The article investigates an early theological justification of the radical detachment from society expressed in a saying by the famous Egyptian hermit Arsenius the Great (4 th‒5 th century) who avoided contacts not only with lay people, but even with his fellow monks in the desert of Sketis. This justification is to be seen in connection with the phenomenon of monastic secluded life which suddenly emerged in the second part of the 3 rd century, in sharp contrast with traditional views of the catholic Christians of the 1 st‒3 rd centuries on the way of life suitable for the followers of Christ. In this article, the radical break with this early paradigm is called the “revolution of the solitaries”. Arsenius, who lived about eighty years after the first monks in Egypt started to be recognized as a distinct phenomenon in public space, does not necessarily draw on the oldest layers of the traditions justifying and explaining the religious motivation for being alone. Nevertheless, his statement is one of the first pieces of theological reflection on the subject transmitted in full which opens a number of intriguing possibilities for further research on this widely neglected field. The article provides the historical context of Arsenius’ justification which includes criticism of the anachoretic monasticism in the pagan and Christian communities. Some critics of the secluded life consider it as contrary to the Jewish and pagan wisdom as well as to the revelation of Christ, a statement making Arsenius’ apology most precarious. Of special inrerest is that Arsenius, when staying away remaining secluded from all kinds of people, was to a certain degree guided by the example of Socrates
New Testament scholars have long argued that in Acts 17:16–34 Luke depicts Paul in such a way as to evoke Socrates’ modus philosophandi and to echo his trial and apology. While this argument can be based on sufficiently clear philological indications, there are other, comparatively vague and more general Socratic reminiscences in Luke-Acts, e. g. in the Gethsemane episode which shows that for the Lukan Jesus death is not a terrifying prospect. This study reads Luke’s portrayal of the apostle Peter through the lens of the exemplum Socratis as presented by Greek and Roman intellectuals in the first and early second centuries CE, including Dio Chrysostom, Epictetus, Plutarch, and Seneca. The author argues that the humble origins of Peter, his non-academic profession, his poverty, his lack of formal education, and his unbreakable commitment to obey God and to spread the Christian message in spite of the threat of judges are reminiscent of major elements of the reception of Socrates in the period that Luke-Acts was probably composed (c. 80–100 CE). Highlighting the subtle Socratic components in Luke’s depiction of Peter not only helps to shed new light on Peter’s alleged lack of education (Acts 4:13). It also helps to understand, firstly, how the literary depiction of early Christian teaching figures is shaped by roughly contemporaneous philosophical discourses, and secondly, that Peter’s literary image, although it presents a totally different type of teaching figure than Paul, serves in its own way to exemplify the compatibility of the Christian religion with particular strands of ancient philosophy.
Heraclides of Pontus, a versatile philosopher whose work still remains largely unexplored, wrote several pieces on Homer including “Solutions of the Homeric problems”, to which some of the extant fragments are attributed. One of these (F. 171 Wehrli = 99 Schütrumpf) concerns the Iliad and the Odyssey being discrepant in the number of the cities on Crete: the Catalogue of Ships refers to the island as ἑκατόμπολιν (Il. 2.649) while Odysseus in his ‘Cretan Lies’ states that people dwell ninety great cities on Crete (Od. 19.174). To explain this inconsistency, Heraclides tells a dramatic story about Idomeneus which he probably made up himself, being an eminent author of dialogues and even tragedies (provided that the relevant testimonies are reliable) with an interest in mythology. His version of Idomeneus’ homecoming was not supported by contemporary historians, and, although later picked up by some poets and scholars, did not end up as a part of the commonplace Idomeneus tradition as we know it today
The paper analyzes Ch. 24 of the 11th book of Aelian’s De natura animalium devoted to the so-called sea-leopard (πάρδαλις) and the oxyrrhynchus fish, both living in the Red Sea. Aelian compares the body colour of the sea-leopard to the mountain leopard, i. e. the snow leopard or the ounce (Panthera uncia Schreber, 1775). This comparison clearly demonstrates that the sealeopard is to be identified with the sand tiger shark or the spotted ragged-tooth shark (Carcharias taurus Rafinesque, 1810). This fish usually resides and hunts in the depths of the sea, but also swims to the coast and sometimes attacks the swimming people. The attacks of sand tiger sharks must have taken place in ancient times, so the fish was easily recognizable not only by the Greeks but also by the inhabitants of the Red Sea’s seashore. The Greek ichthyonym ὀξύ(ρ)ρυγχος refers to five different species of fish, but Aelian uses it to denote an oriental kind of shark existing in the Red Sea (NA 11, 24). The oxyrrhynchus shark has an elongated mouth, golden eyes and white eyelids, i. e. nictitating membranes, typical of sharks belonging to the order Carcharhiniformes. Its tail is oblong in shape and its fins are black and white. There are also pale and green parts of its body. On the basis of Aelian’s description it is possible to suggest that the unknown fish should be identified with the bignose shark (Carcharhinus altimus S. Springer, 1950).
