of Simon Magus, Osborne turns to Hippolytus's discussion of Heraclitus and Empedocles (in the context of his refutations of the [ll9] 120 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28"1 JANUARY ~99 o heretics Noetus and Marcion). Her goal is to urge a new nonfragment-based methodology for the study of the Presocratics, grounded in the conclusions she has just reached about Hippolytus as an interpreter of Aristotle and Irenaeus. The major obstacle which she faces in validating such a methodology is that in the cases of Heraclitus and Empedocles we have no original text by which to judge Hippolytus's reliability or interpretive skills. In lieu of such original texts all that Osborne has at her disposal is her own conclusion just reached about Hippolytus as a generally reliable (if biased) interpreter of Aristotle and Irenaeus. But just here is the major problem with Osborne 's proposed methodology: granting for the sake of argument that Hippolytus is a pretty good interpreter of Aristotle and Irenaeus, this does not entail that he is a reliable exegete of anyone else. He might be, he might not. We don't know and, more importantly, we have no way of finding out. Osborne assumes that Hippolytus had a greater knowledge of the relevant texts than we do (67, 185), and thus interpreted the Presocratics on this basis. He might have, he might not. In any event, Osborne's assumption is a case of special pleading. Equally plausible is that Hippolytus possessed no more of Heraclitus or Empedocles than we do and, consequendy, had... (shrink)

. In the article of Sannikov S. "Formation of Pedobaptism in the Third century: Origen, Hippolytus of Rome, Tertullian and Cyprian the texts of pre-Nicaea Church fathers are analyzed in order to present their conception of water baptism. The works of four prominent theologians of the 3rd century " are examined particularly. Based on their texts, reflecting the conception of water baptism in various regions of the Roman Empire, the process of formation of children baptism is studied in (...) its active stage at that time. The author demonstrates the factors significantly affecting the substitution of credobaptism with pedobaptism. The leading role in the emergence of children baptism was held by situations of extreme baptism when the rigid rules of joining the community could be ignored. The theological background for such actions was the conception of the baptism role as the washing of sins, which was gradually transformed from the forgiveness of sins by faith of the baptized to the conception of this process ex opera operato. Because of the fact that the theology of that time didn’t have the idea of original sin, Origen’s conception of the so called “spot of sin” began to develop for explaining the baptism of innocent infants. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 122.4 (2001) 533-565 [Access article in PDF] Rome Personified, Rome Epitomized: Representations of Rome in the Poetry of the Early Fifth Century Michael Roberts The last years of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century (the reigns of Theodosius and his sons) mark a crucial stage in the Christianization of Rome. 1 The hold of the city and all (...) it stood for on the imagination of the ruling classes was as strong as ever. But Theodosian legislation had definitively established the dominance of Christianity in the empire, and even in Rome the aristocracy was becoming progressively more Christian. 2 These changing circumstances find expression in the way Rome was represented in contemporary literature. While still indebted to the traditional language of the laudes Romae and to well-established literary traditions, the authors of the period find new ways to inflect the image of Rome that mirror their differing religious and cultural allegiances.Three poets make the largest contributions to that evolution in the representation of Rome. Claudius Claudianus was born in Alexandria (c. 370) but came to Rome in 394. His first Latin poem celebrated the consuls of 395, Probinus and Olybrius, but thereafter most of his poems served the interests of his patron and the emperor Honorius' chief minister, the Vandal general Stilicho. Of particular importance for the representation of Rome are his consular panegyrics, for the consulships of Honorius (396, 398, and 404) and Stilicho (400), and his two historical epics on the campaigns against the African warlord Gildo (De bello Gildonico 398) and against Alaric in 401-402 (De bello Getico 402). Claudian wrote his last dated poem in 404. Nothing is heard of him after that date and it is likely he died soon thereafter.Claudian's Christian contemporary, Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, was born, according to the verse preface he wrote to his collected works, in 348. After a successful career in the imperial administration, he [End Page 533] withdrew from public life to devote his poetic talents to the service of God. Two works are especially relevant to the representation of Rome, the Contra Symmachum, in two books, completed in 402 or early 403, though book 1 may have been written earlier, and the Peristephanon, a collection of poems on the martyrs, including the Roman martyrs Lawrence (Perist. 2), Hippolytus (Perist. 11), Peter and Paul (Perist. 12), and Agnes (Perist. 14). Peristephanon 9 and 11 refer to a journey the poet took to Rome, generally dated to 401/402, but it is quite possible that this was not his first trip to the capital. 3The third poet, Rutilius Namatianus, a traditionally minded pagan, was praefectus urbi in 414. His poem, the De reditu suo, which does not survive in its entirety, describes his return from Rome to his native Gaul in 417. 4 It is haunted by the destruction caused in northern Italy and Gaul by the recent barbarian invasions, but it begins with an extended paean of praise to Rome, the eternal city, which always grows stronger by its reverses. Rutilius' patriotic devotion to the city and the idea of Rome provides an optimistic counterpoint to the evidence of destruction and desolation that runs as a leitmotif through the poem.Rome figures in the three poets in two guises. It may appear personified as a woman, whose attributes index the power and status of the city and empire as well as the contemporary circumstances of the Roman state. 5 As an alternative to this metaphorical representation of Rome, the city may be encapsulated by certain, especially charged details of topography, in an epitome of its urban geography that stands in a metonymic (or synecdochic) relationship to the city as a whole. Thus, to take an example from a later period, when Paulinus of Pella came at an advanced age to write his life story in the Eucharisticos, he mentions a trip that he took to Rome in the company of his parents in a.d. 379. At the time he was not... (shrink)

