On June 13-14 Early Monasticism and Classical Paideia will welcome to Lund representatives of several different research projects to discuss technical collaborations on how to enhance scholarly manuscript research using computational analysis tools. We will consider how various projects’ texts are/can be made available, computationally referenceable and amenable to digital analysis, across the following topic areas: Linked Data, URIs and ontologies especially pertaining to text sources, places and people; web interfaces for databases/text corpora; grammatically sensitive and fine grained searching, automated similarity detection and historical text re-use detection; structural analysis and comparisons of large amounts of mss. The workshop is being planned together with Anna Jordanous of the Sharing Ancient Wisdoms project at King’s College London. Also present will be persons from Corpus der arabischen und syrischen Gnomologien, Ilse de Vos from Defining Belief and Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean and Marco Büchler from eTraces.

Workshop on ”Pre-monastic Schools in Alexandria” at Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, June 10-11, 2013. Guest scholars: Marco Rizzi (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano), Blossom Stefaniw (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz), Edward Watts (University of California, San Diego).

Monday, June 10

9.00 Samuel Rubenson: Welcome & Presentation of the research programme (MOPAI)
10.00 Edward Watts: ”Imperial Impluses: The Structure, Setting, and Evolution of Fourth Century Education”
11.00 Coffee
11.15 Text seminar (Watts)
13.00 Joint lunch
14.00 Marco Rizzi: ”Alexandrian Christianity and the Transformation of Ancient Philosophical School-teaching”
15.00 Coffee
15.30 Text seminar (Rizzi)
18.00 Joint dinner

Tuesday, June 11

9.00 Blossom Stefaniw: ”Reading Blind: Noetic Method in the Teaching of Didymus”
10.00 Text seminar (Stefaniw)
11.30 Coffee
11.45 Concluding discussion (Rubenson)
13.00 Joint lunch

Continuities between classical paideia and early monasticism are related to the broader process of Christianization of the Roman Empire. This workshop, arranged by the research program at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, aimed at exploring this general process.

In conjunction with the workshop, the research group visited a number of early Byzantine churches in Istanbul as well as the Swedish excavations of the sanctuary of Zeus Labraundos close to Milas in the western part of Turkey. All excursions were guided by Dr. Jesper Blid, a classical archeologist from Stockholm University, who has studied the transformation of the Labraunda sanctuary into a Christian sanctuary during Late Antiquity. The excursions focused among other things on the re-use of existent Roman buildings, when constructing new Christian churches, or how new churches were built upon or integrated into already existent non-Christian buildings.

Remains of one of the twin towers of the East church (4th cent. CE) at Zeus Labraundos. The banquet hall, Andron A, and the Temple of Zeus in the background.

Early Byzantine basilica (6th cent.) of the monastery of St Mary Kyriotissa integrated into an earlier Roman bath (circular) and the aqueduct of Valens.

The Presentation of Child Jesus in the Temple (hypante) (6th or 7th cent. CE), mosaic from one of the basilicas of St Mary Kyriotissa (Archeological museum, Istanbul).

The patristic seminar in Lund and the research program Early Monasticism and Classical Paideia invited metropolitan Kallistos Ware, Oxford, to a research seminar on the Philokalia on Monday, January 28. Metropolitan Ware introduced the seminar with a lecture on The Spirituality of the Philokalia: its Leading Features and its Influence in the Present-day Orthodox World. After this lecture the seminar discussed the first text of the Philokalia, Chapters on the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life, which is ascribed to St. Antony the Great. The discussion centered on the text’s Stoic character and the relationship between philosophy and monastic spirituality.

Wednesday, October 10 2012, at 19.00, CTR, Lund, room 118

Guest lecture:

Professor Claudia Rapp, Vienna: ”From Polis to Oikoumene: Frameworks of Civic Identity from Antiquity to the Middle Ages.” 

Thursday, October 11, 2012, CTR, Lund, room 215

08.45 Anastasia Maravela: ”Papyrological evidence for the study of classical literature in early Egyptian monastic communities”: Introduction and text seminar

11.00 Chrysi Kotsifou: ”Early monastic scriptoria and libraries”: Introduction and text seminar

14.00 Claudia Rapp: ”Old and New, Pagan and Christian, Secular and Religious in Early Greek Hagiography”: Introduction and text seminar

Coining and collecting apophthegms – pithy, witty or wise sayings – is common to many cultures throughout the ages. Apophthegms – both gnomic maxims and anecdotal aphorisms – had an acknowledged place in the Greek tradition from early on. Collections, later called gnomologiae, of Spartan sayings, of the sayings of rulers and philosphers and other celebrities were compiled from at least Hellenistic times. In early Byzantine times, during the confrontation of Greek with Christian ideologies, proponents of the old paideia used gnomologies both to preserve that paideia in a convenient fashion and promote it in an unprovocative way. As a reaction to this trend, Greek Christians themselves began to compile the sayings of the Greek fathers. With the advent of Islam in the seventh century, greater literacy, and the contact with Hellenism, Greek gnomologies offered themselves to Arabic authors as the natural candidates for translation and wide-spread use. Later Greek sententious wisdom was transported to Western Europeans by means of translations from the Arabic that began in the 12th century.

The APOPHTHEGMATA workshop aims to explore issues of origin and use of these compilations in Greek and Arabic, as well as problems and solutions in critically editing these fluid textual traditions.

