A republication of a lead lamella (25 cm × 14.5 cm), discovered in 1923 during the excavation of the amphitheatre located in the civilian quarter of Carnuntum, the capital of Pannonia Superior. The tablet features three distinctive... more
A republication of a lead lamella (25 cm × 14.5 cm), discovered in 1923 during the excavation of the amphitheatre located in the civilian quarter of Carnuntum, the capital of Pannonia Superior. The tablet features three distinctive elements: (a) a curse written in Latin, directed against Eudemus, an otherwise unknown individual whom the petitioner suspects as a culprit in the case of a theft he or she suffered; (b) magical signs and an uninterpretable sequence of Greek letters inscribed in a tabula ansata and a rectangular box; (c) a two-line inscription in Greek that mentions 'Seal of Solomon'. I present an edition of the text and continue with a brief discussion of the Latin curse and voces magicae, which is followed by a new prosposed reading and interpretation of the Greek two-liner.
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The paper offers an edition, translation, and commentary of an early Byzantine leaf-shaped bronze pendant, inscribed on both sides with apotropaic formulae. Currently preserved by the Département des Monnaies, médailles et antiques of the... more
The paper offers an edition, translation, and commentary of an early Byzantine leaf-shaped bronze pendant, inscribed on both sides with apotropaic formulae. Currently preserved by the Département des Monnaies, médailles et antiques of the French National Library (inv. Froehner.630), the amulet belongs to the milieu of Syro-Palestinian workshops active in the 5th and 6th centuries CE. Of particular note is the absence of 'Holy Rider' iconography, as well as the presence of a personalized apotropaic formula, the former being extremely frequent, the latter very rare for this type of pendant.
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The parabiblical tradition of Solomon as a magus and an exorcist par excellence is well attested in a number of literary sources, from the fragments of the first century CE Qumran Caves Scrolls to the fourth century CE Testament of... more
The parabiblical tradition of Solomon as a magus and an exorcist par excellence is well attested in a number of literary sources, from the fragments of the first century CE Qumran Caves Scrolls to the fourth century CE Testament of Solomon, an eclectic demonological treatise that described in minute detail the power of the titular protagonist over demons. The belief in Solomon’s extraordinary apotropaic powers is further documented by hundreds of Greek-inscribed objects and dozens of magical implements with Semitic inscriptions. In our contribution to the mapping of Solomonic magical traditions, we focus on Latin-inscribed material and collated 10 objects invoking the Jewish king – three circular amulets, three lamellae (two curse tablets and one phylactery), three magical nails, and one amuletic ring. The objects, with one exception datable to the period of late antiquity (c. 300–700), present valuable testimony on the reception of the figure of Solomon in a magical context in the Latin West and serve as a bridge to the later appropriation of the wise builder of the Jerusalem Temple as a master of esoteric knowledge.
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Editio princeps of bronze leaf-shaped amuletic pendant with a suspension loop (BNF Schlumberger.190) featuring inscriptions in Greek and Samaritan Hebrew, iconographical elements (the 'Holy Rider' motif; a lion trampling on a snake) and... more
Editio princeps of bronze leaf-shaped amuletic pendant with a suspension loop (BNF Schlumberger.190) featuring inscriptions in Greek and Samaritan Hebrew, iconographical elements (the 'Holy Rider' motif; a lion trampling on a snake) and charaktêres.
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This paper reconstructs the general theory of religion formulated by Renaissance Aristotelian philosopher Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525) in his treatise De incantationibus and highlights its importance within the intellectual history of... more
This paper reconstructs the general theory of religion formulated by Renaissance Aristotelian philosopher Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525) in his treatise De incantationibus and highlights its importance within the intellectual history of the comparative study of religions. Following a brief overview of the two main theoretical approaches to religion - a naturalistic paradigm that is based on reductive explanation and a protectionist paradigm that denies the possibility of reducing religious experience to its more fundamental constituents - the paper argues that Pomponazzi's theory of the "horoscope of religions" and his reductive explanation of miracles and prophecies gave rise to one of the first wholly naturalistic approaches to religion in Europe since Antiquity.
