God’s names…

YHWH

 

YHWH is a Greek four-letter-word used by the Early Christian Church ‘for the four Hebrew symbols which represent the name of God’. In Hebrew, they are described as ‘Yod, Heh, Vav and Heh’.

Although the ‘Hebrews did not write down vowels… it is generally now reckoned that the name had two of them and was “Yahweh”’.

Yahweh, the God, introduced himself with this name when he was asked by Moses (i.e., Exodus 3:14, ‘And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM’). In general, it is said that the Hebrew ‘Yahweh’ could be translated to ‘He Who Is’, ‘The One That Exist’ or ‘”Made-Maker”, that is, “maker of all made things”’.

 

Originally, it is said that the name ‘Yahweh’ appeared ‘more than 6,800 times in the Hebrew Bible’. However, ‘in later years the Jews started to custom of never saying the name aloud’, probably due to a ‘strict interpretation of God’s commandment not to take his name in vain’. (i.e., Exodus 20:7, ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain’).

Therefore, the Jews began to use alternative words such as ‘Elohim’ and ‘Adonai’, ‘which are normally translated as “God” and “The Lord”’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3477909).

 

As for its meaning, it is also said that the word Yahweh ‘is an imperfect form of the archaic Hebrew verb’ that means ‘to be’. More precisely, the word is ‘the abbreviated forms of the imperfect, the participle, and the perfect of the Hebrew verb "to be" (ye=yehi; ho=howeh; wa=hawah)’. In this explanation, the meaning of the name ‘would be "he who will be, is, and has been"’ (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08329a.htm).

 

Finally, the name Jehovah, ‘which appeared first among Christian scholars of the late Middle Ages’ consists of a mixture of ‘the four consonants of YHWH (JHWH in German) with the vowels of Adonai’. Therefore, it is said that ‘Modern biblical scholars, however, generally dismiss Jehovah as a misreading (or mispronunciation)’ (http://www.bibletopics.com/BIBLESTUDY/154.htm).

 

Reference:

 

l        Books

Ivy Books (ed.) (1991), The Holy Bible, King James Version

Ballantine Books, New York

 

l        Internet

 

BBC – h2gs (2005), The Tetragrammation (accessed 30/01/2010)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3477909

 

The Bible Study (year unknown), From Adonai to Yahweh – A Glossary of God’s Names (accessed 30/01/2010)

 http://www.bibletopics.com/BIBLESTUDY/154.htm

 

Knight, Kevin (2009) Jehovah (Yahweh) – Meaning of the Divine Name, The New Advent – Catholic Encyclopedia (accessed 30/01/2010)

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08329a.htm

Who’s who? – André Masson

André Masson

 

Below is a summarised biography of André Masson, French painter and graphic artist. Quotes except for indicated ones are all taken from ‘art dictionary’.

 

André Masson ‘was born in Balagny, a village on Ile de France’, in 1896.

In 1904, he ‘moved to Brussels where he attended the academy of fine arts’.

In 1912 he went to Paris, where he ‘was admitted to the Paul Baudoin studio at the “Ecole National Superieure des Beaux-Arts”’

 

The World War I broke out and he became a soldier, however, in 1917, ‘he was severely injured and spent several months in an army hospital’.

• As for his motive for joining to the army, Ries argues that ‘he wanted to experience "the Wagnerian aspects of battle" and know the ecstasy of death’ (2002).

In 1922, he returned to Paris and ‘his art was influenced by André Derrain and Cubism’.

‘A little later he met the Surrealist artists and subsequently joined the movement in 1924. In 1925 the first surrealist exhibition took place in the Pierre gallery, including some of Masson’s works’. However, he left the group five years later ‘In protest against Breton’s authoritarian claim to leadership’.

• As for his relationship with André Breton and the Surrealism, it is also described in the following way: ‘He joined the emergent Surrealist group in the mid-1920s after one of his paintings had attracted the attention of the movement’s leader, André Breton. Masson soon became the foremost practitioner of automatic writing, which, when applied to drawing, was a form of spontaneous composition intended to express impulses and images arising directly from the unconscious’ (Encyclopaedia Britannica)..

Being influenced by the Surrealism, he began to use a method called automatic script, attempting ‘to explore the depths of the irrational and the psychological roots of art’.

It is also said that ‘His focus on lines and the free decription of shapes in his graphic works reflect his study of eastern Asian calligraphy’. Simultaneously, some argues that ‘Most of the time an orderly Cubist structure can still be found behind the spontaneity and the passionate emotions of the pictures’.

