Language Acquisition for Demons and other Spiritual Entities

(The layout-change and new picture of your, er, friendly blogger are due in part to comments addressed to "Opus" -- a name that, at the risk of dating me, is inextricably connected with Berke Breathed's wonderful Bloom County/Outland/Opus character -- and in part to my innate love of clean lines and quirky colors.  Admit it:  The muted brown tones were a little on the pretentious side.  With any luck, no one will be able to take offense at the writings of a small penguin wearing a Carmen Miranda hat.)

Much of the Western Church celebrates Pentecost today -- the feast of the arrival of the Holy Spirit, as narrated in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.  A significant part of the story is, of course, the disciples' spirit-induced polyglot state:

"All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.  Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 

This -- to Westerners -- familiar text put me in mind of another, far less recognizable one, from the fourth-century Life of Hilarion by Jerome.  This vita -- one of three produced by Jerome and, like its companion pieces, on occasion unintentionally hilarious by virtue of its author's determination to out-do all competitors in the antiquity and impressiveness of his stories.  Part of the story involves Hilarion casting out a demon from a certain Roman military official from Constantius' court  "whose golden hair and personal beauty revealed his country (it lay between the Saxons and the Alemanni, was of no great extent but powerful, and is known to historians as Germany, but is now called France)."  Pursued by a demon, the man seeks out Hilarion, who proceeds to interrogate him:

Immediately on being questioned by the servant of God the man sprang up on tiptoe, so as scarcely to touch the ground with his feet, and with a wild roar replied in Syriac in which language he had been interrogated. Pure Syriac was heard flowing from the lips of a barbarian who knew only French and Latin, and that without the absence of a sibilant, or an aspirate, or an idiom of the speech of Palestine. The demon then confessed by what means he had entered into him. Further, that his interpreters who knew only Greek and Latin might understand, Hilarion questioned him also in Greek, and when he gave the same answer in the same words and alleged in excuse many occasions on which spells had been laid upon him, and how he was bound to yield to magic arts, “I care not,” said the saint, “how you came to enter, but I command you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to come out.” The man, as soon as he was healed, with a rough simplicity offered him ten pounds of gold. But the saint took from him only bread, and told him that they who were nourished on such food regarded gold as mire.

Demons, apparently, are multi-lingual as well, albeit with a preference for Syriac -- and, really, which amongst us would not consent to a little demonic possession if as a result "pure Syriac" could be heard flowing from our lips?! ;)


P.S.:  As part of my non-EC extracurricular activities, I enjoy reading Japanese and Japanese-American fiction.  Accordingly the recent release date of 1Q84 by Murakami has been a red-letter date in my calendar for a while.  No English release date is set yet, but How To Japanese has life-blogged his reading experience!  Wow!

Unwarranted Cynicism.

Sometimes an idea is so compelling, a parallel so enticing, that it sweeps several fields of scholarship like the proverbial wildfire ... leaving a slightly crispy bit of undergrowth and a number of befuddled scholars in its path.  It seems to me that the "Cynic hypothesis" (in its various forms) is an example of such a phenomenon.

I'm not a NT scholar, and as such the "Cynic Jesus" (as endorsed by Burton Mack, J.D. Crossan, and most notably F. Gerald Downing) is largely safe from my critique.  [It nevertheless strikes me that Downing's criteria for spotting a Cynic Christian raises a number of concerns -- as when he argues that Cynics might include “other individuals who espouse a Cynic life-style, if some in the ancient world see them as such, even if others find more significant different facets of their views and allegiance” (Cynics and Christian Origins, p. 55).  This definition rather suggests that anyone whose views bear a “family resemblance” with Cynicism “can be used to illustrate and document what seemed Cynic to near contemporaries in the ancient world” (Ibid.).  For my money, Downing here comes very close to identifying Cynics the way a certain former U.S. Supreme Court Justice defined pornography – he knows one when he sees one.  The usefulness of this criterion for judicial or academic purposes appears dubious. But I disgress.]

