In the Eudemian Ethics II 1, 1219a34–b8, Aristotle defines happiness as ‘the activity of a complete life in accordance with complete virtue’. Most scholars interpret a complete life as a whole lifetime, which means that happiness involves virtuous activity over an entire life. This article argues against this common reading by using Aristotle’s notion of ‘activity’ (energeia) as a touchstone. It argues that happiness, according to the Eudemian Ethics, must be a complete activity that reaches its end at any and (...) every moment. The upshot of this reading is that life reaches completeness within a lifetime and that death cannot be the requirement for making life complete. (shrink)

This paper is a revised version of the essay that won the Zapffe Prize in 2017. -/- In «The Last Messiah» and On the tragic, Peter Wessel Zapffe suggests that humankind should cease to reproduce, as the meaning of life cannot be found and human life at its best is tragic. The theory has been criticized for assuming that the meaning of life must be explained by an external cause and implicitly asks for an infinite causal chain. In this paper, (...) I argue that it is possible to escape this critique by adding a new element to the definition of the tragic: namely, the insight that the tragic cannot come into existence if the subject does not demonstrate its greatness. Precisely because a human, on Zapffe’s understanding, must prove its brilliance if tragedy is to arise, I argue that the tragic cannot be devoid of meaning. In contrast, the individual seems to be provided with a tragic meaning of life, rather than being deprived of it. Furthermore, the new definition of the tragic affects Zapffe’s antinatalism, because a tragic meaning of life does not necessitate that humankind should cease to reproduce. Yet, the definition does not suggest that humans should reproduce either. Instead, it confronts us with the following question: Should one bring new life into the world, when the meaning of life only can be found in the tragic? (shrink)

In Poetics 13, Aristotle claims that the protagonist in the most beautiful tragedies comes to ruin through some kind of ‘failure’—in Greek, hamartia. There has been notorious disagreement among scholars about the moral responsibility involved in hamartia. This article defends the old reading of hamartia as a character flaw, but with an important modification: rather than explaining the hero's weakness as general weakness of will (akrasia), it argues that the tragic hero is blinded by temper (thumos) or by a pursuit (...) for fine, good and desirable things—that is, by what may be labelled ‘qualified’ weakness of will. The upshot is that hamartia ends up as being less blameworthy than ‘proper’ akrasia, but still explains why morally outstanding people are unsuitable for the most beautiful tragedies. (shrink)

In the last few decades there has been no more controversial a papal document than that of 'Amoris Laetitia'. The controversy revolves around divorce, in particular allowing the divorced and remarried, with no annulment, to communicate at the Eucharist.1 The critics of 'Amoris' argue that Pope Francis, under the claim to be exercising mercy, is effectively undermining the truths of the faith. The defence of 'Amoris', however, is that in answer to the exigencies of the time mercy is being applied (...) in such a way that it develops the truths of the faith and expands their reach and pastoral application. It is clear from the New Testament itself that from the very beginning of the church the issue of how grace operates to extend the reach and application of God's mercy is one that has given rise to much dispute and even division. It is a process that prompts reflection upon theological givens, and the disputes that arise are occasioned by the question: Is the development that flows from this reflection one of an organic continuity, or is it instead a corrupt imposition? It is no exaggeration to say that this is exactly what is at issue today in respect of 'Amoris'. (shrink)

The Petrine-Pushkinian era lasted no more than two hundred years. It originated at the Battle of Poltava, where Russian troops first showed themselves not just equal to the Swedes, who were otherwi...

Review of Vinje, H. (2022). Complete Life in the Eudemian Ethics. Apeiron, 26(2), 299-323.

This reflection on the Petrine Ministry is being made freely available to students during this ongoing pandemic of COVID 19. This very brief essay seeks to understand the meaning of the title of the eponymous novel by Graham Greene.