 

In 1942, he ‘fled to the USA before the Nazi occupation of France’ and returned to Paris in 1945, after the World War II.

He died in 1987.

 

Reference:

Author unknown (year unknown), André Masson – biography, art dictionary (accessed 28/01/2010)

http://www.andre-masson.com/

 

Encyclopaedia Britannica Online (2010), André Masson (accessed 28/01/2010)

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/368615/Andre-Masson

 

Ries, Martin (2002), André Masson: ‘The Ecstasy of Discontent’ Art e Dossier, vol.XVII, no.176, Florence, Italy (accessed 28/01/2010)

http://www.martinries.com/article2002AM2.htm

Introduction to Alchemy

Alchemy

 

This topic could be conceived as somewhat fishy occult or mysticism. Generally, a term alchemy is recognised by following stereotypes below:

 

l        ‘Romanticised view of the venerable old alchemical philosopher huddling over his flasks of bubbling liquid immersed in his quest for the elusive philosophers’ stone, a mere grain of which will change a mass of molten lead into the purest form of gold’.

l        ‘Alchemists were mysterious adepts belonging to some secret society and exchanging messages in a coded form. They were even seen as having paranormal powers which enabled them to do all sorts of magical things and live to an extreme old age’.

 

In addition to such stereotypical views, it is said that alchemy has been developed from multifaceted subjects including:

(1) ‘an early form of chemical technology exploring the nature of substances’;

(2) ‘a philosophy of the cosmos and of mankind’s place in the scheme of things’;

(3) ‘an amazing language of emblematic symbolism which it used to explore the world’; and

(4) all these elements ‘had a strong philosophical basis, and many alchemists incorporated religious metaphor and spiritual matters into their alchemical ideas’.

 

As for its history in the Western society, although ‘About four thousand printed books were issued from the 16th through to the late 18th centuries’ on this subject, the arrival of the age of rational scientific knowledge helped ‘its decline and total eclipse in the 19th century’. Nevertheless, since the 20th century, some argues that ‘interest in alchemy was revived’ and today, alchemy is ‘often used as a catch word for obscure and enigmatic symbolism, or for the idea of spiritual transformation and inner change’ (http://www.alchemywebsite.com/introduction.html).

 

Reference:

McLean, Adam (year unknown), Introduction – What is exactly alchemy?, The Alchemy Website (accessed 28/01/2010)

http://www.alchemywebsite.com/introduction.html

Simone de Beauvoir and ‘The Beaver’

Castor, a nickname

 

It is sometimes mentioned on that Jean-Paul Sartre called his female comrade Simone de Beauvoir ‘Castor’. He also dedicated his first published work Nausea ‘au Castor (to the Beaver)’. Usually, it is explained thus that Castor, a French word means ‘beaver’, came from an association based on the similarity of pronunciation between her last name Beauvoir and an English word ‘Beaver’. In addition, Giovanni explains from a different point of view that Beauvoir earned this nickname ‘as a hard-working student’ (2009).

 

Through looking at her biography, the origin of this unique nickname comes out rather easily and more vividly: ‘Simone began taking courses at the Sorbonne in 1926’ and ‘began to study for the agrégation exam in philosophy’ in 1929. While studying, she was asked by a fellow student called René Maheu to join to a study group that included Sartre too. During these study sessions, it is said that ‘Maheu nicknamed de Beauvoir “The Beaver” or Castor in French’, based on either ‘the English name for the animal and its reputation as a dedicated worker’ (http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/beauvoir.shtml).

 

Reference:

Giovanni, Janine di. (2009), ‘The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir, Translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier’, Timesonline. 19 Dec (accessed 27/01/2010)

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article6960597.ece

 

Sheehan, Thomas (ed.) (year unknown), Sartre – Nausea (accessed 27/01/2010)

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:GECYcO-OG3EJ:www.stanford.edu/class/ihum40/sartre.pdf+sartre+nausea+castor&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjw4fA1IAKBbwOJY_jMXJxigZD8uhdceDPgm9czN8-StsxrpuZrUkNQBE6ciL43-Sz0MA9uYZKJwatjNP21wnQDxEqnYztVZf8bkdiicX4YzTTOvlGpa-vsmyBW1UOSNsBsQSpW&sig=AHIEtbQdIU-65VjO2fUl1JCtYVjMCUPMWg

 

Wyatt, C. S. (2010), Simone de Beauvoir, early feminist in the middle of several worlds, The Existential Primer, a guide to nothing in particular (updated 08/01/2010, accessed 27/01/2010)

http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/beauvoir.shtml

Confusions on the spelling

Transformation from Middle English to Modern English

 

There are several different ways of spelling for the name of William Shakespeare in the Elizabethan era, and by examining known examples of his own autographs, it is said that ‘in not one of them does he spell his name “Shakespeare”’ (Gee, 2007).

