Resurrection asceticism

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

"Resurrection asceticism"- this is the term that I think I've coined and that I'm now using for St Aphrahat's distinctive approach to ascetic motivation. In his "Demonstrations" he sees the main driver for ascetic practice (especially virginity) as the reality of a future resurrection, which he seems to see as already partially realised and being lived out now.

Finding stuff

Monday, January 9, 2012

Links that simplify the task of finding stuff are very valuable, and great resource person Roger Pearse provides these:

Patrologia Latina (PL) PDF’s
Patrologia Graeca (PG) PDF’s
Patrologia Orientalis (PO) PDF’s

and also pointed to these other links which also assist with finding contents in the Greek and Latin fathers: latina.patristica.net and graeca.patristica.net
Thanks Roger!

ZDMG online - vital German Oriental Publications

Monday, December 26, 2011

Great news- some key Syriac resources are now online.
Roger Pearse writes that he:
"...discovered what looks like all the issues of the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft online, for free, up to 2005, here:

http://menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/dmg/periodical/structure/2327

It includes indexes, supplements and all. You can’t download whole volumes, but you can download the individual articles you want. The scans are greyscale, and good quality.

This journal is very important for Syriac studies, I know. Probably for Arabic also. And it’s all here. Wow."

Jihad/ Struggle in Australian Newspapers

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

I've been noticing how the cognitive metaphor of struggle (jihad) is used in Aussie newspapers, and I've collected many examples of politicians "struggling to explain their policies", "struggling for control of their party" etc. Also of sportspeople "battling", "striving" and "struggling" against fatigue, opponents, the weather etc.
I've also been researching the idea of struggle/jihad in various European language newspapers, and in key literature like Jane Eyre! The notion of jihad is alive and well in the European mind in the West!!

Struggle in Latin authors

Friday, October 28, 2011

I've found lots of very interesting references to mental battles etc in various Latin authors, eg Abelard- seehttp://www.forumromanum.org/literature/abelardx.html

Some great Latin doc sites include The Latin Library http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/ and Medieval Sourcebook at http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/sbook.asp

Jihad in Sulami's commentary on the Qur'an

Thursday, September 8, 2011

How exactly is the concept of struggle "jihad" used in the Qur'an. An important early witness is the Sufi scholar Sulami (Husayn al-Sulami al- Nlsaburi) whose main Quran tafsir has a lot to say:
http://www.blogtopsites.com/outpost/8b477bd11c588a5d0c00710a66b37cbd was working but now not?
Also, Gerhard Bowering wrote on this work: The Minor Qur'an Commentay of al-Sulami (Ziyadat haq'iq al-tafsir), Beirut 1995.
Found a good Qur'an interpretation reading list: http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=110572

Islamic Manuscripts site

There's an enormous resource of Islamic manuscripts available at:
http://www.islamicmanuscripts.info/index.html
The site is run by Jan Just Witkam, Emeritus-Professor of Paleography and Codicology of the Islamic world in Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands. There's plenty of material to search for any researcher. Where to begin!