Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic plant mixture used in a ceremonial context throughout western Amazonia, and its use has expanded globally in recent decades. As part of this expansion, ayahuasca has become popular among westerners who travel to the Peruvian Amazon in increasing numbers to experience its reportedly healing and transformative effects. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in and around the area of Iquitos, Peru, the epicenter of ayahuasca tourism, this paper focuses on some of the problematic aspects of western engagement with (...) indigenous spiritual traditions. This engagement is usually based on idealized and romanticized notions of indigenous shamanism and an inability to digest its less palatable aspects, such as sorcery. Through ethnographic examples and ethnohistorical evidence, I show that the romanticization indigenous peoples is not benign. In fact, this one-sided romantic image hides the complexity of indigenous peoples’ situations by erasing the injustices that they have experienced and continue to experience. I propose a more holistic approach to ayahuasca shamanism that views indigenous peoples not living in a fictitious harmony with nature but as people embedded in larger struggles and facing important challenges not the least of which is the recent commercialization of indigenous spirituality. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss how ritual is framed in the context of ayahuasca tourism, using ethnographic data collected in and around Iquitos, Peru. Alluding to a lack of socially sanctioned spaces for altered states of consciousness (ASCs) in western cultures, contemporary seekers flock to the Amazon to participate in ayahuasca ceremonies for an array of reasons, including healing and personal transformation. Taking Gregory Bateson's concept of “framing” as a point of departure, and applying Erving Goffman's frame analysis, I will (...) show that contemporary ayahuasca ceremonies attended by westerners are designed to be liminal, transformative, and meaningful experiences that aim to heal the body through emotional modulation. I will demonstrate how this is achieved through specific discourse that takes place before or during rituals in the form of long speeches delivered by the shamans. This framing not only separates the ritual space as liminal but also frames the way that the experience is conceptualized by the participants, ultimately increasing its meaningfulness. (shrink)

Anastasius of Sinai is best known as a seventh century monk, theologian, and presbyter, whose writings defended the Chalcedonian creed, explored the union of God and humanity, and supported his congregation's faith after the Moslem invasion of Egypt. His Hexaemeron reveals yet another facet of his work: that of biblical scholarship. In this extensive commentary on the creation account of Genesis, Anastasius compares and discusses several Greek translations of the biblical text. Thus he becomes for us an important (...) source of information about the Septuagint and other Greek translations of the Bible circulating during the Byzantine Period, especially those incorporated by Origen into the Hexapla. The Hexaemeron also raises some possibilities about the early library at Sinai and invites a comparison with the famous Codex Sinaïticus. (shrink)

The luminaries of late thirteenth-century Europe took great interest in the mysterious fifth-century author known as Dionysius the Areopagite. They typically read Dionysius not in the original Greek, but in a Latin edition prepared sometime in the middle of the thirteenth century. This edition, which appeared first in Paris and later circulated all over Western Europe, was no mere translation. In addition to the famous translation made by Eriugena in the ninth century, it contained translations of scholia on the Dionysian (...) texts made by Anastasius the Librarian, alternative readings provided by Anastasius and other Latin readers, as well as excerpts from Eriugena's own theological masterwork, the Periphyseon. University scholars such as Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas thus learned Dionysian mystical theology not only from his text, but from the seven-hundred year interpretive tradition that literally surrounded it on the page. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Millennium Jahrgang: 14 Heft: 1 Seiten: 103-150.

Urbicius' Epitedeuma is a short pamphlet offering military advice during the reign of the emperor Anastasius (491–518). Although it is included in some of the manuscripts of Maurice's Strategikon, it was not printed by Dennis and Gamillscheg in their recent edition. The only modern text we know of was published by Mihăescu in his 1970 edition of Maurice's Strategikon, along with a Romanian translation. The next most recent text of Urbicius is in Scheffer's 1664 edition. Furthermore, the most easily (...) accessible English discussion of Urbicius, in PLRE 2, contains several errors. Here we present an introduction to, a text and English translation of, and commentary on, this neglected work. (shrink)

The recent edition, established in 2005 by Giuseppina Matino, of the Panegyricus on Emperor Anastasius by Procopius from Gaza gives the opportunity to discuss about the ecdotical methods until now adopted for the constitutio textus of Procopian works. The errors present in the Italian translation show the complexity of the text often rich in images and figures.