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We present a representative corpus of similia similibus formulae attested in ancient Greek and Latin defixiones. The simile formulae, attested in about 80 tablets in widely differing states of preservation and legibility, are introduced... more
We present a representative corpus of similia similibus formulae attested in ancient Greek and Latin defixiones. The simile formulae, attested in about 80 tablets in widely differing states of preservation and legibility, are introduced in the context of sympathetic magic and, in contradistinction to literary similes, as performative utterances that are based on a persuasive analogy. This analogy operates in the general form of "just as X possesses property P, so let also Y possess property P", in which Y is the target or victim of the curse, while X and P are variables that change in accordance with the intended results. We provide a provisional taxonomy of simile formulae, offer new readings and interpretations of some defixiones, and compare Greek and Latin documents. Due to its length, the paper has been divided into two parts. In the first part, presented here, we focus on comparata that reference the materiality of the tablet itself and comparata referencing corpses or ghosts. The remaining comparata, namely animals, historiolae and rituals, aversus formulae and unusual orientations of the script, "names", and drawings, will be presented in a follow-up paper, to be published in the next issue of Philologia Classica.
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In this contribution, we present a representative corpus of similia similibus formulae attested in ancient Greek and Latin curse tablets or defixiones. The simile formulae, attested in about 80 tablets in widely differing states of... more
In this contribution, we present a representative corpus of similia similibus formulae attested in ancient Greek and Latin curse tablets or defixiones. The simile formulae, attested in about 80 tablets in widely differing states of preservation and legibility, are introduced in the context of sympathetic magic and, in contradistinction to literary similes, as performative utterances that are based on a persuasive analogy. This analogy operates in the general form of "just as X possesses property P, so let also Y possess property P", in which Y is the target or victim of the curse, while X and P are variables that change in accordance with the intended results. We provide a provisional taxonomy of simile formulae, offer new readings and interpretations of some defixiones, and compare Greek and Latin documents. Due to its length, the paper has been divided into two parts. In the first part, presented in the previous issue of Philologia Classica (Vol. 14, Fasc. 1, pp. 27-55), we introduced curse tablets, briefly discussed the principles of sympathetic magic, and focused on comparata that reference the materiality of the tablet and comparata referencing corpses or ghosts of the dead. The remaining comparata, namely animals, historiolae and rituals, aversus formulae and unusual orientations of the script, "names", and drawings, are presented in here together with general conclusions.
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During archaeological excavations conducted in the period 2009–2013 at Kempraten (Centum Prata) on the shores of Lake Zürich in the municipality of Rapperswil-Jona, five lead curse tablets were found in the remains of a Gallo-Roman... more
During archaeological excavations conducted in the period 2009–2013 at Kempraten (Centum Prata) on the shores of Lake Zürich in the municipality of Rapperswil-Jona, five lead curse tablets were found in the remains of a Gallo-Roman sanctuary complex. One of these tablets (DTK 1) was found in 2009 and first published in 2015. It is fashioned in the shape of a tabula ansata and contains a prayer for justice directed to Mater Magna, a goddess identifiable in Roman religion with the Anatolian Cybele. We propose a new reading of the tablet's simile-formula, sic iace(at) in xancto (=sancto) que(m)admodum haec epistula iacitura est, and we compare this new interpretation with other explicit mentions of the deposition of curse tablets in Graeco-Roman sanctuaries.
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The paper offers an overview of Tertullian's reception of Socrates informed by author's views on epistemic justification in early Christianity (cf. Franek 2016).