Participants:

Denis Searby (Stockholm University)
R. Bracht Branham (Emory University)
Lillian Larsen (University of Redlands)
Tiziano Dorandi (CNRS, Paris)
David Westberg (Uppsala University)
Henrik Rydell Johnsén (Lund University)
Ute Pietruschka (Göttingen)
Elvira Wakelnig (University of Vienna)
Christoph Storz, (University of Vienna)
Chiara Faraggiana (University of Bologna)
Samuel Rubensson (Lund University)
Charlotte Roueché (KCL)
Måns Bylund (Uppsala University)
Anna Jordanous (KCL)
Charlotte Tupman (KCL)

Sponsored by:
Sharing Ancient Wisdoms (Kings College London, U. of Vienna, Newman Institute)
Ars Edendi Research Programme (Stockholm University)
Early Monasticism and Classical Paideia (Lund University)

Read the details of the programme here.

This workshop aimed at mapping the various ways in which digital tools can help and, indeed, change our scholarly work on “pre-modern” texts, more precisely our means of analyzing the interrelationships between manuscripts and texts produced in the pre-modern era. This includes the history of textual traditions in a very broad sense, encompassing several fields of research, such as book history, stemmatology, research on textual sources, tracing of borrowings and influences between texts.

Samuel Rubenson presented the Apophthegmata Patrum database that is being developed by the project.

The workshop was sponsored by the Tree of Texts project, Interedition, the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium, and the KU Leuven Faculty of Arts.

On January 31 and February 1, Prof. Samuel Rubenson, Dr. Britt Dahlman, MPhil Benjamin Ekman, and IT architect Kenneth Berg, all from the research program, met with Prof. Faraggiana and Prof. Mühlenberg at the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen to discuss the cooperation between the Academy, the Department of Fine Arts of the University of Bologna and the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies of Lund University in the establishment of a permanent database of ”Apophthegmata Patrum”. The instrumental character of the database as a powerful working tool for scholars working in the field, as well as possible future public access to and use of material in the database were discussed in detail. In addition a joint estimate of the work needed to load the database with the most essential material was made.

After the SBL/AAR conference the project went to Valyermo, CA, and spent some lovely days at St Andrew’s Abbey. The move from the busy big city and the intensity of an academic conference to this beautiful spot in the hills on the verge of the Californian desert was very welcome for all of us. The brothers were excellent hosts and made it possible for us to engage in very fruitful conversations. Their daily experience of the monastic life and their knowledge of their ancient predecessors provided us with very helpful and interesting perspectives on our various projects.

Tuesday – 22 November

Walking through the monastery grounds with Fr. Luke.

14.00–15.00: Welcome / History of Community (Fr. Luke Dysinger)
15.30–17.30: Discussion of Dysinger, Psalmody and prayer in the writings of Evagrius Ponticus.
17.30: Lectio Divina
18.00: Vespers
18.30: Evening Meal with Reading and Conversation (Apophthegmata Patrum GS 12, unceasing prayer; AP GS 13, Hospitality)
20.00: Community Recreation
20.30: Compline (Night Prayer)

Wednesday – 23 November

The group discussing the pedagogical role of the Psalms in early monasticism.

6.00: Vigils
6.30-7.30: Lectio Divina
7.30: Lauds (Morning Prayer)
8.00: Breakfast in Silence
8.30–11.30: Text Seminar – ”Psalms as Pedagogical Texts”. Discussion based on examples drawn from group member’s respective research.
12.00: Midday Mass
12.40: Lunch in Conversation
13.30–15.30: Reading with the monks (John Cassian, Institutes, Book 2)
16.00–17.30: Research Group Meeting
17.30: Lectio Divina
18.00: Vespers
18.30: Evening Meal with Reading and Conversation (Evagrius, Chapters on Prayer)

The Use of Databases for Classical Florilegia  Guest scholar: Denis Searby, Stockholm University.

Sebastian Brock speaking at a Syrian Orthodox church in Sweden

Monday, January 31

9.30-12.00

Brock: Introduction about Syriac translations of Greek material
Holmberg and Brock: The Syriac apophthegmata and their Greek models

13.00-17.00 The Syriac apophthegmata and their Greek models

19.00 Lecture by Sebastian Brock ”Hidden treasures. The Syriac manuscripts from Sinai and their significance for the study of Early Christianity”

Tuesday, February 1

9.00-12.00 Internal program planning session

13.00-15.00 Seminar with Sebastian Brock: ”Give a voice to women in Syriac literature”

Program

Thursday 14 oktober
13.15–15.00 Greek seminar: Maja Kominko
15.30–17.30 Project seminar 1: discussion with Denis Searby, Witold Witakowski och Eric Cullhed
19.15 Lecture: Samuel Rubenson, ”Bookish learning or divine inspiration – early monasticism and classical learning”

Friday 15 oktober
9.15–12.00 Project seminar 2
13.15–15.00 Project planning session

The literary character of early Egyptian monastic texts  Guest scholar: Professor James E. Goehring, University of Mary Washington.

James E. Goehring

June 7
12.30 Lunch
14.00 Workshop: presentations and comments on developments
15.00 Coffee
15.30 Workshop: presentations and comments on developments
19.00 Dinner

June 8
9.00 Method and theory: ”Pachomius, Nag Hammadi and Philosophy”
14.00 Workshop on transmission of texts: the Apophthegmata Patrum and related texts
18.00 Evening lecture ”Remembering for Eternity: The Ascetic Landscape as Cultural Discourse in Early Christianity.”
19.30 reception with wine and cheese

Education in early Syriac tradition  Guest scholar: Professor Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Brown University.

The Status of research on the Apophthegmata Patrum  with Professor Ekkehart Mühlenberg, Dr. Chiara Fraggiana di Sarzana and Ms Natia Gabrichidze, Tbilisi.

The use of cognitive science in the study of early monastic texts  Guest scholar: Dr. Hugo Lundhaug, Oslo University

Planning the first four-year cycle.