An attempt to interpret the famous ancient musical composition known as ὄρθιος νόμος requires an analysis of all available evidence connecting ὄρθιος with sounds. The most extensive description of this nome (Dio 1. 1) ascribes it a military (or generally stimulating) character. This conforms with a number of passages, where an ὄρθιος sound ‘makes one stand up’ to help, or to fight, i. e. it stimulates dynamic activity. Perhaps, then, this was the initial meaning of the adjective, from which it eventually morphed to mean ‘sonorous’ or ‘piercing’. It seems that a sound could be made piercing and pervasive both by its volume and by its pitch, therefore ὄρθιος as a quality of sound frequently correlates with ‘loud’ and ‘high’. Nevertheless, a common interpretation that equates ὄρθιος with ὀξύς is unwary: the conventional metaphor in ancient Greek concerning a sound’s pitch is ὀξύς — βαρύς (‘sharp’ — ‘heavy’), whereas the spatial metaphor of vertical (‘high’ — ‘low’) is not reliably attested. Another characteristic of sound that our sources correlate with ὄρθιος is ‘strained’ (ἔντονος, ἀνάτασιν ἔχων, ἀνατεταμένος), which in its turn likely indicates loudness (but does not literally translate as either ‘high’ or ‘swift’) and physical effort on behalf of the performers, or else the ethos of a musical piece, which transmitted tension to the audience
В статье установлен источник книги «Подражания древним», опубликованной в 1795 году в Санкт-Петербурге. Ее составителем и переводчиком был Николай Федорович Эмин (1767–1814), сын известного русского писателя и авантюриста турецкого происхождения Федора Александровича Эмина (1735–1770), который умер, когда его сыну было всего три года. Эмин-младший получил военное образование и не владел древними языками, поэтому для своего издания он воспользовался французской антологией Ж.-Ж. Мутонне де Клерфона (1740–1813), многократно переиздававшейся в XVIII веке. Из этой книги Эмин выбрал ряд стихотворений Сапфо, Анакреонта (точнее, эллинистических подражаний ему), Феокрита, Биона, Мосха, Горация и Катулла. Эмин также использовал биографические преамбулы к их стихам; эти вводные тексты были им существенно сокращены. В предисловии к «Подражаниям древним» Эмин развивает теорию «имитации», отрицая возможность точного поэтического перевода. Он также отстаивает необходимость рифм в «подражаниях» древнегреческой и латинской поэзии. Несмотря на эти декларации, Эмин в целом довольно точно следовал в своих стихах французской прозе Мутонне де Клерфона. Лишь единожды, в одиннадцатой идиллии Феокрита, писатель предпринял существенные изменения, пояснив в пространном примечании к ней, что его к этому побудило: уродливого циклопа Полифема Эмин заменил на галантного и привлекательного пастуха Меналка, заявив, что это больше подходит к «нынешнему веку». В остальных случаях отступления от античных претекстов объясняются не своеволием Эмина, но теми изменениями, которые внес в свои переводы Мутонне де Клерфон. Именно он, к примеру, объединил два стихотворения Катулла (XCII и LXXXV) в одно, и как раз этому тексту следовал Эмин. В знаменитое оплакивание воробушка Мутонне де Клерфон ввел обращение к чувствительным любовникам, которое находим и у Эмина
В статье предлагается транскрипция, перевод и комментарий двух версий стихотворного обращения к Петру Первому, написанного на древнегреческом языке братьями Лихудами, Иоанникием и Софронием, греками из Кефаллении, выдающимися религиозными писателями и учителями. «Эпиграмма тишайшему и боговенчанному нашему царю Петру Алексеевичу, самодержцу Московскому и всея Великия, Малыя и Белыя Руси» сохранилась в рукописях учебника Лихудов «О поэтическом или метрическом искусстве» как пример элегического дистиха. Учебник «Поэтики» был составлен в виде вопросов и ответов на греческом языке для учеников уровня suprema