Gregory of Nyssa and Jacques Derrida on the Human-Animal Distinction in the Song of Songs

2017 ◽  
pp. 199-224
Author(s):  
Eric Daryl Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Human Animal

The Workshop

2020 ◽  
pp. 205-232
Author(s):  
Morwenna Ludlow
Keyword(s):  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa

The first part of this chapter shows how Gregory of Nyssa construes his relationships with his teachers in textual terms: the things he writes are the proof both that he is a good student of his teacher, and that he is ready to graduate from their instruction. This same model is also found in his interpretation of the bride in the Song of Songs, who is depicted as a teacher (didaskalos) and a figure of Paul and the apostles. This suggests that one should see authors in a network, and as concerned with the production of things—namely texts. The second part of the chapter extends this to argue that one can see, for example, the Cappadocians, as functioning as a literary workshop. The ancient concept of workshop (ergasterion) is examined alongside the Cappadocians’ own use of the term, literally and figuratively.

scholarly journals Eros and Distance: Transformation of Desire in St Gregory of Nyssa*

2021 ◽  
pp. 101-121
Author(s):  
Vladimir Cvetkovic
Keyword(s):  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Distance Transformation ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Temporal Interval ◽  
Inherent Characteristic ◽  
Middle Period ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Second Coming

The paper aims to analyze the relation between the notion of love or desire (eros) for God, and the notion of distance (diastema) between God and the created beings in the works of St Gregory of Nyssa. These two notions are interrelated on different levels, because distance that separates God from the created beings is traversed out of desire for God of the latter. First, the distance as temporal interval will be investigated, which separates the present day from the Second Coming of Christ, which is elaborated by Gregory in his early work On Virginity. The focus will then be shifted to the distance between good and evil, that Gregory explicates in the works of his middle period such as On the making of man, Against Eunomius III and The Great Catechetical Oration. Finally, the distance as an inherent characteristic of created nature that never disappears will be analyzed by focusing on Gregory’s later works, such as Homilies on the Song of Songs, On perfection and The Life of Moses.

Animating the Bible’s Animals

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Stone
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Differences ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Species Difference ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Donna Haraway ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Companion Species ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Biblical Texts

This chapter discusses the potential relevance of interdisciplinary animal studies for biblical interpretation. The story of Jacob and his family in Genesis 25–32 is examined from the perspective of a “critical animal hermeneutics.” Three features of such a hermeneutics, characteristic of contemporary animal studies, are emphasized: (1) the constitutive importance of “companion species,” emphasized by Donna Haraway, including in Israel’s case goats and sheep; (2) the instability of the human/animal binary, emphasized by Jacques Derrida and other thinkers; and (3) ubiquitous associations between species difference and differences among humans, particularly, in the case of biblical literature, gender and ethnic differences. Each of these features is used to read the story of Jacob and several related biblical texts.

Inner Animalities

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Daryl Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Critical Animal Studies ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Constructive Work ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Wolfhart Pannenberg ◽  
Critical Conversation

Inner Animalities analyses the human-animal distinction as a discursive theme running ubiquitously through Christian theological anthropology. Arguing that historically pervasive disavowals of human animality create ineradicable contradictions within accounts of human life and also install an anti-ecological impulse at the heart of Christian theology, this project constructively imagines a theological anthropology centered upon human commonality with fellow creatures. This constructive work perceives divine grace at work in human instincts, desires, and enmeshment in quotidian relations (rather than in rationality, language, and transcendence). The broadest arc of the book’s argument is that only a thickly articulated self-understanding rooted in creaturely commonality can provide an adequate basis for responding to ongoing ecological degradation. The conjunction of Critical Animal Studies with constructive theology in this study, then, aims to generate a new approach to ecological theology. The book’s analysis places ancient Christians such as Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus along with contemporary theologians such as Karl Rahner and Wolfhart Pannenberg in critical conversation with theorists of human-animal relations from Jacques Derrida and Kelly Oliver to Valerie Plumwood and Giorgio Agamben.

scholarly journals O animal no humano / The Non-Human Animal

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Mingote Ferreira de Azara
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Georges Bataille ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Identity And Difference ◽  
Narrative Language ◽  
Literary Narrative

