Original sin: divine and symbolic violence in the turn to the Apostle Paul

When we take a step back from the imposing figure of physical violence, it becomes possible to examine other structurally violent forces that constantly shape our cultural and political landscapes. One of the driving interests in the “turn to Paul” in recent continental philosophy stems from wrestling with questions about the real nature of contemporary violence. Paul is positioned as a thinker whose messianic experience began to cut through the violent masquerade of the existing order. The crucifixion and resurrection of the Messiah (a slave and a God co-existing in one body) exposed the empty grounding upon which power resided. The Christ-event signifies a moment of violent interruption in the existing order which Paul enjoins the Gentiles to participate in through a dedication of love for the neighbour. This divine violence aims to reveal and subvert the “powers,” epitomised in the Roman Empire, in order to fulfil the labour of the Messianic now-time which had arrived. The impetus behind this research comes from a typically enigmatic and provocative section of text by the Slovene philosopher, cultural critic, and Christian atheist Slavoj Žižek. He claims that 'the notion of love should be given here all its Paulinian weight: the domain of pure violence… is the domain of love' (2008a, 173). In this move he links Paul’s idea of love to that of Walter Benjamin’s divine violence; the sublime and the cataclysmic come together in this seemingly perverse notion. At stake here is the way in which uncovering violent forces in the “zero-level” of our narrative worldviews aids the diagnosis of contemporary political and ethical issues. It is not enough to imagine Paul’s encounter with the Christ-event as non-violent. This Jewish apocalyptic movement was engaged in a violent struggle within an existing order that God’s wrath will soon dismantle. Paul’s weak violence, inspired by his fidelity to the Christ-event, places all responsibility over creation in the role of the individual within the collective body. The centre piece of this re-imagined construction of the Pauline narrative comes in Romans 13: the violent dedication to love understood in the radical nature of the now-time. 3 This research examines the role that narratives play in the creation and diagnosis of these violent forces. In order to construct a new genealogy of violence in Christianity it is crucial to understand the role of the slave of Christ (the revolutionary messianic subject). This turn in the Symbolic is examined through creating a literary structure in which we can approach a radical Nietzschean shift in Pauline thought. The claim here, a claim which is also central to Paul’s letters, is that when the symbolic violence which manipulates our worldviews is undone by a divine violence, if even for a moment, new possibilities are created in the opening for a transvaluation of values. Through this we uncover the nature of original sin: the consequences of the interconnected reality of our actions. The role of literature is vital in the construction of this narrative; starting with Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, and continuing through works such as Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, this thesis draws upon the power of literature in the shaping of our narrative worlds. Typical of the continental philosophy at the heart of this work, a diverse range of illustrations and inspirations from fiction is pulled into its narrative to reflect the symbolic universe that this work was forged through. What this work attempts to do is give this theory a greater grounding in Paul’s letters by demonstrating this radical kenotic power at the heart of the Christ-event. Romans 13 reveals, in a way that has not yet been picked up by Critchley, Žižek, and others, that Paul opposed the biopolitical power of the Roman Empire through the weak violence of love that is the labour of the slaves of Christ on the “now-time” that had arrived.

Mauthner versus Wittgenstein

Mauthner esteemed language as a philosophical inquiry. He measured the philosophical entailments between language and reality and the consequent knowledge produced by such entailments. He questioned language’s aptitude to express and represent reality and, according to him, language is a critical source of knowledge and an unfaithful representation of reality, because there is a gap between language and reality, i.e. language distorts perception and engenders false and fictitious assumptions about reality. Language fosters superstition, creates gods and idols and exerts a dominating power over the intellect. Mauthner pointed out a critique of language based on metaphors, which would serve to address and clarify the deformation of reality. Wittgenstein, unlike himself suggested, was inspired by Mauthner. Both showed interest toward the critical analysis of language and there are many conceptual similarities between their language’s conceptions (e.g. concerning the use of metaphors to understand language). Therefore, this paper seeks a) to emphasize Mauthner’s metaphors on language as an accurate interpretation regarding the philosophical entailments between language and reality, and b) to demonstrate the epistemological legacy of Mauthner’s critique of language to Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language.

