scholarly journals The problem of Millenarism

1975 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 31-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Af Edholm

The myth of the recurrence of the golden age after a period of accelerating miseries ("messianic woes") in the near future is of course not peculiar to the chiliasm of the European later middle ages. On the contrary, it belongs to the basic eschatological themes of millenarism in general. These themes are found also in Hindu tradition. To determine those general characteristics of traditional Hindu society which can contribute to an explanation of the relative unimportance of peasant rebellions and the lack of chiliastic mass movements, is not a problem to be solved within the field of the history of religions.  For example, the egalitarian message of the bhakti saints, disputing the hierarchy, did not preclude that the salvationist sects did adapt to the caste system. The religious movements contributed to and gave ideological form to adjustments within the existing social structure. Obviously there was little need for millenarism in this process.  

1991 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-421
Author(s):  
Ghulam-Haider Aasi

History of Religions in the WestA universal, comparative history of the study of religions is still far frombeing written. Indeed, such a history is even hr from being conceived, becauseits components among the legacies of non-Western scholars have hardly beendiscovered. One such component, perhaps the most significant one, is thecontributions made by Muslim scholars during the Middle Ages to thisdiscipline. What is generally known and what has been documented in thisfield consists entirely of the contribution of Westdm scholars of religion.Even these Western scholars belong to the post-Enlightenment era of Wsternhistory.There is little work dealing with the history of religions which does notclaim the middle of the nineteenth century CE as the beginning of thisdiscipline. This may not be due only to the zeitgeist of the modem Wstthat entails aversion, downgrading, and undermining of everything stemmingfrom the Middie Ages; its justification may also be found in the intellectualpoverty of the Christian West (Muslim Spain excluded) that spans that historicalperiod.Although most works dealing with this field include some incidentalreferences, paragraphs, pages, or short chapters on the contribution of thepast, according to each author’s estimation, all of these studies are categorizedunder one of the two approaches to religion: philosophical or cubic. All ofthe reflective, speculative, philosophical, psychological, historical, andethnological theories of the Greeks about the nature of the gods and goddessesand their origins, about the nature of humanity’s religion, its mison dsttre,and its function in society are described as philosophical quests for truth.It is maintained that the Greeks’ contribution to the study of religion showedtheir openness of mind and their curiosity about other religions and cultures ...


Author(s):  
Karel Werner

Among the popular misconceptions which still linger in the minds of many people who are interested in the study of different religious systems, who are personally involved in one of the growing Hindu- or Buddhist-based modern religious movements, or who even do academic research in the field of the history of religions, is the rather simplistic view that Hinduism teaches the existence of a transmigrating individual soul, but that Buddhism denies it. At the same time it is well known that Buddhism, like Hinduism, teaches the rebirth of the individual in successive lives, in combination with the doctrine of moral retribution for his deeds in this or the next life or in subsequent lives according to the laws of karma, whose operation can be summed up rather well by the use of the biblical saying: “as you have sown so you will reap”.


Author(s):  
G. L. Bursill-Hall

SummaryThis article is an essay by a modern linguist in one aspect of the history of grammar. Grammar was a compulsory subject in the curriculum of the mediaeval university, and the golden age of scholasticism produced a number of interesting theories of grammar; this article is concerned with the theory of one group in particular, i.e. the Modistae, speculative grammarians who were active in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Modistae wrote their treatises in Latin and drew upon Latin to illustrate their theories. In addition they made of Latin an idealized language, a kind of “second-order-” or metalanguage, and it was from the standpoint of this idealized language that all grammatical speculation and pedagogy were to be carried out. This is an attitude which has persisted up to the present day and one which has considerably influenced the teaching of grammar and foreign languages since the Middle Ages.