Богоявленской школы (1685–1687), начального этапа прославленной Славяно-греко-латинской академии, в качестве пособия по греческой версификации. Русский перевод пособия, вероятно, не планировался авторами (в одном из списков присутствуют славянские нотации). «Эпиграмма», а по существу — приветственное стихотворение, дошедшая в составе московской рукописи РГБ, Ф. 173 (МДА), No 331, 1687 г., была опубликована С. Смирновым в 1855 — не без ошибок в транскрипции и, соотвественно, в понимании текста. Версия же киевской рукописи Ф. 306 (Киево-Печерская Лавра) No337 п./725) к. 17 — нач. 18 в. с переводом на церковнославянский язык ранее, по на шим сведениям, не публиковалась. Предлагается сравнительный анализ обеих версий стихотворения, устанавливается датировка (terminus ad quem — 1687), выясняются обстоятельства создания текста
Zusammenfassung: Die Frage, ob Plutarch der Rhetorik gegenüber eine ablehnende Haltung einnimmt oder nicht, beschäftigte schon seit dem 19. Jh. eine Vielzahl von Wissenschaftlern. Die traditionelle Ansicht ist, dass seine Einstellung eher negativ sei: Obwohl er den Wert der Rhetorik als Mittel der Überzeugung im Bereich der Politik anerkenne, schreibe er trotzdem dem Ethos die dominierende Rolle zu. Wie aber im Folgenden gezeigt wird, ist diese Vorstellung nach einer genaueren Untersuchung der entsprechenden Texte in ihrem historisch-kulturellen Kontext nur teilweise berechtigt. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden Plutarchs Äußerungen zur Rhetorik vor dem Hintergrund des traditionellen Konflikts zwischen Rhetorik und Philosophie betrachtet und dabei im Verhältnis zu drei thematisch bedeutsamen Oppositionen analysiert, nämlich zu jener zwischen dem Lehren und dem Überzeugen, zwischen der Rede und dem Ethos, und zwischen den Philosophen und den Sophisten. Daraus ergibt sich, dass die sekundäre, unterstützende Rolle, welche die Rhetorik an einigen Stellen als Mittel der Überzeugung einnimmt, eher zu relativieren als hervorzuheben ist. Denn sie lässt sich jeweils aufgrund ihrer argumentativen Funktion erklären. In anderen Fällen im plutarchischen Werk, in denen die Rhetorik behandelt wird, ohne dass zugleich die gewöhnliche Opposition zwischen Rede und Ethos eine Rolle spielt, ist die geäußerte Haltung jeweils grundsätzlich positiv
In the article which serves as a sequel to an earlier one the author argues that Draco’s constitution (DC) in Arist. AP 4 does not derive from an oligarchic political pamphlet in which it served as a prototype of a constitution to be implemented in Athens as the majority of scholars believe. The preponderance of scholars believe, relying on the alleged similarity of DC to the project of the ‘Constitution of Five Thousands’ (AP 30) in 411 BC, that DC emerged in the same ‘moderate’ oligarchic circles as a project of the same kind. Others propose later dates for its appearance but almost unanimously ascribe to oligarchic moderates who pleaded for a ‘hoplite constitution.’ The author argues contra that although DC is not reliable as a historical document, it differs considerably from the known political projects of oligarchs. Its distinguishing features make it anachronistic for conditions of 5th–4th centuries BC, but they are much more at home in the last decades of 7th BC. It is likely that Aristotle found this fictional account in one of the historical sources he used in the AP in which it was fabricated to fill a gap in the lacunose history of the early Athenian constitution and it may have been meant to diminish tendentiously Solon’s contribution, representing the latter as modifying the already existing state order