The field of Early Christian studies has, however, has not remained entirely free from brushes with Cynic-ism either.  This realization struck me recently when spending a bit of quality time with Augustine's De Opere Monachorum.  The putative recipients of this treatise are a group of Carthaginian monks who distinguish themselves, first by their avoidance of manual labor in favor of a "lilies of the field" lifestyle of begging and otherwise living off the community's good graces and, on the other hand, by their long hair.  (Hair, apparently, is a consistently pressing issue in Carthage, ranging from the un-veiled flowing locks of third-century virgins to the -- still unveiled, still flowing -- locks of fifth century monks.  That's a topic for another entry, however.)

De Opere Monachorum has received attention primarily from two camps of scholars -- those interested in tracing late antique attitudes towards work in general and manual labor in particular, and those preoccupied by the question of the monks' identity and origin.  The latter question is nearer and dearer to my own heart (... and while I'm not in full agreement with him either, thus far Daniel Caner has proposed the most satisfying solution.) Another recent contribution by a serious and highly respectable (... not to mention:  far more brilliant than yours truly ...) scholar, Kenneth Steinhauser, however, involves the identification of these monks with -- Christian Cynics.

Prof. Steinhauser begins his brief contribution with a thoughtful exposition of prior work on  the De Opere Monachorum, including a review of previously raised hypotheses of the monks' identity.  He furthermore identifies six key characteristics that emerge from Augustine's description.  While not all of these characteristics fit the picture (... the in my view essential exegetical preference for gospel-sayings over Pauline dicta, for example, falls by the wayside ...), Steinhauser nevertheless asserts that "[t]he beatnik monks of Carthage are remarkably similar to the ancient Cynic philosophers."  Steinhauser's argument here comes close to Downing's in his reliance upon phenotypical resemblances:  "Cynics did not work.  They wore long hair and a distinctive garb.  They acquired their livelihood begging.  They engaged in various self-debasing practices.  They wandered about the countryside.  They propagated their views in public.  They were social critics. They formed a clique." etc. 

While some of these points require a bit of qualification -- long hair was not, as Steinhauser later concedes, a universal feature of Cynic habitus, and the mention of "self-debasing practices" raises uncomfortable issues in light of the monks' emphasis on humiliation as quasi-penitential ... a distinctly non-Cynic take.  The more serious problem, however, is Steinhauser's subsequent development of his argument by way of three "illustrations from antiquity."  Steinhauser here draws upon Diogenes' "self-sufficiency and independence" -- arguably a parallel with Augustine's monks; Gregory Nazianzen's encomium (an later bitter chastising) of Maximus as a Cynic; and the emperor Julian's (rather unflattering) analogy between monks and Cynics.

On the whole, these similarities fall rather short of being "sufficient ot demonstrate similarities between the Cynic philosophers and the dissident Carthaginian monks" -- and to his credit, Steinhauser notes that a "historical connection between [the two groups] cannot be proved."  By the same token, however, I wonder whether a similar piece (... or, in the case of Downing, similar pieceS ...) would have made their way into the pool of scholarly publication if the referent involved were not such an intriguing, entertaining bunch as the Cynics.  Caught up in the eccentricities of Cynic accounts and anecdotes, it seems that even the most able of scholarly contributors at times set aside cautious discernment in favor of unbridled enthusiasm. 

Such leaps do, of course, frequently move the field forward and as such should not be stifled -- nevertheless, it might be time to shelve Cynicism at least unless and until further evidence arises from the dungheap. 

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"In this paper, I'd like to ..."

Conference season hasn't technically ground into high gear yet, but with bloggers making use of the lazy summer-months (ha!) to prepare their SBL/AAR papers, a few bloggers have been tackling the "to script or not to script" question.  Coming off NAPS, this question is near and dear to my heart, and the diverse and well-formulated opinions of AKMA and Mark Goodacre are fine representative of different schools of paper-presenting.

