Stephen Penn | University of Stirling (original) (raw)
Papers by Stephen Penn
Boydell and Brewer eBooks, Dec 31, 2004
List of Abbreviations viii Note on Translations ix 6 CHAPTER I NOMINALISM, REALISM AND HERMENEUTI... more List of Abbreviations viii Note on Translations ix 6 CHAPTER I NOMINALISM, REALISM AND HERMENEUTICS 1. 'TEXTUAL' THEORY, HERMENEUTICS AND THE FoRms OF THEORETICAL DISCOURSE Wyclif's philosophical and exegetical writings occupy a significant position in the history of ideas about language and discourse, standing at the end of a long tradition of interpretative texts informed by Roman and early medieval grammatical writings (the artes granunaticae). 1 They have a part, as such, in the late history of what Martine Irvine, in his groundbreaking study of the verbal arts in the early Middle Ages, has termed 'textual ZP culture'. 2 This broad label, as Irvine applies it, covers all of those areas of academic enquiry whose primary focus was textual, whether the nature of the particular text under scrutiny was ancient or medieval, secular or religious, Latin or vernacular. Throughout the whole of the ancient period, and for much of the Middle Ages, of course, the emphasis was on non-vernacular writings, these being originally the classical writings of Greece and Rome, and later Christianized Latin texts, Latin biblical texts, and even the texts of the Roman grammars themselves. 3 It also covers the so-called 'preceptive' disciplines, the arts of speaking and writing correctly. 4 These latter disciplines occupied a secondary position in relation to the expository and explicatory sciences, the 'arts of interpretation' out of which the long tradition of secular and Christian commentaries, glosses and exegetical texts arose. 1 Most influential throughout the Middle Ages were the Ars Minor and Ars Maior of Donatus (fl. 4th century AD). Between them the two artes cover all of the basic grammatical concepts required to produce a textual commentary. Both contain descriptions of the eight parts of speech (noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, participle, conjunction, preposition and interjection), and the second includes detailed expositions on metrical units (voces, litterae, syllabae, pedes, accentus) as well as aI ist of grammatical 'faults' (vitia). The texts are edited by Heinrich Keil in GL, 4 (1864), pp. 355-366; pp. 367-401. 2 The Making of Textual Culture: 'Granimatica'and Literary Theory, 350-1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). See especially the introductory chapter, pp. 1-24. 3 The earliest commentaries on ancient texts were produced by the Greek scholar Heraclitus (author of the Quaestiones Hoinericae) and the Roman grammarian Donatus (author of commentaries on Terence and Vergil's Aeneid). See Irvine, The Making of Textual Culture, pp. 8-12. Examples of biblical exegesis, in the various forms which this took, are very numerous. Christianized pagan texts, less directly indebted to grannnatica than to patristic exegetical methods, include most famously Vergil's Aeneid and' the Metamorphoses of Ovid.
De Gruyter eBooks, Aug 21, 2015
De Gruyter eBooks, Nov 15, 2010
The Review of English Studies, Jul 11, 2005
The guiding premise of Katherine Little's Confession and Resistance is that Wycliffite repre... more The guiding premise of Katherine Little's Confession and Resistance is that Wycliffite representations of the practice of auricular confession, together with comparable portrayals of confessional practice in canonical Middle English literary texts, might usefully be interpreted not merely as part ...
Literature and Theology, Mar 1, 2003
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jul 11, 2019
PHIL 101-Special Topics in Philosophy (3 Credits) Topics selected by the instructor for specializ... more PHIL 101-Special Topics in Philosophy (3 Credits) Topics selected by the instructor for specialized study. Course content varies and will be announced in the schedule of classes by title. PHIL 102-Introduction to Philosophy (3 Credits) An introduction to the main problems of philosophy and its methods of inquiry, analysis, and criticism. Works of important philosophers will be read. Honors section offered. PHIL 103-Special Topics in Ethics and Values (3 Credits) A study of the moral principles of conduct and the basic concepts underlying these principles, such as good, evil, right, wrong, justice, value, duty, and obligation, as they relate to specific issues or areas of life. May be repeated as content varies by title. Carolina Core: VSR PHIL 111-Introduction to Logic II (3 Credits) Philosophical foundations of inductive inference, including probability, statistics, and decision theory; application of the methods and results of inductive inference to philosophical problems such as the problem of rationality, epistemology, theory confirmation, social and political philosophy.