Hippolytus of Rome on Aristotle’s definition of the soul. His work Concerning the Soul is obscure. For in the entire three books [where he treats of his subject] it is not possible to say clearly what is Aristotle’s opinion concerning the soul. For, as regards the definition which he furnishes of soul, it is easy [enough] to declare this; but what it is that is signified by the definition is difficult to discover. For soul, he says, is an (...) entelecheia of a sôma physikon organikon; [but to explain] what this is at all, would require a very great number of arguments, and a lengthened investigation. (shrink)

Hippolytus of Rome on Aristotle’s definition of the soul. His work Concerning the Soul is obscure. For in the entire three books [where he treats of his subject] it is not possible to say clearly what is Aristotle’s opinion concerning the soul. For, as regards the definition which he furnishes of soul, it is easy [enough] to declare this; but what it is that is signified by the definition is difficult to discover. For soul, he says, is an (...) entelecheia of a sôma physikon organikon; [but to explain] what this is at all, would require a very great number of arguments, and a lengthened investigation. (shrink)

L'A. étudie l'oeuvre d'Hippolyte de Rome qui présente, moins qu'un véritable intérêt philosophique, l'avantage d'une certaine connaissance de l'histoire de la philosophie, sur laquelle il fonde sa défense de la doctrine chrétienne. Le débat s'articule autour de l'originalité de l'interprétation de la philosophie grecque, des Présocratiques en particulier, par Hippolyte. Il s'agit, par comparaison avec Plotin, de délimiter les sources philosophiques de son oeuvre empreinte d'un moyen platonisme traditionnel.

Both Hippolytus of Rome and Sextus Empiricus attribute a concept of λόγος to Empedocles, relying on fragments that seem to have nothing to do with this claim. This article aims to show how the identification and clarification of their common Stoic source helps us to understand these texts better, and to reconstruct an interpretation of Empedocles’ epistemology that has not attracted critical attention so far.

