Ethiopianising the Devil: ὁ μέλας in Barnabas 4

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-245
Author(s):  
Clare K. Rothschild
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Didymus The Blind ◽  
Egyptian Religion ◽  
Explicit Reference ◽  
Roman Antiquity ◽  
The Devil ◽  
Ancient Texts

Although interpreters refer to the association between blackness and evil in ancient texts as essentially universal, specific reference by Christians to the counter-divine with the colour epithet ὁ μέλας is new with the Epistle of Barnabas. Black is applied as an honorific to certain Egyptian deities, but it is never used in Egyptian religion with reference to the counter-divine. Furthermore, black demons proliferate in late third- and fourth-century Egyptian monastic texts, but these witnesses postdate Barnabas. The first explicit reference to the devil as black after Barnabas is in Didymus the Blind, who interprets the reference as ‘Ethiopian’. Exploring the origin and background of this nickname for the counter-divine, this essay argues that Didymus accurately apprehends Barnabas’ intention: namely, that ‘the Black One’ does not merely reflect the universal association of blackness and evil in Roman antiquity, but, rather it reflects the appropriation of an ethnic stereotype in an apocalyptic context with distinctly anti-imperial resonances.

scholarly journals Resemblance and camouflage in Graeco-Roman antiquity

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (1/4) ◽  
pp. 167-185
Author(s):  
Massimo Leone
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Natural Behaviour ◽  
Pliny The Elder ◽  
General Goal ◽  
Roman Antiquity ◽  
The Way ◽  
Ancient Texts

In the twenty-eighth book of the Naturalis Historia Pliny the Elder claims that, if a chameleon’s left leg is roasted together with a herb bearing the same name, and everything is mixed with ointment, cut in lozenges, and stored in a wooden little box, this will bestow on those who own it a perfect camouflage. The ring of Gyges (Plato, etc.), that of Midas (Pliny), the heliotropium (Pliny), the dracontitis (Philostratus): ancient cultures abound with references to objects, recipes, and techniques able to bestow different kinds of invisibility, meant as a perfect resemblance with the environment. At the same time, these same cultures also teem with references to how to avert the perfect camouflage: for instance, by being endowed with a pupula duplex, a double pupil (Ovid). The paper explores such vast corpus of texts from the point of view of a semiotics of cultures, in order to track the roots of a conception of camouflage that, from these ancient cultures on, develops through intricate paths into the contemporary imaginaires (and practices) of invisibility. The paper’s more general goal is to understand the way in which cultures elaborate conceptions of invisibility meant as the perfect resemblance between humans and their environments, often on the basis of the observation of the same resemblance between other living beings and their habitat. Ancient texts are therefore focused on in order to decipher the passage from camouflage as an adaptive natural behaviour to camouflage as an effective combat strategy.

The Rhetoric of Heresiological Prefaces

2020 ◽  
pp. 180-197
Author(s):  
Richard Flower
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Technical Literature ◽  
Augustine Of Hippo ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Textual Authority ◽  
Literary Phenomenon ◽  
Ancient Texts

The genre of heresiology—catalogues of heretics and their supposed beliefs—flourished in late antiquity, especially from the late fourth century. This chapter forms part of a reappraisal of this underappreciated literary phenomenon by considering the rhetorical aspects of a number of heresiologies within the context of classical technical literature. Drawing on parallels from a range of ancient texts, especially medical and encyclopaedic writings, this chapter focuses on the prefaces of heresiologies by Epiphanius of Salamis, Filastrius of Brescia and Augustine of Hippo to illuminate how they employed recognized techniques for the construction of textual authority. Through such close analysis, it is possible to trace the development of heresiology as technē, with each author drawing on both established classical tropes and also the writings of their predecessors in the genre to create their own distinctive rhetoric that advertised the reliable orthodoxy and intellectual supremacy of both writer and text.

Word & Image

2021 ◽  
pp. 50-91
Author(s):  
Michael Squire
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Roman Art ◽  
Classical Philology ◽  
Classical Archaeology ◽  
Critical Engagement ◽  
Roman Antiquity ◽  
Written Materials

This chapter examines the relationships between visual and verbal media in Roman antiquity. More specifically, it demonstrates how the study of Roman art intersects with the study of ancient Greek and Latin texts, and vice versa. Despite the tendency to segregate areas of scholarly expertise—above all, to separate “classical archaeology” from “classical philology”—any critical engagement with Roman imagery and iconography must go hand in hand with critical readings of written materials. The chapter proceeds in three parts. First, it explores some of the ways in which Roman literary texts (both Greek and Latin) engaged with visual subjects. Second, it discusses the textuality of Roman visual culture, surveying the roles that inscriptions played on Roman buildings, statues, mosaics, paintings, and other media. Third, it demonstrates the “intermedial”—or, perhaps better, the “iconotextual”—workings of Roman texts and images, with particular reference to the fourth-century ce picture-poems of Optatian.

scholarly journals (No) Sympathy for the Devil?

Scrinium ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Peter Steiger
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Judas Iscariot ◽  
Didymus The Blind ◽  
Teacher Student ◽  
Teacher Student Relationship ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Spiritual Conflict ◽  
Ecumenical Council ◽  
Student Relationship ◽  
The Devil

Abstract As a successor and strong supporter of Origen, though not an uncritical one, Didymus the Blind has long been presented as advocating controversial theological views, notably the apokatastasis. Along with Origen and Evagrius, Didymus’ views on this were condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 CE. In order to better understand Didymus’ theology, it is important to consider his notion of spiritual conflict and its ramifications for the friends and enemies of God. The purpose of this paper is to examine Didymus’ theology of enmity with God, in particular his interpretation of key biblical passages that indicate certain characters as enemies of God, namely Satan, the demons, and Judas Iscariot. The paper will address such questions as should Christians have any sympathy for Satan and the demons? Was Judas’ betrayal merely the selling out of Jesus based on greed, or was there a deeper betrayal of the teacher-student relationship? How do God’s enemies contrast with Didymus’ understanding of the friends of God? In addition to considering Didymus’ exegesis of these characters, the paper will examine his treatment of the New Testament command to love one’s enemies. Didymus’ doctrinal and exegetical texts will both be considered to establish his theology of spiritual conflict. Finally, these considerations will be contextualized within Didymus’ own theological milieu, where the blind scholar seems to be aware of mounting criticism of his theology, perhaps by his own students, and even possibly the conflicts swirling around several of his prominent former students (Evagrius, Jerome and Rufinus).