My confession:  I script.  I know, I know ... the spontaneity, the audience connection, the ability to convey just how well one controls the material -- those are all real benefits, ones I value in others' presentations, and have been taught to value in my own work as well.  Ultimately, however, the decision for me turns on a number of factors, including but not limited to the following:

• How tight is my schedule?  Speakers favored with the attentions of a captive audience -- say, at plenary addresses or church sermons -- have a bit more leeway than contributions to "20-minutes, and once you pass the mark you'll be interrupted and thrown to the vicious glares of the poor sods scheduled to speak after you" panels.  At the risk of sounding as disorganized as I truly am, my ability to extemporate never allows me to hit the mark with quite that precision -- and to impinge upon colleague's time and audiences' good graces seems ... unwise, not to mention in poor form. (Corollary:  What is it people have come to hear -- and if it's not just "your research, you brilliant, sexy beast!," how can I best deliver on what I've implicitly promised my audience?)
  
• How nervous am I likely to be?  Giving a paper before the savage fiends of my local reading group is far less likely to send me grasping for the Beta-blockers than presenting the past year's research to the fifty or sixty leading experts in my field.  (Shout-out to the savage fiends -- you rock, guys!) Even without fear of public speaking, the likelihood of seizing up, babbling incoherently and/or somehow leaving out a little thing like the paper's actual thesis is just too great for my tastes when the kinds of folks who may at some point be amenable to giving me a job.
  
• How can I ameliorate the negative side-effects of reading from a script (or working extemporaneously)?  When working from anything other than a 98%-full script, that means in my case -- tight outline and keeping a timer on hand.  (The stopwatch feature of my iPod touch works nicely.)  When reading my presentation, this means building in breaks at which to establish audience contact, usually when moving from one section to the next, as well as having done a sufficient number of read-throughs to a.) ensure that the text actually flows and b.) annotate the script for inflection, emphasis, breaks, etc.  At a minimum, being prepared rules out the "surprise effect" Mark mentions -- giving the audience the distinct impression that the presenter has never before been confronted with his/her paper. 
  

Of course, in the end, the best laid plans of mice and men (... or, as they say way back home:  Man thinks and God objects! ...)  My much-practiced, reasonably scripted, thoughtfully prepared presentation last weekend fell prey to a Freudian slip of generously sized proportions.  After all those hopes to make myself memorable -- well, careful what you wish for ;)

P.S.:  The "blogging for tenure" conversation continues.  Jim West has weighed in with a somewhat baffling contribution; Goodacre responds here.

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Publishing For Dummies: Blogging as Research/Teaching/Service?

My friend Stephen over at Hypotyposeis has begun an interesting conversation around one of the points raised at NAPS -- come T-Day (... tenure-decision day, that is ...), how should one classify one's assiduous daily or monthly forays into the wonderful world of biblio- (or: patro-)blogging?*  Moreover, how will one's tenure committee regard those efforts in the context of the three crucial rubriks of "research," "teaching," and "service"?

When pressed on this issue, David Brakke of Indiana University noted that, as a department head, he tended to view blogging as "service," alongside committee attendance and similarly stimulating opportunities.  Brakke was quick to note the need for well-informed bloggers writing on the subject of Early Christianity, as well as the ever-changing world of academic publications and tenure decisions.  Given that, at IU and similar institutions (... frequently categorized under the category of R-1 ...) a candidate for tenure needs to achieve an "outstanding" in research, but merely attain to "adequate" standing in teaching and service, the message is nevertheless clear -- keep on blogging, but be prepared for your committee to wonder whether all that time could not have been more productively spent hammering out a couple more articles.

As for the question of where blogging ought to fit into the three-fold scheme, I find myself hard pressed to come up with a blanket answer.  After all, "blog" hardly equals "blog":  While my disquisitions upon the artistic merits of the most recent Star Trek movie may delight all and sundry, I can hardly expect my tenure committee to assess my value to the university on the basis of what I thought of Chris Pine's ass.  A number of long-standing and prolific bloggers keep thus personal and professional blogs alongside one another -- Mark Goodacre's NT Gateway blog and personal family blog being the prime examples thereof. 