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Předkládaný článek je shrnutím základních tezí a závěrů monografie, kterou pod názvem Naturalismus a protekcionismus ve studiu náboženství vydalo v Brně v roce 2017 Nakladatelství Masarykovy univerzity. S ohledem na omezený prostor je v... more
Předkládaný článek je shrnutím základních tezí a závěrů monografie, kterou pod názvem Naturalismus a protekcionismus ve studiu náboženství vydalo v Brně v roce 2017 Nakladatelství Masarykovy univerzity. S ohledem na omezený prostor je v článku argumentace mnohdy jenom naznačena, teze jsou záměrně formulovány ve vyostřené podobě. Ve zmíněné monografii se snažím prokázat, že religionistické bádání v průběhu svých dějin rámcově sledovalo a sleduje dvě vzájemně si konkurující paradigmata, totiž naturalistické a protekcionistické, přičemž tato paradigmata vycházejí z rozdílných teoretických východisek a vedou k odlišným, často protichůdným závěrům.
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In this paper, I offer a cognitive analysis of the invocations of the Muse in earliest Greek epic poetry that is based on recent advances in cognitive science in general and the cognitive science of religion in particular. I argue that... more
In this paper, I offer a cognitive analysis of the invocations of the Muse in earliest Greek epic poetry that is based on recent advances in cognitive science in general and the cognitive science of religion in particular. I argue that the Muse-concept most likely originated in a feeling of dependence on an external source of information to provide the singer with the subject matter of their song. This source of information is conceptualised as an ontological type (or template) ‘person’ by means of the hyperactive agency detection, and the Muse’s full access to strategic information, along with other characteristics, establishes her as a minimally counter-intuitive concept (that is to say a concept that conforms to most of our intuitive expectations and runs counter to a few of them), which, in turn, significantly increases the probability of the acquisition and transmission of the Muse-concept within the culture.
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The historical figure of Marcus Iunius Brutus the Younger enjoyed a rich and complicated reception during the period of the Italian Renaissance. Dante famously placed Brutus, alongside Cassius and Judas, in the jaws of Lucifer. Petrarch,... more
The historical figure of Marcus Iunius Brutus the Younger enjoyed a rich and complicated reception during the period of the Italian Renaissance. Dante famously placed Brutus, alongside Cassius and Judas, in the jaws of Lucifer. Petrarch, in his earlier years, celebrated Cola di Rienzo as a "third Brutus" only to harshly censure the "noblest Roman" in his old age. Boccaccio called Brutus' action a parricide, yet his works betray a strong anti-Caesarian sentiment. Salutati defended both Dante's decision to place Brutus in the lowest circle of Hell and the right to the violent elimination of the tyrant by conjuring up an overtly positive image of Caesar as a much-loved, benign ruler. Bruni unequivocally condemned Caesar, praised Brutus as the last bulwark of republican freedoms, and tried to safeguard Dante's reputation by means of a symbolic interpretation of Brutus as the archetype of a traitor and Caesar as the archetype of the imperial maiestas, with Landino, probably the greatest commentator of Dante's Commedia in the fifteenth century, following his lead. Machiavelli, quite like Bruni, applauded the conspirator's deed and did not allow any special pleading for Dante either, claiming that the gnawing thought of unjust banishment from republican Florence occasioned the great poet's condemnation of Brutus. Apart from literary works, attestations of Brutus as an inspiration for several attempted political coups in Florence abound, with Pier Paolo Boscoli begging the notary present on the night before his execution to "get the Brutus out of his head" and Lorenzino de' Medici's assassination of his relative followed by Florentine republican exiles' praise of a new "Tuscan Brutus" and a significant iconographical programme to commemorate the deed.