Among other recent attempts to correct what he takes to be Cameronian misconceptions, Barry Baldwin has reopened the question of a difficult passage in the panegyric to Anastasius the quaestor prefaced to Corippus' In laudem Iustini. His discussion perfectly correctly emphasizes the fragility of our knowledge of Corippus' life and background, but unfortunately it introduces certain misconceptions itself which make a rejoinder inescapable, especially since new arguments may be adduced.

Im sogenannten Necrologium imperatorum des Chronikon Altinate findet sich folgende Notiz: Mense iunii, primo die, Arthemius, qui et Anastasius dictus est, ex imperio a Theodosio Adramitinum exilatus est in Saloniky, et ipse Theodosius a Leo sabro capite truncatus est, et post tempus modicum allatum est corpus eius ab Chirini Augusta et sepultum est imperaliter in templo Sanctorum Apostolorum, in sacrario Magni Iustiniani, in pila prassino. regnavit ann..II. - Der Einschub, wonach jener Theodosios, der Anastasios II. Artemios 715 abgesetzt und (...) zur Flucht nach Thessaloniki veranlaßt hatte, durch Leon III. Isauros geköpft worden sei, ist falsch: Hingerichtet wurde, wie wir von Nikephoros wissen, Anastasios zusammen mit dem Erzbischof von Thessaloniki, und zwar am 1. Juni 717 im Kynegion. Hingegen hatte Theodosios III. 717 die Kaiserwürde abgelegt und war Kleriker in Ephesos geworden (s.u.); das Necrologium imperatorum widmet ihm gleichwohl einen eigenen Abschnitt. P. Speck hat zu Recht vermutet, daß die oben zitierte Stelle korrupt ist und hier ein Abschreibfehler vorliegt. (shrink)

This article aims to assess Anastasius of Sinai’s usage of ancient Chris-tian sources in the Hexaemeron. Close and thorough examination of his quotations from Justin Martyr, Ireneaus of Lyon, Methodius of Olympus and Eustathius of Antioch reveals that, apart from Methodius, the citations have no analogy to any of their works. On the contrary, the cited opinions appear either to have come from different authors, or to have been faked, in toto or in part, by Anastasius. The reason (...) for such a forgery lies in Anastasius’s attempt to rehabilitate the allegorical interpretation of Gen. 1-3, without being accused of Origenism. Anastasius’s witness to the ancient exegetical tradition is proven to be deliberately misleading, and therefore should not be taken at face value. (shrink)

The Bhagavadgītā is often considered the holiest text of Hinduism. It was commented by a legion of commentators, and a number of philologists, starting with Wilhelm von Humboldt, tried to establish the layers of its text, which shows traces of several redactions. Some scholars noticed some seams in the text correctly, and some came close to a general picture of the text history. On the other hand, many scholars were discouraged by the uncertainties in the investigation of the text history (...) and preferred to interpret the Gītā as an indivisible whole. However, between the 1970s and 2009, it was possible to come to very precise results concerning the textual layers of the Bhagavadgītā, which were internationally largely accepted since ca. 2000. These results imply that, over time, views of several philosophical systems were incorporated into the poem, as well as polemics with different doctrines. The teachings and exhortations conveyed by the poem are very synthetic and innovative because they are derived from a very complex set of premises. These results of text analyses have been, on the one hand, accepted by a number of prominent scholars worldwide, but, on the other hand, fiercely contested by some Western post-modernist scholars of religion and by some scholars of Indian origin sensibilised negatively against Western scholarship. What they lack in their reading of the Bhagavadgītā can best be made clear by means of the comparison with a visitor to an artistic monument of a religious character, which underwent centuries of modifications, like the Split cathedral. If such a visitor considered that the sanctity and artistic credibility of a monument depended on its being completely constructed at one stroke by a single architect with a single conception, he would miss the complex, sometimes even polemical, rich and impressive way in which such a monument conveys its messages. This is the fruit of the long and complex history of the Split cathedral, that was first built as the mausoleum of a Roman emperor, and later turned into the church consecrated to his victims, passing thereafter through many subsequent modifications and ‘reinterpretations’. In the history of art, such prejudices are not as common as they are in the study of sacred texts. That is why a suitable example of a monument having religious character, like the Split cathedral of the Assumption of Virgin Mary, also consecrated to Diocletian’s victims Domnius and Anastasius, can best illustrate how we should understand a literary monument of a religious and philosophical character, like the Bhagavadgītā, which underwent a comparably complex history. (shrink)