The essay is a response to an invitation to offer reflections on Richard Lennan’s recent book Tilling the Church for a panel at the annual gathering of the Karl Rahner Society. It situates the work within the distinctive spiritual and intellectual heritage shared by Karl Rahner, Pope Francis, and Lennan’s scholarly community and vocational home at Boston College, namely by reading it through an intentionally Ignatian lens. The review overlays the volume’s ecclesiological explorations with reference to the Spiritual Exercises and (...) to the contours of the current emphasis or re-emergence of the Ignatian tradition on a global stage given the last eleven years and the unique pulpit they provide via the Petrine Office. The piece argues that the adaptability and flexibility of the Ignatian heritage finds profound and lasting resonance with Lennan’s recent project and hopeful agenda. (shrink)

The correctness of application of orientalist discourse of E. Said to the colonial policy of the Russian Empire is analyzed in the article on the example of P. I. Rychkov research. By studying integration of Bashkirs in the structure of the Russian state, the author came to the conclusion that Russia’s policy in the East was based on the experience of the management of non-Russian peoples, which was developed in the 16-17th centuries. The establishment of ‘cultural distance‘ is typical only (...) for a small group of educated administrators of past-Petrine era. Most of the officials of the region, as in the preceding period, and during the time of Rychkov and Tatishchev preferred to rely on traditional methods of Bashkir management, which was developed in the period of their voluntary accession. Managerial stereotypes of 16-17th centuries, had significant influence on policy towards South-Eastern peoples of Russia even in the 19th century. The Russian administration inherent in the desire to integrate the non-Russian peoples in the General class structure of the state on the basis of analogies or correspondences, the objective of which was social and cultural rapprochement of the two societies. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present the way in which the Nicholas of Cusa understands the nature, scope and limits of papal power in the two considerations of the Priesthood in De concordantia catholica. Thus, the treatment of the Petrine office is presented separately from a monarchical perspective and from a conciliarist one. This will make it possible to clarify some common problems among the interpreters of the political thought of Nicolás de Cusa that affect the coherence (...) of the ecclesiological project. (shrink)

Alain Lévêque, né en 1942 à Paris, est l'auteur notamment de Bonnard, la main légère (Deyrolle Editeur/L'Arbre voyageur, 1994 ; Verdier, 2006), et le préfacier des Observations sur la peinture de Pierre Bonnard, parues aux éditions L'Atelier contemporain en 2015. Il faut miser pour voir. Savoir jouer, ruser, cacher, mais aussi dévoiler son jeu, s'attendre à perdre, à gagner, réfléchir, avoir des coups de tête, de la chance, se recueillir, tout dépenser. Ne pas retenir quelques mots bien au chaud pour (...) l'hiver, dans son bas de laine pour les temps de disette. Tout dépenser. Il faut à chaque fois écrire toutes voiles dehors, au risque de se trouver fort dépourvu quand la bise n'est pas venue. Je ne connais rien de plus difficile que ces commandes d'un " petit texte " pour une exposition de peinture, le travail d'un sculpteur. Car jamais de moi-même je n'irais me fourrer dans pareil pétrin (encore qu'il est tentant de mettre ses mains dans la pâte qui finira par s'échauffer et lever, mais c'est une autre histoire). Il s'agit qu'on m'invite à jouer, et si le jeu est engageant, je ne peux m'empêcher de dire chiche et de jouer à perdre haleine, me fiant à l'excitation, à l'emportement, et croisant les doigts pour qu'à la fin je puisse enlever le bandeau que j'ai sur les yeux et reconnaître ce que j'ai cru toucher. Ecrire pour voir. Est-ce écrire en regard du tableau? On peut bien écrire quelques mots dans un carnet devant le tableau, il ne s'agit jamais d'un tête-à-tête. Le tableau a une et même plusieurs longueurs d'avance. Qu'il soit peint comme de toute éternité et ne demande rien à personne crève les yeux. Le tableau est immobile, cela crève aussi les yeux, on ne peut pourtant pas le fixer. Ecrire dans son carnet oblige à baisser les yeux. Lorsqu'on les relève, le tableau a détalé. On envoie des mots en éclaireur. L'ensemble des textes écrits par Maryline Desbiolles (parus pour la plupart dans des catalogues ou revues, ou inédits) sur l'art, autour de l'art, à partir de l'art est ici réuni : une première partie rassemble les approches les plus réflexives sur la création ; dans le second chapitre les textes s'articulent autour de deux thématiques chères à l'auteur : l'Italie, la cuisine ; le troisième chapitre réunit les essais et poèmes consacrés aux sculptures de Bernard Pagès ; sont ensuite regroupés les essais consacrés à des artistes ou des oeuvres ; le volume se clôt enfin sur des oeuvres de fiction dont l'élément déclencheur de l'écriture fut la fréquentation d'oeuvres plastiques. L'ensemble des textes a été revu en prévision de cet ouvrage, tout autant essai sur l'art qu'oeuvre littéraire. (shrink)