Although it looks quite odd to accept such a famous poet/writer could have misspelled his own name, there are plausible explanations on this sort of issue, focusing on specific situations of English language in the particular time.

 

‘In the sixteenth century’, Budiansky explains, ‘the English language was undergoing a rapid transformation from the spoken dialect of provincials to a written medium of serious literature, official transactions, and even the occasional scholarly treatise’. Furthermore, such rapid transformation of the language allowed ‘educated writers to spell the same word two different ways… or even to spell their own names differently on different occasions’ (Budiansky, 2006, p. xv).

 

It is also referred that confusions surrounding to the spelling in the sixteenth century English are also related to the newly introduced printing technology. Regardless to the efforts made by those who attempted to establish the spelling principles, e.g., Richard Mulcaster’s publication of Elementarie in 1582, printers from foreign countries such as Holland and Belgium, it is said that they brought ‘their own concepts of sound-symbol relationships to a language that was not their own’ (http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:P6MACHy3t4kJ:www.indiana.edu/~reading/phonics/u2/whistory.pdf+sixteenth+century+english+spell&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgdnclxZXycQiC5nzMCMeY_uQNbLfEKlW8hXYM_lu-NpQU6zLY4SOcrjAKjxogGfgRto9rk8xkwF61RlBQDvsoNDodoepYVNztjJbHxxIsR9vB0nW74PDwahXdNa87m2go0myFe&sig=AHIEtbS0WIzHXhqJIPSGS6ju1JFDepRPxg).

In addition, there remained various archaic features of orthography in those days and the author of Early Modern English, quoting from Barber, describes how printers dealt with this issue as following: ‘For example, the letters u and v still represented either the vowel or consonant’. When it comes to printing, ‘for the first letter of a word, the printer invariably selects v, and in other positions he invariably selects u’ (ibid).

 

Reference:

Budiansky, Stephen (2006), Her Majesty’s Spymaster, Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage

Plum Book, a member of Penguin Group, New York

 

Gee, Henry (2007), How do you spell ‘Shakespeare’? Nature Network – I, Editor (updated 10/07/2007, accessed 26/01/2010)

http://network.nature.com/people/henrygee/blog/2007/07/10/how-do-you-spell-shakespeare

 

Unknown author (unknown year of publish), Early Modern English (c. 1500-1800), Expansion of Vocabulary (1500-1650) (accessed 26/01/2010)

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:P6MACHy3t4kJ:www.indiana.edu/~reading/phonics/u2/whistory.pdf+sixteenth+century+english+spell&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgdnclxZXycQiC5nzMCMeY_uQNbLfEKlW8hXYM_lu-NpQU6zLY4SOcrjAKjxogGfgRto9rk8xkwF61RlBQDvsoNDodoepYVNztjJbHxxIsR9vB0nW74PDwahXdNa87m2go0myFe&sig=AHIEtbS0WIzHXhqJIPSGS6ju1JFDepRPxg

Who founded the City of Peace – Jerusalem?

Brief history of Jerusalem in prehistoric days

 

• It is said that ‘First evidence of human settlement’ took place in c. 4,000 BCE, at ‘above the Gihon spring, the present day City of David area’ (http://www.jerusalem-insiders-guide.com/history-of-Jerusalem-timeline.html). The Gibon spring, the place in question, is also described as ‘the only source of water of the city, emerges in the Kidron Valley, east of the City of David’ (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/jerwater.html).

 

• The city was first mentioned in ‘the Egyptian execration texts (20-19th century BCE), when Egypt ruled Canaan’ (http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/rennert/history_2.html). It would be worth to refer that in such Egyptian hieroglyphs, the city was called ‘Ursalim’, which meant ‘the City of Peace’.

 

• Although some argues that the etymology of the name Jerusalem as ‘the City of Peace’, connecting the second part of the name with Hebrew ‘shalom (peace)’, modern scholars tend to ‘take these names to mean "founded by the god Shalem," a god of the Amorites’. This idea could agree with the Biblical references such as Ezekiel 16:3, 45, which says Jerusalem was originally founded by Amorites and Hittites.