2021 ◽  
pp. 519-520

This chapter provides the obituary for Jerzy Wyrozumski, who died in Kraków in early November 2018 at the age of 88. It talks about Wyrozumski as a professor of history at the Jagiellonian University and an outstanding scholar of the Middle Ages for many years. He was born in Trembowla in East Galicia and was resettled with his family in Kozle in Silesia, which was incorporated into Poland after the Second World War. Wyrozumski's particular interest was the economic and social history of Poland during the Middle Ages, the functioning of the medieval political system, and medieval religious movements in Europe. The chapter mentions Wyrozumski's active involvement in the organization of the Conference on Jewish Autonomy in Poland that was held at the Jagiellonian University in September 1986.


2013 ◽  
pp. 133-135
Author(s):  
Anatolii M. Kolodnyi

In the Department of Religious Studies at the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, which is currently the only academic institution in the country, the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, with his approval, adopted in his Annual Address to the Verkhovna Rada the provision on "ensuring the teaching of all forms of education in higher education institutions since September 2011" academic religious studies as a normative philosophical discipline, and in secondary school - a comparative history of religions. " The clericalization of education, to which, contrary to the Constitution of Ukraine, the political-mindedness and polyconfessional nature of its citizens, the V. Yushchenko during his years of presidency, and the Ministry of Education, was at his discretion, was unclear to us, and thus unacceptable. Therefore, we did not participate in the work of the various commissions, which, according to Yushchenko's instructions, began to act at the ministerial level, and especially instilled in educational structures in the western region of the country. We go to secular modern Europe, and we strive to live in the time of its Middle Ages.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-234
Author(s):  
Rajesh Sampath

This article forms part III of a running commentary on Ambedkar’s posthumously published “Philosophy of History” (Ambedkar, 2014a). We attempt to follow Ambedkar’s reflections on the early origins of religion and his initial distinctions of the religions of “savage society” and “civilized society” (Ambedkar, 2014a, p. 9). Using the tools of philosophical critique, we see his attempt to dissect the real “principal” (Ambedkar, 2014a, p. 10) of religion beyond the apparitional nature of rites, rituals, and taboos. This leads to a series of deductions of what constitutes the very “core,” “source,” and “substance” of religion rooted in the “preservation of life” (Ambedkar, 2014a, p. 10). However, this is also a moment that will foreshadow Ambedkar’s ultimate judgement of Hinduism’s status as a religion when founded on the unequal social structure of caste. We argue the following in this article: what Ambedkar says about the architectonic of “savage society” and the failure to undergo a profound revolution in the nature and concept of religion bears an eerie resemblance to what ultimately takes the place of “savage society” (Ambedkar, 2014a, p. 9) over time, namely the Hindu caste system. This makes modern Hinduism a strange hybrid of pre-history and a future history whose conclusion is uncertain. Whether caste can disappear from society is the burning question. And this is intertwined with profound metaphysical questions of time, life, birth, and death, which only philosophy can deconstruct if a religion, like Hinduism, were submitted for critical judgement. The article concludes with an attempt to set the stage for the next phase of the commentary: there Ambedkar will transition from a general discussion about the philosophy and history of religion as a concept to an actual engagement with the philosophical contents of the religion known and practiced by hundreds of millions of adherents as Hinduism. As we already know, his conclusion is dire: a religion can only be true if it is rooted in ‘justice’ and serves the ‘utility’ of individual freedom (Ambedkar, 2014a, p. 22).


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Hermenegildo Fernandes ◽  
Armando Norte ◽  
André de Oliveira Leitão