We consider the history of logic in pre-Petrine. Petrine. and immediate post-Pctrine Russia (from the 15th to the mid-18th centuries) and especially of the Petrine era from the late 17th to early 18th century. Throughout much of this time, the clergy evinced strong hostility towards logic. Nevertheless, a small number of academics and clerics such as Stefan Iavorskii and Fcofan Prokopovich kept Aristotelian logic alive during this period and provided the foundation for its development in the modern (...) era. (shrink)

This paper explores conflations of martyrdom, spectatorship, and image theory in Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of St. Peter (1601). It argues that Caravaggio employs an “iconic” visual formula as a response to the pressures of a post-Tridentine poetics. Through these strategies, an iconography of immediacy and presence is paired with a sacrificial subject-matter. This merging united witness and visual experience in the shape of the sacred image. Martyrdom, as both a historical and representational phenomenon of early modern sociality and culture, invoked the (...) act of spectatorship. In connecting the Crucifixion of St. Peter with the cultural and aesthetic paradigms of post-Tridentine Italy, the article argues that Caravaggio’s image re-imagines the codes of iconic repre­sentation. While not a novel academic context for Caravaggio scholarship, I will read this image less as the expression of stylistic tensions in the Roman artworld than as the result of overlapping frameworks—martyrdom, Petrine iconography, and a Counter-Reformation aesthetic. Reenergized as part of the visual rhetoric of Tridentine politics, the icon reflected a new propensity for paleochristian cultural revival. Discussing both the contextual pressures of this new aesthetic regime as well as intertwining it with the increasing presence of Catholic image treatises, the article suggests an “iconic” space for reading Caravaggio’s Crucifixion. This “iconic” framework is built into the charged discourse surrounding the image itself. (shrink)

Cooper Foley a le chic pour se mettre dans le pétrin. Malheureusement, a n'est jamais préparé à ce qu'il va vivre : il se retrouve entre la vie et ta mort, en plein milieu d'une guerre qui pourrait bien entraîner la destruction de ta Route de Morphée, et du monde tel que nous le connaissons. D'où vient ce Fossoyeur qui ne cesse de harceler Marsh? Est-ce des fantômes qui le hantent, ou la vérité est-elle plus incroyable encore? Comment Cooper peut-il (...) revenir d'entre les morts? Et cette fameuse hallebarde que convoite Damon? Il est temps pour les deux garçons de déjouer les mystères et de résoudre encore des énigmes. Après le succès de la saga internationale de Bobby Pendragon, D.J. MacHale s'attaque cette fois à la génération au-dessus. Dans la deuxième aventure de Morpheus Road, il entraîne le lecteur à résoudre une nouvelle série de mystères, aux côtés de Marshall et Cooper, deux inséparables. (shrink)