 

Reference:

Bible History Online (2009), Jerusalem (accessed 23/01/2010)

http://www.bible-history.com/jesus/jesusuntitled00000388.htm

 

Geva, Hillel (2010), Jerusalem – Water systems of Biblical times, Jewish Virtual Library, The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (accessed 23/01/2010)

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/jerwater.html

 

The Jerusalem Insider’s Guide (2010), The History of Jerusalem: a Jewish history timeline with a parallel world history timeline (accessed 23/01/2010)

http://www.jerusalem-insiders-guide.com/history-of-Jerusalem-timeline.html

 

Schnitzel Productions (2001), Jerusalem – Brief History (accessed 23/01/2010)

http://freespace.virgin.net/donovan.hawley/jmain1.htm

 

Shalem, Yisrael (1997), Jerusalem: Life Throughout the Ages in a Holy City – History of Jerusalem from Its Beginning to David, Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies, Bar-Ilan University (last modified 06/06/1997, accessed 23/01/2010)

http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/rennert/history_2.html

Who’s who? – Pope Pius V

Pope Pius V

 

He was born as Antonio Ghislieri on 17 January 1504, in Bosco Marengo, duchy of Milan.

 

At his age of fourteen, he joined the Dominican order, in the priory of Voghera and in this occasion, he changed his name to Michele (or Michael).

He studied at Bologna and Genoawas, and was ordained in 1528.

After his ordination, he taught philosophy and theology for sixteen years, until1544, when he was made inquisitor.

 

In 1551, he became commissary general of the inquisition, being regarded as a relentless pursuer of heretics.

He was appointed bishop of Nepi and Sutri in 1556, then was transferred to the ‘ravaged diocese of Mondovi (Piedmont)’.

In 1557, he became inquisitor general a cardinal and in 1566, he was elected pope, on the death of Pius IV.

 

As a pope, he is well known as a successful reformer of the Roman Church, enforcing the decrees of the Council of Trent.

 

In 1567, he declared Thomas Aquinas the fifth Doctor of the Latin Church and ‘a new edition of his works published in 1570’. (This edition is also known as ‘edito Piana’).

 

He excommunicated Elizabeth I of England in 1570, in order to keep Protestants out of Italy. In modern view, this incident could be regarded as a reflection of the ‘attitudes of the medieval papacy which were inapt in 1570’. Actually, this was the last example where ‘a pope would exercise anything like a “deposing power”’, and is also criticised that this made the situation of English Catholics ‘much more difficult’.

Including other European issues, it could be summed up that his ‘actions in foreign affairs seemed to take little account of political realities’, except for a magnificent success in the battle of Lepanto in the following year.

 

He was in charge of the campaign that led to the victory in the battle of Lepanto on 7 October 1571, over the Turks. With this victory, joining his naval forces with Spanish and Venetian ships under the command of Don John of Austria, he is remembered as a defender of Christendom against the power of Islam.

 

He died on 1 May 1572, in Rome.

 

He was beautified on 10 May 1672.

He was canonised on 22 May 1712.

 

all the quotations are taken from:

http://www.answers.com/topic/pope-pius-v

 

Reference:

Answers.com (2010), Pope Pius V, Britannica Concise Encyclopedia (2009), The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (2004) and The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition (2003) (accessed 22/01/2010)

http://www.answers.com/topic/pope-pius-v

he turned his mind to art unknown…

Ovid, Metamorphoses – Book 8

 

Metamorphoses is one of the most famous Greco-Roman classics written by Ovid. In its Book 8, a story about Daedalus can be found.

Although he was originally born in Athens, the story takes place in the Isle of Crete and in it, he is described as ‘an architect of wonderful ability, and famous’. He contrives an intricately designed labyrinth, being ordered by the King Minos of Crete, in order to conceal a monster called Minotaur for covering the King’s disgrace. It is also said that the labyrinth was ‘so intricate that he, the architect, hardly could retrace his steps’.

Relating to the following story, in which the monster is slain, Daedalus is made to be thrown into his own creation – the labyrinth – with his son Icarus. The following quotation is taken from the scene just after this brief summary:

 

‘[183] But Daedalus abhorred the Isle of Crete—and his long exile on that sea-girt shore, increased the love of his own native place. “Though Minos blocks escape by sea and land.” He said, “The unconfined skies remain though Minos may be lord of all the world his sceptre is not regnant of the air, and by that untried way is our escape.” This said, he turned his mind to arts unknown and nature unrevealed’ (http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses8.html).