The following is excerpted from Sean Gurd’s translation of Euripides’ Hippolytus published with Uitgeverij this year. Though he was judged “most tragic” in the generation after his death, though more copies and fragments of his plays have survived than of any other tragedian, and though his Orestes became the most widely performed tragedy in Greco-Roman Antiquity, during his lifetime his success was only moderate, and to him his career may have felt more like a failure. He was regularly selected (...) to have his plays performed in the annual festival of Dionysus at Athens. But the plays were performed in a competition, and in the competitions he lost and lost, winning first place only five times in a career that spanned more than forty years. His corpus reads like the remains of a life spent trying to get a few things right and never being quite satisfied: scenes and schematized combinations of elements recur again and again, each time slightly changed. Hippolytus itself is an example: it contains two scenes in which a sick or dying character lies on a couch or a stretcher and is surrounded by silence and grief; he had experimented with such scenes in Alcestis, and would work with them again in Herakles and Orestes. Nor, judging from appearances, was he immune to the desire to score a hit, or to satisfy the audiences and the judges at the competition. Hippolytus is a rewrite of another Hippolytus, performed several years earlier, which scandalized the audience and certainly did not take first place. In that earlier Hippolytus (called by later writers Hippolytus Veiled), Euripides fashioned a Phaedra who was neither ashamed of loving her stepson nor incapable of taking steps to satisfy her desire. The forwardness of her approach to Hippolytus so outraged him that he covered his head with a robe (hence the play’s later title). Euripides liked to write energetic and self-confident women like this. He staged his Medea in 431, just three years before he revised Hippolytus, and in it the jilted title character murders her children in revenge for Jason’s new marriage to a more politically advantageous wife. Another flop: the play came in third of three. Evidently the judges did not like their women showing agency, especially when the consequences were transgressive. “The ornament of women,” wrote another great Athenian a little earlier, “is silence.”i Euripides’ Medea and his first Phaedra had other decorations. So three years after Medea crashed and burned and some time after the first Hippolytus suffered the same fate, he produced another Hippolytus play with a different setting and story. How could this one not have been a reaction to the failure of the first? “Second thoughts are always better,” he has one of his characters say, as though he were offering an apology for his first thoughts on the same story. In this new version, Phaedra is suicidally ashamed of her love, choosing to die rather than have it discovered, and willing to bring down her beloved Hippolytus in the service of the same end. Now it is Phaedra herself who covers her head in shock and horror at her desire. Only an intermediary, a slave of the house and an old crone with her fingers in all sorts of illicit pots, communicates Phaedra’s secret – against orders – and in consequence brings about the demise of two resolutely moral figures. It worked. For his tale of two well-born nobles with an unswerving commitment to moral action, destroyed by the meddling of a slave (and by the hostility of some particularly uncaring divinities), the judges crowned Euripides winner. It was the first time he had won, after almost thirty years of work. *** What Hippolytus wants more than anything else, as he protests with outrage just before leaving Trozen for the last time, is the benefit of due process – oaths, witnesses, an investigation that would reveal who really lusted after whom. Ironic, given that in the first Hippolytus, as far as we can make out, he did get a trial – but too late, and Theseus’ successful processing of Hippolytus failed to prevent his death. I cannot help hearing in the second Hippolytus’ complaints the anger of his authorial semblable who lost year after year by a process of judging that might have seemed brutal to him. Judges took no cognizance of how he worked, how long or hard or why; they just voted, and Euripides lost. But then I hear, in the fate of the first Hippolytus, an even grimmer commentary. Processed or not, we lose. We run aground. At the very least, this might cast a darker shadow on the business of watching or reading a play: in that twilight, things move too fast to make a fair assessment and, in any case, the reasonably high definition of what you see and hear belies the truth of indistinction, the multiplicities just below the surface. Watching is a constrained activity, a form of captivity, but reading is plastic. This translation was begun to supply the script for an audio version of the play, recorded in the spring of 2012, and here and there it sacrifices literalness for sayability and the voices and passions of the actors on that occasion. But it was finished to be read, and engineered to create a reading caught between the poles of specificity and non-specificity that the play itself conjures and relies on at its generative core. Thus two texts: the one clear, perhaps overprecise, respectably modern in its presentation, and the other ancient, a reasonable approximation of the classical reading process, and indistinct in vital ways. Like early modern dramatic texts, the exact provenance and original function of the scripts that have made it down to us are unknown. We do know that the ultimate survival of Hippolytus was thanks to its wide-spread use as a school text. But its relation to the first performance in 428 BCE is a matter only of speculation. Euripides presumably had a fair copy before production began; it was probably modified during rehearsals. The actors may have had copies, too (probably the young men who served in the chorus did not). The chor?gos, a wealthy Athenian who paid for the production, might have been presented with or just made sure to get his hands on a high-quality text, to commemorate the play’s success. Fans might have been able to buy copies. Any one of these sources might have provided the ultimate progenitor of our text. Several of them might have, in fact, if later editors compared and conflated traditions. The plays toured extensively in the Greek-speaking world, and were restaged as repertoire for centuries afterwards. In the process they were subjected to enough modifications by producers and actors that in the later fourth century the Athenian statesman Lycurgus had a law passed prohibiting performances at Athens from deviating from the official “city” text of the tragedies (which he had commissioned). It is unlikely that the city text was the last word; but it marks an important moment in Athens’ role in their dissemination, since after this the major sites of textual curatorship moved overseas, to Alexandria, Pergamum, Rome, Antioch, Constantinople. Any single text of any single play is thus no more than a moment of clarity and stability, crossed and subtended by multiple vectors of change, including that of textual flux (from Euripides’ first drafts to the latest printed text) and that of Euripides’ life work as a writer, in the light of which the Hippolytus is just one attempt to produce something exactly right, to win the prize or finally satisfy himself or prove to himself that all this longing for perfection was a waste of time. I am intrigued by the possibility that a single text might somehow serve as a lens onto this wider zone of indistinction, representing a small region clearly but nonetheless containing a blurred image of the whole, like a Leibnizian monad. After all, no text is a witness: it is, rather, a perception and a performance, and what every Hippolytus must perform is the awkward overlay of singular and plural, social practise and subliminal drive, that structures the tragedy. Modern critical editions can do this by juxtaposing a (relatively) clean and simple text with a textual apparatus reporting variants and theorizing