scholarly journals Asceticism in Old English and Syriac Soul and Body Narratives

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 100
Author(s):  
Katayoun Torabi
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Material Object ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
Monastic Reform ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Reform Culture ◽  
Early English ◽  
Vercelli Book

A great deal of scholarship on Old English soul-body poetry centers on whether or not the presence of dualist elements in the poems are unorthodox in their implication that the body, as a material object, is not only wicked but seems to possess more agency in the world than the soul. I argue that the Old English soul-body poetry is not heterodox or dualist, but is best understood, as Allen J. Frantzen suggests, within the “context of penitential practice.” The seemingly unorthodox elements are resolved when read against the backdrop of pre-Conquest English monastic reform culture, which was very much concerned with penance, asceticism, death, and judgment. Focusing especially on two anonymous 10th-century Old English poems, Soul and Body I in the Vercelli Book and Soul and Body II in the Exeter Book, I argue that that both body and soul bear equal responsibility in achieving salvation and that the work of salvation must be performed before death, a position that was reinforced in early English monastic literature that was inspired, at least in part, by Eastern ascetics such as fourth-century Syrian hymnologist and theologian, St. Ephraim.

Body and Soul

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabella Image
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Spiritual Nature ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Century Thought

This chapter discusses Hilary’s dichotomous body–soul anthropology. Although past scholars have tried to categorize Hilary as ‘Platonic’ or ‘Stoic’, these categories do not fully summarize fourth-century thought, not least because two-way as well as three-way expressions of the human person are also found in Scripture. The influence of Origen is demonstrated with particular reference to the commentary on Ps. 118.73, informed by parallels in Ambrose and the Palestinian Catena. As a result, it is possible to ascribe differences between Hilary’s commentaries to the fact that one is more reliant on Origen than the other. Nevertheless, Hilary’s position always seems to be that the body and soul should be at harmony until the body takes on the spiritual nature of the soul.

Old English

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Burns ◽  
Colleen Curran ◽  
Kaifan Yang ◽  
Niamh Kehoe ◽  
Emma Knowles ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Manuscript Studies ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
Section 8 ◽  
Junius Manuscript ◽  
Vercelli Book

Abstract This chapter has eleven sections: 1. Bibliography; 2. Manuscript Studies, Palaeography, and Facsimiles; 3. Cultural and Intellectual Contexts; 4. Literature: General; 5. The Poems of the Exeter Book; 6. The Poems of the Vercelli Book; 7. The Poems of the Junius Manuscript; 8. Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript; 9. Other Poems; 10. Prose; 11. Reception. Sections 1, 9, and 11 are by Eleni Ponirakis; section 2 is by Rachel Burns and Colleen Curran; sections 3, 4, and 10 are by Margaret Tedford; section 5 is by Niamh Kehoe; section 6 is by Rafael J. Pascual; section 7 is by Emma Knowles; section 8 is by Rachel Burns and Kaifan Yang.

Body and Soul

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-34
Author(s):  
Frances Young
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Body And Soul

This chapter demonstrates how arguments about creation and resurrection in the second century ensured that by the fourth century even those Christian thinkers with the most leanings toward Neoplatonism would espouse the view that the union of soul with body was constitutive of human being as a creature among creatures, and so a necessary aspect of the reconstitution of the human person at the resurrection. Soul-body dualism is often treated as the default anthropological position in antiquity, but the fourth-century anthropological treatise of Nemesius of Emesa shows that, despite huge debts to the legacies of philosophy, creation and resurrection, though barely mentioned, in fact shape his conclusion that the body-soul union is fundamental to what a human being is; the same is true, for example, of the Cappadocian Gregories and Augustine.

