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This article explores the meaning of the root k-f-r in the Quran, questioning the practice of translating the noun kāfir as “infidel.” It argues for a distinction between the idiomatic phrasal verb kafara bi-, which does mean to reject or disbelieve, and the simple intransitive verb kafara and its deverbal nouns, which are used in the Quran in a large number of different ways. This polysemy is explored through contextual readings of Quran passages. It is argued that the noun kāfir, unlike the verb kafara, is used only with regard to adherents of traditional polytheism and is not deployed in an unmodified way with regard to Jews and Christians. The possible influence on the Arabic kafara of Greek and Latin conceptions is also broached.
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In Slovakia, book printing showed a significant development only in the 16th century. Printing facilities were established mainly in the eastern part of Hungary. They were founded with the support of the aristocratic court where the printer should operate. Many of them focused on the Protestant church, were persecuted, and therefore did not last long. In the Lyceum Library, there are two slovacical preserved works from two printers in Bardejov. These are mostly theological printed works that predominate in the 16th-century fund. The works' content focuses on the worship of paintings in churches, which many priests wanted to remove. Some of the works mentioned in the article affect our history only marginally, but they are still an important source. Works stored in the Lyceum Library are interesting for their content but also for their owners. The books were donated to the library by professors and students of the library and by many important families, whether it was the Podkonický or Pongrátz family.
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The military Catholic clergy operating on the Italian front emphasized the sacramental pastoral acts. However, their activities did not end here. On the contrary, their scope was also used in other areas. In addition to blessings (military funerals), they were responsible for the organization, implementation and material provision of commemorations, religious devotion, the program during public holidays, lectures, edifying or educational activities. They organized collections for the help and needs of Slovak institutions, which suffered from a lack of funds during the war. These were mostly charitable or children's homes and school facilities. The organization of audiences with Pope Pius XII, who often and gladly blessed Slovak soldiers, deserves great attention. Slovak Catholic clergy were also usable as translators between Slovak commanders and the local government and the population. Their usability in the front conditions of Italy aroused an awareness of urgent cooperation. It should be noted that the Catholic military clergy carried out their many activities with great responsibility and precision.
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The permanet communion with Christ offers a very complex perspective regarding the cosmological understanding of the world. In this concern, the believers receive a new life and also a new understanding in their personal existence. Through act of the Incarnation the entire world is transfigurated and man become also an important part of this process. Moreover, the history receives a different kind of interpretation because the divine events are present in it. The most relevant prouve is the liturgical life of the Church. In the Holly Liturgy and also in the Holly Sacraments we can always find the permanet proof of the eternal life.
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The aim of this study is to include the dynamics of recent biblical research in Orthodox and Western, especially Protestant, theological spheres. Both Orthodox and Western biblical theology have their own course of research, which can be inspired by the achievements of both sides. Thus, we see that Orthodox biblical studies have been lately focused on receiving and developing of the exegetical method, and in that sense they can incline to the experience of the West, particularly the historical-critical method. On the other hand, Western biblicists try to convey to the present time the meaning of biblical texts or their supplements, which is closely related to the Orthodox biblical experience. The solution to these problems can be found through a mutually complement with ecumenical connotations.
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The conception of Conquest is part of the so-called Deuteronomistic History (DH). There are many evidences that the Book of Joshua have originated in the seventh century in Judea as the “political program” of Emperor Josiah. The Assyrian conquest of the north and the placing of Judea in the vassal position, according to this tradition, were the result of the neglect of the obligations arising from the Sinai alliance. It was necessary to follow the Lord fully, to eradicate idolatry, and thus to gain God’s favor. In that context, the Book of Joshua had a paradigmatic character, saying that when a chosen people truly follows the Lord, no one can oppose it. Once upon a time, God’s people, adhering to the laws of Sinai, managed to overthrow Hanan, and only in this way they will be able to defeat the Assyrians — this was the key theological message of Josiah’s religious reform, expressed in the spirit of the Deuteronomistic History. Conquest as presented in the Book of Joshua and in some parts of the Book of Judges, Numbers, and Deuteronomy is part of the theological reinterpretation of Israeli identity. We can conclude that Joshua is in fact a metaphorical portrait of Judean King Josiah and that the story about the Conquest of Canaan creates a plan for future conquest but also serves as an example of the right relationship of the chosen people with their God.