Lucretius: the Wonderer

I seek to create a Lucretius text useful for a high school classroom including a commentary on four sections of the poem. The passages include 2.998 – 1047 which explains how the Epicurean atomic theory, 3.912—979 the famous passage that denies the underworld and its tortures, 5.855 – 923 the semi-Darwinian passage detailing the sorts of creatures that can exist in this world, and 5.1194– 1240 about the detrimental effects of humans fearing gods. In addition to writing a commentary on these passages, I will explore the perception of Lucretius though the present day, in hopes of discovering how and why this important and influential author has been so systematically excluded from secondary latin literary studies. My discussion will include an overview of how modern Latin textbooks do or do not mention Lucretius and how his presence in these textbooks compares to his role in university-level Latin course offerings. In addition to writing a commentary on these passages, I will explore the perception of Lucretius though the present day, in hopes of discovering how and why this important and influential author has been so systematically excluded from secondary latin literary studies. My discussion will include an overview of how modern Latin textbooks do or do not mention Lucretius and how his presence in these textbooks compares to his role in university-level Latin course offerings. I am hoping this research will be useful both pedagogically and for learning how decisions about literary content are made in American secondary and higher education in Latin.

A critical study of John Hick's religious pluralism

This study examines the pluralistic hypothesis advanced by the late Professor John Hick viz. that all religious faiths provide equally salvific pathways to God, irrespective of their theological and doctrinal differences. The central focus of the study is a critical examination of (a) the epistemology of religious experience as advanced by Professor Hick, (b) the ontological status of the being he understands to be God, and further asks (c) to what extent can the pluralistic view of religious experience be harmonised with the experience with which the Christian life is understood to begin viz. regeneration. Tracing the theological journey of Professor Hick from fundamentalist Christian to religious pluralist, the study notes the reasons given for Hick’s gradual disengagement from the Christian faith. In addition to his belief that the pre-scientific worldview of the Bible was obsolete and passé, Hick took the view that modern biblical scholarship could not accommodate traditionally held Christian beliefs. He conceded that the Incarnation, if true, would be decisive evidence for the uniqueness of Christianity, but rejected the same on the grounds of logical incoherence. This study affirms the view that the doctrine of the Incarnation occupies a place of crucial importance within world religion, but rejects the claim of incoherence. Professor Hick believed that God’s Spirit was at work in all religions, producing a common religious experience, or spiritual awakening to God. The soteriological dimension of this spiritual awakening, he suggests, finds expression as the worshipper turns away from self-centredness to the giving of themselves to God and others. At the level of epistemology he further argued that religious experience itself provided the rational basis for belief in God. The study supports the assertion by Professor Hick that religious experience itself ought to be trusted as a source of knowledge and this on the principle of credulity, which states that a person’s claim to perceive or experience something is prima facie justified, unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary. Hick’s argument has been extensively developed and defended by philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga and William Alston. This confirms the importance of Hick’s contribution to the philosophy of religion, and further establishes his reputation within the field as an original thinker. It is recognised in this thesis, however, that in affirming only the rationality of belief, but not the obligation to believe, Professor Hick’s epistemology is not fully consistent with a Christian theology of revelation. Christian theology views the created order as pre-interpreted and unambiguous in its testimony to God’s existence. To disbelieve in God’s existence is to violate one’s epistemic duty by suppressing the truth. Professor Hick’s critical realist principle, which he regards as the key to understanding what is happening in the different forms of religious experience, is examined within this thesis. According to the critical realist principle, there are realities external to us, yet we are never aware of them as they are in themselves, but only as they appear to us within our particular cognitive machinery and conceptual resources. All awareness of God is interpreted through the lens of pre-existing, culturally relative religious forms, which in turn explains the differing theologies within the world of religion. The critical realist principle views God as unknowable, in the sense that his inner nature is beyond the reach of human conceptual categories and linguistic systems. Professor Hick thus endorses and develops the view of God as ineffable, but employs the term transcategorial when speaking of God’s ineffability. The study takes the view that the notion of transcategoriality as developed by Professor Hick appears to deny any ontological status to God, effectively arguing him out of existence. Furthermore, in attributing the notion of transcategoriality to God, Professor Hick would appear to render incoherent his own fundamental assertion that we can know nothing of God that is either true or false. The claim that the experience of regeneration with which the Christian life begins can be classed as a mere species of the genus common throughout all faiths, is rejected within this thesis. Instead it is argued that Christian regeneration is a distinctive experience that cannot be reduced to a salvific experience, defined merely as an awareness of, or awakening to, God, followed by a turning away from self to others. Professor Hick argued against any notion that the Christian community was the social grouping through which God’s Spirit was working in an exclusively redemptive manner. He supported his view by drawing attention to (a) the presence, at times, of comparable or higher levels of morality in world religion, when contrasted with that evidenced by the followers of Christ, and (b) the presence, at times, of demonstrably lower levels of morality in the followers of Christ, when contrasted with the lives of other religious devotees. These observations are fully supported, but the conclusion reached is rejected, on the grounds that according to Christian theology the saving work of God’s Spirit is evidenced in a life that is changing from what it was before. Christian theology does not suggest or demand that such lives at every stage be demonstrably superior, when contrasted with other virtuous or morally upright members of society. The study concludes by paying tribute to the contribution Professor Hick has made to the field of the epistemology of religious experience.

