Taoism

1995 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 322-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franciscus Verellen

Circumscribing the place of taoists in Chinese society is not straightforward for any period: honored by emperors and members of the nobility, they were scorned, as a rule, by literati-officials and treated with a mixture of reverence and familiarity by ordinary people. The paradoxical strength of passivity, the power of compliance, and the endurance of the peripheral already form a central theme in the mystical writings gathered in the fourth and third centuryb.c.Lao-tzuandChuang-tzu. The Taoism of these ancient texts advanced a doctrine of liberation through submission, of control by means of noninterference, and of transcendence as a result of physiological and mental regimens. The ideal of liberation from the physical, epistemological, and social constraints of the human condition in time translated into a quest for immortality which, by the Ch'in unification of the empire, became quite explicit. Huang-Lao thought, named for the Yellow Emperor and patron of the immortals (Huang-ti) and Lao-tzu, dominated court politics from this period through the middle of the second centuryb.c.

2006 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Turner

AbstractOne may construe the Sethian Gnostic picture of the world and its origins as an interpretation of the biblical protology of the book of Genesis in the light of the Platonic distinction between an ideal, exemplary realm of eternal stable being and its more or less deficient earthly and changeable copy, in which the principal Platonic dialogues of reference are the Timaeus and the Parmenides. Various Sethian treatises offer us accounts of the origin and generation of both these realms; while their portrayal of the origin and deployment of the earthly realm is unmistakably influenced by their readings of Plato's Timaeus, their account of the origin and deployment of the ideal realm is noticeably influenced by readings of Plato's Parmenides. This article attempts to show that the shift from the Timaeus as the primary Platonic dialogue of reference for the Middle Platonic thought of the first two centuries to the Parmenides as the primary dialogue of reference for the emerging Neoplatonism of the third century is also visible in the Sethian treatises. In mid- to later second-century Sethian treatises, the cosmology of the Timaeus serves as an exegetical template to interpret the Genesis protology, but with the turn to the third century, the Sethian trestises that circulated in Plotinus' circle have abandoned all interest in the Genesis protology in favor of a theology of transcendental ascent.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-172
Author(s):  
John F. Lingelbach

Three hundred years after its discovery, scholars find themselves unable to determine the more likely of the two hypotheses regarding the date of the Muratorian Fragment, which consists of a catalog of New Testament texts. Is the Fragment a late second- to early third-century composition or a fourth-century composition? This present work seeks to break the impasse. The study found that, by making an inference to the best explanation, a second-century date for the Fragment is preferred. This methodology consists of weighing the two hypotheses against five criteria: plausibility, explanatory scope, explanatory power, credibility, and simplicity. What makes this current work unique in its contribution to church history and historical theology is that it marks the first time the rigorous application of an objective methodology, known as “inference to the best explanation” (or IBE), has been formally applied to the problem of the Fragment’s date.


2010 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Favro ◽  
Christopher Johanson

Scientifically accurate, three-dimensional digital representations of historical environments allow architectural historians to explore viewsheds, movement, sequencing, and other factors. Using real-time interactive simulations of the Roman Forum during the mid-Republic and the early third century CE, Diane Favro and Christopher Johanson examine the visual and sequential interrelationships among audience, actors, and monuments during funeral rituals. Death in Motion: Funeral Processions in the Roman Forum presents a hypothetical reconstruction of the funeral of the Cornelii family in the early second century BCE and argues that the conventional understanding of the staging of the funeral oration may be incorrect. It then reviews the imperial funerals of the emperors Pertinax and Septimius Severus to compare the ways that later building in the Roman Forum altered the ritual experience, controlled participant motion, and compelled the audience to submit to an imperial program of viewing.


1976 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Cunliffe

SummaryThe results of five seasons of excavation (1971–5) are summarized. A continuous strip 30–40 m. wide extending across the centre of the fort from one side to the other was completely excavated revealing pits, gullies, circular stake-built houses, rectangular buildings, and 2-, 4-, and 6-post structures, belonging to the period from the sixth to the end of the second century B.C. The types of structures are discussed. A sequence of development, based largely upon the stratification preserved behind the ramparts, is presented: in the sixth–fifth century the hill was occupied by small four-post ‘granaries’ possibly enclosed by a palisade. The first hill-fort rampart was built in the fifth century protecting houses, an area of storage pits, and a zone of 4-and 6-post buildings laid out in rows along streets. The rampart was heightened in the third century, after which pits continued to be dug and rows of circular houses were built. About 100 B.C. rectangular buildings, possibly of a religious nature, were erected, after which the site was virtually abandoned. Social and economic matters are considered. The excavation will continue.