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An act of worshiping apostles Paul and Barnabas by citizens of Lystra, which was described in Acts of the Apostles, could not be understood properly without introducing the cultural background as well as religious. Lystra was a province, mostly habited by barbarians, in contrast to its surrounding, where Romans and Hellenes were the dominant populations. For people from that area, worshiping gods in human bodies was custom. We can find justification for that statement in well-known creation of Publius Ovidius Naso known as Metamorphoses, in which he describes appearance of Zeus and Hermes in human bodies. Author of Acts describes one specific situation of misunderstanding (deification of Paul and Barnabas) which was expected to happen during early period of spreading of Christianity and its contact with hellenistic polytheism. He interprets the cult of Zeus and Hermes in christian code: Contrary to hellenistic gods who can show themselves as humans, christian missioners Paul and Barnabas are just mediators of only-existing God. Implication is following: People of Lystra should recognize that God “in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways”, but now they “should turn from these vanities unto the living God”.
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Chrysostom was not a preacher of Christian communism, but a preacher of the union of all people in Christ, the communion of church, Eucharistic, unity of unity of faith and love, but also in all material goods. One of the constant topics of his socio-ethical preachings (and his preaching was almost always of such character) is the problem of social injustice, material and social inequality, the problem of wealth and poverty, the greed of property greed. If we look at the Old Testament prophetic movement, as much as it was initiated by the pluralism of Israel, it also appeared as a prophetic reflection and response to a concrete theological-social problem, represented in an unequal distribution of goods and a system of social inequality. The era in which Chrysostom enters the historical scene is the era of a society based on slavery principles, and the global characteristics of the empire of that time have greatly influenced Christian communities and interpersonal relations. In these and such circumstances, St. John appears as a “social prophet” of his time, and his criticism and condemnation of society, typologically educate the prophetic methodology and way of addressing. The author’s intentions of this work is a historical-critical review of Chrysostom ‘s perception of the social concept of the Old Testament prophets, that is, his actualization and contextualization of the prophetic message, transformed in Christ’s gospel commandments of love for God and for the fellowmen.
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The paper deals with the issue of the Christology of St. Augustine, analyzing the position of personality and substance in ontology. Augustine’s notion of ontology is presented as the union of two issues of being — personality and substance, using the example of Christology. Likewise, personality has the primary ontological position in the ontology of St. Augustine. It is emphasized that only such ontology could have expressed Christology in the same manner as the Council of Chalcedon, that followed later, did. This gives Augustine a place in the rank of the church fathers.
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Serbian ruler Stephen the First Crowned (1196–1227) interpolates in The Life of Saint Symeon the episode of his brother's embracing of the monastic life in the ninth chapter of his writing. In this manner he connects the spiritual experience of his father with the similar experience of his brother, whose escape from the political power to the Mount Athos triggers identical behaviour of his father. In depicting of this episode, the author exploits numerous allusions to motifs, expressions and terms characteristic of the Johannine literature within the corpus of the New Testament books. The intention of the author is to present Rastko Nemanjic's leaving the world in light of the Johannine apocalypticism, as the perfect example of following Christ, who also departed from the world (Jn 13, 1). The immediate reason for Rastko's departure is the apocalyptic vision of the Jerusalem above of his father, Stefan Nemanja. This vision incites in Rastko's soul yearning for the monastic life at the Mount Athos, which is articulated in his prayer to Christ in terms of the Johannine „high” christology, especially from the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel.
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The ascetic experience and practice of mental prayer of Elder Joseph the Hesychast in this work are interpreted from the perspective of contemporary psychoanalytic theory. It starts form the phenomenological theory of perception and relation between dualism (invisible-visible, inside-outside, mind-body) and totality. In his letters, Elder Joseph the Hesychast reported on the internal contents that he had experienced in relation to the body; therefore, interpretations of these processes according to the theory and case studies of psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein have been presented. The understanding of a prayer through the terminology of Lacan’s Mirror stage has also been submitted. Owing to the rhythm of a mental prayer by which the control over the body is achieved, as a constant that maintains a clear distinction between the phantasmatic and the real, Elder Joseph the Hesychast’s prayerful speech is exceptionally stable in the big A. This furthermore allows overcoming the phantasmatic relation а-а’ and achieves the possibility of establishing the communication between A and S. Only in this way is it possible to touch the starting position S – the only one in which the subject is in its being.