Even within the realm of purely academic blogs, moreover, different labels apply.  A blog may thus reflect upon the nature of academic life (... Rate Your Students is just one instance of such a venture ...) without commenting upon a particular field.  Such a blog could easily be qualified as "service," I think, as it provides commentary helpful to the academic community without necessarily advancing the status of scholarship.  Most Biblioblogs, on the other hand, provide a trickeir scenario, and one that benefits from contextualization:  After all, "service" encompasses not only the weighty task of serving as pizza-bringing-chair for the departmental liaisons' support group, but also tasks like writing dictionary entries, authoring longer, commissioned encyclopedia pieces, etc.  While these may qualify as "publications" in the more traditional sense, they nevertheless do not constitute research, in large part because they, by their very nature, are synthetic and regurgitative. 

A number of blogs I read fit this description as well:  They bring together in helpful ways a number of scholarly opinions on a particular subject without inserting too much of the author's own views or original conclusions.  Such blogs provide, I believe, an important service to the academic and lay scholarly community -- as such, categorizing them under "service" is, in my view, perfectly justified.  Other blogs, like Stephen Carlson's, Ed Cook's and Mark Goodacre's offer at the very least a healthy dose of analysis and contribution to scholarship. 

For many bloggers who also happen to be academics, their blogs provide opportunities to "test the waters" before unleashing an idea upon the scholarly community at large by way of a lecture, article or monograph.  As such they foster scholarly dialogue that ultimately improve these bloggers' reasearch and enhance the quality of their publications -- but does that suggest that their efforts should be, effectively, counted twice:  once for the initial floating of ideas/dissemination of data by blog, once for the finished product, the article or conference presentation, added to their CV?  Moreover, why not consider at leats the possibility of categorizing one's blog under "teaching"?  While recognizing that the NT Gateway is somewhat sui generis, its being featured on scores of NT syllabi across the country as an essential resource of students surely ought to give Goodacre credit under that rubric! 

I suspect it's high time that blogs be considered in some form by tenure committees, assuming they meet a certain number of minimum characteristics:  For a blog to blip on the academic radar, it ought to be topical, consistent (... knocking mine right off the list ...), public (... and thus engaging its readers in dialogue of some sort ...), and analytical.  Different institutions will want to add or subtract criteria as they see fit -- a Divinity School or seminary might thus find a confessional blog more palatable than a university. 

As for bloggers who also happen to be readers of Opus Imperfectum -- I'm curious:  Where do you see your own work fitting into the mix?  Research?  Teaching?  Service?  Pleasure?   Do tell.

Update:  Mark Goodacre over at the NT Gateway blog weighs in on the matter as well:  http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/academic-blogging-publication-service.html


* With any luck, patro-blogging will soon take its rightful place in the bloggers' dictionary, right next to biblio-blogging.

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And now for something completely different ...

One of the projects I'm working on intermittently these days is the question of how to distinguish between two closely related concepts -- that of humility, and that of humiliation. The primary difference appears to be in their respective valuation:  Humility is positively coded, at least within a Judaeo-Christian framework, whereas humiliation is quite negatively coded. 

To complicate things, while humility seems to dwell largely within the sphere of "religious thought" -- so much so, that a query for the term in psychology databases brings up largely "pastoral counseling" responses -- whereas humiliation functions as a cross-over term between philosophy, psychology and assorted other disciplines.  Each realm adds different definitional nuances; while it thus makes considerable sense for a philosopher to speak of humiliation as a violation of human dignity, a psychologist might well be leery of importing concepts like the latter into her work. 

One -- quite serviceable -- definition of humiliation comes from a 2007 paper by Peter T. Coleman titled The Privilege of Humiliation:

Humiliation is an emotion, triggered by public events, which evokes a sense of inferiority resulting from the realization that one is being, or has been, treated in a way that departs from the normal expectations for fair and equal human treatment. 

This is a very interiorized definition of humiliation -- indeed one that arguably blurs the definition of "shame" and "humiliation" (... a difference upon which entire dissertations have been composed.)  A slight modification might capitalize on the "public events" qualifier of aforementioned definition: Humiliation is, after all, not only triggered by public events but by the public nature of the humiliating treatment.  Mark A. Jackson in his dissertation thus defines humiliation as being constituted by:

(a) some other actively engaged in exposing some shortcoming or misdeed of the target of humiliation, (b) the target's belief that he or she does not deserve the treatment he or she is getting, and (c) the event occurs in a public situation. 