the relationship between textual instantiations. A translation lacks the resolution to catch the fine variations which feed into the construction of an apparatus. But there are other means to hand. Guessing at the exact words of the original text is always just that – guessing – though Hippolytus is less problematic than plays like Iphigenia at Aulis. But we can make a pretty secure guess at what such a text looked like. Texts read by fifth-century readers were fundamentally different from what is presented in the best medieval MSS and printed in modern publications. The texts of Euripides’ time and for many centuries afterwards did not indicate word division with spaces (or by any other means) and were extremely sparing in punctuation, often avoiding it altogether. There was only one “case” of letters – what we call “capitals.” Musical sections were inscribed as though they were prose, without line endings to reflect their rhythm or their rhetorical structure. There was no indication of the speakers within a dramatic text, either. The earliest surviving dramatic texts, which come from over a century after Euripides’ death and a time which was much more elaborate and precise in its textual culture, indicated speaker-change with a little line or paragraphos below the line and a double-point [:] at its end. This convention almost certainly does not date back to Euripides’ own time; it may not even date to Lycurgus. In any case, such indications were understood to be readers’ marks: they did not have the same authority as the text and they were subject to readers’ revisions. At least ideationally, if not in concrete and distinguishable fact, a dramatic text was understood as containing no indication of speaker-change (and certainly none of who was saying what). The reader had to figure that out for him-/herself. The clear, legible, easy texts we are accustomed to reading are the fabrications of medieval and modern reading cultures. The first text, then, presents the translation as the text would have been in the mid-fourth century, perhaps decades after Euripides’ death. The second text processes Hippolytus, makes sense of it and makes it “readable.” That is: too distinct, dangerously so. It gets in your way, conjures fantoms, tries to make you see. Fragments of the Hippolytus Veiled, otherwise almost entirely lost, are juxtaposed with similar passages in the text – not to suggest a reconstruction, but a dialogue and a complex set of reassessments. I have not tried to represent the full variety of textual variants, but I have signalled where, for one reason or another, the text is soft and different editions propose excisions or changes. The two texts must be read together: you, reader, form the bridge between the distinctly seen and the indistinct invisible. You, in the end, will be its mask. *** illsandhateddiseaseswhatcanidoforyouwhatshouldinotdohereisthelightandthebrightairyoursickbedisnowout s idethehouseyoureverywordwastocomeherebutyouwillrushbacktoyourbedroomagainyoufadequicklyyoudelig htinnothingyoudislikewhatyouhaveyoulovewhatyoudontitsbettertobesickthantendthesickthefirstissimpleto the secondattachesheartspainandhandsworkeveryhumanlifeispainfulthereisnoendtotoildarknesshidesbehindclo udswhateverisdearerthanlifeweproveunhappyloversofwhatshineshereforlackofknowledgeofanotherlifethere isnoproofforthingsbeneaththeearthonlystoriessustainus liftmybodystraightenmyheadthebondsofmylimbsareloosenedtakemyhandsandmypalearmsthishatistooheavy formyheadtoweartakeitoffspreadmyhairovermyshoulders couragechilddonttossandturnsoviolentlyyouwillbearyoursicknessmoreeasilywithpeaceandanoblemindallmort alssuffer aiaiiwanttodrinkpurewaterfromadewyspringiwanttoliebackandrestunderthetreesinsomegrassymeadowchildw hycrydontsaythesethingsnearthecrowdhurlingwordsmountedonmadness sendmetothemountainiwillgototheforestwherebeastkillingdogspressthespotteddeergodsilongtoshouttothedo gstoshootthethessalianjavelinpastmyblondhairtoholdthebarbeddartinmyhandwhythisanxietychildwhatdoyouc areabouthuntingwhydoyoulustforflowingspringstheresahillwithwaterjustnexttothetowerwecangetyouadrinkt h ereartemismistressofthesaltlakeandthecoursethunderingwithhorseshoovesiwishiwereonyourplainsbreakings t uds whythrowthesefrenziedwordsaboutjustnowyouweresettingoutforthemountaintohuntandnowyoulongforhorses onthewavelesssand thesethingsneedanoracletotellwhichgodreinsyouinanddrivesyoufromyoursenseschild whathaveidonehowfarhaveibeendrivenfromgoodthoughtsiwascrazyiwascursedbysomepowerpheupheualasn ursecovermyheadagainimashamedofwhativesaidcovermeatearmovesdownfrommyeyeanditembarrassesm eithurtstostraightenourmindanditisterribletobeinsanebesttodiebeforeyoubecomelucidagain illcoveryoubutwhenwilldeathcovermeimoldivelearnedalotmortalsshoulddrinkoffriendshipmoderatelynotfrom th edeepestmarrowofthesoulamindslovecharmsshouldbeeasytoundoorthrustawayortiemoretightlyitisaverydiffic ultweightforonesoultolaborovertwopeopleasiamwrackedbypainforhertoomuchdisciplinecausesmoreharmthan pleasureandwarswithhealthipraisetoomuchlessthannothinginexcessandthewiseagreewithme *** Scene 1 Enter Phaedra and the Nurse; the former is recumbent on a couch while the latter bustles about her with gestures that might be those of a caregiver or a guard. NURSE Ills and hated diseases! What can I do for you? What should I not do? Here is the light, and the bright air; your sick bed is now outside the house. Your every word was to come here, but you will rush back to your bedroom again. You fade quickly. You delight in nothing. You dislike what you have. You love what you don’t. It’s better to be sick than tend the sick – the first is simple. To the second attaches heart’s pain and hand’s work. Every human life is painful. There is no end to toil. Darkness hides behind clouds whatever is dearer than life. We prove unhappy lovers of what shines here for lack of knowledge of another life. There is no proof for things beneath the earth. Only stories sustain us. PHAEDRA Lift my body, straighten my head: the bonds of my limbs are loosened. Take my hands and my pale arms. This hat is too heavy for my head to wear. Take it off, spread my hair over my shoulders. NURSE Courage, child; don’t toss and turn so violently. You will bear your sickness more easily with peace and a noble mind. All mortals suffer. PHAEDRA Aiai. I want to drink pure water from a dewy spring. I want to lie back and rest under the trees in some grassy meadow. NURSE Child, why cry? Don’t say these things near the crowd, hurling words mounted on madness. PHAEDRA Send me to the mountain. I will go to the forest where beast-killing dogs press the spotted deer. Gods! I long to shout to the dogs, to shoot the Thessalian javelin past my blond hair, to hold the barbed dart in my hand. NURSE Why this anxiety, child? What do you care about hunting? Why do you lust for flowing springs? There’s a hill with water just next to the tower; we can get you a drink there. PHAEDRA Artemis, mistress of the salt lake and the course thundering with horse’s hooves: I wish I were on your plains breaking studs! NURSE Why throw these frenzied words about? Just now you were setting out for the mountain to hunt – and now you long for horses on the waveless sand. These things need an oracle to tell which god reins you in and drives you from your senses, child. PHAEDRA What have I done? How far have I been driven from good thoughts? I was crazy, I was cursed by some power. Pheu pheu. Alas. Nurse, cover my head again. I’m ashamed of what I’ve said. Cover me – a tear moves down from my eye and it embarrasses me. It hurts to straighten your mind and it is terrible to be insane. Best to die before you become lucid again. NURSE I’ll cover you. But when will death cover me? I’m old; I’ve learned a lot. Mortals should drink of friendship moderately, not from the deepest marrow of the soul. A mind’s love-charms should be easy to undo, or thrust away, or tie more tightly. It is a very difficult weight for one soul to labor over two people, as I am wracked by pain for her. Too much discipline causes more harm than pleasure and wars with health. I praise “too much” less than “nothing in excess,” and the wise agree with me. ***. (shrink)

