Penn Press Log

Demacopoulos, Author of The Invention of Peter, Discusses the Papacy on ABC News

George E. Demacopoulos, associate professor of theology at Fordham University and author of The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity, spoke with ABC News on the future of the papacy and the Roman Catholic church after the resignation of Pope Benedict.

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Benedict and St. Peter: A Post by George E. Demacopoulos

In this post George E. Demacopoulos, author of  The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity, looks at a neglected aspect of Pope Benedict XVI's retirement.

Benedict and St. Peter

Pope Benedict XVI surprised the Christian world  when he announced that he would resign as bishop of Rome, head of the Roman Catholic Church.  The move is virtually unprecedented—while several popes in history left office prior to their death, those men were forced from office, almost always against their will.  In some cases, ex-pontiffs became bishops of other cities as a consolation prize.  But Pope Benedict’s decision to retire and yet remain in residence at the Vatican likely opens a Pandora’s box of canonical and theoretical questions concerning the singular grace of authority that is understood to accompany the office of the See of Rome by virtue of its connection St. Peter, “prince of the Apostles.”

Despite the media frenzy that has ensued in the wake of the resignation—not to mention the one that will erupt if the next pontiff is selected from the Global South—there is one significant aspect of the pontiff’s statement that has received nary a media blip, but conveys the core conundrum that advocates of papal singularity now face.  Four times in the very brief statement outlining his decision to resign, Pope Benedict referred to the special relationship between his office and St. Peter the Apostle, whose privileged position in the apostolic community is believed by Roman Catholics to transfer mystically to the bishops of Rome, upon their assumption of the office.

Since the fifth century, the basic argument for papal preeminence has run something like a syllogism:  (1) Jesus Christ appointed the Apostle Peter as the head of the Church; (2) Peter was the first bishop of Rome; therefore (3) subsequent bishops of Rome “inherit” Peter’s ministry and, therefore, his authority.  While most of us are familiar with the claim that the Roman bishop is “Peter’s heir,” many are less familiar with the long history by which the connection between Peter, Rome, and the Roman See came to be.  It is a complicated story full of political intrigue, theological debate, and a great deal of rhetorical invention.  Indeed, if there is any consistent theme in the development of the papal/Peter connection it is that each escalation of the claims of papal preeminence that emerged in the formative period between 350 and600 CE was precipitated by a domestic or international embarrassment for the bishop of Rome.  For most of late antiquity, the iterations of papal authority via Peter always reflected aspirations for ecclesiastical prestige rather than actual authority or respect.

Daniel Boyarin Mellon Lectures on the Babylonian Talmud

Next week, Daniel Boyarin, professor at the University of California, Berkeley and author of Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity, will give a series of Mellon Lectures on the Babylonian Talmud and its relationship to the Diaspora.

The series, titled "A Traveling Homeland: The Babylonian Talmud as Diaspora," consists of three talks: "Dispersing Diaspora: The Talmud as Diasporist Manifesto" (Monday, February 18 at 5:00 p.m.), "The Philology of Diaspora: The Talmud Enacts Diaspora" Tuesday, February 19 at 5:00 p.m.), and  "Searching for the Routes: The Talmud Makes Diasporas" (Thursday, February 21, 5:00 p.m.).

All three lectures will be held at the University of Pennsylvania, Terrace Room of Claudia Cohen Hall, 249 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

Please visit Penn's Jewish Studies Program events page for more details.

Medieval Monday: "Pangur Bán" or "the Monk and His Cat" in Animal Encounters

 

from The Secret of the Kells

Pangur Ban, the cat from the acclaimed animated film The Secret of the Kells, has an interesting lineage. The feline character was taken from an Old Irish lyric called “Pangur Bán” or “The Monk and His Cat.” In the movie, the clever creature belonged to Brother Aidan the illuminator. In the poem, which appears in a ninth-century manuscript, a cat named Pangur Bán hunts for mice as intently as a monk hunts for meanings in his Latin texts. Here are a couple of stanzas from Seamus Heaney's translation:

All the while, his round bright eye
Fixes on the wall, while I
Focus my less piercing gaze
On the challenge of the page.

With his unsheathed, perfect nails
Pangur springs, exults and kills.
When the longed-for, difficult
Answers come, I too exult.

"The Irish lyric 'Pangur Bán' meditates on the symbiosis of a scholar's efforts and a housecat's hunting, to discover within their analogous work a precisely observed equivalence between their minds," says Susan Crane author of Animal Encounters: Contacts and Concepts in Medieval Britain. In her new book, Crane describes the unique connection between people and other living creatures that existed in Irish and northern British monastic texts written between the seventh and ninth centuries. Far from Rome, these northern European monestaries were often simple clusters of huts emeshed in the environment. "Wild nature challenged monastic settlements and domesticated nature facilitated their work," writes Crane.

Her reading of the lyric "Pangur Ban" reflects the intricate bonds between animals, people, and religious culture of the time.

