Blockchain Papers

Agisilaos Papadogiannis

No abstract is available for this record.

Chris Berg, Sinclair Davidson, Jason Potts

No abstract is available for this record.

Evert van Emde Boas

This chapter focuses on the agōn scene. The speeches of Clytemnestra and Electra are analysed side by side, using the traditional four-part division of oratorical speeches. It is argued that the overall organization and precise rhetorical techniques in the two women’s speeches (as reflected in the use of particles, tenses, and other linguistic features) are indicative of their characterization. Clytemnestra’s speech paints Agamemnon in as bleak a light as possible and uses sophisticated rhetorical proofs to reject alternatives to her killing of her husband. Her speech also reveals concern for her public reputation and an innovative outlook on women’s role in society. Electra, in turn, operates by conducting a prolonged character assassination of her mother while she ignores her father’s behaviour. Her somewhat disorganized speech comes across as emotional and spontaneous, particularly when her own exile and that of Orestes are at stake.

Rebecca June

Gender and the Fate of Julian’s Short Text Most studies of Julian of Norwich’s Showings juxtapose her Short and Long texts, with a marked lack of enthusiasm for the Short Text in contrast to its longer, revised form thought to be textually and theologically superior. This essay asks what is at stake in the rigorous defense of Julian’s Long Text and argues that the issue of gender is central both to its revisions and to its favorable reception. The most noted revision related to gender in the Long Text is the addition of its maternal Jesus, characterized as redemptive of femininity. Concurrently, many scholars remark on the removal of references to women and Julian's sexual identity--changes troubling for an author thought of as a proto-feminist, but either minimized as irrelevant or rationalized as integral to Julian's expanded theology, thus rendering its diminished female presence proof of the Long Text's superiority. While discussions tend to address one or two revisions related to gender, this study presents a comprehensive interrogation, ultimately suggesting that our preference for the Long Text (and disregard for the Short) has been shaped by our desire to promote Julian as a woman ahead of her time, but paradoxically perpetuates the very gender hierarchy and biases that likely compelled Julian's revisions and that we wish for her Showings to challenge.

Charles M. Stang

The Two Is of Christ: Revisiting the Christological Controversy Books Discussed: The Christology ofTheodoret of Cyrus: Antiochene Christology from the Council ofEphesus (431) to the Council of Chalcedon (451) by Paul B. Clayton, Jr. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought by Paul L. Gavrilyuk. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy by John McGuckin. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2004.The christological controversy of the fifth century is notoriously difficult to understand, and even more so to appreciate. However dizzying the debates regarding the nature(s) and person(s) of the Incarnate Christ, what eludes many students and scholars alike is why anyone then (or indeed now) should have cared so deeply about the precise solution as to effect the dissolution of the Eastern Christian oikoumene in order to see it prevail. To teach this controversy well - as I try to do - requires exploring with my students what seems to be most at stake in it. This is harder than it might seem: the different contestants cannot agree on exactly what is or should be at stake; they make a virtue of speaking past one another; and the terminology is as shifting sands beneath the reader's feet. As a result, some students throw up their hands in frustration, and dismiss the whole mess as clear proof that these Christian elites heartily deserve the pejorative title Byzantine. So too some scholars in despair search for an explanation on another plane of causality: they reduce the theology of the controversy to social and political forces, such as the rivalries between ancient sees (especially Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Rome), currying capricious imperial favor, the persistent threat of Persia and the security of the military limes, or the need for Egyptian bread in order to feed the Eastern Empire.1 All of these factors, and many more, are certainly relevant to the controversy of the fifth century, but none can sufficiently explain why these theologians cared so deeply about the question of the Incarnate Christ that they would devote themselves as they did to its adequate resolution, and suffer exile and persecution on its behalf.All the books under consideration here try mightily to understand and appreciate what is at stake theologically in the christological controversy - and so are for that fact alone to be commended. I will start with the most recent, Paul B. Clayton, Jr. s The Christology ofTheodoret of Cyrus, but turn to the other two as the discussion warrants. My aim in reviewing these three books together is not principally to give a review of recent scholarship, but rather to use them as a means to discern what I regard as the crucial issue animating the christological controversy, and advocate why we today should still care about these seemingly arcane debates. At the root of this controversy, I contend, is a debate about the subjectivity of Christ, and by extension, our own subjectivity. The Antiochenes offer a startling answer to the question, Who do you say that I am? - an answer that deserves to be heard and heeded again.I.If you are not familiar with the christological debates, Clayton's learned treatise is not the best place to begin. It condenses a lifetime of study, and offers a nuanced picture of the controversy that is hard to appreciate without a broader, and perhaps simpler, backdrop in place. A somewhat easier entree is John McGuckins Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy (reissued in paperback in 2004 by St. Vladimir's Seminary Press), although this too can be demanding for the uninitiated.2 Perhaps the best introduction is still chapter 6 of Frances Youngs From Nicaea to Chahedon, newly updated and expanded for a second edition with the help of Andrew Teal. …

Michael Mann

In this chapter I discuss the emergence and development of the two major decentralized civilizations of the first millennium b.c. , Phoenicia and Greece. I concentrate on Greece because it is considerably better documented: We can distinguish the principal phases of its dialectic of development. I argue that the massive contributions of both peoples to the development of social power is to be attributed to the decentralized, multi-level nature of their civilizations, appropriate for taking advantage of the geopolitical, military, and economic legacy of their region, especially that bequeathed by the Near Eastern empires of domination. I suggest that two principal dialectics can be discerned in the emergence of Phoenicia and Greece as “leading edges” of contemporary power. The first, discussed briefly and tentatively, concerns the possibility that these civilizations were part of a macro historical process. In this case, decentralized multi power-actor civilizations lying on the marches of established empires of domination exploited the success plus the institutional rigidity of those empires to “emerge interstitially” and establish their own autonomous power organizations. After a long, successful process of power development, however, their own organizations became institutionalized and rigid. Now they become vulnerable in their turn to new empires of domination lying on their marches. Such a process can be traced in the first millennium b.c. The extent to which it was, indeed, part of a macro historical process will be left to the concluding chapter. The second dialectic concerns that “middle period” of developmental success.