Exegesis

VOLUME 5 (2011) – ON THE LOVE OF COMMENTARY
Editors: Nicola Masciandaro & Scott Wilson

What Separates the Birth of Twins – Jordan Kirk
Prosopopeia to Prosopagnosia: Dante on Facebook – Scott Wilson
When You Call My Name – Karmen MacKendrick
All That Remains Unnoticed I Adore: Spencer Reece’s Addresses – Eileen A. Joy
Plato’s Symposium and Commentary for Love – David Hancock
Dreaming Death: the Onanistic and Self-Annihilative Principles of Love in Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet – Gary J. Shipley
On Not Loving Everyone: Comments on Jean-Luc Nancy’s “L’amour en éclats [Shattered Love]” – Mathew Abbott
The Grace of Hermeneutics – Michael Edward Moore
Tearsong: Valentine Visconti’s Inverted Stoicism – Anna Kłosowska

The Middle Ages greatly valued originality and creativity, although these qualities were not only linked in the long chain of imagination (as we usually do today), but they were also framed in the field of memory. Therefore, the usual assumption that memory is an exclusive resource of an oral society does not seem to be entirely satisfactory: in the Middle Ages the memory was equally present in the more cultured and literary social strata. In fact, during the medieval period, the influence of an inherited pedagogy (from Classical rhetorical roots) meant that the cultivated memory (and the affective appropiation of preexistent material) remained fundamental to medieval literary culture because it was understood as essential not only to reading and composition, but also to the formation of character. This paper suggest some thoughts and sacred and profane examples on this issue.

The book is written by J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays and is published by Zondervan (HarperCollins Publishers). I would not recommend this book although they have written some good thoughts in parts.

My review started becoming a book, so I will upload a new working abstract when I have time.

Taking its cue from a biographical anecdote reported by Eustathios of Thessalonike in the introduction to his Commentary on the Odyssey (Homer allegedly found the material for his poems in some book rolls penned by one Lady Phantasia), this paper investigates the entanglements between Eustathios’ exegetical work on Homer and the Byzantine re - vival of fiction in the XIIth century. The first section explores the way in which Eusta - thios presents Homer’s compositional practices, construed as akin to fictional narrative. 286 «MEG» 14, 2014 Abstracts The second section delves into the associations sparkled by mythical female authorial agents. Finally, in the third section, the paper shows how the story selected by Eustathios could easily evoke in the Byzantine reader images related to the writer’s activity and imaginative craftiness – the latter not devoid of risks.

Cet article se propose d’analyser les références aux exégèses médio-platoniciennes sur la cosmogonie du Timée que l’on trouve dans le deuxième livre du Commentaire au Timée de Proclus. Les textes que Proclus mentionne (et que l’on considère généralement en tant que fragments, c’est-à-dire en dehors du cadre proclien) seront systématiquement examinés en considérant leur contexte et la manière dont Proclus les introduit. On pourra ainsi mettre en évidence que le témoignage de Proclus ne permet pas de soutenir que les commentaires médio-platoniciens étaient continus : la source la plus importante pour les exégèses médio-platoniciennes du Timée conduit à adopter une attitude sceptique sur cette question. On aura aussi l’occasion de remarquer d’autres aspects, concernant aussi bien l’approche exégétique médio-platonicienne que la façon dont Proclus utilisait ses sources (directes ou indirectes).

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The Didaskalikós is an instructive exposition of Plato’s main doctrines and was written by Alcinous in the second century AD. The explanation of the Athenian philosopher’s thought offered in the ‘handbook’, however, contains a combination of Aristotelian and even Stoic elements with others of Platonic provenance. In our paper, hence, we analyze the notion of ousía expounded in the treatise and the transformation of the Platonic and Aristotelian ideas Alcinous produces achieving a fairly systematic and innovative exegesis of Plato.

John 20:22 is an obscure and mysterious text where Jesus is represented as breathing upon his disciples in a manner that appears to resemble the insufflation of humanity by God, or the breathing of the “breath of life” in Adam‟s nostrils in Genesis 2:7. Through an exegetical study of the Johannine text and the Greek term e0mfusa&w in relationship with the LXX, Apocrypha and Qumran Scrolls, a direct correlation is established between the theology of John and the theology in the LXX. The relevant historical, Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers, and modern interpretations are examined in order to discover what crucial issues are of the utmost importance for the interpretation of John 20:22. The conclusion of this exegetical study is that during its writing the author of
the Gospel of John had in mind a creation motif and a new covenant theology born out of Genesis 2:7, which is represented through Jesus‟ action of breathing the “Holy Spirit,” the “breath of life” into the disciples.

This paper discusses various Medieval approaches to reconciling the apparent contradiction in the names of Esau's wives as given in the book of Genesis. It explores the merits and disadvantages of each approach and concludes with a succinct summary. This paper was printed in the Jewish Bible Quarterly, Oct. 2014 (Vol. 42, No. 4).

Prescrite par la Règle de saint Benoît comme une activité quotidienne obligatoire, la lecture individuelle à des fins de méditation fut particulièrement pratiquée dans les milieux monastiques. À partir du XIIe siècle, l’ordre cistercien contribua notablement à son développement par les textes exégétiques à succès de plusieurs de ses moines, au premier rang desquels Bernard de Clairvaux. Pour autant, le contenu précis de l’armarium où les membres de la communauté trouvaient la matière première de cette pratique reste méconnu, étant donné l’état de conservation très fragmentaire des collections de manuscrits médiévaux. La présente recherche en interrogera sous cet angle les vestiges, manuscrits entiers, fragments et catalogues provenant des abbayes cisterciennes de la péninsule Ibérique. Il s’agira notamment de déterminer à quel point le choix des auteurs était guidé par une préférence cistercienne, et si la pensée joachimite a eu dans les monastères l’importance qu’on lui prête habituellement dans la Péninsule. Nous accorderons une attention particulière aux différences de genre de manière à vérifier si, comme en France (suivant les travaux d’Anne Bondéelle-Souchier), il est possible d’observer un contraste net entre des institutions masculines bien fournies et des couvents féminins aux collections réduites et presque dépourvues d’ouvrages de méditation. Il faudra en particulier expliquer la possession par des moniales cisterciennes de trois luxueuses copies de la fin du XIIe et du début du XIIIe siècle du Commentaire de l’Apocalypse de Beatus de Liébana (Lorvão, Las Huelgas, San Andrés de Arroyo).