Protestantism and Eastern OrthodoxyThe relations between Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy span five centuries and bear upon nu-merous aspects, hence, only some items can be dealt with here. First, I discuss the late-sixteenth-century correspondence between German Lutheran theologians and Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constan-tinople, the Calvinist leanings of Patriarch Cyril Lukaris, and the influx of Protestant missionaries into traditionally Orthodox territory. Second, I outline the rise of a 'counter movement’, i.e. the Ecumeni-cal Movement, and the aim and structure of the World (...) Council of Churches, where Protestantism and Orthodoxy meet, as well as other inter-ecclesiastical organizations and theological dialogues. Third, attention is paid to tension and resistance to ecumenism; ecclesiological differences between Ortho-doxy and Protestantism; and the need for solid ecumenical formation. Fourth, I focus on the key role of worship reform and liturgical theology, inter alia, on the significance of Alexander Schmemann’s oeuvre. Fifth, interdenominational cross-fertilization with respect to worship songs and hymnals, as well as monasticism, are examined. It is, however, not all roses and therefore, sixth, I mention the challenge of stumbling blocks like prejudice and lack of communication skills. Nevertheless, in both Orthodoxy and Protestantism, freedom in Christ is the principle that matters. (shrink)

The paper focusses on various methods of preparing chemical compounds and on laboratory techniques used in that. It is based on different texts ascribed to „Basil Valentine”, an important author of alchemical writings whose real identity is not yet established beyond any doubt. Basil was a leading alchemical experimentator of his time and devised a number of preparation-processes for new substances, some of which are discussed here. The paper sheds also new light on some hitherto established notions of priority which (...) were attributed to Basil Valentine or other alchemists. (shrink)

Diese Arbeit, die das Thema der Sklaverei im Werk der großen Kappadokier behandelt, leistet einen Beitrag zu der heute immer mehr an Bedeutung gewinnenden Sozialgeschichte der Spätantike. Die besondere Leistung dieser Arbeit liegt in der sorgfältigen minutiösen Sammlung aller Belege zum Thema Sklaverei, die der Vf. unter Zuhilfenahme elektronischer Mittel (nach Angaben des Vf.s u.a. des TLG) gesucht und in ihrem von ihm erfolgreich rekonstruierten geschichtlichen Hintergrund interpretiert hat. Lob verdient die Arbeit ferner wegen ihrer überschaubaren, klaren Gliederung, durch welche (...) der Leser auf den ersten Blick die Ansichten der drei Kappadokier nachvollziehen und miteinander vergleichen kann. (shrink)

Im 4. Jahrhundert gewinnt das Askeseideal im Christentum deutlich an Bedeutung: Es entwickelt sich zu einem entscheidenden Kriterium bei der Bewertung christlichen Lebens. Bischöfe wie Ambrosius, Basilius und Johannes Chrysostomus verfassen Werbeschriften für das Ideal vor allem sexueller Enthaltsamkeit und wollen es so in ihren Gemeinden und bei ihren Lesern propagieren. Einzelne Gruppen innerhalb des Christentums radikalisieren dieses Ideal und erheben die Jungfräulichkeit zum eigentlichen Heilskriterium, d.h. nur wer jungfräulich lebt, kann aus ihrer Sicht überhaupt gerettet werden. Diese asketischen (...) Bewegungen, die sich u.a. in Kleinasien, Syrien und Ägypten finden, werden in der vorliegenden Studie erstmals systematisch untersucht, auf ihre Motive hin befragt und im Kontext ihrer Auseinandersetzung mit der Großkirche eingeordnet. Dabei ist auf Seiten der Kirche neben der theologischen Opposition einzelner Bischöfe und einer disziplinären Verurteilung etwa auf dem Konzil von Gangra auch das Bemühen um eine Reintegration der exklusiven Asketen erkennbar. Diese Entwicklung führt schließlich zu einer Hierarchisierung christlicher Lebensform, an deren Spitze die jungfräulich lebenden Christen stehen. (shrink)

Die über viele Jahrhunderte erteilten Ratschläge zur Askese wurden von denjenigen befolgt, die sich nach Perfektion sehnten und ein ideales Leben im Diesseits wie im Jenseits anstrebten. Dieses menschliche Sehnen ist das eigentliche Movens, das Körper und Geist zu einem asketischen Dasein (ver)führt. Auf die beiden Frauenbewegungen des 3./4. Jahrhunderts und des 12./14. Jahrhunderts trifft dies zu. Die Intensität und Größenordnung dieses Aufbruchs verdanken sie weiblicher Kreativität und Emotionalität, hingebungsvollem Ringen um Gottes Liebe und einer ganz besonderen Spiritualität. Religio bedeutet (...) Bindung an etwas oder an jemanden. Die Religiosae suchten voll Fantasie, Hoffnung und Glauben die Bindung an Christus. Dabei galt immer die Verheißung des Basilius Caesariensis: „Let us die that we may live“. (shrink)