Cooper Foley a le chic pour se mettre dans le pétrin. Malheureusement, a n'est jamais préparé à ce qu'il va vivre : il se retrouve entre la vie et ta mort, en plein milieu d'une guerre qui pourrait bien entraîner la destruction de ta Route de Morphée, et du monde tel que nous le connaissons. D'où vient ce Fossoyeur qui ne cesse de harceler Marsh? Est-ce des fantômes qui le hantent, ou la vérité est-elle plus incroyable encore? Comment Cooper peut-il (...) revenir d'entre les morts? Et cette fameuse hallebarde que convoite Damon? Il est temps pour les deux garçons de déjouer les mystères et de résoudre encore des énigmes. Après le succès de la saga internationale de Bobby Pendragon, D.J. MacHale s'attaque cette fois à la génération au-dessus. Dans la deuxième aventure de Morpheus Road, il entraîne le lecteur à résoudre une nouvelle série de mystères, aux côtés de Marshall et Cooper, deux inséparables. (shrink)

This article will examine Bellarmine’s first anti–conciliarist work, found in the Disputationes de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos, emphasizing his theological treatment of the pope’s authority relative to the authority of a council and his repudiation of conciliarism. Bellarmine sees the conciliarists as attacking the divinely instituted Petrine structure of the Church. He does not advocate for an absolute papal monarchy in which there are no ‘constitutional’ limitations on the papacy. For Bellarmine, Christ and his Word, as (...) found in Sacred Scripture and Apostolic Tradition, have supreme authority in the Church: one which the magisterium, whether papal or conciliar, must accept in humility and pass on unsullied. Only Christ has a true fullness of power; the pope has a fullness only relative to that of the bishops. Nevertheless, Christ immediately instituted the pope as the supreme head of the Church on earth, and as such, the pope has supreme ecclesiastical power over the whole Church on earth. Lastly, the article examines Bellarmine’s position on papal heresy. (shrink)

From its very beginning, Pope Francis’s Petrine ministry has been full of surprises and he has been a man of contradictions. He has given hope to many, Christians, other believers, and secular humanists, especially with his pastoral approach of mercy, but he has also met with fierce opposition, even among the upper echelon of the hierarchy, some of whom have publicly attacked his orthodoxy and called for his resignation. In his teachings on evangelization, marriage and sexuality, ecology, and social (...) friendship, Francis has opened new paths and challenged the church to make visible the merciful face of God to the world.On interreligious dialogue, the pope, as to be expected, has largely reiterated the teachings of Vatican II and so far has not issued an apostolic exhortation or encyclical on the subject. Consistent with his pastoral outlook he has emphasized the socio-political and cultural aspects of interreligious dialogue and has largely avoided still controverted doctrinal issues. On the other hand, his friendship with many non-Christian leaders and his several obiter dicta have enlarged the interreligious horizon and opened the door for further explorations in the theology of religion and the scope of the interreligious encounter. His explicit acknowledgment of non-Christian religions as “channels” of the Holy Spirit hints at their role as ways of salvation not only for their adherents but also in certain ways for Christians. Furthermore, the four principles of Francisian metaphysics suggest novel and effective ways of conducting interreligious dialogue. (shrink)

The article starts with the Catholic and ecumenical reception of the invitation of Ut Unum Sint to establish a fraternal and patient dialogue in order to «find a way of exercising the primacy, which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation» . It concludes with the proposal of ordo communionis primatus, the order of communion of primacy, where one would more formally distinguish between «habitual and daily» exercise of primacy (...) and the extraordinary and ultimate Petrine ministry in the Church. The hope is this «new situation» may provide a complete realisation of the ardent prayer of Jesus, which indeed is the title of the encyclical Ut Unum Sint, «that all may be one». (shrink)

