Resumen En este artículo nos proponemos mostrar que el nacimiento virginal de Jesús se ha constituido, en su sentido dogmático, a partir de una obliteración de la placenta. Para las culturas primitivas, la placenta era considerada un doble o un gemelo del feto. Mostraremos que el peligro de introducir la figura de la placenta en los relatos del nacimiento virginal implicaba la posibilidad de que existiese un doble o un a/ter ego del Salvador. Para nosotros, este doble o gemelo coincide (...) con la figura del Anticristo.This article aims at demonstrating that the virgin birth of Christ has been construed, in its dogmatic sense, based on the obliteration of the placenta. Primitive cultures regarded the placenta as a double or twin of the fetus. We will demonstrate that introducing the placenta into virgin birth narratives dangerously implied the potential of a double or alter ego of the Saviour. In our view, this double or twin brother refers to the Antichrist. (shrink)

: The Hellenistic reception of Babylonian horoscopic astrology gave rise to the question of what the planets really do and whether astrology is a science. This question in turn became one of defining the Greco-Latin science of astronomy, a project that took Aristotle's views as a starting-point. Thus, I concentrate on one aspect of the various definitions of astronomy proposed in Hellenistic times, their demarcation of astronomy and physical theory. I explicate the account offered by Geminus and its subordination of (...) astronomy to arguments made in physical theory about what really is the case. I then show how Ptolemy treats the same topic but maintains that this science is sufficient on its own to determine the realia it studies. In this way, I identify two moments in an obvious process of intellectual change that had profound consequences for the history of astronomy and cosmology over the next 1500 years. My hope is that this will advance our understanding of the reception of horoscopic astrology in Hellenistic times and also serve to locate Ptolemy more fully in his intellectual context. (shrink)

ArgumentThis article is the sequel to an article published in the previous issue ofScience in Contextthat dealt with homeomeric lines (Acerbi 2010). The present article deals with foundational issues in Greek mathematics. It considers two key characters in the study of mathematical homeomery, namely, Apollonius and Geminus, and analyzes in detail their approaches to foundational themes as they are attested in ancient sources. The main historiographical result of this paper is to show thatthere wasa well-establishedmathematicalfield of discourse in “foundations of (...) mathematics,” a fact that is by no means obvious. The paper argues that the authors involved in this field of discourse set up a variety of philosophical, scholarly, and mathematical tools that they used in developing their investigations. (shrink)

In the mid-first century BC Geminus of Rhodes, a scientist and philosopher close to Posidonius, composed a comprehensive Theory of Mathematical Sciences, in the surviving fragments of which the numerous characters are referred to plainly by name, with some of them being namesakes of other, more well-known mathematicians and philosophers. This paper tries to set apart the namesakes of Geminus, of which there are four in his fragments: Theodorus, Hippias, Oenopides, and Menaechmus.

Fabio Acerbi - Il silenzio delle sirene. La matematica greca antica, Roma, Carocci 2010, 448 p. - « Homeomeric Lines in Greek Mathematics », Science in Context 23 (2010), p. 1-37. - « Two Approaches to Foundations in Greek Mathematics: Apollonius and Geminus », Science in Context 23 (2010), p. 151-186. - [avec N. Vinel, B. Vitral], « Les Prolégomènes à l’Almageste. Une édition à partir des manuscrits les plus anciens : Introduction générale, Parties I-III », SCIAMVS 11 (2010), p. (...) 53-210. - « .. (shrink)

ArgumentA Catoptrica attributed to Euclid appears in manuscripts amongst treatises dealing with elementary astronomy. Despite this textual background, the treatise has always been read literally as a theory of mirrors, and its astronomical significance has gone unnoticed. However, optics, catoptrics, and astronomy appear strongly intermingled in sources such as, amongst others, Geminus, Theon of Smyrna, Plutarch and Cleomedes. If one compares the optical reasoning put forward in these sources to account for the formation of moonlight with arguments of Catoptrica, one (...) is able to shed new light on several principles and propositions of Catoptrica, some of which had been deemed corrupt, meaningless, and obscure. Moreover, the present analysis offers a glimpse at the context of a specific stage in the evolution of ancient catoptrics: Whether literally or by analogy, several of its results appear to have been set against a wider astronomical background, which explains the inclusion of Catoptrica in the group of texts loosely defined as “little astronomy.”. (shrink)

Cet article étudie les principales classifications grecques anciennes des sciences mathématiques. Je souligne le rôle joué par Platon dans cette topique.

Fifteen magistrates of the gens Veturia are recorded during the Republicanperiod in our sources; the earliest is C. Veturius Geminus Cicurinus, the consul of 499; the latest is Ti. Veturius B, a monetalis of c. 110–108 B.C. Mommsen thought that the Veturii Calvini were plebeian, as were Veturius the curule aedile of 210, Ti. Veturius Gracchus Sempronianus who became augur in 174, and the monetalis. He considered the other Veturii patrician, and apparently assumed that the gens had two branches, one (...) plebeian and one patrician. Münzer, however, held that the Veturii were patrician, and that it was only T. Veturius Calvinus, cos. 334 and 321, who had become plebeian. He sought to show that all the other supposedly plebeian Veturii were in fact patrician. (shrink)