Despite our common self-conceptions, we philosophers have our myths, heroes, and guiding narratives. Our work may emphasize conceptual clarity and deductive arguments, but these more sober and discursive elements of our work always occurs within the context of a broader, often implicit, and frequently illusive orientation, within the scope of some particular vision of our vocation, our history, and our place within the contemporary world. These visions are meta-philosophical: they precede and frame philosophical work, and they engender the most intractable (...) philosophical disputes. Thus, for the sake of self-knowledge and rational discussion, we should constantly struggle to articulate and scrutinize these myths and narratives. Which predecessors do we continue to read? Why? What repeated stories and anecdotes generate our common and competing identities? What do past episodes in the history of philosophy mean, and how do they direct our current endeavors? Like every community, we philosophers sustain our collective work through stories, through the celebration of our heroes, and through repeated reference to paradigmatic arguments and texts. We should reflect upon these sustaining elements of our community, even if this requires modes of thought that lie beyond conceptual analysis, deductive argument, and the careful interpretation of canonical texts. -/- In this paper, I excavate and criticize the contours of one narrative that still guides us, the common celebration of Kant’s critical philosophy as a radical, farsighted, disruptive, irresistible, and irrevocable break with the religious and metaphysical dogmatism of its age. In Section 2, I briefly sketch two complementary versions of this narrative, the accounts provided by the Hegelian philosopher Eduard Gans and by the poet Heinrich Heine. Drawing various parallels with the French Revolution, these thinkers significantly overemphasize the skeptical, destructive, anti-metaphysical, anti-religious and historically discontinuous aspects of Kant’s critical philosophy, which they portray as the inauguration of a new and robust philosophical movement, one that rapidly vanquished its intellectually beleaguered and reactionary opponents. In Sections 2–4, I then turn to consider three of the more active and vociferous opponents of the Kantian movement: Basilius von Ramdohr, Friedrich Nicolai, and Ludwig Heinrich von Jakob. Contrary to the standard version of events, these men had little sympathy for metaphysics, religion, rationalism, and dogmatic certitude. In fact, they principally opposed the Kantian movement as the unwelcome resurgence of an outdated form of quasi-religious enthusiasm, as a form of philosophical Schwärmerei that threatened to appropriate the banner of reason and hinder the progress of enlightenment. -/- Drawing upon a wide range of late eighteenth-century German texts on the dangers and varied manifestations of Schwärmerei, I reconstruct Ramdohr’s, Nicolai’s, and Jakob’s vision of the Kantian movement. I argue that the charges of philosophical Schwärmerei highlight three meta-philosophical disputes that pitted these anti-Kantians against many proponents of the Kantian movement. These disputes involved: (a) the social role of the philosopher and her relation to the general public; (b) the place of internal and/or private experience within the open and polyphonic domain of public discourse; and (c) the merits of philosophical systematicity, technical neologisms, and more hermetic versions of semantic holism. -/- A consideration of these meta-philosophical disputes allows us to position Kant’s critical philosophy more accurately within its historical context, to highlight its significant continuities with the intellectual assumptions of the Berlin Enlightenment, those assumptions that largely inform Ramdohr’s, Nicolai’s, and Jakob’s attacks on the so-called Kantian movement. These continuities then reveal the meta-philosophical distance between Kant and “the Kantian movement”, between the texts of the critical philosophy and the projects of Karl Leonhard Reinhold and Johann Gottlieb Fichte. This challenges the traditional account. We often celebrate Kant’s critical philosophy as a radical break with the past, as the inauguration of new and fundamentally modern assumptions, which were then developed and elaborated by the post-Kantian Idealists. By contrast, I argue for a series of complex, ambivalent, and often unintended breaks: while occasionally celebrating his intellectual achievements as an epochal “Copernican Revolution”, Kant largely remains true to the guiding assumptions and philosophical values of his age, only occasionally deflecting them in minor but portentous ways. By contrast, while Reinhold and Fichte at least initially proclaimed their fidelity to the “spirit” – if not the letter – of Kant’s philosophy, they nonetheless managed to release a new and strange philosophical spirit, a potent, quasi-secularized, and post-Enlightenment form of Schwärmerei. (shrink)