Abstract:This paper aims to present an existing research strand at the Centro de História da Universidade de Lisboa (CH-ULisboa), which is based on several resources related to digital humanities. This broader research strand has three main axes: the study of the University of Lisbon per se, the mobility of Portuguese scholars in the medieval and early modern periods, and the funding and management of the medieval Portuguese studium, which together can help generate a general picture of the history of the universityin Portugal. These three axes are based on different field of digital humanities, such as databases and GIS, which we intend to merge and make available online in the near future. Two of these databases (the Magistri Database and the Peregrinatio Database) are presented here as case studies to discuss different issues derived from the use of the prosopographical method, as well as to address several technical issues.Keywords: Portugal, University, peregrination academica, Middle Ages and Early Modern Age, digital humanities.Resumen: El presente artículo tiene como objetivo la presentación de una línea de investigación existente en el Centro de História da Universidade de Lisboa (CH-ULisboa) basada en varios recursos relacionados con las humanidades digitales. Esta línea de investigación más amplia tiene tres ejes principales: el estudio de la Universidad de Lisboa, la movilidad de los estudiantes portugueses en las épocas medieval y moderna, y la financiación y gestión del studium medieval portugués, todos entrelazados con el fin de obtener una imagen de la historia de la universidad en Portugal. Estos tres ejes se basan en diferentes campos de las humanidades digitales, tales como las bases de datos y los SIG, que tenemos la intención de fusionar y hacer disponibles en línea en un futuro próximo. Dos de estas bases de datos (Magistri y Peregrinatio) se presentan aquí como casos de estudio que permiten examinar las cuestiones derivadas de la utilización de una metodología basada en la prosopografía, así como intentar aclarar problemas técnicos relacionados con ella.Palabras clave: Portugal, Universidad, peregrinatio academica, Edades Media y Moderna, humanidades digitales.   


Author(s):  
John Marenbon

‘Why medieval philosophy?’ considers why anyone should be bothered to learn about medieval philosophy. Very few people—philosophers and non-philosophers alike—do know much about this period of philosophy, but since it is now clear that there was a great deal of excellent philosophy written in the Middle Ages, is there not as much reason to learn about it as to learn about excellent philosophy from any other period? Medieval philosophy shows that the history of philosophy cannot be understood apart from the history of religions, not just because this is true for the time it covers, but because it points to how philosophy and religion were intertwined before then, and for long afterwards.


2020 ◽  
pp. 15-23
Author(s):  
I. H. Adamska

The Historical Society of Nestor the Chronicler was one of the organizations in the second half of 19th – the first half of 20th century which researched the culture of Ukraine. Members of the society published their studies in various periodicals. Beginning from the year 1888 their annual journal "Chteniya v Istoricheskom obshchestve Nestora Letopistsa" appeared regularly. The purpose of this article are to identify topics from the cultural history of the 10th -16th century which were of interest for the members of the society, as well as studies published by them on the journal pages. The other purpose is to systematize interpretations of problems of cultural history raised by the members, and to define the role which was given to the medieval culture in the development of this region by the above- mentioned researchers. It was found, as a result of the study, that beginning from the second half of the 19th century the scholars increasingly turned to the topics predeceasing the Cossack period for emphasising the cultural originality of lands of Southern Ruthenia (Rus'). Researchers turned to the study of monuments of literature to discover local traditions and possible foreign influences. The identified borrowings were often interpreted that they had reflected the existing diversity of the language and culture. Yet there were also some attempts to prove a close connection with the culture of Northern Ruthenia (so called: "Great Russian" culture) on the basis of the established facts. On occasion of the 900th anniversary of the baptism of Ruthenia the researcher intensified their studies on the history of religions. The most attention was paid to the adoption of the Eastern Christianity by Eastern Slavs and the development of Orthodoxy in the area they inhabited. However, researchers were also interested in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, Judaism, Protestantism and their influence on the culture of the region. The members of the society discovered and analysed landmarks from the Middle Ages and from the beginning of Early Modern times. Artworks from this period survived worst of all. The researchers studied sacral buildings, the interior decoration of temples, icons, as well as what were left from the secular architecture, including castles and fortifications. They also tried to identify distinctive elements of artistic development and possible foreign influences. In addition, cultural relations of Ruthenia with other countries were studied. The special attention was paid to the marriage unions, to the connection between economic and cultural interactions and to the religious factor of the relations between various states. The image of the culture of Middle Edges as an important period of Ukraine's cultural history was being created by publishing research results on the pages of the journal.


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