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One of the more striking examples of the specific magical context of Latin curse tablets and prayers for justice is multifarious use of the Latin substantive nomen. This term is used in invocations as an address to the gods and demons... more
One of the more striking examples of the specific magical context of Latin curse tablets and prayers for justice is multifarious use of the Latin substantive nomen. This term is used in invocations as an address to the gods and demons (nomen, nomina necessitatis); it can serve as a proxy in referring to the person whose name is not known to the writer (nomen furis), which is usually the case in the prayers for justice; furthermore, nomen can be used to refer to the person already named in the text, even in cases where the name is known (nomen Quinti), which could have multiple explanations, including insufficient differentiation between signifié and signifiant, misinterpretation of the guidelines for curse preparation (attested for Greek in PGM). In many cases, the influence of the formulations of the judicial language and sympathetic magic (formula aversus) seems probable. Our paper aims at clarification of the various uses of the term nomen on curse tablets and prayers for justice while proposing their tentative taxonomy.
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Much of the scholarly discussion pertaining to epistemological assumptions regarding the earliest Christian authors has been framed by a series of dichotomies, placing "faith" and "religion" on one side and "reason" and "philosophy" on... more
Much of the scholarly discussion pertaining to epistemological assumptions regarding the earliest Christian authors has been framed by a series of dichotomies, placing "faith" and "religion" on one side and "reason" and "philosophy" on the other. I argue in this paper that uncritical use of these hard-to-define and overly general concepts as blanket categories to analyse Christian writings from the first three centuries CE inevitably causes major methodological issues and could be seen as heuristically unjustified. I suggest that a more frugal approach may be initiated by reconceptualizing the traditional "faith" vs. "reason" dichotomy in terms of the concept of personal and impersonal epistemic justification.
Research Interests: Epistemology, New Testament, Early Christianity, Irenaeus, Revelation, and 14 moreEpistemic Justification, New Testament and Christian Origins, Origen, Christian Apologetics, Martyrdom, Miracles, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Apologetics, New Testament Studies, Greek Apologists, Tatian, and Theophilus of Antioch
The figure of Socrates features prominently in the works of earliest Christian authors and their attempts to negotiate a viable relation between pagan intellectual tradition and the exigencies of a newly founded religion. The analysis of... more
The figure of Socrates features prominently in the works of earliest Christian authors and their attempts to negotiate a viable relation between pagan intellectual tradition and the exigencies of a newly founded religion. The analysis of all relevant ante-Nicene Greek and Latin texts shows that early Christian writers reconstruct "Socrates" with a striking degree of interpretative freedom. Although it is impossible to establish a unified perspective on Socrates in these texts – let alone a positive one, as many previous commentators thought –, the interpretations of the Athenian sage are not entirely haphazard. I argue that they are heavily constrained by apologetic aims of early Christian authors and closely connected to epistemic justification of faith by means of miracles, superior moral behaviour, divine inspiration and prophecy, and, finally, the emphasis that is placed on the limitations of human, all too human, wisdom.
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For the larger part of modern western intellectual history, it has been assumed that the study of morality and religion requires special methodology, insulated from, and in some important aspects incongruent with, the scientific method... more
For the larger part of modern western intellectual history, it has been assumed that the study of morality and religion requires special methodology, insulated from, and in some important aspects incongruent with, the scientific method commonly used in the realm of natural sciences. Furthermore, even if it would be granted that moral and religious behavior is amendable to scientific analysis, the prospects of using evolutionary theory in particular to do the heavy lifting in explanation of these phenomena have been bleak, since many scholars doubted that a biological theory could possibly offer any valuable contribution. Recent advances in the fields of Evolutionary Ethics and Cognitive Science of Religion disprove both claims, emphasizing empirically founded explanations, demonstrating extraordinarily high degree of methodological consilience, and revealing utmost importance of the application of evolutionary theory in fields of study once deemed to be exclusive domains of social sciences and philosophy.