Die antike Literatur, insbesondere die Epigrammatik bietet eine große Anzahl an Witzen über schlechte Ärzte. Sie können (oft) gefährlich sein, sind dumm, grob, manchmal sexuell übergriffig oder habgierig und auf jeden Fall unfähig. Im nachfolgenden Beitrag wird eine Grundtypisierung dieser Witze, wie sie sich z. Bsp. in den inschriftlichen Denkmälern, in den Epigrammen der Anthologia Graeca, sowie in der Philogelos-Sammlung, bei Martial und Ausonius finden, aufgezeigt, deren Funktion wie zu allen Zeiten im Sinne eines psychologischen Ventils angesichts der Machtlosigkeit gegenüber einem mächtigen Berufsstand verstanden werden kann. So kann der Arzt als eigentliche Todesursache in den Blick treten. Die bloße Berührung ist todbringend; die Erwähnung seines Namens kann bereits letale Folgen haben. Oder man nimmt die technische Unvollkommenheit, ja Stümperei des ärztlichen Personals in den satirischen Blick, und dies in den verschiedenen Abteilungen der Medizin, von der Augenheilkunde über die Chirurgie bis zur Internistik. Gerne wird schließlich auch moralisches Fehlverhalten von Ärzten, ihre Habgier, aber auch sexueller Missbrauch humorvoll aufs Korn genommen. Am Ende des Beitrages wird kurz auf ein Epigramm des Ausonius eingegangen, in dem man einen Vorschlag findet, wie man solchen bedenklichen Zeitgenossen unter den Ärzten aus dem Weg gehen kann: Indem man sie gar nicht erst als Ärzte anerkennt
The fragment of the Syriac translation of Aristotle’s Poetics preserved by Jacob (Severus) Bar Shakko (d. 1241) comprises Poet. VI 1449b24–1450a10. In spite of its small size, it serves as an important witness both to the Greek text of the Poetics, and to the reception of this work in the Christian Orient and, later on, in the Muslim world. The fragment derives from a translation, which most likely appeared in West Syriac circles in the 7th/8th centuries AD and later served as the basis for the Arabic translation of the Poetics made by Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus in the 10 th century. The present article includes a new edition of the Syriac text preserved by Bar Shakko, which is based on the collation of six manuscripts and is accompanied by an English translation. The article also provides a detailed analysis of the Syriac fragment as compared to the transmitted Greek text of the Poetics, on the one hand, and to the Arabic translation of it by Abū Bishr, on the other. This comparison allows an assumption that the Syriac version is most likely based on a Greek manuscript, which may have contained glosses and scholia. A Greek and Syriac glossary is attached at the end of the article
The present article aims to elucidate an interesting narrative that forms a portion of Aelian’s paradoxographic work Περὶ ζῴων ἰδιότητος (On the Characteristics of Animals, Lat. De natura animalium). The passage under discussion describes some horned animals of oriental origin that were involved in the annual fighting contests during a one-day competition held on the initiative of a “great king of India” — probably Chandragupta (4th–3rd c. BC), the founder of the Maurya dynasty. Aelian’s chapter (NA 15, 15) was perhaps taken from Megasthenes’s Ἰνδικά (Description of India). The passage includes two hapax legomena referring to two species of animals: †μέσοι† and †ὕαιναι†. The first of these should be identified with the Ladakh urial (Ovis orientalis vignei Blyth); cf. Prasun məṣé ‘ram, urial’ (< Vedic mēṣá- m. ‘ram’). Aelian’s exact description of the horned animals called †ὕαιναι† clearly demonstrates that the alleged “striped hyena” (Gk. ὕαινα) must represent the chinkara, i. e., the Indian gazelle (Gazella bennettii Sykes). The Indo-Aryan term for ‘chinkara’ (Ved. hariṇá- m ‘Indian gazelle’, hariṇī́- f. ‘female gazelle’; cf. Pa. and Pk. hariṇa- m., hariṇī- f.) suggests that the corrupted form in Aelian’s passage should be emended as ὑάριναι [hyárinai]. This seems a near-optimal adaptation of the Pali or Prakrit appellative háriṇā pl. ‘chinkaras’