Syriac

The chapter presents a general overview of Syriac texts which were translated into Greek. From the fourth to the sixth century, one encounters primarily classics of Syriac patristic literature (such as Ephrem the Syrian) and various hagiographical texts. After the seventh century, Greek translations from Syriac were limited to a few texts: the mystical writings of Isaak the Syrian and an Apocalypse related to the rise of Islam, and pseudonymously attributed to Methodios bishop of Olympos.

MAN AND HIS QUALITY AS AN IMAGE OF GOD IN PATRISTIC THINKING

The notion of divine image is generously described by the patristic literature, each of the authors trying to identify the content of this special characteristic of human being, considered (in different positions) the defining element of the created rational being, indicating the possibility of opening to God not through something external, but from the inside of the human being. Since when they speak of God, the Church Fathers do not consider the reality of the one being, but that of the three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as well as when the question of the image of God is raised, they emphasize that this the image by which human nature is conformed is the image of the Son, or the image of the Word. In this article I set out to draw some points on this patristic feature of the Eastern Fathers.

Veterum vestigia patrum: The Greek Patriarchs in the Manuscript Culture of Early Medieval Europe

This article draws attention to the availability of Latin translations of Greek patristic literature in western reading communities before the year 800 through a survey of the contents of hundreds of surviving manuscripts from the Merovingian and Carolingian periods. An examination of the presence of the translated works of eastern church fathers in the 8th-century florilegium known as The Book of Sparks ( Liber scintillarum) and monastic library catalogs from the early 9th century corroborates the impression left by the manuscript evidence. Taken together, these sources allow us to gauge the popularity of particular eastern authors among Latin readers in early medieval Europe and to weigh the influence and importance of Greek patristics in the western monastic tradition.

Codex Vatopedinus gr. 610 and Its Place in the Manuscript Tradition of Kallistos Angelikoudes’ Works

The article deals with one of the oldest manuscripts containing a significant part of the theological chapters of Kallistos Angelikoudes, one of the most important hesychast authors of the late Byzantine period. Codex Vatopedinus gr. 610 was written in the late 14th c. It contains a great amount of quotations excerpted from Patristic literature. In the second part of the codex, one can find the chapters of Kallistos Angelikoudes; these 92 chapters were retrieved from a greater collection containing now about 200 chapters. The article discusses the content of the Vatopedi manuscript, pointing out to the use of many Patristic fragments included there in different works by Kallistos Angelikoudes. This may shed light on the origin and purpose of the manuscript. A further study of the history of the text of these chapters allows us to assess the place of the Vatopedi codex in the manuscript tradition of Kallistos Angelikoudes’ literary legacy. The Church Slavonic translation of this collection of Angelikoudes’ chapters made by Paisius Velichkovsky in the 1770—1790s reproduces many peculiarities of the Greek text contained in the Vatopedi manuscript and was presumably based on a copy of that codex.

Frau Ava’s Antichrist: Its Composition and Translation into Lithuanian

The present article explores Frau Ava’s (1060–1127) apocalyptic poem Antichrist, in which, for the first time in German literature, the opponent of Christ is the protagonist. Antichrist will be Frau Ava’s second poem translated into Lithuanian. By drawing on canonic and apocryphal texts of the Scripture as well as on patristic literature, the article aims to identify traces of written and oral forms of Christian apocalyptic tradition found in the poem. The main focus will be on Adso Dervensis’ (circa 910–992) text De ortu et tempore Antichristi. The analysis of the composition of Antichrist suggests that Ava did not only translate and compile well-known narratives and motifs but also displayed a variety of artistic expressions unattested in apocalyptic tradition. Moreover, the article provides a Lithuanian translation of 118 lines of the poem.

Tjenere, pryglestokke og kropslige lidenskaber

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: According to Gen 1:26–28, the human being was given rule over the animals, even though this apparently conflicts with the lived reality on earth. To judge from sources from the Early Church, this apparent dichotomy posed a serious challenge to the claim of the goodness of God, which had to be defended accordingly. The present article investigates different Early Christian views on the relationship between animals and humans. Through a series of Danish translations of extracts from eastern patristic writings from around the 4th century, it is argued that despite a certain diversity of argument, two different ‘zoologies’, or views on animals and on the human rule over especially wild animals appear. These views seem to revolve around the two Christian centres of theology and biblical exegesis of the time – Alexandria and Antioch. Insights from the readings of the patristic literature are subsequently used as a hermeneutical key in order to understand encounters between animals and holy persons found in other parts of the Early Christian literature, namely the apocryphal Acts of the Apos-tles, martyr literature and ascetic literature. The article ends with a view to the Western church. DANSK RESUME: Mennesket blev ifølge Gen 1,26–28 sat til at herske over dyrene – men stemmer dette overens med den erfarede virkelighed? At dømme ud fra oldkirkelige kilder udfordrede dette tilsyneladende modsætningsforhold den kristne forståelse af Guds godhed, som følgelig måtte forsvares. I denne artikel undersøges forskellige oldkirkelige forestillinger om forholdet mellem dyr og mennesker. Gennem en række oversættelser af uddrag fra skrifter skrevet af østlige kirkefædre omkring det 4. århundrede argumenteres der for, at der trods en vis diversitet i argumentationen grundlæggende viser sig to forskellige forestillinger om dyr, eller ‘zoologier’, og om menneskets herredømme over særligt vilde dyr. Disse forskelle synes at være mellem det alexandrinske teologisk-eksegetiske miljø og det antiokenske. Indsigter fra disse undersøgelser bruges desuden som hermeneutisk nøgle til forstå relationer mellem dyr og hellige personer i anden oldkirkelig litteratur såsom de apokryfe apostelakter, martyrlitteratur og asketisk litteratur. Slutteligt gives der et udblik til vestlige kirkefædre.

Introduction: Early Catholic Orientalism and the Missionary Discovery of Asian Religions

New encounters in America, Africa, and Asia facilitated the “discovery” of non-Biblical religious traditions that were distinct from the ancient paganism known to Christian humanists and antiquarians from classical sources and patristic literature. Although Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism did not exist as concepts in the early modern period, the three articles in this special issue illustrate the learning process by which a number of influential and pioneering Catholic missionaries came to distinguish these various traditions from each other. We argue that they did not simply “invent” new religions arbitrarily: instead, on the basis of the very broad categories of true religion and idolatry, they engaged in some close interaction and “dialogue”—albeit usually polemical—with local religious elites and their writings, including Eastern Christians. In addition, in the case of the Jesuits in particular, we note that these various engagements were often connected events that influenced each other in important ways, from India to Japan, from Japan to China, and from all these to Tibet.