The expression “Gnostic Empedocles” refers to the summary of the teachings of this philosopher presented by Hippolytus of Rome in the Refutation of All Heresies. Above all, it concerns the notice devoted to Marcion and his disciples, who were accused of following the poems of Empedocles rather than the Gospel. However, Hippolytus is inspired by the readings of Empedocles provided by different groups of Gnostics. This interpretatio gnostica was also known in Christian circles. The analysis of this (...) interpretation, based on the notice about Marcion, allows us to propose a new interpretation of Bardaisan’s thought — mentioned by Hippolytus — as an unknown testimony of the reception of Empedocles. (shrink)

According to Hippolytus of Rome, Heraclitus claimed (on one plausible translation) that ‘The teacher of most people is Hesiod. They know (epistantai) he knows (eidenai) the most, he who did not know (ouk eginôsken) day and night; i.e. that they are one thing’ (DK 22 B57). The remark gives rise to three questions: (1) In what manner did Hesiod reveal his ignorance of the unity of day and night? (2) Why did Heraclitus use three different verbs for knowing (...) when one might have sufficed? And (3) How could Heraclitus have consistently asserted that most people know that Hesiod knows the most things while identifying one fundamental truth Hesiod failed to know? I argue that each of the verbs for knowing Heraclitus used in B57 (epistasthai, eidenai, and gignôskein) had a distinctive meaning, and that by using all three, he was able to consistently and accurately characterize the prevailing epistemological situation. (shrink)

