Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature

Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature PDF

Author: David Lloyd Dusenbury

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9780191890079

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Nemesius of Emesa's 'On Human Nature' (De Natura Hominis) is a Christian anthropology. Written in Greek, circa 390 CE, it was read in half a dozen languages - from Baghdad to Oxford - well into the early modern period. Nemesius' text circulated in two Latin versions in the centuries that saw the rise of European universities, shaping scholastic theories of human nature. During the Renaissance there were numerous print editions helping to inspire a new discourse of human dignity. David Lloyd Dusenbury offers a monograph in English on Nemesius' treatise. In the interpretation offered here, the Syrian bishop seeks to define the human qua human. His early Christian anthropology is cosmopolitan.

Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature

Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature PDF

Author: David Lloyd Dusenbury

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 0198856962

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Nemesius of Emesa's On Human Nature (De Natura Hominis) is the first Christian anthropology. Written in Greek, circa 390 CE, it was read in half a dozen languages--from Baghdad to Oxford--well into the early modern period. Nemesius' text circulated in two Latin versions in the centuries that saw the rise of European universities, shaping scholastic theories of human nature. During the Renaissance there were numerous print editions helping to inspire a new discourse of human dignity. David Lloyd Dusenbury offers the first monograph in English on Nemesius' treatise. In the interpretation offered here, the Syrian bishop seeks to define the human qua human. His early Christian anthropology is cosmopolitan. He writes, 'Things that are natural are the same for all.' In his pages, a host of texts and discourses--biblical and medical, legal and philosophical--are made to converge upon a decisive tenet of Christian late antiquity: humans' natural freedom. For Nemesius, reason and choice are a divine double-strand of powers. Since he believes that both are a natural human inheritance, he concludes that much is 'in our power'. Nemesius defines humans as the only living beings who are at once ruler (intellect) and ruled (body). Because of this, the human is a 'little world', binding the rationality of angels to the flux of elements, the tranquillity of plants, and the impulsiveness of animals. This compelling study traces Nemesius' reasoning through the whole of On Human Nature, as he seeks to give a long-influential image of humankind both philosophical and anatomical proof.

On the Nature of Man

On the Nature of Man PDF

Author: Nemesius (Bp. of Emesa.)

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13:

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"Nemesius' treatise On the Nature of Man is an important text for historians of ancient thought, not only as a much-quarried source of evidence for earlier works now lost, but also as an indication of intellectual life in the late fourth century AD. The author was a Christian bishop; the subject is the nature of human beings and their place in the scheme of created things. The medical works of Galen and the philosophical writings of Plato, Aristotle and the Neoplatonist Porphyry are all major influences on Nemesius; so too the controversial Christian Origen. On the Nature of Man provides the first known compendium of theological anthropology with a Christian orientation and considerably influenced later Byzantine and medieval Latin philosophical theology."--BOOK JACKET.

The Innocence of Pontius Pilate

The Innocence of Pontius Pilate PDF

Author: David Lloyd Dusenbury

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-12-01

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 0197644120

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The gospels and ancient historians agree: Jesus was sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate, the Roman imperial prefect in Jerusalem. To this day, Christians of all churches confess that Jesus died 'under Pontius Pilate'. But what exactly does that mean? Within decades of Jesus' death, Christians began suggesting that it was the Judaean authorities who had crucified Jesus--a notion later echoed in the Qur'an. In the third century, one philosopher raised the notion that, although Pilate had condemned Jesus, he'd done so justly; this idea survives in one of the main strands of modern New Testament criticism. So what is the truth of the matter? And what is the history of that truth? David Lloyd Dusenbury reveals Pilate's 'innocence' as not only a neglected theological question, but a recurring theme in the history of European political thought. He argues that Jesus' interrogation by Pilate, and Augustine of Hippo's North African sermon on that trial, led to the concept of secularity and the logic of tolerance emerging in early modern Europe. Without the Roman trial of Jesus, and the arguments over Pilate's innocence, the history of empire--from the first century to the twenty-first--would have been radically different.

Education in Late Antiquity

Education in Late Antiquity PDF

Author: Jan Stenger

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-02-11

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0198869789

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Education in Late Antiquity explores how the Christian and pagan writers of the Graeco-Roman world between c. 300 and 550 CE rethought the role of intellectual and ethical formation. Analysing explicit and implicit theorization of education, it traces changing attitudes towards the aims and methods of teaching, learning, and formation. Influential scholarship has seen the postclassical education system as an immovable and uniform field. In response, this book argues that writers of the period offered substantive critiques of established formal education and tried to reorient ancient approaches to learning. By bringing together a wide range of discourses and genres, Education in Late Antiquity reveals that educational thought was implicated in the ideas and practices of wider society. Educational ideologies addressed central preoccupations of the time, including morality, religion, the relationship with others and the world, and concepts of gender and the self. The idea that education was a transformative process that gave shape to the entire being of a person, instead of imparting formal knowledge and skills, was key. The debate revolved around attaining happiness, the good life, and fulfilment, thus orienting education toward the development of the notion of humanity within the person. By exploring the discourse on education, this book recovers the changing horizons of Graeco-Roman thought on learning and formation from the fourth to the sixth centuries

Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus

Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus PDF

Author: Andrew Hofer, O.P.

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-08-29

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 0199681945

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This book examines how Gregory of Nazianzus, a fourth-century Greek writer famed as 'the Theologian' in the Christian tradition, expressed the mystery of Christ in terms of his own life. It studies Gregory's three genres of writing (orations, poems, and letters) and shows how Gregory developed an 'autobiographical Christology'.

Medieval Theories of Divine Providence 1250-1350

Medieval Theories of Divine Providence 1250-1350 PDF

Author: Mikko Posti

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-04-20

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 9004429727

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In Medieval Theories of Divine Providence 1250-1350 Mikko Posti presents a historical and philosophical study of the doctrine of divine providence in 13th- and 14th-century Latin philosophical theology.

Mental Language

Mental Language PDF

Author: Claude Panaccio

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2017-02-01

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0823272613

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The notion that human thought is structured like a language, with a precise syntax and semantics, has been pivotal in recent philosophy of mind. Yet it is not a new idea: it was systematically explored in the fourteenth century by William of Ockham and became central in late medieval philosophy. Mental Language examines the background of Ockham's innovation by tracing the history of the mental language theme in ancient and medieval thought. Panaccio identifies two important traditions: one philosophical, stemming from Plato and Aristotle, and the other theological, rooted in the Fathers of the Christian Church. The study then focuses on the merging of the two traditions in the Middle Ages, as they gave rise to detailed discussions over the structure of human thought and its relations with signs and language. Ultimately, Panaccio stresses the originality and significance of Ockham's doctrine of the oratio mentalis (mental discourse) and the strong impression it made upon his immediate successors.