New Perspectives on the Origenist Controversy: Human Embodiment and Ascetic Strategies

1990 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Devil ◽  
Human Embodiment ◽  
Arian Controversy

The controversy over Origenism that erupted in the last years of the fourth century and the opening years of the fifth has puzzled many students of the period: no single identifiable theological issue seemed at stake. At the center of the Arian controversy lay a debate over the subordination (or nonsubordination) of the Son to the Father; in the fifth-century christological disputes Jesus' “nature” or “natures” prompted disagreement. But what was the focus of the Origenist controversy: the subordination of the Son and the Holy Spirit to the Father? the “fall” of the rational creatures into bodies? the restoration of the Devil? the interpretation of resurrection from the dead?

The law of Periandros about Symmories

1986 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 438-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas M. Macdowell
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
First Year ◽  
The Law ◽  
First Time ◽  
Legal Sense

The speechAgainst Euergos and Mnesiboulosdescribes a dispute over some naval gear. The dispute occurred early in the year 357/6 b.c.⋯π' Ἀγαθοκλ⋯ους ἄρχοντος, Dem. 47.44), when the speaker was a trierarch and supervisor of his symmory (τρɩηραρχ⋯ν κα⋯ ⋯πɩμελητ⋯ς ὢν τ⋯ς συμμορ⋯ας, Dem. 47.22), and he refers to ‘the law of Periandros, by which the symmories were organized’ (⋯ νóμος ⋯ το⋯ Περɩ⋯νδρου…καθ' ὃν αἰ συμμορ⋯αɩ συνετ⋯χθησαν, Dem. 47.21). There is no other specific reference to the law of Periandros. If 357/6 was the first year of its operation, it was probably passed in 358/7, but that is not known for certain. The identity of the man is likewise uncertain, though it has plausibly been suggested that he was Periandros son of Polyaratos (Dem. 40.6–7) and that he was the Periandros who proposed an alliance between Athens and Arkadia in 362/1 (IGii2112 = Tod 144). However, his identity is of no importance for the present article. Here I am concerned only to try to reconstruct what the law said about the symmories. Despite a great deal of modern discussion this question has still not been satisfactorily solved.The wordσυμμορ⋯αmeans ‘group’ or ‘division’ and does not necessarily have a technical or legal sense. But most of the Attic instances do have the special sense of a group of persons formed for the purpose of making payments of a compulsory tax or levy: either the property tax calledεἰσɸορ⋯, which was imposed at irregular intervals, or payments towards the maintenance of ships in the Athenian navy, which were required every year. A fragment of Philokhoros says that Athenians were dividedκατ⋯ συμμορ⋯αςfor the first time in 378/7, and it is generally agreed that this means that symmories were first formed in 378 for the payment ofeisphora. For the navy, however, there is no trace of symmories before the 350s, and everyone agrees that it was the law of Periandros which introduced the use of symmories for maintaining ships, which had previously been the sole responsibility of one trierarch or (more usually in the fourth century) a pair of syntrierarchs for each ship.

Satan and Circumcision: The Devil as the ἄγγελος πονηρός in Barn 9:4

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Isaac T. Soon
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Devil

Abstract This study argues that the ἄγγελος πονηρός in Barn 9.4 was Satan. James Carleton Paget, Adolf Hilgenfeld, Ferdinand Prostmeier and Geza Vermes gestured toward this interpretation, but none offered evidence for this identification other than assertion. In Barnabas, there is a constellation of ideas that connect circumcision with Satan, namely circumcision with pagan idolatry (9.6), idolatry to demons (16.7), and finally idolatry and demons to Satan’s ultimate rule (18.1; 20.1). Satan is also related to other obsolete Jewish cultic practices (2.4, 6; 16.1–2, 7). Barnabas also repeatedly describes the devil with the adjective πονηρός. Additionally, the fourth-century papyrus PSI VII 757r reads ἄγγελος ὁ πονηρός, identifying the angel as Satan. The “Ethiopianisation” of Satan as “the black one” (as argued by Clare Rothschild) confirms this reading. Since “Ethiopians” practiced circumcision, the devil as a “the black one” associates Satan with circumcision.

Arthmius of Zeleia

1935 ◽  
Vol 29 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 177-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Cary
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Persian Wars ◽  
The Devil

Among the shining examples of the panhellenic spirit of Athens in the spacious days of the Persian Wars, which Attic orators of the fourth century were fond of parading before their degenerate audiences, was an act of the Athenian Ecclesia, by which one Arthmius of Zeleia was declared an outlaw in the territory of Athens and her allies, ‘for that he had brought the gold from Media into Peloponnesus.’ This Psephisma is cited twice over in the speeches of Demosthenes. On the principle that the Devil may quote Scripture, Aeschines cast it back into Demosthenes' teeth. From Aeschines we learn further that Arthmius had visited Athens in the course of his errand, and that he had narrowly escaped execution at the hands of the irate citizens. The proceedings against Arthmius were also recorded by Dinarchus, by Plutarch and by Aelius Aristides.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document