No presente artigo tratar-se-á da reforma do Ordo Missae perpetrado pelo Concílio Ecumênico Vaticano II (1962-1965), em seus aspectos históricos e teológicos, bem como as incidências pastorais da mesma. Buscar-se-á como delimitação somente analisar a reforma do Ordo Missae, no que tange as Orações Eucarísticas implementadas pela reforma conciliar, especialmente ao problema da ‘reforma’ do Ordo Missae , do Cânon Romano e das novas Orações Eucarísticas. Em suma, vislumbra-se a reforma litúrgica, os aspectos teológicos da Sacrosanctum Concilio e o ‘problema (...) do Cânon’. O Concílio optou por retornar às fontes, redescobriu as Anáforas Eucarísticas Ocidentais e Orientais e adaptou-as nas Novas Orações Eucarísticas: a Anáfora de Hipólito de Roma em sua obra Traditio Apostolica que foi adaptada para ser a Oração Eucarística II; a Oração Eucarística III é inspirada na liturgia galicana e moçarábica; a Oração Eucarística IV de inspiração na Anáfora de Basílio e no Brasil somente, a Oração Eucarística V. Palavras-chave: Ordo Missae. Concílio Vaticano II. Orações Eucarísticas.: The Reform Ordo Missae Vatican II: historical, ,theological and pastoral aspects. This article deals with the reform of the Ordo Missae held by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), in their historical and theological aspects, as well as its pastoral implications. The text will analyze the reform of Ordo Missae regarding the Eucharistic Prayers implemented by the Conciliar reform, especially the problem of 'reform' of the Ordo Missae, the Roman Canon and new Eucharistic Prayers. In short, this analysis aims to liturgical reform, the theological aspects of Sacrosanctum council and the 'problem of the canon'. The council opted to return to the sources, rediscovered the Eucharistic Anaphoras and adapted them in New Eucharistic Prayers: the Anaphora of Hippolytus of Rome in his Traditio Apostilica which was adapted for the Second Eucharistic Prayer. The Eucharistic Prayer III is inspired by the Gallican and moçarábica liturgy. Eucharistic Prayer IV is inspired in the Anaphora of Basilio. Keywords : Ordo Missae . Second Vatican Council. Eucharistic Prayers. (shrink)

This paper contains a Dutch translation of the important text of Hippolytus of Rome on the Gnostic theology of Basilides of Alexandria. A summary of this theology is added together with some introductory remarks about whether or not Basilides received his doctrine from Matthias the Apostle, about the Aristotelean line of thought of Basilides, and about the relevance of modern study of Gnosticism.

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius are treasured today--as they have been over the centuries--as an inexhaustible source of wisdom. And as one of the three most important expressions of Stoicism, this is an essential text for everyone interested in ancient religion and philosophy. Yet the clarity and ease of the work's style are deceptive. Pierre Hadot, eminent historian of ancient thought, uncovers new levels of meaning and expands our understanding of its underlying philosophy. Written by the Roman emperor for his (...) own private guidance and self-admonition, the Meditations set forth principles for living a good and just life. Hadot probes Marcus Aurelius's guidelines and convictions and discerns the hitherto unperceived conceptual system that grounds them. Abundantly quoting the Meditations to illustrate his analysis, the author allows Marcus Aurelius to speak directly to the reader. And Hadot unfolds for us the philosophical context of the Meditations, commenting on the philosophers Marcus Aurelius read and giving special attention to the teachings of Epictetus, whose disciple he was. The soul, the guiding principle within us, is in Marcus Aurelius's Stoic philosophy an inviolable stronghold of freedom, the "inner citadel." This spirited and engaging study of his thought offers a fresh picture of the fascinating philosopher-emperor, a fuller understanding of the tradition and doctrines of Stoicism, and rich insight on the culture of the Roman empire in the second century. Pierre Hadot has been working on Marcus Aurelius for more than twenty years; in this book he distills his analysis and conclusions with extraordinary lucidity for the general reader. (shrink)