The relationship between the universal and the particular church was the subject of a comprehensive public debate between two German bishop theologians, namely Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper. The debate was initially occasioned by an official document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the church as communion . The debate has clearly exposed ecclesiology’s complexities and tensions. Ratzinger taps biblical and theological sources in order to valorise unity or universality in an era of farreaching pluralisation. (...) His argumentation culminates in an endeavour to counter unilateral and horizontal ecclesiologies with an axiomatic ‘ontological and temporal primacy of the universal church over the particular churches’. Kasper recognizes genuine dangers in the one-sided ‘horizontalisation’ and fragmentation of ecclesiology. Rooted in his pastoral and oecumenical experience, he is of the opinion that the theological space created by Vatican II for the particular churches and the diocesan bishops should be claimed to the full. He detects a centralistic deformation of Vatican II in Ratzinger’s axiom. For Ratzinger Kasper’s standpoint can be the first step in an empirical reduction of ecclesiology. In this contribution, I have tried to demonstrate that Kasper’s ecclesiological perspective cannot be suspected of ‘de-theologisation’. Indeed, ‘re-theologisation’ can be understood as the central theme of his theology. The problem of determining the relationship between the universal church and the particular churches is given concrete form in the problem of determining the relationship between the office of bishop, the college of bishops in union with the pope, and the Petrine office. Kasper’s insistence on a legitimate degree of latitude for diocesan bishops does not imply that his goal is to decentralise the Petrine office both theologically and pastorally. At a certain moment in the debate, both theologians recognized that their differing perspectives were more a matter of theological opinion than of essential doctrinal conflict. Their mutual support of the idea of the ‘priority of internal unity’ is a crucial and unmistakable key concept for the correct understanding of the debate. (shrink)

Developments among Lutherans and Catholics since the Reformation have had positive as well as negative effects, as secularism has offered the same challenge to both. In their answers to this challenge, both have renovated their reading of the Scriptures and they have taken a new look at their specific traditions. But Catholic spirituality has accented aspects of anthropology and of ecclesiology which Lutherans find particularly hazardous. The ecumenical agreements arrived at over the last twenty years, on baptism, eucharist, ministry, and (...) the Petrine office, have led to a recent agreement on justification. This has overcome in principle the dilemma of the 16th century. It remains to draw its implications for the piety of the faithful as well as for the Church’s life and theology in general. This is the second in a two-part study of justification, the earlier part of which was published in Vol. 1#3. (shrink)

Developments among Lutherans and Catholics since the Reformation have had positive as well as negative effects, as secularism has offered the same challenge to both. In their answers to this challenge, both have renovated their reading of the Scriptures and they have taken a new look at their specific traditions. But Catholic spirituality has accented aspects of anthropology and of ecclesiology which Lutherans find particularly hazardous. The ecumenical agreements arrived at over the last twenty years, on baptism, eucharist, ministry, and (...) the Petrine office, have led to a recent agreement on justification. This has overcome in principle the dilemma of the 16th century. It remains to draw its implications for the piety of the faithful as well as for the Church’s life and theology in general. This is the second in a two-part study of justification, the earlier part of which was published in Vol. 1#3. (shrink)

Decolonisation of theology can be undertaken by engaging African proverbs and idioms. Pentecostalism, although the African Christian phenomenon is exploding, also needs to be decolonised in order to break itself of the western shackles of stereotyping Christianity as a western civilisation. The historical development of Pentecostalism, highlighting the heresies that invaded it, is examined, expanded and explained to support the notion that, indeed, the Setswana proverb: Maši ke phepa ke le nosi, selabe se tla le motsaya kgamelo, is a powerful (...) tool to show that Pentecostal faith in its original form was unadulterated, but that the misunderstandings were brought along by certain Pentecostal teachers. The hermeneutical principle of inculturation is referred to as a way of justifying the usage of African proverbs in order to express and simplify theological concepts. Exegesis of 1 Peter 2:2 is undertaken to make an appeal that Pentecostal theology cannot be thrown out as it is a pure milk to be desired for spiritual maturity. This Petrine text is referred to as a basis that doctrinal purity within Pentecostalism should be a goal to be desired. The original Pentecostal initiative has been historically invaded and tinted by dissenting voices promoting some questionable beliefs and practices; however, its originality remains evangelically and fundamentally oriented. CONTRIBUTION: This article contributes towards the journal's vision of multidisciplinary theological perspective using hermeneutical studies and the literature to express the truth experienced in a context but embedded within a text. The article also contributes to the ongoing discourse on decolonisation of theology, especially within the Pentecostal Christianity. (shrink)