Jackson's definition gets us closer to the public -- and thus by necessity socially constructed -- nature of humiliation; like Coleman's, however, its central hinge is the experiential character of humiliation.  In other words, no humiliation exists for either Coleman or Jackson unless the humiliated individual is cognizant of and sensitive to the humiliation.  Some attention has been paid -- and rightly so -- to a "humiliation disconnect" when one party without intent to humiliate nevertheless inflicts humiliation upon another.  Given the outward-directed response to humiliation (pace Jackson), the unintentional humiliation of another across cultural or national boundaries is, of course, a particularly precarious potentiality. 

An, I think, somewhat less explored -- because far less problematic -- phenomenon is a scenario where the humiliated party is either insensible to his humiliation or, even more transgressively, is choosing to appropriate his humiliation for a purpose the humiliator deems undesirable.  In other words, while humiliation, like shame, is an effective tool to bring socially deviant behavior back in line, the exploitation of humiliation -- for spiritual, counter-social or even sexual gain -- effectively neutralizes the intended effects of humiliation.

Early Christian literature is, of course, chock-full with examples of the rejection, reinscription and appropriation of humiliation.  The Martyrdom of Polycarp provides an early example.  After Polycarp's betrayal and arrest, he is being transported from the house in which he has been found to the arena.  On the way ...

the police captain Herod and his father Niketas met him and removed him into their carriage, and sat by his side trying to persuade him and saying: "But what harm is it to say, `Lord Caesar,' and to offer sacrifice, and so forth, and to be saved?" But he at first did not answer them, but when they continued he said: "I am not going to do what you counsel me."  And they gave up the attempt to persuade him, and began to speak fiercely to him, and turned him out in such a hurry that in getting down from the carriage he scraped his shin; and without turning round, as though he had suffered nothing, he walked on promptly and quickly, and was taken to the arena, while the uproar in the arena was so great that no one could even be heard.

It strikes me that the narrative here recounts a failed attempt at humiliation:  After persuasion has failed, Herod and Niketas begin to "speak fiercely" to the aged and publicly respected Polycarp and cast him from the carriage -- behaviors that anticipate the later arena's dynamic of cajoling and public shaming.  Both approaches are designed to elicit socially conformist behavior, namely Polycarp's public assent to the imperial cult.  Polycarp's refusal, however, does not merely indicate his resistance to the desired effects of humiliation, but suggests the narrator's intent to convey that Polycarp is uniquely impervious to humiliation itself:  He answers to a higher judge; endeavors to "expose some shortcoming or misdeed" (per Jackson's definition) are singularly ineffective because Polycarp's assessment of what constitutes "shortcoming" is conditioned by a different "social group" altogether.

Later martyr accounts narrate in even more explicit detail Christians' appropriation of public spectacles' intended humiliation for publicity ("the blood of martyrs is seed"), spiritual gain, and even an opportunity to counter-humiliate their audiences:  Paradoxically, humility humiliates.  Much has been written about this phenomenon -- Boyarin's Dying for God and Castelli's Martyrdom and Memory are merely two prominent and incisive examples. '

What intrests me, however, concerns a somewhat later area of Christianity's development, as well as the question of what happens when humility and humiliation are, at least in theory, no longer performed under two divergent scripts (Christian/Pagan, Christian/Jewish, etc.), but when the very same social script (e.g. the canon of the New Testament) is being read by different groups or individuals to encode a particular action in divergent ways.  Who, in short, arbitrates whether an act is humble -- and thus pleasing to God -- or humiliating -- and thus displeasing?  Moreover, what happens in instances when these groups agree upon the humiliating nature of an act, but one endeavors to subvert and appropriate the act's humiliation for their own spiritual or social ends?  And, not least of all, what happens when other social variables, particularly gender, race, status, are being introduced into the equation? 

Inquiring minds would like to know.

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The Two NAPS

Saturday, May 23, marked the end of the 2009 meeting of the North American Patristics Society -- the field's most acronym-challenged organization: While I'm sure we could all use more NAPS in our lives, perhaps a young scholar ought to be leery of publishing her work in the Patristic Monograph Series.