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
An absolute accident was an accident (q.v.) that some philosophers believed could act as a subjec... more An absolute accident was an accident (q.v.) that some philosophers believed could act as a subject for other accidents, in the same way as a substance normally did. Wyclif was heavily critical of philosophers and theologians who spoke of such things, and was especially cynical about claims that the consecrated host was itself an absolute accident, an assumption which itself relied on the more dubious premise (for Wyclif, at least) that the substances of the bread and wine were annihilated at the point of consecration. Absolute and ordained powers of God The distinction between the absolute and ordained powers of God was introduced in the twelfth century in order to negotiate questions relating to divine freedom and omnipotence. Though the distinction was formulated in a variety of subtly different ways (often with different terms for the respective powers), it was generally accepted that God's absolute power (that is, his absolute omnipotence) enabled him to do anything that did not contravene the laws of logic. In principle, he could therefore do anything that did not entail a contradiction. When he created the universe, however, God foreclosed many of the potentialities that would have been available to him in respect of his absolute power. Those that remained available to him constituted his ordained power. In broad terms, this was the theory inherited by late fourteenthcentury scholars from the earlier Oxford luminaries John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham and Robert Holkot. It is important to stress that none of these scholars, nor indeed Wyclif and his contemporaries, considered these two powers to be distinct entities in real terms; divine power was necessarily one thing. The distinction, however, allowed scholastics to consider divine power from two different perspectives: God's power was infinite in respect of his own nature, but it necessarily operated within the laws he had himself ordained. His absolute power, many insisted, would necessarily permit him, nevertheless, to re-ordain or even suspend his own laws, should he wish.
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
All biblical quotations follow the Douay-Rheims translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible. Occasiona... more All biblical quotations follow the Douay-Rheims translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible. Occasionally, I have departed from Douay-Rheims translation to reflect Wyclif 's own (probably unconscious) alterations to the text of the Vulgate. Note that the Vulgate and the Douay translation include the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament (books that appear in the Greek Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Scriptures): Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and 1 and 2 Maccabees. Note that the Vulgate and Douay translations number 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings as 1-2 Kings and 3-4 Kings, respectively. 1 and 2 Chronicles take the Greek title 1 and 2 Paralipomenon (denoting things omitted from the book of Kings), and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are called 1 and 2 Esdras, respectively. Numbering of biblical verses is here generally provided in square brackets, as such numbering was introduced only after the medieval period. Quotations from the Lauda Sion Salvatorem sequence in Wyclif 's text follow the classic English rendering that appears in The Sarum Missal done into English, by A. Harford Pearson (London: The Church Printing Company, 1884). All translations from Wyclif and all other translations from sources other than Wyclif are my own. Where alternative translations of Wyclif 's texts translated here exist, I have identified these alongside the Latin edition I have used.
Boydell and Brewer eBooks, Dec 31, 2004
List of Abbreviations viii Note on Translations ix 6 CHAPTER I NOMINALISM, REALISM AND HERMENEUTI... more List of Abbreviations viii Note on Translations ix 6 CHAPTER I NOMINALISM, REALISM AND HERMENEUTICS 1. 'TEXTUAL' THEORY, HERMENEUTICS AND THE FoRms OF THEORETICAL DISCOURSE Wyclif's philosophical and exegetical writings occupy a significant position in the history of ideas about language and discourse, standing at the end of a long tradition of interpretative texts informed by Roman and early medieval grammatical writings (the artes granunaticae). 1 They have a part, as such, in the late history of what Martine Irvine, in his groundbreaking study of the verbal arts in the early Middle Ages, has termed 'textual ZP culture'. 2 This broad label, as Irvine applies it, covers all of those areas of academic enquiry whose primary focus was textual, whether the nature of the particular text under scrutiny was ancient or medieval, secular or religious, Latin or vernacular. Throughout the whole of the ancient period, and for much of the Middle Ages, of course, the emphasis was on non-vernacular writings, these being originally the classical writings of Greece and Rome, and later Christianized Latin texts, Latin biblical texts, and even the texts of the Roman grammars themselves. 3 It also covers the so-called 'preceptive' disciplines, the arts of speaking and writing correctly. 4 These latter disciplines occupied a secondary position in relation to the expository and explicatory sciences, the 'arts of interpretation' out of which the long tradition of secular and Christian commentaries, glosses and exegetical texts arose. 1 Most influential throughout the Middle Ages were the Ars Minor and Ars Maior of Donatus (fl. 4th century AD). Between them the two artes cover all of the basic grammatical concepts required to produce a textual commentary. Both contain descriptions of the eight parts of speech (noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, participle, conjunction, preposition and interjection), and the second includes detailed expositions on metrical units (voces, litterae, syllabae, pedes, accentus) as well as aI ist of grammatical 'faults' (vitia). The texts are edited by Heinrich Keil in GL, 4 (1864), pp. 355-366; pp. 367-401. 2 The Making of Textual Culture: 'Granimatica'and Literary Theory, 350-1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). See especially the introductory chapter, pp. 1-24. 3 The earliest commentaries on ancient texts were produced by the Greek scholar Heraclitus (author of the Quaestiones Hoinericae) and the Roman grammarian Donatus (author of commentaries on Terence and Vergil's Aeneid). See Irvine, The Making of Textual Culture, pp. 8-12. Examples of biblical exegesis, in the various forms which this took, are very numerous. Christianized pagan texts, less directly indebted to grannnatica than to patristic exegetical methods, include most famously Vergil's Aeneid and' the Metamorphoses of Ovid.