2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 515-566
Author(s):  
Maria Piera Candotti ◽  
Tiziana Pontillo

Abstract The present paper is targeted on three landmarks in the long story of the paribhāṣās’ development. Two of these landmarks descended from the earliest testimony of Vyākaraṇa meta-rules, i. e. those included in Pāṇini’s grammar (fifth–fourth century BCE), and one which has been handed down as the first independent collection of paribhāṣās and attributed to Vyāḍi. In particular a shift is highlighted between Kātyāyaṇa’s (third century BCE) integrative approach (vacana) and Patañjali’s (second century BCE) recourse to implicit paribhāṣās in the Aṣṭādhyāyī as a powerful hermeneutical tool. A shift that helps in interpreting the need for a validation and collection of implicit pāṇinian paribhāṣās as carried out by authors such as Vyāḍi.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detty Manongko

The research of exploring the Church History have not been many studies done in Indonesia. Though this field is related to the theology, especially the development of Christian Theology for centuries. One area of Church History that needs to be examined are the Christian Thought of the Church Fathers from first to third centuries. The field is often called “Patrology” which is the study of Church Fathers from first to third centuries. Who are they, what are the results of their work, why they have produced such theological thoughts, and what they thoughts are still influencing to the contemporary theologians in Indonesia?The main problem in this research is how does the perception of contemporary theologians in Indonesia to the Chruch Father’ s theological thoughts? Through a literature review of Soteriology, Christology, and Eschatology, then this research has yielded important principles concerning to the Church Fathers’s theological thoughts at the Early Church period. And then through the field research has proven that the majority of contemporary theologians in Indonesia have a positive perception to the Church Fathers’s theological thought from first to the third centuries. Therefore, the reasons of why this research is conducted and how it is done are described in the first chapter of these book. The second chapter of this writing contains a literature review of the theological thoughts of the church fathers from the first century to the third. There are four groups of Church Fathers from the first century to the third. There are four groups of Church Fathers that are described in this chapter, i.e., The Apostolic Fathers (from the first to the middle of second century), The Aplogists (second century), The Anti-Gnostic Fathers (second and third century), and The Alexandrian Fathers (third century). The third chapter discusses the quantitative methods used in this research including statistical models to prove the validity and reliability of the data acquisition method that is used in the field of this research. It desperately needs accuracy and diligence in order to display a quality and useful research reports for the development of Church History studies. Discussion of the results of this study, along with the evidence that reinforces the result of this research is presented in the fourth chapter. Finally, the fifth chapter of this study elaborates the main thoughts that are generated in this study, which also expected to be important principles in conducting futher research.The results obtained in this study are not yet maximal on account of various constraints, such as limited time, facilities, funding, and so forth. However, the writer wishes that the results achieved in this study will give a valuable contribution to all readers of this writing and that it will be a motivation for a further research in the field of Church History in the future.


1975 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank D. Gilliard

At the end of the nineteenth century Louis Duchesne's Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule decisively undermined the foundation for maintaining the apostolicity of Gallic sees. This epochal study proved that, of the twenty-five lists of Gallic bishops which were credible and could be verified, only that of the church at Lyon reached back as far as the second century, and only four others as far as the third century. Thus it effectively discredited the pious medieval myths which had been created to prove that the Gallic episcopal traditions derived from the apostles, and led Duchesne confidently to conclude that, except for the “mother-church” at Lyon, established probably in the middle of the second century, no other church was founded in the Gallic provinces of Belgica, Lugdunensis, Aquitania, and Germania much before A.D. 230.


Author(s):  
John Ahn

Wisdom as a distinctive category has been challenged. This piece further challenges and opens up the geographical, ideological, and contextual contexts of sapiential texts found in various cultures with written scribal traditions. The Hebrew Bible’s Wisdom texts are primarily studied and situated in the ancient Near East and Egypt. Here, these texts are directedly placed in dialogue with authors and texts of the ancient Far East. For example: Proverbs and the Analects, Job and Buddhism, and Ecclesiastes and Chinese Philosophy (Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu). As Wisdom authors and texts hardly reference divinely sanctioned prophets or revelatory laws, the content and message with emphasis on humanity, propriety, consciousness, and jen (virtue, steadfastness, justice, affection, and righteousness) offer a fresh new breath of distinctiveness, which was pervasive in the Greco-Persian context.


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