The Other in the Spirituality of the Desert Fathers

2011 ◽  
pp. 159-177
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung

What role should anger play in a virtuous life? If anger’s rightful target is injustice, and the world is marked by persistent injustice, is it virtuous to be habitually angry? Or, on the contrary, if Christlike character is marked by gentleness, should a virtuous person have little to no anger? To address this puzzle, DeYoung incorporates insights from two strands in Christian thought—one drawing on counsel from the desert fathers and mothers to eschew anger as a manifestation of the false self, and the other from Aquinas, who argues that some anger can be virtuous, if it has the right object and mode of expression. Next, she examines ways that formation in virtuous anger depends on other virtues, including humility, and other practices, such as lament and hope. Finally, she argues for appropriate developmental and vocational variation in anger’s virtuous expression across communities and over a lifetime.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-57
Author(s):  
Paul Siladi

Abstract Ecumenism is a 20th century concept that cannot be directly transposed in the everyday reality of the Desert Fathers, but the authority of the desert ascetics is still crucial to the monastic milieu of the Orthodox Church as well as other denominations. For this very reason, the present paper intends to investigate the stories recorded in the alphabetical collection of the Egyptian Paterikon in order to understand to what extent they may actually offer a guide to the complex relations with the Other. How do these stories illustrate denominational or even religious alterity? What types of rapports can one identify therein? Rejection? Separation? Acceptance of the other’s difference? These are all legitimate questions and their significance is amplified in the context of our times – a period in which we see an increase in fundamentalist movements and tendencies, including in the Orthodox community.


2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Wheeler

The purpose of this article is to uncover the meaning of holy feigning in the late-antique Christian text the Apophthegmata Patrum, or Sayings of the Desert Fathers [and Mothers]. Whereas stories in this text depict demonic feigning as a regular occurrence (demons often appearing in the guise of a fellow desert dweller), what I call ‘holy feigning’ depicts one desert Christian expressing empathy for the situation of another – and helping the other to change. By looking at two stories that are paradigmatic of holy feigning, I show that exemplary deceptive behaviour, though explicitly defying the otherwise consistent rhetoric of ‘radical self-honesty’ in the Apophthegmata Patrum, paradoxically marks out the person who feigns as holy, discerning and imitative of Christ. In this article, I offer several suggestions for accounting for this seeming contradiction in the desert literature and propose how a spirituality of holy feigning might remain meaningful to readers of this literature today.


1988 ◽  
Vol 62 (03) ◽  
pp. 411-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin W. Stearn

Stromatoporoids are the principal framebuilding organisms in the patch reef that is part of the reservoir of the Normandville field. The reef is 10 m thick and 1.5 km2in area and demonstrates that stromatoporoids retained their ability to build reefal edifices into Famennian time despite the biotic crisis at the close of Frasnian time. The fauna is dominated by labechiids but includes three non-labechiid species. The most abundant species isStylostroma sinense(Dong) butLabechia palliseriStearn is also common. Both these species are highly variable and are described in terms of multiple phases that occur in a single skeleton. The other species described areClathrostromacf.C. jukkenseYavorsky,Gerronostromasp. (a columnar species), andStromatoporasp. The fauna belongs in Famennian/Strunian assemblage 2 as defined by Stearn et al. (1988).


1967 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 207-244
Author(s):  
R. P. Kraft

(Ed. note:Encouraged by the success of the more informal approach in Christy's presentation, we tried an even more extreme experiment in this session, I-D. In essence, Kraft held the floor continuously all morning, and for the hour and a half afternoon session, serving as a combined Summary-Introductory speaker and a marathon-moderator of a running discussion on the line spectrum of cepheids. There was almost continuous interruption of his presentation; and most points raised from the floor were followed through in detail, no matter how digressive to the main presentation. This approach turned out to be much too extreme. It is wearing on the speaker, and the other members of the symposium feel more like an audience and less like participants in a dissective discussion. Because Kraft presented a compendious collection of empirical information, and, based on it, an exceedingly novel series of suggestions on the cepheid problem, these defects were probably aggravated by the first and alleviated by the second. I am much indebted to Kraft for working with me on a preliminary editing, to try to delete the side-excursions and to retain coherence about the main points. As usual, however, all responsibility for defects in final editing is wholly my own.)


1967 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 177-206
Author(s):  
J. B. Oke ◽  
C. A. Whitney

Pecker:The topic to be considered today is the continuous spectrum of certain stars, whose variability we attribute to a pulsation of some part of their structure. Obviously, this continuous spectrum provides a test of the pulsation theory to the extent that the continuum is completely and accurately observed and that we can analyse it to infer the structure of the star producing it. The continuum is one of the two possible spectral observations; the other is the line spectrum. It is obvious that from studies of the continuum alone, we obtain no direct information on the velocity fields in the star. We obtain information only on the thermodynamic structure of the photospheric layers of these stars–the photospheric layers being defined as those from which the observed continuum directly arises. So the problems arising in a study of the continuum are of two general kinds: completeness of observation, and adequacy of diagnostic interpretation. I will make a few comments on these, then turn the meeting over to Oke and Whitney.


1966 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 337
Author(s):  
W. Iwanowska

A new 24-inch/36-inch//3 Schmidt telescope, made by C. Zeiss, Jena, has been installed since 30 August 1962, at the N. Copernicus University Observatory in Toruń. It is equipped with two objective prisms, used separately, one of crown the other of flint glass, each of 5° refracting angle, giving dispersions of 560Å/mm and 250Å/ mm respectively.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Pettit

Abstract Michael Tomasello explains the human sense of obligation by the role it plays in negotiating practices of acting jointly and the commitments they underwrite. He draws in his work on two models of joint action, one from Michael Bratman, the other from Margaret Gilbert. But Bratman's makes the explanation too difficult to succeed, and Gilbert's makes it too easy.


1999 ◽  
Vol 173 ◽  
pp. 249-254
Author(s):  
A.M. Silva ◽  
R.D. Miró

AbstractWe have developed a model for theH2OandOHevolution in a comet outburst, assuming that together with the gas, a distribution of icy grains is ejected. With an initial mass of icy grains of 108kg released, theH2OandOHproductions are increased up to a factor two, and the growth curves change drastically in the first two days. The model is applied to eruptions detected in theOHradio monitorings and fits well with the slow variations in the flux. On the other hand, several events of short duration appear, consisting of a sudden rise ofOHflux, followed by a sudden decay on the second day. These apparent short bursts are frequently found as precursors of a more durable eruption. We suggest that both of them are part of a unique eruption, and that the sudden decay is due to collisions that de-excite theOHmaser, when it reaches the Cometopause region located at 1.35 × 105kmfrom the nucleus.


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