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The purpose of this article is to evaluate the stance of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) with respect to the problem of the definition of religion. Firstly, I defend the necessity of an approximate definition of religion due to... more
The purpose of this article is to evaluate the stance of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) with respect to the problem of the definition of religion. Firstly, I defend the necessity of an approximate definition of religion due to the fact that (a) definitions are microtheories and (b) there is considerable social demand for a comprehensive definition of religion because of the inclusion of the concept in the majority of contemporary legal systems. Secondly, I present a representative sample of statements about the nature of religion put forward by scholars working within the cognitive tradition, which reveals considerable convergence on what the CSR thinks religion is about and justifies the concept of a "cognitive definition of religion". Thirdly, in a brief historical sketch, I try to identify two opposite tendencies in historical attempts at defining religion and their respective philosophical backgrounds: Essentialist definitions perpetuate the venerable Western tradition harking back to Plato's Euthyphro, while recent non-essentialist definitions draw on the work of late Wittgenstein (in what I term "power-innocent" social constructionism) and Nietzsche, Foucault and Bourdieu (in what I term "power-based" social constructionism), respectively. Lastly, against the background of an essentialist vs. non-essentialist dialectic, I consider the definition of religion provided by the CSR, which, while prima facie almost indistinguishable from Tylor's doctrine of animism, is based philosophically on Kant and Chomsky (and therefore at odds with the prevalent practice of social constructionism) and capable of providing much more cogent justification for a universalistic approach to religion than any of its essentialist predecessors.
Research Interests: Religion, Cognitive Science, Philosophy Of Religion, Essentialism, Wittgenstein, and 10 moreCognitive Science of Religion, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, Social Constructionism/ Constructivism, Language Games, Nominalism, Emile Durkheim, Religious Studies, Family Resemblance, Definition, and Edward Burnett Tylor
The article reacts to a critical evaluation of the cognitive revolution which Jaroslav Peregrin has presented (The Cognitive Counterrevolution?, Filosofie dnes, 4, 2012, No. 1, pp. 19-35). According to Peregrin the cognitive revolution... more
The article reacts to a critical evaluation of the cognitive revolution which Jaroslav Peregrin has presented (The Cognitive Counterrevolution?, Filosofie dnes, 4, 2012, No. 1, pp. 19-35). According to Peregrin the cognitive revolution has thrown open a Pandora’s box of naive mentalistic theories and variations on Cartesian dualism (“magical theories of the mind”), which “do not belong to science, nor even to sensible philosophy”. Although I agree with the rejection of magical theories of the mind, I attempt to show that the cognitive turn in the 50’s and 60’s of the last century is susceptible of a quite different interpretation, according to which cognitive science, as a result of its basic assumptions and methodology, does not imply or propagate any kind of Cartesian dualism, rather it explicitly denies the possibility of such an account of the relation between mind and body.
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Even though there is a large body of scholarly articles devoted to individual Presocratic philosophers and their reflections on the nature of Olympic gods and Greek religion, as well as some good general monographs mapping the "theology"... more
Even though there is a large body of scholarly articles devoted to individual Presocratic philosophers and their reflections on the nature of Olympic gods and Greek religion, as well as some good general monographs mapping the "theology" of Greek philosophers (e.g., Jaeger's Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers or, more recently, Drozdek's Greek Philosophers as Theologians), Presocratic hypotheses focused on the origin of religion have received comparatively minor attention. This paper examines the thoughts of Xenophanes, Democritus, Prodicus and the author of the Sisyphus-fragment (traditionally identified as Critias but also more recently as Euripides) in regard to the origin of religious belief while attempting to sketch some connections and similarities between ancient hypotheses and modern theories developed in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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In the second half of the twentieth century, phonological explorations of Ancient Greek and its dialectal diversity took two daring steps closely connected with the methodological advances in general linguistics. The first step was taken... more
In the second half of the twentieth century, phonological explorations of Ancient Greek and its dialectal diversity took two daring steps closely connected with the methodological advances in general linguistics. The first step was taken by Martín Ruipérez in 1956, who attempted to explain the sound changes in the vocalic systems of Attic and Boeotian by indicating what he thought to be the underlying structural causes of these changes. The second step was taken in 1984 by authors associated (at that time) with Université de Nancy, namely Monique Bile, Claude Brixhe and René Hodot, in a plea for proper incorporation of relevant sociolinguistic factors that could be held accountable for phonological changes in Ancient Greek. These attempts were deemed to be nothing short of methodological revolutions in the study of the development of Ancient Greek phonology and mark a decisive break with non–teleological description of the sound changes predominant in the nineteenth and first part of the twentieth century. The main aim of this paper is to evaluate the application and validity of these approaches in the study of Ancient Greek dialects in general, as well as through one specific example, namely the graphical unsteadiness of the representation of original inherited Proto-Greek /ē/ in Elean dialect.
