While the work of the “father of Roman Catholic Modernism” prior to his excommunication in 1908 has been extensively studied, Alfred Loisy’s later career as professor of Histoire des Religions at the Collège de France has received less attention. This article examines his original contribution to comparative methodology for the interrelation between early Christianity and the pagan mystery cults. Loisy’s explicit aim was to integrate the historical, sociological, psychological, and anthropological approaches of his time into an original and all-encompassing methodological framework. Our article pays special attention to Loisy’s predominant yet hitherto unnoticed use of a model of analogy. Crucial to this interpretation are (a) the idea that the Christian mystery and the pagan mysteries are the result of a universal and independent, analogous evolution of religions, and (b) the theory that ritual precedes myth, adopted from the Cambridge Myth and Ritual School. We show that Loisy’s novelty resided in the fact that he consistently applied these principles to both the pagan cults and to Christianity, but it will also become clear that his systematic approach entailed major problems for the individual features of the compared cults, problems which he tended to overlook. Loisy combined this analogical framework with a psychological interpretation of the genesis of the belief in Christ’s resurrection and with a historical-genealogical explanation of Paul’s knowledge and use of the mystery cults. The article also uses unpublished material from Loisy’s correspondence with Franz Cumont.
The philosophy of Heraclitus as thematic subtext of Julio Cortázar's 'All Fires the Fire' In an interview he gave a few months before his demise, Julio Cortázar identified two teachers from the Escuela Normal ‗Mariano Acosta' in Buenos Aires as defining influences on his intellectual career. Don Arturo Marasso, his professor of Greek and Spanish literature, was soon aware of Cortázar's literary vocation. He initiated the young Cortázar in ancient mythology, invited him to his home and gave the talented but poor student free access to his personal library. Marasso introduced him to Sophocles, taught him how to read Homer well, and made him appreciate the lyric poetry of Pindar. Under Marasso's influence he also read all the Platonic dialogues. His philosophy teacher, Vicente Fatone, a specialist of logic and epistemology, broadened his knowledge of ancient philosophy and made him read Aristotle. Cortázar recalls that the challenging Fatone inspired him to consider a career in philosophy. Although he did not have the temperament for systematic philosophy, he recalls: ‗Me fascinaba porque la filosofía te mete en lo fantástico, en lo metafísico, pero no tenía un temperamento para avanzar o sistematizar en el campo filosófico y la abandoné.' (Soriano 1983: 4) Heraclitus in the works of Cortázar Throughout his life and writings, Cortázar remained fascinated by classical culture. 1 He seems to have been particularly interested in a philosophical author whose fragments have been compared to the choral works of Pindar and who has been called ‗one of the most powerful 1 Two forthcoming articles by Aagje Monballieu study the importance of the classical tradition for Cortázar: ‗La vocación helenística de Julio Cortázar. Sus lecturas y su formación clásica en el Mariano Acosta (1929-1936)' Bulletin Hispanique 2012 and ‗Más que un amateur esclarecido. La afición de Julio Cortázar por la filosofía de Heráclito': on the presence of Heraclitus in his personal library, forthcoming in Neophilologus 2011. stylists not only of Greek Antiquity but of World Literature' (Kahn 1983: IX): Heraclitus of Ephesus (° ca. 540 B.C.). Cortázar owned several scholarly books on the philosophy of Heraclitus and it is even fair to say that he collected editions and translations of the Heraclitean fragments. His collection included editions of the original Greek next to Spanish, French and English translations by Battistini, Brun, Farré and others. His love for Heraclitus was also known to his friends: we know e.g. that his copy of Heraclitus by Philip Wheelwright (1959) was a gift from his friend the critic Ana María Hernández. 2 Heraclitus appears quite often in his writings: both in early and in very late publications. In a short essay published a few years before his death, ‗Un sueño realizado' (1980), 3 Cortázar mentions Le rayon vert by Jules Verne (1882) and he compares this natural phenomenon to the transformation of the elements as described by Heraclitus. 4 ‗Sobremesa' (Final del juego), published in 1964, has fragment DK 52 as its motto: ‗...
Jerome's Epistula prima is a remarkably hybrid text. It contains a miraculous account of the trial and failed execution of a woman from Vercelli, who is falsely accused of adultery and eventually saved from further persecution by Jerome's patron, Evagrius of Antioch. In our article we discuss the martyrological and novelistic elements of Jerome's text and analyze how he related a cruel, but trivial trial with anonymous protagonists to contemporary Church politics and gave it an ascetical undertone. Furthermore, we link these elements to the interests of Jerome's intended readership. Overall, we argue that Jerome wrote the Epistula prima not only as a hyper-rhetorical showcase to advertise himself as a Christian writer or to eulogize Evagrius, but that he included subtle yet meaningful literary and ideological references in his text.
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