The Old English Epic of Redemption: The Theological Unity of MS Junius 11

Traditio ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Chronological Sequence ◽  
Junius 11 ◽  
Vercelli Book

Anglo-Saxon scribes were compilers and organizers as well as copyists. Each major Old English literary manuscript gives evidence of editorial planning. The Beowulf codex was apparently designed as a collection of marvelous tales; the Vercelli Book as a collection of legendary and homiletic matter; and the first three poems of the Exeter Book (Christ I, II, and III) were arranged in proper chronological sequence.

scholarly journals Sleep of the Soul and Resurrection of the Body: Aphrahat’s Anthropology in Context

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 433-466
Author(s):  
J. Edward Walters
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Body And Soul

Abstract The fourth-century Syriac corpus known as the Demonstrations, attributed to Aphrahat, the Persian Sage, provides a unique window into the early development of Christianity among Syriac-speaking communities. Occasionally these writings attest to beliefs and practices that were not common among other contemporaneous Christian communities, such as Aphrahat’s apparent belief in the “sleep of the soul” and the implications of that belief for his concept of the soul-body relationship and what happens to the soul and body at the resurrection. Aphrahat addresses this topic in the context of a polemical argument against an unnamed opponent, which provides the occasion to consider whom these arguments might be addressed against. The present article seeks to understand Aphrahat’s views on the body and soul within the broad religious milieu of the eastern Mediterranean world in Late Antiquity. The article concludes with an argument for reading and understanding the Demonstrations as a witness to the contested development of Christian identity in the Syriac-speaking world.

“You belly-guilty bag”

2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
The Body ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Body And Soul

This article examines the epithets used as insults in Old English, building on Jucker and Taavitsainen (2000). Such epithets were found by examining all uses of the second person pronouns þu and þin in the Dictionary of Old English corpus. Epithets that accompany these pronouns occur in four main contexts, namely saints’ lives, complaints between body and soul, addresses to devils, and addresses to sinners. Nearly all insulting epithets in Old English are highly conventional, both in their use of well-established words from the Old English lexicon and in their reuse of typical epithets, from context to context. Such conventional epithets are typical of insults in other languages and are well motivated by the purpose of insults to demean the target. Yet there remain a handful of epithets that show much originality and creativity. These are mainly used in addresses to devils and complaints between the body and soul, most likely as a means of lampooning and ridiculing the devils and the body before a Christian audience.

The Study of Anglo-Saxon Poetry in the Victorian Period

2020 ◽  
pp. 175-188
Author(s):  
M. J. Toswell
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Old English ◽  
Oxford English Dictionary ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
English Poetry ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Victorian Period ◽  
Learned Societies ◽  
First Editions ◽  
Vercelli Book

The Victorians produced the first editions of Anglo-Saxon poetry in English, and began the serious study of these materials in England. John Josias Conybeare showed the way, locating and editing selected pieces of Old English poetry with a translation. John Mitchell Kemble, from the famous Irish acting family, chose a different career as an academic and antiquarian, though never with a permanent post. He produced the first edition of Beowulf, and a much better revision within a few years. Benjamin Thorpe prepared editions of four different poetic codices (missing only the Vercelli Book, of the important five manuscripts, because it was not discovered until the twentieth century): the Paris Psalter, the Junius Manuscript, the Exeter Book, and Beowulf. Finally, Frederick Furnivall established many learned societies and successfully established the Oxford English Dictionary.

II Old English

2019 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-200
Author(s):  
Eric Lacey ◽  
Simon Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Manuscript Studies ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
Junius Manuscript ◽  
Vercelli Book

Abstract This chapter has eleven sections: 1. Bibliography; 2. Manuscript Studies, Palaeography, and Facsimiles; 3. Cultural and Intellectual Contexts; 4. Literature: General; 5. The Poems of the Exeter Book; 6. The Poems of the Vercelli Book; 7. The Poems of the Junius Manuscript; 8. Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript; 9. Other Poems; 10. Prose; 11. Reception. Sections 1, 5, and 9 are by Simon Thomson and Eric Lacey; sections 2, 6, 7, and 8 are by Simon Thomson; sections 3, 4, 10, and 11 are by Eric Lacey.

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