O touro na mitologia egípcia : Ápis, cerimónias, insígnias e epítetos reais

Os antigos Egípcios acreditavam que o touro poderoso representava a personalidade do próprio faraó. O touro estava, de facto, intimamente associado ao Estado faraónico, estando presente ao nível dos regalia (cauda taurina) e significativamente nos próprios epítetos reais (ka nakht). Na mitologia egípcia, de todos os touros sagrados o que maior projecção alcançou, como deus agrário da fecundidade, da vegetação renascida e da ressurreição, foi, seguramente, o touro Ápis, associado em Mênfis aos deuses Ptah e Osíris. Na sua condição de touro ágil, vigoroso e viril, Ápis era um intermediário consistente entre o mundo dos vivos e o dos mortos, além de ser um propiciador de fertilidade e renascimento quando associado ao deus-Sol. A sua participação, literalmente ao lado do faraó, na «corrida ritual», importante cerimónia no âmbito da concepção ideológica do poder real, reforçou ainda mais a sua importância no seio do panteão egípcio.

A protecção mágica da "Primeira Infância" no Egipto Antigo

A presente dissertação procura apresentar um estudo aprofundado em torno dos mecanismos mágicos, atestados em contexto doméstico, que estão associados de forma mais evidente à protecção da criança e da mulher, enquanto grávida, parturiente e mãe. Neste sentido, iremos discorrer em torno dos motivos que levaram os Egípcios a desenvolver esses mecanismos, em particular a importância da criança para a sociedade egípcia, os perigos da vida quotidiana egípcia, quer para a saúde da população em geral, quer para a da mulher e a da criança e, por fim, a mortalidade infantil e materna. Consequentemente, pretendemos demonstrar de que forma a Religião Doméstica consistia numa estratégia de garantir a sobrevivência da criança. Iremos igualmente abordar os diversos mecanismos destinados a promover a fertilidade e a concepção, identificados em contexto doméstico. Entre eles constam as estruturas arquitectónicas, nomeadamente as estruturas elevadas de Deir el-Medina; as figuras com formas femininas e masculinas, no último caso de cariz erótico, e com a forma de deuses e animais; os amuletos; as camas votivas e os encantamentos mágicos associados a essas duas esferas. Análise incidirá, de igual modo, nas formas desenvolvidas para proteger a mulher e a criança durante a gravidez, o parto e o pós-parto, como outras estruturas arquitectónicas, quer os tijolos de nascimento, quer as pérgulas de nascimento; os amuletos, os objectos apotropaicos e, ainda, os encantamentos mágicos. Por fim, a dissertação focar-se-á na protecção da criança durante a «primeira infância» propriamente dita, que podia ser garantida ainda através da atribuição de nomes protectores e da recitação de encantamentos mágicos especificamente destinados a proteger a criança durante a infância. Iremos ainda destacar alguns mecanismos adicionais que, embora não tenham sido identificados em contexto doméstico, devem ser tomados em consideração. O presente estudo focar-se-á, assim, não só na «primeira infância», mas também nas fases da vida humana que a antecediam, que incluem a concepção – relacionada com a fertilidade –, a gravidez, o parto e, por fim, os momentos que o sucediam.

Kierkegaard e Plantinga : a subjetividade e a crença em Deus

O objetivo do presente trabalho é apresentar a discussão da temática da subjetividade como um importante fator para a afirmação da crença religiosa, tanto na obra de Kierkegaard como na obra de Plantinga. A despeito de algumas diferenças conceituais, avaliamos que ambos os autores não se interessam por provar a existência de Deus, mas antes se concentram na experiência como um fator central. Além disso, em ambos os autores, e na tradição cristã em geral, a subjetividade é fundamental para a afirmação da crença. Em Kierkegaard, tal conceito se encontra com a afirmação da fé enquanto absurdo. Em Plantinga, a afirmação da “basicalidade da crença” abre espaço para a relação de experiência e amplia o debate sobre a crença, reafirmando a sua posição crítica aos fundamentos da modernidade. Desse modo, a partir de alguns recortes específicos, busca-se o estabelecimento de um diálogo que consegue apontar, mesmo com diferenças essenciais entre os dois autores, notadamente na questão do absurdo e na ênfase maior de Kierkegaard sobre a fé como algo apaixonado, um fecundo debate. _______________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT

Love’s Calling How eroticism encourages religious intentions in "Joseph and Aseneth" and the "AEthiopika"