ABSTRACTThe story “Meu tio, o Iauretê” (1962 ), from Guimarães Rosa, discusses the boundary between man and animal, through intensive writing, which seeks to unveil the animal in man. Thus, thinking animalism in Guimarães Rosa, means thinking what the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze would call “Becoming – Animal” which concept is present in a text from 1730 - Becoming - Intense, Becoming - Animal, Becoming – imperceptible…, and would be an order of combination of a man with an animal, none of which would be similar or even copy each other, in other words, it would not be a matter of metamorphosis, but becomings, crossings and short circuit between kingdoms. In this sense, the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida and Georges Bataille serve as a basic scope to reflect on the question of self and other, man and animal, identity and difference. The questioning of this issue, through literature, aims to demonstrate how to give, in literary narrative, language, questioning of anthropocentrism, in the words of Derrida’s “own man”, which would result in the subsumption on power of life, pure, immanent.RESUMOO conto “Meu tio, o Iauretê” (1962), de Guimarães Rosa, problematiza a fronteira entre o homem e o animal, através de uma escrita intensiva, que busca desvelar o animal no humano. Dessa forma, pensar a animalidade em Guima-rães Rosa, significa pensar aquilo que o filósofo francês Gilles Deleuze denominaria “Devir-animal”, conceito presente no texto 1730-Devir- intenso, Devir-animal, Devir-imperceptível..., e que seria da ordem de uma conjugação de um homem com um animal, sendo que nenhum deles se assemelharia ou até mesmo imitaria o outro, ou seja, não seria uma questão de metamorfose, mas de devires, atravessamentos e curto-circuito entre reinos. Nesse sentido, a filosofia de Gilles Deleuze, Jaques Derrida e Georges Bataille servirão como escopo básico para que se reflita sobre a questão do eu e do outro, do homem e do animal, da identidade e da diferença. A problematização dessa questão, através da literatura, visa demonstrar como se dá, na narrativa literária, na linguagem, o questionamento do antropocentrismo, nas palavras de Derrida os “próprios do homem”, o que acarretaria na subsunção da potência da vida, pura, imanente.

The Animal, What a Word!

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-35
Author(s):  
Eva Meijer
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Negative View ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Human Animal

In chapter 1, the author investigates the relation between language and anthropocentrism. By discussing the relation between human language and non-human animal exclusion, she argues that, in order to adequately address anthropocentrism, we need to redefine language in and through interaction with non-human animals. The first section of this chapter criticizes an anthropocentric view of language, reason, and animals. The author discusses the connection between the concepts “language” and “animal” in part of the Western philosophical tradition, using the work of René Descartes and Martin Heidegger as examples. We find an alternative approach in the work of Jacques Derrida, which is discussed in the second part of the chapter, and which complicates stereotypical views about “the animal” and critically examines the image of the human that is connected to it. His critique is valuable, but he provides only a negative view of non-human animals, language, and human-animal relations. In the final section, the author argues that this is unfortunate: in order to adequately address anthropocentrism, we need to redefine these concepts in and through interaction with non-human animals.

La Vita di Macrina e le Omelie sul Cantico dei Cantici di Gregorio di Nissa

Augustinianum ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-83
Author(s):  
Roberta Franchi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Theological Reflection ◽  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Mystical Union

This article analyzes the Life of Macrina by comparing it with the mystical experience of the bride in the Commentary on the Song of Songs, both works written by Gregory of Nyssa. In the Life of Macrina, Gregory adopts the same imagery that he uses to portray the bride in the Commentary on the Song of Songs in order to emphasize Macrina’s angelic status and her pure love for God. Although scholars have pointed out the value of virginity in the life of Macrina, another aspect has to be taken into account: her spousal virginity. Since Gregory uses the paradox within theological reflection and a theological context, Macrina's condition as bride of Christ comes to be realized paradoxically through her choice of virginity. Thanks to her spousal virginity, she joins Christ as His bride. Thus, in keeping with the Commentary on the Song of Songs, Macrina is the bride, Christ is the Bridegroom, and the mystical union is reached.

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