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In Western academic scholarship, the status of the anaginoskomena (the books and additions not found in the Hebrew Bible, but in the Septuagint editions) in the Orthodox Church is not completely understood, especially regarding the differences between the Orthodox churches. For example, an introduction to the Old Testament from 2009 assumes that the anaginoskomena have “incontestable authority”, quoting professor Petros Vassiliadis. Apart from the Hebrew canon, other ten books are reckoned by the Orthodox, eight of them reckoned by the Catholics as well (Judith, Tobith, 1-2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Salomon, Ben Sira, Baruch, and Epistle of Jeremiah) and two books not accepted by the Catholics (3 Maccabees and 1 Esdras / 3 Ezra). The canonicity of other books, such as the Prayer of king Manasseh (with Odes) and Psalm 151 remains debatable. The Greek Church completes the list with 4 Maccabees and the Russian Church with 4 Ezra (Römer, Macchi, Nihan 2009). In another Western introduction, the fine separation of the Orthodox churches is completely unknown. The authors simply assume that the biblical books canonized by the Tridentin council in 1546 were canonized by the Orthodox Church in the council of Jerusalem in 1672 (Dietrich et al 2014). A more articulated view is present in the recent volume of proceedings regarding the biblical canon at the Eastern churches (Farrugia, Vergani 2017). The present paper aims at defining the status of the anaginoskomena in the Orthodox Church.
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The extension of the biblical canon in Orthodoxy represents a thorny, still unsolved, and probably unsolvable issue. Its history begins with the translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek (the Septuagint) when, during the Second Temple period, after Ezra generally established the books received by Judaism, several books, mostly in Greek, which we call Anagignoskomena, meaning “acknowledged” or “worthy of reading”, were added to the Greek manuscripts. Moreover, in the deuterocanonical period, Judaism produced a series of other writings which largely circulated within the people, but in secret, unofficially, and which were not inventoried or later included on the lists of acknowledged books or in the official manuscripts containing the canonical books or the books of the Anagignoskomena. Nonetheless, the fascination they held and the authority some of them had were stronger than those of canonical writings. Some lacunal canonical biblical texts were being enriched or explained by them, sometimes offering many helping elements “from tradition”. The present study is intended to be an incursion into the world of these writings, which first influenced certain canonical writings, namely those acknowledged initially by the synagogue and then by the tradition of the Church. We will be surprised to find out that, although they are officially denied, the Christian writers from the past and, later, Christian and contemporary tradition have absorbed elements from them. Throughout the history of the biblical canon, there has been a certain attraction towards the forbidden or the taboo. Therefore, up to the life of the modern Christian, we will find notions and teachings which come from tradition, but which initially originate in these writings, to which official theology avoids granting too much importance.
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Hebrew Bible has been used in the past often and almost exclusively to foil a New Testament passage, thus overemphasizing on messianic prophecies, to fuel and defend a dogmatic statement, thus resorting to allegory and typology as the key hermeneutics, or to criticize, (and even demonize) the Jews as Christ haters, while not plumbing the Hebrew Bible for its own identity and intrinsic relevance. In the following lines, I bring forth a few examples of what I call “the power of metaphor of the Hebrew Bible”. And I will do this with deep respect to this literary-religious corpus that has never lost its “best-seller” status, while looking at these ever ancient, ever new biblical texts with the eye of a student of Bible and Semitic philology, but at the same time struggling to listen to the child in me, to return to those days when at my mother’s knees (literally!) I heard for the first time about Noah and the Flood story. What comes next is a brief immersion into the Hebrew Bible theological grammar with no claim whatsoever of ex-cathedra authority in selecting the texts.
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The present study aims to carry out an analysis of the relation between the Bibles of Samuil Micu and Andrei Șaguna from an isagogic perspective, with a particular focus on the canon and canonicity of the books of the Holy Scripture. We believe that, through such an analysis, we can observe what they have in common, but also what differentiates the two Transylvanian editions of the Holy Scripture so that we can help those interested in understanding the reasons behind the current controversies as to the relation between them. Although these controversies refer to the biblical text of the two Scriptural editions, the fact that the attitude towards it was caused by denominational factors, whose doctrinal background is represented by two different traditions of understanding the biblical canon, has been overlooked. This is why we find that the evaluation of how the two Romanian editions of the Holy Scripture (the Bible of Samuil Micu, 1795, and the Bible of Andrei Șaguna, 1856-1858) relate to the canonical tradition of each Church and cultivate their isagogics is fundamental for the establishment and understanding of the relation between them.
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This is a book review of: Ioan Chirilă (coord.), Dumitru Abrudan, Petre Semen, Oancea Constantin, Remus Onișor și Mircea Basarab, Introducere în Vechiul Testament [Introduction in Old Testament] (București: Basilica, 2018), 870 p.
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Book review of: Fr. Ioan Chirilă (coord.), Paula Bud, Stelian Pașca-Tușa, Bogdan Șopterean, Vechiul Testament în scrierile bibliștilor ortodocși români – ghid bibliografic [The Old Testament in the Writings of Romanian Biblical Orthodox Scholars] (Cluj-Napoca, Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2018).
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