The Gelasian letter, Famuli uestrae pietatis, addressed to Emperor Anastasius I (491-518), is famous for the so-called theory of two powers that has enjoyedconsiderable fortune and has received continual attention in the history and thought of the Latin West in view of its arguments about the relationshipbetween the Church and secular power. Scholars have been primarily interested in the Wirkungsgeschichte of the letter. Less frequently studied is the letter's specific religious context, characterized by the Acacian schism (484- 519), the (...) dispute between the episcopal sees of Rome and Constantinople. This article seeks to situate this document from the late fifth-century Roman pontifical chancery in its specific historical and ecclesial context, and to provide a commentary on the entire letter. A brief, final chapter offers a synthetic excursus on the immediate reception of the text in the Early Middle Ages before the Gregorian Reform. (shrink)

Cassiodorus, Jordanes, Ennodius and Marcellinus Comes offer quite different accounts of the battle between Ostrogoths and imperial troops which took place at Horreum Margi in 505. A careful study of these sources indicates that Theoderic and Anastasius were uneasy when mentioning the respective allies and that they both tried to hide the other’s involvement in the conflict. Ennodius’ mention of discordia is very important to understand both the causes and the consequences of Horreum Margi. In fact, Anastasius attacked (...) an ally of Theoderic in order to show that the king was not willing to come to the rescue of his foederati. The Ostrogothic quick reaction led to an unforeseen conflict and opened a period of tense relations between Ravenna and Constantinople, whose end, a few years later, was sealed by Cassiodorus’ first letter, a document centered on the concept of concordia. (shrink)

Among the many codices carried by Cassiodorus when he returned to Italy from Constantinople in the early 550s was a copy of the chronicle of Marcellinus, an Illyrian who had lived for many years in Constantinople before writing his chronicle in A.D. 518/519. The chronicle covered events from 379 to the death of Anastasius and was later continued by Marcellinus to 534.1 That the chronicle is preserved at all is due partly to the fact that Cassiodorus recommended it in (...) his reading guide for monks, the Institutiones, where it is included under the heading ‘Christian Historians’. If you want to know which chroniclers to read, says Cassiodorus, then begin with Jerome's translation of Eusebius and his own continuation of Eusebius to 378. Of all the continuators of Jerome Cassiodorus recommends Marcellinus and Prosper, but in mentioning Marcellinus he digresses slightly to include some valuable and unique information which he had picked up while in Constantinople on Marcellinus' public career. (shrink)

The medieval fascination with the mysterious language of Dionysius the Areopagite is nowhere more evident than in the thirteenth-century textbook edition of his treatise on liturgical rites. Dionysius employed unfamiliar Greek to describe people, actions, and texts that would have been perfectly familiar to his readers. The Latin translation used in the thirteenth-century textbook strives to preserve this unfamiliarity, but commentaries are introduced between its lines and paragraphs, disrupting its ability to bewilder and surprise. These commentaries make the Dionysian text (...) less mysterious, while also slightly altering its meaning. In the hands of the commentators, Dionysius becomes less interested in the aesthetic mystery of the liturgy, and more interested in credal orthodoxy. To read text and commentary together is to confront seven hundred years of competing voices speaking on the nature and purpose of the Christian church. (shrink)