De Gruyter eBooks, Aug 21, 2015
De Gruyter eBooks, Nov 15, 2010
The Review of English Studies, Jul 11, 2005
The guiding premise of Katherine Little's Confession and Resistance is that Wycliffite repre... more The guiding premise of Katherine Little's Confession and Resistance is that Wycliffite representations of the practice of auricular confession, together with comparable portrayals of confessional practice in canonical Middle English literary texts, might usefully be interpreted not merely as part ...
Literature and Theology, Mar 1, 2003
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jul 11, 2019
PHIL 101-Special Topics in Philosophy (3 Credits) Topics selected by the instructor for specializ... more PHIL 101-Special Topics in Philosophy (3 Credits) Topics selected by the instructor for specialized study. Course content varies and will be announced in the schedule of classes by title. PHIL 102-Introduction to Philosophy (3 Credits) An introduction to the main problems of philosophy and its methods of inquiry, analysis, and criticism. Works of important philosophers will be read. Honors section offered. PHIL 103-Special Topics in Ethics and Values (3 Credits) A study of the moral principles of conduct and the basic concepts underlying these principles, such as good, evil, right, wrong, justice, value, duty, and obligation, as they relate to specific issues or areas of life. May be repeated as content varies by title. Carolina Core: VSR PHIL 111-Introduction to Logic II (3 Credits) Philosophical foundations of inductive inference, including probability, statistics, and decision theory; application of the methods and results of inductive inference to philosophical problems such as the problem of rationality, epistemology, theory confirmation, social and political philosophy.
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
An absolute accident was an accident (q.v.) that some philosophers believed could act as a subjec... more An absolute accident was an accident (q.v.) that some philosophers believed could act as a subject for other accidents, in the same way as a substance normally did. Wyclif was heavily critical of philosophers and theologians who spoke of such things, and was especially cynical about claims that the consecrated host was itself an absolute accident, an assumption which itself relied on the more dubious premise (for Wyclif, at least) that the substances of the bread and wine were annihilated at the point of consecration. Absolute and ordained powers of God The distinction between the absolute and ordained powers of God was introduced in the twelfth century in order to negotiate questions relating to divine freedom and omnipotence. Though the distinction was formulated in a variety of subtly different ways (often with different terms for the respective powers), it was generally accepted that God's absolute power (that is, his absolute omnipotence) enabled him to do anything that did not contravene the laws of logic. In principle, he could therefore do anything that did not entail a contradiction. When he created the universe, however, God foreclosed many of the potentialities that would have been available to him in respect of his absolute power. Those that remained available to him constituted his ordained power. In broad terms, this was the theory inherited by late fourteenthcentury scholars from the earlier Oxford luminaries John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham and Robert Holkot. It is important to stress that none of these scholars, nor indeed Wyclif and his contemporaries, considered these two powers to be distinct entities in real terms; divine power was necessarily one thing. The distinction, however, allowed scholastics to consider divine power from two different perspectives: God's power was infinite in respect of his own nature, but it necessarily operated within the laws he had himself ordained. His absolute power, many insisted, would necessarily permit him, nevertheless, to re-ordain or even suspend his own laws, should he wish.
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
Manchester University Press eBooks, Oct 17, 2019
All biblical quotations follow the Douay-Rheims translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible. Occasiona... more All biblical quotations follow the Douay-Rheims translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible. Occasionally, I have departed from Douay-Rheims translation to reflect Wyclif 's own (probably unconscious) alterations to the text of the Vulgate. Note that the Vulgate and the Douay translation include the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament (books that appear in the Greek Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Scriptures): Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and 1 and 2 Maccabees. Note that the Vulgate and Douay translations number 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings as 1-2 Kings and 3-4 Kings, respectively. 1 and 2 Chronicles take the Greek title 1 and 2 Paralipomenon (denoting things omitted from the book of Kings), and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are called 1 and 2 Esdras, respectively. Numbering of biblical verses is here generally provided in square brackets, as such numbering was introduced only after the medieval period. Quotations from the Lauda Sion Salvatorem sequence in Wyclif 's text follow the classic English rendering that appears in The Sarum Missal done into English, by A. Harford Pearson (London: The Church Printing Company, 1884). All translations from Wyclif and all other translations from sources other than Wyclif are my own. Where alternative translations of Wyclif 's texts translated here exist, I have identified these alongside the Latin edition I have used.