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Ancient doxography and modern scholars generally agree that Socrates did not engage in any literary activity throughout his lifetime. However, remarks by Dion of Prusa (Or. 54.4, 55.12–13) and Epictetus (Diss. 2.1.32), two authors writing... more
Ancient doxography and modern scholars generally agree that Socrates did not engage in any literary activity throughout his lifetime. However, remarks by Dion of Prusa (Or. 54.4, 55.12–13) and Epictetus (Diss. 2.1.32), two authors writing roughly during the same period and holding Socrates in high esteem, could suggest that Socrates did write. Since the testimonies of Dion and Epictetus are often overlooked by Socratic scholarship, presumably because they represent minority opinion, the purpose of this paper is to analyze these comments and evaluate their relevance for our interpretation of historical Socrates and his activities as an author.
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Article compares some aspects of current interdisciplinary discourse critical of religion with Lucretius' poem De rerum natura. In the first part, I try to show how a brief review of modern scientific literature can assist to resolve one... more
Article compares some aspects of current interdisciplinary discourse critical of religion with Lucretius' poem De rerum natura. In the first part, I try to show how a brief review of modern scientific literature can assist to resolve one of the much discussed problems in Lucretian scholarship, namely the attitude of Lucretius towards traditional Graeco-Roman religion and the question of (in)coherence of his thought. In the second part, I change the perspective in order to show that, in some key aspects, Lucretius can be viewed as the precursor of contemporary critique of religion.
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Juraj Franek argues that the study of religion has long been split into two competing paradigms: reductive (naturalist) and non-reductive (protectionist). While the naturalistic approach seems to run the risk of explaining religious... more
Juraj Franek argues that the study of religion has long been split into two competing paradigms: reductive (naturalist) and non-reductive (protectionist). While the naturalistic approach seems to run the risk of explaining religious phenomena away, the protectionist approach appears to risk falling short of the methodological standards of modern science. Franek uses primary source material from Greek and Latin sources to show that both competing paradigms are traceable to Presocratic philosophy and early Christian literature. He presents the idea that naturalists are distant heirs, not only of the French Enlightenment, but also of the Ionian one. Likewise, he argues that protectionists owe much of their arguments and strategies, not only to Luther and the Reformation, but to the earliest Christian literature. This book analyses the conflict between reductive and non-reductive approach in the modern study of religions, and positions the Cognitive Science of Religion against a background of previous theories - ancient and modern - to demonstrate its importance for the revindication of the naturalist paradigm.
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Publikace nastiňuje dějinný vývoj dvou základních teoreticko-metodologických přístupů v oblasti studia náboženství. První, historická část práce popisuje ustavení naturalistického a protekcionistického paradigmatu u předsókratovských... more
Publikace nastiňuje dějinný vývoj dvou základních teoreticko-metodologických přístupů v oblasti studia náboženství. První, historická část práce popisuje ustavení naturalistického a protekcionistického paradigmatu u předsókratovských filosofů a v raně křesťanském myšlení a jejich další rozvinutí v dílech předních postav religionistiky 19. a 20. století. Druhá, systematická část práce se blíže věnuje vybraným aspektům kognitivní vědy o náboženství na pozadí metodologického konfliktu mezi naturalismem a protekcionismem.