Summary: In this paper, I will try to present the idea of economic triadology as it appears in St. Irenaeus, Tertullian and St. Hippolytus, during conflicts with the modalists of their time. Through comparative analysis, I will strive to highlight the particularities of their learning as well as common motives and argumentation. I will also point out the major shortcomings of the triadology thus established, as well as the elements that the Church will recognize as an authentic expression of (...) her own tradition. (shrink)

Although Giles of Rome, Henry of Ghent, and Godfrey of Fontaines disagree with each other profoundly over the relationship between the intellect and the will, they all think that someone who sees God must also love him in the ordinary course of events. However, Godfrey rejects a central thesis argued for by both Henry and Giles, namely that by God’s absolute power there could be such vision without love. The debate is not about the ability to freely reject or (...) at least refrain from willing complete happiness, but about the connection between the known object and the will’s act. Godfrey’s discussion is an occasion for him to criticize Giles’ idiosyncratic view that an elicited act of love for the known object is necessary for every act of knowing, and Henry’s development of the view that the known object is merely a sine qua non cause of an act of love. In his response, Godfrey defends a thesis that later becomes widespread, namely that the known object is an efficient cause of love. (shrink)

Giles of Rome maintains that the senses are passive powers and more specifically receptive powers, that is, powers to receive something from sensible objects. The items that the senses receive from sensible objects are intentional species of the corresponding sensible forms. This paper deals with Giles’s account of the cognitive role of intentional species in sense perception. The central question is how the intentional species of red received in the eyes is related to the act of seeing a red (...) apple. Is such a species the act itself of seeing a red apple or rather something distinct from the act and causally related to it? And in the latter case, what kind of causality is involved? We shall see that Giles changed his mind on this subject, so that we have an early view and a mature view. His early view is that the intentional species is distinct from the corresponding sensory act and a cause of it, more precisely a formal cause. His mature view is that in the case of the external senses the intentional species is the same as the sensory act itself, whereas in the case of the internal senses two kinds of intentional species are involved, that is, that which is the same as the sensory act and another one that acts as a proxy for the sensible object. (shrink)

Giles of Rome developed his personal positions about signification in general and linguistic signification discussing contemporary and immediately preceding authors’ views, such as Robert Kilwardby’s, Albert the Great’s and probably various authors of the Modistic milieu. In this article, Giles’ positions on signs and linguistic signification will be shortly described, his discussions about homonymy will be linked to contemporary debates, and finally some of Giles’ positions that were discussed, criticized and sometimes misunderstood by later Modists, such as Simon of (...) Faversham, the Anonymous of Prague and Radulphus Brito, in their commentaries on the Sophistical Refutations around the end of XIIIth century, will be commented upon. (shrink)

Quaestio, Volume 20, Issue, Page 217-238, January 2020.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Giles of Rome on Political AuthorityGraham McAleerDabo tibi regem in furore meo“I will give you a king in my rage” 1It is a commonplace among historians of medieval political theory that two great systems of thought dominate the period. Augustine’s City of God held the field until Thomas Aquinas absorbed Aristotle’s political thought largely culled from the latter’s Politics and Nicomachean Ethics. Aquinas stands as a watershed, a (...) moment when both sources meet and a synthesis is worked out in which Augustine loses ground to Aristotle. Indeed, Augustine’s thought loses such a hold on the political theory of the age that R. A. Markus has spoken of a “comfortable obliviousness” in the minds of theorists subsequent to Aquinas that “a profound cleavage” had been wrought by Thomas in the tradition of Christian political thought. 2 Ptolemy of Lucca and Giles of Rome, both of whom were students of Thomas, are picked out by Markus as typical of those theorists who are oblivious to the definitive break that Aquinas makes with Augustine.Although modern commentators of medieval political theory speak of an Augustinian tradition after Aquinas they are only referring to a series of thinkers who defended papal authority over and above monarchical authority. This tradition is said to be Augustinian because the thinkers defending papal authority, who included Giles, James of Viterbo and Augustinus Triumphus, were members of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine. Nevertheless, these Augustinians are said to have absorbed Thomas’s Aristotelianism: convinced by his argument that since coercive power is intrinsic to political authority and since political authority is natural to the human condition, it must have been the case that coercive power existed in the state of innocence. These Augustinians, [End Page 21] modern scholarship maintains, did not then defend Augustine’s thesis that coercive political authority is unnatural to human society and was only introduced (albeit necessarily) into post-lapsarian society so that the worst excesses of our sinful condition might be controlled. Markus is by no means alone in identifying Giles as a follower of Thomas whose theory of dominium marks a radical break with Augustine. 3 Recently, J. M. Blythe has cited Markus when concurring with him that Giles simply adopts Thomas’s position which, as he puts it, “was to become ubiquitous in late medieval political discourse.” 4Perhaps this consensus has its origin in a most peculiar fact about twentieth-century scholarship on Giles’s political thought: none of it is based on a wide reading of his philosophical and theological corpus. Admittedly, an extensive reading of Giles is a daunting task. The editors-in-chief of the project to provide critical editions of Giles’s works catalogue sixty-seven titles and this vast array of writings match those of the other “greats” of the period in their scope, variety, complexity, and influence. 5 The hope of this essay is to show that a reading of Giles’s Sentences-commentary reveals him to be far more Augustinian than previously acknowledged this century.Although it is well recognized that Giles was one of the most original and influential political theorists of the Middle Ages, the pages dedicated to his political ideas amount to a few pages here and there, and sometimes as little as a few isolated comments, in the standard works on medieval political theory. 6 Moreover, these works unanimously consider only Giles’s explicitly political works. This limitation began with Otto Gierke, who single-handedly demonstrated the depth and richness of medieval political theory. At the beginning of his classic work, Political Theory of the Middle Age, Gierke provides a fifteen-page list of sources. For Thomas’s political thought Gierke directs us not only to Thomas’s explicitly political treatises such as his commentary on Aristotle’s Politics and the opusculum, De regimine principum, but also to the Summa theologiae, Summa contra gentiles, Thomas’s Disputed and Quodlibetal questions, [End Page 22] his exposition of the Psalms, and commentaries on Paul’s Letters as well as his Sentences-commentary. Yet for Giles only his De regimine principum and De potestate ecclesiastica are cited. 7 Gierke’s selection is repeated... (shrink)