The cat's name, "Pangur Bán," means “white fuller,” a man who works with fuller's earth and comes to be covered in its pale dust. Given the high value of work and craft in the lyric, one might hazard that “white fuller” evokes both the cat's pale fur and his workmanlike behavior. The cat is next anthropomorphized as a net-wielding gladiator or perhaps a huntsman equipped with a net (his extended claws) as he performs “feats of valor.” Cat as workman and cat as valiant gladiator have mock-heroic potential that could reflect doubly on the cat, humorously inflating his worth in order to discredit it and distance him from the scholar. In a counterstrategy, however, the scholar shares mock-heroic status with the cat as "there falls into my net a difficult dictum with hard meaning." Both of them are attempting "feats of valor" that could look small from the net-wielding, death-defying gladiator's perspective. Anthropomorphism can cut in many directions, but in "Pangur Bán" the consistent strategy is to strike analogies that reinforce the scholar's bemused admiration for Pangur with his self-deprecating account of his own efforts to work well.

So, next time a prowling house cat distracts you from your work, don't get too upset. Instead, follow the monastic example by appreciating his skills. Maybe he will be more of an inspiration than a distraction.

This Week's New Books: Agriculture, Love, and Archaeology

Food and Agriculture in Ethiopia: Progress and Policy Challenges Edited by Paul Dorosh and Shahidur Rashid 376 pages | 6 x 9 | 104 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4529-5 | $59.95 | £39.00 A volume in the International Food Policy Research Institute series In this volume, policy experts provide empirical evidence to shed light on the complexities of agricultural and food policy in today's Ethiopia, highlight major policies and interventions of the past decade, and provide insights into building resilience to natural disasters and food crises.

Empires of Love: Europe, Asia, and the Making of Early Modern Identity Carmen Nocentelli 272 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4483-0 | $55.00 | £36.00 Drawing on a wide range of Dutch, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish sources, Empires of Love shows how the encounter with Asia shaped the way early modern Europeans came to define their racial and sexual identities. al ventures have formed political associations to promote and defend their interests.

The Archaeology of Phrygian Gordion, Royal City of Midas: Gordion Special Studies 7 Edited by C. Brian Rose 360 pages | 8 1/2 x 11 | 13 color, 230 b/w illus. Cloth 2013 | ISBN 978-1-934536-48-3 | $79.95 | £52.00 A volume in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology series This volume covers all aspects of Gordion's Phrygian settlement topography from the arrival of the Phrygians in the tenth century B.C. through the arrival of Alexander the Great in 333 B.C., focusing on the site's changing topography and the consistently fluctuating interaction between the inhabitants and the landscape.

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson. Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

This Week's New Books: The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis, The Decadent Republic of Letters, Shakespeare's Stationers, and Conversion and Narrative

The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis Naftali S. Cohn 248 pages | 6 x 9 | 5 illus. Cloth | ISBN 978-0-8122-4457-1 | $69.95 | £45.50 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0746-0 | $69.95 | £45.50 A  volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series Naftali S. Cohn provides an innovative understanding of the rabbinic authors of the Mishnah and their intense focus on the Temple. He contends that the memory of the Temple served a political function for the rabbis, arguing for their own importance within the complex social landscape of Jewish society in Roman Palestine.  "A learned, nuanced, and well-written study of an important theme in a foundational text of rabbinic Judaism. Cohn shows that we must look outside rabbinic literature if we are to place the Mishnah in a meaningful context. Well done."--Shaye J. D. Cohen, Harvard University

The Decadent Republic of Letters: Taste, Politics, and Cosmopolitan Community from Baudelaire to Beardsley Matthew Potolsky 256 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth | ISBN 978-0-8122-4449-6 | $59.95 | £39.00 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0733-0 | $59.95 | £39.00 A  volume in the Haney Foundation Series The Decadent Republic of Letters revises the longstanding view of decadence as a movement defined by escapism and sociopolitical withdrawal. The book argues that decadent writers and artists from Charles Baudelaire to Aubrey Beardsley addressed a cosmopolitan audience united by taste rather than language, geography, or national identity.  "Potolsky offers a fresh and original contribution to the study of decadence and succeeds in showing how the movement is not a dusty relic of the nineteenth century, but a provocative and relevant intervention into contemporary issues. In true decadent manner, Potolsky approaches his subject perversely, arguing that we should look not at what decadence rejects but instead at what its proponents valorize. The result is a perspective that emphasizes engagement over withdrawal and renunciation. Decadence emerges from this analysis an exciting, revitalized ideology, one that suggests new ways of approaching contemporary debates."--Melanie Hawthorne, Texas A&M University

Shakespeare's Stationers: Studies in Cultural Bibliography Edited by Marta Straznicky 376 pages | 6 x 9 | 9 illus. Cloth | ISBN 978-0-8122-4454-0 | $75.00 | £49.00 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0738-5 | $75.00 | £49.00 A volume in the Material Texts series Edited by Marta Straznicky, this seminal collection is the first to explore the multiple and intersecting forms of agency exercised by Shakespeare's stationers in the design, production, marketing, and distribution of his printed works.  "The goal of this collection is nothing short of a fundamental shift in Shakespearean textual criticism, and it achieves this goal with aplomb. The essays are original, substantial, and make a genuine contribution to the field."--Eric Rasmussen, University of Nevada

Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic Ryan Szpiech 328 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth | ISBN 978-0-8122-4471-7 | $59.95 | £39.00 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0761-3 | $59.95 | £39.00 A  volume in the Middle Ages Series Szpiech draws on medieval Christian, Jewish, and Muslim polemics to investigate the role of narrative in the representation of conversion. By investigating conversion not as individual experience but as expression of communal visions of history, he shows how the narratives dramatize the conflict of ideas in disputational writing.  "This impressive book bridges the fields of religious studies and comparative literature in order to produce close and sophisticated readings of conversion narratives from the later Middle Ages across a broad array of languages (Latin, Castilian/Catalan, Arabic, and Hebrew). Very few scholars can move so gracefully among these languages and areas of scholarship while offering insights from the minutiae of philological analysis to high literary theory, reflections on the nature of religion, and notions of the self."--Jonathan Decter, Brandeis University

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson. Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

This Week's New Books: Death by Effigy, Exquisite Mixture, and Textual Mirrors

Death by Effigy: A Case from the Mexican Inquisition Luis R. Corteguera 240 pages | 6 x 9 | 11 illus. Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4439-7 | $39.95 | £26.00 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0705-7 | $39.95 | £26.00 A volume in the Early Modern Americas series On July 21, 1578, a small Mexican town awoke to the news of a scandal. Nailed to the door of its church was a double-faced effigy denouncing a neighbor as a Jew who should burn at the stake. Nine trials over the course of four years revealed a story of dishonor, revenge, and the Inquisition's relentless determination to defend its symbols.

Exquisite Mixture: The Virtues of Impurity in Early Modern England Wolfram Schmidgen 280 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4442-7 | $59.95 | £39.00 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0718-7 | $59.95 | £39.00 A volume in the Haney Foundation Series Exquisite Mixture examines the writing of Robert Boyle, John Locke, Daniel Defoe, and others in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain who advocated mixture as a critical element of this belief in English superiority: mixture could produce superior languages, new species, flawless ideas, and resilient civil societies.

Textual Mirrors: Reflexivity, Midrash, and the Rabbinic Self Dina Stein 248 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4436-6 | $79.95 | £52.00 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0694-4 | $79.95 | £52.00 A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series In Textual Mirrors, Dina Stein draws on literary theory, folklore studies, and semiotics to closely examine midrashic tales in which self-reflexivity operates as a central element. Within these texts, rabbinic discourse itself becomes the object of reflection, both complicating and confirming its religious and ideological principles.

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson. Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

This Week's New Books: Regulatory Breakdown and Healing Secular Life

Regulatory Breakdown: The Crisis of Confidence in U.S. Regulation Edited by Cary Coglianese Description, Table of Contents, and More "Everybody talks about regulatory failure, but no one does much about it. This book investigates claims of regulatory breakdown in the United States and provides helpful clues as to what might be done."--Jerry Mashaw, Yale Law School 304 pages | 6 x 9 | 10 illus. Hardcover  2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4460-1 | $49.95 | £32.50 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0749-1 | $49.95 | £32.50

Healing Secular Life: Loss and Devotion in Modern Turkey Christopher Dole Description, Table of Contents, and More "A fine ethnography that examines the cultural politics of healing practices in contemporary Turkey. It offers a fresh and original account of the cultural discourses and modes of aesthetic representation and perception that congeal around questions of religious healing."--Robert Desjarlais, Sarah Lawrence College 320 pages | 6 x 9 | 18 illus. Hardcover 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4416-8 | $69.95 | £45.50 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4416-8 | $69.95 | £45.50 A volume in the Contemporary Ethnography series

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson. Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

The Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at Cyrene, Libya, Final Reports V--Now in Paperback

The Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at Cyrene, Libya, Final Reports VIII: The Sanctuary's Imperial Architectural Development, Conflict with Christianity, and Final Days
Donald White. Appendix by Joyce Reynolds
240 pages | 8 1/2 x 11 | 110 illus.
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-1-934536-46-9 | $69.95 | £45.50
A volume in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology series

This is the climactic volume on the archaeological and architectural history from ca. 31 B.C. to A.D. 365 of the extramural sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at Cyrene, Libya. It traces the characteristics of major Demeter sanctuaries elsewhere and places the Cyrene sanctuary within the context of this development. Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

Literacy in the Persianate World--Now Available

Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order
Edited by Brian Spooner and William L. Hanaway
456 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-1-934536-45-2 | $59.95 | £39.00
A volume in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology series

Persian has been a written language since the sixth century B.C. Only Chinese, Greek, and Latin have comparable histories of literacy. Although Persian script changed—first from cuneiform to a modified Aramaic, then to Arabic—from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries it served a broader geographical area than any language in world history.

Literacy in the Persianate World offers the first comparative study of the historical role of writing in three languages including two in non-Roman scripts, over a period of two and a half millennia, providing an opportunity for reassessment of the work on literacy in English that has accumulated over the past half century. Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.