 

It may be needless to say that as a result of his attempt, another famous story on the death of Icarus happens is depicted soon after the quoted part above.

 

Reference:

Theoi E-Texts Library (2007), Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 8, Trans. By Brookes More (accessed 21/01/2010)

http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses8.html

 

Thompson, Martha (2005), Daedalus, Encyclopedia Mythica (last modified 25/12/2005, accessed 21/01/21)

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/d/daedalus.html

Navarre

Kingdom of Navarre

 

The following is a brief summary about the Kingdom of Navarre, which existed in ‘either side of the Pvrenees alongside the Atlantic Ocean’ from roughly the ninth century to the sixteenth century.

 

‘The kingdom of Navarre was formed when local Basque leader Íñigo Arista was elected or declared King in Pamplona (traditionally in 824)… against the regional Frankish authority’.

‘The southern part of the kingdom was conquered by the Crown of Castile in 1513 and …became part of the united Kingdom of Spain’.

Although the northern part remained independent for a while, ‘it was joined with France in a personal union in 1589 when King Henry III of Navarre inherited the French throne as Henry IV of France’ and finally it was ‘merged into the Kingdom of France’ in 1620 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Navarre).

 

Reference:

Wikipedia, article – Kingdom of Navarre (last modified 16/01/2010, accessed 20/01/2010)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Navarre

Who’s who: Walter Map

Following is a summary of a life of Welsh man called Walter Map, who lived in the twelfth and thirteenth century.

 

* Quotations are mainly taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia and more detailed information from the Bartleby.com are added within brackets (see also Reference below).

 

l        He was born to the Marches of Wales, in c. 1140 (or about 1137).

l        It is presumed that besides his native Welsh, he could speak medieval church Latin, ‘which he has become known in literature’, and the ‘so-called Norman-French’ that was spoken in the Court of English monarch and the law courts in those days.

l        From his age of fourteen (or from about 1154) to 1160, he studied at the University of Paris under Girard la Pucelle.

l        In 1162, ‘he was at the Court of England’ and the king Henry II ‘made him a clerk of his household’ (or he worked as one of the King’s itinerant judges).

l        In 1179, he was ‘the King’s representative at the Third Lateran Council’, in which ‘he was appointed to dispute with the Waldensians’.

l        In 1197, adding to his previous benefices, finally ‘he was made Archdeacon of Oxford’.

l        He died in between 1208 and 1210 (or, in comparison with the time when Giraldus published his Conquest of Ireland, he must have died before 1209).

 

He is also known as following deeds:

1.        ‘He was the avowed enemy of White Monks (the Cistercians)’.

2.        The author of a book written in Latin titled De Nugis curialium (Courtiers’ Trifings), which is described as ‘Only one literary work (that) can be attributed to him with certainty’.

3.        He implied that ‘he wrote (the book) at the wish of Henry II, at whose court the work was composed’.

4.        Furthermore, several other works could be attributed to his authorship including ‘much of “Goliardic” Latin satire on the clergy of that period and poems written in French. Among them, it is said that ‘there is good reason to believe that the earliest prose “Lancelot” was based on a French poem of Walter Map’.

5.        (However, it is said that ‘The only thirteen lines of Latin verse which are certainly genuine products of his pen are written in hexameters and pentameters of the strictly classical type’).

6.        (The only surviving Map’s Latin poems were written as a replying letter to Giraldus Cambrensis).

7.        (Map is also ‘credited… with the authorship of the “original” Latin of the great prose romance of Lancelot du Lac, including the Quest of the Holy Grail and the Death of Arthur; but no such “Latin original” has yet been found’).

8.        (One of such clues could be found in the following way: ‘In certain manuscripts, all the four parts of the romance of Lancelot are ascribed to Map; and Hue de Rote-lande (c. 1185), a near neighbour and a contemporary of Map, after describing in his I pomedon a tournament, which is also an incident in Lancelot, excuses his romance-writing in the words: “I am not the only man who knows the art of lying; Walter Map knows well his part of it”).

 

Reference:

Bartleby.com (2009), The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907-21), X. English Scholars of Paris and Franciscans of Oxford, §4. Walter Map (accessed 19/01/2010)
Volume I. From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance.

http://www.bartleby.com/211/1004.html

 

Knight, Kevin (2009), New Advent, Catholic Encyclopedia, Walter Map (accessed 19/01/2010)

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09635a.htm