This paper addresses one of the ways in which transgender individuals identify with respect to personal history, living “stealth,” whereby transgender individuals do not disclose their transgender status (that is, they present themselves as cisgender), oftentimes no longer considering themselves transgender. Individuals who live stealth are often criticized for inauthenticity; thus, this paper analyses Sartrean notions of authenticity and personal history, thereby arguing that the person who lives stealth is not living inauthentically but rather is constituting their conception of self (...) through their past, present, and future projects. (shrink)

This article examines pivotal aspects of the reception of Proclus' Elementatio theologica in the commentary on the Liber de causis written by Giles of Rome at the end of the 13th century. The article examines Giles's understanding of Proclus’s philosophy in relation to the Neoplatonic framework of the Liber de causis, and shows how this understanding accounts for the theoretical divergences of Giles's and Thomas Aquinas's interpretations.

For Theory aims to open a discussion on the weakening of the production of theory in left-wing thought since the 1970s, based on Louis Althusser's ideas of overdetermination, plural temporality, conjuncture, and theoretical practice.

This chapter contains sections titled: Metaphysics Philosophy of nature Psychology and gnoseology Ethics.

This paper addresses one of the ways in which transgender individuals identify with respect to personal history, living “stealth,” whereby transgender individuals do not disclose their transgender status, oftentimes no longer considering themselves transgender. Individuals who live stealth are often criticized for inauthenticity; thus, this paper analyses Sartrean notions of authenticity and personal history, thereby arguing that the person who lives stealth is not living inauthentically but rather is constituting their conception of self through their past, present, and future projects.

Giles of Rome analyzed the question of the division and definition of philosophy three times at the beginning of his philosophical career. He devoted to this subject the prologues of two of his Aristotle commentaries, CommentaryonthePhysics and CommentaryontheSophisticalRefutations. 1 He then devoted a work exclusively to this subject, Departibusphilosophiaeessentialibus. 2 Because of its clear, systematic approach, this text will be the main object of my analysis. I shall, however, discuss material from the two prologues that demonstrates either the evolution (...) of Giles’s thought from the two prologues to Departibus or the changes, corrections, or additions he introduced into the theory of science and philosophy formulated in Departibus. (shrink)

Another sort of thing resembles works of art in combining existence, message and a kind of presentation, namely, symbols. Hence it seems reasonable to take works of art as symbols. And yet works of art are a special kind of symbol, because in them presentation has a double function. All symbols directly present their meaning; indeed the essential function of symbols is to serve as vehicles for conveying us into the immediate presence of what they mean. But works of art (...) have a second presentational mode of functioning. They also present themselves; and this is true both for abstract and for representational art. (shrink)

Recently, Congress has focused on reforms to address pharmacy benefit managers’ (PBMs) role in high drug prices for patients. Congress must not excessively restrict PBMs’ ability to negotiate with manufacturers; alternatively, reforms could be paired with other policies that address the high prices of brand-name drugs.