Ce mémoire s’intéresse à l’emploi de l’érotisme et de l’amour comme outils littéraires dans deux romans de l’Antiquité. Le texte principal est un écrit dérivé de la Torah intitulé Joseph et Aséneth. Le second est le roman grec d’Héliodore d’Émèse, Les Éthiopiques. Puisque tout auteur, peu importe sa foi, avait une éducation hellénique semblable, on retrouve des motifs similaires dont les détails se distinguent et les buts sont aux antipodes dans ces textes. Dans le cas de cette recherche, il s’agit de deux oeuvres du genre romanesque écrites en grec qui emploient chacune une histoire romantique à des fins édifiantes. Les buts de cette analyse sont triples. Ce travail cherche à montrer que Joseph et Aseneth a droit au titre de « roman grec, » de qualifier les expériences religieuses présentées dans ces oeuvres et de participer au débat sur la datation de Joseph et Aseneth par une étude comparée. Cette recherche se divise en trois sections. D’abord, le topos bien connu des romans a été analysé : la maladie d’amour. Dans les deux cas, le coup de foudre et la maladie émotionnelle qui s’en suit ont été dévoilés comme moteur important de la trame narrative, ainsi qu’une manière d’introduire des thèmes religieux ou philosophiques. En second lieu, les paroles des personnages au sujet de l’amour et le mariage ont été considérées. Puisque les protagonistes refusent le mariage initialement, les raisons données pour ce refus ont été révélatrices encore une fois de soucis sociaux, soit religieux, soit politiques. En dernier lieu, la relation entre le couple romantique et les dieux présents dans ces récits a été analysée. Les deux romans témoignent de la croyance contemporaine du grand rôle des dieux dans la vie des humains. Cette implication divine dans la vie mortelle s’est manifestée de manières différentes, car elle relève des buts divergents des deux romans. Le parallèle qui se présente est un lien individuel avec les dieux qui est évident dans les romans d’amour.

Memoires de Soie en Inde: La Ville de Kanchipuram et son art de Tissage

A cidade de Kanchipuram, no Estado de Tamilnadu, sul da Índia, é sinónimo de templos hindus, mas também do sari em seda. A migração de comunidades de tecelão para esta cidade começou durante o reinado da Dinastia Chola nos Séculos 8-13 d. C. Anteriormente, o pano de seda foi considerado como tecido dos Deuses e os tecelões satisfizeram as necessidades religiosas do templo da cidade. Paulatinamente, um tecido de seda torna-se, tanto um tecido dos "mortais", como dos Deuses, e houve um aumento da procura dos têxteis em seda, especialmente, do sari em seda. A particularidade dos tecelões de Kanchipuram reside na sua técnica complicada de tecelagem e nos ricos motivos que são uma expressão da paixão do tecelão. Nosso trabalho de investigação centra-se nas técnicas de tecelagem e no seu produto final - o sari - para destacar a sua singularidade. Neste contexto, quero propor um projecto de documentação dos motivos do sari, para ilustrar um dos principais meios de valorização desta tradição de tecelagem que remonta a vários séculos. RÉSUMÉ: La ville de Kanchipuram, située dans l'état du Tamilnadu, dans le sud de l'Inde, fait souvent écho aux temples hindous mais également au sari en soie. Les tisserands ont migré à l'époque Chola (850- 1279 ap.J.C.) pour répondre aux besoins religieux de la ville car au départ, la soie était un tissu destiné à I 'usage des dieux. Au fur et à mesure, la soie est devenue aussi bien un tissu destiné aux 'mortels' qu'aux dieux. Ces tisserands ont connu par la suite, une forte demande, plus particulierement, pour les saris en soie. La particularité des tisserands de la ville de Kanchipuram réside dans sa technique laborieuse de tissage et dans les motifs élaborés parle billet desquels s'exprime la passion du tisserand dans sa tâche. Le présent mémoire s'attache à la technique de tissage et à son produit final - le sari - pour mettre en valeur son unicité. Dans ce cadre, je propose un projet de documentation des motifs des saris pour illustrer un des vecteurs clés de valorisation de cette tradition de tissage qui remonte à plusieurs siecles. ABSTRACT: The city of Kanchipuram, located in the State of Tamilnadu in southern India, is synonymous with Hindu temples and silk saris. The migration of weaver communities to the city started during the Chola reign (81 131 centuries A.D). Early on, silk was considered the cloth of the gods and these weavers met the needs of the temple city by producing silk textiles for religious use. Gradually, silk became a cloth as much for the 'mortais' as for the gods and demand increased for silk textiles, especially saris. The importance of Kanchipuram weaving lies in its complex techniques and rich motifs as expressions of the. weaver’s passion. This text examines the weaving techniques popularly known as the korvai technique, as well as the saris produced using this technique. ln addition, it attempts to catalogue certain motifs woven into the saris as a first step in promoting and valorizing the cultural richness of an art dating back several centuries.