Bad jokes aside, however, the conference is a consistent highlight for scholars of Patristics or Early Christianity: WIth roughly 250-odd attendees, it's not quite the Cheers of the scholarly world ('where everybody knows your name'), but it's close enough: NAPS is much smaller than either AAR or SBL (... nevermind the combination of the two ...) and grad students (or those still aspiring to becoming grad students) can expect to rub elbows with the likes of Dame Avril Cameron, Daniel Boyarin, and Brian Daley. (In at least one respect, NAPS is nevertheless more hierarchal than those larger gatherings -- nametags identify participants as either "DR. John Doe" or, for the un-titled or at least insufficiently titled, merely "John Doe.") With three "plenary addresses" in the course of three days, the conference further capitalizes on a show of unity even as its impressive number of break-out sesion -- 7 and 8 deep for any given time-slot -- attest to the bredth of members' interest.

During one of those break-out sessions -- a fine panel discussion of Patricia Cox Miller's equally fine recent monograph -- one of the audience members nevertheless pointed out that the unity is perhaps a smidgen more precarious than the group's size and collegial spirit might suggest. In short, she -- and for purposes of her point her she-ness is indeed relevant -- noted that there appeared to be "two NAPS" running parallel to one another, remaining largely distinct. Of these, one was colorfully attired, the other primarily tastefully gray, one focused on materiality and sensuality, the other on ontology, one composed of earnest Christian men, the other of a mix of men and women, agnostics and atheists, Christians and Jews, monastics and muslims. In short -- one "patristic" NAPS and one "socio-historical, theoretical" NAPS. And never the twain shall meet.

The latter is, of course, rank exaggeration: The scholar in question would not have been able to point to the disparity between the groups, had she not partaken of one of the "other camp's" sessions herself. On the whole, though, I suspect the comment directed itself at the elephant in the room -- the tensions between those who "do theology." and those who may be grateful that there are others who "do theology," if only because they wouldn't care to touch the topic with a ten-foot diptych.

That NAPS-ers have been reluctant to name the elephant has, I suspect, a lot to do with the recent and infelicitous split between those larger umbrella organizations -- AAR and SBL -- for reasons supposedly similar to those creating divergent entities within NAPS. While, I think, the split has been roundly recognized as unhelpful (not to mention, or so my SBL colleagues tell me, perceived as a kind of coup) and a reunion is on the horizon, the step from recognizing that two kinds of minds dwell in the same body to the initiative to surgically separate the two is a small one indeed.

Intriguingly, the session immediately following the one yielding the insightful comment was a plenary gathering to hear Dame Cameron address the conventioneers. Somewhere towards the very end of her talk, Cameron noted the necessity of theologians remaining in dialogue with historians, historians with textualists, Patristics scholars with medievalists, etc. (... unmentioned, but vital in my view is the addition of -- the whole sorry lot of scholars of late antiquity with Islamicists.)

Cameron's exhortation is, of course, as obviously correct as it is necessary: The field of Early Christian studies has now officially passed out of adolescence in the U.S. (... while still remaining in frustrating infancy in Germany and other parts of Europe ...); accordingly, its necessary period of individuation from all manner Patristic is, perhaps, drawing to an end. I thus find that the best, most incisive young scholars (... Catherine Chin comes to mind ...) are those who navigate as readily within a theological framework as they do within a theoretical one and are as adept at handling liturgical sources as they are with "pagan" philosophical materials.

The generation of scholars immediately below these, the current grad-students and just-barely-out-of-grad-schoolers are coming of age in an academic climate largely devoid of the binaries and syzygies that dominated scholarship as recently as 10-15 years ago -- body/spirit, individual/society, theology/theory are becoming perhaps less obsolete as they are coming to appear interpenetrative, yin-yangs rather than polar opposites. I suspect, then, that this generation can and will substantially revise the currently so obvious (if only haltingly named) elephant in the cozy quarters of NAPS, or even the holy halls of AAR/SBL.

The imperative to do good scholarship does not, of course, go away -- but what it means to do good scholarship and how such a task might be accomplished is changing ... for the betterment of the field, I surmise.